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Tous les autres exemplaires originaux sont film6s eh commenpant par la premiere page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la derniire page qui comporte une telle empreinte. Un des symboles suivants apparaftra sur la dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbols —^ signifie "A SUIVRE ", le symbole V signifie "FIN". Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc.. peuvent Atre film«s A des taux de reduction diffArents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour Atre reproduit en un seul clichA, il est fi'imA A partir de I'angle supArieur gauche, de gattche A droite. et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images nicessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mAthode. ita luie. ] !X r .4. .• : ::,.! 3 i ;■ t :: 4 8 « THK MISSING LINK; OB, BIBLE-WOMEN IN THE HOMES OF THE LONDON POOR. BY L. N. R., AUTHOR OF "THE BOOK AND ITS STORT.'» " lamps within the pitchers. "—Jiw/^e^ vii, 16. " The sword of the Lord and of Gideon. "—Judges vii, 20. " But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that' the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us."— 2 Cor. iv 7. V NEW YORK: ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, N^. 680 BROADWAY. 1860. T'~«^WPI^'*« P EDWARD O. JENKIN8 l^nntfr & Stcrrotoper, No. 26 Feankfort Strbkt. PREFACE. This little volume scarcely requires a preface. The greater part of it has already had many readers. Its publication in the present form has arisen jut of the necessity of collecting together truthful details of acknowledged interest, which have been scattered through the pages of a cheap monthly periodical, called "The Book and its Missions." A summary of these is very frequently asked for, and they are here carefully re-arranged, in the hope that the bless- ing of God may follow them into a still wider circle, and use them for the further extension of the humble agency described. Ever since the attention of the author was directed to a research into the " story" of the Book of books, an earnest desire has been felt that such story might be told in places like St. Giles's, and in a very unfore- seen manner this desire is now being accomplished. m -m: CONTENTS. I.- II.- 111.- IV.- V.- VI.- VIL- VIIL- IX.- X,- XI.- XII.- XIII.- XIV.- XV.- XVI.- XVII.- XVIII.- XIX.- XX. XXI. -THE LONDON IIKATIIEN AND TlIlilR MISSIONARIES.. . T -A MESSAGE, AND THE MESSENGER 18 -MARIAN'S TEA-PARTY IN ST. GILES'S 89 -SKETCHES FROM LIFE IN THE SEVEN DIALS 48 -THE BIBLK-WOMAN AMONG THE DUST-HEAPS 60 -FRESH BEDS FOR THE LONDON POOR 74 -A MIDSUMMER FETE IN ST. GILES'S 88 -CLERKENWELL AND THE BIBLIC-WOMAN 91 -BIBLE .SELLING IN SPITALFIELDS 107 -THE WANT OF A BIBLE MISSION IN BETHNAL GREEN 125 -THE WEAVERS AND THEIR FOREFATHERS 1.39 -REBECCA IN SHOREDITCH IM -SKETCHES IN LIMEHOUSE FIELDS, WHITE CHAPEL AND 811 AD WELL 165 -THE BIBLE WOMAN AT LONDON WALL 185 -LEAVES FROM LIFE IN GRAY'S INN LANE 203 -ESTHER AND HARRIET; OR, TIMES PAST AND PRE3 ENT 224 -OUR MORAL WASTES AND THEIR MATRONS 288 -WESTMINSTER AND ITS IHBLE WOMEN' 2.56 -THE COTTAGE AMONG THE DUST HEAPS 261 -A PAGE OF FIGUKRS FOR BIBLE SOCIETY SUBSCRI- BERS 268 -OUR SUNKEN SIXTH 279 V II "■^ WH -^ Vi CONTENTS. XXII.— OtJR AGENTS AND THEIR SUPPORT 2SS APPENDIX- LONDON FEMALE BIBLE AND DOMESTIC MISSIONS —GENERAL RULES 297 INSTRUCTIONS TO THE BIBE-WOM/ N 297 SUGGESTIONS TO PROPOSED SUPERINTENDENTS.. 29» COOKERY FOR ST. GILES'S 801 CHEAP BEDS FOB THE POOR 808 NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS 803 THE MISSING LINK. CHAPTER I. THE LOia)OX HBATHEX AND THEIR MISSIONARIES. Reader, are you disposed for a walk into one of the lowest parts of London — into a region which people of the better ok. 3 seldom or never see, unless, indeed, business carries them through it as a thoroughfare? Let us explore it by daylight ; and out of well-known Oxford street turn into Wardour street, the paradise of antiquarians. We are not about to linger, and indulge our taste among quaint old carvings, candelabra, grotesque corbels, and antique church furniture ; there are terri- ble scenes of squalor and misery to be found in some of the upper interiors of these Wardour street houses, which present us with such pictorial groupings below ; but we are onward bound, to the left, into St. Giles's and the neighborhood of the Seven Dials, descrijed in books as one of the " dens" and " rookeries " of Lon- 8 THL MISSINO LINK. ;»?' don. Novelists, and still more truly Cit} Missionaries and Scripture Readers, have, perhaps, painted it in words to us before to-day ; but now we are going to see it for ourselves, as it existed in the month of June, 1857, for " seeing is believing." We have threaded our way along one of the seven narrow streets to their centre. A column formerly stood upon this open space : a column, surmounted with sundials, turning a face towards each street, and hence the place was named. It was planned in the reign of Charles I, and was, for some time, a fasliion- able quarter. The houses multiplied in the reign of Queen Anne, when Bloomsbury and Bedford squares were open heath, and when Great Russell street had gardens noted for their fragrance behind its noble mansions, and the prospect of pleasant fields in front, looking over to Hampstead and Highgate. But as these gardens were built over, and the fine old dilapidated houses were let out in rooms to differ- ent families of low degree, about a century and a half ago, this neighborhood fell into ill odor ; the column was removed, and the Irish, who had first colonized in London in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, extended their settlements into the Seven Dials, since which the tenements have lapsed into the possession of those who had no objection to be their neighbors. Could tve endure to be their neighbors ? An op- * 1 LONDON HEATHEN AND THKIll MlriSIONAUIES. prcssivo, fu^ty sircll assails us as wc pass alon^ by the old-clotlics shops ; wo may scjircoly stop to road tho placards in thoir windows advortisin.s:'* tor old load and old iron, old «z;lass and old bonos. At the doors wc encounter the cunning eye of the debased and dc- j^radod son of Israel, looking out for customers. Tho dwellers in the cellars beneath the shops are come up this afternoon to ))reatlie the air, the hot and fetid air. The " Seven Dials 'Seems to have its leisure hours; so the streets are fdlod witli loiterers and loungers. Lazy, dirty women are exhibiting to one anoiiior some article of shabby finery, uewly revived, v.hicli they have just bought ; we search in vain among tlie lanky, sallow children for a bright face or a clean piimfore. There is not a true child-face among tliem all : noth- ing speaks of God or nature but one basket of flowers, with which a man happens to be turning tlie corner of the street. Some of the dingy windows of those upper floors arc open ; and oh, what dirty, haggard forms are peering out 1 Many a pane is stuffed with rags, and all around bespeaks a want of light, and air, and water — Cxod's free gifts to the country hovel, but not to the groat city. We looked up the dark courts and alleys which had poured forth those squalid children, and which link the seven streets together, and would fain have entered them, but there was a something about them 10 THE MISSING LINK. which seemed to say, " Seek no farther, or you may never return." " A group of undeniable London thieves were linger- ing round the gin-shop, that commonly answered to its fellow, at the entrance and the exit of such alleys. We glanced up one front staircase, and in at the open door of a room, where the dirt was thickly caked upon the floor, where a heap of rags in the corner was evi- dently all the bed, and where a few ashes in the grate spoke of what was said to be the case, " no work," and " no more fire I" And this is day-time in the Seven Dials ; but " what of the night ?" If some who might be called industri- ous mechanics should be found here, even they — the parents, with, perhaps, six children — would be huddled into a single apartment, the sitting-room for all, and by night the sleeping-place for all together. But such would be a favored locality compared with the com- mon lodging -rooms, where, in defiance of the Iut'- each of the four corners is often occupied by a family ; and as many as sixteen persons, — men, women and children, some of thei " drunken and quarrelsome, — have been found crowded into one small dormitorv. In places like these, the "new-born, the fever- stricken, the dying and the dead," as has V)een too truly told us, " are horribly intermingled." St. Giles's is tenanted by a most vagrant population. In six LONDON HEATHEN AND THEIR MISSIONARIES. 11 months of the year 1855, a City Missionary in Dudley street kept an account, wliich showed tliat during that period 536 families had left tlie district, and a similar number had entered it in their stead. This same mis- sionary ascertained that two-thirds of the poverty, misery, crime and disease wliich came under his notice, were produced by the vice of intemperance. More than half the people were Irish, whose habits, preju- dices and religion place great difficulties in the way of those who would reform them, and help them to help themselves. " They will be dirty, and nobody sliall clean them ; they will huddle together, and nobody shall separate them." An Irishwoman, who was asked whether she did not feel comfortable when her old garments had been taken from her, and when, after full ablution, new ones had been supplied, answered, "Yes, thank yer honor ; I'm horrid clane !" The occupations of the people in St. Giles's are very various. Besides the gin-palace keepers and old clothesmen, there are tailors, hatters, bird-stuflfers, dogs' -meat men, crossing -sweepers, costermongers, street dealers in fruit and flowers ; also patterers, chanters, and song-sellers ; with sweeps, knife-grinders, and door-mat makers, to wliich may be added a thick sprinkling oi professed thieves, and, indeed, of the vicious of both sexes. "Many of them," says the Times of Thursday, 12 THE MISSING LINK. April 9th, 1857, in speaking of a similar district, " are the people who do the hard work of this metropolis ; who rear its vast edifices, clean and pave its streets, construct and keep in order its innumerable ducts for water, gas, and refuse. Tliey feed our hearths, and minister to our daily wants. Thoy are not the beg- gars, but tlic porters, at our doors. To their dirt we owe our cleanliness ; and they are the scapegoats of a thousand pollutions." Their numbers are increased from various causes. A new street, with handsome shops and noble build- ings, is desired for the extension of trade ; as, for instance. New Oxford street : then Dyott street must disappear, that the neighborhood may be improved. It was a nest of vice and filth, that had strange old memories from the time of Queen Elizabeth, " when thick forests extended from the village of St. Giles's westward towards Tvbourne." There was also the great black forest of Mary-la-bonne, into which the Queen used to send the Muscovite ambassador to hunt the wild boar. Yes, .Dyott street must disappear ; but, as the stirring w^riter says again : — " It is necessary first to get rid of some hundred, or even some thousand, people. So they are turned out, commonly by pick and crowbar, and no one asks where they go. No poet immortalizes the deserted LONDON HEATHEN AND THEIR MISSIONARIES. 13 the red, •ned alley and its touching traditions. The rubbish wcnd:^ its way, dead and alive. Carts of refuse turn down one street, and dirty families another ; the one to some chasm where rubbish may be shot, the others to some courts or fallen streets, which arc henceforth reported * worse than they were before.' It is rather remark- able — and it is but common justice to state the fact — that the same state of things is found at this moment in all the other great cities of Europe. Everywhere there has been a great congestion to the metropolis." In the case of London especially, this congestion at heart would have been caused by the mere increase of her Irish poor population. In 1851 tlie missionaries of the City Mission ascertained that about one in every seven of the families under their visitation was Irish and Roman Catholic ; this was after the famine of 1846-8 had driven them from tlieir own shores. That same valuable City Mission, in 1857, reported the number of Irisli families within their districts as 19,476, of which its agents had been able to visit more than 15,000, comprising 80,000 individuals. But the funds of the City Mission are only sufficient to cover half the districts of tlie city with its most useful laborers, who for the last four-and-twenty years lave gone, not " out into the highways and hedges," but up into the courts and the alleys, where few else liad ventured to go, taking the Gospel to those who :P 14 THE MISSING LINK. never come to hear it, and in every house, garret, and cellar, beseeching men to be reconciled to God. Their sphere is perpetually enlarging, for the population of London has increased by 60,000, even in the last twelve months. The mind groans under the added figures when all that they involve is realized. A witty speaker once said " that when things came to millions he could not understand them ; the word tripped off the tongue, but he only felt that it meant a great many.^* Reader, have you walked through St. Giles's ? Do you live in London ? Have you relations or friends that live there ? and do you feel any interest in the " million-peopled city" for their sake ? Know, then, that St. Giles's is nothing but the sample of a vast world imvisited, and supposed unvisitable, by the better classes, which lies behind the screen of their respectable dwellings. You breathe more freely as you escape into the neighborhood of the Museum ; but henceforth, when you meet a living lieap of rags and dirt which seems to have no business to cross your path aloig the open square, you may think whence such a being comes, and how it lives. Into the physical and spiritual condition of such beings, it behoves all residents in London at least to inquire ; for, again to quote the Times : *' When Lazarus has done his day's work, and be- LONDON HEATHEN AND THEIR MISSIONARIES. 15 mch It to be- takes himself to his sty, he is a very iinwholesorne brute. Where he and his companions and \m cubs feed and litter, the dirt ferments, and tlie very air is envenomed. Dr. Letheby, the medical officer of health, has analyzed it, and finds it cliarged with the vapors of death. Nature kindly dissipates it, and, raising the poison from the lair where it is generated, diffuses it to the dwellings around. Dives is, indeed, wise in his generation to fly o' nights from such a foul proximity." But if such be the physical condition of hundreds of thousands, who rank below the decent classes in our great city, it is but typical of their moral and spiritual state ; and, indeed, the one reacts upon the other. Such self-respect as they have left is shown in keeping themselves out of sight ; and they can only be reached by those who go forth diligently, after the example of their Master, " to seek and to save the lost." The meetings of our great Voluntary Societies show that more and more is being done in this way by devoted clergymen and ministers, by Scripture read- ers, by district visitors, and by lay agency of a pastor- al c J character. Many churches and cliapels main- tain also their own missionaries, and have their own home mission halls, in the midst of the courts and alleys around them. A more recently established, and apparently a most 16 THE MISSING LINK. effective agency, is the now well-known Ragged School, wl ch so truly begins at the beginning of the evil ; inviting the unwashed and uncombed young Arabs of the streets to " come ragged, come dirty, come just as they are," to be taught, first, the use of the basin and the comb, and the pleasure of wearing a clean gar- ment ; and then to have poured into their young hearts those blessed Bible truths, all new and welcome to them, which must raise them into a grade of society above their parents, and will, by possibility, raise their parents along with them. Still it must liave struck many an earnest heart, in the above-mentioned class of workers, that there were depths to which their efforts never penetrated ; rooms to which they were always denied admittance ; more- over, that there existed home influences which perpetu- ally defeated all theirs. " Much was doing for the children, certainly ; but oh ! that in past time as much had been done for the mothers ! " CHAPTER II. A MESSAGE, AND THE MESSENGER. A LADY, who had long been engaged in promoting the circulation of the Word of God in country dis- tricts, walked, one midsummer afternoon, about two years since, with a friend through the streets of St. Giles's. The friend was a retired physician, who had known the secrets of the Seven Dials in the days of his early practice. The lady had recently become a resident in London, and the two having been village neighbors, this was a kind of exploratory walk to ob- serve the condition of the London poor. Meantime, the question arose, how far these people, in their countless courts and alleys, would be found to be sup- plied with the Bible. This inquiry grew into a determination to ascertain that they were so supplied, and led to a reference to one of the active missionaries of the district. He was asked if he knew of a poor, good woman, who would venture with a bag of Bibles into every room, as a paid agent for the Bible Society, and give a faithful account of her trust. 18 THE MISSING LINK. In reply, he said he thought he happened to have a letter in his pocket from a woman who might be trained to this employment — a good, grave person, of middle age, and whom he had known for some years. She was a resident in St. Giles's, and her letter to him, which was a remarkable one, expressed the desire, quite spontaneously, to devote three hours a day to the visitation of those sorrowful children of sin whom none else would go near. Of " that which she had," the treasure of time, though she depended on it for her daily bread, dhe was willing to offer a portion to the Lord, without money and without price. The letter was as follows : " Sir, — Aware that frequent opportunities occur for verbal communication, you will, doubtless, be sur- prised at my addressing this to you ; but, fearful of trespassing on your time on such occasions, I have preferred the present mode. It is unnecessary to re- late the circumstances by which I first became ac- quainted with your efforts to make known the Gospel of Christ ; but you may remember the request I made the first time I ever addressed you. I asked you to lend me a Bible — you knew not my name or residence ; yet, with cheerful kindness, you complied with that re- quest ; and, for the first time in my life, I brought a Bible into my home. It was on the 11th of February, 1853. That Bible I still retain : of its influence over -§ A MESSAGE, AND THE MESSENCJER. 19 have a ight be rson, of B years. to him, desire, y to the I whom le had," i for her to the !cur for be sur- -rful of I have to re- me ac- Gospel I made you to dence ; hat re- ught a jruary, le over me none but its Great Author can be aware ; nor of the slow but certain means by wliich its precious truths have been revealed to my hitherto benighted soul. '* With my bodily sufferings during that period you are, to a groat extent, acquainted. Twice compelled to seek surgical aid in a hospital — to all appearances I was sinking to ray grave ; but my God looked mercifully on me, and bade me live. " You know, however, nothing of the wounds that defied the surgeon's skill — wounds that divine grace inflicted, and which divine mercy could alone have healed. That I have been the recipient of such mercy I humbly dare to hope ; and, God helping me, I have devoted every moment of my life to prove my grati- tude. I feel that, to testify my thanks for the pre- cious pardon of an offended God, there are other ways than words ; and I have thought over many plans, all of which I have dismissed but one, which is for me perfectly practicable ; and it is to ask your cooperation in it that I presume to address you. "During the time I was in the hospital I had frequent opportunities of witnessing the utterly friend- less condition of many poor outcasts, who sought admission to its charity, the filthy plight of tlieir persons and clothing proving their need of a female hand to rectify disorder. " I have not to learn, sir, that in your missionary 20 THK MIHHING LINK. visits to the abodes of vice, you meet with many such who have none to help tliom. Now, I would wish to dedicate the time I have to spare (it might be two or three hours a day), not so much to the decent poor, who have a claim on the sympathy of their neigh- bors, but to the lost and degraded of ray own sex, whom, from their vicious lives, no tenderly reared female would be likely to approach ; but to me, who, by God's mercy, was preserved in my youth from a like fate, such scenes will have no terror : and I shall esteem it another benefit received from you if you will at any time let me know where such a sufferer lives. No matter how degraded she may be. It will be enough for her to require my aid — such as cleansing and washing her, and repairing her garments. If she can, by your means, obtain admission to a hospital, I will, by frequent visits, take care that she has a change of linen, and in all ways endeavor to win such erring sister back to virtue and to peace. " But while especially devoting my services to those w'ao have none to help them, I shall ever consider it as much my duty to render aid to any desolate sick, who may at any time come under your notice. "Accept, sir, my grateful recollections of your sym- pathy, to which I am so largely indebted for my re- stored health, and allow me to subscribe myself your obedient, humble servant, Marian B." A MESSAGE, AND TIIL: MLSSEXUEH. 21 fiy such wisli to two or it poor, neigh- ,vn sex, reared le, who, from a I shall i^oii will T lives, will be causing If she ?pital, I has a in such those isider it te sick, ur sym- ' my re- If your The Missionary felt no tloul>t tliat this letter was genuine. lie said '• it was like the writer when you knew lier ;'' and, after an introduction iiad taken place, tiie lady formed tlic same opinion. Slie felt convinced that tiiis was the kind of person she sought, and that, in carrying the message fuom Gou to every door, various opportunities of usefulness would arise, and probably some of tlio very kind to which Chris- tian readiness of devotion had l)een spontaneously cxi)ressed. The history of Marian B. was a singular one. She eoi-ned a scanty livelihood in cutting lire-papers, or moulding wax flowers, or making bags for silver- smiths in London ; and her lot had been cast, for three-and-thirty years, in some one or other of the purlieus of tlie Seven Dials. A drunken father, who broke her mother's heart, had brought her, as a young girl of tifteen, gradually down, down from the privileges of a respectable birth, to dwell in a low lodging-house of St. Giles's. He died shortly after- wards, and left her and a sister, of five years of age, orphans, in the midst of pollution, which they, as by miracle, escaped, often sitting on tlie stairs or door- step all night to avoid what was to be seen within. An old man, who was her fellow lodger, kind hearted, uhough an Atheist, had taught her to write a little, and he bade her never read the Bible -" it was full of THE MISSING LINK. lies ; she had only to look round her in St. Giles's, and she might see that there was no God !" She had picked up reading and knitting from gaz- ing in continually at the shop windows. She married at eighteen years of age. Her husband proved sober and steady, but he was as poor as herself. When she went to church, she was without shoes and stockings, and he had no coat. Still, from that time she knew the meaning of that blessed word — " a home," though such home was but a room, changed from time to time in the same neighborhood. Five years before the time at which the lady met with her, she was passing through the streets one rainy night, when she took shelter in an alley that led up to a little Mission-hall in Dudley street, and hear- ing a voice, went in to listen. It was almost the close of the address ; but some verses quoted from the eleventh chapter of Hebrews struck on her ear and touched her heart. She knew that the book always used in such places must be a Bible ; but her attention was further arrested by an announcement that books would be lent on the next evening from that place from a newly-formed library for the poor. Going early at the appointed time, she was the first claimant of the promise. She had intended to borrow " Uncle Tom's Cabin," but a strong impulse came over her which she could not resist ; it was as if she had heard i A MESSAdE, AND THE MESSENGER. I * 'IB it whispered to her, " Do not borrow Uncle Tom — borrow a Bible." So she asked for a IJiijlc. "A Bible, ray good woman?" was the missionary's reply. " We did not mean to lend Bibles from this iii)rary ; but wait, 1 will fetch you one. It is a token for good that the Book of (jod, tlio best of books, should be the first one asked for, and lent from tliis place." He brought her the Bible, and asked if he sliould call and read a chapter with her. She said re- spectfully, " No, sir, tliank you ; we arc very quiet folk, my husband might not like it ; I will take the book and read it for myself." The Lord's time was come. His message then first entered her house, and went straight to her heart. The Divine Spirit applied the word with power, and the arrow of conviction was ere long driven home by suflfcring and affliction. A twelvemonth after she had received the Bible, she was obliged to send to the missionary who had lent it to her, to request a ticket for the hospital. Then lie visited her, and found how God had worked witli her by His own word, and had thereby alone brought her to Himself. Two years of much sufi*ering followed, and during this period her husband had also been ill ; so that gradually, one by one, the comforts they had gathered round them by a frugal life vanished away under the 24 THE MISSING LINK. gripe of want. Tlicy were junt able to live, and from time to time received casual and temporary help. Tlie missionary's visits were always warmly welcomed, not for what lie brought, but for what he taught. Sick- ness and poverty are hard teachers ; but the discipline was all necessary to a naturally proud heart. One evening, in the winter of 1856-7, " Marian" remembers sitting and thinking that " come what might, she would no more, to relieve present necessity, pawn her goods," as was the habit of her neighbors. " She saw the evil of it," and saw it so strongly that she " felt she would want food, and lire too," before she would break her resolution, made in the strength of God. She received the offer of employment in selling Bibles, feeling that it was the work which, of all others, she should delight to undertake. Another letter to the missionary who had recommended her evinced the spirit in which she would commence her new duties, and it also develops her idea of what would come out of them. " Sir, — After anxious and prayerful consideration of the path pointed out, I feel that I sliall have much need of strength to overcome the obstacles that will meet me on every side ; but I believe with humble confidence that the grace which was able to subdue my I A MESSAGE, AND THE MESSENGER. 25 j> ible my I M own heart will never leave me in my effort to pour into the hearts of others that blessed message. 1 am myself too strong a proof of the power of Almighty God to dare to doubt in any case the mercy which broke down the strongiiolds of sin in me. ''And if I foresee trials in that path, what sources of joy and comfort do I not foresee likewise ! An open- ing is made to me, which I never even dared to hope for, and I may be sent as the glad messenger of light to some poor sufferers who are anxiously wishing for a knowledge of the blessed Book, and, being unable to read it, have none to read it to them. " What a sweet employ it will be for me in the evening, after having faithfully devoted the time re- quired by the Bible Society for the sale of the books committed to me, if I can retun\ to any poor home where I have seen the aid of a friendly hand to be needed. The performance of some kind office may be the means of my obtaining permission to read, and, as well as I can, explain the glorious truths of the Book, for which in the morning, perhaps, I had vainly endeavor- ed to obtain an entrance. " Indeed, sir, I feel I cannot write what I foresee, or teU you how my heart warms as I write it. It appears tliat God is graciout^ly marking out a path for me in which alone I am fit to labor. I know nothing of the customs and manners of the rich ; I could not under- 2 I 26 THE MISSING LINK. take the most menial Fcrvico in a gentleman's house ; but I can talk to the poor outcasts among whom I dwell ; my deepest sympathy is secured to them by the sad history of my own early days. I may help the poor untended wife and mother. I may send young children to school. I may have a word in season for the drunken and even the infidel husband. It will be a privilege for me to obtain admission to those miser- able homes, and on what an errand I — with the Word of God I To its Author I look to direct me to turn all mv opportunities to His glory! I cast myself upon His almighty power to aid me, and I will fear no evil. Accept my thanks for this fresh proof of your kindness, and I beg to be remembered in your prayers. " Your deeply obliged servant, " Marian." We should certainly not give publicity to these let- ters had the usefulness they foretell been a mere dream of possibilities ; but the history of the next year proved that God had prepared this woman for this purpose, and also to become an ensample to many others who have risen up to be missionaries to the *' poor outcasts among whom they dwell ; " and having provided the executive, or native agency for the work, He also elic- ited the directive, and suffered it to lack no means necessary to the development of His own design. ^ ■% dl ^a A MESSAGE, AND THE MESSENGER. 27 I " The Lord shall rebuild Jerusalem ; He gathereth to- gether tlic outcasts of Israel." With desires expressed as above, and in a better strength than her own, this good, grave, middle-aged woman entered upon a district comprising places un- imaginable except to those who have visited them. She was allowed her own choice of streets, and began her work in Soho, closely bordering on St. Giles's. In this district you may enter long passages, and perceive numbers of rooms on either side, then at the end as- cend a flight of stairs into another long passage, with rooms on either side — " a forest of rooms " — then cross a kind of bridge over a small yard, and find, still fur- ther on, more galleries and passages, as if there had been once a garden to the first house, and these had been built out into it. So little light and air can penetrate into these rookeries, that the people may well prefer sitting out on the curb-stone, with their feet in the gutter. The tenants were mostly Irish — they were civil to Marian, even when made aware of her errand as the " Bible-woman." Many were tailors hard at work, and answered that, when they wanted the Bible, the priest would get it for them. Great numbers of women in such localities were said to be " out," employed in making pickles by Crosse and Blackwell. Some of her earliest visits were paid to courts in 28 THE MISSING LINK. which no one professes to get an honest maintenance, and where the children of Irish parents, who were frequently unmarried, have grown up, half naked and buried in dirt, haviug no knowledge of, or de ire for, a better existence. By " tossing," by thieving, by passing bad money (for in Whitechapel they can get a shilling, that few can tell to be false coinage, for 2|d.), by every species of vice, they live, sometimes in starv- ing indigence, sometimes in reckless abundance : occa- sionally beefsteaks and potatoes will be tumbled on to a table, with no accompaniment of plate or fork. Their dwellings are like cow-houses — save that cow- houses are sweet in comparison — lighted by but one pane of glass, if that be not broken and stuffed with rags, and a heap of shavings or filthy straw for a bed ; some of them buy hare and rabbit skins, and, hoarding them till they have enough to sell, creates a stench which breeds fever ; the hair of the women seems never to have known cap or comb ; such clothes as they have appear never to be taken off, day or night ; they have no yards, and no back-door ; perhaps a pump is found in the little square, round which they have been built, but the supply of water is very scanty ; and five, six, or seven children will swarm in these closets of rooms, even in the day time. It is worse by night. A police- man, very recently, after due warning to the landlord of one such p'lace (who persisted that only himself, his f A MESSAGE, AND THE MESSENGER. 29 wife, and liis son, slept in his house), broke in the door at two o'clock in the morning, and found sixteen per- sons in heaps upon the floor, of all ages, and in their midst a woman, with her new-born babe of scarce an hour old. Into places like these did Marian penetrate ; and into others so noxious, that a workhouse, which abuts upon them, is obliged to fumigate them over its walls. In some of these haunts of the fallen it was said, " What use is it to come with the Bible here ? It is not for such as we are." But then she heard the answer, " Ah, let her come ; I wish we were like her I " Among the poor she perpetually found one or an- other who knew enough by hearsay, or by old re- membrance of the Book of God, to welcome its mes- senger. It was not among the worst and the lowest that she found disrespect to the Bible — they knew nothing of its contents, but had a general notion that it was something intended to do them good. One " lady with lettuces " made her a courtesy in all reverence, and said it was because of the book she carried. She found her way into places " wliere they knew no more of the Bible Society than they did of India ;" and when told of its object in thus sending the Scriptures to them, one person made answer, ' I i 4 r 80 THE MISSING LINK. I > i " Well, I wonder what next will be done for us — it is time ; we have been left to ourselves long enough." Another, after looking at the copies, exclaimed, " Well, this cannot be for gain ! " There appeared a general impression that the books could not be pro- duced for the money asked as their cost price. Some- times, where there was a determination to purchase, the penny was yet spared with difficulty, and with — '* Ah ! you do not know, mistress, what a struggle I have for a livelihood." And she was able to answer, " Oh, yes, I do. I am quite as poor as you are. I know it all ; but get this book — it is the balm for all your sorrow — I bring it you, because I have found it so for myself." At last she found her way into a court where she received vile usage : a bucket of filth was emptied upon her from an upper window. This, however, only elicited more sympathy from those who stood at their doors below. One woman took her in, and wiped her bonnet ;* another brought water to wash her face, and on the whole her friends exceeded her foes, and from the date of this roughly commenced acquaintance she numbers several of her best friends. " Do not go up that stair," said a City Missionary, who met her on her , in Churcli-lane. " The wo- man who lives there is not a woman — she is a fiend. It takes four men to carry her home when she is drunk.'" ^V A MESSAGE, AND THE MESSENGER. SI f " It is to such as her I go," said the quiet visitor, and passed one. When she arrived at the stair-head she heard the voice of a fury, and, tapping at the door, immediately entered. The fierce woman, a drover's wife, standing six feet higli, was accustomed to keep her neighbors at a distance, and stared in amazement at Marian. A boy of nine years old stood in the corner naked ; his mother had just been beating him, after cutting his poor old trousers to ribbons, in search of a sixpence which she said he had stolen, having received it for sweeping a crossing. " Do not beat him any more," said Marian ; " I dare say he will remember this ; but what will you do with his trousers ? He cannot put them on again :" and, turning to the child, she added, " A lady gave me a pair of trousers this morning, but they were for a good boy, if I found him. Could you promise never to keep back the money any more from your mother if I brought them to you V The offer was so timely, and the voice of kindness so unusual in that apartment, that it melted the child, and even touched the mother. An influence began from that day alike over mother and children. This woman had been very violent to Marian in the first weeks of her new vocation, threatening " to trample her to pieces if she came canting into her court." i \ 32 THE MISSING LINK. She now, however, began to sub.scribe for a Bible, to dress herself decently, and, with her two children, to be found in the gallery of the church of Old St. Giles's — the church in which she was married, but had never since set foot. Her good friend watched her, unseen, in her shadow of one of the pillars, and scarce- ly recognized, in the tidy matron, the ferocious vira- go. She did not tell her she had seen her, but the next morning, when paying her subscription, the wo- man said of her own accord, " that she felt so much more comfortable than when she had been to the gin- shop, that she should certainly go to church again." She became one of the " Bible-woman's " protectors in the notorious Church-lane. It is interesting to recollect the fact that St. Giles's has been watered with the blood of martyrs, and of martyrs for reading the Bible. The churches in the district, and the " Mission-hall " in the heart of it, have sprung up where a thicket or copse in St. Giles's Fields once afforded shelter at dead of night to perse- cuted LoUaids. A company of these " Men of the Book" (at that time the manuscript Book), which their leader Wicliff had translated, had met in St. Giles's 1 ields on the night of the 6th of January, 1414. From the hour that it was ordained in St. Paul's, by convocation, that no book of Wicliff 's should be read either in public or private, his translation of the Bible A MESSAGE, AND THE MESSENGEIl. 3H ?) became " the Book of tho |)coplo." Its precious words were treasured all the more for tlie prohibition, and in tlie dark cold winter's niglit, men and women came forth to listen to them. Their enemies untruly informed King Henry V, then newly come to the throne, " that Lord Cobham (a favorer of the Lollards, and who had escaped from im{)risonnient in the Tower, and was really at that time taking sheltcx* in Wales) was then in St. Giles's fields, at the head of 20,000 of his followers, meaning to seize the king's person, and make himself governor of the realm. The young Prince believed the lie, and not being wanting in personal bravery, armed the soldiers about his palace, and instantly marched to the place. He attacked the few poor Lollards that were there as- sembled, killed twenty, and took sixty prisoners. He then pressed forwards, thinking he had only met with the advanced guard, but found that he had routed the whole body. Thirty-six of those prisoners, including Sir Roger Acton and Beverley, one of their preachers, were hanged and burned, says the chronicle, near the spot where they were taken ; and three years afterwards Lord Cobham himself, being re-captured, was dragged ignominiously upon a hurdle, with insult and barbarity, to these same St. Giles's Fields, and there hung alive 2* fW 34 THE MISSING LINK. in chains upon a gallows, while a fire being kindled beneath, he was slowly roasted to death. "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord;" but "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Cliurch ; " and we believe the time is come when the Word of God, being " unbound " — the same good old Book for which tlieir fathers suffered — and its " message from heaven " being freely delivered in St. Giles's, many a soul shall be saved on that spot, and many a brand shall be plucked from the burning. It was very pleasant to the lady who sent this good woman into the dens and rookeries of St. Giles's — paying her by the kind aid of the British and Foreign Bible Society — to discover tlie result of former efforts made in this district. The decent poor — tliose who como to churches and chapels — were found very well sup|)lied with the Scriptures, and the supply kept up. Mr. Thorold, the new Rector of St. Giles's, had, from the time he came into the parish, shown himself very anxious on this point. The sacred volume was given as a reward to the children in the schools, and a very deep interest manifested that every individual who came within his influence should possess it. The work commenced by the good Bishop of Ripon, as previous Rector, was being earnestly carried on by his successor. Marian lighted upon some large old Bibles which had been obtained by penny subscriptions. Some of them I )J 1 A MES8A(JE, AND THE MESSENGER. 