[Illustration: R Radcliffe Dolling]
TEN YEARS
IN
A PORTSMOUTH SLUM
BY
ROBERT R. DOLLING
LATE PRIEST-IN-CHARGE OF S. AGATHA’S, LANDPORT
(_Winchester College Mission_)
WITH EIGHTEEN FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
[Illustration]
_LONDON_
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LIM.
PATERNOSTER SQUARE
1897
FIRST EDITION: May, 1896.
SECOND EDITION: September, 1896.
THIRD EDITION: January, 1897.
FOURTH EDITION: July, 1897.
TO
MY SISTERS, ELISE AND GERALDINE
TO
LINA BLAIR, FLORENCE WELLS
AND
MATILDA ROWAN
WHO FOR THE SAKE OF GOD BORE WITH ME
FOR TEN YEARS
IN ALL GRATITUDE I DEDICATE THIS LITTLE BOOK
WHICH IS VIRTUALLY
AN ACCOUNT OF THEIR WORK
PREFACE
To those who know the work of the Winchester College Mission I need
offer no explanation why this little book is written, and no apology
for the scrappy and imperfect manner of the writing. But if it falls
into the hands of those who do not know us, I would plead as an excuse
for its many imperfections, that it was written in the odd moments
seized out of a very busy Lent, in which I was preaching ten courses
of sermons a week, striving to collect money to pay off the debt of
£3090, incurred on the Mission, for which I am responsible. I pray that
these readers will discover that Mission work like ours, for which so
many great cities in England are crying out, is not only the easiest
of all religious work to do, but is far the most satisfying in the
doing; and I desire to create a great sympathy for the poor folk at S.
Agatha’s who were compelled, as they were crossing the stream from an
old church into a new one--the most critical moment of their parochial
existence--to swop horses, because a new commander discovered that the
methods of their old one were not quite orthodox.
R. R. DOLLING.
48, WETHERBY MANSIONS,
EARL’S COURT, S.W.
_Easter Day, 1896._
NOTE
People have been so very kind in buying my books since I came to
America that I have been tempted to publish the fourth edition, as I
have sold out all the copies I brought with me. The selling of these,
and the great hospitality I have met, have made it quite easy for me
to see a considerable part of this side of the States, and I have
preached in many places between Philadelphia and Boston. I hope to be
asked to preach at some of the summer resorts, returning to New York in
September, and spending the winter in giving missions and preaching, if
I get invitations. In the fifteen months after I left St. Agatha I was
without any regular work, and as nothing seems likely to be offered to
me I thought it a very good opportunity of seeing the States, and I can
hardly say how glad I am that I made the experiment. In every town that
I have visited I have met many old friends, the majority of them the
fruit of St. Agatha’s work, as they were emigrated from the mission.
Almost the first day I arrived in Philadelphia a great big man came
running into the room, and was quite offended because I did not
remember him. I had emigrated him from the North of Ireland twenty-six
years ago. I was delighted to spend an afternoon in his house, which he
had paid over $8,000 for. He said: “I had not a boot to my foot, except
the one you gave me when I left home.” In Philadelphia alone I found
twenty people whom I had emigrated, and I hope to see them all when I
go there in the “fall.”
I hope, by means of preaching, to collect money for the Infants’ School
of St. Agatha, for if it is not rebuilt now it will very likely cause
the government grant to be withdrawn, and bring great injury upon the
boys’ and girls’ school. These were built up at the cost of so much
prayer and labor that it would be a blow that I could hardly bear if
they had to be closed. There are also individual cases of boys and
girls, sent from gaol and the streets, who have not quite yet reached
the point of keeping themselves, and for whom I am still laboring; and
so, while I am enjoying the great pleasure and experience of this most
delightful tour, I hope to be able to do something for my own work.
There seems to be a little misunderstanding about my leaving England,
and therefore I print three letters which will show that I left on the
best terms with the authorities both at Winchester and in the Church.
It is not always easy for bishops or patrons, however desirous, to find
a living suited for such an irregular person as myself, and therefore I
don’t feel the least hurt that I was not offered permanent work before
I left. And yet I can hardly say how glad I am that I have had this
opportunity of enjoying an almost perfect holiday, which, of course,
would have been impossible if work had been offered me at once, after
leaving Portsmouth.
Yours very faithfully,
R. RADCLIFFE DOLLING.
231 EAST 17TH STREET, NEW YORK.
FARNHAM CASTLE, SURREY.
The Rev. R. R. Dolling is a Priest of irreproachable moral
character and of remarkable earnestness, devotion and capacity.
As a preacher he has succeeded in awakening, among many who
are usually indifferent, an interest in the Church’s work for
the poor and the forlorn. I gladly testify to my profound
respect for the devoted work he has done in this Diocese, and I
entertain for Mr. Dolling personally a very sincere regard.
(Signed) RANDALL WINTON,
_Bishop of Winchester_.
_May 29, 1897._
BISHOP’S HOUSE, KENNINGTON PARK, S. E.
