Twice-Born Men in America

CHAPTER III Incidents Showing the Power of God to Save — THE GOSPEL MISSION — CONVERSIONS AND REGENERATION — I HAVE KEPT THE FAITH

Among the many other impressive cases of the power of God to suddenly change a human life from evil to good occurred at the Breakfast Association in Philadelphia about the year 1898, and although fifteen years have passed, every incident, every word is indelibly written on my memory.

I was coming off the platform one evening when I met a large, fierce-looking, scowling man, who looked as if he wanted to strike me. I stopped at once. “Friend,” I said, “you are in trouble.” “What is that to you and such as you?” “It is much to me. You look like an employer of men, yet here you have been taking the bread and coffee of charity.” “Well, I have been an employer of men, but now I cannot even get employment. I have been behind bars; now what hope in life is there for me?” “Many men who have been behind bars have afterward made good citizens and even made fortunes. Let us go down to the Board room and talk this out.”

As he went along growling that there was no hope for him, I motioned to Mr. McMasters and another worker to come with us. When we were seated, he said, “Now, all I want of you people is to help me get work so that I do not wander like a stray dog through the streets of the city where I was born. My wife and family have deserted me and I am a desperate man.”

“Yes,” I said, “brother, no woman could live with you as you are now, one would as soon live with a wolf; your 30hand is against every man and every man's hand is against you. But God can again make you an employer of men. He can make you a good husband and father, but you must find God first. Where is your mother?” I saw him shrink, and I knew then I had the key. “My going to prison killed my mother. I had a mill in a suburb of Philadelphia, and sometimes, after the day's work was done, I would step into a saloon and take a glass of beer with my foreman. I was not what you would call a drinking man. One evening we got into a dispute about something concerning the mill, and I picked up a monkey wrench and struck my foreman just one blow, but I killed him. All our property went for lawyer fees, all to no purpose, for I was sent to prison for ten years. I have just been pardoned,” and he drew the governor's pardon from his pocket. “When I went to my home I found strangers in it, but at last I found my wife and my children now nearly grown, but they would not let me live with them.” I knew perfectly well from other experiences that he had gone in violence and had been met with violence.

Mr. McMasters now took the case. He said, “If your mother were now living, do you believe she would have received you?” “I am sure she would. The warden often told us that our mothers would stay by us, that children grew ashamed of a father in prison, wives persuaded themselves that it only kept up their grief, but a mother's love is like that of the God above, it remains. But mother died.”

“Well, you want to meet her again, do you not?” “Yes, but my mother was a Christian.” “That is it; let us kneel and talk to your mother's God.” Reluctantly, growling that God cared nothing for a poor devil like him, he 31kneeled, and with the three of us kneeling about him, we each one presented the case to God, calling on the “God whom this man's mother loved and served, asking mercy for a broken life, a broken home and a broken heart.” By the time the last one prayed his head was on the chair and he was sobbing. Then he prayed for himself, and God came down and the old alchemy of God turned the heart of stone to a heart of flesh, and George Gneiss was born into the kingdom of God. It was not difficult to get him a place as a skilled miller, and from that day to this he has made good.

The transforming power of the gospel was plainly seen within a week in his face, in his clothing, in his bearing at every meeting. After a few Sundays I was called out of town for six weeks. When I came home, I went to the Breakfast Association and there, from the gallery, Mr. Gneiss looked down on me. At his side was a Quaker woman in the plain dress of her Church, and with them was a manly boy of seventeen. After the services, they all came to me (I motioned to others to come), and they told us the story of their reunion. Tears stood in her eyes as she said, “We have family prayers now, and we pray for you every day. God is blessing us in every way. Pray for us.”

After that they came to see me, either at the Breakfast Association or at my home, as often as three or four times a year as long as I remained in Philadelphia.

After telling about those two incidents connected with my small share of rescue work in Philadelphia, it is time now to resume the story of our Gospel Mission. It is only because we see souls converted almost every night 32that makes it possible for us to bear the sight and the foul smell of unclean bodies, of dead whisky and tobacco, and the revolting drunkenness, then the remonstrances of one's own kindred and church people are trying, unless God gave great recompense, first in one's own enlarged spiritual life, in order to fit us for the work, and almost daily gave us the joy of seeing souls converted, it would be an impossible work.

Conversion seems to me to be largely man's share in the greater fact of regeneration, which is entirely God's work in a human soul.

At a Rescue Mission the theologian could get a new and practical knowledge of the gospel he preaches; the professor of psychology sees how spiritual powers, unseen to mortal eye, can grip the entire machinery of the mind, and by a supernatural application of God's Spirit and the word of God make a man over again.

Hundreds of times have I seen the alchemy of God make men who steal to do God's service; feet that have been in the way of the transgressor to walk in the paths of righteousness, and tongues accustomed to blaspheme to sing God's praises.

Professor James defines conversion thus: “To be converted, to be regenerated, to receive grace, to experience religion, to gain assurance, are so many phrases which denote the process, gradual or sudden, by which a self hitherto divided and consciously wrong, inferior and unhappy, becomes unified and consciously right, superior and happy, in consequence of its firmer hold on religious realities.”

“REMEMBER ME”: HANDS UP FOR PRAYER

33The first element in conversion is first an influence from the Holy Spirit brought about by prayer. Now, that prayer may have been sent up years ago by a mother now dead, but is usually the result of a prayer atmosphere in the meeting.

The Holy Spirit acts like a searchlight on the human soul, and the sinner for an instant sees himself as God sees him. I have seen men rush through the door, and, without taking a seat, come straight to the altar, because God's Spirit had met them. That is not the usual way, and it is usually some immediate message of His word, rendered in song or spoken word to the sinner's heart, by which he catches a glimpse of his lost condition.

Let no parent be discouraged concerning a wandering child. Delayed answer to prayer is not a denial. I know a minister whom God greatly uses who was a wild youth when his mother died, but God answered her prayer. He will answer yours.

It is important who presents the sinner to God. A perfunctory church member who plays cards, dances, tipples or smells of tobacco, cannot acceptably bring a soul to God. God often accepts a soul without an intermediary, but the wrong person keeps a soul from God. It makes a difference. You remember Ezekiel 14:20, “Though Noah, Daniel and Job were in it, they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness,” showing that as we abide in Him, God answers prayers accordingly. Then the word of God comes in. The helper tries to make the seeker lay hold of the promises. I have seen many conversions on Romans 10:13, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” It comes like a wireless message from on high. It becomes personal as the praying sinner cries to God, he believes he is heard, he believes he is forgiven, he accepts 34the pardon and rises to his feet a redeemed man. A supernatural power has come into his soul. Another verse which brings men through is 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

The religion of Christ has two elements in it—a destructive element and a constructive element. The destructive element is what we figuratively call “the blood of Christ.” It not only pardons or washes away the past sins, but it takes out of the soul lying, drinking, lust, laziness, deceit, fraud of any kind, and with the constructive element it puts into the soul honor, truth, industry, integrity or wholeness. It creates in the soul the desire to walk in companionship with Christ.

The recognition of sins forgiven and the conscious presence of God is what in emotional natures makes some shout, some weep, some tremble as with an ague, but regeneration in all souls brings unspeakable joy. It not only energizes for action, but it puts into the soul the power of endurance before unknown.

One cold night in November, 1908, the writer had charge of the Gospel Mission service. In the testimony meeting a fine looking young man arose and said about this: “I am a graduate of a college in Maine, also of a medical department of a college of this city. I have had a good practice and a good home. I have lost all of these from hard drink. Last spring I was converted in a street meeting held by this Mission at the post-office corner. Soon after that I obtained a situation in a large department store in this city, where I did good work, but I lost my temper at the inefficiency of a driver. I learned 35then and there that only proprietors have the right to lose their tempers, and I lost my place. I have had a hard time since. God only knows the suffering of a man without money, friends, or even acquaintances in a great city.” And with a wail, like a cry of anguish, he said, “But I've kept the faith! I've kept the faith!”

After the close of the meeting, a worker said, “I fear that man has had no food to-day.” I went to him and said, “Son, when did you eat last?” He answered, “Yesterday morning.” I slipped into his hand a dollar bill and my card, and said, “Come and see me to-morrow morning.”

We had no difficulty in getting him back into the department store where his quick and clear penmanship, his great executive ability, have been most highly appreciated for nearly five years.

CHAPTER IV An Element of Humor in Rescue Work — AUNT MARY — MR. E. C. CONNAUGHT — PSYCHOLOGY

Unless one can see the humor in rescue work, the tragedy of it all would break the heart, ruin one's health, and keep one's mind all the time on the sorrowful stories that we hear daily.

A part of successful rescue work is the ability to bring each sorrowful case to God, lay it on His altar, and leave it behind us when we leave the Mission.

One very cold night, a few years ago, we had present among our visitors a wealthy lady and gentleman from Pittsburgh. We were most anxious that the Mission should make a good impression on them, hoping a donation of at least $25. It was a very cold night. Soon after the services opened a person, whom I shall call Charles Winters, son of an old Virginia family, came in. He was much under the influence of liquor, and began at once to make a disturbance.

I remembered his dear old gray-haired mother and his accomplished sister, and knew in a moment that if he were put out he would freeze to death or be placed in prison. Two of the helpers started to put him out; that was the easy way, and there were my guests and that prospective donation.

The men already had hold of him, when I said, “Stop, men; please let me speak to him.” Laying my hand kindly on his shoulder, I said, “Charles, sit down and behave 37yourself.” With a drunken laugh, he said, “I'll sit down for you, Aunt Mary, but not for these toughs.” All evening I had to go back every few minutes to quiet him, much to the amusement of my friends, who frequently to this day call me Aunt Mary. But I saved a family from shame and my donation came all right.

In most businesses old age is a handicap, but every gray hair of my white head is an asset. Nearly every evening some poor, vanquished soldier of fortune, ragged, unshaven and unshorn, comes to me and says with quivering lips, “You look just like my mother, to-night, will you care a little for me?” And I lay my arm across the soiled coat and say, “Son, the trail of every sin is on your poor soiled body; you have tried some by yourself to be good, now let us ask Jesus to help. But I shall send you up stairs under guard and to the bath-room, where you must take a very warm bath while I go to the workroom and get you clean clothes from the skin out; your clothing will go into the fumigator over night; you shall have enough to eat and be physically comforted, then we will try again with Jesus as yoke-fellow. You and I will talk to Him about it and we will try again, shall we?”

There is no use talking salvation to a hungry man or a man physically uncomfortable. We usually help a poor fellow several days before anything more than the above is said, then we show him the tendencies of his life; he sees them in the wrecks all around him. He hears the testimony of redeemed drunkards, thieves and gamblers, and sees them clothed and in their right minds; then the teachings of some Christian mother, Sunday school teacher, or preacher comes back, and lo! he prays. God's Holy Spirit acts as a searchlight, and he sees his abhorrent 38self as God sees him, and he cries for mercy. God comes down when the sinner calls for redeeming power, and a great psychological change takes place. If a soul really agrees to give up every sin, to take Jesus Christ as pattern and friend, Christ Himself enters into covenant relations with that soul and the man is born again. He usually lays hold mentally of some one verse of Scripture, which becomes to him a personal message from on high. I have seen many take the verse, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you,” and use it as the stepping stone into the higher life. They seek God and live His righteousness. Take the case of

as an example. One very cold morning in January, 1912, Mr. Kline received a telephone message like this, “There is a drunken man with a wife and four children set out on the street at so and so. Bring coffee and food at once.” Just as quickly as they could get the food, Mr. and Mrs. Kline hastened to the relief of that family. The wind was blowing snow and sleet, though it seemed too cold for either. The family, including the drunken father, were brought immediately to the Mission, though their household stuff was left standing on the street, where it remained four days. It was such a miserable collection that even the colored people did not steal any of it. Then it was brought to the Mission and stored in the cellar.

One child was in the hospital from a blow from the father. They were physically comforted and put in the “Shelter,” a place reserved for stranded women and children. By night the father was fairly sober and they were 39all taken to the religious services in the chapel, where Mr. Connaught heard man after man rise and testify that God had saved him and taken away the appetite for drink. At first there was a sneer on his face, but gradually, as one well dressed man after another bore the same testimony, he cried out, “I have been an infidel, not believing in God or immortality, but if the God you worship can cure me of this awful appetite, I want Him.” He kneeled at one of the front benches, and an awful spectacle of rags and dirt and bloated flesh he was.

I remember thinking, “Surely this case is beyond help,” but God is better than we even dare hope. Several prayers were offered in his behalf, then he prayed for himself, and lo! he prayed with the tongue of the learned. He said, “O God, if there be a God, hear the prayer of the very lowest of Thy children. I need Thee, I am totally undone, I put myself in Thy hands for forgiveness and for discipline. O Lord, save me!”

He kneeled a moment longer, then rose to his feet with a clear brain, and, looking about like one dazed, said, “What has happened, you all look different?” Mr. Kline laid his arm lovingly over the man's shoulders as he said, “Brother Connaught, you have received your sight. The Lord Jesus has come into your soul.”

The next morning the Associated Charities had him arrested for non-support of his family. Judge DeLacy, a good man, was on the bench. One of our workers said to the judge, “This man was converted last night, and if you will give him a chance he will now support his family.” “Oh, yes, most anyone would be converted rather than go to Occoquan” (name of the workhouse). “But, judge, this is no fake case; try him.”

The bloated face, the soiled clothing were against him, 40and the judge sent him up for eleven weeks. The little woman and her children were sent to her relatives in North Carolina by the Board of Charities and Children's Guardians. Some of our workers kept at his side, reminding him that he had put himself in God's hands for discipline, and assuring him that if he could stand true, God had a useful life in store for him. A marked New Testament was given him when he left for down the river. There his head was shaved in the very cold weather, his clothing changed, so that he took a severe cold which came near carrying him off with pneumonia. It took about two weeks to bring political and social influence to bear to have him paroled and sent back to the Mission.

