The little grey chapel at the corner of two roads was lighted and
already hot with steam on the windows. The wooden pews, set on steps
which rose evenly to the window-sill at the back of the tiny building,
seemed to precipitate themselves upon the mean wooden pulpit. Three
benches set endwise to the platform served for the choir, and there was
a small harmonium. The girl (a daughter of a prosperous farmer) who
played it was already in her place, and a group of children had taken
possession of the front pew. These were playing under the book-rest and
frequent giggles burst from their number. At last one of them threw a
hat so much too high that it dropped into the next pew, and a
preter-natural silence fell upon the group, who all wriggled themselves
erect on their seats and looked apprehensively round. The girl at the
harmonium bent back to look at the clock and then pulled out her stops
and began to play. The door clicked, and burst open to admit a cold
breeze and a big farm boy in his Sunday clothes, whose head and
shoulders came in before the rest of him was ready to follow, and who
held on to the door as he entered as if for protection. Every child
turned its head and watched him while he ducked his head on to the
book-board for a second, and then sat upright, adjusting his neck into
his collar. The farmer, whose daughter played the organ, came next with
his wife, who made her way with an air of ownership to her seat, and
having covered her face with her hand for a moment, untied her
bonnet-strings and fanned her hot face. Every other moment now the door
burst open, and admitted someone from the dark blue outside--a group of
clumsy youths who flung themselves upon the pew doors as if they had
formed the deliberate purpose of keeping them out, some girls in their
finery nodding to acquaintances as they entered, some labourers in
unaccustomed clothes, and last Mary Colton who walked with her
calculating step to the nearest choir bench. Then a larger group
hesitated at the door and the evangelist entered, mounting the pulpit
with a confident tread, the minister taking a seat in the choir benches
and the stewards sitting behind him. There was some whispering between
the evangelist and the minister, then the evangelist remained seated and
the minister rose and gave out a hymn--
"Rescue the perishing, care for the dying."
Those who did not know the words knew and shouted the chorus. It was a
rousing beginning. As the hymn came to a final shout, Anne Hilton in a
black bonnet and old-fashioned mantle with a bead fringe at the
shoulders, with one black cotton glove half on and the other wholly off,
entered the chapel and sat just within the door.
The evangelist glanced round his congregation and found himself able to
believe the report that the country districts were apathetic. He was an
ugly little man with straggling brown whiskers and unruly hair, and had
no great appearance of illumination, yet he was a true evangelist,
labouring hard to pull souls from the pit of social and moral
corruption. That was why he had been sent to the task of addressing the
country congregations. He was not working with an eye to romance, nor
for the glory which comes to those who work in the slums. He thought
with the thoughts of those among whom he worked. He had known what it
was to be hungry. He had known the crucifixion of standing idle when
every limb ached to be working. He knew that pregnant women are
sometimes beaten and kicked by the clogs of their husbands. He knew what
little children felt like when they cried from cold. His heart was
incessantly burning, but he had worked now for fifteen years and it was
no longer burning with indignation. He had found others, not Christians,
as he thought, who would be indignant, who would plan with pity and
sympathy and with more efficiency and foresight that he could ever
control, build up and organise ways of escape for much that he saw. He
could meet them too. But his work was to understand, and from his
understanding to attract and heal. The others had nothing to say to a
woman whose husband died, or whose son became crippled at work, to a man
who lost his right hand, or a girl whose sweetheart was drowned two days
before the wedding, and these things were always happening.
He looked round. He thought of his various speeches. It was no use
telling these people how many more women were arrested for drunkenness
in the streets this year than last, nor how many families lived in
cellars, nor how many men were without work. Their imaginations, never
straying into large numbers, would be blank. He would tell them stories
of men and women like themselves, and of how _they_ managed when
calamity came. He had sheaves of such stories and a ready tongue. He
might strike a spark of understanding. His voice, as he began to speak,
belied his appearance. It was sonorous and beautiful and it immediately
controlled his audience.
