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GOD'S ANSWERS:
A RECORD OF
MISS ANNIE MACPHERSON'S WORK
AT THE HOME OF INDUSTRY, SPITALFIELDS, LONDON,
AND IN CANADA.
CLARA M. S. LOWE
"Peace, peace be unto thee, and peace be to thine helpers; for thy God
helpeth thee."
--1 CHRON. xii. 18.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I.
1861-1869.
Prayer of Hon. and Rev. Baptist Noel--Residence in Cambridgeshire--
Visit to London in 1861, and first attendance at Barnet Conferences--
Visit of Rev. W. and Mrs. Pennefather--East of London, 1861--Left
Cambridgeshire, 1865--Work in Bedford Institute--1866: Voyage to New
York and return, 1867--First girl rescued--Matchbox-makers--First boy
rescued--Revival Refuge open for boys and girls--1868: Home of
Industry secured--1869: Opened.
CHAPTER II.
1869-1870.
Emigration of families--A visitor's impressions--The great life-work
--Emigration of the young, begun 1870--First party of boys to Canada
with Miss Macpherson and Miss Bilbrough--Their reception--Mr. Merry
takes oat second party out boys--Miss Macpherson returns to England
and takes out a party of girls--Canadian welcome and happy homes--
Canadian pastor's story.
CHAPTER III.
1870-1871.
Workers' meetings at Home of Industry--Training Home at Hampton
opened--Personal experiences--Welcome in Western Canada--Help for a
Glasgow Home--Scottish Ferryman--"Out of the mouths of babes and
sucklings"
CHAPTER IV.
1872.
The need of a Home further West--Burning of the Marchmont Home--Home
restored by Canadian gifts--Miss Macpherson and Miss Reavell arrive
in Canada--First visit to Knowlton in the East--Belleville Home
restored by Canadian friends--Help for the Galt Home--Miss Macpherson
returns to England--Miss Reavell remains at Galt
CHAPTER V.
1872-1874.
Letter from Rev. A. M. W. Christopher--Letter from Gulf of St.
Lawrence--Mrs. Birt's sheltering Home, Liverpool--Letter to Mrs.
Merry--Letter from Canada--Miss Macpherson's return to England--
Letter of cheer for Dr. Barnardo--Removal to Hackney Home
CHAPTER VI.
1875-1877.
Mrs. Way's sewing-class for Jewesses--Bible Flower Mission--George
Clarke--Incidents in Home work--The Lord's Day--Diary at sea--Letters
of cheer from Canada
CHAPTER VII.
1877-1879.
"They helped every one his neighbour"--Miss Child, a fellow labourer
--The work in Ratcliff Highway--Strangers' Rest for Sailors--"Welcome
Home"--"Bridge of Hope"--Miss Macpherson's twenty-first voyage to
Canada--Explosion on board the "Sardinian"--Child-life in the Galt
Home--The Galt Home now devoted to children from London, Knowlton to
those from Liverpool, and Marchmont to Scottish Emigrants
CHAPTER VIII.
1879-1880.
Experiences among Indians--Picnic in the Bush--Distribution Of
Testaments--"Till He Come"--"A Home and a hearty Welcome"
CHAPTER IX.
Questions and Answers--Sorrowful cases--Testimonies from those who
have visited Canada--Stewardship
INTRODUCTION
BY
THE REV. JOHN MACPHERSON,
_Author of "The Life of Duncan Mathieson."_
From East London to West Canada is a change pleasing to imagine.
From dusky lane and fetid alley to open, bright Canadian fields is,
in the very thought, refreshing. A child is snatched from pinching
hunger, fluttering rags, and all the squalor of gutter life; from a
creeping existence in the noisome pool of slum society is lifted up
into some taste for decency and cleanliness; from being trained in
the school whose first and last lesson is to fear neither God nor
man, is taught the beginnings of Christian faith and duty, and by a
strong effort of love and patience is borne away to the free,
spacious regions of the western hemisphere, of which it may be said,
as of the King's feast, "yet there is room," and where even a hapless
waif may get a chance and a choice both for this world and the world
that is to come. This is a picture on which a kind heart loves to
rest. But who shall make the picture real?