35 bcarinf^ the mark of British and Foreton Bible Society had boon well used, and must have licen sup- plied by friends of this institution in former days ; and she was constantly told, "Oh, yea! I can get a Bible at the church if I go and pay the penny." She, therefore, was advised that her errand was chiefly to those many thousands who never presented thcmsolver cither at church or chapel to seek the pearl of great price, and who were without the pale of all good agencies. In her own words, she found ''enough for the labor of a lifetime nnderneath all that." The difficulty of finding access to the lower popula- tion of St. Giles's can only be realized by those who have attempted it. " Out, out, out," was the perpetual summer answer in room after room. Marian found them " such an unsettled set of people. They have no regular time for dinner. She supposed they did not often have a dinner. She was glad to perceive any sign that they were going to stay, — the little bit of curtain at the window, or the picture hung upon the wall ; but in their various avocations as watercress sellers, scavengers, road waterers, crossing-sweepers, &c., they are such a wandering folk." In revisiting the rooms a second time, she found in them quite a new set of tenants ; and yet the others were said to be " coming back when haying is over ;" or, " on the Saturday night ;" the present occupants re- ir 86 THE MISSING LINK. maining also. In several instances she found the message left for her from a subscriber, that their money should be paid on Saturday evening. From those wlio were at homo she spoke of the reception as better and better every visit, but it required the devo- tion of far more than the five hours a day promised to the Society to meet the circumstances of the place, and the occupations of the people. In one house she had three subscribers, whose subscriptions must be sought at three different times. Each could only be found at a particular hour. One of them served milk ; she was a Welsh-woman, and seemed much in earnest to get a Bible, being no stranger to its value. When the superintendent of this interesting work came to sum up the details of the first month's labor, seventy Bible subscribers were found on the books, two of them only being Romanists. The prevailing taste was for small copies, with gilt edges, and what- ever had been the mixed character of the reception that " Marian " had met with, slw at least had such a sense of the i'^portance of her mission, that having made her way into recesses in Die midst of which she had lived for more than a quarter of a century, with- out being aware of their existence, she said she could no longer leave them unvisited while strength remain- ed, if haply out of those depths of misery she might bring one soul to Jesus. i i '"^'n II A MESSAGE, AND THE MESSENGER. :j7 Those Bible visits, it will be perceived, were paid to a class of persons Mow ihe (hceut poor, and to llioso who compose that larji^e uiulorlyinj^ mass of humanity which never seeks to bring itself witliin the range of moral or spiritual effort for its own elevation. The one concern of these people — winter and summer, and year after year — is merely to live — and to thousands, the easiest and idlest mode to attain this end is by the vice and filth amidst which they were born and bred. Tiiey crowd together in hundreds of courts and alloys like those above described, and, except in soli- tary cases, they are content to do so ; they have no wish to be raised — no feelings in common with the classes above them. They must eat, drink and sleep, and to-morrow, perhay)s, die — knowing nothing of the re . olation of a life beyond, and not ciwimj to knotc. Few among those of the last generation can read, but the light breaking into the dark picrurc is found in the fact that many of the children can, and that a race is now springing up into men and women who have a great desire for reading. Many may be seen of an evening, sitting along the edges of the pavement, with penny periodicals in their hands, the character of which is of every varied shade of good and evil. The London Journal is one of the greatest favorites. Of what unspeakable importance, then, was it to penetrate these regions with the Bible? Our next ! 88 THE MISSING LINK. chapter will show what further knowledge was secur- ed by these visits, concerning the habits and wants of the people. It was not the first aim to secure such knowledge. The enterprise was undertaken only with a deep sense that the message from God should be carried to every member of the human family. Its welcome from the lost and the fallen was somewhat unexpected ; and facts seemed very early to point to the supposition that the right agency, " the missing link," between them and those who wished to serve them, had perhaps by accident been found. CHAPTER III. MARIAN'S TEA-PARTY IN ST. GILES'S. The second month of Bible visits had not passed away before a desire arose in the heart of the persever- ing visitor, and of the friend to whom she continually brought her reports, to do something to place these people in a condition to projit hy the Book they were willing to buy. It was almost impossible to sit down to read the Bible to them in the midst of their dirt. *' I should like, if you had no objection, ma'am," said Marian, " to ask a few of them to tea with me — my husband is in the country — and then T could have a little talk with them on their ways, and how to mend them." ^ The lady cordially entered into this proposal. She told Marian that any small expense to which the tea might put her should be met, and awaited the r':;sult. This, perhaps, is best given in the form of a conversa- tion as it occurret^L between the parties. " Well, Mrs. B., and did you have your tea-party of your most punctual Bible-subscribers, as you proposed ? How many did you invite ?" [39] ■ I ■'I I: w mmm?M mm M ■ m 'J I ' ii 1 i ' : :0 40 THE MISSING LINK. " Eight women, ma'am ; and tliey all Came, and said they had never spent such a pleasant evening in their lives. After many visits to their homes to collect the pence, I had picked out those to whom I thought I might do some good ; and they had washed their poor gowns and caps, and came so tidy, I scarcely knew them for the same that I had seen in their ' dens.' Three of them brought babies in arms, which they could not leave." " And how did you seat them ?" " I had five chairs, and the rest sat on the bed-side. I asked my landlady, and she had no objection to the party." " I suppose you knew who they were ? " " Some were sellers of hare and rabbit skins, water- cresses, fruit, fish, and flowers ; but now they were all *' going to the hops.' " " What did their husbands do for a living ?" " The same things, or some of them go out to cut turves for birds, and pay a trifle a quarter for the right to do so. But in one thing they were all agreed — they had all bad husbands." *' What did you say to that?" " I told them I felt I had a good one, and I thought they might have good husbands if they would, because a clean, kind, sober woman almost always makes a good husband ; but one wlio aits about dirty and idle, # \ Marian's tea-party at st. Giles's. 41 and never has a clean hearth or j, nice cup of tea for him when he comes in from his work, need not wonder if he goes to the public house, and spends there in one night what would keep the family for a week." " Now tell me about the tea. How much did you provide for your party ? " " I bought one ounce of the best tea, and half a pound of lump sugar, half a pound of butter, and a quartern loaf. I did think of two pennyworth of cream ; but then, as I meant it for a pattern of a plain and comfortable tea, I thought they would not be used to that, so I did without." " And what did it co&t ? You must tell me the items." " The tea, 4^d. ; sugar, 3iVd. ; butter, 8d. ; bread, 8d. ; in all, 2s. But not that really, because I had so much left." " What did you talk about at tea-time ?" " They had all bought the same Holy Book, and had doije so for the first time in their lives. So we talked ;u.r.,'t that ; and I told them what it had done for me, ai, i now that made me come and bring it to them ; and they said they hoped, in time, it would make them as happy as I was." " Were they all able to read ?" " No, indeed, very few of them ; but their children could. I found that each had some dim knowledge of 42 THE MISSING LINK. the facts of the New Testament, picked up from their children, who t^o to school." " Did you talk about the children ? " ** Yes ; and I asked them to take some pride in their children. They have some lovely children ; but they never seem to clean or comb them. They say, ' What use is it, for they have no clothes ? It is as much as we can do to feed them.' " " Did any of the eight attend public worship on the Sabbath?" " I think one ha<. been once or twice to Mr. Lee's cottage service on a Tuesday evening, and that some impression had been made on her. Another had been once to Bloomsbury Mission-hall, but the tale was the same — No clothes to go in. ' The people are so fine,' said one. ' Would you, Mrs. B., like to go and sit down with your poor old gown, and not a bit of a rag of a shawl on, by the side of a handsome cape, and a nice veil on a bonnet?' mentioning by name the wearers of such articles." " ' Yes,' I said, * I know. They are teetotalers. The man earns but 15s. a week, and the woman works at the army clothing. You could dress just as well , per- haps, if you took the way they have taken, for some of you earn as much money as they do.' Then I told them how pleased I was to see them all now so clean and tidy, and that I felt so kind of them to pay me i , -1* Marian's tea-party at st. Giles's. 48 «: that respect. I had invited them only to try to do them good, and sec if wc could help each other to make a few more comfortable homes in St. Giles's. ' I know what you could do,' I said, * because I have seen your places, and they would be as good as this if you liked. Now, if one of you gets new strong boots, another wants new strong boots ; and new boots are the one thing you ivill have, it seems, whatever else you go without. If one of you would be clean, another would be clean.' Then they said they thought they would try." «^ " Thank God for that ; we will help them to try. Were they all going now to the hops ? Did they tell you about the hop-grounds ? I suppose you have never seen them, for you told me jou had spent the whole of your life in St. Giles's yourself, without going into the country till your husband's illness called you to G . . ." " Oh, yes 1 all the rest of their talk was about the hops. I could quite fancy how beautiful they look ; it is the time they reckon on all the year, like the gentry going out of town. Everybody goes — i. e., of the low- est sort ; but there are difierent places to which they go. Five of these women were going to Squire E.'s, of Town Maulding, and those who were going there were very happy and well off. He is a great hop- grower, who cares for his pickers, and has a set of barracks prepared on purpose for them ; and his other i '11 I 44 THE MISSIXU LINK. I laborers go away to make them room. But his people are obliged to conform to his rules. He rides on horseback up and down the lines every morning to see if things are all right. A horn calls them to work ; they have a missionary to visit them ; and he ivill have the Sunday kept. No washing, and no card-playing, i*nd no dancing ; but he makes it quite pleasant to them. Their husbands are each binsmen, who take down their own crew, partly their own families. Generally speaking, the men seem to keep what they earn, and the women what they earn, each to them- selves." " Were the rest going into Kent ?" " Yes ; three were going to F , where the farmers care more for their horses than for men and women ; and they would take their own dirty beds and filthy children, and slcop in barns or out of doors ; but this year is a very fine hop year, so it would not seem so hard. We had a little more talk about dirt, and I told them all of the tickets so easily to be had for baths and wash-houses, so l^at there is reallv no excuse for being dirty in St. Giles's." " And then, I suppose, you read a chapter to them. What chapter did you read ?" *' The 15th of St. Matthew, and they listened very gladly ; and then we knelt down, and I prayed as well as I could that God would take them into his keeping- Marian's tea-party at st. Giles's. 45 while they went to the hops, and they all said they did hope we should meet again when they came home. They will take their Bibles with them, and one of them took charge for me of a poor child, not nine years old, and carried her with her to nurse her baby. She has early been led into ways of sin, and was not old enough to be taken into a reformatory. I have heard from this woman, and I think she will keep the girl when she comes home." As we are here relating facts in the order in which they occurred, it is at this period we must mention that the individual who had secured the services of '■ Marian,'' being the Editor of a cheap periodical en- titled " The Book and its Missions," had given many of the foregoing particulars in its pages concerning the people in St. Giles's, under the head of the " Home Missions of the Bible." One of its readers, an Irish lady, touched by the account of this poor woman's de- votion to the welfare of her country people, liad, un- asked, sent <£5 to promote the social improvements of which such need was indicated. To this sum two or three kind friends at Cheltenham had added similar voluntary contributions, so that an unforeseen fund was placed in the liands of the Editor wherewith to pro- mote such improvements. A wish arose that God might, in His mercy, multiply female agency like this a hundredfold for neighbor- 'i 46 THE MISSING LINK. hoods similar to St. Giles's ; that He might raise up and train by His providence these native reformers of their own class ; and that educated Christian ladies might find them out, and quietly help them in their work. No lady, however self-denying, would have been able, by repeated visits, to seek the eight women above described in the haunts from which they came. Places like St. Giles's have their own pride and their own reserve. They need female agency of their oivn, co- operative with all present missionary work, and the right beginning and root of such agency is in the ser- vice OP THE Word of God. A man colporter, with his bag of books, passing up and down the streets of St. Giles's, in the months of July, August, and September, especially when the people were gone to the hay, the harvest, and the hops, and acting according to the ordinary rules of colportage, would probably have returned, saying he could make no sales, and that the people were supplied ; yet, in the space of the same fourteen weeks, this ex- periment of female colportage, and weekly collection of pence combined, effected a sale of 174 copies — 54 of them Bibles — and in the most unlikely quarters. Our next purpose is to show how certain domestic reforms of necessity ensued from the continuance of the Bible visits. Domestic reforms 1 — how much need- 11 Marian's tea-party in st. Giles's. 47 od ! England is looked upon abroad as the country wliose faith is founded on a Book ^vliich she wishes to give to all mankind. But while slie goes forth to pos- sess tlie field of the world, has she not too often for- gotten her heathen at home — those who cluster round her in her capital city — pitiable beings, who live as if Nthey had no God, no Bible, no hope, no thought of heaven — crowded together, often famishing, thriftless, naked, weary, drunken ? We blush to utter the cry so frequently heard at the doors of their " dens," when a child has been asked for its mother ; the answer is, " Mother's drunk ! " No home, of course, for the fath- er — none for the children. Do these people really belong to the nation that gives the Bible to the world ? f"^- •»*• I U M CHAPTER IV. I SKETCHES FROM LIFE IN THE SEVEN DIALS. " Now, Marian, and how stands tlie account between us, as to the sale of books, by tliis time ? You have been employed at the expense of the Bible Society for twenty weeks, and you do not seem weary of your work among your people." " I do not know how I could be weary, ma'am, of that which gives me such true happiness. Indeed, every week's work seems happier and happier. I have sold 250 copies — 130 Bibles and 120 Testaments — and mostly to a class of persons who would not have been likely to buy them of any one else. Wherever I have had a subscriber, 1 try and keep up the right of still paying a visit, so that, in 250 rooms, I mostly find an entrance and a welcome ; and, as one tells another, the number is always increasing." " You seem to be much improved in hea'th and strength yourself, since I persuaded you to leave off taking tea for your dinner, and gave you the iron saucepan to make nourishing soup instead. Do you [48] -* LIFE IN THK SKVEN DIALS. 40 I J0 find that this notion spreads among the people ? And to how many of them have you lent tiie saucepans and deep dishes, which our St. (iiles's fund enabled us to buy?" To differ* of sixteen people, m uiiierent parts oi my ais- trict. They have all bought the printed receipts* of the " soup that could be made for sixpence," with which you provided me, at one halfpenny each, and they valued them more than if they had been given away. Each woman, when she has made soup for her- self, lends the saucepan to some one else, and she to another, so that they are serving about forty families. Everything is lent in St. Giles's, from a pair of bellows to a "washing-tub. One article of each kind will serve a court. Indeed, they have seldom more than one among them of anything that can be borrowed." "Is all your stock disposed of?" " No. I am reserving two, whicli I had intended to give to Mrs. A. and Mrs. F. ; but I have heard a bad character of them, and have even seen Mrs. A. the worse for drink myself this week. So I thought I would ask you about it." " Then I think we will try them, because it is by this soup, if they will make it, that, by degrees, they may, perhaps, be weaned from gin-taking. What is * See Appendix for receipt. 8 50 THE MISSING LINK. it, do you think, that drives them so much to drink- ing ? " " Oftentimes it is trouble. It was that just now with Mrs. A. Her husband drinks ; and one morninnj last week ho came and took away their only bed, and pawned it for 2s., and drank the money. So then her neighbors pitied her, and said, ' Come, poor thing, we'll stana a drop to comfort you, and make you forget it.' I feared that if I lent them the saucepan he might take away that also." " Suppose you give him a meal of your soup, and theu tell him you will teach his wife to make it." " Certainly I can. I bought three jugs, that I might always be ready to show them a pattern. They fly to drink because it is at hand, and warms them for a while, and * makes them forget.' Their fathers and mothers did it before them, and no one has taught them aay better. Yet they need not be so miserable, for they earn enough, if they only knew how to spend it. Sometimes, by selling in the streets, they earn three or four shillings a day between them." " And how do they spend it ?" " Well, they will have their supper. So they send out for a loaf of new bread and half a pound of cheese, and a pot of porter, which, altogether, costs Is. 4d. The woman and the children get a little of the beer, and the man gets enough to make him want more, for i ■% LIFK IN THK SEVEN DIALS. 61 which ho goes to the ))ublic-liou«!e, and tliorc f^tnys. glad enough to get away from the comfortless room at home ; and then he drinks up the rest of the nK>n(\v, while that which they spent on their supper alone would make nourishing soup for half the week. The soup in the receipt is very good, and it takes with the people much more than if it had been said, ' make it of bones.' But I find for myself that if I buy a cow- heel, or a bone from which steaks have been cut ofl", for 4d., I can sell the bone for 2d., after I have stewed it ; and, with vegetables, the soup is, when cold, quite a jelly. Indeed, I have brought a basinful, ma'am, this morning, that you may judge for yourself." " Thank you ; it is exceedingly good. 1 guessed that * bones,' if mentioned in the receipt, would have been rejected : you can teach them further wisdom at discretion. 1 believe that soup-making for themselves would alone cause a reformation in St. Giles's, be- cause the nourishment it would give would prevent the constant craving for stimulants, at which one scarcely wonders, amid the foul smells abounding, and the perpetual weakening of digestion by the hot cup of tea : and you cannot hope to raise them to think over the message from God, which you have carried to them, till some check is placed on their consump- tion of that which ruins them, body and soul. T wonder that the soup-kitchens, opened for them, have 52 THE MISSING LINK. 'jA ,.i not long ago put them upon thinking of making it for themselves." " They do not think much. They say their lives are pass-'id in struggles for a living ; and many of them answer me now with, 'I'm sure I never thought of this before. Mrs. B./ when I am showing them what they might do, and how their places mighv look, if they would take a little trouble. * WeVe willing to be taught,' they say, ' if you'll teach us.' An\ I do feel as if God were making them willing ; for, when they speak to me, it is not as to gentlefolks, whom they covild deceive. They know I know their ways ; and how soup-tickets, and bread-tickets, and coal- tickets, and blankets, all are sold among them, like any other things, to get gin. I am more and more sviro that gifts are of no use to them, except in some such way as the saucepans are lent — to make them try and help themselves." "Have you found any other mode of doing this? What is there in that parcel you have brought with you this morning ?" " Some clothing for St. Giles's, ma'am, which again I find the people are ready and willing to make for themselves, if only put in the way. I have my eight women to tea now regularly two nights in the week, and not always the same eight. You dropped a liint one day when I was with you, a month ago, about a LIFE IN THE SEVEN DIALS. 53 clothing club that you liad known in Kent, where the poor women made the garment they were going after- wards to buy, the stuff being bought and cut out for them. So I thought it over, and laid out Is. 1 Id., which bought this strong, unbleached shirting, and print for two pinafores, besides so^ne calico. I cut out the shirt and pinafores, and fixed them, and had needles ar.d cotton ready, and last night my party helped me to make them, and promised gladly to buy them when they were made. They said, * Bring us plenty of these things, Mrs. B., and we will buy them, particu- larly if we save our money by the soup.' If I had taken them work to do ^'>r you, ma'am, they would have told me they had not time, or could not work ; but they will make time to do it for themselves. And what a change of life it will be to them from their lazy ways 1 I have been reckoning, but I scarcely like to ask for more money, though it is an outlay that would very soon be returned." " Well, what is it you have been reckoning ?" " I have been thinking that if I might provide scis' sors, bodkins, thimbles, and cotton (for not one woman that came to me had either), as well as material — shirting, calico, print for girls' frocks and pinafores, and jean for boys' blouses — I might cut out and fix garments, just such as the people say they should want, and. when I had fixed them, tliey would make them. i,:i 54 THE MISSING LINK. I So the women would bo taught to work while they were getting clothed ; and, at tlie same time, led to save their money from the gin-shop ; and then from decent clothing would follow the possibility of their going to places of worship, and their children to school ; while, again, this better dress would make them feel that they must have a clean room to s^'t down in. All this good might come out of the Bible visits." " I rejoice that you have discovered these things for yourself. You live in the midst of the human material that wants re-shaping, and you see its needs. You have been led to do this by God's kindling in your heart the earnest desire to carry to those homes His Message, His Word ; and His power, not your own, has opened for you a door of entrance : yo2i must have had a message to begin with. And amid all these schemes of usefulness, I should grieve if you personally ever swerve from this one aim of the circulation of the Scriptures as your sole employment for the five hours of the day specified. Are you willing now to under- take a fresh term for this special work, and (as God shall raise them up) to help to train others to go and do likewise ?" " Oh, yes, indeed, I am ! I often ftcl that, paid or unpaid, I could never give up that work as long as I live, while God aftbrds me health and strength to do mm SOSR I LIFE IN THE SEVEN DIALS. 65 it. In comparison with it the work for the body is of small importance ; but the one grows out of the other." ''I see it does. It always did, when the Bible work was properly done, even by ladies. You bear to the people the Book which says, ' Deal thy bread to the hungry ; ' and which commands that * when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him.' (Isa. Iviii. 7.) And this is most effectually done, as experience has proved, by helping the poor to provide for their own necessities. I wish to know, that I may represent to others who believe that they wish, or are fitted for, this kind of employment, how you have followed out in detail the desire expressed in your letter to ' return in the evening to the homes where the aid of a friend- ly hand was needed to rectify disorder.' I should fear you would be too tired, on returning to your dinner at tliree o'clock, to make further effort." " You know, ma'am, my district lies ail near my own home ; and there is much that I can do whil< itting still to rest. I can think and plan for individual cases ; I can cut out and fix the needle-work ; and see to my soup-making for the next day, for my tire is out while I am away from home ; and afterwards I very often find it needful to go and do the thing that I want to be done. If a poor woman is ill, I can make her bed and right her room for the night : I can wash her M m ^± 1 56 THE MISSING LINK. children for her, and show her how bright their clean faces might be made ; and I can interest her now about being able to get clotlics for them fit to go to school. The cover-all pinafor' first, to hide rags (wliich I wash for her some day, perhaps, to show tliai they might at least be clean rags), and then that nice pinafore outside will soon bring the desire for the clean whole garments within. I have quite enough already to encourage me to persevere. And there is many a room where at first I found no furniture but an old table, with the tin beer-cans upon it, and perhaps a pack of cards, with two or three old baskets turned upside down for seats, and naked children sprawling round, that now begins to look very difi'erent. It does argue something good about them, when they are told I have ' a message from God ' to them, so many are not unwilling to hear it ; and they may, by a continuance of this visiting, be persuaded to come forth and hear the message as explained by the ministers of His word. As I read a few verses to them sometimes, the words seem to drop like healing balm upon their sorrows, poor things ! for they almost all say that their husbands treat them badly and beat them. One learns to do so of anotlier, and I believe it depends very much upon the women to alter it. They are certainly most thankfuj for a little kindness ; and one or two of them have said, after the saucepan? were lent to them, Pillll IHJJii I mmmmmmfmm LIFE IN THE SEVEN DIALS. 67 ' Well, now, I am sure we can do no less, Tom, than go to church or to the Mission-liall (as it may be) next Sunday evening.'" " I suppose they are settled now again into their winter quarters. How have they spent tlie money, in general, that they brought with them from the hop- grounds ? " " A few seem to have spent it wisely, and have bought excellent second-hand warm shawls and strong boots for themselves and their children. Many more have spent it very unwisely. St. Giles's was like a fair the first weeks in October. They met in * factions,' and filled each other's rooms, and sliowed their new clothes, which, one by one, soon disappeared for drink. The clothes were very often unsuitable. I saw one woman wearing a flounced gown of all the colors of the rainbow, edged with black velvet, made in the height of fashion, but worn with uncombed hair and the boots that had served in tlie hop-ground. I believe two-thirds of this extraordinary earning by the hop- picking is gone in drink." " That is sad, indeed ; but let us hope we have made a beginning that may lead to something better. In God's strength you are trying to lift the hand of the poor outcasts to lay liold on the advantages which are so abundantly placed before them in St. Giles's, The missionary friend from Burmah, Mrs. IngoUs, whom I 3* 58 THE MISSING I.INK. brought to meet you in your district last week, was alike astonished and delighted with those noble Baths, Wash-houses, and Model Lodging-houses, which are the glory of the place. How she longed to have such institutions among her heathen abroad I What sym- pathy she felt for the detail of your ^rork 1 You will never forget her prayer for you, and she will never forget St. Giles's. It will now be very desirable to think over the many ways in which ladies who desire to do so can render help to such persons as yourself. It seems that you feel there is room for three or four more agents of your own order in your immediate neighborhood. The Bible Society has signified its willingness to employ such when the right women can be found • and as it is a position in which those who undertake it must be willing to ' endure hardness,' I should like each individual to go round with you for a week, to see if she can bear the rough with the smooth." The last suggestion, practical though it might seem, and willing as " Marian" at first appeared to meet it, was not in practice found possible. The people ex- pecting a quiet visit from the good woman in whom they had begun to place confidence, resented, she said, any perpetual introduction to strange faces, and asked "if they were going to be made a puppet-show of?" It was not, besides, a very extraordinary phase of LIFE IN THE SEVEN DIALS. 59 human nature, especially as self-educated, if Marian liked to be "Marian" alone, and did not fancy that any one could do her work in her way but herself. The power of individual action, and that of training others to the same, except as it may be by the force of example, are not often found combined in the same person. Detailed reports of the work, therefore, such as the above, in the Magazine— "The Book and its Missions"— continued from month to month, were made chiefly instrumental in planting similar agency in districts beyond St. Giles's. To another such it is now time that v/6 introduce our readers. CHAPTER V. THE BIBLE-WOMAN AMONG THE DUST-flEAPS. The contents of every dust-bin in this vast London, a " province covered with houses," arc carried period- ically away to some great receptacle, and few of us even think what becomes of that which we call the "refuse" of our families. The dustman receives his small gratuity from each householder ; and collecting from as many dust-bins as will make him a load for his cart, he demands another shilling at the gate of the Paddington wharfs, as he deposits it within their precincts. The monstrous heaps, when amassed, are to be sifted and disposed of, their contents sorted, and carried away in separate baskets. We can offer but a slight notion of the medley of which they are composed. A dust-heap of this kind is often very valuable to the contractor, and a large one is said to be worth from four to five thousand pounds. Of course, its chief constituent element is cinders, mixed with bits of coal, from the carelessness or waste of thousands of [GOJ SEPS9,/;^ AMONG THE DUST-HEAPS. 61 servants, which the soarclicrs and sorters pick out of the heap, to be sold fortliwitli. Tlie largest and best of the cinders also are selected for the use of laundress- es and braziers, whose purposes tliey answer better than coke. The far greater remainder is called hrceze, because it is the portion left after the wind has blown the cinder-dust from it, through large upright iron sieves, held and shaken, elbow high, by the women who stand in the heap, whilst men throw up the stuff into the sieves. TMe h'eeze^ and ashes also, are sold to brick-makers, who will sometimes contract for 15,000 or 16,000 chaldrons of either in one order. The ashes are mixed with the clay of the bricks, .rnd the hreeze is used as fuel to burn between their lake's. But- the heap is not all breeze and ashes ; it includes likewise " software and hardware," the former c im- prising all vegetable and animal matters — everything that will decompose : these are carried off as soon as possible, to be employed for manure. Stale fish and dead cats come into this list ; the skins of the latter being stripped off by the women who sift, which they can sell for fourpence or sixpence, according to the color : white is the most in request. But the " hardware" does not merely mean broken pottery, though of this there is abundance : some of it is matched and mended by the women who find it, and it then becomes their perquisite ; the rest, with oyster 62 THE MISKINiJ LINK. shells, is sold to make new roads. Hardware, how- ever, in the dust-heaps, means almost every tiling : rags, whieh go to the paper-makers ; bones, to the bone- boilers ; old iron, brass and lead, to salesmen c i those metals ; broken glass, to old glass shops ; old carpets, old mattresses, old boxes, old pails, old baskets, broken tea-boards, candlesticks, fenders, old silk handker- chiefs, knives and salt-cellars, not forgetting the old shoes, which go away in bushels to the " translators," or people who turn old into new ohes ; the dust-heaps, therefore, making work continually for our friends in St. Giles's. Everything that the householder has thought " not worth mending," and has decreed to " go along with the dust," besides many a wasteful addition that the mistress never knows, from mansions where extravagance and recklessness bear rule. Rings, brooches, silver spoons, forks^ and golden sovereigns, occasionally also get carted away with the dust. But now to turn our attention to the human beings, and especially to the women, who are employed as sorters and sifters. Many a lady at her parlor win- dow had seen tliem pass, from their hours of toil to their ill-kept homes, in almost savage guise, with *' dust and fine ashes filling up all the ^vrinkles of their faces " — ^with their apron full of cinders, perhaps on their heads, and their gown turned up so as to carry AMONG THK DUST-HEAPS. 63 another heap of wood or paper, or whatever was their day's finding besides. Sometimes tlieir leet encased in navvies' Ijoots, — and hands and arms the color of aslies, — would scarcely be distinguishable from the grimy piece of carpet tied around their waist, which they wear as lliey stand in the heap, to protect them from the scraping of the cinders ; a man's old coat pos- sibly completing the rest of the costume. And what are the homes to which they wend their way ? Often " places like stables," where, with their children, ravenous for the evening meal, they sit down to partake of it with nnwashen hands, and with no change of garments. The children's home during the M day has been in the streets or on the stairs. These people, as a class, are very subject to fever, for they have an objection to open windows; and their filthy walls are guiltless of whitewash, and seldom know the painting of the bright sunbeam. They pay 3s. Gd. a week rent for their rooms. The perquisi-tes they bring home with them are manifold. The kind city missionary of the district once went in to visit an old man, who, being bed-ridden, asked him to stir the saucepan on his fire ; and as he observed, in doing so, " that it was a savory mess," the reply was, " Well, mayhap you might not like to eat it, sir ; it is some bones well washed, and some potatoes and onions my wife picked off the heap. It's very well for me." m ■'"^^ 64 THE MISSING LINK. As their wages are only one shilling a day, they are very glad to find warmth from the supply of cinders and coals whic'i they amass during the day. Paper and wood also Vjelong to them, as much as they can carry, with corks of bottles, by which alone some will say " they find themselves in shoe-leather ;" pill-boxes and gallipots are also their lawful property, and a poor woman had once the pleasure of contributing a dozen of the latter as a gift to the Samaritan Hospital, where the poor often seek medicine or ointment, and have nothing in which to toke it home. The finder of any jewelry or other small valuable is also very apt to pocket that vouch she may have discovered. A banker's cheque for a considerable sum was found in one of the dust-heaps — it was on Harris and Farquhar —in 1847. There is a great difference among individuals even in this rough class of women. Some have a gay taste, and after being out all day on the heap, in the wet, will spend the evening in dancing and drinking. These frequently sleep away their Sabbath days, and are of the number who, on one or two holidays in the year, such as Whitsuntide, will be seen in flaunting ribbons and bright dresses, which, on their return from their frolics, will go to the pawnshop, to remain till a similar occasion shall call for their use. The hus- bands and wives have separate purses, and keep what AMONG THE DUST-HEAPS. 66 thoy each earn, with the understand inp^ that one shall find thi?, and the otlier tliat, in the lioiusekccping, such as it is, and miserable tlierchy is the lot of the poor children. The missionary says, vviien they become sober and thinking people, the woman is in general intrusted with ail the money. Many a lady at her parlor window, in the neighbor- hood of Hyde Park, had seen the dust-women pass, day by day, in their uncouth guise ; but to the heart of om especially God had sent home a paper in the little periodical before mentioned, called " A Mission for Christian Ladies ;" and this, in connection with thf details of Marian's work in St. Giles's, caused her to seek personal communication with the editor, and to form the resolution to endeavor to elicit similar agency for Paddington. Her efforts were successful, and a " Martha " was ere long set to work among the dust- heaps. The incidents of the choice may be found inter- esting, and are given in connection with a report of the good woman's first month's labor in this new locality. March 11th, 1858. We know you are desirous to receive particulars of the commencement of our essay in Female Colportage. The difficulty of finding a suitable agent for this kind of work is greater than at first appears ; and still I could not doubt that there must be some poor Chris- If i ii "^P' u 66 THE MISSING LINK. i: fl i tiaii person in this neighborhood who might, with care- ful training and direction bestowed upon her, prove very useful and valuable, and acquire increasing adap- tation to ner work as she pursued it. My first consultations were held with Mr. Pearson, the excellent City Missionary of the district, whose tweivv.i years' labor, superintended by the Rev. James Strattan, has borne '^dmirable fruit, especially in con- nection with the chapel provided for canal boatmen, stablemen, carmen, dustmen, cabmen, coal-heavers, and wharf-laborers, who congregate in this locality, and make it specially a missionary station. A Sunday- school, a Penny Bank, a Sick and Provident Club, and a Reading-room are all now prospering under Mr. Pearson's fostering help ; but he has long seen that some ivomaniy teaching among the women, and espe- ciallv aL connected with a Bible mission, would be of great assistance to him with regard to his own work. By the aid of his expeiience, therefore, the good woman, Martha P., w?s selected, as one who, though herself very poor, had, to the extent of her means, been always willing, at his suggestion, to clean a room or make a bed for a neiq-hbor in sickness. He said he believed her to have been long one of the Lord s people, ready and willing to do the Lord's work. Martha having, as you know, paid a visit to Marian in St. Giles's, also went rouud with the colporter, Mr. I iMONO THE DUST-HEAPS. 67 Shaw, for a day or two, to observe his metliod of seeking subscribers for Bibles among the degraded classes who surrounded her own dwelling. Having long been their neighbor, she is not unacquainted with their habits and mode of life, so that they feel more ready to trust her with their pence than a scran ger. Martha's own full experience of poverty fits her to sympathize at once with her poorest neighbors. The missionary told me he could not forget the day he visited their home, when her husband was recovering from fever, which is abundantly prevalent in the dis- trict. The poor man, who by accident had injured his hands, and also his feet, in his calling as a plasterer, answered a kind word of congratulation with, " Yes, sir, I am much better ; I am so hungry now, I could eat anything." " That is a mercy, is it not ?" said the missionary ; to which the reply was, " Yes ; but I've nothing to eat — and yet God is very good/' he con- tinued. " Don't he hear prayer quick ?" He went on to explain that they had been praying earnestly " that God would be pleased either to send them food, or damp the children's appetites ; aiid all tliis morning," he added, " they have not once cried for bread." The above incident occurred some seven years since. They are still poor, but their children are now more off their hands. In all their recent straits, tliey have, by close and self-denying management, been able gener- IS 68 THE MISSING LINK. ally to put by one penny a week in the savin n;s-bank, to provide for still more pressing wants or sickness ; and many another good liabit Martha can urge on others, by experience of its benefit to herself. I find her very active, punctual and good-tempered, with a clear head in keeping her account of the Bible money received ; so that, when the hour for ray weekly superintendence arrives, I have never been delayed by mistakes, .inother point whicli it especially gratifies me to observe is her humility and self-d'strust. She is most willing to conform to anything that I sugges^, and very simple and earnest in her dependence on God for any good result or blessing on her efforts. At present she cannot write, but takes her little boy with her to put down in a waste book sums received, which I copy for her in the collecting book. In needlework and the plain duties of housewifery she is a competent pattern. So much for the character of my " Marian." And now as to her mission work. I asked her how she felt on the first morning she went alone to her district. " All of a t^'erable," was the answer ; " but I just went to the Lord for strength." "And how did the people, on the whole, receive you ?" " Some shut the door in my face, and said, ' We want bread instead of Bibles ;' but it was not always so. I f % AMONG THE DUST-HEAPS. 