January and February of 1912 were very cold months, it was hard to get any kind of work for men to do, and the only thing we could secure for Connaught was passing circulars at sixty cents a day. That amounts to $3.60 per week; of this he was obliged to pay to the judge $3, to be sent to his wife. In two or three days Mrs. Kline phoned me, “Connaught is trying to live on the rolls and coffee given in the bread line at six o'clock in the morning.” I replied, “Connaught must have oatmeal with cream—real cream, for his diseased stomach; he must have eggs and meat and strong coffee, or he will lose his religion.” “Well, who is going to provide all that?” “The Lord has money enough for that.” “Well, suppose you bring some of it right along,” which of course I did.

About the tenth day after he began circulating papers, the work gave out. We really prayed night and day, for we feared he would be rearrested and we had no money to support him. In a few days he secured work at digging 41on the streets at $1.25 per day. He had never been accustomed to manual labor, so when I sympathized with him on his poor blistered hands, he said, “I am so glad to get the work that the hurt is nothing.” Think of that for a man who had not done a lick of work, physically or mentally, for months and months.

Long before this we had found that he was a graduate of an English university, had lived in good style, keeping servants, he had possessed a nice home when he was first married, but when he found the habit of drink had fastened itself upon him, he came to this country hoping to break away from old companions and surroundings, and thus get away from the sin which bound him.

He tried all the cures; in fact, all his property not spent in drink went to the cures, but nothing cured him. We found he had been a first-class bookkeeper for one of the great railroads centering at Washington, so we applied to them. I am glad to say they took an immediate interest in the case.

A man was sent to see him, then Mr. Connaught was put in charge of an office building at $40 per month, and at once he wanted his family back. They came first to the Mission, for we desired to keep him attending services every night till he would understand better the word of God and grow strong in faith. The railroad now pays him $80 a month, for he is a good executive, and he has bought a little home in the suburbs on which he is paying monthly; a home where he can have a garden, an orchard and chickens. About once a week the father, the mother, and children come to the Mission. No better looking or happier looking people enter that building. He comes, as he says, to bear testimony to the saving and keeping power of the dear Lord Jesus.

Now, science could not cure this case; all that science could do had been done for him. He had become so low that if he saw his children starving and he had ten cents, the money went to the saloon and not for bread. It is, as Professor James says, that “Conversion is the only means by which a radically bad man can be changed into a radically good person.” The agencies in any conversion are first prayer, then the Holy Spirit and the word of God. This man was so far gone that he did not believe in the existence of God. But the sympathy of the workers made them pray most earnestly for God's Spirit, which came with convicting power. The verse of Scripture which came like a wireless message to his soul was, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” He claimed and still claims the last clause as a message to him personally.

The reason that hundreds of sermons fail to comfort a saint or convert a sinner is because they fall on prayerless pews. You remember how what is known as the Great New England Revival came about. Dr. Jonathan Edwards was accustomed to go to his church every Saturday afternoon to think and to pray for his people.

On one occasion a beggar, known in the town as Old Betty, sat unseen in a back pew. The great preacher put his head down on the Bible and sobbed. As he came out Old Betty said, “What is it, Dr. Edwards, that so troubles you?” “Betty, I have not seen a soul converted in this church for a year. Why is it?” “It is because these pews are prayerless.” “Will you pray till you get the answer that God will come in power to this church?” “I will.” Betty hid when the janitor came 43to close the church, and the answer to her soul did not come till the dawning of the morning.

The following day Dr. Edwards started as usual to read his sermon, but he soon put it away and began a straight evangelistic talk, professed Christians stood in their places and asked for prayers, elders and deacons prostrated themselves before God, the whole town became a prayer circle, and the New England Revival had begun.

CHAPTER V Big Feet — JAMES MANN.

One day a very large man, well over sixty years, and with three fingers off each hand, in a very modest way said to me, “I am so ashamed to tell a lady my needs,” and he turned up his foot and showed me where the sole was worn out, so that at every step he made he left a track in blood. “You poor fellow, you need not be ashamed to tell me of need like that. I shall arrange for you to stay at the Mission till I get shoes for you.”

He was of the class who sell shoestrings and pencils, but in very cold weather people do not stop to buy from street merchants. That night, after the midweek service of my church, I rose in my place and asked for a pair of shoes number 9½ or 10. The men hooted, no one of them ever wore that size, declaring, of course, that I wanted them to wear myself.

“Well,” I said, “whether you wear them or not, you get them for me,” and I told the story of the bleeding feet. I did the same at my boarding house. By the next day one of the elders of the church came with two pairs of shoes which looked nearly big enough for boats, also one of the men of the boarding house sent to Annapolis to his father, a very large man, for a pair of shoes, which came to me by express. I put the three pairs into a basket and rushed to the Mission, when lo! the poor man could barely get his toes into the shoes. With trembling lip, he said, “It is simply disgraceful to be old and poor and so awful big that even one's friends cannot help 45a fellow.” “Indeed, it is no disgrace to be old, poor and big, but it is a disgrace to be a bad man of any size or age. Don't you worry, I shall find the shoes.”

That afternoon I met a Board composed mostly of men eminent in city affairs, among them was a distinguished lawyer, a very large man. He sat with his foot across one knee, when I leaned over and said, “Brother, would you mind walking home in your hose, and giving me those shoes for a poor chap as large as you are?” “Do you really mean it?” “Yes, I do; only I will let you wear them home, then send them to me with hose, under clothes, and any other clothing you can spare.”

By the next morning I had clothing for the poor fellow, and Mr. G.'s number 11 shoes fit as if made to order.

If the poor man had successfully sold pencils and shoestrings all winter he could not have been so well clothed as he was that day. But, best of all, while he was obliged to wait he read the four Gospels through several times, and he sought and found salvation in Jesus Christ. That was November, 1911. Since that he has gotten a place as night watchman in a large building, and he is a good and faithful man.

In Missions we have a large number of deserted wives with children, whom we clothe. By that help they can by their own labor keep their little families together, and then on every holiday, such as Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc., we bring them all to the Mission for reunion and a big dinner. The joyous seasons for the rich are the saddest times for the poor and the bereaved. It is such a privilege to be the administrators of the church people who send money and clothing for these purposes. In return, the Missions are the real protection of the city. 46A hungry man is dangerous, and a man with a hungry family is a menace.

My maid told me, one extreme cold day, that a man was at the door to see me. I found there one of the most dangerous housebreakers in the country. “Murphy,” I said, “I do not want to see any of you men at my home. What do you want?” “I am starving.” “Well, go to the Mission, we never turn a man away there.” “I wouldn't be caught dead there.” “Why not?” “Well, I hate Kline (the Superintendent) and the whole outfit, but I am starving, I tell you.”

I knew by that he had been stealing at the Mission. Thieves fold up the sheets and pillow-cases, even when they have been entertaining free, put the bedding under their coats and get away with it. In time we get to know them and will not put them in the dormitories, but only in the barracks fitted with shelving but with no pillows or covers, but fire is kept all night. The bath and toilet-room adjoins or is part of the barracks, so that men are made comfortable. I took Murphy to an eating house near by and filled him up, but at the same time warning him to get out of town as soon as possible or change his course and become a good man. Now, if that man had not been given food he would surely have gotten it, if it cost a human life. Bad as he was, he would have been fed had he gone to the Mission. I feared he would not go, but would commit some depredation. Speaking of thieves, reminds me of the case of a man whom I shall call

One evening a tall, fine-looking man came into the Mission chapel. One gets to know thieves somewhat as you know an Englishman, a German, an Italian, by the 47marks environment have left on the person. I knew on sight that he was a thief. We had a Salvation Army man at the Mission that night from West Virginia, who gave the message. His subject was, “Be sure thy sin will find thee out.”

He had been a thief, had served time, but now he told how happy and safe he felt serving God and in being a good citizen. Several men knelt at the altar that night, so when 9.30 P.M., the time for dismissal, came, the men were permitted to go to the dormitories while one or two workers prayed with the penitents.

Mr. Mann retired, but he could distinctly hear the praying. He declared that a voice said, “Mann, now or never.” He tried to go to sleep, the inward voice persisted, “Now or never.” He put on his clothes, went back to the chapel, threw himself down at the altar and cried to God for mercy for himself.

The workers gathered about him, he told God his story of sin and shame, and God heard his cry for mercy, and he rose a forgiven sinner. His kit of burglar tools were thrown into the Potomac River. He had come to Washington to burglarize in the northwest section of the city during the time when Mr. Taft was being inaugurated. His portrait could have been seen in the rogues' gallery in every large city of the country, but in a few weeks God so changed his face that the man could not have been recognized by the old portrait.

We told Major Sylvester, Chief of Police, of the case, and Mann was put on the special police force at the Union Station at inauguration time, and never before nor since was there ever such a quick nabbing of the noted thieves as at the Taft inaugural occasion.

Mr. Mann's mother came on from her western home. 48She is a sincere Christian woman. It was doubtless the answering of her prayers which brought conviction, then salvation to that dangerous man. Once she said, “James, I never heard of you for two whole years; where were you then?” He made an evasive answer, but we knew that he had spent them behind bars.

After the inauguration the special police were discharged, and Mr. Mann went to work as a carpenter. He made a good assistant carpenter. About six months after that one of the Northern States was making a search for large men for their mounted police. Major Sylvester recommended Mann, as he was six feet four inches tall, and from that day to this he has been on the mounted constabulary of a great State, engaged in enforcing the law, rather than breaking the laws of his country.

Now, is not that real service to the State? This man was restored to his family, to society, to God. He became a factor for righteousness, instead of an element of danger to the commonwealth.

We are not always fortunate enough to see men of that class seek God. On one occasion three young thieves came into the Mission, they were of the traveling men of their base business. After I returned to my home I called up the police and told them my suspicion, and asked them to watch the Mission very closely from eleven o'clock until morning. They were all captured between twelve and one o'clock midnight as they were leaving the building and escorted to the station and told to leave town, which, of course, they did immediately.

FREE SUPPER SERVICE

CHAPTER VI How We Got a New Mission Building — (A CHAPTER ON FAITH) — A MEETING OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS — SPEAKER CHAMP CLARK — HOW THE LORD PAID THE DEBT — NEXT STEP OF FAITH — MR. WHEELER'S STORY

Although by January 1, 1911, we had eighty-four beds filled nearly every night with homeless men, we felt ourselves very much hampered for room. We turned many away. Many a poor fellow that winter walked the streets all night to keep from freezing.

When we pray for a thing which we think the work of the Lord requires, we begin at once to arrange for it, as if the money to do the work were already at hand. Our paper, The Gospel Tidings, of January, 1911, said, “Our Mission now does business in three different localities, and will soon be obliged to rent two more places for the wood cutting department and for opening a penny lunch-room.”

We were so sure that the Lord's work needed enlarging that we went to the very best architects we knew, Gregg & Leisenring, and told them our plans and needs, and they prepared with the greatest care, drawings for a building costing at the very least $50,000, besides the cost of the land. Then the writer visited the seats of the mighty in New York City with the best introductions that the District Commissioners and leading statesmen could give. While I was received with great kindness and courtesy, I was distinctly told by one magnate that he helped only the young and those starting in life; by another that his charity could never take a local form, that he gave along the line of research for causes and 50remedies of diseases. The women, whose secretaries I met, themselves not being visible to plain people, I was assured had planned all their surplus income for five to eight years ahead, so that I came back convinced that God's way for the Gospel Mission was not by way of New York City.

About that time a great fire occurred in an eastern city, and many men and women lost their lives, and the order went out in Washington that every building where a large number of people worked or slept must have plenty of fire-escapes.

We found to put fire-escapes on the Gospel Mission would cost $125, an immense sum to us, but we were preparing to put up the fire-escapes when the owner refused his permission. We told the police, and asked time to relocate, but were peremptorily ordered out of 1230 Pennsylvania Avenue, N. W. We could find no suitable building obtainable within our means.

was called at my house for prayer. There were thirteen members present. The object of the meeting was stated by President Wheeler, a few of God's promises read from His word, and we went on our knees for prayer.

Each one asked for a suitable home to do the Master's work as seen and done by the Gospel Mission. It was noticeable that after the eighth person had prayed, each prayer took more and more the form of thanksgiving, as if we already had received the building, or money to build it.

There had been offered to us a very large double building which had once been used as the District Building, and upon which it was claimed that the government of 51the United States had once put $60,000 to make it fireproof. It is situated at 214-216 John Marshall Place, N. W., not far from the foot of Capitol Hill. After having the distinct answer to prayer that God was working with us, a letter was written to Mrs. John Hay, wife of the deceased great Secretary of State, asking her to purchase that building for $25,000 for us and to permit us to pay her a fair interest and pay the principal in annual payments. The letter was written about the first of March. Almost by return mail Mrs. Hay replied that she did not care to make so large an investment, but if we cared to go forward and purchase the building ourselves, that on April 1 she would give us $5000 on the first payment. Never will I forget the scene when that letter was read.

Mr. H. D. Gordon had received the letter just as he was starting for the Board meeting, his face was radiant. When Mr. Wheeler came in the letter was put in his hands without comment. As soon as he read the words, “I will give you $5000 on the first payment,” without waiting to finish the letter, he said, “Let us pray.” We, on our knees, each one thanked God for the gift dictated by His Spirit, and asked God's blessing on the magnanimous woman who had obeyed the Spirit's order.

The Building Committee eventually secured the property for $22,000, of which $5000 was to be a cash payment, and by agreeing to pay $1750 annually, and to pay semi-annually a 5½ per cent interest.

Think of the growth in spiritual power of a little organization which in September, 1908, shuddered at a bill of $25, in the early spring of 1911 joyously making itself responsible for $17,000 bearing a semi-annual interest amounting in the year to $850!

52Since that time we have made three annual payments of $1750 each, and we have met all interest to date.