Go and first catch your little Arab, if you can. I say, if you can;
for he is too old to be caught by chaff, and you shall need as much
guile as any fowler ever did. Then with patient hands bestow on his
body its first baptism of clean water, a task often unspeakably
shocking; reduce to fit size and shape a cast-off suit humbly begged
for the occasion, and give him his first experience of decent
clothing. Thereafter, proceed to the work, sometimes the most trying
ever undertaken, of taming this singularly acute, desperately sly,
and often ferociously savage little Englishman, training him to be
what he is not, or harder task still, to be not what he is. Having,
by dint of much pains and many prayers, obtained, as you hope, some
beginnings of victory over the most wayward of wills, and the most
unaccountably strange of mixed natures, with its intellectual
sharpness and moral bluntness, its precocious knowingness and
stereotyped childishness, its quickness to learn and slowness to
unlearn, prepare for the next stage of your enterprise. Lay out your
scheme of emigration, get the money where you can, that is to say,
call it flown from heaven and wile it out of earthly pockets,
anticipate all possible emergencies and wants by land and sea, finish
for the time the much epistolary correspondence to which this same
fragment of humanity has given rise, tempt the deep with your
restless charge, bear the discomforts of the stormiest of seas, and
inwardly groan at the signs of other and worse tempests ready ever to
burst forth in the Atlantic of that young sinner's future course; and
when after many weeks of anxious thought, fatiguing travel, and
laborious inquiry you find a home for the child, fold your hands,
give thanks and say, "What an adventure! What a toil! But now at
length it is finished!" And yet perhaps it is not half finished.
Multiply all this thought and feeling, all this labour and prayer a
thousandfold; and imagine the work of a woman as tenderly attached to
home and its peaceful ways as any one of her sisters in the three
kingdoms, who has made some twenty-eight voyages across the Atlantic
"all for love and nothing for reward;" has, by miracles of prayerful
toil and self-denying kindness, rescued from a worse than Egyptian
bondage over three thousand waifs and strays, borne them in her
strong arms to the other side of the world, and planted them in a
good land; meanwhile, in the intervals of travel, facing the perils
and storms of the troubled sea of East London society at its very
worst, and from a myriad wrecks of manhood and womanhood, snatching
the stragglers not yet past all hope, and, in a holy enthusiasm of
love, parting with not a little of her own life in order that those
dead might live.
The outer part of the story alone can be told: the inner part only
God and the patient toiler on this field can know. Yet the inner work
is by far the greater. The thought, the cares, the fears, the
prayers, the tears, the anguish, the heart-breaking disappointments,
and the fiery ordeals of spirit by which alone the motive is kept
pure and the flame of a true zeal is fed,--in short, all the lavish
expenditure of soul that cannot be spoken, or written, or known,
until the Omniscient Recorder, who forgets nothing and repays even
the good purpose of the heart, will reveal it at the final award, is
by far the most important service as it is ever the most toilsome and
painful.
In the work of the kingdom of God on earth the true worker is in
point of importance first. Apart from the wise, holy, beneficent
soul, even the truth of the Gospel is but a dead letter. It is in the
intelligence, loveliness, magnanimity and sweetness of a human
spirit, touched finely by His own grace, that the Holy Ghost finds
His chief instrumentality. Preparation for a good work is usually
begun in early life, and the worker, whose story is to fill the
following pages, unconsciously learnt her first lessons for this
service in her father's house. There was, indeed, seemingly little to
be learned of any rare sort in the quiet village of Campsie, where
life passed as peacefully as the clouds sailing along the peaceful
heavens. Almost the only break in the even tenor of those days was an
occasional sojourn in the house of her uncle, the Rev. Dr. Edwards, a
minister of the United Presbyterian Church in Glasgow, where that
venerable soldier of the cross still lingers, as if halfway betwixt
the Church militant and the Church triumphant But whether in the
father's house or in the uncle's manse, kind and truthful speech was
the coin current, a good example the domestic stock-in-trade, and an
interchange of cheerful, loving service the main business. It was a
quiet school, whose very hum was peaceful; and yet the schooling was
thorough; things strong often grow as quietly as things feeble. The
oak rises as silently in the forest as the lily in the garden. Strong
characters, too, under any conditions of life, school themselves much
more than they are schooled. Active, inquisitive, resolute, and
possessing a fair share of the national _perfervidum ingenium_,
not without some tincture of those elements of the Scottish character
known as the "canny" and the "dour," our worker early developed that
robust vigour of mind and body which has so long stood the wear and
tear of severely trying work.
One passage of significance in the family history deserves notice,
especially as suggesting a peculiar feature in her early training and
supplying a link in the chain of providential events. In work among
the young her father was an enthusiast. With a heart bigger than her
own family circle, her mother took in two orphans to foster and rear.