"My dear friends! Just round the corner from the house where I live,
there's a street called 'Paradise Street,' but I can tell you as I came
along here this morning in the lanes by the chapel, it seemed to me a
good deal more like Paradise than that street. It was a treat to smell
hawthorn hedges again, and to see some clear sky again, after the
foundries of stone-work, and I don't know what it is that makes people
give names like Angel Meadow, Paradise Row, Greenfield Street to the
dirtiest and smelliest streets in all the town. But I've got some very
good friends in this particular Paradise Street I was talking of, and if
they don't get an abundant entrance into the Paradise of our Saviour
when their time comes, I've mistaken His loving-kindness very sadly.
"Now, you'd hardly think that an old woman could be very happy living in
a cellar, without even a proper window to put a plant in, and six steps
to come up and down every time she went out and in, and drunken men
cursing and blaspheming up above in the street! Well! I'm going to tell
you a tale of one of the happiest old women I know, but I'm afraid it's
got to be about a day on which she wasn't happy at all.
"Her name's Jane Clark, and she lives in that cellar I'm speaking of on
2s. 6d. a week she has from the parish. She's a widow, and some of you
women know what that means. She pays 1s. 3d. for her share of the
cellar, for you know in towns such as I come from, we're building so
many factories, and railway sheds, and what not, that we've no room left
to live in, so Mrs Clark had to share even her cellar. Many a time when
I passed down that dreadful street and hadn't time to go in, I'd just
shout down the cellar and she'd have an answer back in no time. I used
to go down for a few minutes, just to cheer myself up a bit, for there's
a lot of discouraging things happen in our sort of work, and she always
made me ashamed. She was so content, never wanting more and always
thankful for what she had.
"Well! one day I was in Paradise Street. It was wet and cold, and the
beer-shops were full of drunken men and women, and even the children
were shouting foul language.
"'O God,' I said, ready to cry out in the street, 'How long will the
power of the devil last in this town?' However, I thought of Mrs Clark
down there, and how she had to live in it all, so I went down the steps,
and there she was, but I could see that even she had been crying.
"'Now, Mrs Clark!' I said, 'you don't mean to tell me that it's your
turn to be cheered up?'
"'No!' she said, 'not now! I've got it done already!'
"'Well, now!' I said, 'it's so unusual to see you with those red eyes
that you make me quite curious. That is, if it's nothing that'll hurt
you to tell,' I said.
"'No!' she said, 'it'll not hurt me. I'm a silly old woman,' she said.
She didn't speak for a minute, and then she went on:
"'You know it's my birthday to-day, Mr Charter. I'm sixty this very
Friday. Well, you know, I always say to myself, "Short commons on
Friday," I says, "because 1s. 6d. won't last for ever." But somehow, with
its being my birthday I suppose, and me being sixty, I got it into my
head that the Lord would perhaps remember me. I've gone on loving Him
for over forty years, and it did seem hard that on my birthday and me
sixty, He should have left me with only a crust of bread to my tea.
However, I sat down to eat my crust, but when I began to say a blessing
over it, I just began to cry like a silly child. Well, what do you
think! I'd just taken the first bite, when a child, whose mother I know,
came running in and put a little newspaper parcel on the table. "Mrs
Clark," she says, "my mother was out working to-day, and the lady gave
her a big pot of dripping, so she sent a bit round for your tea!" She
run straight away, and when that child had gone, I cried a good bit
more, and then I laughed and laughed, and says over and over again to
myself, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want."'"
The evangelist looked at his watch, and took a drink of water. One or
two men shifted their attitude from one side to the other, and all
waited as children do for an absorbing story. A momentary look of
satisfaction came over the face of the evangelist, and he began again
with zest.
"I'm afraid the next tale I've got to tell you will take a good deal of
time." ("We're here to listen," interrupted the minister.)
"Thank you! but you don't know me when I begin to talk! I can hardly
tell this tale in a public meeting, it comes so near home. It's about a
friend of mine, we'll call him Joe, and whenever I think about him there
always comes into my mind the verse we put up over him, 'Blessed is he,
whosoever shall not be offended in Me,' for Joe hadn't an easy lot. I'll
tell you what his trade was, though it may make you laugh to hear he was
a sweep! Now, I don't know what there is about a sweep that makes little
rascals of boys throw stones at him, and call names after him, but
that's the curious fact. As soon as ever a sweep begins to call out in
the street, there's a crowd of little rascals round him at once. I've
seen Joe sometimes, a little crooked man with a lame leg and a black
face, and a tail of little ragamuffins shouting ''Weep, 'weep!' behind
him, going about his earthly business in the dirty streets round about
where he lived. 'Eh! never mind 'em, Mr Charter,' he used to say. 'It
pleases the children, and it doesn't hurt me.' That was the sort of man
he was, you see, humble and content.