69 prayed as I went along, and the Lord heard. A great many of these rough people cannot read ; but one of them bought a Bible, and said, ' Now sh« hoped her husband would not gc so much to the beer-shop, but stay at home and read to her.' Another, with four children, had no Bible, and her husband, a tailor, no work, but she began to subscribe for a fourpenny Tes- tament. Another woman, when I invited her to a place of public worship, said ' she had no clothes.' ' Oh,' I said, ' never mind your clothes. You have clothes tiiough to go out to buy your food, and you can come out in the evening to worship God. He will look at your heart's dress, and will never mind what you wear.' She asked me to sit down, and I read to her a part of the fourteenth chapter of St. John : ' Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.' So in that there was strength for me too. She listened attentively, and began to subscribe for a tenpenny Bible which I showed her." It was on the 25th of January, 1858 — that day of general rejoicing on the marriage of our young prin- cess — that Martha began to invite her poor neighbors to devote the pence too often squandered in giu to the purchase of the precious Word of God, which is the *' water of life" to all who drink of its refreshing streams. For the first month, it was arranged that she should collect only tliree days a week, — five hours 11 m ^ 'i^.- JJiw h i 70 THE MISSING LINK. each day ; and in that first month she obtained forty- two subscribers for Bibles and Testaments, and paid me £1 138. 2d. towards the purchase. From the date of Monday, the 22d of February, she collected every day. Slie now obtained six additional subscribers among the poor women attending the Motliers' Meetings, held in the neighboring school- room ; and four were also found among the poor boys of the " Shoe-black Brigade," which institution is only one of many kindred schemes springing daily into extensive usefulness, from the active exertion and prayerful efforts of the managers of the Boatmen's Chapel. ' Up to the date of my present letter more than ninety subscribers' names for Bibles and Test.xments are on her book. The average sale increases every week. On Wednesday, March 3d, I thought it time to pro- pose the self-clothing club. The few hints dropped in the wharf district on the practicability of sucli a plan being carried into effect, were received with sucli marked approbation, that we thought it had better be organized at a little social tea party, to whicli the very lowest and poorest were to be invited, and some pieces of material displayed. This party assembled in Martha's room ; and the good missionary looked in during the evening, and told me afterwards that the delight of these poor creatures, at such an opportunity li i?» 1 AMONG THE DUST-HEAPS. 71 of procuring warm and tidy clothing, was unbounded. Their expression of joy was so cliildish, the missionary seemed able to compare it to nothing but what he fan- cied a party of New Zealanders would exhibit before they were civilized by Christianity. Surely, there is something very affecting in this, when we remember the numbers there are in our great city in this state of semi-barbarism, and living close around us who bask in the full light of Gospel privileges. Perhaps Shaw did not tell you of a little incident which occurred in his second round with Martha in the dust-wharf district. She said something to one woman, in a deplorable court, about the plan of collect- ing their pence for any garments they required ; and the woman immediately answered, "What a good thing that will be for us !" Whereupon, Shaw, fancy- ing she might be anticipating some bonus, said, " But you know, mis cress, you'll have to pay for what you receive, and to help to make it, too ; " to wliich the woman answered, " Ah ! that will be better still, for 'twill be teaching us to help ourselves." I thought this spontaneous expression of opinion very satisfac- tory. Each of the poor women, on Wednesday even- ing, became a willing depositor of money for clothes. One woman said she had once saved up two shillings towards buying a gown, but her children were crying for bread, and she was obliged to break into this little i i '-T ! 72 THE MISSING LINK. i> sum, and could never save it again. Martha was al- most overcome by tlie friendliness and joy of her visit- ors. She had been rather tried by a feeling of fear and apprehension, lest, in seeking to help her neigh- bors, they should dislike her interference, and look upon her with distrust ; but it proves to be quite the contra^ \ She said to the missionary, " I thought they would bb ill against me, but you see here they are all for me. It is surely God's doing." She is already made a great blessing to the sick persons on the district. There is a soothing influence in her cheerful smile and pleasant voice, which cannot fail to reach the heart. Asa mother myself, I feel the charm of her winning way of speaking, even to an in- fant, and her sympathy is so practical. It is those who have lived in cellars, and been starved themselves, who truly know how to feel with persons in similar circumstances. May God shield her from every temp- tation to vanity and self-conceit I No one would call her a naturally superior woman, like ** Marian ;" but it is in her real humility and entire dependence on her Saviour's strength and blessing that I so thankfully perceive her fitness for the work. I cannot conclude this report without telling you of the great kindness and sympathy of feeling shown me by my personal friends, and the liberal response made to my appeal for pecuniary assistance to carry out this f • r AMONC; THE DUST-HEAPS. 73 clothing plan, etc. Some rf those at a distance have most generously aided me, and others are Christians with whom I have no personal acquaintance. May they all have the happiness of knowing that this effort for the help of their poor sisters prospers, under God's blessing, to the full extent that they could desire. H. G. I > P 4\ il ll CHAPTER VI. FRESH BEDS FOR THE LONDON POOR. The plans which were being pursued in St. Giles's, of helping the people to help themselves, and which had arisen, step by step, out of the eflforts to induce them to provide themselves with Bibles, took root also in the Dust-wharf district* A long list of subscrip- tions, all unasked, acknowledged on the cover of " The Book and its Missions," testified to the interest which was excited for the improvement of the condition of the poor in both localities. This money was subscribed, not to pay for the Bible work, which, we must repeat, was done by the Bible Society — but for addition of salary to the women, for the domestic part of their mission, and also to advance materials, whether for clothing of various kinds, or for cheap and clean bed- ding, of which the poor of London are so lamentably destitute. A special inquiry into the latter particular was at this time suggested by a benevolent medical friend, Thos. Mackern, Esq., who had, in his professional visits [74] FRESH BEDS FOR THE LONDON POOR. 75 among the poor, been greatly moved to sympathy by witnessing their suflerings from cold at night. IIo offered from his own purse the first contribution to- wards an experimental supply of cheap beds, to be purchased by instalments. On investigation it was discovered that many of them slept on a heap of dirty rags — in the rags also of their day's clothing, and never had slept in a bed. They never rise refreshed and comforted from a night's rest, but begin the day with an early dram, often for the lack of that natural refreshment. Yet they could, it was evident, be in- duced to purchase a good tick andfloch bed for six shil- lings, if they saw it, and that by sixpence at a time ; and the receipt of one led to the desire for the purchase of two or three beds for each family, with their sum- mer's earnings. Even the decent poor required the opportunity given them to do this ; and the easy pur- chase of a Bible first showed them what else might be done in the same way towards the provision of their own family comforts. That which it was a habit to spend m gin, thus began to be turned into better channels. The women of "Marian's" district presently com- menced the purchase of fifty of these cheap beds. Her own account of the promise of this experiment was thus given soon after its commencement. She had been asked by her Superintendent, after ten months' labor. i' ■«■■(■ i.; 76 THE MISSING LINK. what hope she saw for her people from her own in- creasing experience amon"^ thorn, and the following was her answer : — " There is hope for the hopeless, if their attention should be first aroused by some one they know coining to bring them God's Book. I should never despair of any people, after what I have seen in St. Giles's. The lowest poor have come to be what they are, by the mistake of supposing they were too bad to be mended. They drink to stupefy their misery ; and their money will come out of the gin-shops, if other things are not only talked about but put before them. I wondered at the influence of the Loan Saucepans, and at the will- ingness of many persons to begin to purchase clothing, with which numbers of persons in my district are be- come comfortably provided ; but now the * ..cap clean BEDS seem as if they will surpass everything else in the thoughts they will kindle, and the habits they will alter. I have brought £2 15s. this morning, all in sixpences, paid for beds only. I might have had more than as much again ; but I have already taken 180 names, and am now come to ask if indeed another fifty beds can be promised before more names are taken. One woman said, as the money was being paid, ' Nine- teen out of twenty of those sixpences would have gone for gin ;' to wliich many around responded, ' Ay, that they would ! " Three hundred people came to the : ^ M PRESH BEDS FOR THE LONDON POOR. 77 Mission-hall last night, one after another, and from all partrs, — Westminster, Mary-le-ljonc, Chelsea, Clerken- well. Mr. G. intends to have a board painted to say that no a}>plicants can be received, except from St. Giles's." "The hundred beds already gone out arc all to persons you have known in your district, arc they not ?'' " Ninety of the number are to persons whom, hav- ing visited and watched through the winter, I myself knew to be without a bed. Tliey have often spared the penny to purchase a Bible long before they knew that any temporal advantage would come after it. The rest I have allotted to some Irish, who were honest and desirous to improve their condition, which, you will remember, ma'am, you particularly wished, because you said <£15 of the money sent for St. Gilos's, and almost the foundation of the fund, came from an Irish lady, who delighted in the mission of the book to her people. I met the Romish canon of St. Giles's in one of the rooms this week, where a bed had been supplied, and he spoke very kindly to me, and said, ' You are about an excellent work in improving the condition of the people.' I said, ' You know, sir, they pay for the beds themselves, only in an easy way.' ' Yes,' he said, ' I am glad of it ; and 1 am glad to perceive they have an opportunity to do so, without distinction of creed or countrv.' " i ■Hi 78 THE MISSING LINK. " Do the rooms become cleaner with the clean beds?" " I can point to at least thirty rooms that arc not like the same ; and I should scarcely know the women for the same. Some of their floors were so thick with black mud, you could not tell there were boards under- neath. A man, whose wife had subscribed for a bed, bought a birch-broom to give his floor the first cleans- ing, and then came the hard scrubbing and red -sand- ing. When they do take to be clean, they can be very clean in St. Giles's, and they like to have the floor like a gravel walk ; and then, when they get the bed, you should hear them say, * Oh, we never knew what a night's rest was before 1' It does me good to hear the mothers exclaim, ' We cannot find it in our hearts to put our children to sleep on the rags we had before. When we have paid for this, oh 1 if we may but have another, and another — but then we shall want two rooms !' " " Well, thank God, we have shown them what it is in their own power to do for themselves ; and may His blessing rest upon the extension of such an agency far and wide. Are any of them buying bed- steads?'' " Yes ; I have heard of half a dozen ; and very many more will certainly do so, as their summer earn- ings from the flowers and fruit increase." I : FRESH BEDS FOR THE LONDON POOR. 79 And now it is the 10th of June — a sultry morning in London and every wlicre else. Perhaps, after all, no region is much cooler than the shady side of our broad, well-watered streets, before the sun attains his strength, and pours his fervid rays centrally down on the tide of human life, which stays not for heat or cold. The early cries of St. Giles's and its fraternity salute our ears, and presently " Marian," with whom its name will now be identified to our readers, steps into the parlor, where this day year she went forth with her first Bible for the " dens." The sum of her account sold is now 1004 copies — 413 Bibles and 591 Testaments, purchased in St. Giles's in twelve months, oy the penny subscriptions of " the lowest of the low," each penny called for once, twice, and sometimes thrice, by the patient and earnest native agent, chosen from among themselves. Few would imagine the labor that it has cost to collect the <£24 returned for their Bibles from " the wandering folk," whose life is mercifully spent out of doors, for how could they exist otherwise in the heart of our great city at this season ? A year ago " Marian" knew little of the circumstances of her neighbors beyond the precincts oi her own court. Noiv she has seen their ways, their means, and their miseries, through the vagrant summer and the pinching winter ; she has become a mother of charity, bv various \\l 80 THE MISSING LINK. : lit li 5 il ! [ \i 1 methods, to many who felt they never had one before ; and in carrying them the mess..ge from God, slie has watchea week by week their want of water, and space, and pure air ; t^eir want of cleanlincbs, of clothing, and of bodding. She has reported simply and faithfully to her Super- intendent, who has again reported to the lovers of the Boole and of the poor, the discoveries made by this its Home Mission. The Lord has disposed kind hearts from far and near, not to cast gifts as into the slough of despond, whi^'h would never have mended it, but to advance the means to help the mothers of St. Giles's to help themselves ; thoy repaying, with an honesty and a punctuality which have done credit to their English, yes, and to their Irish hearts, with the earn- ings of the summe'*, to a very considerable extent, the advances of the winter ; so that the benefits of a temporal kind they have received are becoming pur- chases of their own (like the B/hfps), for which, never- theless, they express tenfold the gratitude they have ever bestowed for pure rifts. Marian's Clothinji^ and Bedding Clul)s for these " lowest of the low " wt'- not fully organized till the late autumn and the winter of 1857, since which the people have paid to her £35 by instalments, towards an outlay of £63 for the provision of 250 beds, and X16 for garments of various kindii, making a total of i FRESH BEDS FOR THE LONDON POOR. 81 about X50 saved during the first lialf-year's experiment of turning aside this money from tlio gin-shop, into whoso current of liquid fire it would otherwise cer- tainly have flowed. Yes, and not only this money, but much more, for tlie person who has begun to save for a bed, when that has been obtained, has almost in- variably tried to save for something else — for a bedstead, for sheets, and for a little crockery, a- 1 1 even for a picture on the wall. One woman left off beer for a month that she might get the bed, and " in that month I liave learned," she said, " to do without it ; and if I can do so now, 111 this roasting weather, I can do j-o always.'' But, oh ! the revelations from St. Giles's during UiIh time of almost torrid sunshine. The beds have done wonders to induce the keeping clean of many rooms, but in numbers of others the inmates can never lie down to sleep ; and after trying to do so, the close " den '' is forsaken during the live-long night for the pavement and the door-ste;\ and tliis even by re- spectable artisans. Nothing but pulling down many of the houses would exterminate tlie vermin. These, and the foul odors, are alike the almost invincible hinderances at this time in the way of the Colporters, and of all who visit the London poor at this season of the year. The smells cannot be forgotten when once imbibed, and they are indeed deadly poison. We have long made grand streets, and built princely public 4* m:' il lilt i! f! ii 1:1 tiU" i 82 THE MISSING LINK. oflSces ; but we are only just beginning to think of England's Public Fountains, and well-drained and ventilated dwellings for the poorer classes of our groat cities. Marian's continued report concerning her people is, that they do not want relief, but provision for their rightful and natural wants, of which, as a monej'-earning and industrious race, they will be will- ing to take advantage. The industrious in every class can, in general, earn sufficient for their own support ; and tlie only true aid that can be rendered to thera is that whicli helps them to help themselves, though the doo s of sickness, sorrow, and extraordinary need are always standing open in a world of sin, through which the bounty of the upper classes may wisely and legitimately find entrance. If I CHAPTER VII. A MIDSUMMER FETE IN ST. GILES'S. " Marian " has a tea-party to-night, the 7th of July, but it is not one of her old kind ; not half a dozen women from the " dens," who had washed their gowns and caps to pay a visit, perhaps for the first time in their lives, to a quiet, clean room, where they were to learn to work, and to listen to her reading from the Book. Still, it is the Book that brings them together. It is a party given to tlie Bible subscribers by the subscrib- ers to the St. Giles's Fund, who have been the readers of " The Book and its Missions " during the last twelve months. Out of the 1004 persons to whom " Marian " liad in that space of time delivered " the Holy Word of God," she, in conjunction with her superintending lady, liad invited about forty to par- take of a somewhat more bountiful repast in one of the large rooms at the Broad street Ragged School and Refuge, which was kindly and gratuitously lent for the purpose. Six o'clock was the hour named, and as the clock (83) m m i> Illi 84 THE MISSING LINK. struck, the guests began to arrive and seat themselves quietly on both sides of the long tables covered with white cloths, i)laced up each side of the room. They had themselves previously brought a voluntary contri- bution to embellish the feast — which, though there are no gardens in St. Giles's, it was in their power to do, as a flower-selling people — jugs of stocks, roses, pinks, and pansies, which took our hearts out to country cottage doors ; and two glass vases of Marian's own were filled with regal white lilies, which might, among the Romanists, have done honor to -' Our Lady.^' On the high window-ledges sparkled balsams, ger- aniums, and fuchsias, which were gladly lent for the occasion also by the partakers of the treat ; and more lovely still, as a product of tlie spontaneous gratitude of the Seven Dials, on a small table whicli connected the two long ones, lay half a dozen bouquets, which might have been the envy of Covent Garden, and which, we were told, were " for the ladies who had been so kind to them." When one thought of '• Church Lane," and Marian told us these had been made there, and that no one would say who had made them — " it was the oflering from all " — our hearts were touched ; and considering ourselves but as the local repres«mta- tives of a far wider circle, wo ofler to our subscribers this testimony from tlie hoiu't. H\ m A MIDSUMMER FETE IX ^T. (JILES'S. 85 We wish they could liave seen tlie looks of pleasure from tlic givers as these bou(]uet.s were taken up and admired. Water-lilies or choice white roses formed the centre, encircled by scarlet geraniums, heliotropes, mignonette, calceolarias, and all delicate and sweet- smelling additions, surrounded by a bordering of lace paper. The flowers will not Hve forever, but the feeling that brought them shall not be forgotten till " Church Lane," as it is, is swept from the earth ; till its rags overhead no more darken the sunshine ; till on the site of its gloomy dens rise wholesome dwellinirs ; till the fountain adorns its entrance, and the Book of God is tlie guide of every home. There is not a room tlere now into which the Bible-woman cannot find access ; and manv a reformed woman she has bi\>ught out of tluit locality to find lodgin blankets and sheets, to be procured \iy liiHfnlnieiitfl— H statement which elicited great applause. He wIbIiij/I them never to forget that the Bible had \ihit\ii\il ||H together, and that now, na women's work amoUg women had secured this communication, ho |iil*^i^/ •.u>.4\. " Within the first three weeks of the operation of this agency, as many as seventy-three subscribers for Bibles were obtained in some of our poorest streets. They are to be paid for by small weekly instalments, and much spiritual and domestic good may be expected. I 94 THE MISBINO LINK. with God's blessing, to result from this organiza- tion." And what is the description of many of these poor- est streets, in this now dense mass of human habita- tions? The Report of the City Mission has thus painted them : " Dingy, swarming alleys, crowded with tattered women, and unwashed, lazy men, cluster- ing round the doors of low-browed public-houses, or seated in unwindowed shops, frouzy with piles of rub- bish, or displaying coarse and greasy food." This is the neighborhood in which Mr. Vanderkiste, who was for six years a City Missionary, made "Notes and Narratives of a Mission to the Dens of London" — those dens which, up rickety staircases, and through fever and dirt, still want exploring day by day, with the Bible in hand. Has the Bible Society scarcely sent forth 5000 Bibles and Testaments in twenty years among so many ? If St. Giles's wanted a " Marian," and Paddington a " Martha," Clerkenwell needed its " Sarah" — a devoted, vigorous, motherly " Sarah." We will therefore follow her in a few of her first Bible walks, not so much into a district of costermon- gers, as amid the homes of poor artisans, out of work, or in half work ; and, in contrast to the many forms of misery she has found among these, the daily-paid out-door laborer in St. Giles's soeras rich. Even those women who would be called respectable, if their lius- U. koS CLERKENWELL AND THE BIBLE-WOMAN. 95 bands were in work, excuse their filthy and untidy habits by saying the men earn little or nothing now ; and with numbers health has failed. " Sarah" meets the worn and jaded cabinet-maker, who has walked with the chair or chest of drawers he has made till he is ready to drop, and is obliged, at last, to sell it for little more than the material has cost him, because " they are starving at home." She is one who herself slept last winter without a blanket, for the sake of others. She is sometimes almost desperate on behalf of the misery she sees. God help her in her efforts, and the people in their misery 1 In commencing with Bible work as " Marian" did, she thereby investigates the habits and customs of the people. "April Ist. — Called on an Irishwoman ; solicited her name as a subscriber for a Bible. She gladly promised a penny a week, saying she had long wished for one. " Called on a man in C street. His answer was, ' No, missus, I do not want a Bible. I have one in my box, and it is one hundred and two years old.' I replied, ' I should like to see it.' He took it out, and I was obliged to say, ' It looks as if every page condemned its several owners.' ' How so, missus ?' ' It has always been kept in the box, and not a leaf is m ;• * 96 I i. THE MISSING LINE. soiled.' ' Yes/ said he ; ' but I cannot see to read it, my eyesight is so bad.' ' Then you want one that you can see to read, and that can lie open on the table, to teach you the way of salvation through the blood of a crucified Saviour.' * Well,' was the reply, ' you can put my name down, and be sure it is a good print.' " yy ^,u !: ?>iil^ Hkm ^':%iilii IW; The people of Clerkenwell are artificers, dress- makers, flower and fan-makers, comb, brush, and box sellers, smiths, farriers, and wheelwrights — persons vrho in good times can earn from 13s. to 14s. a week, but who now say that supply overpasses the demand for their work. Numbers seem wretchedly off for decent clothing, and especially for beds ; and, having heard of the supply in St. Giles's, they are become eagerly anxious to obtain them in Clerkenwell also by instalments, which is a principle understood among them for other purposes. If at all possible, it is their habit to pay, by degrees, towards a trip into the country in the pleasure vans — most often made on the Sabbath — and for which the charge is 3s. a-piece, and half-price for children ; and for this day a fine dress must somehow or other be obtained, if only to go to tlie pawnshop on the morrow. Tally-shops abound in Clerkenwell, which provide this, at twice its cost price, on credit, and which usually summon the husband for the payment, leaving the wife and children destitute ■MMIi ♦ CLERKENWE' T. AND THE BIBLE-WOMAN. 91 of necessary clothing or comforts, for that one daxfa sake, to the end of the year. These women all want teaching, just as much as in St. Giles's, to prefer to this soon past and expensive pleasure the neat print dress, which may be their own for 3s. ; and also to make the cheap soup, or savory dish, that shall invite the husband to his home, and nourish themselves and the children. ' ' " If I have but fd. I only spend ^d., says Sarah to her people ; " and when I have but Id., I never go on trust for 2d." This is what they want teaching in Clerkenwell. :^(;nvi.^ " May M. — Visited forty subscribers ; found many out, but the penny left for me at the neighbor's. " This day I met with a fellow-missionary — a Scrip- ture-reader to his neighbors on his own account. Not knowing this, I asked him, among others, if he wanted a Bible. * Yes,' said he, ' I do ; but I have not a penny till I have been out to sell my fish, and then I will leave it for you. I want a Bible very much, for look here at these few leaves of the Gospel of St. John. When I come home at night I have my tea, and wash myself, and then I go out to read these to my neigh- bors.' His wife testified that thip was true. She gave me the first penny an hour afterwards." This is the kind of man to make a future colporter 1 " ' Here, you Bible-woman,' called out a young man 5 TT 98 THE MISSING LINK. r who had paid a penny for a Bible last week — * here's your penny for the Book, but you never told me you sold shirts. Don't you see, I've no mother, and I want a shirt — the Bible won't clothe me.' "But,' I said, 'it will teach you to clothe yourself. However, I do not sell shirts at this time ; I only sell Bibles. If you want a shirt, you can have one ; it is ready made for you — a good strong working shirt ; you must send your sixpence by some woman you know, to my clothing-club room on Wednesday nights, and you may get a shirt for Is. 6d., but I cannot take your money now.' " * I think,' said an old man, one of his fellow-work- men, ' you might as well take mine. I was going in for a glass of gin, but I'll give you this twopence for a shirt. I would not give it you for a book.' * I hope you will some day,' I said, * when you hear more about the Book ; but I suppose I must take it for the shirt, to save it from the gin-shop, only it is not my rule. I do one thing at a time.' " May 5th and Qih. — After collecting yesterday my Bible subscriptions, which constantly increase, I went this morning to mention that the club was now open for the receipt of subscriptions for bedd'ng ; for which the people appeared very thankful, and numbers prom- ised to subscribe as soon as they got employment, as they now slept on the floor and on dirty rags. ' ^kimm y^^A^vt) rtS^. CLERKENWELL AND THE BIBLE-WOMAN. 99 " *Jth. — Visited Fryiiigpan - alley, Row - alley, and Turk's-head Yard. Here I found costermongers, coal- sack makers, beggars, tinkers, and a few water-cress girls. Part of the houses are fallen down, giving a little more air than otherwise would be obtained. Up one of the yards, the whole of the ground floors are turned into sheds for the carts and wagons of cowkeepers, stable- men, and wheelrights. This is one of the vilest places in London. In the gateway stood many girls, from fourteen to eighteen, for whom my heart ached, and I must surely try to carry the Book among them. " I have sold all our ready-made clothes. The peo- ple think it is ' one of the best ways that has been thought of to help them.' One woman said ' she had lived fifty years in the parish, and that this new plan of subscribing for clothing and beds would certainly be one of the greatest blessings that ever happened for Clerkenwell. Old clothing of all sorts is eagerly asked for. «; ^, , - " After collecting for my Bibles on Thursday, I went on Friday, and called on twenty families in Turnmill street, all of whom were pleased to hear of the club for clothing and beds, for they possessed no beds. As they had been induced to have a bit of print and calico of some tally-shop, they could not now i)ut down their names to me, although they would pay 1\d for print no better than mine at 4c? a yard. * 100 THE MIBSINQ LINK. I IK " May 2'ith — Whit- Monday. — Left home at 8 a. m., to be in time for some of my subscribers wHb were going to make holiday. Reached Compton street, Clerkenwell, which presented a scene not easily to be forgotten, — nine vans filled with people, young and old, with children of all ages. One very old woman told she Would read a tract I gave her on her journey. Left that bustling scene, and passed to Allen street, where a great many persons had been cheated by a man who had for many weeks been collecting their pence to take them a trip in the country by van, and had decamped with the whole sum, amounting to be- tween three and four pounds. These poor creatures had saved their pence out of a hard day's washing or cleaning for this trip, some paying 2s. lid., others 3s., others Is. 6d. One woman, my subscriber, had paid Is. 6d., and was going to pay the man a shilling more if he had come. ' Well,' she said, * after all, it is bet- ter to buy a Bible ; so here, missus, take this shilling. Let me have my large Bible, for that will pay it up ; and instead of drinking anything, I will read it.' " May 25th. — Made thirty calls ; succeeded pretty well, they having left my pennies for me. " One of the Sunday school teachers had given an old man a Bible ; and as he never would lend it to liis wife, when I called to ask them to subscribe, the fol- lowing conversation ensued : - ■ <;, w r >* 4>* » uih CLKUKBNWBLL AND THE BIBLE-WOMAN. 101 "Old Woman (above seventy): 'Now, dear, see what a nice Testament ; only fourpence 1 1 can see that i..int ; do buy it for me — you never bought me a book in your life — and then I shall be able to read nicely. Hoar how well I can spell 1' , , ,;. " Man : * What do you want with it ? You have got two or three I " u . u>» I i. " Woman : * But they are so dirty, I can't see to read them ; and look, what a beautiful book for only four- ponce 1 When I took my boy to school (he's now forty) I used to ask the mistress to tell me a letter or two, and so by that mea- ^ I learnt the little words ; and now, you know, I can spell big ones.' rrr n > )>!.^ t^>->> " I then sat down and read a short portion to them ; and by degrees he drew the fourpence out of his pocket, and bought the Testament. . „. , ,.. _ *' The following week the son gave me his name for a Bible, and paid twopence, his own being too old- fashioned to take to church ; and his mother told me, with her hands uplifted and streaming eyes, ' that her son had been a cruel drunkard, and had often helped his father to beat her and turn her out of doors ; but now, since Mr. Maguire had come to the parish, he kept himself clean and sober, going regularly to the Institute for Working Men every evening, and to church on Sunday.' • " Two evenings afterwards, this woman came to my *1 102 THE MISSING LINK. house at half-past nine, with twopence from a neighbor who lived opposite, to whom she had shown 'her beauti- ful Testament,' asking for a card to prove to her she had paid the twopence, and requesting me, as the Bible- woman, to call next week, as they wanted a 2s. 6d. Bible, she having seen what a splendid book I could sell for that price ; and ' I mean,' she said, ' to show my book to everybody, and get as many customers for you as I can.' " May 2Qth. — Called on a poor man for his subscrip- tion, who said, * I am very sorry, but work has been so bad that I cannot get my little money together to take us into the country when master sends for us for the hay-making ; so I am afraid I shall be obliged to make my part-of-a-Bible do till I come back.' " * Let us see the part you talk of," said I. > ••• "'Here it is.' / ^- , ■ r " * It looks well used ; but how came you to have it in this cut state?' >'-' *^ " ' You see, when my mother died, I and my brother both wanted it, so we cut it in half, and he had the New Testament and I the Old. I take it with me almost every year to read in the hay-fields to my com- rades.' '"'■'' .■■ _ ' :^ ')!;■; u;,---^. ■■ A-( = A^-:^^' " I called the next morning, and left my own Bible with this man as a gift. I hope both the brothers are Christian people. ft BWWilWiiiiWI CLERKENWFLi. AND THE BIBLE-WOMAN. 103 " Called on a poor man to ask him to become a sub- scriber. " * That's all you religious people think about — if you can thrust a Bible or a tract down our throats, it will do as well as food. Now, I have five children and a wife, and no work.' " * My good man, you quite mistake me if you think I want you to live on the Bible. I only want you to live by its precepts, that you may be led to ci»U on Him who careth for you in all things, and died to save you, that by His stripes you may be healed.' To my surprise he said, ' Well, then, put down my i( rr name ; I'll have a Bible.' " June *lth. — Going out this mo^'ning, met two of my subscribers coming with their pence for me befoi*e they left home for a day's work. Called on a poor man ; showed him one of my large Bibles. ' Well,' said he, * this is a fine book for only 2s. 6d. ; it is just like a gift, it is so cheap. Now, if you will keep this very one for me, I will give you twopence.' " * I cannot promise that very book, but you shall have one of the same sort.' " ' That won't do for me, for I must have this very book, it is such a beautiful type ; so I shall put my name and address in it, to prevent the sale.' " An old man, who became a Bible subscriber from the commencement of this mission, explained, as ho ! '* I 104 THE MISSING LINK. procured first clg shilling Bible and then another, that he wished them to give away with his own hand. Sometimes he paid a halfpenny, sometimes a penny, sometimes more, till he had purchased no less tlian three, and was subscribing for a fourth ; when one day, being very ill with severe rheumatism, he was compelled to bid the Bible-woman enter his room for the first time, and, to her surprise, she found only tokens of extreme penury and personal want. He liad always put his card and money out at the door, and had paid so regularly, that she little thought to SCO a room so unkept, and with nothing for a bed but some sacks in the corner. She asked him how he had been able to give to others, if himself so bare of neces- saries. He said, " He liked to give to God, and the small sum he had spared would not have made much diflference to his own supply." He appeared to be a man of some education, having been intended for a teacher, but he had become a whip- liandle maker ; and just then, having no power to work, was consequently in distress. When asked whether he had not better, while ill, go into tlie work- house, " No," he said, " time has been when I have re- ceived my own dividends ; I would rather be carried out of this room — starved ! " When Sarah saw her superintendent in the evening, and found that some readv-made linen, for the use of CLERKENWELL AND THE BIBLE-WOMAN. 105 I the Missions, had been sent by a clergyman's lady at Woodbridge, she asked for a couple of shirts for this man, who had cared so little for himself, and been so little cared for, that he had only worn rags these last six months. They were very gladly so bestowed, it being ascertained that drink had not been the vice that had brought him to this low estate ; and as she was about to make a fresh supply of beds for her sub- scribers, she was ordered to add one to the list, with a cover to keep it clean, and a blanket and rug, pur- chased with the Mission funds which had been kindly sent for Sarah's use. He had slept for months with only a sack under him, and three above him ; and, in fact, when the Bible-woman penetrated into his room, he said he had laid him down, as he thought, to die. The message was sent with the gifts, " that as he had loved to spread God's word, the Lord had unexpected- ly restored him fourfold." He seemed most thankful, and made answer, " Not fourfold, but a hundredfold. He has, all my life long." Comforted by the help given, he had his room cleaned, and began to work again. Various tokens of sympathy have since reached us for this poor man from country friends. One kind hand sent him his Christmas dinner ; another, " six shillings, because he had denied himself for Christ." He is just one of those friendless waifs upon the wilder- w ri! ^i' PI WVI'lM ! i ii no THE MISSING LINK. Refugees taught the English improved modes of weav- ing, ante brought with them models of the looms of Tours and Lyons. The manufacture of silk has ever since continued to be the staple trade of this locality. If we first explore the Jewish quarter, we shall find in the neighborhood of Petticoat-lane four markets for the sale of old clothes. The oldest and most re- spectable is called " The City Clothes Exchange." This is inscribed over the entrance. A little to the north of it, perhaps about fifty or sixty yards, are three markets joining each other, yet distinct. One of these is called " The Exhibition Exchange," froiu the cir- cumstance that it was built principally with material belonging to the Great Exhibition of 1851, in Hyde- Park. This market is covered with part of the glass of the Crystal Palace, and the roof supported by columns which stood in that building. That which was once the admiration of the world, and the shade of all that was exquisite in art and manufactures, covers, not the beautiful contributions of distant em- pires, but the refuse and cast-off personal apparel of our London population. In this " Exhibition Ex- change " there are stalls rented to persons who regu- larly occupy them. ' Another of these markets is an oblong square, un- covered to the sky : for each day's leave to sell there the people pay twopence, or one shilling per week. **-. BIBLE SELLING IN SPITALFIELDS. Ill This may be regarded as a medium market between the " Exhibition 'Change" and " Halfpenny 'Change," of which we have yet to speak. " The Halfpenny 'Change," which is, after all, the most popular, is so called because every person enter- ing it, either for the purpose of buying or selling, has to pay one halfpenny toll. Into this market crowd hawkers and buyers from all quarters, and the nature of the traffic it would be impossible to delineate ; it must be witnessed to be understood. You have here the refuse of everything in the way of old hats, boots, shoes, coats, vests, gowns, shawls, bonnets, &c., &c., all the results of the importunate demand made at so many stores and doors during the day, " Any old rub- bish in the way ? We pay you well for it." Hun- dreds of people pour in about the hour of one or two, with all such rubbish, into the 'Change, and then order is lost ; it is a perpetual scramble going on between multitudes of living beings, every one appearing to be turning over and making selections from heaps of old articles, which cover the whole place. It is chiefly from this source that all the other markets and shops are supplied ; for out of the selected boots and shoes, coats and trousers, the " translators," by mending and scouring, stuffing and dyeing, produce their salable wares ; and in all this much skill and deception are practised, so that what is sold in this latter mnrket at a r;! i: ■\ \ m 1 1 112 THE MISSINO LINK. groat, when mctamorpliosed, brings a goodly price, by which the Jew becomes proverbially rich. The site on wliich these three markets stand was covered with small houses some fifteen years ago. The owner of the estate, an improvident young man, let them fall into decay ; the ground was purchased, and a privilege obtained to open markets, as it was thought likely that such accommodation would improve the condition of the place. Every part around it is densely inhabited, and thousands daily pass and repass through all the avei aes of this dirty but golden high- way. On our Christian Sabbath-day it is crowded more than ever with the Jew salesmen, who scream and shout in recommendation of their goods ; and as a crowd of ten or twelve thousand persons assemble there, the place is called Rag Fair. : Some members of the Open- Air Mission resolved, one Sunday in June, 1858, with about twenty of their friends, to make a regular visitation of every lane, alley and booth in this extraordinary place. They gave away some thousand tracts, and made numerous addresses, which seemed listened to with interest. The Bible Society had kindly granted them a supply of Testaments, and these were used when any express- ed a desire for the book to read at home ; but the greatest acceptance was found for Scripture Cards, containing five or six verses, printed in red and blue Ml ! H U wmm was BIBLE SELLING IN 8PITALPIELD8. 