Thus in the work of caring for the outcast and the forlorn Annie
Macpherson was "to the manner born." Inheriting her father's
enthusiasm and her mother's sympathetic nature, the quick-witted,
warm-hearted girl would not fail to note the equal footing enjoyed by
the stranger children, and would know the reason why: the much tact
employed to keep the new and difficult relations sweet would engage
her attention; and the exceeding tenderness with which the motherless
little ones were treated, would be a very practical Gospel to our
young scholar in Christian philanthropy. Were matters sometimes
strained? did little jars arise and a shadow now and then gather on
the faces of the strangers because their own mother was not? The wise
foster-mother would set all right again by some merry quip, some
gleesome turn, some one of those playful gleams of humour which
furnish a key to the secret of successful work among the young. To be
a mother to those orphans, to make life in its duties and joys, as
far as possible, the same to them as if they had not lost their own
mother, ay, and to teach them to gather the brightest roses from the
thorniest bushes, was at once a good work in itself, and a model for
one who was destined to similar service, only on an immensely wider
scale and on a tenfold more difficult field. The sisterly fostering
of the orphans was a providential training for her future life-work.
To learn to love and to serve over and above the claims of mere
natural affection, could not fail to enlarge the heart and awaken the
sympathies of a quick, susceptible child. Little did her mother know
what she was doing when she took the orphans to her bosom. She only
thought to make a warm home and a bright future for the hapless pair;
but in effect she was preparing a warm home and a bright future for
thousands of the poorest children on God's earth.
But there was something better in store. Girlish days swept by much
as usual--the rapid growth of warm thought and feeling making each
revolving year a continuous springtide, an opening summer. At
nineteen, Annie Macpherson looked out on a world that always promises
more to youthful eyes than it ever fulfils. Eager hope was drawing
much on a future whose furthest horizon was Time. Suddenly a shadow
fell. A word spoken by a friend was the vehicle of a divine message.
A more distant and awful horizon arose to view: Time with its hopes
and joys, like a thin mist in early morning, vanished in the light of
eternity; and quickly from that young heart, pierced with a new
sorrow, went up the prayer, "God be merciful to me a sinner!"
How little the world understands that same old prayer. Yonder afar
off stands a man who, having trafficked in all iniquity, having
matured in wickedness, and perfected himself in the fine art of
dodging truth and conscience, is at length found out in the thicket
of his own vices by a bull's eye that glares on him like hell. Well
it befits such an one, even the world admits, to smite upon his
breast and cry for mercy. But for a girl in her teens, an innocent,
merry-hearted, pure-minded young thing, to raise a cry for mercy like
a very publican or a prodigal, is confounding to the world's sense of
propriety and measure in things; and hence that world is angry, and
in effect repudiates the need of so much mercy, of so much abasement
and urgency in a case like this. The root and rise of this cry for
mercy the natural man does not understand; but that soul knows it
right well, where the lightnings of Omniscient Holiness have gleamed
and the shadows of God's anger have fallen.
The cry was heard. Light arose on that troubled soul, the Saviour
appeared and drew the sinking one out of the waters. Even where there
is little to be changed outwardly, conversion is always followed by
remarkable effects; the light of the morning is like a new creation
on the cultivated field as well as on the barren moor. Our young
convert saw everything in a new light. She understood now, as she had
not before, why her mother, stealing precious hours from sleep,
wearied her fingers and weakened her eyes with the self-imposed task
of providing for the necessities of children not her own. If a ruling
motive is one of the greatest things in the secret of a human life,
the grandest of all forces on earth is the love of Christ. This she
felt, and it was to her a divine revelation. From the feeble
starlight of natural sympathies she had passed into the clear day of
Christian affections, and she now knew the secret joy and power of
self-sacrifice. A hundred lessons and practical illustrations given
her by both her parents were suddenly lighted up with a new meaning,
and clothed with a beauty she had not heretofore seen, and a power
she had not hitherto felt. All she had learned before of truth, and
prudence, and kindness, she learned over again, and learned with the
quickness characteristic of the young convert. Very soon her whole
treasury of knowledge and feeling, of experience and character, was
laid with youthful jubilance on the altar of the Lord. From that hour
she began to work for Christ with an intensity of enthusiasm that
ever since has known no abatement.
GOD'S ANSWERS.
CHAPTER I.
1861-1869.
Prayer of Hon. and Rev. Baptist Noel--Residence in Cambridgeshire--
Visit to London in 1861, and first attendance at Barnet Conferences--
Visit of Rev. W. and Mrs. Pennefather--East of London, 1861--Left
Cambridgeshire, 1865--Work in Bedford Institute--1866: Voyage to New
York and return, 1867--First girl rescued--Matchbox makers--First boy
rescued--Revival Refuge open for boys and girls--1868: Home of
Industry secured--1869: Opened.
The winter of 1860-61 is a time to be had much in remembrance before
the Lord. It was then that the East of London, with all its sins and
sorrows, was laid as a heavy, burden on the heart of His faithful and
beloved servant Reginald Radcliffe.
