The Life of the Sev- enth Earl of Shaftes- rn i 1 1 1 1 1 I I I II I I J I . TJ wmttwtMHlUBaRB ^^yiii'iifl'.i III-, |-| I THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES ^ GIFT OF llrs, Ben B, Lindsey The Life of the Sev- enth Earl of Shaftes- bury, K,G,(^<^y BY JENNIE M. BINGHAM CINCINNATI : CURTS & JENNINGS NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS 1899 COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY THE WESTERN METHODIST BOOK CONCERN HV life of iLorD ^ijaftcsibut'^ 31ntrot)uction WHEN a man becomes so great as was the Earl of Shaftesbury', his name and fame are a part of the common heritage of the human race. Measured by what he did and what he was, this illustrious man deserved the encomium passed upon him by the Duke of Argyle when he said : "My Lords and Gentlemen, — All the great reforms of the past fifty years have been brought about, not by the Liberal party, nor by the Tory party, but by the labors of one man — the Earl of Shaftesbury." How he accomplished these reforms, how he abolished child slavery in the mining regions of England, how he shortened the hours of labor in the factories and threw the broad shield of British law over the heads of hundreds of thousands of working people, is told with graphic power in this book. 3 4 Introduction Shaftesbury earned the right to say to ever)^ other reformer, "Let no one despair of a good cause for want of helpers. Let him persevere, persevere^ PERSEVERE, and God will raise up friends and helpers." The stor}^ of this wonderful life as here portrayed, should be placed in the hands of every boy and girl in the Republic. It would be "extravagant economy" to deny them the inspiration of the life of a man whose name is a household word in England, and should become so in America. CHARLES C. McCABE. ConttntiS Introduction, - - - - - - -3. 4 Chapter I, ------- 7-i6 Chapter II, -------- 17-28 Chapter III, 29-47 Chapter IV, 48-59 Chapter V, ■'- 60-79 Chapter VI, - 80-98 Chapter VII, 99-126 Chapter VIII, ------ 127-158 Chapter IX, 159-182 Chapter X, 183-200 Chapter XI, 201-233 Chapter XII, 234-263 Chapter XIII, 264-289 5 The Life of Lord Shaftesbury Cl^aptet: I THE life-story of Anthony Ashley Cooper, the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, is one of the rarest and most beautiful ever lived or written. Victor Hugo's ''Good Bishop" in "Les Miserables" is said to be immortal, be- cause he acted like Christ. In a far more en- during way will this noble nobleman. Lord Shaftesbury, take hold of coming centuries, because he, not as a novelist's creation, but as a real man, acted like Christ. During a public life of over fifty years he 8 Life of Lord Shaftesbury was identified with more organizations for the uplifting of humanity than any man who ever Hved. He literally gave up all to follow Christ. He resigned honors of state, luxuries of home, time for intellectual culture, and spent all his income to help the wretched and degraded. The lower down they were, the greater their claim to his service. When he was urged to accept a place in the ministry of the realm, he replied : *'I can not satisfy myself that to accept ofifice is a divine call ; but I am satisfied that God has called me to labor among the poor." A little later, when a position of high honor was ofifered, he said : "One million and six hundred thousand operatives are still ex- cluded from the benefits of the factory acts, and so long as they are unprotected I can not take office." He was very fond of literature and all branches of science, especially astronomy; never so happy as when he could spend his Life of Lord Shaftesbury 9 days in close application to books and instru- ments, and his nights in the observatory with the eminent astronomer, Sir James South, whose firm friend he was. He dared to hope that he, too, might become an astronomer. But the duties of his life-work began to press upon him. His visits to the observator}' became less frequent until they ceased alto- gether. He says of himself at last: "I was called to another career, and now I find myself, at the end of a long life, not a philosopher, not an author, but simply an old man who has endeavored to do his duty." He did not receive the inspiration for his life of beautiful service from his parents, but from a humble servant who was housekeeper in the family. She formed a strong attach- ment for the gentle, serious child, and would take him in her arms and tell him the sweet story of the Manger of Bethlehem and the Cross of Calvary. Although not yet seven years old, there was in his heart a distinct longing to be Christ- lo Life of Lord Shaftesbury like, which uUimately developed into an in- telHgent faith. She taught him a prayer — the first he had ever learned, and which he never omitted to use