Probably in no civilized country was there ever a dirtier house. The building had been occupied by some foreigners until it had become so vile that the police condemned it and obliged them to move out. They took with them all gas fixtures, all sewerage, heating and water pipes; in fact, wrecked the building, but a mission band is brave, and went valiantly to work.

More than one hundred wagon loads of dirt were taken from the cellars. We know, for we paid ten cents a load to the dump. When we had put in $100 in glass, it scarcely made a mark, so large is the building. It has sixty-six rooms, some of them as large as the chapel of an ordinary church.

The walls have been scraped and calcimined and whitewashed; the entire woodwork inside and all the outside has been painted; new gas pipes and gas fixtures have been placed; new sewerage and bath-rooms have been prepared. Four new fire-escapes and an electric fire-alarm system installed; a splendid French steel range has been set in the kitchen; hot and cold water supplied to various parts of the building, etc.

The first meeting was held in our new building, 216 John Marshall Place, N. W., on the evening of April 15, 1911, Mr. Wheeler presiding.

We found the roof leaked so badly that in case of storm some rooms became uninhabitable. Again I was obliged to personally guarantee the payment of $500 for a new roof. Again, Mr. Ernest Gichner came to my help. He put on a good roof, built up and pointed the thirteen chimneys, put ventilators in many chimneys, saw to resetting, reglazed all skylights, and permitted us to 53pay him $25 per month till the debt was paid off.

When the possibility of completing the first cleaning seemed most hopeless, when heat, water and gas pipes had to be replaced, several members of the Board pledged $100 each. To some of us that meant great self-denial. Mrs. Richard Butler gave $500 and Mrs. Spindle $200; in all we spent $5000 in repairing and cleaning that building. Every step was made in faith.

It was wonderful how our people sacrificed to get all this done; women who do not do such work at home came and scrubbed and cleaned; many a poor man gave a day's work. Three men who readily command $3 per day, worked three months each at $1 a day with room and board. The people of Washington sent us piles of old furniture, for which we were deeply grateful. Then Superintendent Kline got a great quantity of furniture and many feet of piping for conducting heat, and secondhand radiators at the sale of the old Riggs Hotel. We secured a good mechanic, and with our mechanics at the Mission, installed the heating plant. The expenses during that time were at least $200 per week. At our Board meeting one Tuesday, Treasurer Gordon reported $4.84 on hand. All business was stopped immediately and we went to prayer telling our Father that we had but $4.84 and the bills of the week would be due on Saturday. We had each of us done all we could afford. The following Tuesday the Treasurer reported all bills paid and $284 in the treasury. Thus God not only supplied all our wants, but graciously relieved our anxiety.

Rather an amusing incident occurred when our cleaning was most strenuous. We have a large number of 54good women who will do good work if I lead, so on one occasion I took a tin bucket with rags, soap, scrub-brush, etc., and went to help on work rather out of my line. I started to return with the bucket in hand. When I came to the car I saw the Hon. Champ Clark, who had then very recently been elected Speaker, at the front of the car. I was careful to take the back seat, hoping he would not see me. I had barely got seated when he came back and took a seat beside me. I tried to apologize for my appearance and impedimenta. He said, “Oh, bother! Never mind. What fault are you Republicans finding with me now?” and we went at the Reciprocity Bill, then before the House, with hammer and tongs. When I got off at Second Street, S. E., the Speaker carried the bucket and handed it to me in his gallant way, still talking of the measure before Congress. I doubt if he recognized whether it was an old tin bucket or a jewel case which he transferred to me.

As long as this is a faith chapter, I shall here insert a statement of how God sent the last $300 on our annual payment and semi-annual interest due and paid May 7, 1913.

This is from the June, 1913, number of Gospel Tidings:

Mrs. Monroe's Letter in Lutheran Observer of May 16:

“On May 1 (1913), we were owing at the Gospel Mission on the building $15,500 with $406 semi-annual interest. We have agreed to pay $1750 each year, so we were responsible for $2156 on May 1; by special agreement it was not paid until the 7th. I want to tell my friends who have prayed with me in this struggle how the Lord led us.

55“At the Board meeting, Tuesday, April 29, we had $1140 in the treasury. By Wednesday morning we had $1200. Thursday we had $1300, and on Friday, at Dr. Stearns's class, I reported $1400 in the treasury and requested God's children to ask for the $756 yet due. By Sunday, May 4, we had $1659, when Hon. B. H. Warner subscribed $200, bringing our fund to $1859. A small bill reduced it to $1856.

“The gentleman who held the note telephoned from Baltimore that he would not come for his money until Wednesday, May 7. At the Tuesday evening meeting five of us prayed definitely for $300. On Wednesday morning, just after breakfast, a friend telephoned, 'Please come up at once.' Now, that is my writing day, and I felt I could hardly go, but my times are in His hands, and if He said 'Go,' then that was my orders. I went at once, and my friend said, 'I feel you are needing $300 on your debt, and the Lord woke me up to tell me to hand you $300, and I am prepared to pay it.'

“To say how grateful we all are cannot be put into words. But at this time, when the city was being scoured for $300,000 for the Emergency Hospital, when the Ohio sufferers had claimed all we thought we could spare, for the Board of a little mission, dependent mostly on the poor, as the poor man's church, to pray down from heaven $2156 of a special fund, besides the running expenses, which are always very heavy, means more than money to us. It seems to be the divine seal of God's approval on our work. I had subscribed $500 for myself and friends. He graciously paid through me $656, and now, with the $300, He has made my share $956.

“Some of the readers of the Observer sent me money, but more prayed for our work. Now, join with us in 56praising God for a message straight from the throne of our dear, loving heavenly Father.

“To everyone who helped, even to the amount of five cents; to those who denied themselves usual comforts to help the Mission; to those who gave to help provide shelter for the poor—to each of us He sends, I am sure, this dear message, 'I glorify you in order that your faith may be strengthened and that you may glorify me.' If any of us has ever had any doubt of God's special providence to His children, let this concrete example be a permanent love-message of assurance to every such doubter.”

By June, 1913, we found that nearly every Sunday night more than one hundred persons had to be denied entrance on account of lack of room. We saw by taking down a partition on the north side of the chapel between chapel and hall, we could seat at least one hundred more. We were just over the strain of the last payment, and we were loath to ask our friends for more help, but as God continues to each of His children the blessings which they daily enjoy, so each child of God must continue to help in His work, and relying on Him “who worketh with us,” we ordered the wall taken out at a cost of about $900, which afterward proved to be $1300. Again I had to make myself responsible for the payment of that amount. It was all paid on time.

In this faith chapter I desire to insert the following from the Gospel Tidings of June, 1913:

“At the Sunday evening service, December 18, 1912, Mr. Wheeler said: 'When I was in charge of religious 57work at the United States jail some years ago, one Sunday, after service, I went round, as was my custom, to shake hands with the men behind the bars. I came to a fine-looking man, to whom I said, “Why are you here? I have often seen you on the street, and I have thought of you as a good citizen.” “O Mr. Wheeler, I have been a good citizen. My wife and I have a little store in Georgetown, where we sell oysters in the winter and ice cream in the summer. My wife gave me $65 to settle our bill with the wholesale oyster man, and I took a number of drinks, and finally went into the marble saloon and took a drink with some strangers, and as surely as I tell you I do not remember another thing until I found myself in a cell at the station house.”'

“On further inquiry Mr. Wheeler found that the prisoner was charged with passing counterfeit money. It appeared that after he came out of the saloon a Jew was crying clothing on D Street. This man went into the Jew's clothing store, bought a suit of clothes, for which he offered a $50 bill in payment. The Jew could not make change, so took it to a neighbor, who assured him the bill was bad, and the man's arrest immediately followed.

“Mr. Wheeler went often to the cell to pray with and for the poor prisoner, who devoted his time to the study of the Gospels. He was soundly converted. Mr. Wheeler said, 'Do not trust alone to your lawyer. Appeal to Jesus Christ now to clear you, for, as far as I can see, man cannot.'

“His lawyer told Mr. Wheeler that the court would surely send the prisoner to the penitentiary. On the morning of the trial several Christian men met together and prayed over the case. The court convened at 10 58A.M., and the case was immediately called. A stranger asked to be sworn as a witness. He said about this: 'I was in Washington on the day this affair occurred. I do not often take a drink, but I happened to be in the saloon when this man came in. He took a drink with two young fellows who happened to be there, and the liquor made him drunk at once, when one of the young fellows said, “It is my turn to treat, and I will, if any of you can change a $50 bill.” This man brought out lots of money, and got the $50 bill in exchange. I left Washington the next day, that is how I was fortunate enough to remember the date. I got back yesterday, and happened to see a statement of this case in the evening's paper, and I felt simply compelled to come and give my testimony.'”

The prisoner was reprimanded (which was unnecessary, as he was a new creature in Christ Jesus), but the case against him was dismissed, as it was apparent there was no intent to defraud the Jew. His family nearly smothered him with kisses and embraces, and he walked out a free man.

Skeptics may say this was mere chance. But how did it happen that the man came back on that day, saw that account in the paper, felt compelled to testify? No, God directed the case after it was committed to Him.

CHAPTER VII Varieties of Work in a Gospel Mission — A REMARKABLE TESTIMONY

We are apt to think that all persons who accept the hospitality of the Mission are low-born people; we have not found it so. There have knelt at the altar of the Gospel Mission, priests and preachers, lawyers, doctors, merchants, engineers, college men and poor chaps who have had no education but that of the street.

I remember one night when we were located at 1230 Pennsylvania Avenue, there knelt at the altar three men, one an ex-preacher, one a graduate of the University of Virginia, and one the nephew of an ex-President of the United States. We believed they were all converted. The preacher was in bad physical condition, and we felt it necessary to put him into a Christian institution for such as he for medical treatment. The taste for liquor had gone, but the ulcerated stomach and bowels remained, also his nerves were in a dangerous condition. How we ever obtained money enough to pay that man's bills for six weeks is yet a marvel, but we did it. He came out a redeemed, humble man. He went to the pastor of a large church in Brooklyn, whom he had known at college, and before that large church he acknowledged his sin with shame and deep contrition. The church had grace enough to accept him. The congregation opened a rescue mission, supported entirely by that church, where for five years he has preached the gospel and has saved a hundredfold more souls than the big church which supports the mission.

The Virginian never again crossed our path, but Mr. 60Buchanan died after three years of a good life, an honored member of an Episcopal church in Washington.

Men who have been dissipated, even when redeemed and reformed do not, as a usual thing, live to old age. The wages of sin is death to the body, though the soul may enter upon eternal life.

Among the sorrowful who nightly are to be found at the missions of this city either pensioned by their family or the government, but not permitted to return to their homes, is one man who was once one of the best mail agents between Washington and New York City. Another, the son of an ex-cabinet officer. Another has been Chief Mathematician in a government bureau, besides about twenty wrecks of various government departments.

I remember the case of a well-known man in Philadelphia. He was converted one extremely cold night at the Breakfast Association. No provision is made there for beds, so that poor fellow started “to carry the banner”—that is to walk the streets all night. About three o'clock in the morning he was taken with a congestive chill. A kind policeman, seeing the man was ill and not drunk, sent him at once to that blessed little Presbyterian hospital in West Philadelphia.

It happened that one of the Board of Directors of the Breakfast Association, Mr. Tibbals, had given the poor fellow his card. The authorities, finding the card, sent for Mr. Tibbals. The sick man had revived enough when Mr. Tibbals arrived, to give his true name and the address of his parents, which was a number on Fifth Avenue, New York City. That street was then a residence street for very wealthy people. Just as soon as it could be done, a telegram for $100 was received in reply and 61we were directed to do all we could for him. But the man died before night, and Mr. Tibbals was asked to take the body to New York. The coffin was carried into one of the handsomest brown-stone residences on that handsome avenue.

The mother and father met Mr. Tibbals, and in the parlor the coffin was opened for identification. It was the body of the only son of that proud family. The father gave one look, one great sob, then seized his hat and fled. The mother said, “O Mr. Tibbals, you think I am grief-stricken over his death! But I am not even sorry. This son has been a drunkard from childhood. We could not keep him at home, for he would steal everything he could carry away and sell it for whisky. Since we lost sight of him, I have never opened a paper without fearing I should read his name in connection with some awful crime. No, I am relieved. I shall know where he is. I have often gotten into my carriage and have had the driver go up and down this street (which was then covered with cobblestones) as fast as the law permitted him to drive, and I have screamed and screamed my heart out. I have gone to the seashore to scream to let off my nervous strain. Had I given just one such scream in my own house, I would this day be in a mad house. Oh, no, for this death, after what you hope was a conversion, I am deeply grateful to God!”

And yet people wonder at Carrie Nation. It is a wonder that grief like that does not make iconoclasts of all mothers whose sons go down the Jericho road.

The following testimony, given in the winter of 1911, by one who had stood on many rounds of the social ladder, a man who accepted redemption, and is now kept by the power of God:

“When Brother Wheeler requested me to address this meeting, I felt somewhat nervous, for the simple reason that I had never in my life addressed a religious meeting before, and I so stated to Mr. Wheeler. However, I could not refuse him, and here I am.

“True, in years gone by, while down South, I have spoken to political gatherings. Since I got religion, I stopped that. If I should ever make a political address again, it will be in the interest of the Prohibition party. I regret that I have no experience in addressing a religious meeting, and I, therefore, ask you to be patient with me, especially as, due to previous engagements, I was unable to prepare myself, except in so far that I have decided to make a few remarks on personal salvation, and by the term personal I have my own in mind.

“I want to tell you something about my own experience, how I had lost my God and found Him again. A man born and reared on the Bowery or any of its side streets in New York City, a man who from his childhood on has been influenced by evil-minded and sinful people, has never heard of Christ, and in the course of time becomes a hardened criminal, such a man may be condemned by mankind, but never by God.

“A man born and raised in a comfortable, refined home, who has been taught the doctrines of Christ, has confessed his belief that Christ is His Saviour, has a full knowledge of right and wrong and of the duties he owes his fellow-man—if such a man becomes a willing victim to sensual pleasures, he may not be condemned by mankind, but God will condemn him, unless he repents and starts to lead a new, clean life.