Before the commencement of his labours, a few Christian friends met
for prayer at the invitation of the Hon. and Rev. Baptist Noel. The
East of London, and its "stunning-tide of human care and crime," was
not the only thought of that revered man of God. His faith looked
forward to greater things, and one well-remembered petition was, that
blessing through the work then to be begun in that deeply degraded
and neglected region, might not be stayed there, but might flow from
thence to far-off lands. One then present, the Dowager Lady Rowley,
was not long permitted to sow precious seed with her own hand, but
was instrumental in the fulfilment of this petition, as it was
through her leading that Miss Macpherson's voice was first heard in
the East of London.
At that time Miss Macpherson was residing in the neighbourhood of
Cambridge with her sister and brother-in-law, Mr. Merry, and, was
already a worker in the Lord's vineyard.
She thus writes of the year 1861:--
"It was a turning point in my life. I made a pilgrimage to London to
attend the preaching of Reginald Radcliffe in the City of London
Theatre, Shoreditch. There I met Dr. Elwin. On the following evening,
at the Young Men's Christian Association, Great Marlborough Street,
he introduced me to Lady Rowley, Mr. Morgan, and many other Christian
friends. Through them I was led to attend the next Barnet Conference,
where I learned what it was to wait for the coming of the Lord."
With this bright and blessed hope she returned to work with a
strength and power before unknown. Many souls had already been
awakened, but the full tide of blessing had not yet come. In the
villages around her hundreds of labourers were employed in digging
for coprolites, a fossil which, when ground, is useful as manure.
Among these men were many of the wildest wanderers, and Miss
Macpherson's heart was deeply stirred for their spiritual welfare,
and her time and strength were given to reach them by every means in
her power. She had established evening schools, lending libraries and
coffee-sheds, and of these and further efforts she wrote:--
"Second to the preaching of the gospel, we lay every laudable snare
to induce men to learn to read and write. In doing this, spare time
is occupied to the best account, and the enemy is foiled in some of
his thousand-and-one ways of ensnaring the toil-worn navvy at the
close of day.
"The more our little band goes forward, the more we feel that drink,
in all its forms and foolish customs, must be resisted,--first, by
the powerful influence of a felt example; and secondly, by gently and
kindly instructing the minds of those amongst whom we labour as to
its hurtful snares. We are accused by some of putting this subject
before the blessed gospel. God forbid! But when we look on every
reclaimed one and know that this was his besetting sin, we regard the
giving it up as the rolling away of the stone before the Saviour's
voice, 'Come forth,' can be obeyed.
"These first endeavours to spread the gospel story in a more
enlarged way were made in villages where the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon had
laboured when not yet twenty years of age, and where souls had been
blessed through the youthful preacher. Some of these converts became
my helpers, and are co-workers to this day.
"It was in 1863 that I first became an almoner for others, whilst
filled with a desire to build a missionhall among the coprolite
diggers in Cambridgeshire.
"The friends attending the Barnet Conference heard of my wish and
shared my burden."
The following letter to Dr. Elwin shows the sympathy that he felt in
her work:--
"My DEAR FRIEND,--Thanking you for your daily remembrance of my
continual wants in this the Lord's work among these poor migratory
coprolite diggers, I must say it was indeed refreshing to think that
this little hidden vineyard was laid on your heart to present to the
Lord at the Bristol Conference. The answer has come, and now it is my
blessed privilege to ask you to rejoice and praise our loving Father
for another six souls born anew. Yes, dear brother, they are those I
have laid before you again and again to plead for, that the dead form
of godliness might be broken down. Though diggers, they are residents
in a neighbouring village, and have attended my ploughmen's Bible-class
for some years. From the mouths of many witnesses, in a series
of outdoor gatherings every Lord's day evening in the past summer,
they have heard, on their own village green, a present, free, and
full salvation.
"Is it not kind of the Master to employ us feeble women in His
service, by allowing us to use our quiet influence for Him, and to do
many little things, such as inviting wanderers to listen, providing
hymns and seats, also refreshment for those sent to deliver the
King's message? And oh! it is indeed a hallowed privilege to be a
'Hur,' to hold up the hands of the speaker, and watch the index of
the soul as the message of love or of warning falls; to slip in and
out of the group, and meet the trembling soul with a blessed promise,
or grasp the hand with Christian sympathy. Then for us women such
service affords opportunity of giving the little leaflet or book,
such as the case requires, and following it up in the home with Bible
in hand.
"The Lord was very good in sending me helpers, _i.e._, brothers,
to speak during all those summer Lord's-Day evenings. On one occasion
I was left alone, and yet not alone. At another time my faith was
tried. No one had come to speak. The people had gathered. I opened my
Testament on the passage, 'Come and see' (John iv.) If the Samaritan
woman was led so boldly to say to wicked men, 'Come and see,' surely
my Lord knew my burden, and my need for a brother to speak to that
village gathering. We sang a hymn. I was led to pray. On arising from
the grass, a young man came round the corner and said, 'Miss, the Lord
has laid it on my heart to come here and preach to-night. Can I be of
any service?' He took for his text, 'Yet there is room.'