I have great pleasure in writing a few words of recommendation
for the Rev. R. Radcliffe Dolling. Mr. Dolling’s work is well
known in the Church; it has been an example in her midst of what
profound desire to witness and convey God’s love to the poorest
of His people may accomplish, when expressed by a life of entire
self-sacrifice in the spirit of brotherly fellowship with every
sort and condition of man, and in the full use of the means of
Grace.
Mr. Dolling would naturally bring a letter from his Diocesan,
the Bishop of Winchester, but the Bishop, who is now in Egypt,
will not return till some days after Mr. Dolling’s departure.
And I write with the more boldness in his place, because when
I recently had in view the offer of work in my own Diocese to
Mr. Dolling, the Bishop (who was my predecessor in this See)
offered to write me a line expressive of his hearty good-will
to Mr. Dolling, and of the pleasure with which he should hear
of his finding work amongst us, in spite of the rather grave
differences (since become public) which had occurred between
Mr. Dolling and himself, and which had, to the Bishop’s great
regret, led to the separation of Mr. Dolling from the great work
which he was then doing.
I venture to bespeak a most friendly and Fatherly reception for
Mr. Dolling from any of my brethren of the American Episcopate
to whom he may tender this letter.
(Signed) EDW. ROFFEN,
_Bishop of Rochester_.
_May 15, 1897._
THE COLLEGE, WINCHESTER.
MY DEAR DOLLING:--I cannot let you leave England
without expressing to you once more the deep gratitude of the
College for the great work you did for us during more than ten
years among the poor at Portsmouth. I wish very much that we
were keeping you in England. Our experience of your remarkable
success in winning the hearts not only of the Portsmouth poor,
but also of the Winchester boys, makes us deeply regret that
your services should be lost to the English Church. I hardly
dare speak of the affection and respect you have inspired in
those here who have known you and your work. I can only say that
your effectiveness in the pulpit and on the platform, and your
versatility of resource, combined as they are with large-hearted
sympathy, and absolute devotion to the cause of Christ, must
enable you to do exceptional service wherever you may be called
to render it. I trust you may find some sphere worthy of your
powers and that you may have large blessings in your work.
Most gratefully and sincerely,
(Signed) L. A. FEARON,
_Headmaster of Winchester College_.
_May 17, 1897._
P.S.--I fear you may think two dollars a very extravagant sum to
ask for this little book. But as I have now no income, selling
it is of great importance to me. Please therefore get your
friends to order from me at 231 East 17th Street, New York.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. MY APPOINTMENT 9
II. MY DISTRICT 17
III. OUR GYMNASIUM 24
IV. OUR WOMANKIND 38
V. OUR CHILDREN 49
VI. OUR PENITENTIARY WORK 62
VII. OUR HOUSE 71
VIII. OUR SAILORS 99
IX. OUR SAINTS 114
X. OUR BATTLES CIVIL 129
XI. OUR BATTLES ECCLESIASTICAL 141
XII. OUR MONEY-GRUBBING 175
XIII. WINCHESTER 186
XIV. OUR METHOD OF SERVICES 198
XV. OUR METHOD OF RELIGION 216
XVI. A PLEA FOR TOLERATION 232
APPENDIX 241
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
[1]PORTRAIT OF THE REV. R. R. DOLLING _Frontispiece_
[1]OLD S. AGATHA’S _to face page_ 16
[1]SOME OF OUR WORKERS „ „ 22
[1]OUR GYMNASTS „ „ 30
[1]VISIT TO WINCHESTER, 1893 „ „ 36
[1]VISIT TO WINCHESTER, 1894 „ „ 36
[1]OUR BAND „ „ 54
[1]OUR ORPHANS „ „ 66
[1]LIPTON’S BOYS „ „ 78
[1]CHRISTMAS PARTY, 1893 „ „ 94
[1]SOME OF OUR VISITORS „ „ 98
[1]OUR SAILORS „ „ 112
[1]OUR TENANTS „ „ 128
[2]THE THIRD ALTAR „ „ 174
[2]NEW S. AGATHA’S „ „ 180
OUR CHOIR AND ACOLYTES „ „ 198
COMMUNICANTS’ LEAGUE „ „ 214
NEW S. AGATHA’S „ „ 230
[1] _Photograph by Mr. W. Austen Attree._
[2] _Reproduced by kind permission of Messrs. W. & A. H. Fry,
Brighton._
TEN YEARS
IN
A PORTSMOUTH SLUM
I.
=My Appointment.=
I fear the title of this little book is almost a libel; but, as the
parent often looks upon the grown-up son as if he were still a child,
so do my thoughts ever go back to the infancy of our work, and S.
Agatha’s is a slum district in my mind. Though we have largely lost
the outward visible signs of slumdom, poverty, of course, remains--it
always will--but utter hopelessness and callous depravity have, in a
large measure, passed away, not merely from our people, but from our
very streets.
We are a curious little island in this great town of Portsmouth. The
Unicorn Road, leading to the Dockyard, the Edinburgh Road, leading to
Portsea, and the Commercial Road--the main artery of all the traffic
of the town--form a kind of irregular square, with the Dockyard wall
as a base; and if it were not that Charlotte Street, which in happier
days used to be called “Bloody Row,” from the number of butchers’ shops
in it, and slaughter-houses behind it, is the thoroughfare which the
Dockyard men mostly use in reaching their homes, we should be almost an
unknown spot. This kind of isolation is one of the difficulties which
the municipal authorities have had to face in making Portsmouth the
great city they desire to see it.