“Only too often men are so completely wrapped up in 63their personal matters, as, for instance, in their business affairs, that they absolutely lose sight of the obligations they owe God, and also their fellow-men, and, as a natural result, neglect their souls.

“I honestly believe that such a man is more to be pitied than the ones who, either through their own fault or being victims of circumstances, have lost their hold in life and finally found themselves 'down and out.' A man may temporarily be without food and shelter, but this is nothing compared to trying to live without God. However, a man who is a wanderer on the face of the earth and who has lost his God, is indeed a wretched being. I am speaking from experience.

“For years I had violated the divine laws. I had been what is generally termed a society man, 'way down South. I enjoyed a large income, but I spent everything for worldly pleasures. Finally, I became disgusted with my surroundings; but, better still, I became disgusted with myself. I drifted to New York City, determined to live a new life. This occurred about fourteen years ago. Up to that time I had not been within or even near a church for seven years. The New York atmosphere apparently did not agree with me. Instead of leading a clean, moral life—by that I understood at that time a life simply conforming to the requirements of the social laws (the divine laws did not exist for me)—I became worse than I had ever been.

“Although I made good money, as the saying is, I was, nevertheless, broke all the time. I voluntarily gave up several splendid positions because objections had been made to my reporting late in the morning for duty, and, having become rather nervous, I practically found it impossible to get along with anyone. I had become a slave 64to my habits, and finally associated with the 'has beens,' as they are sometimes called.

“There is not a man in this room who knows more about the life on the east side of New York than I do. I know full well what it means to be hungry and homeless. I have worked as a longshoreman, newspaperman, cook, bookkeeper and correspondent. I have been running hot frankfurter stands, etc., sometimes I had two jobs in one day. I was given a wonderful taste of the ups and downs in New York City, especially the downs. I certainly am grateful to Providence for subjecting me to that awful experience in New York City, for in that way I learned to know human nature. I learned to know that the so-called submerged masses were composed of human beings, not brainless individuals; that, as a matter of fact, there are better people, especially morally, among the poor than among the so-called society people.

“I might be asked why it was that I did not find God again, when I was down and out in New York City. Christ was knocking, knocking all the time to enter my heart, but I had become a cynic and would not let Him in. I used to think in those times that if there was a just God I would not be in such a sorrowful plight. The trouble with me was, I did not have enough sense to admit that my condition was simply due to my own faults and to nothing else.

“During my stay in New York I have met many saintly people, men and women who devoted their time, energy and money to the uplift of the homeless and the friendless. Those good people tried their best to have me converted. They did not succeed because I was not willing and because I actually believed most of my friends who were in charge of the several missions that I was in the habit of attending were suffering from hallucinations, although perfectly honest in their self-imposed task.

PENNY LUNCH ROOM

65“The greatest evil in New York City is, as everywhere, the saloon. The majority of you men present here this evening must admit if it were not for the saloon you would not be here as applicants for bodily assistance. There are evil spirits in us and around us to lead us astray; the devil's worst temptation is whisky or any other intoxicating drink. Man was made in the image of God; when a man gets drunk he is worse than a beast. A man will get drunk again and again, a beast will not, having seemingly more sense than a man. The saloon is the greatest foe to the spread of the gospel. In most cases the saloon-keeper knows quite well that he is a highway robber, that his business is ruining untold thousands of men, women and children, but as his so-called business is a legalized one, he may continue indirectly committing murder.

“Really I have more respect for the highwayman and robber than for a saloon-keeper. During my voluntary and involuntary observations in New York and elsewhere, I have come to the conclusion that Christ would conquer the world in much less time if only the awful saloon and dive could be eliminated.

“In my travels in this country and in the foreign countries, I have met many people who by word and deed were spreading the gospel. Some of them naturally inquired of me whether I had been converted. My answer was 'No,' because, as a matter of fact, I did not know the meaning of the word converted. I was told to seek Christ and the meaning would be made plain to me. Evidently I was not sufficiently willing to meet 66Christ half way, and thus I wasted years of my life before I finally submitted to the pleadings of the Saviour.

“While I was in the Philippine Islands, twelve years ago, I was deeply impressed with the different attitudes of the officers and enlisted men when on the firing line. It was plain, even to the casual observer, that the men who were thoroughly devout Christians—and there are many thousands of Christians in our army—were not afraid to face the bullets, but the men who were agnostics and unbelievers, whatever that may mean, were so nervous and excited that they hardly knew what they were doing, or they were downright cowards.

“In my own case I was not afraid of death, as I had given very little thought to such a possibility; besides I had become more or less indifferent to life and possible death. One hot summer day, while fighting the Filipinos, I was shot through the head. An army surgeon bandaged me up as best he could and then assured me I was very likely not to live through the day.

“If I ever got scared, it was then, and if ever I prayed, it was then, in spite of the excruciating pains I suffered. The words of a comrade, who was a fine soldier, though not a thorough Christian, uttered by him shortly before I was wounded, were constantly ringing in my ears, namely, 'A man may possibly live without Christ, but he cannot die without Christ.'

“For a month or so the doctors and nurses did not think I would live, but God spared my life, and no doubt for a purpose. For six months I was unable to utter a word, as the bullet had passed through my tongue. It was well for me I could not talk to any human being, but I could talk to God. During those months I lived my entire life over again. I promised God to become a 67better man. True, I became more earnest in my views of life, I realized the value of the golden rule, but I was not converted. I could not yet understand the meaning of the word.

“The Red Cross nurses, who at the beginning of the trouble in the Philippines were in charge of the hospital, were not only experts in their profession, but were splendid types of self-sacrificing Christians, and their presence alone made the patients think of their mothers or sisters or other dear ones at home, thousands of miles away, and thus unconsciously these nurses, noble representatives of womanhood, frequently wrought a change for the better in the hearts of the wounded soldiers.

“While I was a patient at Manilla I saw many a man pass out of this life. The man with Christ in his heart died with a smile on his lips, knowing he had done his duty and that Christ would meet him. The unbeliever suffered agonies.

“I was wounded almost twelve years ago, not a day has passed without my communicating with God, and God was always willing to talk with me, when I addressed Him. As a result of my experience in the Philippines I spent almost three years in the hospital. I thank God He made me suffer, it was the only possible way for me to find Him again. My conversion did not take place all at once, it took place gradually. God used different means and ways in recalling me. I cannot mention them here without baring my life to you, which may be of no interest to you. Let me assure you no man can succeed without Christ. A man may amass a fortune, but if he neglects his soul his life is of little value.

“Among the applicants at different missions, I have met men who claimed the good people in charge were 68nothing but hypocrites. It is certainly strange that those fellows apply to hypocrites for help. Why don't they go to the agnostic or to the unbeliever?

“Follow my advice, first seek Christ; He is always ready and willing to accept you; the rest is easy. A drunkard cannot become sober by taking the Keeley cure or anything like that. The desire for drink is often inherited, medicine will not cure the sufferer, only God's grace can cure him.

“Why is it that the man who lives with Christ is always happy, even under adverse circumstances, and the man without Him is, as a rule, nothing but an egotist? You can easily find the answer yourself. Come to Christ, and, if you are willing to come, why not now?”

CHAPTER VIII The Need of Rescue Work — CENTRAL BUREAU OF LABOR — FOR THE UNEMPLOYED — AN INCIDENT OF THE WINTER OF 1910 — THE HOLIDAYS — THANKSGIVING DAY AT THE MISSION OF 1910 — CHRISTMAS AT THE GOSPEL MISSION — NEW YEAR'S EVE — THE FORGER FROM NEW HAVEN

As early as the fall of 1909 we put out this call:

“The District of Columbia needs a Labor Bureau to which our Mission and the Associated Charities can send men and women out of employment. The Bureau, being a government affair, should know where labor is needed and should furnish transportation to such places, whether it be to the cotton fields of the South, the harvest fields of the West, or the manufactories of New England.

“Such a Bureau should secure from the railroads concessions, such as they give to immigrants, in sending our unemployed to the fields of labor.

“Unless Society, with a big 'S,' reaches a hand to the unemployed these people will surely become a menace to our great cities, and on some sad day they will dynamite our public buildings.

“We, who work among them, know their sorrow, their anguish, their despair, which will end in desperation, unless relief is furnished.

“Use your influence to secure a Central National Bureau of Labor for the unemployed. The strong and wealthy can care for themselves, but a good government should concern itself with its weaker members.”

The Survey (published in New York) is now (1913) steadily advocating something of this kind, and now Congress (October, 1913,) is considering the matter.

An organization or industrial army of the United States was provided for in a bill presented to the Senate by Senator Poindexter, upon the request of R. A. Dague, of Creston, Iowa. Eligible to membership in the army would be any unemployed man more than sixteen years old. The Secretary of Labor would be the recruiting officer, but an “industrial general,” at a salary of $250 a month, would command the forces. The army, according to the bill, would not bear side arms or fight bloody battles, but would be employed in labor at harbors, forts, government buildings, irrigation ditches, canals and other public works of the nation, state and municipality. Residents in the United States who become members would receive $2 a day, “together with board and lodging,” while those who have been in America less than five years would receive only $1.50. Foreigners who hereafter come to America would receive only 25 cents a day, which would be wrong. We expect from the United States government that ideal justice, even to a foreign workman, which we shall each receive when we stand in the presence of Eternal Justice.

All this shows that the idea of a Bureau of Labor which will help the laborer is steadily growing.

One day Mrs. Kline, the wife of the Superintendent of the Gospel Mission, phoned me, “We have a man here so covered with vermin that I cannot let him into the house, yet he seems to be an educated man. [This was at the Industrial Department on Fourteenth Street, before we had our new building.] What shall I do now?” “Call Donavan, Hall and Happy, and take him to the woodshed 71and have a tub of warm water; let the men give him a thorough bath, barber him and wrap him in blankets, till we can get clothes for him.” That was done. We found Taylor an educated man, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, the editor of a paper in a suburb of Philadelphia. He claimed that he had been “shanghaied,” that is, drugged and carried on board an oyster boat as a common laborer. He had gone to Baltimore to go on a drunk, hoping his friends would not find him out, but his Nemesis was there waiting for him.

He had been kept six weeks on the oyster boat, had been forced to bunk with negroes and common roustabouts. After he became sober, I fancy the owners of the boat saw that they had captured the wrong man, and would gladly have gotten rid of him. They did not dare approach land lest their entire crew escape; at last he was put aboard a passing boat and sent to Washington. He was over six feet high, of fine physique, about thirty-two years of age. We did not find it easy to get clothing suitable for such a person. The day came when he was able to attend the services at the Mission. He kneeled at the altar, and we hoped he was converted. We greatly wanted him to bring suit against the oyster men, but that would have made his case public, and he did not desire that. He readily secured a place on one of our city papers as the purveyor of automobile news, but when pay day came he got drunk and fell down the stairs and broke his arm. His system was in bad condition and he was obliged to go to the free ward of Providence Hospital. We now wrote to his family, and his mother came for him in a big touring car from Philadelphia and took him home, but the exposure and dissipation had done their perfect work, and he only lived a few months. He 72seemed, from all accounts, a truly penitent man, but only at the judgment day shall we know whether he entered into the rest prepared for the children of God only.

Another experience in the winter of 1911 gave us a still lower opinion of the oyster men of the lower Chesapeake Bay. Mr. Hall telephoned me, one cold slippery day, “Do come down at once, the oyster men are in. Mr. Kline is away, and the men are in bad condition.” I went at once. The halls were full of them; many had only overalls, shirt and shoes without stockings; they looked frozen. I ordered coffee and rolls at my expense till I could call help. I feared if I opened the clothing room they would raid it, so great were their needs.

It was too slippery for women to venture out, so I began phoning to members of the Lutheran Church whom I believed would come. One man in a bank said, “I am not a clerk. I can't go out this kind of weather for that class of men.” I replied, “I saw you at communion last Sunday, and I venture you promised your God to serve wherever you were needed; here is your first call.” “I shall come at once and bring three other members of the church with me.”

That winter the Luther Memorial Church, of Erie, Pa., had sent us a large box of men's clothing, every article mended, clean and in good condition, and just the week before a charitable organization, at Chevy Chase, Md., had sent us two large barrels of men's clothing, and a full half bushel of socks nicely darned and every article clean.

So we put trousers on one pile, coats on another, vests on another, underclothes on another, a churchman at each pile. I had charge of the socks, then Mr. Ifft, of the Luther Memorial Church, in the next room superintended 73the trying on, fitting and exchanging garments. As we handed each garment we said about this, “The ladies of the different churches send you these garments with their love and sympathy.” Many a poor fellow, all unused to blessing, said, “God bless the churches for remembering such as us.” In an hour's time we clothed over seventy-five men. A few did not need complete outfits. We never supposed we had that many garments on hand, but that day cleared out all we had in reserve.

Among these men were two Welsh boys, both Christians, not long in this country. They had not known the strength of American liquors (which were doubtless drugged); they were very contrite and were at once put to work, one as a furnaceman, the other in the wood yard. We hear the United States revenue cutters have been after the oyster men and shanghaiing is no longer a common crime.