"I know you like to trace the links in the chain of blessing, so I
will enter a little into detail. One village displayed the most
perfect outward form of all that is considered correct as to the
using of means. There were clubs, saving of money, young men well
dressed and regular at their place of worship, four nights a week at
their evening school; but oh! my friend, not one soul of them with a
warm heart towards the Lord Jesus Christ. They read and answered my
questions on Scripture better, and sought after the library books
with more interest, than any in the other villages; but it was all
head-work, no heart; all intellect, no love. On Christmas Day six of
these joined our coprolite party to tea, and from eight to ten solemn
prayer seemed laid on every heart for them; and again the following
evening nineteen young men met to pray still for this village. Last
evening eighteen Christians of various denominations met in a cottage
at this said village. There was no formal address, but after earnest
prayer, one of the brethren felt this passage laid solemnly on his
heart, 'To-day, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.'
Then some converted stone-diggers pleaded for a blessing. The answer
of four years' prayers came, and the feeble infant wail was heard
from one after another amid weeping and sobbing. Surely the angelic
host had songs of praise while, in that holy stillness, these young
men had a sight of themselves. Oh, pray on that our faith waver not,
for we believe we shall see still greater things.
"You remember the village where you preached upon 'Jesus passing
by.' There is now a band of more than a dozen praying young men
meeting constantly in their little outhouse.
"The more we go forward in this labour of love the more evident it
is that the cursed drink is our great difficulty. This stone must be
rolled away. Another evening home for these men is a stern necessity,
and must be provided; a place which they may call their own. Each
building would cost 30 pounds. The men would furnish it cheerfully and
support it nobly. Two such buildings have been erected, are now in
operation, and answer beyond my most sanguine expectations. Morning,
noon, and evening, groups of men, while at their hasty meals, are
willing to listen to the Holy Scriptures or whatever else may be
brought before them."
"The memory of the just is blessed." It is sweet to recall any
incident in the life of him who will ever live in the hearts of many.
Miss Macpherson thus records the day of blessing:--
"It was at a meeting in July 1864, at Mildmay Park, that it was laid
on my heart to gather together, before the harvest-time, the
stone-diggers, villagers, and their friends, and to invite the Rev. W.
and Mrs. Pennefather to see face to face the hundreds of souls for
whom they had wrestled with God. Early in the afternoon of the day
appointed, streams of poor men and women came, having walked distances
of from two to ten miles to be with us. Conveyances brought earnest
lively Christians from Cambridge, and, including the stone-diggers,
there were representatives from more than thirty towns and villages.
On the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Pennefather, great was our joy; and who
of you cannot imagine our beloved friend in the midst of this
multitude, of warm hearts, as with tears in his eyes he exclaimed,
'This is another conference'? Gatherings on the grass were formed as
tables were insufficient, and our dear friend went in and out among
them, every feature showing forth the love with which God had filled
his heart. His loving eye alone discovered poor Tom, lately out of the
workhouse, standing trembling, and afraid to approach the party;
behind the tent tears of joy streamed after he had secured, amid the
rush for tea, a supply for the wants of this poor Tom. A lovely sunset
was shedding its radiance over the humble gathering, when Mr.
Pennefather rose and spoke to them of 'the coming glory,' first
reading Luke ix. 25-35; and knowing that many before him would as
Christians be called upon to endure ridicule from ungodly companions,
he pointed out to them that in all the Gospels which speak of the
Transfiguration, the event is preceded by an account of the
Christian's path of self-denial. After an earnest address to the
unsaved, this delightful gathering was closed by his telling them that
a little offering had been made at Mildmay Park, and that, by the help
of that money would now be presented to each man and woman,
(stone-diggers and boys included), a pocket Testament, to be used in
the intervals of harvest toil.
"Many are their struggles in resisting bad companionship and drink,
in trying to improve in reading, in seeking to clothe themselves, to
help their parents, to work for Jesus with little light, and less
time, and few talents. Oh, how much do they glorify God compared with
some in other circumstances, who have been surrounded by heaven-breathing
associations all their days! Well, indeed, can we understand that
verse, 'The first shall be last, and the last first.'"
Scenes of a different character must now be described.