in the trying days so soon to follow. When an old man. he often found himself repeating those simple words. "The greatest man that England has ever produced," says one, "was this Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, and he was brought to Christ by a humble, unlettered servant girl." This lowly handmaid little knew that gen- erations unknown and years untold would rise up to bless her. He delighted to honor her memory, and the watch which she left him was the only one he ever carried. He was fond of showing it, and would say, "This was given to me by jMaria jMillis, the best friend I ever had." His father was absorbed in business, and his mother gave all of her attention to the gay life of the society about her. It is evident that Lord Ashley and his brothers and sisters ex- perienced unkindness, almost amounting to IviFE OF Lord Shaftesbury ii cruelty, from both parents, when they were young, but especially from the mother. They were aristocratic and worldly in the extreme. When only seven years old he was sent to school at Chiswick. In later years he said : "The memory of that place makes me shud- der. I think there was never such a wicked school before or since; the treatment was bullying, starvation, and cruelty." Here he lived in a state of constant terror from the cruelty of the elder boys, and suf- fered exquisite misery for years through the neglect of the teacher to provide the neces- sities of life. Dickens, in "Nicholas Nickleby," has shown us the sort of schools which ex- isted at the beginning of this century. They were hotbeds of every kind of evil and mis- chief, where might was right, and weak and timid boys suffered intolerably. He knew what it was to shiver with cold through the long nights, and to be pinched with starvation. It was noticed in Lord Shaftesbury that a certain sadness surrounded him lik« an atmos- 12 Life of Lord Shaftesbury phere. It was, no doubt, in a measure due to the scenes of suffering and sorrow which were constantly before him. But it was also attributable to the fact that there had been no lightheartedness in his childhood. His biog- rapher suggests that in these years he was graduating for his life-work. He had known what it was to be oppressed, lonely, suffering, hungry ; henceforth he would plead the cause of the oppressed and suffering, and bring joy and gladness to the hearts of little children. His first great grief came at a time when he was least able to bear it. Maria Millis, the only grown-up person in the world whom he loved, and the only one who had ever sym- pathized with his simple child-faith, was called to her rest. He felt that his last chance of happiness had gone. Without a soul on earth to whom he could go for comfort, he turned to the old Book that she had loved, and spread his sorrows before the Heavenly Friend whom she had taught him to regard as full of pity and tenderness. Life of Lord Shaftesbury 13 At about sixteen he went to live with a clergyman, distantly related. He was sent there, in fact, to be got out of the way; for the clergyman never professed to teach him any- thing. Lord Ashley's father determined to put him into the army ; but a friend of whom Ash- ley spoke with the deepest gratitude, per- suaded the father to send him to Oxford Uni- versity instead. Here he had a fine tutor, whose first ques- tion proved to be a stimulus to the young fellow. It was, ''Do you intend to take a degree?" This was a strong demand on one who had lost so many years, but he answered, "I will try." He did try, and the result was that he led in classics. Referring to this in after-life, he said, modestly : "I have had a great many surprises in my life; but I do not think I was ever more sur- prised than when I took honors at Oxford." He could remember the day-«id hour in 14 Life of Lord Shaftesbury which he determined upon a philanthropic career. It was when a schoolboy of fourteen, he was one day walking down Harrow Hill, and was startled by hearing a great shouting, and the singing of a low, drinking song. Pres- ently the noisy party turned the street corner, and to his horror he saw that four or five drunken men were carrying a roughly-made cofifin containing the body of one of their fel- lows for burial. No solitary soul was there as a mourner. A fellow-creature was about to be consigned to his grave with indignities to which not even a dog should be subjected. Young Ashley exclaimed, "Can this be per- mitted simply because the man was poor and friendless !" Before the sound of the drunken song had died away, he had faced the future of his life, and determined to make the cause of the poor his own. He wrote in his journal : "Time was when I could not sleep for am- bition. I thought of nothing but fame and Life of Lord Shaftesbury 15 