Portsmouth is composed of four separate towns. When Portsmouth
and Portsea--the former thronged with soldiers, the latter with
sailors--High Street, Portsmouth, being a kind of parade ground; the
Hard, Portsea, a kind of inland quarter-deck--burst their bonds,
and the moats were removed, they developed, on the one hand, into
Southsea, inhabited mostly by half-pay officers, with many hotels
and lodging-houses, and, in the other direction, into Landport and
Kingston, inhabited mostly by artisans in the Dockyard. This quadruple
town, with its different, and often conflicting, interests, with
an extraordinarily rapid increase of population, with its absence
of wealthy people, and with hardly any manufactories, has been a
very difficult mass out of which to create a really united city;
and yet the progress which has been made even in my ten years has
been very wonderful. Southsea has become a beautiful and fashionable
watering-place; we have a splendid Town Hall and People’s Park; the
electric light has been most efficiently installed; the School Board
has created through the town many magnificent schools; and when an
attempt, which has been begun, is completed, of removing some of the
slums which disgraced Portsmouth and Portsea, the town will become in
some true sense worthy of its great historic interest.
All these changes have hardly affected our little district. The streets
are, most of them, very narrow and quaint, named after great admirals
and sea-battles, with old-world, red-tiled roofs, and interiors almost
like the cabins of ships--many times I have stuck in a staircase,
and could not go up or down till pulled from below--with the far-off
scent of the sea coming over the mud of the harbour, and every now and
then the boom of a cannon, or the shrill shriek of the siren; sailors
everywhere, sometimes fighting, sometimes courting, nearly always
laughing and good-humoured, except when afraid that they have broken
their leave--our chief joy, alas! oftentimes our greatest danger. I
remember well how, the first night I made acquaintance with it, their
uniforms and rolling gait redeemed from its squalor and commonplace
this poor little district, with its eleven hundred little houses and
its fifty-two public-houses. Charlotte Street was, from end to end, an
open fair; cheap-jacks screaming; laughing crowds round them, never
seeming to buy; women, straggling under the weight of a baby, trying to
get the Sunday dinner a little cheaper because things had begun to get
stale; great louts of lads standing at the corners--you can guess from
their faces the kind of stories they are telling; then some piece of
horse-play, necessitating a sudden rush through the crowd, many a cuff
and many a blow, but hardly any ill-nature; slatternly women creeping
out of some little public-house. But why try and describe it to you?
You have seen many such spots in any of our large towns. In my mind
was but one single thought--“God has sent me to teach these people that
they are His children, and that, therefore, they are priceless in His
eyes.”
I think if I had paid this visit before I accepted the Mission, I never
should have accepted it. The shrill gaiety was a revelation to me of
utter hopelessness, such as I had never imagined before. I was very
seedy, too, at the time. I had left London soon after Bishop Jackson’s
death--the death of a bishop seems ever to be my note of warning. Dr.
Fearon had heard very kind things about me from Bishop Walsham How, and
I think some old Wykehamists at New College and Magdalen must have told
him about me too. But I certainly was never more surprised in my life
than when I got his letter asking me to go and see him. An interview
with a Headmaster, the very idea of his study, filled me with alarm.
Memories of Dr. Butler’s study at Harrow came back with no pleasant
suggestions. Yet I date from that interview with Dr. Fearon ten years
of the happiest life that I can imagine possible for anyone. How large
a part of that happiness Winchester has contributed, this little book
will tell. I felt from that moment that, if the Mission was to be
worthy of its name, it must achieve amongst Missions a place second to
none. Even in that first visit, three facts about Winchester struck
me--its simplicity, its unity, its solidity. These three notes we have
tried to translate into Landport. It was three months after this visit
that I first saw Winchester men at home. Yet looking back I seem to
have stepped at once from Dr. Fearon’s study into the great Hall of
College, so entirely in my mind was Dr. Fearon’s offer of the Mission
finally ratified by the men. Dr. Linklater, with great kindness, came
to introduce me to them. One of the dons said to me, as we went into
the Hall, “Linklater has taken all our hearts by storm,” and that was
no more than the truth--I saw it in their faces, I heard it in their
cheers. Is there any discordant note so full of harmony and music as
the cheers of schoolboys? And in some true sense those cheers are still
ringing in my ears; they have been my incentive in the hour of sloth,
my rest in the hour of weariness, ever since.