When a friend looked in on that crowd of superior business men helping distribute clothing and saying words of consolation to the broken men, he said, “I believe in my soul you would order in the President of the United States to help at the Gospel Mission.” “Oh, no!” I replied, “President Taft, good man as he is, would not be permitted to drive so much as a tack at the Gospel Mission. He does not recognize Jesus as His Saviour; only orthodox Christians who can tell the sinner of the redeeming power of Jesus the Christ can successfully work in a rescue mission like this.”

are a sore trial to the homeless or to the recently bereaved. Often women of the highest social rank come to the Gospel Mission on Thanksgiving, Christmas and 74New Year's, when we give a good dinner to everyone who applies. (These women forget their own woes as they serve others.) The subjoined newspaper letter will give you a good picture of one such occasion:

“It is a very curious thing to say, that while I saw no relative of mine, being far separated from all of my kindred, while I had no time to accept the hospitality of friends, but ate my dinner at my boarding house, so as to be at the Mission for service, yet it was one of the happiest days of my life. It is wonderful the kindness God puts into the hearts of His people at this season. Not a member of the Mission has wealth, yet God gave us means through His children to feed between three and four hundred people. A little Ohio Joint Synod Lutheran church at Fulton, Md., sent us a dozen chickens, two bushels of potatoes, some fine apples, turnips, beets, cabbage, etc. We bought fifteen turkeys, a lot of hams, then the New Willard Hotel prepared our fowls and other meats, and the Raleigh Hotel prepared and cooked all our vegetables, adding enormous pans of baked beans, and all this they did free of charge.

“Bakers sent us bread and pies, florists sent us great quantities of flowers, so that we were able to feed all comers and send out a number of baskets to poor families. This was the bodily side; the spiritual side was even better.

“The services began at twelve o'clock noon, and lasted until ten at night, with a change of leaders, musicians and varying audiences each hour.

“Two boys, about sixteen and eighteen years old, had walked all the way from Richmond, Va. As they fed 75their famished bodies, one said, 'O Jim, did you ever before hear of such a place where one can really get all he wants to eat, can get a hot bath, can get one night's lodging all for nothing? I am so tired I just couldn't walk any more!'

“One man, about thirty years of age, simply prostrated himself at the altar, and cried aloud to God for pardon. After he rose he said about this, 'I came from the workhouse this morning an angry, outraged man, after thirty days' sentence. I felt my punishment was a great injustice. My hand was against every man, for I felt every man's hand was against me. I was ready for any crime. Someone met me and said, “Go to the Gospel Mission.” I answered, 'I prefer to go to the saloon and get drunk and forget for a few hours my sorrows and loneliness.' But the friend brought me here. You have given me a good dinner, but that is the least, you have reached the friendly hand. Brother Wheeler says I can make this my headquarters till I get work. I am a skilled mechanic, and I can soon get my place back again, and now I want to say God has forgiven me my sins, and they are so black and so many. I was a Christian in my early life, so I know what I am talking about when I promise my God and all you, my friends, that, God helping me, I, this day, take Christ for my Saviour and I will love and serve Him all the days of my life.' That of itself paid me for all I could do.

“From three to five people came to the altar for prayer each hour, and the last hour saw nine young men pleading for forgiveness, and promising a new life. In all, I should say, that about fifty people asked for prayers and twenty-five people sought pardon.

“We had a great singer, Mrs. Fitch, whose singing was 76greatly used of God to call men to repentance. Thanksgiving Day was a great day on earth, at the Gospel Mission, and a great day among the angels of heaven who saw sinners redeemed.”

of 1909 was described by the writer in the following sketch of the January, 1910, Gospel Tidings:

“Christmas at a mission takes on a great element of thanksgiving; first for the great gift of God—and no anthems sound so sweet, so deep, reaching into the deep places of the soul as, 'Now, when Jesus was born in Bethlehem.'

“The first thing on Christmas Day was to remember our brothers in bonds. Down at the barracks in the guard-house, we have two converted men. One a soldier whom we believe is receiving four times the punishment for neglect of target practice which he ought to receive; we can only counsel patience, comfort by our visits and send him a good dinner.

“Then a dear Jewish brother is there. He had been in the army two years ago, but he was baited, tormented and outraged in his poetic soul until he deserted. After that he was converted, and felt with us that he must go back and take whatever the United States had for him. One of our workers went with him to the Secretary of War, who said, 'Why, man, don't come to me; take a carriage for fear you be arrested on the street.' Mr. Ellison, our helper, took a carriage and went directly to the Commandant at the barracks. The Commandant said, 'We are sorry for Mr. L., but he will get two years in the penitentiary at hard labor.'

“Mr. Ellison said, 'Commander, this man is the servant 77of the living God; you will give to this Jew that mercy you yourself will at the last expect from the Judge of all the earth, who came to this world as a Jew.' Well, it would be a long story to tell of the court-martial, but, in answer to prayer, the Jew got only six months in the guard house, and that time will expire this month.

“Then two poor workmen are in the hospital, and four sinners who promised reformation in the workhouse, must have a remembrance. Kindness in shame often leads men to Christ.

“But the great event of the day was the service from twelve to one o'clock, followed by a dinner at which from two hundred to three hundred lonely men were fed. In the evening a service, at which the old, old story of love is told, heart-broken men are redeemed, and we all go home wondering at the never-ending miracle of the gospel, which takes tongues which blaspheme and makes them sing God's praises, feet that walk in the ways of sin and makes them run in the ways of righteousness, hands that steal and makes them do God's service. Oh, it is a wonderful gospel, and a wonderful Saviour!

“'O ye priests of the Lord, bless ye the Lord, praise and exalt Him above all forever. O ye servants of the Lord, bless ye the Lord, praise and exalt Him above all forever. O ye spirits and souls of the righteous, bless ye the Lord, praise and exalt Him above all forever. O ye that are holy and humble of heart, bless ye the Lord, and praise and exalt Him above all forever.'”

And New Year's at a Rescue Mission is an interesting time. Men have wandered the streets for a week, when it seemed to them every other human being on earth was 78happy but themselves; they see happiness in every passing face, they have caught glimpses of Christmas trees through open doors, they have sensed the appetizing smells of good dinners, they have witnessed at the railroad stations and even on the streets the reunion of families, they have heard the deep-toned organs from churches, they have heard the ragtime music of happy people about the home piano, and they only unloved, unloving, uncomforted, lonely men walk the lonely streets of our great cities.

Is it any wonder that memory calls up the time when they too were in happy homes, when mothers' arms encircled them, when a father's benediction was on their young heads, and, like the prodigal son, they say, “I will arise and go to my Father”?

Every one of them knows that sin is the cause of his downfall, and they also know that they must get right with God before they can forsake evil habits. Scarcely one of them but what has tried again and again to leave off their grosser sins but have failed, but when at the watch-night service they are told of a Saviour mighty to save, hope comes again to the broken-hearted.

I remember one occasion at the Breakfast Association, Philadelphia, at the twilight service, New Year's Eve, I saw five hundred men stand for prayer at one time. Our Mission is much smaller, but on New Year's Eve and during New Year's Day, when we have a continuous service from 12 o'clock midday to 9.30 P.M., with an entire change of leaders and musicians each hour, I have seen your nominal Christian, the toper, the criminal, all so overcome by the convicting power of the Holy Spirit that social differences melted away and they knelt side by side at the mercy seat; we have seen fifty people enter 79into covenant relations with God in that pivotal period of the year, and we have seen most of them keep the faith.

Think of a church holding a meeting nine and a half hours long; in most churches the pastor and the elders would have the last three hours or more all alone. But at the Mission the interest deepens so that it is hard to dismiss even at a late hour.

It was at one of those long services I saw a New England man brought under deep conviction, and at last yield to the Spirit, make confession and receive Christ.

It was about 4 P.M. when he arose to tell his story of sin. He said, “I have committed a crime against the State, and I want to know if I can be forgiven before that is made good. I want to see three members of the Board alone.” Three of the men went into consultation with him. It proved that he had forged a check at New Haven for $300, had collected the money and had escaped.

He was told, “God will forgive you now and undertake for you in case you promise full restitution.” He kneeled at the altar, began to pray out loud, promised restitution and promised to bear patiently any punishment the State demanded.

A worker was sent with him to New Haven. He went first to his own father, who said, “John, I never want to see your face here; you had no business to come back, for you will be sent to prison and disgrace us all.” “But, father, I am converted, I mean to take my punishment, then live a true man ever after.” “Oh! that is different; in that case, I will help you all I can.”

80They went at once to the man whose name had been forged. They found him very bitter at first, but when John told his story of how ashamed and sorry he was, and added, “I have come back to take my punishment, then I want to be a good man and a good citizen all the rest of my life.” At this point the father said, “Mr. Percy, I will gladly pay back the $300 and interest if you think you can forgive John.” That was done and the prosecution withdrawn.

The episode had a little after-clap. John came back to Washington, and came at once to the writer. He said, “Mrs. Monroe, I want you to ask Miss Stanislaus if she will marry me.” “Why, ask her yourself, man; I am not in practice in handling love matters.” “No, you see my red head and freckled face and freckled hands make me so homely I am afraid to ask. Do see her for me.” This I did. She accepted him, and he obtained a situation in the mountains of North Carolina as a school teacher. He preaches on Sunday and they both teach all week and seem to be doing good work.

The Gospel Tidings, of December, 1910, had this notice:

WHAT WILL YOU DO, FELLOW-CHRISTIANS?

“Eleven men, cold, hungry and friendless, the night of December 5, said, 'Mr. Kline, for God's sake, give us work!' He replied, 'We do not have the work to give until we get wood-cutting machines.' Mrs. Monroe said, 'I shall trust God's people to help me on that, even though the horse and wagon are not yet paid for.' So she personally took the risk of the 50 needed to put in the machinery. Her friends will remember that a great fire three years ago not only destroyed her property, but also her means of making money.

10 AND 15 CENT DORMITORIES

81“'Blessed is he that considereth the poor, the Lord will deliver him in the time of trouble.'

“The Gospel Mission Board feel that when the necessities of men are so great as in this call that it is God's call to help by giving them means to help themselves. Maybe in these suffering men your Saviour passes by.”

The Christian people of Washington made a generous response to that call, and by the next issue of the Tidings we announced that we could give fifty cents a day for six hours' work, leaving time to hunt a better place, and yet pay lodgings and food.

The October Tidings of 1910 said:

“What is the most important question now in Washington? From our standpoint it is the care of the unfortunate and the sinful. Why? In order to protect your home. When a man walks the streets hungry, cold and friendless, and looks through the window of your happy home and he sees you surrounded with the comforts he lacks, do you know you are in danger? Unless the unfortunate are comforted, they will surely dynamite our great cities.

“The Gospel Mission stands between you and this danger. We make these sons of sorrow realize that they need be only temporarily sidetracked from the great highway of success, that the grace of God, their renewed will power and our friendly hand may yet restore them to home, friends and society, and make them useful men.”

CHAPTER IX The Penny Lunch and Free Dispensary — PENNY LUNCH — WHAT DR. HALLIMOND, OF THE NEW YORK BOWERY MISSION, SAYS ABOUT THE BREAD LINE — THE DISPENSARY — GOSPEL MISSION DISPENSARY

The following is a letter written by Mr. George W. Wheeler, which was published in our Gospel Tidings, of February, 1911:

“In an experience of twenty-six years in active, earnest, aggressive Rescue Mission work in this city, the writer cannot recall that any line of secular work taken up for the amelioration of the poor has ever called forth such universal expressions of interest, sympathy and co-operation as the 'Penny Lunch and Newsboys' Waiting Room,' opened by the Gospel Mission, at 304 Fourteenth Street, on Saturday, February 4. The city papers published pictures of the interior and exterior, and a portrait of our Superintendent, Mr. Kline, and were most generous in their endorsement of the enterprise, while the New York Times and other papers spread the news far and wide that the cost of living had been solved in Washington by the Gospel Mission 'Penny Lunch.'

“The opening of this lunch-room was made possible by a noble Christian woman of wealth, who was born, reared and now resides in this city. Her interest was aroused by reading a statement of the work and needs of the Gospel Mission, prepared by our Superintendent, and she came to see about the matter, learned its approximate cost, and sent a check to pay the expenses.

“For two weeks or more Mr. Kline and his assistants were busy papering, painting, etc., and finally the steam 83table and coffee urns, with many other essentials of a twentieth century up-to-date lunch-room were installed and the doors were opened to a waiting crowd. Mrs. Kline oversees the cooking, and everything is as clean and neat as in one's home.

“The menu consists of the following articles: Coffee, 1 penny; bread or rolls, 1 penny; beans, 1 penny; doughnuts, 1 penny; sour, 1 penny; beef stew, 3 pennies; one-half pie, 3 pennies. A lunch, consisting of soup, meat, vegetables, bread and coffee, 5 cents. This brings a well-cooked, clean, nourishing meal within the reach of all who have any income whatever.

“It was amusing to see the class of men and boys who came to have their appetites satisfied at the lowest cost. Newsboys, messenger boys, laboring men, teamsters, and all kinds of indescribables came, and they appeared greatly surprised to find such an attractive room with all the 'latest improvements' found in a lunch-room. And how they did eat! A big soup plate filled to the brim with bean soup, a big china cup filled with steaming hot coffee, a big brown roll or three slices of Corby's 'Mother's Bread.' These were good, and 'mighty filling at the price.'

“Well, the 'Penny Lunch' is launched, and whether the prices charged will pay the cost of the material, cooking and serving, or not, we feel certain that any little deficiency that may occur will be cheerfully met by the well-to-do of our community.

“A coffee-roasting firm has pledged five pounds of good coffee each week for use at the 'Penny Lunch' room, and we are sure dealers in other lines will be glad to assist. Corby Brothers have been furnishing from fifty to seventy-five loaves of bread for our 'bread line' for 84many months, and Browning & Baines, coffee dealers, have supplied six pounds of coffee a week for a long time past.

“We greatly appreciate the generous co-operation of all these dear friends, who help us to help others to help themselves.”

The benefits of the Penny Lunch can never be told till the books of eternity are opened, but some idea may be gathered when we state that the report of the bread line from May 12, 1911, to May 12, 1912, was 41,750, but the report from May 12, 1912, to May 12, 1913, was 18,950. The Bread Line is the name of a service at 6 A.M., the year round, when bread and black coffee is served to all who come for it. If people will come before daylight in the winter, or at that early hour in the summer for coffee, without cream or sugar, and a quarter of a loaf of bread, we believe they need it, and we gladly give it, not as a charity, but as a visible token of our sympathy. Now, the fact that 22,800 fewer people took bread and coffee free in the year 1912 to 1913, compared with the preceding year, can only be accounted for that when a man has a few pennies in his pocket he could buy a satisfactory breakfast, and gladly did so rather than to line up for an unrequited kindness.