113 letters. In only two instances were these cards refused, and nearly 1500 were distributed. The journal of a colporter in Spitalfields, and of his visits paid chiefly in the Jewisli quarter, will here prove in- teresting. I JOURNAL OP A BIBLE COLPORTER IN SPITALFIELDS. On Tuesday, October 5th, 1858, 1 visited about 130 families in the Tenter-ground, near Petticoat-lane. Forty years ago this square was an open space, appro- priated to the stretching of dyed cloth on timber frames by hooks, from which the place derives its name of " Tenter-ground." One of the old inhabi- tants remembers the ground being so employed, when not a house was built, but it was filled with cloth of divers colors. It is now covered with houses, inhab- ited principally by Dutch and German Jews, speaking their own languages, from which circumstance it is often called " Dutch Ireland." The Jews in this neighborhood are of a very poor class. I met with but few men at home, as might be expected, they having to get their living abroad by various kinds of traffic. The women are not commu- nicative with an English-speaking visitor ; they under- stood my inquiries but little, and I as little their replies ; yet some interpreted for others, and the com- mon answer I received was, " My husband is not at H , lilll 114 THE MISSING LINK. liome." Tlioy arc in general poorly lodged, but others are fond of display alike in their persons and iiouses. The large floating ribbons for the head attire appear indispensable as a rest-day's ornament, both for young and old. I believe they bestow much care on their children ; I have been often pleased with the appear- ance and vivacity of the little ones, and thought of the promise, " And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof." Were these beautiful little figures brought up on the " moun- tains of Israel," with " timbrel and dance," &c., in- stead of being doomed to a sedentary life in the low districts of London, as most of them are, what a con- trast would they form in riper years to the heavy busi- ness-loving matron of Petticoat-lane and its vicinity ! I consider it due to the people of this quarter to say tliat in no instance have T received an uncivil re- ception, nor had the door slammed in my face without an answer, as is too frequently the case elsewhere. This has been the effect of Christian missions amongst them, as once no Gentile was admitted into the house of a Jew. Few of these people can read the Bible in English. All appear to stand in doubt of the book. One asked, " Is the name of Christ in it ? " and, when answered in the affirmative, replied, " Then I can have nothing to do with it." Many have asked, " Is the New Testa- BIBLE SELLING IN SPITALFIELDS. 115 ment in it?" and wlien I said, "Ye?, it is," the same answer followed. I had, consequently, little success this day, but havinj? obtained one Jew as a subscriber 1 also obtained seven subscribers who were not Jews. A City Missionary, who has been laboring here for some years, told me that he has circulated, by gift, about 400 copies of the Scriptures in the Dutch and German languages amongst the Jews of this locality. I mot also a Jew who is an old inhabitant of this place, who assured me that he has distributed about 1000 copies of the Old Testament, in the English lan- guage, amongst his countrymen. Some of these I have seen ; they are copies of the authorized version as read in our churches, having a little difference in the sepa- ration of the verses ; the reading is more continuous, like the reading of other books. It is but just to the name of Miss Hooper to say that all these Bibles were supplied by her : she was, as I have learned, a Gentile Christian lady, most kind to the Jews of this vicinity, • The person who circulated these Bibles for her annongst his brethren informed me that thousands of pounds had also passed through his hands, as her al- moner, in the way of needful gifts to the poor Jews. Another, wlio showed me a Bible he received from hor, told mo that she was in the habit of making collec- tions for them when she travelled from home. One 'If-. u^ 1' ' f' '.;[ 116 THE MISSING LINK. of the most respectable and intellij^cnt females I met with said that she frequently visited the Jewesses, and that she would sit and read to them out of the Old Testament, but never say a word to hurt their feelings by talking about " Christ." Now that Miss Hooper has been removed to her reward, her memory is re- spected by all the Jews. This recalled to my mind that the elders of the Jews had said to our Lord, con- cerning a certain Gentile, '* That he was worthy, for he lovcth our nation." , 0%.,, •> ,. ■. , . The Jews of this neighborhood are also supplied from their synagogue with the Old Testament Scrip- tures, both in the Hebrew and English languages. In several of their rooms I saw a picture of Moses hold- ing the two tables of the Law, which was written in Hebrew on each table. An elderly Jew told me, as well as he could, that he had travelled over the East, and practised as a physician when abroad ; he was now " translating" old shoes. He pointed to a table whereon were pots, cups, plasters, could secure. This kind off , "'*' ^^^ ">ey neighborhoods of cities and .;" ! '^'""''"" *'"' '"^^t 7-ofheronen,ess:;rr;r::r^^.^^^"'^- olass unreached by District Visitors or '. '" """'""'^ e>-s-fo those who have never bel I ''r''""'■"'•'''"^■ 'ever been broug),t within fho II i i i Tllil !!i k 124 THE MISSING LINE. circles of the benevolent agency which emanates from places of public worship. These degraded ones never worship. They know not God, and they are often sunk below the instincts of brute animalp Their welcome to the Bible-woman, we must repeat, is surprising. rom jver unk ome CHAPTER X. THE WANT OP A BIBLE MISSION IN BETHNAL GREEN. ■} s^>L I ',•' The district of Bbthnal Green is inhabited chiefly by silk weavers, and the very name of that locality will recall to mind immediate associations, with dona- tions implored by its clergy, on behalf of the pitiful suflferings of their poor in the inclement days of winter. They would speak parochially, of a population of upwards of 90,000, and of a proportionate amount of wretchedness far larger than in most other neighbor- hoods. On the census Sunday of 1851 there were forty-one places of worship in this locality, thirteen of which belonged to the established church, and twenty-eight to other denominations. On that Sunday the congre- gations in all these places unitedly amounted to some- thing like 12,000 in the morning, and 10,000 in the afternoon and evening. Assuming that fifty-eight persons in every one hundred might and ought to have been present, the congregations should have consisted of 52,000. The absentees, therefore, numbered at least [125] i t 1 1 'H < ') ! ''< 126 THE MISSING LINK. 40,000, a number equal to the population of a large town, not inclusive of children. Whatever change for the better may have taken place since the census Sunday, it is still the opinion of those who know the neighborhood, that to these " ab- sentees" a Female Bible Mission will certainly not bo out of place. We may add that " not more than one-half of the surface of the parish is, or ever has been, under visita- tion by the City Missionaries ;" yet their number is tJiirteen, and the committee of the London City Mission (not reckoning their special receipts from Christian friends for the purpose) annually expend £400 of their General Fund here. So many good stones having been thrown into this " Slough of Despond" with a view of mending it, and the place yet remaining " almost as bad as before," let us try if, with the true foiindation stone for all future evangelir'.o labor, we can find the bottom, and to this end endeavor to make acquaintance with the people. It has been said — we are not yet certain how truly — that not more than one in thirty persons is at present in possession of a Bible. In company with our friend the curate, we have en- tered one of their rooms, ascending to it by a dark, narrow, winding, and broken stair, without any land- ing-place. There is scarcely space to stand, for the THE WANT OF A BIBLE MISSION. 127 chamber is filled up by three looms and a bedstead ; its long casement window at either end makes it suit- able for weaving. The father is moving about among tlie looms amid two or three children engaged in winding quills, and, in the interval of attending to the handsome piece of fringe he is making himself, he is giving assistance to his son, a lad of thirteen, in the corner, who is weav- ing a fringe of mixed colors. That fringe will adorn the gay dress of some wearer, who will probably never think where it was made. The boy cannot read, but says he would like to come to school ; he has been hindered from so doing by this early work for his bread. Must he not find time to get food for his soul ? The mother of the family has just returned from the doctor's with her little child ill of inflammation ; it droops and wheezes on her arm, and it has been or- dered to "be kept very quiet," which is a thing im- possible here ; the rest of the household cannot stay their work for the poor baby. They must earn their few pence for that which the mercer will turn into many shillings, or the " pot au feu" will not be kept boiling. It is a token of their old descent from French ancestors that this utensil is so often seen among the weavers. This family have attended no place of worship " for want of clothes." They are " subscribing a penny a U ! ■)^\ I 128 THE MI8SIN(; LINK. I i:i li week tor a large-print Bible, to replace the old torn copy which they showed us. They were delighted to hear of the possibility of getting a six-shilling bed by instalments, and garments in the same way. It is very certain they will welcome the Bible-woman and her simple apparatus of helping them to help themselves. Now let us take another street, and explore another stair. We find ourselves in a room smelling strongly of whelks, of which a fresh heap is thrown upon the floor, from market, thence to be dispensed by street sale. In this room are two bedsteads and one loom, and a similar long window. We are here introduced to the mysteries of both " broad " and " narrow " weav- ing. The man sits by the fire paring potatoes ; he is just recovering from a fever. Here also on the fire is the soup-kettle. The woman's dark eyes and expres- sion of countenance bespeak her French origin : she is weaving rich black satin, for which she will get eight- pence a yard — it will sell for more than eight shillings. She listens with an intelligent look to allusions to the history of her forefathers, the Huguenots, the Men of the Book which their children have forgotten. She will welcome the Bible-woman, she says, and the man listens with some earnestness to the ofi'er of a six-shil- ling bed. In this room the holes in the ceiling were pasted up with newspapers, and the good matronly Englishwoman, who accompanied us to see if she THE WANT OF A BIBLE MISSION. 129 thou^lit sho could undertake the district, was of opin- ion tliat " the husband looked the more able of the two to take his seat at the loom, and leave the wife to set her place to rights." It will be a favorite idea of our own, however, to find for this district a " Native Agent," already well acquainted with the ways and habits of the people, and who, under good direction, might improve them. For another part of Bethnal Green, the Victoria Park District, this kind of agent, as will be seen, appears to have arisen. Descending the stair, we arrive in another room, in which there is much to observe. In the first place, there is nothing clean but the cat, whose white fur con- trasts with all around. On the table is a pile of cups and saucers, which a little girl of fifteen is washing up at one o'clock in the day. She looks slatternly, but as though she might be easily transformed into a nice, neat, modest maiden ; her brother of twelve is squat- ting, with his face towards us (a face like Murillo's peasant boy, without its good humor), sulkily on a bro- ken chair before the fire ; his knees peep through his dilapidated and filthy trousers, and we ask him if he would not be happier at school than sitting there idle. His sister answers for him : " He is a bad boy, ma'am. He's always running away from his work, though he can weave as well as mother, if he likes ; so 6* I I! i 11 '•M m I m 130 THE MISSING LINK. father's cut away his trousers, and now he can't run — he must stop at home." A comfortless home it looked to stop in, and the boy ready for all mischief. A novel lay upon tlie table. The mother then came in — a hard-working woman, who seemed open to conviction that better clotlies and more comfort, a certain portion of work, and an opening for school instruction, would be a benefit to herself and her children. She said the boy was a famous liand at figures when he pleased. Here, too, was scope for the friendly visits of the Female Bible Missionary. * A more recent report from Bethnal Green gives us details of the settlement of an " Alice" and a " Sophy" ill these districts, and of the work of each tlieir lady superintendent already gives a favorable account. Alice has forty-seven Bible subscribers, and has sold twenty-six copies, besides bringing more than fifty women to the Clothing and Mending Club, in a most dirty and destitute district. " It is truly marvellous," it is said, " to watch the amount gathered weekly at these meetings, from people whose appearance would bespeak them the very dregs of society, but who will soon be so no longer. It is money evidently snatched from the gin palace. Many a filthy chamber is already much cleaner. 'Alice' lately took me into a room which I had known to be most revolting from its THE WANT OF A BIBLE MISSION. 131 )US J) at )uld Iw ill lied [ady )om its stench and dirty condition, and my delight was great to find its mistress, Inrush in hand, on bended knee, witli pail beside, sc ubbing heartily. She said ' siie was sorry to see us while it was wet.' Slic is now at- tending a place of worship. ' Alice' had asked a sweep what was liis reason for not coming to tlie school-room service. He replied, ' The people complained of the sooty smell of iiis clothes, and none would sit by him.' ' Oh,' said she, ' come and sit by me ; I shall not mind.' On the following Sabbatli she placed him close to the wall, and sat the other side of him herself. " I suppose you would be pleased to liear more of the ' Murillo' boy. The next time I called with the Bible wonan liis dress was by no means improved ; he looked more dilapidated than ever, and the room was the picture of wretchedness. His motlicr -laid to us, ' Oh dear ! if you could but save that boy, you might bo the making of us. He drives his father to drink, and he had that broomstick broken over his back on Satur- day ; and such a wretched day we had, but it only hardens him.' " ' Now, Jim,' said I, ' do look me in the face. Are you not tired of all this ? If I lend you new trousers and jacket, will you come to my Sunday school ? It will be better than having a stick broken in beating you.' He looked as if he thought he would. ' Alice' there- fore brought him, with scrubbed face and brushed hair, n\ •li 182 THE MISSING LINK. next day ; and the equipping him in fresh clothes has led to a complete reformation. Mr. S, says no boy behaves better in the school, and he now steadily works with his father besides. His sister, also, who in * Alice's' journal is described as being * blunt, as if she was brought up in a wood,' has joined my Bible class, and is making great efforts to improve herself. " We asked an intelligent, half-naked lad, lounging at one of the doors, what he did with himself all day long in the streets. ' 1 don't know what to do,' he re- plied ; ' my mother has not a penny to send me to school, and they won't even take me to a Sunday school.' 'Alice' brought him to me next day in the ,yildest state, his hair standing on end, but redrced by her visits into decent order : he sits by Jim at school, like the man rescued from the tombs, clothed, and in his right mind. The Domestic Mission in Bethnal Green is positively essential to prepare the way for the Bible." ' Sophy," under Mrs. , in a kindred district, hc-s thirty-five Bible subscribers, and again a Clothing Club has been immediatelv found most welcome. The very shopkeepers of the locality perceive the necessity cf receiving payments from the poor by instalments, of course for their own benefit. The people seem so •powerless to save their money unless it is taken from tham ; and as to their selection of articles, so reckless THE WANT or \ BIBLE MISSION. 133 pre they of suitabilities, that a woman whose ragged shawl will not look worth a shilling, will actually have scraped together tea shillings, and paid it off a four guinea silk gown. "Many families are now being visited who were almost starving, none of whom could attend any school or place of worship for want of clothes. When it has been dark before we left, in order that we might go safely down the crooked and dangerous flights of stairs, a girl has preceded us with two or three lucifer matches, one of which she lighted as the other went out, until we found our way into the scarcely better lighted street." ►■i't; ', SCRIPTURE READING IN A COURT 01 BETHNAL GREEN. {The loUness of a City Missionary.) I met with a chimney-sweeper, named B , and several others of the same calling, assembled in a house to-day, all of whom gave me a rough but hecrty welcome. After my sooty fri'^nd had informed them that I wag " the kind gemmun what comes to talk to them poor people about summut better," he turned to one of his company whom he called " Buster," saying, " I should like you to hear the old buffer, Buster, 'cause you 1 N 'i !l 184 THE MISSING LINK. knows a thing or two — it 's regular stunning, it is ; and, what 's more, it "s cutting, too. Come, Mister, oblige me by giving these gents a stave : let 's hear summut about that young rascal that bolted away from his poor old father — that 's a regular good thing, that is, Buster ; " and I regret to state that an oath was appended in confirmation. " Come, my infant," he added, addressing a tall muscular man, about six feet in height, " hand over the cushion." The man spoken to did as he was desired, giving me the only chair of which the room coui d boast. On taking possession, I observed, " Our friend here requests me to explain a portion of the Scriptures lo >v^u. He tells me he should like to hear about the Prodigal Son. Now, I shall be most happy to do as he desires, if you are all willing to listen, and I shall be glad to answer any questions you may ask upon the subject." They promised compliance, and lighted their pipes when they heard I had no objection to their smoking. They listened most attentively to the read- ing and exposition of the sacred narrative. My friend's eyes glistened when anything was advanced that touclied his feeling!?, I remained with them for nearly half an hour, once or twice inquiring whether they were tired, and receiving for reply, " Go on." They were very quiet and orderly while I implored a blessing on the interview. A few promised to attend the service THE WANT OP A BIBLE MSSION. 135 at Prince's Place on Tuesday evening, but all made objection o Sunday. P Court, Row. — This place is still the abode of the more vicious and depraved portion of the residents of my district. The visitation of such fami- lies -J anything but agreeable, and seldom results in profit. Most of the occupants of these houses have a resemblance to each other in dirt and nakedness and vice, so that one would be a specimen of the rest. I will take No. , being the nearest to the schools, and the first visited. The lower room, into which one enters from the court, is about seven feet square. The boards are so covered with dirt, that they would be undistinguishable from the ground, were it not that a hole here and there serves to indicate a lower depth. The cupboards are all open, the doors having been broken off for fire-wood by former occupants. In the windows, paper supplies the deficiency of glass. The furriuse consists of two or three rickety stools and a kini. )! i lb, which, being reversed, answers the pur- pose of u tnble. There is another room above, somewhat less in dimensions than the lower one, which is used as a dor- nitory, but no bedstead has been seen there in the "memory of the oldest inhabitant," and not one of the Ija..' five tenants has possessed a bed. The sole furni- turt h >i curtain to the window, which is a shirt undi- ill! ■ in SI 136 THE MFSSING LINK. vested of sleeves. Five children here exist, amid dirt and wretchedness beyond description, one being an infant in a state of nudity : their outward defileinent is a svrabol of the waste within. " Do you ever say your prayers ?" I asked. " What I don't you even know * Our Father ? ' Do you know who God is? Did you ever licar of Jesus?" Each inquiry was met but ' >' tho vacant stare of amaze- ment and an unmeaning ^h. In a short time the mother came in, in whose countenance might be traced marks of depravity and excess. " Your children don't go to school, they tell me," I observed to the woman. " La I bless you, master, how can poor critturs the likes of us send children to school ? Why, we can't get wittles for 'em to eat, lot alone things to kiver 'em. You people an't got no feeling for the poor, or you would never ask such a thing." After a little conver- sation, I found that she indulged in ''a bit of bacca" — " the only comfort poor people had ; " also " a drop of beer," and sometimes ^^ah'tth gin," which, she observed, " don't hurt nobody." I am led to conclude she is not married to the man she lives with. The Word of God read here appeared to make but little impression. Truly it is the female visit that is needed to follow, or even to precede mine, and place these poor creatures in a position to listen to the truth. On the 12th of December, 1858, the Bishop of Lon- #^ THE WANT OP A BIBLE MISSION. 137 don again visited Bethnal Green parish, being the third time within a fortnight. He preached at St. Peter's Church, on the occasion of reopening that edi- fice for Divine service. His attention seems to be especially drawn to the want of religious knowledge and conviction in the East end of London. The Rev. J. H. Wilson, who lias been so successful in the evangelization of certain low districts of Aber- deen, had a recent interview with the Bishop of Lon- don, at his lordship's invitation, at London House. This portion of the metropolis was the immediate sub- ject of conversation, and the bishop strongly advised the employment of female colporters, to sell Bibles there without delay. The Missionary of the Truth must wait before the pass of Khyber long and patiently, at the portals of Central Asia, to acquire languages, and to find the men of courage and peculiar fitness, who shall carry the treasures of the Scriptures with him to the five millions of Afghanistan ; but there is no such bar to entering into the streets and lanes of our one vast city, comprising in itself three millions of souls. May the efforts of the church militant, in all its sections — the efforts of great and small, young and old, of paid and unpaid agents — all be brought to bear upon the ad- vancement of the kingdom of God by the spread of His Word ! And yet it is not enough to go forth to 1 f i 138 THE MISSING LINK. these masses with the Bible, the tract, or the Gospel aloue. If we do, they may well answer, as tliey have long done by their virtual rejection of the message, " We are not in a state to listen to you. "We have bodies as well as souls. Look at our food, our clotli- Ing, our lodging, and see where we take cold rest from our labor on bare boards or rags 1 Do you wonder tliat vv^e try to lose the sense of our misery in gin ? Teach us better habits, and pluck us from the hand of those who grind our poverty. Shovr us how we may become self-reliant, and lift us up to listen to your Book out of our depths of woe." How many have actually said to these women, " We understand this new plan ; we think this is really caring about us ; it is going the way to teach us to care for ourselves ! " ,.'. » * ■ f- I CHAPTER XI. THE WEAVBE8 AND THEIR FOREFATHERS. It is now twenty years ago since a minister of Christ, one Sabbath evening, delivered an address to silk-weavers in Mile-end New Town, from the words, " Consider what I say, and the Lord give you under- standing in all things." Having announced his text to a congregation large- ly composed of these artisans, he proceeded to give them a very interesting history of themselves and their forefathers — those French refugees who came to Eng- land to escape the persecutions that followed on the revocation of the edict of Nantes, in 1685. At that time it was decreed that Protestantism must flee out of France within fifteen days ; and, while 400,000 persons left the kingdom, as many more perished of famine or fatigue, in prison, in the galleys, and on the scaffold, while a million seeming converts to the super- stitions of Rome maintained in secret, amid tears and desolation, the faith of their ancestors. History has preserved to us a tableau vivant of the (139) If I 11 ifflfr 140 THE MISSING LINK. expression given by our Queen Elizabeth to her grief and indignation at the previous massacre of St. Bar- tholomew in 1568. She refused for several davs to give audience to La Mothe Fendlon, the French am- bassador ; when at last she consented to admit him to her presence, she received him in her privy chamber, which had the gloomy aspect of a tomb. She was sur- rounded by the lords of her council and the ladies of her court, all attired in deep mourning. The ambas- sador passed through the silent throng, while every eye was averted from him in anger, and approached the queen, who demanded how he could justify his mas- ter from that odious crime. England had, for more than a hundred years, supported the Protestant party in France, by arms and by negotiation. The French colony in London, at that time, consist- ed of but 422 persons. After the massacre, the French church was no longer able to provide aid for those who arrived in a state of destitution. The queen commended the refugees to the charity of the Arch- bishop of Canterbury, who relieved their misery. She afterwards protected them against the animosity of the city apprentices, and of the shopkeepers, who were jealous of the new-comers, and even clamored for their expulsion from England. More than 20,000 of them took up their abode in Long Acre, Seven Dials, Soho, and Spitalfields. THE WEAVERS AND THEIR FOREFATHERS. 141 Thirty years after this massacre, iu the year 1598, the edict of Nantes was promulgated by Henri Quatre, which guaranteed liberty of conscience to the Protes- tants, and marked for France the end of the middle ages. It was sealed with the great seal of green wax, which testified that it was irrevocable. Nevertheless, in 1684, under tlie government of Louis Quatorze, all things were tending towards its revocation. It was in Poitou that the king first essayed the terrible means of conversion to the Catholic faith, afterwards known by the name of dragonnades, > " This was a military mission, by which dragoons were sent to those towns in Poitou which contained most Huguenots. They were quartered in the poorest houses, and even in those of the widows. In many places the priests followed them in the streets, calling out, ' Courage, gentlemen ; it is the king's intention that these dogs of Huguenots should be pillaged and sacked.' The soldiers entered the houses with uplifted swords, sometimes crying, * Kill, kill,' to frighten the women and children. As long as the inhabitants had wherewithal to satisfy them they were only pillaged ; but when the price of their furniture was spent, and their clothes and ornaments sold, they were seized by the hair to be dragged to church, or tortured in their houses to convert them I The feet and hands of some were burned at a slow fire ; the ribs and limbs of ti % .|:", i ,:- 1 f': \ Si :■'! , \ ■, w 142 THE MIHSING LINK. others broken with blows of sticks. Several had their lips burned with red-hot irons ; and others were thrown into damp dungeons, to be left to die. " The newspapers of the Hague and Amsterdam in- formed Protestant Europe of those odious acts, and one long cry of indignation arose in Holland, Eng- land, and Germany ; but the French Gazette was filled with lists of * converts,' and the court was daz- zled by such marvellous success. * I think there will be no Protestants left in Poitu but our own relations,' wrote Madame de Maintenon to her brother. ' It seems to me that everybody is becoming converted.' These horrors, and worse than these, extended to other provinces ; and the constancy of many suflferers yielded to the prolonged rigor of their torments. Vast num- bers fled their country ; and at last, on the 22d of October, 1685, the revocation of the Edict was signed. 'The temples of the Protestants were to be demol- ished, and all exercise of their worship to cease ; their schools were to be closed, and all their children to be baptized into the Church of Rome, while the prcoerty of those who fled was to be confiscated.' " And this was fulfilled to the letter. On the very day of the revocation began the demolition of the great temple at Charenton, built to contain 14,000 persons, and in five days no trace of the structure re- mained. Cheyron delivered a farewell sermon in the TnR WEAVERS AND THEIR FOREFATHERS. 143 lery the 1,000 re- the celebrated temple of Nismes, and exhorted his flock to bo atoadtast even unto death. Their temple was soon but a lioap of ruins, in tlie midst of wliich was long remarked a stone, which liad surmounted the over- tlirown portico, with this inscription — ' This is the house of God, this the gate of heaven.' The Protestants bolield the destruction of their 800 places of worsliip, and the Roman Church declared that heresy was no more. » About 80,000 refugees, according to the registers of the French Church in London, appear to have estal)- lished themselves in the kingdom of Great Britain during tlio ten years that preceded or followed the re- vocation of the Edict, and at least one-third of these settled in the metropolis. From the year 1686 to 1688 the French Consistory in London met once every week, being occupied almost entirely in receiving the marks of repentance from those persons who, after abjuring their faith to avoid death, had escaped from their persecutors, and resumed in a more tolerant country the religion they preferred to their native land. The ministers examined their testimony, heard the narrative of their suffermgs, and received them back into communion with thoir breth- ren. In 1687, during the month of May alone, 497 persons wore thus re-admitted into the church they had appealed to abandon. m 'IT m i i !i 144 THE MIHSING LINK. Their return for their hospitable reception in Eng- land, and for benefits then received, was fourfold. They imparted to our trade and manufactures an im- mense impulse, the effects of which are felt to the pres- ent day. English paper was, up to that period, of inferior 'duality, and of a greyish color. These exiles brought with them the secrets of a finer manufacture in this article, as well as in silks, velvets, and light tissues of linen and wool. They also understood the superior fabrication of glass, hardware, cutlery, clocks, and watches, so that such articles were no longer sought from the Continent ; and the French ambassa- dor was known to have made brilliant offers to certain distinguished artisans to return to France for this rea- son. Buii it was too late : the secrets were divulged. Religious persecution had driven more ^han half her weavers from her bosom. In 1698 the looms of Lyons had decreased from 18,000 to 4000 ; and out of 20,000 workmen who manufactured fine linen at Laval, more than 14,000 had quitted the kingdom. It was not in trade and manufactures alone that the refugees enriched England. The French church in Threadneedle street for five years had for its pastor the eloquent Jacques Saurin, before he was called to the Hague ; and, as far as the difference of language permitted, great must have been the private influence of those who, as a body, were sufferers for the truth. THE WEAVERS AND THEIR FOREFATHERS. 145 One of tlicm, Graverol of Nismes, wrote a book, which contains an affecting narrative of the sufferings of the Protestants of Languedoc. ** Wo," says he, " who arc in a country so remote from ours only for the sake of God's Word, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ, — lot us study to render our confession and our faitli glorious by discreet and modest conduct, by an exem- plary life, and by an entire devotion to the service of God. Let us ever bear in mind that we are the sons and the fathers of martyrs. Let us never forget this glory, but strive to transmit it to our posterity." During the reign of Louis XIV, and long after- wards, many of these emigrants did not givr up the hope of returning to their country ; but their peti- tions and aims to do so were in vain. Temperate in habits, and accustomed to toil, most of them gradually worked their way to competency, and some even to wealth. They became able to relieve their suffering brethren, still languishing in galleys and dungeons for their faith ; and the Vaudois had tlieir shade of this fraternal charity. Many thousands of these exiles had settled in Spitalfields, then, like its neighboring district of Bethnal Green, an open space of ground without the city walls, belonging to the Hospital or VSpital of St. Austin. These spaces did not, till the beginning of the eighteenth centurv, become fullv covered with I .1 W 1 'it iV mmnn 146 THE MISSING LINK. houses as the seat of the silk manufacture. The starv- ing French refugees were at first relieved by a purlia- mentury vote of £15,000 a year ; but God prospering their Industry, the silk trade had in 1713 attained Buch importance, that upwards of 300,000 persons were maintained by it in England. For a long time the population of thesle. Because you have departed from the Ood of your fathers, you are being chastised for your sins ; and your troubles are only beginning to set in upon you, from which you will not be delivered unless you repent and return." He then pointed them, with affectionate earnestness, to the Saviour of sin- ners. The service ended, and the audience dispersed. Among them were some of the leading men of the silk trade ; but by them the summons seemed to pass un- heeded, and the trouble? of the artisan portion of the listeners continued to increase. One of these latter, however, a poor and humble indi vidua'., had licard that night a history he never heard before, and it made an impression on him tliat was never forgotten. He had been apprenticed as a weaver, and was lookeu upon by the maecers us an intelligent man, having much influence with liis fellow- workmen. Shortly after he heard this sermon he was laid aside by sickness, and for a year and a lialf was in a hospital, during which season of rest the thou,i»lit P 148 THE MISSING LINK. grew in his mind that he would try and find fifty Christian weavers who might prove the first lay evan- gelists of their class in Bethnal Green. He recovered, and the resolve was fulfilled, slowly and surely. He found first ten Christian weavers, then twenty, thirty, forty, amid a mass of careless, thoughtless, depraved infidels ; and these formed them- selves into what they called a " Christian Society of Operative Silk Weavers," which has many honored names attached to it as a committee of reference. This is a little seed of what may be a large and glorious future. The society has published seventeen annual reports. They have one place of worship at Thorold-square, Bethnal Green Road, with various Schools, Charitable Associations, and Missions attach- ed to it — one especially to Victoria Park, the great outlet for this part of the population on the Lord's dav. On the 26th of October, 1858, the Rev. A. T. Mar- zials, minister of the French church at St. Martin 's-le- Grand, with his family, complied with an invitation sent them by this poor and humble little flock to a tea- meeting, at which about sixty persons were present, and everything was conducted in ^^^ry plain and simple style. In the room where the meeting was held was observed a tablet, bearing the following inscrip- tion : — THE WEAVERS AND THEIR FOREFATHERS. 149 Mar- 's-le- iation a tea- isent, and held jcrip- THE CHRISTIAN SOCIETY OF OPERATIVE SILK WEAVERS. THIS TABLET WAS ERECTED BY THE MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY, On Wednesday, July 16th, 1846, AS A PUBLIC DECLARATION OF THEIR FAITH, THAT or LATB TBABS THE SUFFBBmOB OF THK BILK WXAYBB8 HATB BEEN OBBATLT AOOBAVATED THBOVeH A DEPASTUBE FBOH THOSE PBINCIPLE8 OF PIBTT WHICH ENABLED THEIB FOBEFATHEBS, THE FRENCH REFUGEES, WHO PIANTED THE SILK TRADE IN SPITALFIELDS, TO ENDURE THE LOSS OF ALL TH 'IS;— ALSO TO BECOBD THEIB IKTENTION TO EBEOT A HOUSE FOB OOD AS A PVBLIO EXFBE8SI0K OF TIISIB DESIRE TO BETT7BM TO HIU, AND A UEAN TO BECOTEB THE DIVINB BLEBSINa. " Thus saith the Lord of hosts ; Ctonsidor your ways. Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house ; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will bo glorified, saith the Lord. Ye looked for much, and, lo, it came to little ; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why ? saith the Lord of hosts. Because of mine house that is w.iste, and ye run every man unto his own house." — Haggai i, 7-9. In the course of the evening many interesting state- ments were made by parties present, amongst whom were the Rev. G. Huelins (the last minister among the 150 THE MISSING LINK. A French refugees, but now a niinistcr of the Church of England), and the Rev. Mr. Tacchclla, from Pied- mont. It was noticed tliat ma' / men who had attain- ed eminence in different branches of practical science had come out of Spitalficlds. The well-known Dol- lond, senior, the improver of the telescope, was at one time a werver. Simpson and Edwards, the lights of the mathematical world, were taken by government from their looms to teach the cadets at Woolwich and Chatham. Simpson came down from the loom in a green baize apron to the gentleman who was in search of him. " I want to see the Mr. Simpson who wrote the work on fluxions," said the inquirer. " I am that Mr. Simpson," was the reply ; and perceiving that his visitor looked incredulous, ho added, " If you will come up stairs I will show you the manuscript at the loom." The new engagement took place, and on being asked when he would fulfil it, he replied, *' When I have finished the piece in tlie frame." In contrast to tlie mathematical, historical, and floricultural societies existing in this district in a past generation, were brought forward many proofs of the religious and moral degeneracy of the people, and of the heathenism prevailing in these districts at present. Sketches were especially given of the Sabbatli-break- ing in Brick-lane and Club-row, together with ac- counts of the want of education among the child i on of THE WEAVERS AND THEIR FOREFATHERS. 151 the Frencli refugees, arising from tlie necessity that the parents feel to make something by the labor of their children, to eke out their scanty means of living, now that such low prices are paid for their woi'k. The resolution was made at tliis meeting that monthly services, especially for the descendants of the French refugees, should be held in the different chapels in the weaving districts, once belonging to them. This took effect on the 21st of November, when a sermon was preached at La Patente Chapel, Brown's-lane, Spitn'- fields, the first temple built by the exiles, at wiiich 800 or 900 persons were present ; and on the 19th of De- cember, at tlie fine old " French Temple," called Spital- field's Chapel, which has been repaired and occupied by the Wesleyans since the year 1819. The good and humble man, who has for so many years lived by faith, in the course of finding his fifty Christian friends, thus sees the desire of his heart per- haps beginning to be accomplished. Among the opera- tions on a small scale sustained by liis Society, Open Air Missions, Tract Distribution, Maternity Charity, Provident Fund, Temperance Lectures, and all other good things seem included, though, perhaps, the one foundation work with which our St. Giles's experience teaches us that evangelical labor should begin, remains to be carried out on a larger scale. A certain num- ber of Bibles have, however, been sold at half-price. 'Ini nil Itl ft 152 THE MISSING LINK. and now the offer made tliat a Mission to the Motliors of the district, by one of themselves, with the offer of the Word of God, should be at once commenced, was hailed with extreme dolight. On ascertaining the above particulars, a buitable Female Agent appeared at once to arise in the wife of the above-mentioned individual, who has been most truly and long his helpmeet in his work of faith and labor of love. Her countenance bespeaks her of French descent. She is the " Mary" of Victoria Park district, the northern portion of Bethnal Green, and we would solicit for her the helping hand of all who love the memory of the old Huguenots. She commenced her labors on the 13th of December, 1858, and has since that time sold eighty-one copies of the Scriptures, and found fifty-seven subscribers for clothing and beds. The Christian people among the weavers, with whom she is particularly associated, held a special prayer-meeting to ask that God would pre- pare her heart for the work, and the hearts of the people to receive her ; and the answer to this prayer is found in many instances of an encouraging nature. One person, who is a professed infidel, is nevertheless subscribing to her for a Bible, and she is extremely well received generally. She has a helper in her work in a " turner on," one who is reckoned an " upper-class man" among the weavers. He has to place the silk ou THE WEAVERS AND THEIR FOREFATHERS. 153 the roller for each artisan ; and as they bring hira their silk, he speaks to them of the Bible and the Bible- woman, and has already obtained for her several sub- scribers, himself and his wife becoming the first pur- chasers. The people generally give the Bible-woman a kind welcome, begging her to " turn in and rest," or to " eat and drink with them." Oh, that a large out- pouring of the Holy Spirit's influence might bear wit- ness with the Written Word to these descendants of a godly race of old, to whom England owes so much ! They have richly repaid to her the refuge she afforded them in their evil day. The gates of France have now for sixty years been thrown open to the posterity of Protestant exiles ; bi^t, though some have returned to the country of their ancestors, many children of the fugitives still rest with us ; and why, but that we may seek to restore them to the faith and the Book for which tlicir fathers suffered ? CHAPTER XII. REBECCA IN SHOREDITCH. Before we leave the North-east London District, comprising all that lies above the White-chapel road, we must take some note of the need of the poor in Shoreditch and Hackney, especially that part of Hack- ney bordering on Bethnal Green. Here also are found many weavers. A lady living in this direction had heard of the employment of a " Bible-woman" in Exeter, and that such an agency liad arisen from the perusal of articles in the " Book and its ^lissions." She ascertained particulars by corres- pondence, and being already a member of a Ladies' Bil>le Association, and well acquainted with Bible work, soon selected a woman, whose fitness was well known to her, for her own locality, and, obtaining a small grant from the Bible Society, so tilled her hands with Bible work, in the lower parts of the Hagger- stone district, that she brought in X3 a month to the Committee. Meanwhile the lady became acquainted with the superadded domestic aims of the mission, and obtained from friends £2 towards their commencement. (154) REBECCA iN 8H0REDITCH. 