immortality. I could not bear the idea of dying and being forgotten. But now I am much changed. I desire only to be useful in my generation. "I have been considering my future career. The first principle, God's honor; the second, man's happiness; the means, prayer and un- remitting diligence." He was all his life very sensitive to criticism, and had a nervous fear of failure, which made him shrink from every undertaking. When we think of the abuse to which he was sub- jected as he "went about doing good," we get a glimpse of the heroic spirit of the man. His first appointment was on the India Board, and here he labored against sutteeism (the burning of the widow on the death of her husband). He was put down at once as a madman, and was told never to mention such a thing again, that the natives would murder the English if they passed a law against sut- teeism. But Lord Ashley would not be silenced until i6 Life of Lord Shaftesbury this outrageous evil was abolished. His next effort was to introduce horticulture into India. He wisely argued that the introduction of choice vegetables and potatoes into India would not only become a resource in calam- itous times, but would bring about a more friendly feeling between the natives and Eu- ropeans. In his journal he says : "India, what can I do for your countless myriads? There are two things — good gov- ernment and Christianity! O God, tip my tongue with fire!" Cl^aptct II IN 1830 occurred an event of great impor- tance relating to Lord Ashley's private life. He had written a year before : "If I could find the creature I have in- vented, I should love her with a tenderness and truth unprecedented in the history of wedlock. 1 pray for her aljundantly. God grant me this purest of blessings !" That prayer had been answered; and on the loth of June, 1830, he was married to Emily, daughter of the fifth Earl Cowper. For forty years she shared her husband's struggles, inspired his efforts, and was, as he himself has described her, "a w'lie as true, as good, and as deeply beloved as God ever gave to man." Referring to this period of Lord Ashley's life. Lord Granville, who had known him from boyhood, says: "He was a singularly fine-looking man. 2 - 17 18 Life of Lord Shaftesbury He had that striking presence and those manly good looks which, I believe, help a man more than we sometimes think, and they helped him when he endeavored to inspire his humble fellow-countrymen with his noble nature. Those good looks he retained to the end of his life. At the time I am speaking of, he was about to marry that bright and beautiful woman who afterward threw so much sun- shine on his home." On the anniversary of his wedding-day, Lord Ashley wrote in his journal : "No man, I am sure, ever enjoyed more happiness in his married life. God be praised ! Were I not married to a woman whose happi- ness, even for an hour, I prefer to whole years of my own, I could wish to be carried away from this scene of destruction, rather than see my country crumble before my eyes." Lord Ashley entered so thoroughly into the sorrows of life, that the delights of home companionship were necessary to keep him from despondency. He was often in utter Life of Lord Shaftesbury 19 despair over his public work, and he needed a wife who beheved in him, and who believed in all that he hoped. When he was asked to enter the House of Commons, and knew that it meant a political career, the expenses of which would be very heavy for his slender income, and the trials of which would make it a thorny path, he wanted to turn back to private life. Robert Southey, his friend, ad- vised him so to do ; but to turn back meant that he must give up the reforms which he was hoping to establish, and which he knew must be advocated in the Houses of Parliament. His first important speech in Parliament was on behalf of the most unfortunate, the most wretched, and the most ill-treated of his fellow-creatures — the pauper lunatics of Lon- don. In it he sounded the keynote of his whole Parliamentary career. From that day forward his whole life was devoted to the great interests of humanity. In the early part of this century, lunatics 20 Life of Lord Shaftesbury had passed the period of being canonized as saints, burnt as heretics, or hanged as crimi- nals. If only suspected of being dangerous, society, in terror, took the most cruel precau- tions for its own safety, with an utter disre- gard for the feelings of the unfortunates, or for their chances of recovery. Lunatics were kept constantly chained to walls in dark cells, and had nothing to lie upon but straw. The keepers visited them, whip in hand, and lashed them into obedience. They were half- drowned in "baths of surprise," and in some cases semi-strangulation was resorted to. The ''baths of