How shamed many men were to take food in the bread line, but the loving word sweetened many a bitter cup. Once a hand so unusually white and well-kept reached for the cup of coffee. Mrs. Kline looked up and saw the face of a man who had been a minister of the gospel. She said, “Brother, take only the coffee, we want you to take breakfast at our family table this morning.” He sat down to drink the coffee with bitter tears coursing down 85his shamed face. Of course, every kindness was shown him, “for need has its right, and necessity its claim,” then the blessed Spirit came in and lo, he prayed, and God received back to a useful life a man who had found sorrow and sin bitter and the tears of remorse salt.

“There are in the Bowery men who never sleep in a lodging house because they have not the price, and they get their bed either by stealing or begging, and eat out of the garbage boxes. You who have never been to the Bowery know nothing of the agony or remorse that these men feel. Now, what are we to do with them? There is not anybody to look after them but us. Oh, the horrors of the homeless man! It is the many little comforts that go to make our comfortable life. They cannot keep clean. They cannot brush their clothes or comb their hair, they cannot take their shoes off their poor tired feet. These men gather there in the great meetings, and among them are many that are in the last stages of physical weakness. Many of them ought to be in the hospital instead of walking the street day and night. Many of them are dying of hunger. Sometimes we cannot get men to understand that we have people in our meetings that are dying of hunger. I am not using any figure of speech. It is not an unheard-of thing for men to drop dead in our meetings. That is why we have the 'bread line.' We dare not fail to help these people. People sometimes come to us with the very best of intentions, talking to us of the sin of indiscriminate charity; but, bless your life! is not God indiscriminate, for does not He cause the rain to fall on the just and unjust? Did Jesus Christ ever go through 86the hungry crowds and find out who was worthy and who was unworthy? Did He not spend His life to help just such men? These dear people some of them are spending seventy-five cents to find out where the other twenty-five cents is to go. I have made up my mind that if I ever find a man dying on my doorstep of hunger, and I can do anything to save him, I am going to do it, whether he deserves it or whether he does not.

“That is the origin of our bread line about which you have heard so much. We cannot help but have a bread line. In fact, I refuse to allow our work to be called a charity. It is not a charity, it is brotherly kindness. It is not a charity, but a kind hospitality, just a little evidence, just a little token, that there is somebody who cares for their poor weary hearts which these destitute brothers of ours possess. As long as the bread line exists, and God helping, it shall exist as long as there is need for it, people must know that there is something wrong with our social system, a problem that we cannot solve but that is up to the politician. As long as we are in this great, rich country with all the extravagances of wealth, then the bread line shall tell that there is something wrong, and that our Declaration of Independence, declaring, as it does, for 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,' is but a delusion and a snare.”

This seems a long interlude to the Penny Lunch chapter, but you can see the lunch counter where five cents can buy beans, bread and coffee, saves many a man from feeling that he takes charity. The bread line was instituted to fortify a man's stomach against needing to go to the saloon in the morning for the free lunch, also to give strength to a poor fellow so he could search for work.

87The bread line food given each morning will not of itself sustain life, as we found out to our sorrow. One Tuesday night, as the writer entered the Mission for the purpose of conducting the service, I found the men at the door excited. On inquiry, I found a man lying on the front seat dying. The Emergency Hospital ambulance had already been called. I found a man who twenty years ago had been a leading patent attorney of this city. I saw the soul was about to depart. I said, “Mr. West, say, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.'” “No, I have lived wicked, I shall die wicked.” “O son, say, 'Lord Jesus, forgive me.'” “Too late, too late; I have heard you all, night after night, and I have rejected Christ. I must die as I have lived.”

I motioned the choir to sing softly, “Jesus receiveth sinful men.” I bent over him, urging repentance; the ambulance men were at my side, they picked him up and laid him carefully on the stretcher. I said, “Dear Mr. West, we are praying for you, pray for yourself.” I kept my hand tenderly on his head as the stretcher was slowly carried out, but he continued to say, “Too late, too late for me.”

He died within an hour, and the post-mortem showed he had died of inanition caused by slow starvation. We found he had tried to live on the bread and coffee of the bread line alone; he was too poor to buy food, too proud to tell his needs, and we were too stupid and too busy to realize his awful need. We thereby learned a good lesson, and the Superintendent and helpers now all look more carefully after the man who sits down claiming either exhaustion or sickness.

No man, woman or child is ever refused food because without money, but if a man can buy whisky, we think 88he ought to be able to buy food, though even then we look after him.

We cannot leave the granting of food to employees, so when the Superintendent and his wife are absent we have some pathetic cases. Mr. Gordon found a little fellow crying at the door. “What is the matter, little man?” said the big man. “Mother gave me ten cents to buy food for our family, and I have lost the money.” You may be sure Mr. Gordon obtained much more than ten cents' worth of food for the child. Very many families live in one furnished room and get all their food at the penny lunch counter. Seamstresses, all the dollar a day men for many squares, girls from the Agricultural Seed Bureau, come in and buy at cost the luncheon at the middle of the day. Many well-to-do people come in and take luncheon to watch the various grades of humanity who solve the cost of high living by taking meals at the Mission. All the street peddlers, the umbrella man, the shoestring and pencil man, the rag gatherers, eat at the counter, the better class sit at the tables.

Mr. Gordon saw a little altercation between a waiter and a customer, the waiter demanding four cents while the man had but three cents. “But you should not have ordered food unless you could pay for it.” The poor man looked dreadfully embarrassed, at last he looked up and said, “Will you lend me a cent, sir?” which was gladly done.

Many who come only for the cheap meal are induced by the kindness shown and by the good music and bright lights in the chapel, to go in to the services. There some song, some word from the speaker, some devout prayer, touches the chord of memory of what a mother, a faithful teacher or almost forgotten preacher has taught years 89ago, and, backed by the Holy Spirit, a prodigal son or a prodigal daughter returns to the Father's house.

Mr. Kline reports the meals furnished in the Penny Lunch Room from May 12, 1912, to May, 1913, to be 87,856, at an average cost of four and one-third cents per meal.

was opened February 1, 1912, after the need was very apparent, and further neglect of this branch of work seemed impossible.

Never will I forget the day when I first called up Dr. C. H. Bowker, one of the leading physicians of the city, living on Massachusetts Avenue, near Thomas Circle, the very heart of the city, and told him of a man who had pneumonia, and of a woman in the shelter with a severe cold, and asked him to go to the Mission free of charge. I waited with bated breath for the reply. It was, “I am an exceedingly busy man, but I shall try to go within an hour.” Very much emboldened, I said, “Could you stop in once a day to see if anyone there has a contagious disease, or if anyone should be sent immediately to the hospital?”

The answer seemed very slow, and I fairly trembled, for our need was so great. At last he said, “Well, I have noticed if I put a duty on my daily program, I manage in some way to get it in.” From that day to this that blessed doctor has been at the beck and call of the Mission day and night; only God knows what a help and a comfort he has been to broken men and sorrowful women in that part of the city.

The February Gospel Tidings, of 1912, had the following:

“For several months we have had a house physician, and the use and need for him has steadily increased. The establishment of regular hours at which patients could see the doctor, and a proper place for consultation, naturally suggested the establishment of a dispensary. This appeared feasible to the Executive Committee, and Mrs. Monroe, Superintendent Kline and Dr. Bowker were appointed a committee to study the advisability of such an addition to our work. The report from this committee was favorable to the project, and active steps were at once taken to the establishment of a free general dispensary for the treatment of all classes of cases, or their reference, where necessary, to special institutions.

“The location of the Mission for dispensary work could not be better from any point of view. It is accessible to the hundreds needing its help. There is no conflict in its field by any other institution doing this class of work. Four rooms on the first floor of the Mission, with the chapel for a waiting-room, will serve admirably for dispensary needs at present. And these rooms are rapidly being put in shape by carpenters and painters. Shelves are being made for the pharmacy, a door cut through the partition, and running water is to be installed.

“Our printing plant will again demonstrate its usefulness by furnishing the necessary record blanks, labels, treatment cards, etc.

“The Executive Committee has placed Dr. Charles Harvey Bowker, 1204 Massachusetts Avenue, in full charge of the Gospel Mission Dispensary, and he will have associated with him at first Dr. O. C. Cox, 1320 Eleventh Street, N. W. A number of leading physicians 91and surgeons have evinced an interest and willingness to give their services, and Dr. Bowker will add them to the dispensary staff and assign them work as the clinic grows and they are needed.

“Dr. Bowker's experience in managing a hospital in his home city, and his hospital and dispensary work in Washington, assure us a businesslike management of this new branch of our work.

“Our need at present is for drugs and surgical dressing, and it is hoped that the druggists of the city may contribute.

“The dispensary opened Thursday, February 1, 1912, at 10 A.M., which will be the regular daily hour, and all those who are interested are invited to inspect the new rooms.”

You notice that we opened February 1, 1912, and our annual report in May Tidings, 1913, shows the following:

The dispensary is in need of a sterilizer and a special fund for medical supplies for those too poor to pay.

The sterilizer later was the gift of Dr. Jesse Ramsburgh, and we have a complete set of lenses for testing the eyes of school children.

It would break your heart to see the women with babies, the aged on crutches, the hosts of children, the aged victims of every vice, now broken and often repentant, seek the aid of these good men. Often we run short of remedies. “What do they do then?” you ask. Well, they simply go down in their own pockets and buy the necessities, and no one is turned empty away.

Think of a procession of sick and needy persons, 2500 human beings in line, and you will see in your mind what that blessed dispensary has done for the sorrowful of this city in one year.

I wish I dare to tell you the particulars of one of these great physicians who had not been living close to God, seeing our work of faith, seeing how the Mission people lay their many needs before a patient God, who meets every demand in answer to their prayer, and possibly feeling that in a mission he could not minister to a mind diseased without himself being in touch with the living God, was led to revise his views, make public confession of his faith and enlist in God's organized method of 93evangelizing the world by joining the church. We all need God, but the hand that reaches down to help sinful men must have the other hand clasped close in God's strong hand if he would do effective work.

CHAPTER X The Power of the Gospel — THE CASE OF MR. ABBOTT — THE PSYCHOLOGY — RELIGION WITH THE DEFECTIVE DELINQUENT

St. Paul says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation.”

Yes, the gospel is the power. The soul is as dead as a street car with the power gone, till it is touched by that special power. I could kneel at the side of a sinner and quote the very best things of Shakespeare or Milton, and the soul would step to no higher ground; but when the right verse of God's word is shown with the New Testament in hand, and the Holy Spirit makes that soul see that the passage before him is God's recorded wireless message for his soul alone, the power comes on and that verse again proves true, “But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name,” and a soul is born into the kingdom of God. Dan Crawford, the great missionary to Africa, says not Livingstone, not Taylor, not Dan Crawford, are the real pioneer missionaries, but the Spirit of God Himself, and when the word is brought to a prepared soul it is a spark of powder. He tells of one besotted Negro who read John's Gospel. The Negro said, “I was startled that Christ could speak Chulba; I heard Him speak out of the printed page, and what He said to me was, 'Follow me.'” Mr. Crawford says, “When the guncotton of John's Gospel came in contact with the tinder of his rebellion, he was literally exploded into the kingdom,” and by continuing to study St. John's 95Gospel the transforming power of the gospel made him a good earnest Christian man, fit for the companionship of good people.

At a rescue mission we have such scenes almost every night of the year. In our case it is usually the word first implanted in the human heart either at a mother's knee or by some Sunday school teacher, or by a faithful preacher in early life, then the very room of the Mission is filled with the Holy Spirit in answer to the prayers of God's people. Now, when a heart-broken, world-buffeted sinner comes into the room, the words or music of some song, or the presentation of God's word, is used by God's Spirit to bring to memory all the sinner has known of these things; he hears redeemed men tell how God cured them of lust, of alcoholism, of gambling, of profane language, of all sin; he sees these men well clothed, radiantly happy, and sees and feels his own degradation; is it any wonder he drops on his knees and cries out, “Men and brethren, what shall I do to be saved”? When he wants God more than he wants deliverance from his besetting sin, when he wants God more than he wants his deserted wife and children, when he wants God for what God can do for his poor soul, the God of his soul comes down, and at that second the soul passes from death unto life eternal, for that soul the decisions of the judgment day have been settled, for Jesus said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my words and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life.”

That verse comprehended and lived has power enough to carry a soul through all besetments into the very presence of God.

During the winter of 1910, there came into the Gospel Mission a man, ragged, soiled, blear-eyed, doped and utterly down and out; he came only for the coffee and rolls given Sunday night. Before coming up the steps he had said to a friend, “I don't want to hear any of their blank sermons, but I am starving.” He heard no sermon, instead he received a warm hand-shake, he heard bright singing, but, best of all, he heard redeemed men tell how God had saved them from the alcohol habit, till he cried out, “If God has power to save me from the sin of drink, I want God!” He kneeled and poured out his soul in prayer. As soon as he began to pray aloud, we saw he was an educated man. The Spirit came upon him in great power, he really had the searchlight of God on his soul, and he saw himself for a short time as God saw him. Then God forgave him, he rose justified, strong, happy, a new man in Christ Jesus. The Mission gave him a bed for the night, and the next morning this man, who had not worked or desired work for two years, begged that we should find a place for him to earn his way. He obtained a situation to solicit business for a laundry, about as hard work as one can imagine, but he made good, and in six months he was made foreman of the laundry in which he was employed. He modernized its methods and doubled its business by the end of the year, and the company made him a present of five hundred shares of stock and elected him president of the company. Then he received $3000 a year salary, besides his percentage of all gains made by the house. His friends claim his income is now about $5000 a year. In the meantime, after he had been redeemed, probably four months, his wife, a most beautiful and accomplished Philadelphia woman, brought their lovely son, aged about eight, and they began housekeeping again. The home has given needed physical comfort, the companionship has given the mental and the spiritual help needed to make this former tramp into a first-class citizen. At night, during the last winter, he has been studying law in one of the university law schools, and on Sunday he acts as usher and vestryman in one of the largest Protestant Episcopal churches. As a child he had been a choir boy in a church in Philadelphia. Doubtless the knowledge gained there as a child made him able to understand his duty to God and man after his conversion better far than an ignorant, uninstructed person could have done after months of instruction.