155 Slic then came into personal communication with the Treasurer, and X5 were gladly ofifcred from our Gene- ral Fund for the prosecution of her design, with a promise of more as needed. Shoreditch was added to the field of labor, and after the following fashion the work began. " I spent Wednesday with our * Rebecca,' " says the Superintending Lady, " in visiting the miserable courts and alleys. I had never been there before, and I think more dismal human dwellings could hardly be seen I could not ascertain that there was any Christian visitation whatever. We went to B Buildings, D Court, H Court, and C Gardens, hop- ing to find a suitable room for Mission purposes ; but the houses all seemed woefully overcrowded. Many of the women were out selling in the street ; the chil- dren informed us, ' Mother is at the stall.' I was very much pleased with our reception. As we entered one court a woman ran across to make our coming known, and then there was quite a group to hear if the room was taken. I had no idea we should find it so difficult to procure a suitable place. A furnished parlor in U street seemed the only one to be met with at all within our means, and for that we are to give 2s. per week, and have the use of it whenever we like. There was one I preferred in D Court, but it was 3s., and perhaps U street is more central for all. II ft 156 THE MIS8INQ LINK. I suppose that it will be better to take a room entirely for Mission use when we can meet with one. We have purchased, as you recommended, calico, .rint, flannel, &c., but have not yet visited Spitalfields about the beds and bedding. "We invited some into the room on Wednesday, to commence paying in ; and thirteen made their first small payments, and a few others came to see, and will begin next time. One poor man said, ' My wife, from her bed, where she has long been confined with rheu- matism, overheard you telling about it, and I have brought a penny for a sheet.' Another woman said, ' My girl is going to the Christian Palace with her school, and I should like her to have a new pinafore.' " I had no idea that this opportunity of getting clothes by their own payments would be rt arded as such a proof that they were really cared for." In another week it is added : — "We have found a Mission-room which has two doors ; one opens into U Buildings, the other into H Court. The second time, the same people came, and brought others. They entered by the front door, and we sent them out by the back to say what was doing ; and still more came running in with, ' We never see the likes of you in these parts.' We have now forty subscribers for clothing and bedding. Into what scenes of life are we penetrating ! The drunken REBECCA IN SHOHEDITCH. 157 raen are outnumbered by the drunken women ! I inclose a morsel of journal. 'Rebecca' proposes to meet in her room wlioever will come on Sabbath afternoons, as well as in the week. This is the response : — " One poor woman wlio sells water-cresses declares tliat her husband must go her rounds and his own too on Sundays ; ' for/ she added, ' I s'pose you mean to read suramut to us out of your Book. There's a good many of us who can't read, and this makes us more consarned that the young 'uns should. When they comes from school, and tells us what tliey larn, we wishes we could read for ourselves.' ' I wish,' said a man, * the great 'uns had a thought of this plan afore ; we should a seen fewer pipes in the young 'uns mouths, and heard fewer oaths out of 'em.' " After this Sunday reading meeting came a little tea- meeting, or what was to have been one. " On Wednes- day," Rebecca says, " I fear 1 have wasted both tea and time ; for at five o'clock none of the persons that promised on Sunday afternoon made their appearance. I fear they were oflf, as I was told, 'on the fly.' " At last a knock came, and I opened the door to one of the lads who had come to me on Sunday. 'I 'm one of the club, ma'am,' he said ; ' mayn't I come to the tea-meeting?' Seeing me liesitate, he added, 'It's oil right, ma'am ; you ax the old woman' (meaning his mother), ' and she '11 tell you how I gives her a penny # H M 168 THE MISSlN(i LINK. every blessed week since you told her on it. You sees I want some togs ; ' and truly he was a bundle of rags, and withal looked so cold and hungry, that I could not resist the impulse to let him come in and warm his hands, and bid him eat. " While I was cutting him some bread and butter he showed his delight by repeating what he had heard on the Sunday. Suddenly he broke out with, ' Oh, I say, ma'am I you shouldn't have took it so quiet when that cove at No. 5 in our court went on so at you for asking his wife to come to tea. I suld have liked to have gi'en him his own, and suramut to boot, only you looked smiling like at him, and I thought you wouldn't be pleaded. But I say, ma'am, would you have let he come to tea ? ' " * Perhaps I might,' said I. * But did you not hear him say we had a purpose in getting the people in here ? ' " * And have you ? ' he asked. " ' Of course I have/ I replied. ' Cannot you guess what it is ? ' " He paused a few moments, and then bringing the basin he had in his hand down on to the tea-tray with a bang, he said, inquiringly, ' Is it to read to Jiem out of your book' — pointing to a Bible that lay on the table — ' and to talk as you did last Sunday about Jesus, and the great white throne, that will be in the clouds ?' REBECCA IN SHOREDITCH. 169 5S9 '• * Yes/ said I, * tliat is my purpose. I have much to tell yoa about Jesus ; and then I want to show those who do not know, how to make the tilings they buy of me.' "He opened his eyes to their full extent, gulped down a great mouthful of bread and butter, and then added, ' Do you mean to say as if I had bought the stuflf for a jacket you'd show the old woman how to make it ?' "'Yes,' said I. " ' Well, then, you are a stunner ! I shall like you, I know, and I'll bring 'em ;' and so ended my first in- tended tea-meeting." A large clothing club has arisen out of " Rebecca's" earnest commencement. After three months' labor tlie lady again writes : — " The great demand which the sale of clothing makes upon my time has led me too often to neglect the duty of recording our work. How to lessen whit we may call our shopkeeping re- sponsibilities I do not know, and yet I feel desirous to secure leisure for things still more important. " Hardly a week passes without onr receiving fresh applicants desirous to subscribe for calicoes, flannels, and prints ; and the usual remark is, 'Ah I my poor children would not have been seen in rags if this had begun before' Our first duty, or the one that im- mediately follows on the offer of the Word of God al lit rl K^ 160 THE MISSING LINK. for their own purchase, is to give these poor creatures the opportunity of providing themselves with decent clothing. Our aim in doing so is fully appreciated, and brings us into friendly contact with the people at once. " The division of the Shoreditch and Haggerstone districts, which now afford quite work enough for two women, hi; taken up much time. ' Rebecca' has in- troduced 'Dorothy' to her new vocation. In their first call they met a City Missionary, who was also paying his earliest visit on the district, and as it was at the house of a Christian woman, they knelt together to ooek a blessing, recognizing in this accidental meet- ing the voice of God calling them to united prayer as the commencement of new duties. "The Haggerstone district will henceforth have * Rebecca's' undivided attention, but she is not content to lose dght of the warm-hearted Shoreditch boy formerly mentioned, who has quite adopted her as a new kind of mother to him. A kind friend sent him some clothing through her means, and she likewise obtained work for him at a type-foundry. She has reason to believe he will receive yet more lasting blessing, and never cease to thank God that ae was the Bible-woman's first friend at the tea -meeting. ' Rebecca' has a very long list of Bible subscribers, and many sick persons expect a frequent and helpful visit from her. REBECCA IN SHOREDITCH. 161 " One of her earliest calls was made on a poor young woman lying in intense suflfering, whose rough, un- godly husband, increased by his profaneness the misery of her lot. He hardly ever spoke without an oath. The hand of God, however, pressed heavily upon him, and his favorite child was taken from him. Rebecca continued her visits and conversation with his wife, and although he had not attended either church or chapel for years, when his wife recovered, instead of opposing her wish to go, to her great sur- prise he accompanied her to a place of worship, seem- ing, however, to sleep during the service. " How different now is Ids appearance in the house of prayer ! Eyes, ears and mouth wide open, as if he would drink in the Gospel Message. He has been visited by a dream in the night, and, from the great present change in his life and conversation, we cannot doubt that it came from God. ' I thought I was in torment,' he says, ' and the Saviour tried to save me, but it was too late, and I was lost.' He woke trem- bling with terror, and crying out, ' What must I do to be saved ?' He has found peace in Jesus, and speaks with delight of being * a new creature.' His wife says that all his old discontent has passed away, and that a heart happy in Christ makes a happy home. He embraces all opportunities of attending Bible-classes and meetings (for he cannot read), and evidently most ^ I' h $i i % 162 THE MISSING LINK. earnestly desires religious coaching ; and that which he receives he communicates. He tells his fellow- workmen, ' My lads, ye think yer better scholars than I am ; but I think the Lord thinks I am the best, for now I know his will, I'll try and do it.' It is \ ery interesting to hear him narrate his conversations at the lime-works ; his companions certainly hear startling truth from him, and must wonder at the cliange. that more such witnesses may be raised up, and that the faithful words, ' Know the Lord,' may be heard by every ear 1" " Rebecca" passed over to " Dorothy" the new Bi- ble-woman for this district, the names ot twenty sub- scribers ; and the first week " Dorothy" went alone she obtained ten more. Slio is always received with civil- ity, and by many of the people is warmly welcomed. " Some years ago she was engaged in a ragged- school in this very district, and relinquished its duties on account of the long-continued illness of her husband. She has met with two or three of the parents of her former pupils, and with one of her early scholars, now a young woman, who confessed, with tears, that she had so far forgotten the instructions received in child- hood as to be unable to read. * Dorothv ' told her that notliing would give her more pleasure than to be again her teacher, and thus to place in her hand the key to the treasures of God's holy Word. ' » 1 REBECCA IN SHOBEDITCH. 163 " I send you," says her lady friend, " a short extract from her journal : — " ' Called on an old man, and when I told him ray errand he burst into a flood of tears, and said he hoped it was not too late for him to begin to read the Bible. I told him it was not, and strove to point him to a Saviour. He seems to have been for some time under convictions of sin, but has had no one to take him bv the hand and direct him to Christ. He began to pay tox- a half-crown Bible, and promised to send his daugh- ter to a Sunday-school. " ' Collected in B — Row, &c. Called on a poor widow who keeps a little shop, which she has closed every Sunday for some months, in consequence of something she hoard said in a service she attended, conducted by a City Missionary. She says she has lost a great deal of custom by the change, but that she shall never open again on the Sabbath. Last week she was robbed by a lodger of the greatest part of her bedding, so that to her the news of the clothing and bedding to be paid for by instalments was very wel- come.' " To both the last-mentioned individuals how welcome proved the call of the good visitor of their own class — one to wliom they could express their sorrows, and who " knew how to feel for them I" A poor woman, with the " Message from God " in hei- hand, is found A 164 THE MISSINQ LINK the most sympathizing and suitable instrument to ob- tain admission to their miserable abodes ; and, while fuUilling her first errand to sell the book, she leads them, meanwhile, no longer to seek mere relief from the rich (which, when obtained, is most often squan- dered), but to depend upon themselves for all the necessary comforts that shall reform their homes : thus she secures their rise by their own efforts out of their depths of filth and degradation. CHAPTER XIII. 8EBTCHES 1^ LIMEHOUSE FIELDS, WHITEGHAPEL, AND SHADWBLL. Into all that lies below the Whitechapel Road, and between that boundary and the river, we are only beginning to make research. We know that many a faithful laborer has gone before us, and that each true agency has brought home some wandering souls. We find, however, enough work left. In LiMEHOusE Fields we have a steady, persevering " Prijicilla,'" who gets on admirably. Her district was pointed out for her by the Secretary of the Ladies' Bible Association of the district, the voluntary work of which is described to be " in rather a low state." " Priscilla," therefore, entered upon it, and with the help of a colporter, carrying his box of the Bible So- ciety Bibles, has obtained in the first month one hun- dred and fourteen subscribers for Bibles, and fifty-four for clothing. Her superintendent says, " It is a most densely populated district. She has visited one hun- dred and eighty-four houses in one street, and found (165) I !i 166 THE MISSING LINK. two families in almost all. Those who have never visited the East End of London can form no idea of the narrow streets and teeming population. My heart sinks at the thought. " The people are very poor ; they are coal-whippers, cot .ermongers, and dock-men ; and when winds are contrary, so that the shipping cannot get up, the latter can find no employment. The women are chiefly em- ployed in needlework, and are miserably paid. ' Pris- cilla' has been well received among them, and the poor creatures express themselves pleased that any one cares for them. I should think this district needs even more aid to help itself than Bethnal Green or Whitechapel, concerning which more sympathy has been already excited. Any provision of ready-made useful clothing to sell cheaply to them would be much welcomed. Many go to a place of worship in the dark winter evenings, who say ' they must hide themselves now that the evenings are lighter.' Talk about hero- ism ! If you want to see it in many an unrecorded form, you must go amongst these poor ; but ah, how many of their true tales make one's heart ache ! " The following is a letter from the same superintend- ing lady of more recent date : — ''June 10th, 1859. " It is now three months since the commencement of a Female Bible Mission in Limehouse Fields, during SKETCHES IN LIMEHOUSE FIELDS. 167 which interval our 'Priscilla' has paid upwards of 1300 visits, and has liad 200 subscribers for Bibles and Testaments. She still retains on her books the names of 79 persons, and has delivered 121 copies. Every week she extends her district, and there is yet much ground for her to explore. Having received for the above number of Bibles the sum of <£7 18s. 3d., this amount has been paid in by me to the Stepney Auxil- iarr Bible Society. ' Priscilla's' salary from the treasurer of the grant from the Jubilee Fund for Fe- male Colportage has been £5 7s. 3d. in the above space of time. "She has found many persons in possession of a small Bible, who have told her that they would gladly pay for a larger one, but their husbands have been so much out of work that they have not the pence to spare. '' Others, owing to their intemperate habits (0 that I had it not to write !) and want of Bible principles, have brought themselves down to such a state of pov- erty, that their souls are kept without knowledge, and their bodies without decent clothing. This class, how- ever, must not be left unheeded, and all who desire the spread of the Bible, especially in places where ladies could not persevere in visiting, must and ought to lift up their hearts in gratitude to God for having put it into the minds of His people to devise this fresh 4 i •1 I I % 168 THE MISSINO LINK. effort for carrying to the poorest tho . > ^ wa-edy for their miseries and! ' """' ^itb God's blessing r ^ ■""""' '" '"'^'^ uiessing, to answer the onrl ♦> -o«an going with the Bible to the poor """'■ -I trust that Chrisfinno ^ mi i ^•'eir prayers and thr;::n:;\rZir.° ^'''•^'■'■ agents in the dark places of the east of L f"' '"" -y be trniy said to be " f„„ „ ity td '"" tainly stirring up the minds of n,a„v f^ r " "'" asked the question ' P. i , ^' '"' ^ """ ""en an in SUal^TluTZT '''' ' "'"^^- -<^oanbutans.er,^;re\::;:;f;'«"^o^', as well as all hearts are in Tl T ^' ^''"• yo" m-t pray that C nd 1 "' *'^ ^"•^• and help will surely come ' '"'^' '^ '"<"•»<'- " But to return to my own distnVt Ti. -dation of the people is ve'; g ^ J.'^ '"°™' '^^■ seem to know it is wrong (to use tt """"' ^^ """ --d their children's r!,, Z^llZr''^ '^ and were surprised whenl b" womt ""'"'' e'' ^e- they ask her advi rji'" *''^''- '^'^ "^ -rrow ; had sunk so lowlt r""*^^"-^^- ^ne woman vermin and filtT- ye be "" ""'"^ ^"^-^-^ --th oallsoftheBibWomL InT t1 ''^' '"^ ^^-'^'^ taking an interest in"; sh! ^ ' '"' "'''"^ °- ----.en::t:s-:-. J 170 THE MISSING LINK. has had her windows mended ; scrubbed her room ; and told ' Priscilla ' that she ' meant to get a piece of muslin to make a short blind for her window, to be a little decent.' She is now doing some needle-work for the Clothing Mission, and she puts by the money earned for clothing for herself and children, except when she is without bread, when she will ask for a few pence of it to buy a loaf. She is not a drinking wom- an, but broken-spirited through poverty. The neigh- bors have marked the change, and have said to ' Pris- cilla,' * Well, we never sn Mrs. T so clean till you came to her ; you have certainly done her good.' She said herself, with tears in her eyes, * I could not see any way of getting on till you came to me. Your constant calling made me ashamed, and now I am determined to try and keep myself and the chil- dren clean.' She lives in a wretched place ; there are four other families in the dwelling ; the filth of a slaughter-house runs before her door, and the stench is so abominable that no visitor can remain many min- utes in )ier room without a feeling of sickness ; and it is swarming with rats besides. Yet I am told that, had I seen it three months back, and could compare its past and present state, I should be astonished at the improvement. "'Well,' said a subscriber, when she had obtained her Bible, ' this is the first book I have ever had that LIMEH0U8E FIELDS, STEPNEY. 171 f I could call my own. I shall read it, and, as you say it is a good book, I hope it will do me good.' ' Fris- cilia' happened to call on one of her subscribers, wiio was paying for a 2s. 6d. Bible, while the husband was at dinner. On seeing the 3s. copy, the wife said sho must wait another week, and have one of those. The man immediately came forward, and gave the extra 6d., adding that * he had long felt ho should like to have a Bible, and now he meant to read it.' " ' Do you know,' said another, ' I never tliought I could save money till you came to visit me. Now I have paid for my Bible, I will pay for some clothes,' which she continues to do. I think it a most cheering feature of the work, that most of tlio. e who have had Bibles are now paying for clothes, and ponie talk of leaving their dirty rooms. Many have said to ' Pris- cilla,' * It is so kind of ladies to send you among us. Here we were quarrelling, and drinking, and abusing each other, no one seeming to care for us ; but we like to see you, and are very pleased that you have come to live near us.' The fact is, that, though a gentle little creature, she often parts them in the midst of a fight. " She lias been the means of recommending two girls, wlio were anxious to go to service, but had no clotlies, to a society with which her superintendent is connect- ed, by whose means they will be supplied witli an out- fit suitable to enter a respectable family. In sovcral •i M 172 THE MISSING LINK. cases, when the people have been spoken to on the sin of Sabbath-breaking, they have promised that they will not work on that day, and many of them have tried to keep their word. Her constant quiet presence among them works in so many ways for good ; and, though it may seem but little that she does, when we think of what is to be done, yet, if we bear in mind the value of one soul, we cannot feel that the work is unimportant. I could multiply facti. of the Bible being well received, but I must say a few words about our Clothing Mission. In this department ' Priscilla ' is very useful, as siie can cut out garments, arrange and fit them, and, as she is herself a good needlewoman, she endeavors to teach the women the best way of do- ing things. She has obtained seventy-six subscribers in this department of her work, most of whom have paid previously for Bibles, and has brought in from them, up to the 10th of June, XIO 16s. 8|d., all which money would otherwise, probably, have been spent in drink. "^ " The women come to the Mission-room every Mon- day evening, to bring their pence, and to choose the ar- ticles they would like ; they appear satisfied and pleased with what is purchased for them, and particu- larly so with READY-MADE clotliing, onc parcel of whicli we received from the treasurer, one from a lady at Stoke Newington, and a few second-hand articles from I L1MEH0U8E FIELDS, STEPNEY. ]73 a lady at Shad well ; also somo pieces of print from a friend at Stepney Green, which were made into pina- fores and little frocks. One evening evei-y week they meet also for work, when an excellent lady, accustom- ed to conduct Mothers' Meetings, presides. She reads a portion of Scripture, explains it, and, after offering prayer, reads aloud to them some useful book, such as the * First and Last Day of the Week,' with which the women are much delighted : some have told * Priscilla ' it is like heaven on earth to them. " We have had a tea-meeting, at which twenty-two were present, some so very poor that they scarcely ever buy fresh tea, milk, or butter. One poor woman came that had just lost her baby. It had pined away almost from starvation ; she had nursed it while liv- ing only on stewed tea-leaves and dry bread, and while making two shirts a day, for which she received 4d. She has a husband at sea, a very bad man, and she has not an article of furniture, one of her poor neighbors allowing her to share her bed. 'Priscilla' believes her to be a hopeful character, and thinks that, with instruction, her trials may be made useful to her. " Many of our poor guests said that it was years since they had spent such a happy evening. I do not expect to get the most depraved to our meetings at first. They must be sought out and sought after : those who know anything of the human heart can understand the i 174 THE MISSING LINK. force of our Saviour's complaint when He was on earth, * Y** will not come unto me that ye might have life, be;3ause your deeds are evil.' When light arises in a dark place, ' every one that doeth evil hateth the light ; neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.' But W3 have first the poor weary wife and mother, who needs cheering, teaching, and encouraging to do right — who is willing to be ad- vi°^d to better plans of management ; and this class will imperceptibly influence others around them. Several of the women asked if we could let them have something to take home to read to their husbands. On hearing this, I wrote to Mr. H. F. Barclay, who kindly responded to my appeal by sending five hun- dred copies of ' The Band of Hope' and 'The British Workman,' which are freely distributed among them. " The people noed civilizing almost as much as sav- ages abroa^l. At some of the houses at which ' Pris- cilla' calir ^«, is no uncommon thing, at the end of the week, to see the very young children running about the room quU/ft naked, and the elder ones with merely a rag pinned round them, the mothers saying, when spoken to about it, that they must take their clothes off once a week to wash them, or else ' to keep them out of the streets ;' but the truth is, they have no second suits. Several of these are now paying for more clothes, and many of the women that are wearing SUSAN IN WHITECHAPEL. 175 the clothes that they have subscribed for, are accosted by their neighbors with, ' Why, you look so nice, I hardly knew you. I shall try and get some clothing too.' The good Bible-woman is herself cheered by a visible alteration in the inmates of many rooms ; and the increased comforts of the people, earned by their own efforts, are strongly associated in their minds with the BLESSED Book which contains the history of the Saviour of sinners, at whose feet many of them vdll now, we hope, be brought to sit, ' clothed and in their right mind.' " SUSAN IN WHITECHAPEL. " Susan," in Whitechapel, has already fifty Bible subscribers. She had the advantage of going round first with the Bible Society's colporter, and they visited the Jewish, the German, and the Rag Fair districts, in company. Owing to the Christianizing efforts which have been long at ^ork in the district, they found the Gentile population, on the whole, well furnished with small Bibles. Yet the very names of the streets, notwithstanding all effort hitherto, have still a dreadful renown as the abodes of want, and sin, and misery. It now, therefore, remained to present and recommend the cheap large prints, which arc at this time calling the attention of the ignorant so much more vigorously to the holy volume of inspired trutli. I ii 176 THE MISSING LINK. Many who could not read expressed great thankfulness that a Bible-woman would come and read to them, that they might learn the way of salvation. " Sometimes," says the Colporter, " a dozen boys and gi.Is swarmed around us in the courts, and one or two would even herald our approach. An elder lad gave us his name, Jim James, and invited " Susan " to come and see where he lived, that he might subscribe ; it proved * all right,' and he gave her a penny. When we knock at the door of a Romanist, we often en- counter the lowerir.g look and a downcast and sullen demeanor. Tliey belong to the church which does not allow the Bible. How different the expression of the faces where the light of the Gospel has fallen ; how cheerful the reply, whether they are supplied or are desiring a larger type ! One cordial smile of welcome compensates for a large measure of refusal and re- buke. " From the Jews we met with civility, though they generally told us they had their own creed, and their own Old Testament. We sometimes heard of a Christian residing in their midst : one, a tailor by trade, when we reached him on a narrow flight of stairs, said, ' The Bible was the very thing u<^ ad want.' We met with another who had been a Bible subscriber twenty-four years ago, when residing in the self same court. If they were not all Jews in SUSAN IN W'HITECHAPEL. 177 the other courts, she told ns, they were Roman Catho- lics, some of whom, it appears, act as ' ShubotU-guys,' or servants, on Saturdays, to these descendants of the noble Abraham." The exiled remnant of the original depositaries of the law of God, they still so minutely observe it " to the title," that they refuse to snuff a candle or poke the fire, but impatiently call, " Shuboth- guy — Shuboth-guy," as the stoker passes from room to room for the purpose. Wonderful witnesses to the utterances of Sinai, which they have " made void by their traditions." It is well known by many persons in this neighbor- hood that George Yard, Whitechapel, and its immedi- ate vicinity, was once considered one of the vilest places in the whole of Middlesex. Some remember the time when people were allured down there to some den of infamy, where they were drugged, and the con- tents of their pockets taken ; and in bygone days many so trepanned were never seen to emerge from those depths again. Day, evening, and Sunday schools are now established, and open-air services are held in New Court, an outlet of George Yard, on Sabbath evenings. The congregation is often thus gathered together : The school children are appointed to meet at a cer- tain place, and, when assembled, they v^'alk through the back streets of the neighborhood, singing a hymn to a 8* I PJ 2 *S'_^_^l!&-»«. 178 THE MISSING LINK. cheerful tune. Crowds, composed chiefly of the lowest characters, soon gather round, and march back with the cliildren. It is a motley congregation. The vilest have the gospel preached to them there. In the crowd we miglit recognize ticket-of-leave men ; on the low wall are seated groups of poor pickpockets with upturned faces, hearing, perhaps for the first time, that Jesus Christ came to save and die for them. Blind beg- gars, led by the hands of their friends, come and seat themselves, to listen to the message of mercy, and at all the dingy windows round may be seen anxious persons, wlio probably wonld never have heard of the way to heaven but for such an opportunity, and who seem surprised that any are come down to sympathize witli them in tlieir dcgradatiori. These are often also aged and afllictcd people, who can seldom leave their dark and miserable liomes. To such it may be concei>^cd how welcome will be the visit of the kindly Bible-woman, bringing to the door of every room the Book of which the minister luis spoken, and from which he uttered that story of com- fort and peace. It is towards these *' dark plains of the eartli," in the heart of our Christinu city, whicli have been " full of cruelty," that the purifying waters of the stream of life must be turned in fresh and abundant lUls, and that Nor by gifts, which would be SUSAN IN WHITECHAPET.. 179 made away with, but by continual presentation of the Divine Message for easy purchase. Whitechapel, witli its 2li> streets and 5000 inhabited houses, is a world we must further explore. The Rev. W. W. Champneys and the Rev. Hugh Allen have been faithful laborers there for many years, and their unceasing efforts, combined with those of others, to preach the Gospel to these poor, cannot but have effected much. Mr. Champneys says, " There were but sixteen communicants the first day I entered the parish church, in 1838, and then there existed but one church for 30,000 persons ; now there are four, and the congregations in all are overflowing." He adds, " If Wiutechapcl is what it still is, what must it have been twenty years ago?" A communicant of Mr. Allen's churoli has been found to undertake the Female Bible Agency, which will penetrate into every room, and thus fruit already borne shall peradventure lead to the bringing forth of more fruit ; for " to him that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundantly," is a record in the harvest field of souls. Cheap clothino; is here very much needed. People are crowded together, many of then^ having been reduced from former respectability, rather than born to tiie bitterness of poverty. The men saunter d'>wn to the docks, and often get no work ; the women sell in the streets. They welcome the opportunity of ob- I I i f -tTTjt ■^jvrs»JVf3 eim'' »' » ^ffn mmi i s,i ^i ,t*iiteJ> 180 THE MISSING TINK. I taining large Bibles at a cheap rate, and will probably do so more and more. .THE BIBLE-WOMAN IN SH A DWELL, Through the efforts of the Lady who so success- fully superintends Priscilla, a new mission has now taken rise at Shadwell. She had her attention called to a person of suitable age and appearance — a tried Christian woman of great moral courage and intel- ligence, and much kindliness of heart, who solicited the work, and was not unwilling to be appointed to Shadwell, where the population is of a most low and debased character. We cannot enter into all partic- ulars, but its main thoroughfares are streets through which a respectable person cannot walk without deep concern ; and thoughtful men have been heard to say concerning it, that " as there are incurable diseases in the physical world over which the skilful physician cares not to spend his time or exert his talents, so it is with places like this in the moral world — they cannot be mended." Such, however, is not the resolve of our earnest- minded sister worker. She desires to see what the Bible will do even here, and she has alreadv some en- couragement. " I feel," she says," as if I had opened a pestilential cave, the vapors of which have so over- come me that I must shut it up a while to recover my- '; I THE BIBLE-WOMAN IN SUADWELL. 181 self. We have penetrated into the regions where the inmates, sitting in dp.rkncss and despair, say * Nobody cares for us. Our aes^roycrs arc still caressed and welcomed in society, but our portion is scorn and shame for ever. If we leave our present life wo must starve. Drink — we inust drink, or we should drown ourselves.' " . ,. , That among these wretched ones it is a Woman's special mission to go, and with God's Word in her hand, we believe that succeeding months will prove. Perhaps three-fourths of the population are Ro- manists. Some of the people told " Barbaba " they had their crucifixes ; and they would rather have them than the Bible. Others said " They never prayed to God, but if she did, they wished Ijer luck ; they should be glad to see her, and would treat her civilly if she did not interfere with their religion ; for, as theirs was the oldest and the best, she would never change it. They meant to stick to it." SoTie inquired if she was a Puseyite, as they had plenty of that sort about there, and they hated those who were neither one thing nor the other. Many poor Protestants said they were glad some one was coming among them. They had a Missionary once, but it was a long time now since any one had cared for them. In a house up one of the alleys, which she entered II I I. I 5 i -! mm 182 THE MISSING LINK. to write a name, the man noticed her hand trembling. He said, " Missus, you need not be frightened. We shall all be civil to you if you say nothing against our religion." One woman added, " I will come to your clothing meeting ; but I won't stop to your reading nor your prayers." "Barbara" has already sold several Testaments and some Bibles. We have need to go forth with her, supporting her with the prayer of faith, as she penetrates up those dark alleys. Sailors of every clime and color elbow her at each step as they crowd towards the gin- palaces. Many, doubtless, have been on board ships that took out Missionaries to the Heathen. What must they think of this port of entrance to the land of Bibles ? The American is there, with his slouched hat, his sheathed bowie-knife, and his tobacco-pouch ; and the dark, tall, bearded Lascar, in his blue check shirt ; the African, with his woolly hair ; the Chinese, with his long-tailed head-gear ; each chattering in his own tongue to his companions, or lounging against a wall smoking, or joking with the girls, dressed in shabby finery. Abominable smellp abound, and heaps of cin- ders and garbage fill up the way. The women often fight like raging furies ; the children of six years old look like fifty, with their hunger-bi tten faces ; they are not at play — they sit gazing out of the dark courts ; THE BIBLE-WOMAN IN SHADWELL. 183 and boys of twelve, smoking short pipes, lie outside the doors. The Bible -woman seems especially fitted to deal with the unfortunate class. They arc very civil to lier, gather round her to hear her read a chapter, and ask her to come again. In one alley there was a filthy family, and the next time she called she found both mother and children washed, as they were expecting her. Ono woman said, " I tell you what it is. Poverty is a curse — a curse ! It works all the good qualities out of you, and you ponder, ponder : it takes all your thoughts to know how you are to get bread." In entering upon a new district we would never be understood to suppose i\mt nothing has been accom- plished previously to our own (jIlui'M. Ill Ood'H l)ook of record is inscribed every genuine and 8oH\sacrilicing effort to save souls. Ho knows tliu hjritory of all kinds of evangelism and their t'Ul!illl||i|, ||)||| \\ti murks successively each true )ii|iii/»i|' as he Hi,ikH Ills seed ; Imt that the seed of the Word is sMll to |/W ^H^il /// oU these wide deserts of sin and hIhUIM', fln* y /^ Photographic Sciences Corporation as Wl-^-. . '.AIN STRICT WnSTIR.N.Y. MSSO (716) •79-4S03 5? ..W 186 THE MISSING LINK. through the Minories to Aldgate, crossing Bishopsgate to Cripplegate, thence to Aldersgate and Ludgate, inclosing an area of somewhat more than three miles, and leaving one side open to the river. The wall is said to have been guarded by fifteen towers, and to have described a figure like a bent bo '^, of which the Thames was the cord. The names of the old gates remain, and so still do a few scattered fragments of the antique wall in the churchyard of St. Giles's, Cripplegate ; and in its venerated decay it still gives its name to the district. London " within the walls " made a rapid expansion into the adjacent fields. It has been for eighteen cen- turies the seat of a busy and ever-increasing popula- tion, and has a history coeval with the Christian Era. Soon the number of buildings " without the walls " began to exceed those within, and left them as a mere kernel in the midst of the mass ; while the ever-multi- plying dwellings of the city have since overtaken the villages of Southwark, Westminster and Lambeth, and, indeed, have now absorbed every adjacent village on every side within ten miles round. It is, therefore, a matter of some interest to go back to the " kurnel" of this "province covered with houses." London within the walls is divided into ninety-eight parishes for ecclesiastical purposes, and into twenty- six wards for municipal purposes. It was once very THE BIBLE-WOMAN AT LONDON WALL. 187 thickly populated, and is still the centre of business to the world, but the opulent have long since removed their private residences to the western suburbs. The Earls of Oxford and of Essex, De Veres, l/udleys, and Cromwells, have left St. Swithin's Lane, and Bishops- gate and Throgmorton Streets, and the Bishops of London have forsaken their palace in Aldersgate. An act for improving and paving the city passed in 1532, which describes the streets as " very foul and full of pits and sloughs, very perilous and noyous for all the king's subjects on horseback, on fbot, or in car- riages." Narrow, crooked streets were gloomy by day, and left in total darkness at night. The vilest by-lanes, alleys, and courts, to which public attention is being pointed now, are scarcely worse than was the general London of the Olden Time. Thatched roofs covered the plaster and timber dwellings, densely in- habited and badly ventilated, so that pestilence was a constant visitor, and a destructive fire a great blessing. Such happened in 764, 798, 801, 1077, 1135, and 1212. The great plague of 1665 was followed by the five days' fire of 1666, which destroyed thirteen thousand houses and ten millions of property. " Heaven be praised," says Malcolm, " old London was burnt I " Still, however, the " Broad street ward " is associ- ated with the name of London Wall ;" and atill, no less than ever before, is this to be considered as the most Ml' ■..^ fe.- 188 THE MISSING LINK. > -y .-■.,;. ,1. «:-..;. »> ,- '.. JVJ V- I ,iysri3»';l.>'i Dec. lO^A. — Visited twenty-six families ; obtained seven subscribers. One man, a bootmaker, said to me, " Yes, I have a Bible, but, you see, the truth is, I am such a drunkard that I quite hate myself ; and, if I had had the pluck, I really should have cut my throat this morning." " You say you have a Bible, but you cer- tainly never read it, for there you will find that no drunkards shall inherit the kingdom of God." (1 Cor. vi, 10.) "But I always pray that I may not die drunk." " How do you know that you may not die so, if so you live ? We may die at any moment. You might enter this, your own room, and never leave it alive. I shall give you another word from my book, and it is the word of the Lord Jesus Himself : * Except ye repent ye shall perish;' and another, ' Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house ; ' saved from your sin and from your misery. These are the words of God's book." " Well," said the man, " put down my name for a 2s. 6d. Bible, and then I shall see you again ; it will do me good to be talked to." i , 9 194 THE MISSING LINK. Sold a three shilling Reference Bible to a French gentleman. Carried a 6s. bed to a poor woman, who had been subscribing sixpences for it ever since she heard I was coming to the district. Surely my various kind of work is needed in this dark corner of London. No one seems to me to think that they have a soul to be saved. Dec. 22c?. — Visited eleven families, and obtained three new subscribers. Met with one man, who an- swered, " Why, we've five Bibles in the house, and not one of them can I see to read." " Look at this," re- plied I, presenting him with the clear, large type, issued at 2s. 6d. to the poor. " Any one who can see at all may see this," he cried out ; I can read it beauti- fully. This shall be my Christmas choice." Dec. 2Uh. — Made fourteen calls, but found only one subscriber, and this was a poor woman who gets her own living, and helps to support an aged husband, by making parasols, for which she receives a penny farthing each. She gave me a penny for a 2s. 6d. Bible. Dec, Z\8t. — This has been a terrible week in this district. Large gifts have been distributed, and often in money. Some old inhabitants have received as much as three sovereigns ; and the scenes of drunken- ness have been past description. The people have • } THE BIBLE-WOMAN AT LONDON-WALL. 195 9 sent their boys and girls for gin, which they drink on their way back ; and the depraved habits of the young hereabouts surpass any I ever before met with. 1 wa? jostled by boys, of ages varying from eleven to four- teen, with clay pipes in their mouths, a bottle sticking out of each pocket, and spilling beer from pots in each hand besides : other children were so far gone that they could not stand. There are people in the heart of this city who, gen- eration after generation, never think of bringing their children to be baptized, or train them with any knowl- edjro that there is a God in heaven, or that the Sabbath is anything more than a day for drinking and riotous living. I went into one place where an old woman was dying, covered with vermin, wliile her two daugh- ters were hanging over the bed drunk. I went into another, which, upon inquiry, I found had not been cleaned for sixteen years. The day before Christmas- day I met two men distributing almanacs, with the prices of liquor attached to them. As they saw me with my Bibles they said, " Well, mistress, you tuill keep pace with us." This place used to be called " Otaheite," and truly many a savage yet dwells in it. but not one beyond the power of the grace of God. May it please Him to give tlie spirit of wisdom and forbearance, witli meekness and loving-kindness, to all those who are engaged in visiting amongst tliese homo 196 THE MI8H1NU LINK. heathens, so that some of them may speedily be led to the Cross of Christ! - . ^ .,, . ^., The poor bootmaker whom I first visited has been very ill, and is supposed to be dying. He has met with much kindness in his distress from Christian friends, and appears to have been brought to a review of his past life, and to a deep repentance for it. He told me this morning that he was resting on the fin- ished work of Jesus for pardon. His shivering wife and child are now supplied with garments to make for their own wear ; and being then paid for the work, they will with this payment buy the articles they have made, and be able to go out to get employment. They are thus placed in a condition to help themselves. March. — Called to-day on sixteen families. I only collected eight pence for Bibles. One rough man, a sweep, has from time to time told me that he wished I would keep out of his house, for, said he, " I'm no chapel-goer, and I don't want to be pestered about your book. You see, if I've my pot and my pipe it's all I care for, and I've no time to look at the Bible." I asked him if he had ever thought he miist find time to die, and told him he knew not how soon that time might come — that perhaps already the grave was open, and the worms were waiting for his poor body, while he had a soul that could be miserable forever. " You had better," I said, " give me a penny a week to buy THE BIBLE-WOMAN AT LONDON-WALL. 197 V this book, which will lead you into all truth." " If you dou't get out I'll kick you out," was his answer. I departed, telling him I should pray that he might think differently. I went again another week to the door of this poor sweep, and he then called down stairs to me, " Come up, missus ; I want you. I'm a rum chap ; but, after all, I dare say what you said was true. I don't care anything about myself, but I .^ hould like a Bible for my boy. Here is sixpence, and you may call every week, for perhaps a little of your talk may do me good. <;!,i '! ..tl ■ .:• -"i:'!: . ,' 1 ■ ^fi 'in i i:,,- I May, 1859. — I have found some fresh Bible wl... in Moor Lane, and have already secured twelve subscrib- ers ; and when a Mission-room is opened in this neigh- borhood subscribers for clothing and beds will abound. The place is a kind of maze of houses, with windings and turnings that remind one of that at Hampton Court. It is called the * Horseride,' because, accord- ing to one of the oldest inhabitants, Dick Turpin, the highwayman, used to ride through it to escape the officers who were after him, and who were invariably lost in its turns. There is, in many cases, no light to the staircases but from a trap-door above, and in some houses this gleam falls through iron stairs full of holes. I have to grope my way up to one subscriber at the top of such a house. In one room I found two old mmtm 198 THE MISSING LINK. people who wolconied me, their hearts being softened by the recent loss of a son of twenty years of age, and, "of course," said the mother, "he had a soul to be saved." " How do you dare venture here ?" said a woman to Sarah. " Don't you know that the policemen are afraid to come even two together ? " " No," answered our good woman, " I am not afraid. You will do me no harm, and I am come to do you good. I am come to bring you God's Book, and you little know what that can do for you." Another Bible-woman, who accom- panied Sarah here one evening, shrank from this dis- trict, and said " the people seemed like tigers," so given to fighting. A Mission-room has been opened there, and about a dozen people attend. Many of the poor within these boundaries can sup- port themselves by working three days in the week ; and they will only work three days, and drink what they earn the other four. Drink occasions their fear- ful quarrels. Numbers of the women are employed as office cleaners at six or seven in the morning, and from six till ten in the evening. These spend the day in drink, and may be seen intoxicated and black as sweeps in their interim of idleness. They manage to get sober by the evening to earn more wages, to be wasted in the same way. It must be evident that they need the daily watching of a female missionary, who offers I THE BIBLE-WOMAN AT LONDON WALL. 199 ■ I ' them SOMETHING ELSE TO DO WITH THEIR MONEY. " I kiiow what you say is very true," is often the reply made. " I will turn over a new leaf. I will come to your meeting and buy a bit of calico, and make my man a shirt, and then I can bring him with me, and you can talk to him." " Sarah" is particularly well off in the arrangements made by her kind and liberal friends and superintendent of her Mission for the weekly meetings of her subscribers ; and these meet- ings, attended by both men and women, have contin- ued to be crowded even through the hot weather. A larger room is now being provided, and much fruit seems springing up to the glory of God. The aspect of many of the poor is quite changed, and there never before was so little drunkenness known at Whitsun- tide in the city. " The sweep and the bootmaker, referred to at pp. 193, 197, have been watched with much interest. They now regularly attend our weekly gathering for prayer, and maintain a consistent walk at other times. The sweep has not been drunk for two months. He used to be the pest of the place ; now he cries out, ' I am a sinner,' and seems to be seeking pardon. "In the same district a City Missionary has for some time labored, and a room is kindly appropriated for his meeting, in a poor locality, by the proprietor of the houses, showing how mucli such a light in a 200 THE MISSING LINK. dark corner is valued ; but in consequence of the ill health of the Missionary it was proposed to close tlie room for a time, much to the regret of all, especially of our friend the bootmaker, who requested the little congregation might still be allowed to meet for united prayer. "This was readily complied with, and deemed a favorable result of missionary labor ; and our friend has proved, by his earnestness in prayer and zealous endeavors to lead others to Christ, that his soul was convinced and converted from the error of its way. He has for some time taken the Bible to read to his neighbors, testifying what God had done for him, no doubt much to the astonishment of those who well knew his former habits of life." " I found a girl," says Sarah, " in Peahen Court, to whom I was sent by the City Missionary, as she wished to be taught to read. All the family were liv- ing and sleeping in one room. Being invited to a Sunday-school, she replied, ' She must go to 'Change that day,' which * 'Change' is the market for old clothes described at page 110. This girl goes in the morning at half-past seven, and stays till lialf-past three, and is then so tired that she sleeps for tlie rest of the day ; but she earns more money then than she does all the rest of the week. Drunken wives are glad to go to this 'Change to get a clean shirt or a ' THE BIBLE- WOMAN AT LONDON WALL. 201 pair of mended stockings for their husbands, when, as they have been drinking all the week, their own are not ready." , It is delightful to find that the Female Mission work, in the heart of the City of London, should thus begin to take root and flourish. Sarah already brings to her Superintendent a pound a week for clothing, as subscriptions from the people. A store of bedticks await the completion of their purchase, bj sixpence or one shilling a week, ere they are filled with flock, and sent forth to make known to many, /or tlie first time in their lives, the comfort of a clean warm bed ; while blankets, indelibly marked, are lent to the most des- titute, for the three or four winter months, on condition that during that period, by small subscriptions (which the opportunity shall be given them to earn), they make a similar article their own before the time comes for the return of the loan. Soup is prepared in the winter at one penny a quart for those whose avoca- tions prevent their making it ; and it is indeed to be wished that in every district in this vast metropolis might arise the possessor or the collector of £\ 00, to carry out these simple reforms in the social science of practical benevolence. By £100 so bestowed, and ever more or less reproducing itself, more will be done than by £1000 bestowed in undiscerning gifts. The 202 THE MISSING LINK. Bible Missionary must live among those she serves, and should not, in general, be of a condition in life above doing so. Like can teach like with a hitherto unsuspected power. It does it in evil things— it can do it in good things. In a few weeks the very presence of a good woman amongst them is a testimony, and the peoph hear it. Her face, her dress, her manners, are a leaf out of a new volume to them. Will not the Christians of London set themselves to find out such women and employ them ? ' , iv ■"' ' CHAPTER XV. , LEAVES PBOM LIFE IN GRAY'S INN LANE. •i Marian and her superintendent one day paid a visit to some model lodging-houses in PortpooMane, to observe the nature of the bedding there supplied, when necessary, to the lodgers. In penetrating to the top rooms of the building they found, in one tidy room, a mother and two daughters, at work at shoe- binding. The family could scarcely support them- selves by their utmost industry at their trade. Tlie mother, however, voluntarily took care of the city missionary's room in the lodging-house, and this, with other circumstances which came to light, led both visitors at the same time to think that they had met with a steady, quiet, matronly body, who desired to do good to her neighbors, and might train into, a use- ful missionary. She soon afterwards commenced work in her own neighborhood, under the guidance of Thomas Shaw, a colporter, who had sold many thousand Bibles in the (203) 204 THE MISSING LINK. remote hills and dales of Yorkshire, as well as in such large towns as Bradford and Leeds. He was now employed by the Bible Society for a time in London, and was remarkably successful in obtaining subscribers, not because he professed to" pay his thousand calls a week, but because he did not leave the people in garret, den, or cellar, till he had found a way to interest them severally in the " message from heaven," which he presented to them. He, perhaps, first gained their sympathy by talking on quite other subjects ; but, whatever the subject was, it always came round to " The Book," and the promise of sub- scription for it, in small sums, so often followed, as to amaze many a well-intentioned lady collector at the result in her own district, which she thought " thoroughly supplied," and where, after a fresh course of visits with this valuable pioneer, she found a multitude of doors opened which had been hitherto closed, and opportunities for usefulness thence arising, such as she had never supposed would be met with in the crowded city. ^' ' One secret of Shaw's success, worthy of notice by the uninitiated, is, that he did not give the people too much of what they called " preaching," which the majority turn from with disgust. He carried the " Voice" which was to be heard above his own voice ; and his object was to make the people desire and listen to Hmt, # I 1 1 LIFE IN gray's inn LANE. 205 A walk with Shaw through a few of the streets in the west central districts of London will show his mode of gaining the names of subscribers, whether to be taken up by lady collectors or by the Bible-woman. He says: The poor people in London are more difficult of access than those in the country. They make you wait a long while at the door, and, in truth, the house being let in separate rooms, belongs equally to so many tenants, that one of them will not answer for another. I have found Bloomsbury and St. Pancras by no means destitute of small Bibles, supplied from the Sunday-schools, many of them, however, old and in bad condition ; and the proof that more are wanted is, that I have obtained so many subscribers for large- print Bibles in the course of a few weeks. I have met with a great deal of poverty, and wretchedness, and dirt : the people seem to waste so much money in drink. I am very frequently told, " It is of no use bringing the Bible here. What we want is, something to eat and drink." One man told me, " If the parsons lived as we live, they would not think so much of the Bible ;" and I answered, " If you thought as much of the Bible as they do, perhaps you would not live as you do, for the Bible is the poor man's friend. If you learn to live as it would teach im..jB!.i 206 THE MISSING LINK. you, you would not really want * any good thing.' Godliness hath the promise even of the life that now is, and also that which is to come. See, here it is writ- ten in the Book : 1 Tim. iv, 8. Have you, sir," said I, '* a Bible of your own ?" " Yes, I have," he answered ; " butit is in pledge." "You must have been very poor to pledge your Bible. Can you not get it back ?" " No ; it would cost me less to have a new one than to get that lack." " Well, you can get one by paying a penny a week. A lady will collect the pence, and call upon you every week for them." After some more conversation on the ptate of trade, he gave his name as a subscriber, for a Bible at 2s. 6d. The neighbors of this man were chiefly Irish. I could not do much with them. They say they have their own Bible, and are not allowed to read any Prot- estant books. In the Colonnade to-day I saw a man who said he had long wanted a Bible in large type. He had a New Testament, but he should like to have the Old Book too. He said the chastening hand of God had taught him the emptiness of all worldly pleasure. He had a family of little children, and was glad of the opportunity of small subscriptions, as he could no4; pay the money for a Bible at once. Another woman said. \ LIFE IN gray's inn LANE. 207 " Now I shall get a large Bible, which I never could before." Cromer street.— To do any amount of work here I must spend three or four days in the street. The peo- ple would only answer, " No," if I began by asking them whether they wanted a Bible. The Romanists often tell me they have their own Bible, but when I get to see it, it is only a Roman Catholic prayer book. January 2%th. — I met to-day with some curious peo- ple. One man said, " Religion is very cheap, now ; we can have it for fourpence." " Having a Testament," said I, " does not make a man religious. There are many people who have whole Bibles and are not religious ; but the time will come when they will wish they had been religious. Do you ever think, sir, of that time ? " "Sometimes I do when I cannot help it." " I believe that is a true statement. Have you any books besides the Bible ? " " I have a song book, but no Bible. I had one once, and I lost it through drink." " Oh, that drink I it is the ruin of thousands. Will you be a subscriber for a Bible at one penny per week ? " " No, mister, I won't. I have such a wretched hole of a home that I should not like any one to come and see it to get the subscriptions." 208 THE MISSING LINK. " But if you had a Bible, and heeded its directions, your home would soon improve. Do let me have your name as a subscriber." " No ; but I will buy one of these Testaments." " I am glad of that. I hope you will read it, and that you will pray for the teaching of God's Holy Spirit that you may understand it. He can lead you * into the way of all truth.' " Calls to-day, sixty ; subscribers, seven. I have been employed this week in the poorest dis- tricts belonging to the Brunswick Square Association. In some of the houses there are six and even eight families, and sometimes two families in a room. I found that in one house thirty-seven persons were liv- ing. It takes a long time to canvass such places. The ladies hitherto have merely called at the front doors, and been told, " We do not want any Bibles." But I do not like to omit any family, because every one ought to have a Bible. February ^d. — Attended the Ladies' Committee : the reports were much more encouraging than last time. They have taken up two hundred of the sub- scribers I have obtained, and I have been round with several new collectors to introduce them to the sub- scribers ; also, with four persons desirous of undertak- ing the work of colpartage, under the Bible Society's auspices, in other districts. \ LIFE IN okay's inn LANE. 209 Employed in tho afternoon in street. Saw an aged woman, who, when I inquired if she would buy a Bible, replied, " No, thank you, sir ; I have one. I should not like to live in a house where there was not a Bible." " I suppose you have had oae a long time ? " " Yes, sir. The Bible was the first thing I bought after I was married, and it has been the guide of my life from tliat time until now." At the next house at which I called, a man said, " Curse you and your Bible," and shut the door in my face. 4th. — A man in street said, " He did not think it was right for the parsons to endeavor to shut up people's shops on Sunday, when they earn their own living by preaching on that day." " Have you, sir, a Bible ? " " No ; and I don't want one. I have something else to do besides reading the Bible ; and if people who go to churches and chapels would read less and work more, and pay their way, tlie times would mend." " Sir, I should like to have a little talk with you about the times. I will call again this afternoon when you have had your dinner." " All right, my good man ; if you call after dinner I shall have more time." 210 THE MISSING LINK. i| 1 did call, and before I left him I had his name as a subscriber for a Bible at 6s. 6d. Qth. — I canvassed Place. It has not a respec- table name. I walked round it two or three times, looking at the shop windows, and noticing the chil- dren at play. The question was asked more than once, " What's that man after? " I spoke to a person wlio was standing about, and he happened to be the col- lector of the rents of most of the rooms. From him I learned that there were thirty-six houses in the place, and that about three hundred families lived in them — one family in each room, and sometimes two, and that I could pass from room to room without asking leave at the front door. Then I went to work, praying for the Divine blessing. Some of the people are very poor, and these rooms have scarcely any furniture. When they move, which they often do, there is scarcely anything to take uway. Many had no bedstead. Something that served for a bed — apparently for all the family — was rolled up in the corner of the room. I went into one, where tfe'j man, a shoemaker, was at his work. His wife was washing, and a child on the floor squalling. I took up the child, spoke to it kindly, and hushed it with a peppermint lozenge. Afterwards I turned to the man and looked at his work. •- r^i ^ " Do you want any thing to-day, master ?"said he. t ^ LIFK IN (illAYS INN LANE. , r "I was thinking," said I, *' if you knew of any rL,ni edy for cold feet : the people keep nio standing so long at their doors. Yet I have pretty strong shoes al- ready." *' I should think," said he, " you had better wear horsehair soles in your shoes." Meantime I had unstrapped my box, and displayed to him the largo print 2s. 6d. Bible. Now," said I, " you have done me a service, I think I shall do you one if I offer you this book from the Bible Society at 2s. 6d., and by the payment of a penny a week you can get it. I don't see any Bible here." " Well," said the man, " 'tis a fine type. Sally, look here." Now I thought that Sally, as she came forward with her hands in the suds, might say, " No, we've no money to spare." So while the man read a verse or two I said to her, " Mistress, I fear you won't get those clothes dry to-night." She looked up at me, and said, " Yes, I shall ; I've a hundred of coals all ready, and I shall soon get them dry." " I am very happy to hear, mistress, that you have a hundred of coals while times are so hard with many. I think you will be able to spare a penny a week to get this nice Bible. Your master here must drink a pennyworth less beer." " Ah, master," said the man, " I'm of your mind on that already, for I am a teetotaler." 212 THE MISSING LINK. " Well, then, mistress," said I, turning to the woman, " you must have the book by a little pinch iu the tea and sugar — it won't be much." So the man gave me his name as a subscriber. When r visit these people with the lady collector we must have a little further talk on the priceless value of the book they are going to buy. I obtained that morning twenty-one subscribers, and I think, if I were to go tlirough the place again, I might obtain twelve or fiftoon more. i, I Many more days were devoted by Shaw to explor- ing tlie "cork-screw" courts on the left hand side of Grnv's Inn Lane, where he has obtained the names of forty subscribers. We must let him tell his^ own tale — ' If ever a female missionary was wanted to follow up my footsteps, he says, it is there. I have been into courts also out of Chancery Lane, so narrow that, thougli there is a sky above them, the people never foel tlie sun. I have been into old houses that seem ready to fall, and up staircase after staircase, into rooms whore I could not get my breath for the smoke and the thick foul air. I was going up to the top of one liouse, when a woman called me back and said, " Master, you need not go up there ; there is a dead LIFE IN gray's inn LANE. 213 man there." " Well," said I, " ray message is to the living, and not to the dead. Are there any living up there ?" She said " she believed there were ;" so I persever-^d, notwithstanding the close atmosphere, and on the top floor I sold a Bible. " What kind of people live in such houses, and why do they live there V " The rents are cheap — only two shillings a week for a room. The people are a mixed folk — shoemakers, idlers, and smokers, women washing and gossiping. Many said * they were not religious, and did not want a Bible.' I went up two branches of stairs, which must once have belonged to a grand old house. At the head of each were six rooms — very dark and dusty rooms, the windows stuffed up with rags. A great many of the people were Irish and Romanists, who said ' they were not going to be converted.' Still I found subscribers. I went through every room of a large public-house, let out in lodgings to a strange set of people. Here a fine lady opened the door ; above, a shoemaker, who had once been a Sunday scholar, was glad to purchase a fourpenny Testament. I got twelve names in those courts ; and here and there I met with decent women of the church-going and Bible- class order, living (I myself wondered why) in some of the foulest corners." ^^ Perhaps these are the very people who might be w- 214 THE MISSING LINK. ccdhd out to mend the rest. Your descriptions to- day are really worse than those of your walks in St. Giles's." " I have, indeed, never seen such dirt as I saw yester- day. I have been into places where not even the City Missionaries visit, and where the people say, * Nobody cares for usJ The residents are costermongers, pawn- brokers, keepers of little rag and bone shops, and I suppose there are many thieves — a mass of over six hundred families, living in a state of filth and destitu- tion such as I could not have dreamed. I was sick and ill all through the night, and what must they be who always breathe such air ?" i As Shaw was passing a book-stall one afternoon in Gray's Inn Lane in the course of his rounds, he observ- ed a blind man, led by a dog (to which he spoke as "Blue' or"), turning over some little books, which the boy in attendance appeared to have reserved for him as a well-known customer. They were small religious books for children, and the blind man from time to time requested the boy to read him a paragraph here and there, selecting for purchase those from which a sentence seemed lo please him. After watching him for a little time, Shaw addressed some question to the blind man on the nature of the books he was buying, and a smile brightened over his LIFE IN gray's inn LANE. 215 face, though not in his eyes, as he recognized the dia- lect of a fellow-countryman. " Do you know Staley- bridge and Dukinfield ? " said he, in reply. " How came you to think I did ? " said Shaw. " Oh ! I knowed you by your tongue. I come my- self from thereabouts. Let's come and talk over a cup of tea, and then you can read me some more of these books. Stay," said he ; « how do you get your living?" " I, too, sell books," said Shaw ; '' but they are all of one kind. I am a Bible-seller. I sell this book for tenpence (putting one into the man's hand). It is a beautiful-looking book, as you can feel, perhaps ; but not one that you can read. You have not a Bible, I suppose ? " " Oh, yes, I have the Gospels in raised letters, and I sometimes carry one with me, and sit down to read it to the children in a quiet place, and they gather round and listen, and I want these little books to sell to them. I sell a great many, and so do some good, and turn a penny for myself, which sadly I want since poor Fanny died. Fanny was my wife, you know, and I lost her, last Christmas." So Shaw went home with him to tea, not for tlie sake of the tea, but the companionship. He found lie lived in a very clean back room in Portpool-lane. The tea was only herb tea, but it was given with a wel- #> 216 THE MISSING LINK. come. The man said he was well known in London as '* Blind Jemmy," and that he had many friends. He had lost his sight twelve years ago, having been an engine-fitter on tlie London and North-Western Railway, and, in chipping metal facing another man, one of his eves had been struck out, and the other noi long after had decayed away. He had had the best medical aid afforded him by the Company, but the sight was irrecoverably gone. " I had lost," said poor Jemmy, " my working sight, but not long afterwards God gave me my spiritual sight. I lived then with some uncles and aunts down in your parts, and they were pious people, and taught me the true comfort. I remember well a solitary place — a little running brook in Rochdale — where I first knelt down and could say, ' Thy will be done, Lord, not mine ; ' and He has cared for me ever since. Soon afterwards He gave me Fanny, and He has never suffered me to want my humble crust. People often say to me, specially since I lost Fanny, ' Jemmy, why don't you go into the workhouse V ' I do go there,' I answer, * once a week, but it is to carry sixpence to a man who used, when he was able, to give me my two shillings, so I never forget him ; ' but may God keep me from abiding beneath that hard and heavy knocker." "Your place is very clean, Jemmy," said Shaw. f ■';( LIFE IN GRAYS INN LANB. 217 leavy Ihaw. " You tell me that you're out all day going your rounds with Blucher : how do you have it so clean ?" " I am always up at five," said Jemmy ; " I can't sleep any longer. I have to wash myself and say my prayers. I clean it, as Fanny did, on a Friday, that I may not have so much to contend with on a Satur- day, and that I may be ready for Sunday. 1 tie a cord across the floor, that I may know how far I have scrub- bed, and not do it over again ; but ah, since Fanny died, I've often been in my difficults. If the button- holes of my coat are worn out I have to mend them myself." Much more of interesting detail passed, and it seem- ed to Shaw that this man, from his wish and effort to do good among the children by the wayside, with his Bible-reading and his little books, might, though witli one sense less than his fellows, in some way be made a missionary in his own degree, with a little help and guidance. This was a very pleasant leaf from life in Gray's Inn Lane. Shaw's researches in this localitv have been followed up by the visits of ladies, nnd ii Bible-woman named Lydia has now been employed there al«o for twelve months. Her reports of the district were for a long time most disheartening ; yet she gradually obtained 280 Bible subscribers, and, after long perseverance and patience, is succeeding as well as her compeers in ob- 10 218 THE MISSING LINK. :: I ' taining subscriptions for decent clothing. The follow- ing is a leaf from her Journal. She says : ' " July 21th. — In going out this morning I prayed that I might be made a comfoi t to some one. In the courts at the back of Chancery-lane I find a moral waste ; in many rooms dirt is almost the only clothing of the poor children. Here and there a tidy person seems like a green tree in the wilderness. I trust ere long that many of the people will be induced to read God's Word, as several have begun to pay for Bibles. " In Baldwin's-gardens, another part of this district, more wretched than the former, sin reigns in every form. The people are generally very poor and de- praved. Drunkenness is almost always the cause of the apparant misery. ^^ August Sth. — I visited to-day a poor young Avoman who seems far advanced in consumption, very weak, and in great distress, — her husband, who is a law-writer, not having been able to obtain employment for some time. Spoke to her about her soul, and found her willing to converse upon that subject. She has had a Testament given her, in which she feels great comfort. I pray that +'^'^ Lord will open the eyes of her under- standing, and that ere death overtakes her she will be able to say, ' I know in whom I have believed ;' and then she will be able to give up her dear little boy and her husband to One who will never leave nor forsake I LIFE IN GRAY S INN LANE. 2iy an leak, iter, lome lier ,d a ^ort. der- 1 be and and [sake them. I next went to a house where, for the fourth time, I found the man in bed, drunk. His unhappy wife, who appears a decent woman, said he had not been sober for a whole month, and that slie was obliged to cut liis food and put it into his mont'.i, or lie would be starved to death, he was so unconscious of wanting anything but drink. Words are useless — he does not know that he is spoken to. that the Lord would have mercy on this miserable drunkard ! " I then got into a house where 1 was obliged to wait up stairs for a long time, owing to drunken women qarrelling and fighting in the passage : hard names and harsh words were used, not fit to be mentioned. I often feel sick at heart. Lord, have mercy upon them, for they have none upon themselves ! " I have visited to-day the wife and daughters of another poor drunkard, who came home and threw almost all their things out of the window, and some of them fell upon a little child, nearly killing it. I strongly suspect that the wife is not much better than the hus- band. I have tried to show her the evil of such a course of life, and the bad example they are setting before their wretched cliildren. Remonstrance seems of little use at tlie present time. Drink appears to be all thev live for ; but we must remember that the Lord's hand is not shortened, neithoi* is Ills car heavy tliat it cannot hear. Obliged to wait again upon llio I I 220 THE MISSING LINK. stairs : a man drunk, beating the room door with all his might, and using the most dreadful language ; it was quite terrific to hear it. I am often asked by these people to treat tliem, or lend them a few pence." Lydia soon began the Clothing and Bed Clubs. She found few at first willing to subscribe ; but we went on in faith that this would be the most practical cru- sade against the gin-bottle. Gray's Inn Lane always presents itself to our minds when we think of a district at first discouraging, and afterwards fruitful. We had almost doubted the energy of the agent, who did not happen to have found the help of a Lady Superintendent. Lydia now serves two of the City Missionaries' rooms with cloth- ing, and the results of her visits to the family, where the man had not been sober for a month, are most cheering : she has induced him to become a teetotaler, '' chiefly," she says, " by arguments from the Bible in Bole words." He says " nobody ever talked to him before." He is now grown " quite stout and happy." She has not yet succeeded in inducing him to attend a place of worship, but he has had a Bible, and has kept sober ever since. He did so even at Christmas time, so that the reformation now is of some standing. Here, also, the district presents altered features from the now better clothing of the people. " Even the coster- monger women look so neat in their print gowns." LIFE IN GRAYS INN LANE. 221 most aler, e in liim tpy-" nd a kept time, lere, the jster- i The City Mifjsionaries of the district were uot at first sure but tliat the new work miglit interfere with theirs. Those who liave come to understand it have hailed it as the very tiling that liad so long been wanted among the people ; and when we say this it conveys not the slightest reflection on any preceding agency. There had been District Visitors in Gray's Inn Lane. There had been Ragged Schools and Mothers' Classes, with their Clothing Clubs attached. There had been Visitors from the Christian Instruc- tion Societies of various degree ; but the whole num- ber called in by these was nothing (and every earnest worker knew it) to the numbers passed over of those who were in the most need of being cared for. It is visitation in their homes, and by those whom they will permit to enter, which is needed by the Lon- don poor. The clergyman himself is thought by a large class too good and grand ; the visits of tlie Scripture-reader and City Missionary are objected to by many of the husbands, in their own absence. Of the Lady Visitor they will beg, and tliink slic has no right to come to them except she brings relief ; and they sa} , besides, that she is seldom punctual. But for the quiet, civil woman of their own class, who knows their difficulties and is surprised at nothing, for her they have evidently a very different welcome. Now, it is teaching the mothers in those homes — the motJiers I 222 THE MISSING LINK. who will not come out to learn — tlie coinmon arts of domestic life, of which tlicir deficient education and tlieir early thriftless marriages have left them totally- ignorant, that is the crying tvant of the times ; and this is woman's work. It should bo the work, under right direction, of women of their own degree, who must be moderately paid and carefully superintended agents ; and it is this beginning at the roots of society that would do away with the need of half our Reforma- tories, Refuges, and Ragged Schools, and double the efficacy of all the rest. That such a range of efforts should be intimately associated with, and should, indeed, spring out of, the offer of the Book of God, is especially necessary. This must be the visible mark of its distinction from Roman- ist and Tractarian exertions. The church " which hides the Book" has no more subtle and extensive power over its members than is gained by its system of female charitable visitation. That church can find the women — that clmrch lacks not the means to employ them ; and shall the Protestant strength of Christen- dom believe the same work impossible ? If there is one desire nearer to the heart of those who are at present extending this Protestant agency than another, it is that the work shall be wide in its basis, and tliat union, prayer, and faith, shall be its foundation stones ; " Union in which sects shall -4.. LIPE IN CRAY'S INN LANE. 223 -".•coly be namcl i,, n,c cl.oicc of the wo.kcn • I I'uyo.- that rests „„t „i,.,,t „.. aay ■ FaitI, that takei "0 de,nal," a„,l we have hitherto found none, whctl,er «» .^gards i„8trun.ents or the fund., to suppiv their ■•«••*■ \ i CHAPTER XVI. SSTUBR AND HARRIET; OR, TIMES PAST AND riiESENT. Leaving Lydia at work in Gray's Inn Lane, and Dinah in PortpooMune and in Sroithfield, let us pass to Somers' Town, where we shall find an Esther, who has been occupied in similar visitation for about the space of a year, during which time she has had more than 350 Bible subscribers, and has been made a bless- ing to many. To imagine the scene of her labors our readers may follow Shaw into the Saturday evening market, called the Brill. Thi'' is iield in a long narrow street of small shops ; the stalls are placed l)c vond the pavement, and out in the gutter, leaving space for but one cart to pass down between them at a timo. Wlicn this is a water-cart — which is often necessary on account of the dust and heat — plums, oysters, potatoes, &c., may be refreslied ; but it is not so with books. However, a friend of (224) \ \ KSTIIKIt .VXD HAIIIIIKT. 225 ling fps ; in )\vn Ian d ot the Bible Societ}", acquainted with the neii^'hhoihood, pointed out the best phice for a stall — a vacant spot in the front of a beershop. *' The master," says Shaw, "gave nie permission to pet up my stall in the front of tiiis hoJise, and said, * You had better take your stand tliere Simday morn- iuii^s as well as Saturday evenin*»s.' I said 1 was much obliged, but could not work on a Sunday. ' Wei!,' replied he, 'you might sell more on a Sunday morning here tlian any other day. There is a great need of Bibles here. We are a wicked lot ; and I do not know what will mend us.' " The first night I sold twenty copies — seven Bibles and thirteen Testaments. " On the second Saturday I met with many remarks. One young man said, * He did not want a Bible ; it was all priestcraft ; he could write a better book than that himself.' " Another said, * Can you tell me who wrote the Bible ? ' ' Yes, sir ; holy men wrote it, as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.' ' I will have nothing to do with it. The Holy Ghost will not feed me. I am going on the other side to buy beef.' May the Lord open his blind eyes ! " An Irishman said, ' You are selling a dangerous book, master. Why, the people can't understand it all. They put a wrong meaning on it ; and it is King 10* i 226 THE MISSINO LINK. ITnrry tlio Ei*,ji:htli's edition. He was a bad man, and ho could not write a good book.' "Tlioii eumc a little encouragement. One said, ' Master, tliis is a step in the right direction.' Another man remarked, ' I am glad to see you here. My boy bouglit a Testament in the market last Saturday, and he tells mo you are selling Bibles. I have come to look at tliein, and 1 hope you will sell many.' *' About nine o'clock a young boy who stood next to me, selling pictures in gilt frames at fourpence each, was I a ken by the policeman to the station. It was said lie liad been picking pockets. '• At ten o'clock the crcwd was great, and as several ]iorsoiis were looking at my books, some one came and u|>'ot my stall. By the time I had gathered up my l»()()ks from the pavement the offender was gone. Some said i( was a drunken woman. Sold to-night eight IVihlos and thirteen Testaments." Somcrs' Town is generally known to be a poor and densely-populated neighborhood, whose origin is of comparatively recent date. Aged people are living who remember the time when it consisted of open Jields, with here and tliere a house, and these fields wore famou.' for the Sunday meetings of the Chart'sts. Now it is wholly built over, and the number of iuhab- itants exceeds tliat of Kentish and Camden Towns combined. In 1851 it ccntainod more tlian 3500 per- ESTHER AND HARRIET. 227 and is of o* Ivm |open lelds It'sts. ilial)- lowns per- sons ; and while the population has been increasing so rapidly there has been, until lately, little increased provision for their educational or spiritual wants so that we have to overtake the neglects of a past gene- ration. Somers' Town lies in the parisli of St. Pancras, once the name of a solitary village in the fields " situ- ated nortli of London, one mile from Holborn Bars." It was a parisli before the Norman Conquest, and is called St. Pancras in Domesday Book. Stukeley affirms that the site of old Pancras church was occu- pied by Ctesar's Roman encampment, and traces the Brill in Somers' Town to a contraction of Burgh Plill, a Saxon name for a fortified place on an elevated site. The surface of old London lay fifteen feet below its present level ; and where a Roman general pitched his camp the floor of his tent became a tesselated pave- ment : buried coins, lamps, and vases, t'^^.tified of his presence, and sometimes baths and watercourses, with the foundations of temples and of altars. The low ground v/hich skirts the rovtern side of Islington, separating it from St. Pancras, is the tradi- tionary scene of that destructive onset described by Tacitus, in wliich 80,000 of the Britons fell in slaugh- tered heaps before tlie enraged legions of Suetonius. The British queen, Boadicea, at their head, had, after a fierce onslaught on London, burnt the town and ^2S THE MISSING LINK. ! scattered tlie inhabitants ; but '' Suetonius made a vic- torious stand in a fortified pass, with a forest in his rear." By tlie help of the ancient historian and the modern poet, we may imagine the mingled and disor- derly throng of Britons surrounding their queen, who, accompanied by her outraged daughters, harangues them from her chariot, inciting them to revenge upon her conquerors. " When the British warrior queen, Bleeding from the Roman rods, Sought with an indignant mein, Counsel from her country's gods, Sage beneath the spreading oaks Sate the Druid, hoary chief. Every burning word he spoka Full of rage and full of grief! " ' Princess, if our aged eyes Weep not for thy matciiless wrongs, 'Tis bee luse resentment ties AH the terror of our tongues. Rome shall perish I Write that word In the blood that she has spilt — Perish, hopeless and abhorr'd, Deep in ruin as in guilt. " ' Then the progeny that springs From the forests of our land, Arra'd with tliunder, clad with wings, Shall a wider world command. Regions C?esar never knew, Thy posterity shall sway ; Where his eagles never flew, None invincible as they.' " IP ESTHER AND HARRIET. ♦i29 The " spreading oaks'' arc no more, but the Druid'rt words arc fulfilled. The Bible, wliich Boadicea knew not, has raised licr country to be mistress of the nations ; but it is sad to tliink that a spot tlius haunted by historic memories should be one of the most heathen in the metropolis. In those former days, tlie native Briton, from his hut among the copse-wood on the ridge of the Burgher ITill, might look over a wide plain to tlie still more elevated ground of High-bury and High-gate, parted by the Hollow-way. The author of " The Vestiges of Roman London " tells us that Suetonius retired to Barnsbury before the Britons ; and adds that, until within the last few years, the remains of an encamp- ment (for which the Romans always chose an elevated site) were to be found in what was called the " Red Moat Field," a little to the west of Barnsbury Park. The moat was twenty feet wide and twelve deep, and the embankment offered an extensive and beautiful prospect, northward and westward, to the eye weary of bricks and mortar ; but insatiate London still ex- tends its arms to devour its children, and has swal- lowed up all the suburban hamlets nestling near it. Wliite Conduit Fields are no more ; " Six-acre Field," with the camp of the Roman general, is no more ; and Fort Cottage, a modern villa, usurps the Praetoriura of Suetonius. 