Sad and deeply humiliating as the sights and sounds of the East End
of London still are, none who now visit the vast region lying
eastward of St. Paul's can realise the sense of desolation that
overpowered one's spirit when beholding it at the time Mr. Radcliffe
began his services in 1860-1861. At that time the condition of the
millions who existed there was ignored by those dwelling in more
favoured regions. No railways had been as yet constructed by which
visitors could come from the north and west. The space now occupied
by the great railway stations in Broad Street and Liverpool Street
was then crowded with unwholesome dwellings, well remembered for
deaths in every house. No centres of usefulness where Christian
workers could meet for prayer or counsel then existed. The Bedford
Institute had not then been built, and no Temperance Coffee-Palace
had even been heard of.
The power of the Lord had been very present to wound and to heal in
the City of London Theatre and at other services held by Mr.
Radcliffe, and the young women who had been blessed were invited to
meet for a week-evening Bible-reading and prayer-meeting, and for
this purpose Lady Rowley rented a room in Wellclose Square. In this
meeting, and in Lady Rowley's mothers' meeting in Worship Street,
Miss Macpherson began the ministry of love which has extended so
widely. She afterwards visited the homes of the poor, and the toil
and suffering she witnessed, especially in those where matchbox-making
was the means of livelihood, lay heavy on her heart. With _her_
feelings of pity were always quickly followed by practical effort. In
the midst of the winter's distress, one of the most cheering gifts
received was from her praying band of coprolite diggers. After a
watchnight service, they had spent the first moments of the
consecrated new year in making a gathering from their hard-earned
wages. Miss Macpherson had placed the East of London foremost in the
list of subjects to be remembered at their prayer-union every Lord's
Day. Little did the praying band think that in fulfilling this
petition, the Lord would take their beloved leader from among them.
It was in 1865 that Miss Macpherson was guided of the Lord to leave
scenes endeared to her by many hallowed associations, and to
encounter the trials and seek the blessings of Christian work in the
East of London. Her first efforts were in answer to an invitation
from the Society of Friends to hold classes for young men, both on
the Lord's Day and on week evenings, at the Bedford Institute, a
building lately erected by that Society, and which stood out
conspicuously as a monument of Christian love. On the week evenings,
instruction in reading and writing was the inducement held out to
attend. The first fruits may be seen in G. C., once a violent
opposer, afterwards a valuable helper in Canada, and now a preacher
of the Gospel in China. The work at the Bedford attracted so much
interest, that many helpers were drawn to it from other parts. The
Sunday Bible-classes became an object of remarkable interest. Perhaps
such an assemblage has seldom been seen. Many tables were filled in
one hall with men, in another with women, many of whom were very
aged, all with large-print Bibles before them, and each table headed
by some earnest teacher, all at the close being gathered together for
the final address.
Other Gospel meetings were also held at the Bedford, but Miss
Macpherson's labours could not be confined to this spot. In several
little rooms poor Christian women were gathered for prayer, and
depots for tracts were established, and Scripture texts placed in the
windows, in streets which were never so lighted before. But these and
all other efforts for the poor East End were interrupted in the
autumn of 1866. She felt the Lord called her to accompany her sister
and brother-in-law, Mr. Merry, with their young family across the
Atlantic. Mr. Merry's object was to settle his four sons in the
Western States of America. The voyage proved most perilous and
stormy. On arrival in New York, Mr. Merry's health entirely broke
down, and the medical opinion given was that nothing would restore
him but return to his native land. In March 1867 they were welcomed
back with exceeding joy. How mysterious did this trial appear! Why
were those who had sought the Lord's counsel so earnestly, permitted
to undertake a voyage apparently so useless, and accompanied by so
much anxiety and suffering? How little could any one then conjecture
that the Lord was thus training His children for the great life-work
before them! Not for the welfare of their own family were Mr. and
Mrs. Merry to be permitted to settle in those broad western lands;
but many voyages were to follow, and they, and subsequently their
children also, were to be fellow-helpers in the glorious work of
finding homes on earth, and training for a heavenly Home, thousands
of children who would have been otherwise homeless and uncared for.
"What I do, thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter."
Blessed hereafter! when we shall see _all_ the way the Lord our
God has led us; not a smooth way, not an easy way. "The soul of the
people was much discouraged because of the way;" "but the Lord led
them by _the right way_."
With her usual energy, Miss Macpherson again entered on her God-given
work among the poor of the East End, and at once resolved to do all in
her power to help the destitute children with whom she came in daily
contact.
In the very month of her return, the first girl was rescued and
received into her own Home, then at Canonbury. Her story was thus
written at the time:--"E. C., aged sixteen, was sent to my lodgings
to know if I could provide a home for her. In August 1866 the father
of this poor girl had bidden her farewell as she was leaving home on
an excursion with the Sunday-school to which she belonged. On her
return, cholera had numbered him among the dead. The mother threw
herself into the canal, and, though restored, was lying helpless in a
workhouse. E. C., who had before been learning dressmaking, was
tossed about from one poor place of service to another--her clothes
all pawned, or in tatters--till her last resting-place was on the
flags. Then she applied at the Rev. W. Pennefather's soup-kitchen in
Bethnal Green, and slept in the room at that time rented above it.