CHILDREN OF ALL NATIONS

SETTLEMENT HOUSE

of just this case is worth considering. This man was spiritually dead, so far as we could see. He did not desire to live. The people of the Mission had been more or less in prayer from three o'clock to eight when this man came in. He saw religion in action in the person and speech of redeemed men. But even if these testimonies were factors it was the Holy Spirit that did the work. It was the divine spark to human tinder, or, as Henry Drummond better puts it, “The spiritual world reached down and carried this worldly soul into the world above it.” “He that hath the Son hath life, he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” Life depends upon contact with life, it cannot develop out of anything that is not life.

Even as the physiologist cannot explain how the human seed generates in a human body eventually becoming a new-born man child, neither can theology fully explain 98how the Holy Spirit can touch a human soul out of which will be born another soul in the same body with marks of its divine parentage in every line, or, as St. Paul says, a new creature in Christ Jesus.

I heard a distinguished man who had long been in official connection with prisons and reformatories, say, “A reformed man is always in danger; he may stand twenty years and then fall back into sin, but a regenerated man is as safe from his sinful besetments as if they had not been the weakness of his life.”

I fancy I can hear some preacher say, “If it is the word and the Holy Spirit do the work, why does not the church have as many conversions as a mission?” The very first element of spiritual power is lacking in most churches. If the preacher, the official members, then every member of the church first sought God's special blessing in private, then came together offering first praise, then united prayer to God from the very depths of their hearts, there would be conversions every Sunday in every church.

Spurgeon and Moody expected conversions every Sunday, and they had them.

In presenting a soul to Christ no perfunctory Christian can do it and have that soul received. To present a person to the King of England, let us say, the presenter needs to be acquainted with the king; so a person unacquainted with God has no power at the throne; he even impedes the soul coming into the light. I have seen many a dancing, card-playing Christian at the side of the penitent, praying earnestly, then rise baffled, troubled, helpless; not able to reach the throne, they had no access to God.

Often people from the States write me to present such 99and such a paper in person to the President of the United States. I am obliged to reply, “I have no access to the President of the United States,” but I daily thank God that I have access to the throne, for I am acquainted with God.

I venture to take the two following short articles from the November numbers of 1913 of the Survey, the most valuable weekly magazine which comes to my desk on all social questions:

“Jeff is a white boy sixteen years old. I am estimating this, as Jeff says he doesn't know how old he is and doesn't know his surname. He has every appearance of being a little less than half witted.

“I found Jeff this morning working, with two other white boys and ten or twelve Negro boys, as an inmate of the County Workhouse. He was carrying stone on a public hitch-lot. One of the white boys and two of the Negro boys were in chains.

“Jeff has been in the workhouse for sixty days. He was placed there for beating a ride on a railroad train. Next Monday Jeff will be released. He will have not a cent to his name, not very good clothes, not a relative in the country, no place to sleep and nothing to eat.

“I have put this predicament before our city inter-church organization, and we have seen no solution. About the best thing we can see for this half-witted boy is that he will do something that will again bring him within the clutches of the law in order that he may be immediately sent back to the workhouse. At the age of sixteen he is 100a human derelict, yet he has capacity to work, to love, to respect, to enjoy, and to feel sorrow.

“There is another mentally weak boy in this same gang. If we knew what to do with Jeff we might be able to do more for the other one. What do you suggest?”—W. H. Swift, Greensboro, N. C.

“'What about Jeff?' was shown to a New York settlement worker. 'Print it,' he said, 'in the hope that someone may stir up the inter-church organizations of Greensboro to find another solution. The question is: What about that organization? rather than poor Jeff. He is a victim of wrong social conditions, plus his weak head; but if there is no one in his neighborhood who can see any other solution than the workhouse for a lad who has the “capacity to work, to love, to respect, to enjoy and to feel sorrow,” then I suggest that the community is worse off, a good deal, than poor Jeff. To begin with, why don't the inter-church organization take him under its own wing?'

“Now, it would be very easy for the inter-church organization of Greensboro to take care of Jeff if there were only one of him. Unfortunately, there are many hundreds of him. How many of the boys of sixteen sent to the island from the New York City courts are of Jeff's class? Nobody knows for certain, because nobody tries to find out. Those of us who have lived for years among defectives and have visited reform schools know that the number is large. Yet the inter-church organizations of New York City do not take them under their wings.

“The proportion of the feeble-minded Jeffs in various 101reformatories has been to range from twenty to fifty per cent of all the inmates. Every intelligent worker with prisoners knows there are many weak-minded among them; yet the usual method of treating the defective-delinquent (and every defective is a potential delinquent) throughout the United States is to do with them just what our Greensboro friend hopes to do with Jeff—send him to the workhouse as soon as he commits his next petty crime. And we keep on doing it over and over and over again.

“Meanwhile the proper method with the Jeffs and the Sues is so simple and plain, so patently economical in this generation, and so tremendously profitable for the next, that its very simplicity makes it neglected. The colony at Templeton, Mass.; the one just organized at Menantico, N. J.; the farm colonies at Fort Wayne, Ind.; Lincoln, Ill.; Faribault, Minn.; Columbus, Ohio; and Letchworth Village, N. Y., all point the way with greater or less success.

“Yet Letchworth Village was enacted by the legislature of New York nearly five years ago. Its first commission reported 29,000 suitable inmates pressing for care. To-day it has only 100 inmates; and the Inter-church Federation says nothing.

“It is not worth while to get all stirred up and excited about Jeffs in North Carolina. What have we to say about the defectives in jails, workhouses, penitentiaries, reformatories, and prisons under our noses in New York? Is our beam so big that we cannot see it?”—Alexander Johnson, Director Department of Extension, Vineland, N. J.

Now, that was the churches' opportunity. Federation 102work should see that a religious school should be started in each community for its Jeffs and Sues. A city rescue mission could easily find work for Jeff.

I saw a Jeff come into the Sunday school of my own church. He was a great lumbering chap of eighteen years of age, he was not quite clean, there was the odor of the unwashed about him. He immediately went to the class of about thirty young men of his own age. I was gratified to see that youth seek the society of the church people rather than the saloon, but he was not welcome with the young men. The teacher visited his home, there was no help to be expected from the home, so the teacher, or the class, whether by actual request or by treatment, caused Jeff to stay away. Now, in the great day of accounts, of whom will that soul be required? If the defective intellect, what there is of it, can be turned to believe God, the defective is prevented from becoming a criminal. We have them at the Gospel Mission. The very first thing is to have the physician talk to Jeff of the sacredness of his own body to absolutely prevent all secret habits which injure the body and brain, and the motive of self-restraint both for physical habits and for drink must be that these things offend a loving Saviour who walks with each one of us.

Each year I meet Dr. H. M. Freas, of Philadelphia, at Northfield. His work as a physician frequently takes him to the asylum for the insane. He feels most keenly that these institutions should be in the hands of Christian people only. Many a brilliant intellect could be restored to perfect sanity if the loving care of some saintly Protestant sisterhood or brotherhood were in charge to bring the human love, which even the sanest of us need, to bear on the tottering brain. These human deficients are 103found in the public schools; as soon as discovered they should be transferred to a religious school where they can be scientifically studied, what intellect they have developed, and the religious side of each one fostered. If then they are found permanently deficient, especially in the moral sense, or in physical self-control, then they should be segregated on farms for the sake of the race. People of deficient brains become fanatics; now, if these unbalanced people become filled with an enthusiasm of righteousness they absolutely do much good. They constitute three-fourths of the street preachers, and they reach many a soul who never enters a church. Religion prevents insanity. There is no doubt that fanaticism run riot leads to the asylum. We had one man who was insufficiently fed, badly clothed, who spent the entire night in prayer, two or three nights of the week. Of course, he was brought up in the insane asylum, but when he had food enough at the asylum where he was not permitted to pray aloud, he soon became normal, and was set free. It taught him a needed lesson.

But religion sustains us through the breaking ties of life, through the loss of fortune, through the defection of friends, through blasted hopes, through the anguish of children going wrong, and their punishment by the State which follows.

Religion holds many a woman whose son is a wanderer, either criminal or otherwise, from insanity. I know a woman who has not looked into the face of her wandering son for six years. She stands up and sings with radiant face, “I am going through whatever others do, I am going through with Jesus,” and in spite of what looks an unbearable sorrow, leads a useful and apparently happy life. A mission is a blessed thing for enthusiasts. 104It sends them with flowers and literature to hospitals and jails, it sends food to private families in need, it gives the enthusiasts tracts to distribute, it puts musical instruments into their hands and says, “Praise the Lord with pleasant sounds,” it sets women to repairing clothing for the poor, to caring for little children, while mothers earn money for food. As we do these things we talk religion, we tell of Jesus, the friend of sinners, we make a steady effort in very many directions to have each soul brought into harmony with God. In almost every instance where sorrow in a family has been the result of sin; and Jesus is allowed to become to each of them a personal Saviour; the home is electrified by a new enthusiasm; the parents become efficient, self-supporting, happy; the children become self-respecting; are taken from the class needing help; and become helpers. Religion eases the burden of life and heals the welts of adversity.

We have in Washington a club known as “The Monday Evening Club,” a clearing house for all forms of philanthropy. At the different banquets and at their monthly meetings all forms of reforms, from purely a humanitarian standpoint, are discussed, but we, who go at the open sores of the world with the only sure cure earth has yet received, the religion of Jesus Christ, we receive no recognition, we are given no hearing at banquets, and are never spoken of as part of the city's force for betterment, yet we comfort the prisoner, we bring hope to the hopeless, and we are the real protection of the city. No hungry man is turned from our door unsatisfied. A hungry man is a danger, a man with a hungry family is a menace. He will get food even if it costs a life to obtain it. Like Him whom we serve we are rejected 105of men. We work amid the social dynamite of a great city. Unless the religious part of this nation assumes its rightful place as arbiter in all labor troubles, saying to the rich man, “Thou shalt not defraud,” and to the poor man, “Thou shalt do no violence”; unless Christian people see to it that remunerative labor can be had by every person willing to work; unless Christian people close the saloons (the author of seventy-five per cent of the sufferings of the poor), on some sad day our great cities will be systematically dynamited. As Christians we must go down among them and make the broken man feel that he is only temporarily sidetracked from the great highway of success. That the grace of God and his own will can and will bring him back to the great highway of prosperity.

The Church is waking up to its full duty in social service. Bishop Simpson, even in his day, eloquently described the mission of the Church in the world: “The Church must grope her way into the alleys and courts and purlieus of the city, and up the broken staircase, and into the bare room and beside the loathsome sufferer; she must go down into the pit with the miner, into the forecastle with the sailor, into the tent with the soldier, into the shop with the mechanic, into the factory with the operative, into the field with the farmer, into the counting-room with the merchant. Like the air, the Church must press equally on all the surfaces of society; like the sea, flow into every nook of the shoreline of humanity, and, like the sun, shine on things foul and low, as well as fair and high, for she was organized, commissioned and equipped for the moral renovation of the world.”

In closing this chapter we cannot do better than to quote from the fourth volume of the Jewish Encyclopedia, 106which pays this remarkable tribute to Christianity:

“Christianity, following the matchless ideals of its Christ, redeemed the despised and outcast, and ennobled suffering. It checked infanticide, and founded asylums for the young. It removed the curse of slavery by making the humblest bondsmen proud of being a child of God. It fought against the cruelties of the arena, it invested the home with purity and proclaimed the value of each human soul as a treasure in the eyes of God, and it so leavens the great masses of the empire as to render the cross of Christ the sign of victory for its legions in place of the Roman eagle.

“The Galilean entered the world as a conqueror. The Church became the educator of pagan nations; and one race after another was brought under her tutorship. The Latin races were followed by the Celt, the Teuton and the Slav. The same burning enthusiasm which sent forth the first Apostles, also set the missionaries aglow, and brought all Europe and Africa, and finally the American continent, under the scepter of an omnipotent Church. Christianity is not an end, but the means to an end, the establishment of the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God.”

CHAPTER XI Hereditary Sin — HEREDITY — MR. KLINE'S TESTIMONY — EMOTION IN RELIGION

It was an exceedingly cold night when Jake Grossman burst into the mission, having on the apparel of a hotel cook. He did not take a seat, but marched to the front and prostrated himself at the altar, crying, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” In such cases, no difference what we are doing, all formal program is suspended and we go at once to prayer. Jake was in deep earnest, men and women acquainted with God kneeled all about him, presenting his case to the Saviour of men. We did not then know his special need, but a soul in the depth of conviction wanted God, not for one sin, but he needed cleansing from all the sins of his past life. It must have been an hour before that soul received light. The choir had sung softly, “I'm coming home to-night,” and like melodies; others had come to the altar, been forgiven and gone to their seats, when Jake Grossman rose to his feet and rejoiced that he had found peace and pardon through the blood of Christ.

We found afterwards that Grossman was the son of the great Swiss engineer, who had planned the great tunnel through the Alps, whose genius had built bridges over roaring, impassable canyons, who had planned the electric roads in all parts of Switzerland, until he was wined and dined by scientists not only in his own country but in many countries, so that he had acquired the alcoholic habit, after which his brain became sluggish and at last he fell from his high estate, became a common drunkard 108and died poor. The memory of the wicked shall perish.