"He was married, was Joe, to a good, hard-working little wife, and
they'd had one daughter. She married a young plumber who got work at
Peterhead, and she had three little boys that their grandfather had
never seen. He had a photograph of them on the mantleshelf with their
mother, that she'd sent him one Christmas. Now one day, an idea came
into his head, that if he put by threepence a week, after a good long
time, he and his wife could go by a cheap excursion to see those little
grandchildren and their mother, just once before they died. He prayed
about it, and then week by week, they began saving up, and the nearer
they came to having £3, the more real those little grandchildren of
theirs became. The daughter, you see, wasn't to be told till all was
ready, and then there was going to be a grand surprise. Well, you know,
I got as interested in that saving-up as though it was me that was going
the excursion!
"Now Joe, he had the young men's class in the Sunday-school (all of 'em
who weren't too high up in world to be taught by the sweep), and one day
I was looking in at a foundry as I passed, when a young man who was
standing out at the door said to me, 'Have you heard about Joe?'
"'No!' I said, rather startled, for he's a frail old man at the best,
'What about him?'
"'Oh, it's nothing wrong with himself,' he said, 'but a week ago when he
was going out in the early morning--last Saturday was wet, wasn't
it?--he found one of them poor street girls fallen down in a faint a few
yards away from his house. He called the missis, and they got her into
the kitchen and gave her a cup of tea and put her to bed, and she'll
never get up again, it seems. She was in a consumption too bad for them
to take her at the hospital, so Joe's keeping her till she wants it no
more.'
"I said good-bye to the young man and set off straight to see Joe. It
was afternoon, so he was in when I got there. He didn't say much, but we
went in to see the girl (she'd got the bed, and the missis slept on the
sofa and Joe in the armchair), a poor, breathless, young thing, very
near to death. I began to talk to her of the love of our Saviour, but
she stopped me. 'Nobody's ever loved _me_!' she said, 'nobody'll care if
I die or not. I never believed there was any kindness in the world till
I met these two.' We left her gasping there and went into the kitchen.
"'Poor lost lamb,' said Joe, 'them's sad words to hear.'
"'Sadder to feel they're true about so many others as well,' I said.
'But, Joe, be open with me,' I said, 'have you spent your savings on
this poor soul?'
"'Yes!' he said, 'all but a few shillings. She must have milk and
nourishment, you know.'
"'Yes, I know that,' I said, 'and for the present I can't help you, but
you mustn't be allowed to spend all you've saved.'
"'Nay,' he said, 'it was a bitter cross the Lord of Glory carried for my
sins. I can at least do this for one of His lost ones.'
"I knew he'd say that, or something like it, but in my own mind I'd
determined to get it back again from somewhere for him, but you'll hear
how I was prevented. I noticed that he looked a bit tired and thin as I
went out, and I said to him, 'You're not looking very grand! You must
take care of yourself too."
"'No! I don't feel very well,' he said. 'I've been feeling my age a bit
lately,' he said laughing.
"'I'll look in to-morrow again,' I said as I went away, and about the
same time next day I went back to find him sitting still on one side of
the fireplace and the wife on the other. The girl had died suddenly in
the night. They'd got the photograph of the little grandchildren, and I
could see the old woman had been crying.
"'We shan't see them in this world now,' said Joe.
"I thought he was considering the money and began to talk.
"'No!' he said, 'it isn't that. The money was a bit of a sacrifice at
the time, but I can see now why He asked me for it, and how thankful I
am, as things have turned out, that I didn't refuse to do that little
thing for Him. After you'd gone yesterday,' he went on, 'I felt so
poorly that when the doctor came to see that poor girl I told him what I
felt like. He looked a bit queer at first, and then he said:
"'"Well, Joe," he said, "I know very well that you're not afraid of
death, so I won't beat about the bush," he said.