The two following days were occupied in vain endeavours to procure
admittance into one of the existing Homes for girls, the third, in
preparing clothing for her, while, at the same time, _no way_
appeared open for her to be received anywhere. When her clothing was
ready, our first visit was to a sufferer paralysed and convulsed in
every limb, at times compelled to be fastened to his bed,--one whose
garret reminded one of the dream of Jacob; for answers to prayer were
so direct, it seemed as though heavenly visitants were ever ascending
and descending. He prayed, and while he was yet speaking, the Lord
sent His 'answering messenger.' Miss Macpherson had felt it laid on
her that day to come to the East End to my help, though knowing
nothing whatever of the present need. When poor E. C. returned from
the baths and washhouses in her clean clothing, (having sold her
former rags for twopence-halfpenny), she was met by the loving offer
of a home. She seemed afraid to believe it, and followed, as if in a
dream, the friend so mercifully raised up for her. She was afterwards
placed in service with a Christian friend, and her two little
brothers were among the first inmates of the Revival Refuge."
Most mercifully for the poor little matchbox-makers was Miss
Macpherson's return ordered at this time. Much sympathy had been
awakened concerning them, and much help had been sent for their
benefit from the kind readers of the "Christian" paper. They numbered
many hundreds, and Miss Macpherson undertook care and responsibility
concerning them, for which the strength and powers of an older
labourer were totally unfit. In this, and countless other instances,
Miss Macpherson has proved herself ever ready to "fulfil the law of
Christ" (Gal. vi. 2). The case of these infant toilers had rested on
her heart from the first moment she had been made acquainted with
their sufferings. The first sight of them is thus described by her
own pen:--
"In a narrow lane, having followed high up a tottering spiral
staircase till we reached the attic, the first group of tiny,
palefaced matchbox-makers was met with. They were hired by the woman
who rented the room. The children received just three farthings for
making a gross of boxes; the wood and paper were furnished to the
woman, but she had to provide paste and the firing to dry the work.
She received twopence-halfpenny per gross. Every possible spot, on
the bed, under the bed, was strewn with the drying boxes. A loaf of
bread and a knife stood on the table, ready for these little ones to
be supplied with a slice in exchange of their hard-earned farthings.
"This touching scene, which my pen fails to picture, gave me a
lasting impression of childhood's sorrows. Never a moment for school
or play, but ceaseless toil from light till dark."
Miss Macpherson's first attempt for their benefit was to open
evening schools, the inducement to attend which was the gift of sadly
needed clothing. These schools were opened in various localities, the
chief gathering being held in a house kindly provided for us by
Charles Dobbin, Esq., still one of our unwearied benefactors.
Not only reading, but the art of mending their tattered garments was
a new thing to them, and their outward condition was such, that when
for the first time a country excursion was planned for them, it was
with the greatest difficulty they were made fit to appear.
Whilst making every exertion to raise the matchbox-makers from their
hitherto almost helpless state, her heart yearned over their
brothers. A tea-meeting was given for boys by the veteran labourer
George Holland, at the close of which one lad was noticed so much to
be pitied, that it was felt, if nothing could be done for the others,
he at least must be saved.
Money was not plentiful, the need of the East End was then
comparatively little known, but a young believer, the son of that
honoured servant of the Lord, W. Greene of Minorca, had just set
apart a portion of his salary to help some poor, London boy, and the
letter telling this was on its way from the Mediterranean when this
lad's history became known. Thus he was educated, and eventually
raised to a position in which he became a helper of others.
Many other homeless boys were found among that evening's guests, and
Miss Macpherson felt it was impossible permanently to raise their
condition without receiving them into a Home, where they could be
taught and trained to regular work. The Lord gave the desire, and
through the active sympathy of E. C. Morgan, the editor of the
"Christian," the means were provided. A house was found at Hackney,
and named the Revival Refuge, where thirty boys could be at once
received. A few weeks afterwards, looking at these bright,
intelligent young faces, it was difficult to believe in the dark
surroundings of their earlier years. So great was the encouragement
in caring for them, spiritually as well as physically, that Miss
Macpherson could not rest without enlarging the work, and a
dilapidated dwelling at the back of Shoreditch Church "was fitted up
to receive thirty more boys."
In the house first mentioned, besides the matchbox-makers' evening
schools, mothers' meetings and a sewing class for widows were
conducted by Mrs. Merry, and the upper storey was devoted to the
shelter of destitute little girls. But in these, as in all Miss
Macpherson's undertakings, the Lord blessed her so greatly that more
accommodation was required for the constantly increasing numbers.