I do not think I dreaded the interview with the Bishop at Farnham
nearly so much as that with Dr. Fearon. I had known many Bishops, but
no Headmaster before. And, curiously, Dr. Harold Browne revealed to
me the very three notes I had discovered at Winchester--most simple,
most balanced, most solid. I felt he had heard strange stories about
me. Indeed, I think at first he was more nervous than I was. But when
I saw the overwhelming weight which Portsmouth seemed to be to him,
when he told me how it was always in his prayers and in his heart,
and when, though he hoped I would not do anything foolish, he left me
full liberty of operation, saying that his one hope, as far as we were
concerned, was that the splendid work, which Dr. Linklater had begun,
might be consolidated and perfected, I left Farnham Castle with a great
increase of courage and hopefulness, though I had to pawn my watch to
pay for a bed, as I could not get home that night. If for a moment
during the interview I had wondered why a heart so occupied with his
enormous diocese had such a large part of it sacred to Portsmouth,
the work and energy of Sister Emma, the head of the Deaconesses,
subsequently explained to me this interest. She has had more than any
other single person to do with the bettering of Portsmouth. Its sins
and sorrows had burned so deeply into her heart, that she could not
fail to create in anyone, who saw her constantly, a reflection of her
own feelings. The Bishop having placed her and her community there,
was in constant communication with her. A Commission, too, had just
reported to his Lordship on the state of the town. Its most prominent
members were Mr. John Pares and Admiral Hornby, the former still a most
earnest defender of all that makes for righteousness in Portsmouth;
the latter, alas! called from the midst of his many labours, but who,
as a sailor knowing every inch of Portsea, had influenced not only the
Admiralty, but all thinking men with the thought that something needed
doing in Portsmouth.
These two ordeals past, a worse one remained. I had to hear from
Dr. Linklater’s own lips the ideals he had created for the Landport
Mission. He had sent me some of his reports; they were enough to
frighten anyone from trying to follow in his footsteps. He had had
efficient helpers; these I had yet to discover. He was a _persona
grata_ with the Naval and Military authorities; this, I was sure, I
never would be. He had a tact in dealing with people almost unique, and
a personal influence which remains in the hearts of many S. Agatha’s
people still, though he has hardly been in Landport for ten years, and
a buoyancy and hopefulness which disappointment seemed to increase,
and even illness could not abate. When I tried to square my memory
of the Saturday night which I had seen in Charlotte Street with his
ideals, no problem in mathematics ever seemed so impossible.
I had never had the pleasure of seeing him, but directly I arrived at
the railway station I knew him. “I cannot talk to you here,” he said;
“let us get back into the train again, and go to Rowland’s Castle. I
don’t want you to see Landport as it is; I want you to see it as I
desire it to be.”
There is an avenue of trees--you can see it from the train, just before
you get into Rowland’s Castle. I suppose that once it led up to some
great mansion, but now it seems to stand alone, and it dominates the
whole country.
“I want you to promise,” he said, “that you will come here once a week;
better still, take a walk over these downs for four or five miles;
better still, sleep in the pure country air, if possible, once a week.”
I believe if I had made time to keep this as a rule of my life, our
work at Landport would have been far more successfully fulfilled. The
plan of campaign--the best manner of working it out in detail--is not
possible in the strife of the battle and the tumult of the conflict;
this is what he wanted me to learn. One by one, as he talked them over,
his ideals already seemed to have taken form--a great church with a
staff of clergy, dignified services, efficient preaching, a centre of
Catholic devotion, making its way through all the different strata of
Portsmouth society; a free school for the children of the parish, a
high school for those of a better class; social work of all kinds and
descriptions, with one single intention, the drawing together into one
Christian family all kinds and classes; real homes for soldiers and
sailors, in which they might be equipped with that armour which alone
could make them victorious in their hours of temptation; above all, to
make Winchester rejoice, share, and understand every part of the work.
And then, as we hurried back to Portsmouth, he said, “Now you will see
what we have already achieved.”
And so, from the ideal to the real, to S. Agatha’s with its chancel
screened off, its walls covered with religious pictures, all fresh
and new, loving hands having painted Christian emblems all over it,
good-nature and fun beaming from every face--for Dr. Linklater had
gathered those connected with the church to meet me--with a joke for
one, and a clout for another, we passed along, until we reached the
centre of the room, and then--“Here is your new clergyman. What do you
think of him?”
One of my chief causes of thankfulness to-day is that many of those in
S. Agatha’s that night are still Sunday School teachers, on the altar,
and earnest communicants.
As I celebrated the Holy Communion the next morning, with the
_debris_ of the party still round me, though some attempt had been
made to clear it away, I was lost in amazement at my own presumption in
daring to undertake a work which seemed at that moment so impossible.
[Illustration: OLD S. AGATHA’S.]
II.
=My District.=
I did not really begin my work till September 29th, 1885, but as Dr.
Linklater wanted to go away, I came down to help on Sundays, and,
therefore, I had the opportunity of learning something about the
district before my work really began. A very wise priest once said to
me, “Don’t make plans for your parish, let your parish make plans for
itself.” These six weeks were invaluable, letting me hear the parish
voices, and try to discover its plans. Two notes were always making
themselves heard; one was the poverty, the other was the sin. And
surely they explained each other; they were sinful as a rule, because
they were poor. A man who falls from a height is wounded to death,
every limb is shattered, every feature disfigured. He who slips on the
pavement by a casual chance, pulls himself up, and goes on unhurt.
Oh, most blessed truth! our falls in Portsmouth entailed no complete
destruction of character, hardly any disfigurement at all. Boys stole,
because stealing seemed to them the only method of living; men were
drunken because their stomachs were empty, and the public-house was the
only cheerful place of entertainment, the only home of good fellowship
and kindliness; girls sinned, because their mothers had sinned before
them, oftentimes their grandmothers too, unconscious of any shame in
it, regarding it as a necessary circumstance of life, if they were to
live at all. The soul unquickened, the body alone is depraved, and,
therefore, the highest part is still capable of the most beautiful
development. I wish I had any words in which I could put this thought
quite plainly before you. It lies at the keynote of all missionary
work, and it is what makes missionary work so full of hope.
My first Sunday afternoon, as I was walking in Chance Street, I saw,
for the first time, a Landport dance. Two girls, their only clothing
a pair of sailors’ trousers each, and two sailor lads, their only
clothing the girls’ petticoats, were dancing a kind of breakdown up and
down the street, all the neighbours looking on amused but unastonished,
until one couple, the worse for drink, toppled over. I stepped forward
to help them up, but my endeavour was evidently looked upon from a
hostile point of view, for the parish voice was translated into a
shower of stones, until the unfallen sailor cried out, “Don’t touch the
Holy Joe. He doesn’t look such a bad sort.” I could not stay to cement
our friendship, for the bell was ringing for children’s service, and,
to my horror, I found that some of the children in going to church had
witnessed the whole of this scene. They evidently looked upon it as
quite a legitimate Sunday afternoon’s entertainment. One little girl,
of about eight, volunteered the name of the two dancing girls; she was
a kind of little servant in the house, though she slept two or three
doors off, and her only dread was that the return of a sailor, who had
more rights in the house, might take place before the others had been
got rid of.
You can imagine my feeling of hopelessness in conducting a service
for children old in the knowledge, if not in the habits, of sin. Poor
children, they had not been long accustomed to a church of their
own; they had driven themselves away from the parish church by their
behaviour. A neighbouring vicar, who kindly took them in for a little
while, had left them in undivided enjoyment of his church, saying to
Dr. Linklater, “I leave my church to you and your savage crew.” My
first attempt reached a climax when two boys calmly lighted their
pipes and began to smoke. One remedy alone seemed possible--to seize
them by the back of the neck, and run them out of church, knocking
their heads together as hard as I could. Amazed at first into silence,
their tongues recovered themselves before they reached the door, and
the rest of the children listened, delighted, to vocabulary which I
have seldom heard excelled. We had no sooner restored order than the
mothers of the two lads put in an appearance. As wine is to water, so
was the conversation of the mothers to their sons’. I wish I could
have closed the children’s ears as quickly as I closed the service.
But they listened with extreme delight, even following me in a kind
of procession, headed by the two ladies, to my lodgings. The contrast
between this, my first procession, and the last, which took place when
my church was opened, is a true measure of the difference which ten
years have made.
These two little episodes, which stand out so plainly in my memory,
forced upon me the knowledge of our shameless sinfulness, and of
our utter lawlessness and disobedience. But was it any wonder that
it should be so? The wages of the majority of the people in regular
employment were so small that they lived in continuous poverty; the
larger part had no settled wages at all, many of them being hawkers,
greengrocers with a capital of five shillings, window cleaners in a
district where no one wanted their windows cleaned, old pensioners
past work with a shilling to eighteenpence a day, sailors’ wives with
three or four children living upon £2 a month, and soldiers’ wives
married off the strength with no pay at all. One week’s sickness of
the bread-winners meant a fortnight’s living upon the pawning of
clothes and furniture, with nothing before them but the workhouse,
and death sooner than that. Of course, there were many exceptions to
this generalisation, but I am speaking of the parish as a whole. Then,
temptation at almost every door, places where you were always welcome,
even if you had no money, for there is always somebody to treat you;
places where there are always the outward visible signs of rollicking
good-nature, of mirth and jest; places where the craving of the empty
stomach can be satisfied, where the crying wife and the hungry children
may be forgotten; places where, it is only just to add, extraordinary
kindness is often shown, and help given in the hour of direst need,
for there is a good and kindly side even to the public-house. Oh, that
the bishops had the energy of the brewers! Oh, that the clergy had
the persistency of the publicans! For what had the Church of England
done for this district? Literally nothing. The enormous mother-parish
of All Saints had its twenty-seven thousand parishioners, one church,
one vicar, one curate. What even had Nonconformity done in its more
recognised forms? One chapel, empty, minister and congregation having
migrated to more favoured climes. But though the priest and Levite
had passed by, the Good Samaritan had been represented by four little
centres of earnest religious work, which have flourished during my
whole ten years, and still are, thank God, working for Him in S.
Agatha’s district.
In one of these, the most ecclesiastical, a man, who worked six days
a week in the Dockyard, laboured every night amongst the poor, and
preached all day Sunday. The influence of this good Mr. Grigg will
never be forgotten; many souls bless him in Paradise to-day. I shall
never forget his funeral; it was the most touching sight I ever saw in
Portsmouth. His example of honest labour, and of a life which proved
the depth of his religious convictions, was beyond all price in the
Dockyard. When you hear people talk glibly of orthodoxy, of dissent,
of the exclusive rights and privileges of the Church, I pray you
realize how many places would be virtually heathen, if the Church of
England was the only representative of God in England. It is quite
true that Nonconformity, in its more dignified congregations, fails,
I think, largely in the slums; but there is a vast body of unattached
Christians, or of laymen with their hearts aflame with the love of
souls, with some kind of quasi-authority from more respectable
chapels, preaching the Gospel literally without money and without
price. Do not scoff at it, because it does not square with your own
ideas. It is possible that it may be very faulty in itself. But the
poor, tired, ignorant soul has no time to enter into questions like
this, and the name of Jesus, when spoken by a believer, always sounds
sweet in the ears of those who hear it. We cannot hope to build
churches in every new district, we cannot hope to endow parishes, we
cannot hope to pay adequate incomes to University-educated men. But
we are the Church of England: we are responsible for the souls of
every single man, woman, and child. Why cannot we create an enthusiasm
amongst working men, toiling six days in the week, to give the seventh
for the conversion of souls? The instrument may not be polished, may
not be fitted to speak soft words politely, to enunciate theological
truths exactly. What does it matter? What does it matter? We have as
good stuff in the Church of England as in any other religious body. We
have as much love for souls, as much self-denial, amongst our people.
What hinders it? What represses it? The freehold, and the jealousy of
the clergy, the fearfulness of the bishops to make any venture for
faith, to allow any work to be undertaken that is not safe, that is not
respectable.
Amid, then, all the sin, poverty, and squalor of S. Agatha’s
district--not a new district, remember, which increase of population
had created, but a district of which every house had been built a
hundred years ago--the only witness for God, until Dr. Linklater came,
except an endeavour which Mr. Shute, the vicar of S. Michael’s, had
made some few years before, had been the devotion and love of a few
poor Nonconformists.
[Illustration: SOME OF OUR WORKERS.]
I think the lesson, which I chiefly learned from the parish voice,
was that Jesus alone could change the characters of men, and that no
reformation can take place without this change of character. I realized
that our Lord, if He had been in my place, would have fed the hungry,
clothed the naked, healed the sick, visited those in prison; above
all, removed stumbling-blocks from the ways of little children. I knew
that we must try and do the same. I knew that their poverty, their
nakedness, their ignorance, their punishments, were their strongest
appeal; that He Himself was practically suffering in every one of them;
that He was lying at our door full of sores, that we might share the
wonderful privilege of healing Him. But I learned something more than
this, that even if I was able to ameliorate all these circumstances,
to make them all healthy, educated, able to earn a good day’s wages,
I might indeed have made it easier to do the one thing needful; but
that one thing would still be undone until they had discovered that
they, by His grace, must cure the ills of the soul, must clothe the
nakedness of the spirit, that no one could set them free from sin save
themselves, and that by His grace. In other words, strive as hard as
ever you might to improve environment, to conquer even heredity, unless
you have changed character, man is bound to remain helpless, though his
helplessness may consist in a new weakness.
III.
=Our Gymnasium.=
I have said that we came without plans. And yet at every step, as we
needed it, the Providence of God rendered possible the fulfilment
of the plan, which the voice of the parish suggested. Bishop Harold
Browne had evinced considerable nervousness, when I said I should
bring my sisters down to Landport. He suggested that their dress might
frighten the people. I said I hoped it would not. He intimated other
difficulties. But his face brightened up considerably, when I told him
that they were fleshly and not religious sisters, whom I hoped to bring
with me. The first voice of the parish said, “We want Christian women.”
God put it into the heart of three of my sisters, and of two dear
friends, who lived with them, to say, “We want to go into every house
in Landport, to know every woman, every girl, every child.”
Then another voice spoke, not always heard by the clergy, though it
cries out louder to-day than it ever did before, the voice of the
hard-headed artisan, the voice of the young man who is just beginning
to face intellectual struggle, a voice for which the Free Library
and the Press are largely responsible. That voice said, “We want an
intellectual thinker, who can put deep profound truths into simple
words, who can answer difficulties without suggesting others, who
knows something of that agony of doubt without which no soul reaches
the summit of faith, and has pity and compassion for it.” And God put
it into the heart of Charles Osborne to say, “I want to consecrate all
my intellect, all my knowledge, to the lessening of doubts, to the
building up of the faith, amongst the working-men in Landport.”
And yet there was a need of a link between the past and the present, of
someone to give me true advice about Sunday School Teachers, District
Visitors, Communicants, Choir, all those things which my predecessor
had created; and God put it into the heart of Gordon Wickham, who had
worked two years with Dr. Linklater, to say, “Though it will be very
difficult to stay on under a new _régime_, yet for the sake of the
past, for love of the people, for hope of the future, I stay.”