230 THE MISSING LINK. And what of Vae Brill ? A congregation of knack- ers' yards, tile-kilns, dust-heaps, and a vast new cattle market, with rows of dingy houses, compose its present neighborhood ; and Battle Bridge, whose name h sup- posed to point to the memorable encounter abo-'C men- tioned, is the terminus of the King's Cross and Great Northern Railway. The Brill is one of the poor man's great Saturday evening and Sunday markets. There are I if'reds of stalls, and every stall has, at dusk, one or lights. One man shows off his yellow haddocks, with a candle stuck in a bundle of fire- wood ; his neighbor, the boy who shouts, '' Eight a penny, splendid pears ! " makes a lamp of a turnip ; while the butcher's gas-lights stream in the wind like flags of flame. Alike on Saturday night and Sunday morning may be seen " a riot, a struggle, and a scram- ble for a living." Unless it is beheld, people can have no idea of the masses of unshorn and un ,> ashed beings who weekly congregate here. " The extent of Sunday trading is frightful," says " Esther," the Bible-woman ; " it certainly does get worse and worse. People come with their barrows from the East End of London, and make sales of fruit, etc., all the day long. The police look on, seemingly not knowing what to do. Many a man, clever at his business, and earning good wages, has nothing left on Monday morning, for the Sabbath has been passed in i f*^ ESTHER AND HAllRIET. 231 Isavs get 0W9 [ruit, Ills t on in I drinking, cursing and swearing, fighting and quarrel- ing. I called on the wife of such a one, and, happen- ing to find her sober and at work, I told her the awful end tlure would be to such a life as tlieirs. She said her husband had led her to it bv liis ill-treatment. The sight of women lying senseless in the street from drink is sickening to behold. They are frequently carried off on stretchers to the police stations." A person walking through the Brill on a Sunday afternoon would find the tumultuous business of the day partly over. The middle of the narrow streets is thickly strewn with cabbage leaves and other offal, showing how large a vegetable market has been held there. Fi hmongers and butchers' shops are open all day, and the " holy rest" of the Sabbath is claimed bodily, at least, by the weary salesman snoring on a bench beside his periwinkles, and the Imtcl^or dream- ing over his pipe amid the remnants of his veal and mutton. The service of Satan is hard service. The men are chiefly in their working dress, and many ap- pear to have been drinking. Esther's work refers, of course, to week days. " When I offered the people the Bible," slie says, " and they answer, ' Don't want any,' ' Got plenty,' ' No time to read it,' I often reply, ' Listen ])ut to one verse ; that will not take long, and a word from this book is as needful to your soul as your daily food to i m 232 THE MISSING LINK. your body.' Often where refusal meets me at first I get permission to call again. They are not altogether unwilling to have it said to them, in a quiet way, ' Stop, poor sinner, stop and think ;' but how can they think when they give themselves no Sabbaths ? They often tell me I am the first person that ever spoke to them, and that they wish they could have listened years ago. *• With all their Sunday trading, they do not appear to enjoy much prosperity, for I may call week after week, and on decent people too, without getting a penny, because they are out of work. Most often, of course, drunkenness is the source of the prevailing misery, and sometimes sudden death gives a loud warn- ing to all around who are living in their sins. An old woman, who had long been leading a most degrad- ed life of deception, was called away at last, at the age of seventy-two, without time to cry for mercy. She was struck dead at the bar of a public-house, while in the act of asking for a glass of rum. " People in the ' Brill' are very glad to hear of the clothing and bedding club, as they say it will do away with the tally bills ; they could not possibly buy the articles at once, or save the money to do it, and when they obtain the things tliey so much want, ' it comes to them like a gift.' " Few of the people who cnn read, and are Protes- tants, are found without the word of God in some ESTHER AND HARRIET. 233 )tes- brae small form ; but wherever the large-print Bible is shown, they desire to possess it, and readil}' promise to pay the penny ' when tlieir husbands get into work.' 'Delivered a 2s. 6d. Bible {o a poor aged woman, who stands in the market, and was extremely anxious for the Book. She lias such a wicked husband, that his oaths frighten even the other profane persons with whom he may labor, especially his oaths at the Bible ; and though she has not lived with him for some time, yet he is always annoying her in the market. As I went to her for the last payment, fivepence, he was close by. So desirous was she to get it, that slie left her goods and came after me to a distance ; borrowed a halfpenny, and made up the rest in farthings ; then hid it under her gown, with ' Thank you, thank you, he shall not see it ; I am so glad I have got it. May God bless it to my soul!' And so said I in my heart." Another good female agent is started for Cromer street, in the St. Pancras district, which is also a radius of poor streets leading from the King's Cross Railway. She has had a long and fitting education for the work, as teacher in a Ragged-school : she is re- markably successful in obtaining Bible subscribers, even after the earnest voluntary work of ladies in the same district continued for years. I k i i 234 THE MISSING LINK. A frcsli welcome awaits tlic Female Missionary in every locality. One woman told her that since siie began to subscribe for a Bible, everything seemed to prosper, and that she hoped next week to pay up ; for, though she cannot read herself, she could get some child to read it to her. She was unexpectedly cheer- ed in a second visit to a kitchen, which she had found in a most filthy state, but where the woman had been persuaded to subscribe for a Bible. The girl met her at the door, and said her father wished to speak to the Bible-woman. The kitchen was no longer dirty, and as tlie man pointed to the clean floor and bright fire, he said, " God bless the day you came into my place !" These people had no Bible at all, and a Testament lias been lent till they secure their own. The girls were introduced to the Sunday-night Ragged-school, and in a tliird visit a poor woman was found teaching them to read. " Harriet" stepped into a room in a close court, where three or four girls were taking a cup of tea for their dinner with an old woman, its mistress. The Bible-woman read to them the story of the crucifixion, in which all were so interested that they determined to buv tlie New Testament for themselves. " It would cost fourpence,— and would she bring it them next week? They could not take it home for fear of the priest, but tiiey would come to listen to it again in ESTHER AND HARRIET. 235 ary in :;o she icd to • : for, ; some cheer- found i been net her : to the ty, and ht fire, place !'' ent has Is were and in them court, tea for The [ifixion, Irmined would In next of the rain in I Biddy's room." On the occasion of the next call tlicy boug'ht, with their united funds, not a Testament, but a lOd. Bible. Tlie sister of one of these girls also bought a Bible for herself, saving the pence out of the money allowed her to get her dinner. " Harriet" believes the people are become so dirty for want of some one being kind to them, and helping them on to cleanliness. The District Visitors speak to them at their doors, but their dirt renders stepping within a great self-denial. The very tracts given have been found too dirty to return to the visitor's bag ; and any disgust expressed only renders them unwilling to take it again. Finding fault ivitli them does not mend them, — nothing short of offering them the opportu- nity of doing better. The neighbors said the Bible, woman had done great wonders ; for a certain man had, for the first time in his life, been seen sitting at his door in a clean shirt, reading the Bible. His wife is getting much tidier in her home. People in this dis- trict out at work all the week, are glad to come with their monev in their hand to buv the readv-made arti- cles of clothing on the Saturday night, which they have seen, and only been able to pay twopence for, at work meetings on the previous Monday evening. This money would probably otherwise have gone for drink. In this district, lately, a man was thrown oflf a water-cart, in the act of swearing at and beating his I [■*■ I t 230 THE M'SSINU LINK. horse, and, being mortally liurt, died as he was beiiip^ borne to the hospital. All the court was out to hear the report of those who had carried him awaj and one of those men gave a terrible testimony. " I have often heard him,'' said lie, " say, ' Strike me aead,' when he was angry ; and now God has just done it ! " Tills appeared, " Harriet" says, to make a great im- pression for the time, and the people round were wil- ling to let her read and pray witli them, which seemed needed, and she was glad to be in the way. This Bible agent being a woman of much prayer and simple faith, as well as sympathy, her journal abounds in encouragement, and her happiness in her work is written on her countenance. She has in four montlis drawn around her a most tliankful class of women, some of them previously the terror of their neighborhood. They are fast learning " to pay for tidy gowns, and go without the drink." Many chil- dren are brought to school, others to a place of worship. Abuse on the first visit has melted away after a sec- ond and a third ; and now, i\\ street after street, there is not a house where she is '^lOt welcome. Here, as in Church Lane, and at Londo.; Wall and in Limehouse Fields, there are great and visible changes in the ap- pearance of the persons visited. " Harriet" has, after many efforts, penetrated into a court called by the neighbors " Little Hell," and deserving the name for I ii • I ESTHER AND HARRIET. 287 its perpetration of every kind of wickedness. She found half-naked, filthy children peopling most wretch ed rooms, where they and their mothers bore evident marks of savage treatment. Slie was first obliged to listen to many a tale of cruelty, and then she spoke of the Message from God ; and how, if they listened to that, all would begin to mend with them. Some " had Bibles, but never read them ;" and it seemed strange, they said, that any one should care for such as they were. " They heard gladly of a meeting to get clothing, and promised to come to it, and some have kept their promise. Truly here God's word seems as if it will not return unto Him void, but will accomplish the work whereto He sent it." I I CHAPTER XVII. OUR MORAL WASTES AND THEIR MATRONS. it 11 ■ We left Marian at the close of her Midsummer F6te, and at the end of her first laborious year, when she certainly accomplislied greater tilings in a certain space of time than by any of her sister workers has since been found possible. She had supplied 1000 Bibles and Testaments in St. Giles's by the people's own purchase, chiefly at the prices of ten ^nee and fourj^euce ; and very many homes in C) ' Lane testified, by the clianjied character and habits of their inmates, to the efficacy of her domestic mission. God had greatly honored her work for tue sake of His Word ; and now, doubtless in love to her own soul. He caused that year of exemplary success to be followed by another of severe personal discipline. Her powers, mental and bodily, liad been somewhat over-taxed. Slie became alarmingly ill, and was obliged to leave her district for many weeks ; and when she recovered, her sick and failing husband claimed the greater part of her time, so that slie could visit very little among (238) ,; i 1 1 OUR MOUAL WASTES AND TIlEIFl MATRONS. 2'M) lummcr r, when certain ers has >d 1000 people's nee and ' Lane of their God of His soul, He followed powerfcj, er-taxed. to leave ^covered, ater part le among the people for many montlis before his death, which took place on the Oth of May, ISiyi). Her attention had, under thene circuniHtancos, been divided between her own home duties and a dormitory for the water-cress girls, the idea of which she had started, believing that, if a ([uiet homo were provided for them in the centre of their district in St. Giles's, they would immediately embrace the opportunity of escaping from their own over-crowded rooms, and gladly render the undertaking self-paying. The kind readers of the " Book and its Missions " listened to this sanguine hope, and very shortly placed within our reach the means for rescuing and thoroughly re- pairing one of the worst houses in Dudley-street, fur- nishing and fitting it for the nightly occupation of twenty-four of these girls. This was a pleasant experiment, and one from which we hoped much. It was, however, as we found by ex- perience, easier to prepare the house than to fill it. The outlay hitherto has been large, and the returns very small, because it has been difficult to get the people to understand that the enterprise was intended to be self-paying. There were numbers of destitute girls, who looked for food, shelter, and clothing, and needed them ; but this was not the design. We wish- ed to find twenty-four girls who would prefer a clean and comfortable lodging-house for themselves to the i' i ; ;»■• i 11, I ! 240 THE MISSIN'i LINK. ordinary mixed and crowded ones, and be willing to pay for it what they would pay elsewhere. The work is still experimental, and it seems more likely to be acceptable to poor sempstresses than to the street-sellers of water-cresses, who all say they are too poor to pay threepence a nig-ht for their lodgi^ig:, if they give up Suiidaj trading, which brings them more money than they receive all the rest of the week. Since needlewomen have been admitted, the house prom- ises to fill, and there are now fifteen inmates, whose payments amount to £1 2s. 6d. a week. The annual rent is £40. RECEIPTS. £ s. d. Donations to Dormi- tory • - 348 3 2 People's payments - 8 2 £366 6 2 It was not found practicable, when it came to be tried, for Marian to under ipke the care of this dormi- KXPENDrrURES. 1 £ 8. d. Repairs and gaa fit- i tings - - 109 2 1 Rent paid ■ - 30 Taxes and rates ■ 12 8 9 Furniture and bedding 108 10 2 J Salary, service, and Sunday meals - 30 15 , Coals, tea-meetings. washing, and mis- cellaneous house '] expenses - - 23 n 8 Balance - 41 11 6 ^ £356 6 "^ 1 I I ling to IS more than to hey arc odgiaj?, TS them le week, se prom- s, whose } annual d. 109 2 1 30 12 8 9 ;108 10 2 30 16 . 23 n 8 41 11 6 £356 5 2 ime to be his don mi- OUR MORAL WASTES AND THEIR MATRONS. 241 tory, and also to continue her mission work. They are quite separate walks of usefulness, and she her- self became thoroughly convinced of this. We shall, therefore, ask our readers to r:visit her in a quiet room of h^r own, devoted once more to her separate Bible and domestic mission, gladly relinquishing the anxious care and guidance of the dormitory into other hands, though she yet takes a warm interest in its welfare ; and her mission-room, our " parlor among the dens," is still a room in that house. This little parlor is a pleasant and orderly meeting- ground for the inhabitants of the " dens" and the " squares," in small numbers. Three or four of the upper, and from thirty to forty of the lower, classes may tliere hold frequent interviews, for tlieir mutual benefit, jnd during the last winter this kind of confer- ence commenced very satisfactorily. " Marian's " " mothers" — several of them reformed from ungovernable and drunken furies, througli her long and patient Bible visits to tliem in their rooms — were here continually to be found on certain evenings in the week. Some bi lught their work, and some their babies, and having paid their instalments for their clothing or bedding, sat round the table, by the cheerful gas-light, to hear the Bible story, new to them as to many of the lieathen abroad ; or the dor- mitory itself was a perpetual '' object lo?;son." as much 11 ■I (I- 242 THE MISSING LINK. needed as any taugiit in an infant-school, bringing before their eyes (and with them " seeing is believ- ing") certain necessary provisions for cleanliness, health and propriety, of which they had never heard from generation to generation. '' Their mothers," they said, " did not know, so how could they teach better ways than those in which they had been born ?" But they are very generally anxious that their daugh- ters should have a different training. We were, there- fore, in full communication with persons who, a year before, cared nothing for the Bible, and little for their homes. Here they sat, " clothed and in their right mind ;" and we fervently hope ere long to add, " at the feet of Jesus." They still would have found it difiicult to obtain a loan blanket, for want of proper security, or a box of linen in the hour of need, because they lie in the stratum of society, below that to which it has been considered safe to afford such loans ; yet they want the help often more than those who get it. We therefore took *' Marian's" word and knowledge of them, and tried the experiment of lending twenty- four blankets and fourteen boxes of linen, " upon hon- or" — the honor *^ St. Giles's. They have been re- turned during this summer, at the appointed season, very creditably. They are a class of people, too, who hitherto have not been trusted \\\V\ mcdlowork, because no lady i OUR MORAL WASTES AND THEIR MATRONS. 243 inginff believ- ftUness, heard others," y teach born?" r daugh- :e, there- >, a year for their ,eir right add, " at 3 found it of proper d, because to which loans ; ye* ho get it- :no\vledge (T twenty- upon lion- ie been re- ,ed season, ^erto liave se no lady could venture to give them her ticket of reference ; so here again we experimented on a small scale. We knew half a dozen that we adventured to trust, and could put in their way a new help to a livelihood. One or two kind ladies were found willing to prepare garments for us, and to come to our parlor to give out and take in the work. With the shilling the women earned by their sewing they have often bought the article they had made. To our " parlor among the dens " is attached a KITCHEN, where (though we still lent saucepans) we also last winter made soup, which was sold at its exact cost — one penny a quart — and was in great request. We hope, another year, to add other savory and cheap dishes ; and in the course of time, under the care of a lady who may devote ^orself to the particular superin- tendence of this deparLiiicut, it may expand into laigei* proportions during the day-ti . In the <'vening the use of the kitchen must be limited to tlie lodL'"er^'. We have every hope that, as ladies group themselves in aid 01 special purposes around a Bible Mi sion-house of this kind to the inhabitants of '* dens," thcv, or those over whom they have influence, will not '" get their neighbors of the squares." There are many of the latter who have liitlicrto been ignorant of the details of the wants that lie ii round them. How should tliey know that which they never ^i 244 THE MISSING LINK. see, and of which they never hear ? Numbers of them, we would hope, by their comfortable firesides, read and believe 'he Book which is now afresh penetrating downwards among the degraded and the wretched classes. Surely they will speed tiie way of God's Word at home and abroad ! — they will help the Bible Society which sends it forth ! — ay, many who never thought of doing so before. " Marian" has resumed her Bible work — not exactly as she formerly did, spending the whole of every day in her visits to the people (her own abated health since her illness, tried also by her long and faithful attendance on her husband, has prevented this) — and another female visiting eolporter is nominated for a large portion of the wide district of St. Giles's. The influence Marian gained in the first year, however, remains, and the pence in her own now more limited district are in numerous cases brought to her. " What a heavy load you have there on your head, Mrs. B ! " said she t>o one of those whom she calls lier women, and who v/as carrying a basket full of shrubs, not flowers, which seemed enough to bury her beneath their weight. " You surely cannot carry that home ?" " Oh, yes, I can, and thank God for it." was the an- swer ; " and thank you and our ladies, who have made a sober woman of me. I shall get something liandsome by these pots to-morrow, ^or I bought them at a good I UU'U MORAL WASTES AND THEIU MATRONS. 215 them, , read rating etched God's LP THE , many exactly ery day I health faithful is)— and ied for a ?'s. The however, e limited What ad, x^rs. calls her )f shrubs, beneath t home ? " s the an- lave made liandsome at a good r a market ; and then I am coming to you witli tlio money for some sheets and a gown. Thank God, too, you're come back amongst us. We are so glad to see you. Thank God, I've left off drinking." This case is by no means a solitary one ; and what a contrast to another as recent and as true 1 A poor girl, having been out to the liop-grounds with her mother, had earned thirteen shillings of her own, and had wisely expended most of it in a pair of strong new boots. Her mother, having drunk up her own earnings, took the boots to pawn, and drank their price ; and not only that, but sold the pawn-ticket for sixpence more to drink. What wonder should a girl forsake such a home and such a mother? Girls so circumstanced we wish to shelter, and possibly to influ- ence their mothers through their means ; and what- ever small practical advances we may make in " social science," which is the study of the day, we hope always to connect them with the Bible. By the leadings of God's providence through her second year's experience, " Marian" has been rendered willing and thankful to accept the help of ladies in her work. She had always been most docile and affection- ate in all her intercourse with her first superintendent ; but as one Mission grew out of another, and the widely expanding General Work absorbed all thought and time, it became necessary to devolve special local « imt 246 THE MISSING LINK. "IB interests on other ladies, whom God raised up for different departments. We have learned many things from our first experiment in St. Giles's. Because " Marian" was in herself what she was, and still is, she was listened to, more than was strictly prudent, when she begged for her poor, wretched neighbors, during the first year, to have clothing and bedding in advance, paying a little, and promising to pay the rest. Then followed her illness and absence, and the ordi- nary autumnal migration of the people, numbers of whom never returned ; another winter, with, of course, its own daily wants ; and no money for bach debts. Happily in no other district had this unsafe plan been followed. Nowhere else have garments or beds been advanced upon trust, and " Marian" is cured of answer- ing for those whose name is legion. The whole details of the Mission are now carried on on an improved scale, and with the help of many experiences earned in other places. In the course of a year and a half, with all the draw- backs alluded to, the people had paid nearly <£76 for their clothing and bedding ; but more than 400 beds had been supplied, and, on the whole, a loss was incur- red upon them of over £100. When fourteen O'Donoghues, a dozen Ryans, &c., with faces and voices much alike, were the parties in question, a few mistakes were likely to arise ; but these are now strcn- # 4 M OUR MORAL WASTES AND THEIR MATRONS. 247 p for things Bcause till is, •udent, ;hbors, ling in \e rest. le ordi- )ers of course, ifc debts. an been ;ds been answer- details proved earned le draw- U76 for too beds IS incur- I fourteen ices and m, a few )W stren- uously watched against, and the lady element of punc- tuality and perfect order in tlic accounts being added to *' Marian's" good work, we have every promise of future success. The " mothers" are just now " packing up for the hops once more, and, casting longing eyes on the closet full of garments which their own fingers have made and been paid for, liave said, ' We shall carry those all off, Mrs. B., when we come from the hops. Be sure you have plenty of them ready for > )} us. " Marian" has recenly spent a month in a fresh visi- tation of every room in the old Church Lane, in which there is a very marked reformation. Her own work has hivd not a little to do with this, but the place has also come under the eye and the help of the most de- voted of pastors in Mr. Tliorold. The various arrange- ments wliich it has been in his power to make have all liad the same aim, and Catliolics and Protestants alike are blessing his name. The south side of " the lane " having recently come into the hands of the ground landlord, through tne falling in of the leases, extensive repairs have been in- stituted. The District Board of works have also ex- erted themselves most laudably in making every sani- tary arrangement in their power. Mrs. Thorold, though in very delicate health, has during the last winter taken deep interest in superin- ■:4 ! .1 h y^ 248 THE MISSJN(J LINK. tendiug the aflairs of " Ruth," a second Bible-woman, who is now traversing much of the same ground on which "Marian" sold her first Bibles. That more Bible work remained to be done is proved by the fact that '"Ruth" has had 110 subscribers, and has still 88 on her list, many of them for large copies. She has also a Clothing Club, at which Mrs. Thorold has secured the presence and assistance of a valuable friend. As our plans have developed, we have become more and more alive to the importance of the influence of a superintending lady, or some lady whom she may dele- gate, to the preservation of right order in such rooms ; for, as the aim is to teach each individual to work, it is impossible for the Bible-woman, at one and the same time, to render this important service, and also to preside over the meeting, and turn it to spirit- ual profit. There is surely in every neighborhood, if called forth, some lady who would gladly and regularly give an afternoon or evening to such blessed occupation. Now and then a gentleman is found attending these meetings, who has declared it his happiest evening in the week. We cannot refrain from inserting a letter from the friend who has been introduced to this service in '* Ruth's'' Mission, which will show the kind of help that ladies may give in Female Bible Mis- sions : — OUR MOUAL WASTES AND THEIR MATRONS. 249 id on more y the 1 lias . She Id haa friend. 3 more le of a ty dele- pooms ; ) work, le and ce, and spirit- called ly give ipation. g these evening •ting a to this Ihe kind )le Mis- " My DEAR Mrs. Tiiorold,— On the 14th of April your Mission began to develope itself into its further branches of usefulness. A few of the poor mothers were invited to take tea together, and to commence a series of meetings, to be held from week to week, at which these ignorant ones may learn how to mend and make clothing for themselves and their families, and have the advantage of buying the materials at reduced prices, and by small instalments. " The first evening was very wet ; yet the prospect of tea and the novelty of the occasion brought seven out of the twelve guests invited, an^ any one who could have looked into that small ofck room about six o'clock would have been pleased to see the women gather round the plentifully-spread table. •* Some idea may be formed of the kind of people to be assembled at these meetings, when it is mentioned that one woman came late because slie had to borrow the gown of her sister, and was compelled to wait not only till her sister came in, but until the one gown had been partially dried from the afternoon's rain. An- other could not come at all that first evening, because she had been wet through, and had nothing to change. The attendance has, since that day, been gradually increasing, and we now number some twenty-six mem- bers. " But while it is of incalculable service to give them n* 250 THE MISSING LINK. the means of procuring decent clothing, and to lead them to more industrious and thrifty habits ; to show them that we are interested in their welfare, and sym- pathize in their trials — this ii' not our chief aim. That is to teach them the ever sweet and ever new, though to us familiar lesson, that God loves them, that Christ died for ^/l WM f I i 260 THE MISSING LINK. mission will perhaps conquer after all — ladies, with the love of the Word shed abroad in their hearts, will, in many an individual case among the poor, give effec- tual aid to tlie female colporter (we do not here speai: of her one personal iady superintendent alone), and perhaps elicit, by well-bestowed inventive effort, the sympathies of persons in their oiun class, which now lie dormant. What object can be so high as to spread abroad tlie wonderful Word of the Lord, first and perpetually in our own ever-changing neighborhoods, and then to the wide world? Can we contemplate with delight communities of Bible-readers in Italy, and among the simple Karens, and not arise and make use of the same " Sword of the Spirit" among our own poor population ? It is this alone that will cope with the advancing hosts of Rome. We could, if space allowed us, extend our researches with an " Elizabeth" into Chelsea, and, crossing the river, find much to interest us with Phoebe in the New Cut, and Dorothy in Walworth ; but we have only time to revisit " Martha " in Paddington, and to ob- serve the Cottage among the Dust-heaps, referring the reader?, wlio shall not have been wearied by our sim- ple life-sketches, for further and future detail to the little " Book and its Missions," a threepenny monthly periodical, which may be had of all booksellers, and whose title bespeaks its subject. with will, effcc- spea;: , find t, the )w lie pread t and iioods, nplate y, and ,ke use n poor ith the jarches Lg the [e New only to ob- ig the ir sim- Ito the [onthly :s, and CHAPTER XIX. THE COTTAGE AMONG THE DU8T-HBAPS. After a year's experience of the influence of a "Female Bible and Domestic Mission" among the Dust-heaps, tliose who liave guided and assisted " Mar- tha" are in a position to speak very hopefully and favorably of its general results. It was thought desirable to take a cottage opposite one of the dust-yards, an upper room of which miglit be tenanted by " Martha," while on the lower floor another could be used for the bedding material, and for the women's weekly working meetings, and a third as a self-paying soup kitchen, and as a place of shelter and refreshment for the dust-people during their mid- day hour of rest. During that hour hitherto they have been accus- tomed to take their meal, as the weather might be wet or dry, in the open air or under shelter of a cart ; to make a fire of the cinders, which might serve half a dozen of them ; and prepare their coff'ee and red her- ring, varied by bread, cheese, beer, or gin, according (261) nl 262 THE MISSING LINK. to their taste ; and very bad language is often used among them during this time of recess from their work. In the cottage " no slang is permitted," and the im- provement olYercd in their diet consists in a basin of good soup from " Martha's" copper, so good that it is declared, " This here is worth more than two pots of beer." The payment is three half-pence a quart, in- cluding bread, and the meal is taken on a table cov- ered with interesting papers and tracts. The nourish- ing soup will really, it is hoped, wean them from the use of stimulants. Eighteen persons are now fre- quently numbered at dinner. A dustman dropped in one day, and as the City Missionary, who is frequently present, rose to go, the apparently rough, uncouth fel- low cried out, " Don't go ; I like to hear you read. If you'll sell a little spelling-book I'll buy it, and I'll buy a large Bible." Since the 26th of January, 1857, " Martha " has de- livered one hundred and eighty-seven Bibles and thirty Testaments, and her work of colportage among the people seems to have aroused in many of them a desire to learn to read, to meet which a lady, whose peculiar vocation seems to be the teaching of adults, has kindly offered them the opportunity, and several have em- braced it gladly. As " Martha " now finds the district nearest to her home fairly supplied with the Scriptures, it is proposed .^St[ THE COTTAGE AMONG THE DUST-HEAPS. 263 used work. ,lie im- isin of at it is f)OtS of lart, in- )le cov- [lourish- rom the LOW fre- jpped in equently joutli fel- , ou read. ,, and I'll I" lias de- id thirty long the a desire peculiar IS kindly lave em- Ist to her [proposed I that a certain portion of her time should be employed for the purpose of colportage in an adjacent local- ity in Lisson Grove, " the St. Giles's of tlie West," another section of the Dust-heap region. An excel- lent city missionary devotes his whole time and ener- gies to diflfuse the true light througli tliose dusky abodes ; but he has often declared his want of women's help, and rejoices now to welcome it. Here is another district of " dens," the dominions of laundresses, scavengers, lamp-lighters, match-ma- kers, " patterers," " utterers," " translators," and coster- mongers in ordinary. Let the Cliristians of London go and look at them, in their Sunday-morning markets for birds and rabbits, of a far lower grade than that in Great St. Andrew's street, Seven Dials. It might, last year, after " Boxing-day," have been seen in all its frightful perfection, when the missionary could scarcely find his way among the streets for a fortnight, for the scenes of drunkenness and depravity. The air echoes alike to the brawl of the swearer and the cries of " boot-laces," " pipes," " 'tatoes," and "greens;" butchers roaring, "Buy, buy, buy, 4 lbs. for 2d.," but of meat in what condition ! while poultry is vended in all states of poisonous decay. Dri ^'e men crowd the pathway, tossing up their halfpence till they have gambled away their jackets, and even their donkeys, ou which their livelihood depends. 26i THE MISSINU LINK. The heart sickens at flic sight of degraded lads and girls, lost to every sense of decency ; and one can only ask, Where were these brought up, and whence do they Hwarm forth, to mock the God of heaven, and dchle the air they breathe ? Whence ? Let those who know them lead you to their homes, or, truly, their " dens," — back kitchens, eight feet square, with broken floor and window, where the mother, drunk, sits on an old tin kettle in the midst ; she has on one garment and a tattered shawl, but her baby has nothing ; and a three-year-old child, crippled by a fall from a chair, and with one eye cut out, has v hing ; — or to rooms where each corner has its family, and where one lies dying of starvation and another of small-pox. Such is the close of life to thousands in London. City mission- aries and Scripture-readers know it ; medical men know it ; the clergy know it ; but the gulf of misery is immeasurable, and it is given up in despair. Tliese homes make these people generation after generation. Would it have been thus if tJie Christian women of London had long ere this found their true mission, and fulfilled it ? Mothers make homes, and mothers make " dens." Women like " Martha P." might be sought out in every street, and, like salt in the cor- rupting mass, be used to purify it. In a few weeks the work this agent has to do is visible. She brings THE roTTAdE AMONG T!IE DUST-HEAPS. 2(\r) ' ids and lan only do t\icy .d dctilo I you to kitclicns, window, kettle in , tattered e-year-old . with one here eaeli dyins of ucli is the |ty mission- idical men of misery U-. These eneration. an WOMEN lie mission, d motherrt might be in the cor- few weeks he brings the people a Book, and says " it comes from God," and that it is " full of the words of Jesus." She quotes some of tliose words to thon, and tliey prove like tlio " two-'Ml^ed sword,'' — tliey recall dim memories of a pious mother or of a Sunday-scliool. Slie tells them they may get the Book — tliat tliey may get clothing — that they may get beds — that they may make a home out of a " den." She is one of themselves, and, God blessing her, she is the most powerful instrument for recover- ing the recoverable. Once more, Christians of Loudon, let us find out such women, and employ them. Martha paid a long series of visits to the liouse of a rat-catcher, whose wife was subscribing for a Bible. It is a terrible place ; lialf the room is occupied by a rat-pit : the creatures are caught 'n the sewers, and Hold to be hunted l)y dogs. Sometimes their teeth are mercilessly broken out with pincers by the vendors, which is called " taking out the sting." *' ' We have not any to-day, sir,' said the woman to a customer, while Martha was waiting. ' Yesterday,' she added, turning to Martlm, ' we sold two, and bought a quartern loaf. We should be glad to leave the trade if we could get anything else to do.' " This i)Oor woman seemed a broken-spirited crea- ture, who had, liowever, been brought up in a Sabbatli- Bchool. Slie appeared comforted by a kind word ; and she could read, when her husband could not." 18 266 THE MISSING LINK. " Mo8t of tlie subscribers," says the superintendent of this district, more recently, " are now beginninloyed in Lisson Grove, under the care of another lady. n-,i I it ^i >i CHAPTER XX. A PAGE OP FIGUEES FOB BIBLE SOCIETY SUBSCRIBERS. I K I The friends of Bible distribution will probably bo interested in observing the results of two years' experi- ment of a Paid Female Agency in the lowest districts of London. During the year 185V-8, comparatively lew Bible-women were engaged, but their numbers now are considerably multiplied. The annexed tab- ula; statement shows the totals, up to a given date, of ffiri'iey paid to them as salary by the Bible Society, and receivtfd by them for Bibles, as well as the amount of th.'flr sales of books. The history of this Table is an interesting one. We must first look back for a moment to an original grant from tlic Bible Society of £5, made in June, 1857, and expended o.i one Bible-woman in St. Giles's (Marian), at tlio rate of ten shillings a week, in payment of tlie A FIGURES FOR BIBLE SOCIETY SUBSCRIBERS. 269 sr S S c Pi -• n ^ 3 • »-* o p a GC !2! i^t b b Postal District i ©ft" = 2, 5* o r ® 1-1 • V- ~ -C 63 S! O • a-cs 2 » 5 l_,m>hmS ^ i- — — 3 ^ iCDOCo -1 O " ■?• r/i 5 1' o c a 3 « — ■ gCR o 2 B ts 2.oq !^2 rnr/i •ax: ^'.: 3 ^ •n> CCS- ft (P -5 © (6 C I. "^ :« B.D-2. w O j Weeks at work, Salary to Blble-^^oinen. 03 -4 10 to 1-' w to i* -* t« <3>w>-«4i.-^*»tncwas-^ — i-i((k^(-iww-£-jo»i-'»«05 o ~ o e a> ~ 08 OS oogo og' sooc o ~C'~oo -?'sooe>efi' i*»--i. o»-4os*.i-i.toto«-<. . ,— -4. *.to--<>-'i-'03«oo4s,'cc-«c>5 j Bums paui in i_i M i-i tJ. .* by Women for »* rj '. — to !0 «5 w c - cc '. 0001 O >-»-» tdl-i© tn 0-I04 W CJ ►-tC- CCOStOtCCnl-' 05 to SI !•- • to 4k lU. i(^ 00 l-i l-i ep Oi ~ 05 ii «o -J -< or to • to >- on to- CnX-l--^ w i-i *> I* 00 S i-i I-* «e if* I llbles. to- i-» Cni-JK,tc^lO kOif^- t»>tiife_l-il-itO«C — qslO- "^ 1 Testa- ments. to*> • tooocw , W-* o ©&00O0SOC i I-' toe •^ to " GO OC*k -I o o n' to- Tolal. f»0 tC -' '-' OB ffi tc *• C» -I , _ _ ©05 WW 10^ I . ^ I Present No. of 5t 8feg^fe8Bg^ggggg- SiSgggg§g§*2S3 Subscribers- O o o a I— ( <) W M 3 td 53 n H CO O O a 00 QO 270 THE MISSING LIXK. ■ ' occupation of the whole of her time in the sale of Bibles, in a low district unclaimed by voluntary col- lectors. She found in that district numbers of human beings, whose homes and persons, whose habits and co:idition, were such, that no one going to them with Jhe Word of God in their hands, if the Spirit of God were shed abroad in their own hearts, could say, " I bring you the Book, and nought besides." It was im- possible to visit in such a district with any spiritual purpose, and not see that the physical estate of its in- habitants required raising, in order to the acceptance of any offer of good to their souls. The continued visits of the above individual, und?r watchful guid- ance, were shortly, as our readers are aware, made in- strumental in the reformation of many of these wretch- ed homes ; and such improvement was, and is to this day, connected in the minds of the people with the Bible and the Bible Society. The work did not stop in St. Giles's. What had been accomplished in one low district, it was thought might be tried in another ; and what one poor woman had been found to do, other poor women might be encouraged to attempt with equal success, always under the careful training of educated Christian la- dies. The Bible Society were, meanwhile, untreated to re j)eat their grants, and another .£5, then <£10, then £30, FIGURES FOB BIBLE SOCIETY SUBSCRIBERS. 