Shortly after midnight a decently dressed young man glanced furtively
round Trafalgar Square, hesitated a moment, and then ran swiftly up
the broad, black steps of St. Martin's Church. I came up behind him
as he tapped the door.
There was the sound of a drawn bolt, and the door swung back. The
young man stammered. He was blue with cold, and--there was something
else:
"I'm--I'm broke," he said. "I've never done this before. I've
always had a bit of money; but--well, I've nowhere to sleep to-night,
and--please can I come in?"
The door opened wider, and a pleasant, middle-aged policewoman said:
"Come along!" I followed.
* * *
Down in the crypt of St. Martin's Church, the church whose doors
never close, I saw a remarkable sight. Broad, white arches spanned a
dim gloom. Certain benches were set facing the east, as in the
church above, and others were placed round the crypt. Lying, sitting
upright, and huddled in every position of which the human body is
capable, were men and women, homeless wanderers over the hard face of
the earth.
There was no sound in the white crypt but variously keyed snores and
the small scratch of a policewoman's pen as she kept a record of
Christ's guests, for such they are; and as I looked at them these
words sang in my heart: "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are
heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
Sanctuary. That was it. They had the hunted air of having run hard
to find this place, and, having found it, had abandoned themselves to
safety. There was something else. They reminded me of a picture
that used to thrill me when I was a child: troops, rolled in their
cloaks beside dead fires, sleeping before a battle. Their battle was
To-morrow.
* * *
There was a young girl who could not sleep. She was wrapped tightly
in a blue mackintosh. She sat with her eyes wide open, gazing before
her. There was a grey-haired woman sleeping upright in a pew, a
poor, rakish hat on a pile of prayer-books beside her. Three or four
other women slept near together, leaning against each other, as if
for warmth.
Most of the men slept. Some had no overcoats, and lay huddled with
their tousled heads on hassocks. Others had placed their coats over
their heads. One or two wore spats, and appeared from their clothes
to be prosperous. Then you looked at their boots, and read a story
of tramp, tramp, tramp. One elderly man, awakened suddenly, shot out
an arm to look at his wrist-watch. But there was no watch there, and
he drew his hand swiftly under his coat again as though it hurt.
* * *
"Some extraordinary dramas have been acted on the steps outside in
the small hours," said a young man officially connected with the
church. "Once a girl was saved from white-slavers; once I brought in
a boy so blue with cold that I had to open the furnace doors without
delay, and thaw him. Most of the 'down-and-outs' know this church.
Many of them we manage to set up again, some sink back or just
disappear. Yet we never lose faith in human nature. A homeless
person is allowed to shelter here only three nights in succession.
After that we try to find some other abode, so you see our visitors
are always changing."
He opened a door, and I found myself in a cellar full of old clothes.
Boxes of collars lay on the floor. A knowing looking silk hat
crowned a pile of old hats. Women's skirts and men's trousers hung
from pegs. Boots and shoes stood neatly dressed by the right.
"This is our wardrobe," he said. "Our first principle is to give a
homeless person food and then whatever clothes we can. You can't
expect to hear the truth on an empty stomach."
"Are you often deceived by people who drift in here out of the night?"
"Now and then. It's nothing compared with the friends we make, the
delightful characters we discover when the ache and pain of hardship
have worn off. We divide men into three groups: Those who have been
to prison and have a grudge against the world; those who went to the
war as boys and came back men with boys' minds; and those who simply
will not work and can't run straight. We have heard every fairy tale
in the world, and we know a scrounger at sight!"
* * *
I tip-toed back through the white crypt. The pale girl was still
awake. The grey-haired woman still slept--old, worn-out,
uncared-for, and life gone by. Men slept and stirred uneasily as if
afraid of the dawn that was stealing on to draw them again into the
battle. How many would rise gloriously; how many fall? We talk of
human nature in the rough, heartbeats, life. Here it is in the
middle of London every night, each sleeper a real drama of struggle,
each man and woman midway in that Valley of the Shadow through which
all lives, spiritually or materially, must pass.
"We don't care what they are," said the young man. "If they are in
trouble, that is enough."
I hardly heard him, for I was thinking that in this white place is
the Spirit of Christ.