The needed building was provided in a way that could have been
little conjectured, but the Lord had gone before. Along the great
thoroughfare leading from the Docks to the Great Eastern Railway,
lofty warehouses had taken the place of many unclean, tottering
dwellings formerly seen there. During the fearful visitation of
cholera in 1866 one of these had been secured as a hospital by Miss
Sellon's Sisters of Mercy, and water and gas had been laid-on on
every floor, and every arrangement made for convenience and
cleanliness. When the desolating scourge was withdrawn the house was
closed, and many predicted that it would never be used again. In the
following year Mr. Holland suggested how well it would be to secure
it for a Refuge. The doors had been closed twelve months when Mr. and
Mrs. Merry and three other friends entered the long-deserted
dwelling, and joined in prayer that where death had been seen in all
its terrors, there souls might be born to God, and that the voice of
praise and prayer might be heard within those walls which had once
resounded with the groans of the dying. Then the doors were locked,
and for twelve months more remained as before. Then they were again
opened, and on a gloomy winter's evening, with one candle the vast
unlighted dwelling was again entered. The little company included R.
C. Morgan, Charles Dobbin, and Henry Blair, of the Madras Civil
Service, whose interest in the work now begun, only ended with his
death. Through the kindness of these friends the building was
secured, and the rent promised, but then a new difficulty arose. It
had been hoped that Mr. Holland, who had first suggested the effort
to secure the building, would have been willing to undertake the
charge, but the work at George Yard was too dear to be given up. And
now, who would bear this burden? It could hardly be believed that any
woman would undertake the responsibility, for women had not then been
called forward in this country so prominently as they now are. Here
may be seen something of the Lord's purpose in having permitted Miss
Macpherson's voyage to New York. In that city she had seen the faith
and courage the Lord had given to women to "attempt great things"
_for Him_, and the day is well remembered when many prayers were
answered that she would accept the post. It is a post far advanced
into the enemy's territory, for the adjoining streets are known as
the "Thieves' Quarter." Three thousand, it is supposed, have their
headquarters here. In the square mile in the midst of which the
Refuge, (now called "Home of Industry"), is situated, 120,000 of our
poorest population are to be found. From the first Mr. and Mrs. Merry
gave themselves as willing and invaluable helpers to the enormous
work connected with the undertaking. It appeared great from the
beginning, but little could any one have imagined how it would go on
spreading and increasing. It is difficult, or it may be impossible,
to name any form of distress or any class which has not been here
relieved and blessed. Every hour of the day, and even far on into the
night, the voice of praise and prayer has been heard in some part of
the building. Even in the vaults beneath the pavement was a little
sanctuary made. Under the very stones, before trodden by them as
homeless wanderers, some have joined in asking the Lord's blessing on
those who had rescued them.
In February, 1869, the Lord granted us the desire of our hearts, and
the Home of Industry was opened with praise and prayer. "The Lord had
done great things for us," but far more than any heart then,
conceived were the blessings yet in store.
On February 22, Miss Macpherson wrote as follows in the "Christian":--
"BELOVED HELPERS,--To-night how your hearts would have rejoiced to
have seen me and my happy hundreds of little toiling children in our
new schoolroom in the Refuge. How varied their feelings! One
whispered, 'It was here my mother died of the cholera.' Another, 'Oh!
I was once in this ward before, so ill of black cholera.' Dear
children! our prayer was that it might still be a house of mercy to
many a sin-wearied soul. We have never had such a large schoolroom
before, nor the advantage of desks. Their joy knew no bounds when
told to invite their mothers to come one afternoon in the week to
help me to sew and to earn sixpence, my object being twofold,--to
secure an opportunity of telling them the gospel, and to endeavour to
help them in the management of their homes and little ones."
The following will show something of the trials attending "holding
the fort" in such a spot:--
"Last night I felt it right to sleep at the Refuge for once, so as
to be able to enter into all its needs. No words can describe the
sounds in the streets surrounding it throughout the night;--yells of
women, cries of 'Murder!' then of 'Police!'--with the rushing to and
fro of wild, drunken men and women into the street adjoining the
building, whence more criminals come than from any other street in
London. At three o'clock the heavy rumble of market-waggons
commenced, and then the rush of the fire-brigade. Thus much by way of
asking special prayer for those whom God has made willing to live in
the midst of such surroundings. On the other side of the building is
an empty space, known as 'Rag Fair,' filled in the morning with a
horde of the poorest women selling the veriest old rubbish. We are
thankful to have among these a faithful Christian woman, who, though
a seller of rags, is able to testify of the great love of the Lord
Jesus."