While he was yet prosperous, using expensive wines, his only legitimate son was born. The mother noticed that, as a child of six or seven, Jake wanted a sip every time wine was used on the table; by twelve he could drink a large glass of wine and not show drunkenness. By his twentieth year Jake was a drunkard, the father dead, the mother poor and heart-broken. Friends and relatives all advised sending Jake to America, where wine is not used on the table, and also to get Jake away from old companions.

He came with letters to good people, but alcoholism is not baffled by change of location. His money gave out, the people to whom he had been introduced refused to receive him. Fortunately his mother had taught him to cook, so he obtained a place as an assistant cook in a Washington hotel; later he developed into a first-class chef. When he came to the Mission he had been discharged for drunkenness, and now, being a redeemed man, he went back to the hotel, gave up his white clothing, gathered up his belongings, and sought other work.

That was five years ago. Jake has often been asked by the hotels of this city to cook for them at a salary of $100 or more a month, but Jake daily prays, “Lead us not into temptation,” and he does not knowingly walk into it. He shovels coal at a wage of $10 per week. He says, “You see, it keeps me in the open air; I do not have to taste wine or smell it; I get black on the outside, but I keep white within, which was more than I did as a cook.”

All the heroes are not in high places. “He that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city.” We believe God cleansed Jake Grossman from inherited sin.

I see that scientists are now claiming that a tendency to use alcohol is not hereditary. We who work among alcoholics know that it is. God says that the sins of the fathers shall be visited on the children unto the third and fourth generation, and they are. God gives a high premium for virtue to all who would take the responsibility of bringing another life into the world.

I remember a man converted at the Breakfast Association, Philadelphia. I had spoken on the power of God to take away even inherited tendencies of sin from our souls. A young chap in the audience sent an usher to ask me to see him in the after meeting. I went down the aisle till I stood by his side. He said, “Can God save me from drink? My father was a saloon-keeper and died drunk. My mother died a drunkard; she fed me beer as an infant. I am now twenty-two years old; I do not remember a day in my life that I have not used beer.” Looking over that blear-eyed crowd, he said, “I do not want an old age like these wretches. Do you know that I recognize among these bloats at least twenty men who are the sons of saloon-keepers? You Christians have not yet discovered that no man puts liquor to his neighbor's lips without destroying his own family. Now, can God save me from the sin and shame of the old age of an alcoholic paralytic?”

“Well, let us go to the altar and ask Him.” We knelt long at the altar. At last he claimed that he had been accepted of God. As he started to leave the hall he came back and said, “Do pray for me; I am afraid of the smells of the street; I am afraid of my old companions. Pray for me.”

“Well,” I said, “you come home with me, you are 110young enough to be my son. If you were, I would want some good woman to mother you.” The next day I took him to Lancaster, Pa., where at that time I had a number of acquaintances among business men. I took him to quite a number before I came to a man who would take him at all, and to a number who would take him but not agree to help save a soul. At last I came to a Christian man in the leather business, who agreed to take him into his family, instruct him in the very rudiments of religion, take him to church and Sunday school with him; in fact, to nourish this new-born soul in Christ. We prayed together, then I left him. For a very short time I received a postal-card each week, which I failed to answer; then, amid the cares of a very busy life, I forgot him. About three years after that I was walking along a street in Lancaster when a fine-looking chap came rushing from behind me, and, placing his arm over my shoulder, said, “Oh, God bless you! God bless you!”

I turned and found a fine-looking man with tear-dimmed eyes blessing me. “Son,” I said, “what is your name?”

“Oh! do you not know me? I have prayed for you every day for three years, and you have forgotten me.”

“Well,” I said, “I fancy you are so much better looking to-day than you were then so that your own mother might not know you now.”

I walked back to the leather store with him and found my friend behind the counter. “Mr. S.” I said, “is John Schmidt a good man?”

He did not wait to go around the counter, but, coming right over it, he placed a hand on each of John's shoulders as he said, “I am glad to bear witness that 111John is a true, good man. At first he was sorely tried to associate only with our kind of people, but he has worked all day, gone to school at night, gone to church and Sunday school every Sunday, and he is about to marry one of the best young women of our church.” God had done a perfect work of grace, and the hereditary drunkard became a good man and a useful citizen. It must be so, for the word says the blood of Christ Jesus cleanses from all sin.

On the evening of September 16, 1913, Mr. Kline, our Superintendent of the Gospel Mission, gave, in substance, the following:

“It is ten years ago to-night since God, for Christ's sake, forgave my sins. It was a day like this has been, a perfect day in September. I had become a confirmed drunkard, so that every waking moment I kept myself under the influence of whisky. I was a good workman, but I was conscious that my strength had gone. Three days before I had been attacked with a trembling which seemed like palsy. As I looked in the glass I saw the face of a dying man. The barkeeper saw it. He said, 'Kline, take a drink; you will shake to pieces.' It took four or five drinks to make my hand steady enough to work. Then the barkeeper said, 'Now you need work to bring you to strength. You may paper and fix up this bar-room.' I went to a paper house, selected my paper, and had the man make a bill four times what it should have been. The bill was paid and I went back to the paper store and got my rake-off. You see, I had become dishonest as well as a drunkard. I had been brought up in a Lutheran household in Harrisburg by a 112Christian aunt, who was a member of old Zion Lutheran Church.

“My mother had died in my infancy. I never saw her to remember her appearance; I never saw a likeness of her, a lock of hair or a garment which she had worn; but when dying she left a message with my aunt, a message which never left me, even when I was farthest from God. It was these words, 'Bring up my boy to meet me in heaven.' It was those words which really brought me back to my mother's God.

“When I quit work in that saloon that 16th day of September, 1903, I was all in. I saw my face in the mirror over the bar, and when I am dead I shall not be more colorless. The barkeeper filled my bottle, and instead of going, as usual, to my home in the southwest, I made my way up Four-and-a-half Street. I was simply impelled by an unseen force. Behind every tree I took a nip from the bottle, till I came to Pennsylvania Avenue. Then I knew I dared not drink where a policeman would see me; so, hardly knowing where I was or what I was doing, I staggered to the old bank corner at Seventh Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. They tell me I disturbed the meeting, but when they adjourned to the Mission Hall I followed weeping and crying, 'I shall not go out of this hall till I am dead or saved.'

“I have been told by Brothers Gordon and Wheeler that no drunkard we have ever seen disgrace himself in this mission ever behaved worse than I did. God gave them that night the grace of patience.

BOY SCOUTS

CAMP FIRE GIRLS

113“I cried to God, 'This poor man cried, and God heard him.' I rose to my feet, sobered and in my right mind. I gave the bottle to Brother Bratz, and when I got out on the street I threw away my cigarettes and tobacco, and from that day to this I have not touched or tasted either liquor or tobacco. The next morning my hand was as steady as it is this minute. While I was wondering what to do, a rap came to the door. It was the saloon man's messenger, telling me to come and finish my job. I was weak, but I was praying. In the meantime Satan was giving me the battle of my life. The devil is a hard loser. He said, 'Well, if God could keep Daniel in the lions' den, and the Hebrews in the fiery furnace, He could surely keep you in the saloon.'

“But God has done better than that for me. He has kept me out of the saloon. In my distress of mind as to whether I should finish that job or go for my tools, I picked up my wife's Bible and I opened at these words, 'Fear not, for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name, thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters I will be with thee, and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee; when thou walkest through the fire thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.' It was a message straight from heaven to my soul. I so accepted it.

“I never finished the job. I never went after my tools, and from that day to this I have not entered a saloon. Satan has camped on my trail many times. I have had trials and temptations, but God has delivered me from the sins of the flesh, whisky, tobacco and their accompanying sins. No man who has been a drunkard can ever again safely use tobacco. An experience of ten years in mission work, where I have seen thousands of souls born into the kingdom, convinces me that the convert who retains tobacco will surely slip back. Christ's redeeming blood cleanses from all sin.

“I was a good workman and I soon had permanent 114work. I never failed to make the arrangement before I entered into a contract that I was not to be expected to enter a saloon or any other disreputable place.”

That was Mr. Kline's testimony, and I would like to say for him that God greatly uses him and his testimony to bring fallen men back to God. He is an acceptable preacher of righteousness in almost any pulpit in this city, and he has done acceptable evangelistic work in many large eastern cities. His presence in the Gospel Mission, we believe, is helpful to all the men who come under its roof. He is an honored member of the Luther Memorial Church.

I reaffirm, as long as one man dead in sin can be transformed into a living, active, aggressive Christian, the words of the Scripture are as true to-day as when the angel said, “Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.” Nothing now known to science can accomplish what happened to Mr. H. W. Kline that night; that is, as Prof. James so pertinently says, “Conversion is the only means by which a radically bad person can be changed into a radically good person.”

Harold Begbie, as a psychologist, says: “Whatever we may think of the phenomenon itself, the fact stands clear and unassailable that by this thing called conversion, men consciously wrong, inferior and unhappy, become consciously right, superior and happy. It produces not a change but a revolution. It creates a new personality.” We would say a new creature in Christ Jesus.

The religion of Christ differs from all other religions. They take the rich, the happy, the successful, as their expositors, but Christ takes the broken, the sorrowful, the beaten in the race, and makes them the rich, the successful and the happy expositors of His religion.

Prof. H. W. Wynn, D.D., one of the great writers of the Lutheran Observer, has these wise words concerning the elements of emotion in religion:

“We have discovered that religion as a purely emotional experience may have no religion in it at all, though kindled by the emotional stimuli that religion commands. There is an emotional element in religion, of course, deep, powerful, pervasive; and when you give way to it, enveloping your whole being as in an atmosphere of flame. Those tender feelings which enter so largely into the deeper currents of our domestic and social life—love, pity, joy, hope, the striking of the glad hand, comradeship locking arms under the same great banner to do deeds of heroism in the same great cause—religion calls them all up, and fires them all with a conquering zeal.

“But, manifestly, the zeal may burn out before the deeds of heroism have been begun. We have learned to know that the same emotional fires may be kindled when religion is not the theme. A great crowd, an orator of fluent and persuasive speech, music filling the air with the imaginary shouts of an “Io triumphe” come to stay—it matters very little what may be the occasion that has called these people together, the emotional part of their campaign has been achieved. But, whether in religion or in politics, it would be stupidly unwise to conclude that the excitement itself was the end to be attained—emotion being set down as the deed itself; or, in some way, an assured equivalent of the deed.

“In all such cases fanaticism is the result, and fanaticism has never been an aid, but always, in the long run, an embarrassment to any great cause. Fanaticism stops 116with the excitement—absurdly confounds excitement with the cause to be maintained.

“In religion, especially, this unhappy 'transvaluation of value' is likely to be made. For long ages it has been systematically taught that the emotional element in religion either summed it all up or was an unmistakable token that, then and there, it had been all summed up for us in the exchequer of the skies. The great transaction had passed, the thing was done when your religious ecstasy swelled to the highest, and you found yourself, as you confidently believed, borne on its billows to the bosom of God.”

Now, we all recognize this emotional element only as a helpful factor in religion, but not a permanent element. I have seen a few men accept Christ without any emotion whatever. I remember a blue-eyed, fair complexioned man saying, “I have no especial emotion. I am truly sorry for my sins. I confess them now and here, and I claim 1 John 1:9, 'If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.' I ask God to cleanse me. I need it and accept it, because He has said so.” Tracy lived all right as long as we knew of him. If converts made in evangelistic meetings were taken into careful Bible school, they would develop into useful Christians, and there would be no backsliding.

Now, religion, in the sense in which we use it, is a “building” process, not “inflation,” as the aeronaut would inflate his balloon. We all know the class of religionists who hop, jump and shout in religious meetings; they are so busy they do not see the basket as it passes; they give no money, they do nothing that the world would call religious except these physical manifestations. They are 117intolerant to all who do not believe as they do, they are simply to be tolerated and petted along as deficients who mean well but cannot be counted as part of the great organized force of believers which God is using to bring about the kingdom of God until by training and experience they can be used among their own class. But, among these, every now and then there comes a man of good mentality but without education, whom God can use. His church has no room for him, yet he has the same orders that Jesus gave to the eleven, “Go ye and preach the gospel to every nation,” and we find him preaching on the side streets, later a hall or church is hired, and we have a new sect.

You remember Jane Addams tells of the young college graduate who had taken a course in a Bible training school and in a school of philanthropy, who, on her return home, asked the rector for religious work, and he replied, “You might arrange the flowers on the pulpit each Sunday.” Think of that to a soul aflame with God!

Macaulay touches off this kind of blindness in his essay on “Ranke's History of the Popes,” in this way: “Far different is the policy of Rome. The ignorant enthusiasts whom the Anglican Church makes an enemy, and, whatever the learned and polite may think, a most dangerous enemy, the Catholic Church makes a champion; she bids him nurse his beard, covers him with a gown and hood of coarse dark stuff, ties a rope around his waist, and sends him forth to teach in her name. He costs her nothing. He takes not a ducat away from the revenues of her beneficed clergy. He lives by the alms of those who respect his spiritual character and are grateful for his instructions. He preaches not exactly in the 118style of Massillon, but in a way which moves the passions of the uneducated hearers, and all his influence is employed to strengthen the church of which he is a minister. To that Church he becomes as strongly attached as any of the cardinals, whose scarlet carriages and liveries crowd the entrance of the palace on the Quirinal. In this way the Church of Rome unites in herself all the strength of establishment, and all the strength of dissent. Even for female agencies there is a place in her system for devout women; she assigns them spiritual functions, dignities and magistracies.”

How different from these enthusiasts who have not entered a church for years; their stock in trade is largely vituperation of the churches until they are trained into a better understanding of relative social service. The Church is doing the real Christian work of the world in keeping people from going wrong. Missions and their branches only hope to catch the driftwood of humanity before it floats out into the great ocean of eternity.

But every church in the land should have an investment in money or personal representatives in the nearest city rescue mission. The young people of the churches should be the choirs of the missions. They will get inspiration as to how to do work for God in securing the conversion of every soul committed to their care in the church and community work.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES