A CITY MISSIONARY.
BEFORE undertaking the Maryhill School, I had applied to be taken on as
an agent in the Glasgow City Mission; and the night before I had to
leave Maryhill, I received a letter from Rev. Thomas Caie, the
superintendent of the said Mission, saying that the directors had kept
their eyes on me ever since my application, and requesting, as they
understood I was leaving the School, that I would appear before them the
next morning, and have my qualifications for becoming a Missionary
examined into. Praising God, I went off at once, passed the examination
successfully, and was appointed to spend two hours that afternoon and
the following Monday in visitation with two of the directors, calling at
every house in a low district of the town, and conversing with all the
characters encountered there as to their eternal welfare. I had also to
preach a "trial" discourse in a Mission meeting, where a deputation of
directors would be present, the following evening being Sunday; and on
Wednesday evening they met again to hear their report and to accept or
reject me.
All this had come upon me so unexpectedly, that I almost anticipated
failure; but looking up for help I went through with it, and on the
fifth day after leaving the School they called me before a meeting of
directors, and informed me that I had passed my trials most
successfully, and that the reports were so favorable that they had
unanimously resolved to receive me at once as one of their City
Missionaries. Deeply solemnized with the responsibilities of my new
office, I left that meeting praising God for all His undeserved mercies,
and seeing most clearly His gracious hand in all the way by which He had
led me, and the trials by which He had prepared me for this sphere of
service. Man proposes--God disposes.
I found the district a very degraded one. Many families said they had
never been visited by any Minister; and many were lapsed professors of
religion who had attended no church for ten, sixteen, or twenty years,
and said they had never been called upon by any Christian visitor. In it
were congregated many avowed infidels, Romanists, and drunkards,--living
together, and associated for evil, but apparently without any effective
counteracting influence. In many of its closes and courts sin and vice
walked about openly--naked and not ashamed.
After nearly a year's hard work, I had only six or seven
non-church-goers, who had been led to attend regularly there, besides
about the same number who met on a week evening in the ground-floor of a
house kindly granted for the purpose by a poor and industrious but
ill-used Irishwoman. She supported her family by keeping a little shop,
and selling coals. Her husband was a powerful man--a good worker, but a
hard drinker; and, like too many others addicted to intemperance, he
abused and beat her, and pawned and drank everything he could get hold
of. She, amid many prayers and tears, bore everything patiently, and
strove to bring up her only daughter in the fear of God. We exerted, by
God's blessing, a good influence upon him through our meetings. He
became a Total Abstainer, gave up his evil ways, and attended Church
regularly with his wife. As his interest increased, he tried to bring
others also to the meetings, and urged them to become Abstainers. His
wife became a center of help and of good influence in all the district,
as she kindly invited all and welcomed them to the meeting in her house,
and my work grew every day more hopeful.
By and by Meetings and Classes were both too large for any house that
was available for us in the whole of our district. We instituted a Bible
Class, a Singing Class, a Communicants' Class, and a Total Abstinence
Society; and, in addition to the usual meetings, we opened two
prayer-meetings specially for the Calton division of the Glasgow
Police--one at a suitable hour for the men on day duty, and another for
those on night duty. The men got up a Mutual Improvement Society and
Singing Class also amongst themselves, weekly, on another evening. My
work now occupied every evening in the week; and I had two meetings
every Sabbath. By God's blessing they all prospered, and gave evidence
of such fruits as showed that the Lord was working there for good by our
humble instrumentality.
The kind cowfeeder had to inform us--and he did it with much genuine
sorrow--that at a given date he would require the hay-loft, which was
our place of meeting; and as no other suitable house or hall could be
got, the poor people and I feared the extinction of our work. At that
very time however, a commodious block of buildings, that had been
Church, Schools, Manse, etc., came into the market. My great-hearted
friend, the late Thomas Binnie, persuaded Dr. Symingrton's congregation,
Great Hamilton Street, in connection with which my Mission was carried
on, to purchase the whole property. Its situation at the foot of Green
Street gave it a control of the district where my work lay; and so the
Church was given to me in which to conduct all my meetings, while the
other Halls were adapted as Schools for poor girls and boys, where they
were educated by a proper master, and were largely supplied with books,
clothing, and sometimes even food, by the ladies of the congregation.
Availing myself of the increased facilities, my work was all
reorganized. On Sabbath morning, at seven o'clock, I had one of the most
deeply interesting and fruitful of all my Classes for the study of the
Bible. It was attended by from seventy to a hundred of the very poorest
young women and grown-up lads of the whole district. They had nothing to
put on except their ordinary work-day clothes,--all without bonnets,
some without shoes. Beautiful was it to mark how the poorest began to
improve in personal appearance immediately after they came to our Class;
how they gradually got shoes and one bit of clothing after another, to
enable them to attend our other Meetings, and then to go to Church; and,
above all, how eagerly they sought to bring others with them, taking a
deep personal interest in all the work of the Mission. Long after they
themselves could appear in excellent dress, many of them still continued
to attend in their working clothes, and to bring other and poorer girls
with them to that Morning Class, and thereby helped to improve and
elevate their companions. My delight in that Bible Class was among the
purest joys in all my life, and the results were amongst the most
certain and precious of all my Ministry.
I had also a very large Bible Class--a sort of Bible-Reading--on Monday
night, attended by all, of both sexes and of any age, who cared to come
or had any interest in the Mission. Wednesday evening, again, was
devoted to a prayer-meeting for all; and the attendance often more than
half-filled the Church. There I usually took up some book of Holy
Scripture and read and lectured right through, practically expounding
and applying it. On Thursday I held a Communicants' Class, intended for
the more careful instruction of all who wished to become full members of
the Church. Our constant text-book was _Paterson on the Shorter
Catechism_ (Nelson and Sons), than which I have never seen a better
compendium of the doctrines of Holy Scripture. Each being thus trained
for a season, received from me, if found worthy, a letter to the
Minister of any Protestant Church which he or she felt inclined to join.
In this way great numbers became active and useful communicants in the
surrounding congregations; and eight young lads of humble circumstances
educated themselves for the Ministry of the Church--most of them getting
their first lessons in Latin and Greek from my very poor stock of the
same! Friday evening was occupied with a Singing Class, teaching Church
music, and practising for our Sabbath meetings. On Saturday evening we
held our Total Abstinence meeting, at which the members themselves took
a principal part, in readings, addresses, recitations, singing hymns,
etc.
Great good resulted from this Total Abstinence work. Many adults took
and kept the pledge, thereby greatly increasing the comfort and
happiness of their homes. Many were led to attend the Church on the
Lord's Day, who had formerly spent it in rioting and drinking. But,
above all, it trained the young to fear the very name of intoxicating
drink, and to hate and keep far away from everything that led to
intemperance.
I would add my testimony also against the use of tobacco, which injures
and leads many astray, especially lads and young men, and which never
can be required by any person in ordinary health. But I would not be
understood to regard the evils that flow from it as deserving to be
mentioned in comparison with the unutterable woes and miseries of
intemperance.
To be protected, however, from suspicion and from evil, all the
followers of our Lord Jesus should in self-denial (how small!) and in
consecration to His service, be pledged Abstainers from both of these
selfish indulgences, which are certainly injurious to many, which are no
ornament to any character, and which can be no help in well-doing.
Praise God for the many who are now so pledged!