God had given us the workers; would He also give us the places to live
in? I was then in lodgings over a girls’ school in the Commercial
Road. It was not at all a desirable plan. The woman who did for me
was utterly inadequate. I remember discovering in one Saturday’s
dinner the remains of Friday’s, for our vegetables were garnished
with fish-bones. The lodging, too, was out of the district. Then I
took a house in Spring Street, where there was a heavy rent to pay,
a ginger-beer factory on one side, a public-house on the other. The
difficulty of housing ourselves was not the only house difficulty we
had to face. Dr. Linklater had started a Men’s Club, three Boys’ Clubs,
and a Girls’ Club. The rent of premises to contain these cost over
£120 a year, the buildings were very unsuited to the purpose, and there
was a tremendous waste of energy in the management of them. I believed
that no good daily example could be set until a clergy house could be
provided, which would be our people’s house as well as our own, and
no real disciplinary or recreative work could be done in clubs until
we had proper accommodation. S. Agatha’s church, with the chancel
screened off, had been used, as I knew from my own experience on my
first introduction to the people, for entertainments of all kinds,
teas, theatricals, even dances; but I made up my mind from the first
that this should never happen again. Reverence is a very difficult
virtue, and I am quite sure that the remembrance of the entertainments
oftentimes marred the devotion at religious service. I remember once
scolding a boy for laughing in church, and he said, “I could not help
it, I was thinking of Mr. D---- singing ‘Johnny Sands.’” The only
premises at my disposal besides the church were a row of houses, which
had been purchased as a site for the new church. Two standing in Conway
Street were less picturesque, but rather more commodious than the rest,
slate roofs, no red tiles. I thought these could be turned into a
Mission House. Pulling down the middle partitions, lowering the floors
of the downstairs rooms, so as to make two good sitting-rooms below,
and joining the houses by an outside balcony, we had our parsonage;
not just, perhaps, your idea of a parsonage, but the door open all
day, no mat to remind you that your boots were dirty, no carpets, and
the plainest furniture, plenty of space in the dining-room to feed all
comers, just room enough in the kitchen to cook the food; upstairs four
bedrooms to begin our home.
I hope I have never been jealous of any Christian work done in
my parish, but I must confess that there is something peculiarly
irritating in the music of the Salvation Army drum, though I am not
sure whether the shrill voice of the Salvation Army lass is not worse.
I remember one night they out-voiced me altogether, though I was inside
and they outside S. Agatha’s. By way of consolation someone said to me,
“We shall have them always with us now, for they are just going to buy
the Baptist Chapel in Clarence Street.” I registered a vow that they
never would. Why could I not buy the chapel in Clarence Street? In many
ways it was just suited for our purpose. It was a splendid property.
The chapel itself had a gallery all round, square pews, three-decker
pulpit, a font for immersions, and two dead ministers buried in the
middle. Next door was the caretaker’s house, which would just do for
Mr. Osborne, and in the street behind, Chance Street, an excellent
Sunday School-room, and two cottages. It cost me in all over £3000.
I had not a penny of money, but it was so obviously what the parish
needed, that I knew we were bound to buy it. I collected something like
£1200 in a very few months, and the bank kindly advanced me the balance
to pay off the trustees. I was fairly intoxicated at the purchase;
I even communicated my enthusiasm to others, so that at Winchester,
where I was lecturing, they realised my idea of a great social centre.
Alas, when with considerable pomp I ushered the four prefects, who were
staying with me that week, into the building, they, who very likely
had never seen a chapel before, said, “Now you have got it, what will
you do with it?” I suppose that at the best of times the chapel of a
hundred years ago never looked very picturesque, but this had been
closed for nearly two years, the grotesque pews were worm-eaten, the
ridiculous pulpit had an enormous Bible still upon the ledge, and,
with the stagnant water still in the font, I think we even realised
the bones of the ministers. I never felt so crestfallen. “At any rate,
we can kick down some of the pews.” How delightful is the pleasure of
destruction. One after another they were coming down, until prudence
reminded me that they could be sold for something better than firewood.
Of course, there was the little difficulty at first of placing the old
clubs in their new home. These little old clubs had many jealousies;
one had driven out a member, after nearly breaking his head, because
he would wear a collar, which they wanted to wrench off his neck, the
collar being the outward visible sign of respectability; one was so
ritualistic, that they would not allow anyone to join, who would not
make the sign of the Cross; one so depraved, that losing all patience
with the members who persisted in using the most disgusting language
in the presence of the lady who managed them, I was compelled to
chuck their leader downstairs, and almost broke his leg. Dear “Boss,”
how well I remember him, for so we called him, as he had a cast
in his eye, though none in his temper, for he forgave me that very
night. Two virtues were common to them all--utter lawlessness, supreme
exclusiveness.
[Illustration: OUR GYMNASTS.]