271 'i ii then X60, provided the salary for seven other Bible- women ; and on the 20th of December, 1858, £128 of the Society's money had been dispensed in payments for purely Bible icorJ:, not only in St. Giles's, but in Paddington, Clerkenwell, Gray's Inn Lane, Somers' Town, Westminster^ and Blackfriars. It is a fact that cannot be denied, that, but for the Bible-women's agency, this number of between 5,000 and 6,000 copies of the Scriptures could never have reached a class who would not liave come forth to buy them. The Committee, therefore, rejoice in tlie ascer- tained results, and on the 18th of July last they voted A CONTINUANCE OF THEIR GRANTS tO thlS objCCt, " though their now extended nature demands that in future they be made through three members of their OWN BODY, who take special and practical interest in the subject, and who guarantee that sucli funds are to be appropriated exclusively to the legitimate object of the British and Forciirn Bible Societv." During the past six months twenty new Female Mis- sionaries liave been added to the staff, and eacli one is fixed in a suitable locality ; thev are almost all placed under good local superintendence, and are brought into connnunication with tlic pre\'ious or present Biiile work of tlie district. The Bible Societv is considered to have a full and stronjx hold on their allegiance. Tiiev are i»re('minent- *;S W 272 THE MISSING LINK. li ly BiBLE-woMEX, in a way that they would not have been had their services been enlisted merely as Female City Missionaries. Then the distribution of the Bible, and possibly by (jift, would have been the incidental purpose of the Mission — now it is its chief aim. The first three days of the week are claimed on behalf of the Bible Society, i. e., five hours of eacli day. This is the peculiar and Protestant mark of the Mission, and distinguishes it from all other merely ssocial work ; but to the SOCIAL work we must now turn our separate attention TO THE SUBSCRIBERS TO OUR FEMALE DOMESTIC MISSIONS. The following Tables of Receipts and Expenditures have likewise an interesting story, known already to the readers of the " Book and its Missions." To about the sjra of one Imndred guineas, received from the Bible Society in 1857-8 (and a grant more fruitful of good, perliaps, they never bestowed), addi- tion was made, unsought and unexpectedly, ohlcfiy by the means of recitals contained m the above nuigazine, which seemed ]n'ovided, as it were, by the Hand that guides the world. In the year 1858, donations rea*ried the «»ditor to the amount of £644, which sum wu,^ de- FKIURES FOR BIBLE SOCIETY srHSnunEWS. 273 I have 'eraale Bible, dental The alf of This [ission, work ; sparate STIC iditures ^ady to leceived it more h, uddi- lioflv bv igazme, U that •eiv'ied wst,^ de- sired to be expended on tlie Domestic ])nrposcs of these Female Bible Missions to tlie lioines of tlie poor of London, not in giff. bnt in helping tlie hel])h)ss and the thriftless to try anu help themselves. The account of the first year's exi)euditnrc is ftiveu in the next page. With each month's work came fresli experience and introduction to new fields of labor. Counsreviously Cr)44. Tlicy are now X766. The ■>;iymeiits of the poor for their own su])- ply of clothing and bedding were, in 1858, £109. They are now 4;'229, making a total of receipts, from the 20th of November to the 20tli of May, of £99.5. During the wliole existence of the agency, the ex- penditure on the part of the Bible Society, us has l)een seen, is . . . . . X301 U 7 On the part of the Mission Fund . 1,218 9 7 Of a small distinct fund, account lemains vet to be rendered, namely, of that one for minor ex- 41 '■'il 274 THE MISSING LINK. 00 >o CO a H O in a pa I— * > o o H oo 01 •y. o ^J cc cc ^ 05 ic ended, 15s. re- little have the at- r our our lied i ate ondon; are [irbs of luch as 1 and lilackheath, Islington, Lambetli, and Wandsworth, where these Missions are condueted on the same plans, and where the funds are provided locally. We like- wise hear of sim.'l9r agency at Brighton, at Newcastle, at Bath, at Cheltenham, and in the Wynds of Glas- gow. In each case the two parties work together : they have no committee to harass them with formali- ties and resolutions ; but they are left to their own " inspired discretion," and to tiie guidance of experi- ence as to the best metiiods of proceeding, which are learned by occasional meetings with other ladies and other Bible-women. " It is a sort of gospel of the scrubbing-brush," to use the expression of a fraternal pen, " which goes along with the presentation of the MESSAGE FROM GoD — an cvaugcl of saucepans, and fresh clean beds, and tidy gowns, which tends onward to the washing of the soul in the laver of regenera- tion." " The ' woman ' goes where the ' lady ' might not enter, and performs offices which are most fittingly rendered by persons of the working class. The floor is scrubbed by a good ' woman' better than by a pious ' lady.' Yet the lady can find the scrubbing-brush, and the soap, and materials for soup, and supplies of clothing, and the funds that are needful, and the sym- pathy and counsel which are indispensable, and be very blessed in her deed." sas 276 THB MISSINU LINK. Half Year's Balance Sheet op Female Domestic Missions, RECEIPTS. i I J9 ■rt.S (2 E.G. W.C. N. S.W, w. £. N.E. District. S.2 I. London Wall... Suiithfleld ... II. Sotnci'.s" Town Giii}''s Inn Lune St. Giles's King Street do. Driiry Lane do . Cromer Street. III. Cierkenwell . Islington IV. Westminster . , Newport Market V. Piuldinfrton . . . Lisson Grove... Edsrware I'.oad. VI. Stepney Wiiitecliapel. . . St. Georfre Kast VII. Spitalflelds Betlinnl Grtcn do. Victoria Park.,. Haiigerstoiie . . Siioredlch VIII New Cut Walworth General Fund. Saiah-'-. .. l>inah.. .. Kstlier . . Lydia. . . . -Marian. . Kiitii . Miriam*. I arriet. . Lucy .. Anna. .. . Charlotte Kachel .. Martha. Jane . Apitlia*.. Priscilla.. Susan . . . Bridfret. . Hannah . Alice . Sophy. . . Mary . . . Iti'becca.. Dorothy . hoebe . . Deborah. 9. 2 E-* 24 IS ol T ;: «. d. 7 7i n 6 7 6 32 13 6 18 57 9 3 9 4 5 5 20 9 : .^ To' 11 18 269 19 4 5 li 10 79 9 8 .2** > © 12; 1 79 4 8 23 6 2 21 "9 8 23 4 10 26 8 63 6 7 29 11 10 149 10 S 10 17 6 is'i'e" 9 7 4 5 5'" 7 7 49 2 2 17 y U 1 1 46 14 7 5 1 i 15 3 18 6 190 13 1 229 12 4 995 15 9 '■Examined and found correct"— W. Coles, J. H. Fokdiiam, AiulMors. * Supported by private benevolence. ^i £ s. '/, 82 !> 4 14 3 :; 6'> 17 " .59 17 11 173 1 ■: 23 6 : 3 9 1 25 9 ^ r>6 18 4 26 81 7 1 29 11 1 207 .-, 15 17 6 5 It I' 3,5 17 16 4 5 I) 51 7 50 2 17 9 I 14 1 46 14 5 II 21 15 13 IS 202 6 1345 4 ^lOURES FOR BIBLE SOCIETY S SUBSCRIBERS. 277 IMESTIC MlSSIOX.^ c o ILi o as a, J c,_- >.-r =« o i^o a _ '*' . if & s. d ') 4 S2 9 4 7 17 3 3 1 2 !1 5 V H' 8 ) 4 32 IS 28 10 :, T9 4 S 23 2 16 8 15 IW ^^itll ■■■'■ o 1? j! " 2 ^' " ' I 2 13 el 5 15 (J ^" '■'' 8 8; 14 j„ ,2 J • '088' .. 2 19 18 S ' " ' i in i " ' » i'l « ' « . ■ 'i ', ; ,? I 9 19 ^ 69 1 '^8 « 17 9 8 1 61 9 ,s 2 10 5( 1,1 0| "19 6 19 11 ^ 1 12 19 1 18 8 69 n 8 11 ml / '* *- «• ^/., 13 7 8 S 5 6 27 1 , 29 8 11 84 J 4 1'^ 18 J '^9 2 13 So' 5 8 82 12 1 8 9 I' "II . l'^ 9 3 ''flflfi 7| 7 li o' 21 i« 6 36 Gil « 11 1 21 15 4 16 18 9 69 6 4) S 16 !(., -'5 I) (I .|»',J 4 8 3 35 IS 4 14 4 4 2 12 9 8" '19 o\ 5 ( '1 7 9 6 7 G 278 THE MISSINO LINK. t It certainly seems that a Native Female Agency, drawn from the classes we want to serve and instruct, has hitherto been a Missing Link, and that sncli sup- plementary work might now perfect the heavenly chain, which shall lift the lost and the reckless from the depths of their despair. It should be forged by the universal church of Christ. In fact, the material is already in the hands of earnest Christians, and they have only to take it up and use it. So much of their past work has borne fruit, that this has only to " bring forth more fruit." " To him that hath shall be given," " and he shall have abundance " in the garner of God. It is a common remark of those who are engaged in this agency, and whose hearts are warmed by perceiv- ing the fitness of the instrumentality to the end design- ed to be accomplished, " Why was this Missing Link not thought of long ago ? " CHAPTER XXI. OUR SUNKEN SIXTH. >> In a recent estimate of the condition of classes of the population in Glasgow it was discovered that while two-sixths of the people were rising, two-sixths of tliem were falling in their worldly circumstances : one- sixth might be said to have risen; another sixtli had reached the lowest point, and were truly tlie " sunken sixth." Now, it is a very large class, this of our " sunken sixtli " in LcNDON. They have been reached commonly but l»v the police. The idea prevails concerning them that . (cy are a drunken and dangerous class as a whole ; but there are many h lades and varieties among them. Some live by their wits and daily shifts, and in such liabits of lying that they know not what truth is. Brought up in dens of infamy, they know not what virtue is. Otliers earn daily wfiat might be an abun- dant provi.^ion for their wants, but they mismanage it : no one has taught them better, and they do as their fathers and mothers did before them. (379) :■> IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) :/ I 1.0 I.I ■-i2il |2.5 :!i U£ 12.0 11.25 i 1.4 1.6 V] /i '/ /A PholDgraphic Sciences Corporation v wV 4' s \ 6^ 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716)872-4503 <> .% %> m ? 280 THE MISHING LIXK. The Bible-woman agency arose amid this class. Rescued by the grace of God from sin, " Marian" could yet say to those she visited, " I am quite as poor as you are," and " I know your ways." When God has a work of salvation to do he always sends the right people to do it. Higl educated ladies would not have been the Missionaries for these Magdalens, whose doors were closed against all respectable approach. " Out," " out," " out," was said of them day after day to the Clergyman, the City Missionary, and the Lady Visitor — all too holy, and good, and clean for them — of no use to them, except as persons from whom they might beg. But let a woman draw near them just like themselves — not an ecclesiastical agent — coming from no church or party — without costume ; not one of any sisterhood — simply a kind, good, motherly woman — and slie may come and welcome ; she may come with a " Message from God," and they will let her lift them out of their filth to hear it. She may point them to their forgotten duties, or to acts which they never saw to be duties ; may show them how their children look when they are clean ; may teach them the use of soap ; instruct them in the preparation of food ; get their windows opened and their floors purified ; teach them the com- fort of clean linen and clean beds ; and bring them eventually " clothed, and in their right mind," to sit at the feet of all and any who may be in their degree OUR SUNKEN SIXTH. 281 ley >ws )m- lera at ree " the ministers of Christ." These people are tired of what they call " parsons " and " humbug ;" but they arc not tired of kindness and sympathy. They perpetu- ally say " nobody has cared for them," " they are sur- prised that any one will come down so low." " Voices from the depths 1 " " Where is all that be- longs to poor London ?" we ask, as we enter its empty and comfortless abodes. Where ? In the gin-shops and the pawn-shops I The earnings of every day go to the first, and all the tidy appliances of life's begin- nings are lost in tlie gulf of the second. Are they quite lost ? Is there any vestige of them ? Yes 1 A >k for the pawnbroker's tickets. In a thousand cases you will be too late, but a hundred comforts you might re- store. •* I would give you twopence, mistress," said a woman in Newport Market to our *' Rachel " there ; " but I have a good gown in pawn, and here's the ticket. Will you save the money for that for me ? I can't." " The general principle of the work above described is to present religion to the lowest class, the ' sunken sixth' of our society, at its first visit to them, as a gracious healing remedy for their actual miseries, and not as a thing merely of books, and tracts, and ser- mons. When the gospel goes to the door of an aban- doned family in this guise it seldom fails to gain admit- tance. Illness is too common among the poor to bo 282 THE MISSING LINK. difficult to find ; and where there is sufi^ering, help is soon welcomed. * Shall I make you comfortable?' is a question which few poor women in their illness will meet with a negative. And, as 'Marian' says, one thing leads to another. Those who would be ashamed to be seen by a Clergyman, a City Missionary, or a Lady Visitor, have no objection to be a little cleared and set straight in their afflictions by one like them- selves. And every such family visited in trouble be- comes friendly when the trouble has passed away. A very few months thus spent establish an influence in tlie lowest and vilest neighborhoods which is irresistible. And it is an influence which opens a connection be- tween the lost and the classes who can save them. In these cases the first penny sUved from the gin-shop often becomes the commencement of a spiritual, in- terior and everlasting salvation. They begin to value what they have, and then they learn to value what they are." The ''sunken sixth" is a material that lies round about us almost everywhere, at least in towns and cities. Perhaps the sketches hereby given will be con- sidered to have proved that they can be readied with a particular purpose, and by a fresh kind of agency. Perhaps the idea may be suggested by these facts that it requires lnit one great, wide-spreading, united efi'ort of Christians everywhere to reach them, and to OUR SUNKEN SIXTH. 283 )uncl and con- Ivith Incv. Facts ited ll to raise them. Some cau give money, some time, some method, some teaching faculty, some heart sympathy, some fervent prayer. The work wants doing ; and shall it any longer remain midone ? ' ' We wish clearly to repeat that, helpful as it may prove to all good ecclesiastical effort, the present movement is not ecclesiastical. In this it differs from all similar movements of a former day. It does some kindred work to that of the Sisters of Charity in the Roman church. They have ever proved the best supports of Rome, and have often truly followed out their name. Their services, however, have been very much limited to self-denying attendance on the sick, and to ministration among high and low in varied scenes of sorrow and suffering. Popery has been wise in its generation, and has always recognized the femi- nine element in religious work, even to the evil ex- treme of setting up to be worshipped " the Mother of God." The Roman Catholic Sisters of Charity have worked diligently /or <^eiV Church, and they have their reward ; but they are not the '^servants of the Word.^^ They tell the people " they want something more or less than the Bible." They wield not the " sword of the Spirit." The " lamp" is not their " pitchers," and the world of the " sunken sixth" is still by them un- conquered. While these pages are passing through tlie press 284 THE MISSING LINK. there has come before us a little pamphlet entitled, "The Kaisersworth Deaconesses," containing an ac- count of an apparently successful experiment, on a limited scale, to restore the office of " Deaconess" in the Lutheran church. In a retired German village, Pastor Fliedner and his wife, having devoted them- selves to this work, have, during the last twenty years, trained two hundred and forty "nursing" and " teach- ing" sisters of various ages, who take the benevolent care of a hospital, schools, and asylums for orphans, lunatics, &c., both at Kaisersworth and in similar houses at home and abroad. ■ * These sisters are received from various ranks of society, and admitted on probation ; and if accepted, engage themselves to serve this institution for five years, and to observe a code of laws which appears to be very Christian and excellent. They wear a dis- tinguishing dress, and are set apart to their work " as deaconesses," servants of the church, like Phoebe of old. (See Rom. xvi, 1.) This is done by an ordina- tion service, " a holy solemnity, a solemn and joyful covenant." Much interesting reference is made in this pamphlet to the institution of the order in early and apostolic times. But to meet the present need of the " sunken sixth," something more universal seems needed than would be compassed by the institution of any order. The OUR SUNKEN SIXTH. 285 itled, in ae- on a 3s" in illage, them- j'ears, teacli- volent phan?, jimilar nks of 3epted, 31' five ears to a dis- rk " aa be of irdina- joyful in this Iv and I ft sixth," luld be The number of women is comparatively few, whose duty it is to separate themselves from the ties of family and relationsliip, and to do nothing else but servo as " deaconesses," in comparison with the far greater number who, in tlie midst of private duties and of family life, can yet lend a hand, day by day, to raiso " the sunken sixth ;" watcliing over and strengthening the NATIVE AGENTS who shall be given up to the service ; whose great first duty it is " to hold forth the word of life ;" and whose second, to lift up the hand of the " lowest of the low," to take hold on all the good the universal church of Christ has already pi-o- vided for them ; and tl»is is woman's work and motli- ers' work. It may spring up everywliore, and wlio shall hinder it ? The woman is appointed for the physical civiliza- tion of communities. She is to " guide tlie house," whether small or great ; and this part of tlio education of the women of the working classes has l)cen lilllo cared for. The misery surrounding them is a voice from the depths saying, " Teach us to mend it." It is women of their own class who must answer this cry, just because of these only they will learn what is wanted to be known. The City Missionary and the Scripture Reader can- not accomplish this Woman's Mission. They meet in their morning rounds chiefly with women, dirty, lazy, 286 THE MISSING LINK. and drunken ; or, if industrious, at their work. Tiieir husbands are generally " at work," and in some cases they complain of the spiritual visit paid to their wives, as "just hindering them and bothering them ;" but we do not find they have anytliing to say against our '' Marians," and " Marthas," and " Sarahs," and " Re- beccas." These have all met with a genuine welcome from tlie Lower House of Lords, who know that their wives want teaching the common arts of life, and that even their own comfort depends upon the lesson being learned. *' Of mothers, whether rich or poor, it must be said, * Woe to every woman who is not her son's counsellor to do him good.' In nine cases out of ten it is she who determines the course of his life's river. Alas! for one who does her duty by him, scores neglect it. The first idea a child has of goodness is from his education in a well-ordered house. Some houses are always in a chaos of confusion — only thunder and lightning to be heard amid their darkness ; in others, sunshine gilds the home, and brightens all the old furniture more than if it were inlaid with gold. A good mother ruling there teaches more than a cathedral establish- ment, and, holy woman if she is, receives an aureola like a saint in the hearts of her children. Her work is truly work for God, and so is that of the good nurse and teacher. It is possible to ascribe too much OUR SUNKEN SIXTH. 287 Their lie cases r wives, but wc nst our id "Re- velcoine at their md that •n being be said, seller to 3he who lasl for t. The lucation ways in tning to iunshine arniture mother stablish- aureola er work le good fO much to eccle™s.,cal iafluenco... ChiWren arc not tl,o,„.|,t .-ehgious • ..nlcs tho,- I,ol„„. ,„ the ehu.-el, . l,„t th'^e '« a church i„ the house, and „,any a little child belongs to it. «o,„c of the „o.,t real religion in th "■or d, „ t,.at of little children, and s„„,c of the do- voutest communion with heaven i, uttered in their early prayers." Now, it is this MOTHER'S IKPLUENOE which wants carrying down among the -lost and degraded" Manans first missionary walks in St. Giles's were directed with a sense that our Lord would thither have bent his steps were he still upon the earth ; and sou d we not follow, for the sake of Him ;„ose blood m the act of being shed upon the cross, drew with It that day to paradise the first soul it had re- deemed, the dying thief, a member of the class of " the sunken sixth ? CHAPTER XXII. OUR AGENTS, AND TIIBIR SUPPORT. f A VERY general question asked us is, " Wliere do you find the women ? — it must be so very difficult to do that ;" and our reply may be, " We believe God finds them, and we perpetually ask him for a right judgment concerning those who present themselves " We bv no means take all who come ; and we often have to watch against a kindly wish to oblige friends who only want a comfortable provision for their dear Mrs. So and So, and " think she may do." No ; this truly laborioiih and self-denying mission requires an agent still in the prime of life, and who evidences, after trying her for a month, that she lias an especial call to this wotk. We are often sorry to write to our country friends, and say that we cannot, at their request, "find them Bible-woinen." The kind of women who may be made useful we believe to exist everyiuliere among the com- municants or members of our religious bodies. The Scripture Reader or City Missionary will often point (288) OUK A(;KXTS, ANI> TIIKIH SUIM'OUT. 280 icnds dear this -es an ences, pecial •lends, them made com- The point them out, and wlierc their services are required tliey must be sought by fuitli and prayer. If we were asked to give a lew details concerning the choice and guidance of the Bii»le-women, tliey would be these : — Next to ijielv, humilitv and docilitv are the most valuable traits of character. Courage and common sense cannot be left out of the question ; a quick, observant eye, and a ready hand for whatever is wanted, are important ; and a bright, cheerful view of tilings is a wonderful assistance in obviating the prejudices of the poor. But no one woman will pos- sess all these virtues in perfection, and in some par- ticulars more than others each will surely need culti- vation. We feel called upon to reject at once an evidently '• pious gossip," or a weakly person who merely wants a place ; or a woman whose duty is to her own snuill family ; or a pretty, delicate young widow, unfit for rough work ; or any one who thinks evidently great things of herself, and is "sure she knows all about it before she hears ;" l)ut a clean, tidy, humble, cheerful pleasant-spoken matron, witli a good character — a character for real [)iety without " cant" — with a quiet, energetic missionary spirit about her, in her own small sphere, is whiii we want, and may be gladly accepted. at least for a month on probation. She should certainlv be al)le to read and to write. la ]r 2«0 THE MlbiJLNG LkNK and her lady may improve licr in both particulars be- fore she commenced her work. She will not, of course, be an educated person ; but she must be trusty, con- scientious, honest and truthful ; and, under a wise direc- tress, she will improve and develope when she gets into her duties. In every one of our present thirty wom- en there is something that one might wish otherwise ; it is the "lamp" in the "earthen pitcher:" but God works often with very imperfect instruments, or he would not work with any of us. The teachable per- son accomplishes most on the whole, especially if she has a large and loving heart that has itself known much affliction. We want these women for a prac- tical purpose from a practical school. This is truly a mighty work, and makes all engaged in it feel their own feebleness. They must ask daily and hourly wisdom from above, and go forth continu- ally sustained by prayer. Those are the best super- intendents who pray the most with and for their wom- en, and who teach them most readily to unsheathe the " sword of the Spirit" which they bear, — to answer the people FROM THE Book. It is " the sword of the Lord and of Gideon ;" and we believe it is because of their earnest faith that they have a message from God for the people that, simple folk as they are, they have been honored with success almost invariable. In this suc- cess there have been three elements. The Bible first OUR A0ENT9, AND HEIR SUPPORT. 201 uper- wom- e the r the Lord their >D for been Is suc- I FIRST — always the presentation of tlic Book, declariiij^ what it is. When tliat lias met with the faintest welcome, the door of entrance was open, tlie repeated visit ha^ shown tliat the body was thoucjht of as well as the SOUL, for human souls live in l)odies, and the l)odies of these " lowest of the low" were verv wretched ; and further, it has been a mission of women to women, and of WOMEN of their OWN CLASS, wlucli was very much wanted, as was evident by its ready acceptance : it was a Mi.^sing Link, and as sucli we have given its true and simple history. The distribution of tlio Word of God, and the im- provement ofthe homes of the poor, are both objects in whicli all Cliristians can u..itc. There is no need for sectional division here. Let every church of Clirist, or cono-rogation of faithful men and women, set itself to discern the fit helpers it possesses, and give them up to tlie work. Tlie self-denial of not determining to keep them and use them congregatio) tally is a high ele- ment in tlie matter, wliich a fresh baptism of the Holy Spirit miglit perhaps enable us to desire. If they are nsed congregational ly, if the Bible-woman is only look- ed upon as another curate, and if her superintendent must be necessarilij tlie clergyman or the minister's wife, then that is a very limited view of the scope of this new effort, and we think it must expect a limited blessinq:. 292 THE MISsrXf; LJNK. In this England of ours we live so much in classes and in strata of society, as observing' Americnns tell us, that we have hitherto been content not to cnlaruc our experiences, or to look beyond our own horizon IJeforc we can influence the sunken masses we want fusion in the great crucible of Divine Love. A very interesting feature of this undertaking is, that it has been supported during the two years of its infancy by faith and prayer, and without an anxious thought. What God had done for " Orphans" he could do for the spread of His Word, when he would have its witness carried araoni»' the lowest and vilest poor of London. The work is His, and he has used apparently weak instruments, that all the glory may be given to hiir,«5elf. He has found tlio women, and pointed out the willing and devoted lady superintend- ents, and sent the funds to commence each mission, often in the course of one week. The minute leadings of his providence have been unmistakable, and the answers to prayer innumerable. The machinery i?* so sim])lo and so local wherever it arises, and it is of such importance that the work be secret and silent, timt there is no necessity to clog it with extra appara- tus, or to spoil it with platform compliments of mnn's device. OUR AiJENTS, AND THEIR SUPPORT. 293 Nevertheless, tlie next remark that our friends make is this : " Well, then, if the work is genuine and good, we must surely extend it. Sliall we not have a great society, a j^reat Female (.'ity ^lission, with the usual apparatus for collectin;; money, public meetings, com- mittees, secretaries, and reports? Of course the thing will come to that in tlie end ; for when the novelty of the present movement is worn off. and tlie voluntary subscriptions cease, how is it to bo supported?"* To this we answer that our one resolve is, never to get into debt : tliercfore, if the supplies cease, the work could alwavs be transferred to those who will take it up, according to tlio rules of present routine. But it is a comparatively inexpensive undertaking, in part self-paying, according to its primary principles ; and by the general sense of the committee of the British and Foreign Bible Society, after much and careful dis- cussion, it is pronounced in its commencement to be trulv Bible work, and. as such, comes within their le- h 'i * Amid the many salutnrv chaiifroa which might follow on the ponte- costal outpouring of tho Holy Spirit which we arc beseeching from heaven, and which our < hrislian brotliron in many parts of the worW are alreadj' receiving, there might probably be numbered a holy method in our benevolent rtsorves orincoujo for tho work of the Lord, accord- ing to the scriptural iiuiicatlons given in the Old Testament. This wouki bring enowjh and to spare into tlu' treasury of Him whose are all the silver and the gold. '• H > shall make His people willing in the daj' of His power." See ''(Jold and tho (Jospol ; or, Ulster Prize Essays on diving Away m Proportion to a Waw'a Income." 294 THE MISSING LINK. gitimate province o^ paid labOr, inspected by niembei-js of their own body. For three days a week, therefore, the female colpor- ter could go forth as from tliem, if her only duty were to sell Bibles ; but such is the Book, and such are the London heathen, that woman's civilization work must iiccessarily follow ; and to us it needs no argument to prove that for all " the Lord wi^l provide." It is necessary, even amid difficulties, we tliink, to keep i\\Q movement in full allegiance to that great and blessed association for the spread of God's Woi*d. The social clement might otherwise rise paramount, and the great first duty, the delivery of the message from God, singly and alone, on wliich he has showered his blessing, might at a future day be forgotten. Our perpetual increase and change of jtopulation will make it a long time before London is fully sup- })lied witli half-crown Bibles, m good type, easily read by the ignorant, especially by small instalments. Nevertheless, in proportion as the women are multi- plied, and do their work vigorously, a less portion of their labor can be paid by the Bible Society, and therefore its payments must be on a sliding scale. It has also to care for the occupation of its voluntary helpers. Those who are employing this agency have recently obtained the valual)le assistance of a few " friends in OUli AGENTS, AND THEIH SUPPORT. '19o council *' — tlic Earl of Shaftesbury ; tlio Honorable Artliur and ^Irs. Kiiinaird ; the Rev. Antlionv Thor- old, rector of St. Giles's ; the Rev. Dr. Hamilton, of the Scotch Cliurch ; and the Rev. William Arthur, of rlie Wesleyan )jody ; 11. Hopley White, Esq. ; W. Coles, Esq. ; and J. Hampden Fordham, Esq., the latter gentlemen being members of the parent com- mittee of the British and Foreign Bible Society. These friends have all a genuine and heart intoi-est in London " Female Bible and Domestic Missions." Tliev will, from time to time, meet and consult with some of the ladies who are practically engaged in the work. The accounts of money received and expended will be submitted to their cognizance and inspection, and their various views consulted on any movement of importance. This Council of Reference will verify the business details in the public eye. To ourselves the utterances of liuman life brought to us by the researches of our female colporters are of intenser interest every day. That timely teaching of a temporal character should be intimately connected with the Bible is not an element that these poor folk in their homes seem to shrink from. Most of them acknowledge the Bible to be a good book, and one that ouglit to be in every house ; but tliey know very little about it. They have heard a text taken from it for a sermon that they did not understand ; but Bible i»i i 296 THE MlSSrN(J LIXK. stories, well selected, and explained to them as if they were earnestly believed, go straight to their hearts. The story of the Book, as a whole, will all be ne^v, and of the deepest interest to the mass of the lowest orders in this our nineteenth century. The influence that shall redeem them from their bad habits must be a resident influence ; and the more nearly it is allied to the condition and sympathies of its objects the more eifectual is its aid. " Ladies" will not be found residing in St. Giles's and the Seven Dials ; or, if they were, they would find the dwellings inaccessible; but the different orders of intelligence belong to each other in Christ's church. " The foot and the hand cannot say to the eye or the head, We have no need of you ;" and it has been found always that union is strength. May the two henceforth work lovingly together in the vineyard of the Lord, and may He vouchsafe to give the increase I APPENDIX. [We here insert two or three papers deemed necessary and helpful in the information of tins Bible Agency, which friends in the country are at liberty to reprint and modify to their own local circumstances,] LONDON FEMALE BIBLE AND DOMESTIC MISSIONS. GENKRAL RULES. 1. The work having now ..onsiderably extended itself it is Uiought desirable to give it the general designation of ^Londom J^EMALE Bible and Do.mkstic Missions." 2. The objects of these Missions are twofold, vi., to supply the very poorest of the population with copies of the Holy Seriptuivs and also to improve their temporal condition by teaching them to help themse ves rather than look to others; the former to be at- tamed by taking payment for the Bible in small weeklv instal- ment., and the latter by assisting them to procure better food clothing, and beds in the same way. ' 3. None shall be employed i^ this Mission but women of horoughly respectable and Christian character, of active habits kindly manners, and but little encumbered with family care. ' 4. The Districts shall be of regulated extent; and the Bible- women shall reside in or quite near their respective District, having a room in a central position for the general purposes of he Mission, for which the rent will be paid by their Superin- tendent. ^ 5. Each Bible-woman shall be placed under the careful super- intendence of a Lady who may be found willing to undertake the 13* (297) !!* !IS 298 APPENDIX. work, and who is a resident on the district, or within a reasonable distance from it. (). The Bible-woman shall present a Weekly Report of her labors to the Superintending Lady, who will receive such Report, pay the salary, and give such directions as the local circumstances may require. INSTRUCTIONS TO THE BIBLE-WOMAN. 1. Your first and principal work is to ascertain who are with- out the Holy Scriptures, and willing to purchase at a cheap rate. 2. Take with you in a bag, w ith which you will be provided, a variety of Bibles and Testaments!, and should any of the parties you visit be able and willing to pay the whole price at once, take it; if not, offer to receive payment by small weekly instalments, for wIk' h you will regularly call. ;}. Let the people understand that you are not supplying them at a profit, but, in many instances, at a loss to the Bible Society, and that the good people who employ you are only seeking to l^romote the benefit of the poor. 4. You will be expected to devote five hours every day, Sat- urdays excepted, to your work, for which you will receive 2s. per day. The Bible Work is to be done by itself, and the Domestic Mission Work at another time. You will follow the directions tiiat will be given you as to the locaUties in which you are to labor for both objects. 5. As the Bible Work leads to other benevolent schemes, you will be directed by your Superintendent how to proceed in taking Kubscriptious for clothing and bedding, also inducing the poor no longer to live content with dirt, rags, and discomfort. You will tlien be able gradually to instruct them in needlework, cooking, and cleanliness. (>. It will be expected that you will live in or near your dis- trict, and a room there will also be available for the purposes of the Mission. 7. If you are able, it is desirable that you should keep a APPENDIX. 29!l Journal, in which you will give truo statements of the thinps ynu meet with. 8. You will present to your Superintendent a Weekly Report of all your proceedings, at the timo and place appointed, and according to a form with which you will he furni-^hed. 9. The lady who has kindly promised to superintend your work is of a SUGGESTIONS TO PROPOSED SUPERINTENDENTS OF A FEMALE BIBLE AND DOMESTIC MISSION. It seems undesirable that a Lady should undertake this work if she is not able to promise a fair share of time and interest to its claims, which, though at first very simple, are sure to incri'asi' in many forms. We would suggest that a Lady Superintendent do not offer her services as merely honorary or intermitting: she must be depended upon for the vigilant performance of lier own particular duties. No bills should be paid by the Bible-wnmun, or any material purchased except through written orders from her lady; and great care should be taken in selection if at any time a deputy is left in charge. As the nature of the Mission is undenominational, and it need not be conducted within Parochical boundaries — though it often may, most conveniently, be so arranged — only those can under- take its general guidance in any neighborhood who ai'u not neces- sarily limited by such considerations. It appears always desirable that the Superintendent should be- come a member of the Ladies' BiVjle Association of the locality, and should herself pay in monthly to their funds the instalments received by the Bible-woman for copies of the Scriptures; of course, conferring with them on the districts in whicii, from time to time, this sub-agent should be occupied in Bible Work. Regularity of payments to the Female Missionary, with kindly, and often helpful inspection of tlie varied accounts she renders, should be considered a duty to bo fulfilled at U'ast weekly, and at first even oftener. Her payment from Bible Funds nuist bo ex- actly proportioned to her purely Bible Work, at the rate of 2."-. V t i 1 aoo APPENDIX. for five hours. Her salary tor all other service will proceed from Funds set apart for Domestic purposes. It is very important for the Superintendent to understand the due administration of these respective funds. The Bible-woman may be employed for two, three, four, or five days, only in sell- ing Bibles, according to the needs of the particular district, and for this ONLY the Bible Society can pay her. She must not do any other work at the same time. If the people offer to sul)seril)c for clothing and beds, she will say, " I only do one thing at a time," and " the right thing first. I bring you now the Message from God. I shall be glad also to provide you with clothing, &e., at the lowest prices, and for this you can pay as you do for the Bibles, in small sums weekly ; but you must oomk to me to do this, at a certain hour, in my Mission-room."' Tliere would be great evil in mixing the two departments of labor; the Bible Society would never know what they paid for, and mistakes would be made in the accounts ; while a particular benefit to be gained, by assembhng the Women at a given hour at one place, would be lost likewise. Although it is found best that each Bible-woman should be made responsible to one Lady, rather tlian to a Committee, still, as suitable individuals may willingly come forward, saying, "What can we do to help you ?" it should be tlie aim of the Lady Super- intendent to enlist their various activities in the regulation of special departments, such as weekly visiting of the clothing and bedding club — reading or speaking to the subscribers at mending or tea parties — purchase of clothing materials — fixing and giving out of needlework — arrangements concerning bags of linen — soup making — timely loans — visitation of special cases, &c., &c. All these things gradually form a part of tlie Female Bible and Do- mestic Mission and when money may have to be expended, account must, of course, be rendered by each Lady to the Super- intendent. Without interfering with any existing organizations, this Mis- sion is intended to carry down among the Neglected Outcasts of society the different measures for their benefit, which have long been familiar to the Decent Poor. The lowest classes have said J APPENDIX. 301 that " nobody cared for them," a complaint wliich it is the aim of this Mission to obviate. Each Superintendent will see the im|)ortance of securing funds for the temporal pm-poses of Ker particular Mission. The Bible Society commences and pays for the Bible Work, and, with ten or twenty pounds besides, a good beginning may be made ; while the various elements of the undertaking are intended to be self- paying as far as possible. If several Female Missionaries are engaged for an extended district, a quarterly conference of their Superintendents is recommended, to secure unity of design, with independence in details. Frequent reading of the Scriptures and prayer with the Bible- woman will be found her most effectual preparation lor the work she undertakes. Her great power is in apt quotation ; and the Lord is proving that he blesses His own Word day by day. " The entrance of Thy word giveth light; it giveth understanding to the simple." of and ling ing soup All Do- ded, per- long «aid COOKERY FOR ST. GILES'S. CHEAP SOUP, AND VERY NOURISHING. Two ounces of dripping Id. Half a pound of solid meat, at 4d. per lb. (cut into dice one inch square) 2d. Quarter of a pound of onions, sliced thin ; quarter of a pound of turnip, cut into small dice; two ounces of leeks (green tops will do), and three ounces of celery, chopped small Id. Half a pound of rice or pearl barley . . . . Id. Three ounces of salt, and a quarter of an ounce of brown sugar Jd. Fuel to make it Jd. Six quarts of water. 'od. How TO MAKE IT. — Take an iron saucepan (a tin one will not do); put into it, over the fire, your meat cut small, with two ounces of dripping and a quarter of an ounce of brown sugar ; \ 302 APPENDIX. Bhrod in your onions, and stir with a wooden or iron spoon till fried lightly brown; have ready washed and sliced your turnipsi celery, and leeks, add them to the rest over the lire, and stir about for ten minutes. Now add one quart of cold water, and the half pound of barley or rice, and mix all well together. Then add five quarts of hot water, made ready in the kettle, season with your salt, stir occasionally till boiling, and then let simmer on the hob for three hours, at the end of which time the rice or barley will be tender. This soup will keep two or three d:.y8 if poured into a flat pan, but it is best made every other day. You must stir till nearly cold when you take it off the fire, which \,ill prevent its ferment- ing. A little bread or biscuit eaten with it makes a supporting meal, much better than a cup of tea, and would go far to prevent the craving for gin. CHEAP BEDS FOR THE POOR. Ticking for Beds may be bought (in quantities of not lesa than 100 yards) at 4d. a yard. Eight yards make a tick, and 30 lbs. of flock fill it. The flock is 9s. 3d. per cwt. and upwards. The bed is sold at six shillings, and paid for before receipt by sixpenny or shilling instalments. NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS. Friends wishing to subscribe to these Missions may send Post- office orders to Mrs. Ranyard, 13 Hunter street, Brunswick- square, London, who is their Honorary Secretary. The orders should be made out for the office ir 'Ireat Coram street, Bruns- wick-square, and in the Christian name of " Ellen." The Hon. A. Kinnaird, M. P., will also receive subscriptions, as Treasurer, for the General Fund, addressed to the Bank of Messrs. Ransom and Co., No. 1 Pall Mall East. The "Book and its Missions" may be had of W. Kent & Co., 21 Paternoster Row, and by order of all booksellers. Price 3d., monthly.