"'Thank you, doctor,' I said.
"'"Of course," he said, "I can't be certain, but I'm afraid it's cancer,
and I can only say that I'll make it as easy for you as I can." He's a
kind man, Mr Charter, though he's reckoned rough. Well, you can imagine
how my first feeling was of thankfulness that I'd been kept in the love
of God, and not held back for my own pleasure the money he was needing.
_He_ knew, you see, that I shouldn't want it, and he sent that poor girl
to be looked after by someone as had money to spare.
'"I'll bless the Hand that guided,
I'll bless the Heart that planned,
When throned where glory dwelleth,
In Immanuel's Land."
So my summons is come, Mr Charter, though I'd no idea it was so near.'
"There's not a great deal you can say at such times, and my heart was
very full as I listened to him, though I knew that it was well with him.
I'm not going to tell you about the way he went through the valley,
beautiful though it was, but I'll tell you just this before I sit down.
Those young men of Joe's Sunday class got together and talked, and
though they were young working-men with not much of a wage, they each
gave sixpence a week and the old man had ten shillings a week as long as
he lived, and every time he got the ten shillings he'd cry, and say,
that he didn't know anybody in the world who'd had so much kindness
shown to them all their life long as _he_ had."
The evangelist glanced round the chapel as the minister gave out the
hymn. The heads of the boys were bent over their hymn-books, searching,
with whispering, among the pages which they turned with wet thumbs.
There was no apathy now. All the slow sun-burnt faces showed signs of
having understood. One or two men sat with their eyes fixed on the
evangelist as if waiting for more. A woman wiped her eyes and sighed.
There was no restlessness. He had succeeded in making all these people,
so different from the driven, excited, underfed congregation he
constantly saw, think from beginning to end of his poor people, and had
succeeded in making them sorry. He was content.
With that inarticulate desire to come into close contact with those who
have moved them, which one knows among the poor, many of the
congregation crowded round the pulpit to shake hands with the evangelist
who leaned over the side, gripping hand after hand.
"A very good meeting," said the steward, looking round with an air of
satisfaction.
"You've made me feel very small, sir," said a young man to the
evangelist. "I've a good deal further to go yet."
"It's true of us all," replied the evangelist, shaking his hand
fervently.
Anne Hilton had returned from the farmer to whom she had sold one of her
pigs, and fed the animals, but had not taken off the linen pocket which
she tied round her waist under her petticoat, and which held her money.
She was trying to get at it now in the narrow pew. She knocked down a
hymn-book and several pennies rolled under the feet of the out-going
congregation. A young woman, with roses in her best hat, nudged another
and laughed. A big boy stooped to pick up two, and restored them with a
purple face. Anne replaced them in the linen pocket, shook her skirt
down again, wrapped something in a piece of an old envelope, and
beckoning the steward gave it to him, then followed the others through
the blue square of the doorway. The steward approached the evangelist
with a rather embarrassed smile.
"Our good sister's a bit queer," he said. "I don't know why she couldn't
put it in the collection box."
The evangelist unwrapped the envelope and disclosed a sovereign. He
paused.
"It's a big gift for a poor woman," he said in a moment. "She needed to
make up her mind a bit first. The collection box came too soon."
"I've no doubt you're right," said the minister. "She's a good woman if
a little erratic, and a sovereign means a large part of her week's
takings."
"I don't think she ought to have given it," said the steward's wife, who
was waiting for her husband to drive her home. "She'll need help herself
if she gives away like that. She always _must_ be different from other
people."
Anne Hilton was walking home in the cool night air. The stars were so
clear that they seemed to rest on the fields and tree-tops, and the
rustle of the sleepless corn passed behind every hedge. She walked with
a certain carefulness as of one who had unexpectedly escaped a physical
danger; but the peril from which she was conscious of fleeing was
spiritual. She had been threatened by avarice which had prompted her to
give a small sum instead of the sovereign, and the evangelist had been
right in his intuition. It had needed a good deal of "making up her
mind" to give away the greater part of her earnings, even under the
warmth of human appeal. She had conquered, but narrowly, and there was
as much shame as satisfaction in her heart as she left the building, and
more than all a great fear lest it should be talked about.