We furnished the chapel with all things necessary for a rough
gymnasium, the gallery being used for games and bagatelle. The rules
were the simplest--no gambling, no bad language, no losing of temper,
no annoying anybody else. All through the ten years of use, these four
rules have remained as the foundation of our management. All sorts
and kinds of men have tried to manage that gymnasium, with varying
success, the clergy, the lay-readers, Oxford men, officers in the Army
and Navy. They have suffered all sorts of contumely and wrong. I have
seen them skilfully lassoed, arms and legs bound, and lashed to the
gymnasium ladder, or a noose run under their armpits, and hauled up to
the ceiling. I have seen them spread-eagled upon the vaulting-horse,
with a dance of savage Indians whooping round them. I have seen all
the mattresses ripped up and picked to pieces, then strewn over the
floor. I have seen the bagatelle-tables used as points of vantage,
from which opposing forces sprang at each other. I have seen men
playing upon the piano with their feet, and I have known, when no other
mischief was possible, the fierce joy of tearing away the front of the
piano, and strewing the broken hammers artistically on the floor. And
yet there rises before me the vision of a use in that gymnasium, the
chief centre of reformation in the parish, of lads who amidst all this
disorder, for the disorder arose merely from episodes of high spirits
or weak management, gained their first lessons of self-restraint,
and bodily and even mental development; weak, sickly lads coming to
us, illness not always the cause of their weakness, now healthy and
strong; bad-tempered sullen brutes licked into shape, boys learning the
priceless benefit of wholesome play, mean unambitious people quivering
with the passion of desiring to achieve success. How often the lad,
just needing the inch to become a soldier, has won it by continuous
use of our ladders, how often the lad, needing an inch in chest
measurement, has won it by the use of our dumb-bells, many a regiment,
many a gallant ship, could testify to-day. How many it has won from the
awful fascination of the public-house, from the vulgarity and worse
of the sing-song room, from the delirium of gambling, from hideous
forms of sins, impossible for those who desire to achieve a wholesome
mind in a wholesome body! From all parts of the world, strong, healthy
self-respecting men, bless and praise God for the old gymnasium in
Clarence Street. Some years ago, when I was at Vienna, I was watching a
troupe of acrobats in one of the beer-gardens. They had reached their
final feat by forming themselves into a living ladder, when suddenly,
in a kind of ecstasy, I heard the topmost boy exclaim, “Don’t you see?
there is the Father”; and before I knew where I was, three out of the
five had precipitated themselves, and were clinging round me. There are
scattered throughout the world to-day my brave army of gymnasium boys,
but I believe they know that the Father’s eye is still on them, and I
know their love still compensates my heart for many of its sorrows.
You say, “Mr. Dolling, were you not very imprudent in spending so much
money on an object which was not religious? What fruit did it bring
forth in your church? Did it pay ecclesiastically?” I can reckon in
that sense no fruit. I do not believe that in that sense it paid. So
oftentimes, when we hear of the great waste of time and energy spent
on games at school and college, we are inclined to think it wasteful,
sometimes to condemn it as being of the Philistine character. But
anything that is graceful, and done with true skill and just precision,
in itself ministers to the highest beauty; anything that tends to
the perfecting of the body, to the sweating out of the evil humours
of discontent; anything that cures sloth and gives an incentive to
activity, ministers not only to the purifying of the body, but to the
strengthening and increase of the soul. I have heard a mother say,
“When my boy comes home, he can talk of nothing but games.” Dear lady,
if it is so, thank God; many boys talk of things evil and base and
enervating.
The best effort that had been made under the old régime, and, I think,
the manager who was most successful even in the gymnasium, was my old
friend Charlie Claxon; and though stress of work and other reasons
forced him to give up personal supervision, most of the old gymnasium
members will remember him as a true and real friend.
One class of lad baffled all our allurements. Standing at the street
corners all night, and most of the day, we got to know them by sight
sooner than anybody else in the parish. In East London they had
crowded into our club-rooms, and soon became amenable to order. I
suppose one never learns that one’s own plans always fail, and yet
that God always has His own plan. Late one night I was sent for to go
to the hospital. An old woman was slowly dying of burns; drink and a
paraffin lamp the cause. I only knew her by sight, and she did not seem
to listen when I prayed; but, as I stooped down, to try and catch any
word she might say, she whispered, “He didn’t do it,” and then nodded
with her head to a boy in the corner of the room. In five minutes she
was dead.
When I had got the son quieted down in my own house, I found that he
had come suddenly home, found her under the influence of drink, and in
some scuffle the lamp had been upset.
Dear Dan, there was not much difficulty afterwards in getting hold
of him, but I soon found it was impossible to help him so long as he
stayed at home. Not that Dan was to blame, for he would have worked if
he could; but no one would employ him. He stands as the representative
of many thousands, just like himself, full of good-nature and
recklessness, with no habits of obedience, discipline, or order. He had
never learned anything since he left school. It was some time before I
could venture to emigrate him, and I thank God for that, for it gave
us the opportunity of getting him confirmed; and, in the meantime, he
brought--one by one--lots of his mates to know us, the most influential
of whom, a lad we called “Nobby,” suggested that our own house was the
only fitting club-room for his mates. And that really was the solution
of the difficulty. Every Sunday night he brought, and kept in perfect
order, whomsoever he would, and I trace to Dan and Nobby the breaking
up of a gang, unkindly called “The Forty Thieves,” though very few of
them had ever really stolen, yet a real terror to the neighbourhood.
Dan is at this present moment a most prosperous person in Canada, with
a wife and family. Nobby is a stoker. I hear from both of them from
time to time.