surprise" were so constructed that the patients in passing over a trap-door fell in. Some patients were chained in wells, and the water made to rise until it reached their chins. One horrible contrivance was a rotary chair, in which patients were made to sit and were revolved at a frightful speed. Women as well as men were flogged, chained to iron bars, and confined to iron cages. Londoners out for a holiday paid their twopences to stroll Life of Lord Shaftesbury 21 through Bedlam and laugh at the poor lunatics. The only act of Parliament providing for the care of pauper lunatics, authorized any two justices to apprehend them, and have them locked up and chained. Any one who chose, could get a license to keep an asylum, and though the College of Physicians could receive reports of abuses, they could do nothing fur- ther. The Society of Friends had started at York a "Retreat" for insane members of their soci- ety. Attention was drawn to this enlightened experiment, and at the same time to the fright- ful abuses at a large asylum in the same city, A committee was appointed, and a bill for the investigation of madhouses was passed by the House of Commons, but was thrown out by the House of Lords. The old idea that con- nected madness with evil spirits, and made the safety of the community the only matter of consideration, was long in giving place to sounder views. - 22 Life of Lord Shaftesbury This was the state of things when Lord Ashley made his first speech in ParHament. He spoke in favor of a bill which provided for the appointment of fifteen commissioners, and the requirement of two me'dical certificates for patients. Lord Ashley was one of the com- missioners appointed. In the following year he became chairman of the Commission, and continued in that office till his death, a period of fifty-seven years, his great interest in the welfare of the insane having been sustained throughout that long period with unflagging energy. Afterward, when the commissioners were salaried, he remained the unpaid chair- man. Nothing of striking importance was accom- plished for several years. During this period, Lord Ashley did not leave a stone unturned which could be of assistance to the contem- plated reform. He visited the asylums in London and the provinces, and saw the filthy condition, the horrible attendant circum- stances, the misery and degradation of the in- Life of Lord Shaftesbury 23 mates. He saw for himself that the lunatics were chained to their beds, and left from Sat- urday afternoon till Monday without attend- ance, and with only bread and water within tlieir reach. He saw that the violent and the quiet, the clean and the uncleanly, were shut up together in foul and disgusting cells. But what astonished him more than anything else was, that people knew and cared absolutely nothing about it. So shocked and horrified was he with the revelation of misery and cru- elty that he vowed he would never cease pleading the cause of these poor creatures till either death silenced him or the laws were amended. And, as we shall see, he kept his vow. A record in his journal says: ''Yesterday I spent with our Lunatic Com- mission. There is nothing poetical in this duty; but every sigh prevented and every pang subdued is a song of harmony to the heart. I have chosen political life, because I have, by God's blessing, many advantages of birth and 24 Life of Lord Shaftesbury situation which, although of trifling vaUie if unsupported, are yet very powerful aids if joined to zeal and honesty." Political papers derisively called him "the Lunatic's Friend," It has been well said that the services which Lord Ashley rendered to this cause alone would have carried his name down to pos- terity in the front rank of English philan- thropists. This extract from one of his speeches shows us how he sought to lay this matter on the hearts of his hearers : "These unhappy persons are outcasts from all the social and domestic affections of pri- vate life, and have no refuge but in the laws. You can prevent by the agency you shall ap- point the recurrence of frightful cruelties. You can soothe the days of the incurable, and restore many sufferers to health and useful- ness. For we must not run away with the notion that even the hopelessly mad are dead to all capacity of intellectual or moral exer- Life of Lord Shaftesbury 25 tion. Quite the reverse; their feelings, too, are painfully alive. I have seen them writhe under supposed contempt, while a word of kindness and respect would kindle their whole countenance into an expression of joy. Their condition appeals to our highest sympathies. I trust that I shall stand excused for havinir consumed so much of your valuable time, when you call to mind that the motion is made on behalf of the most helpless, if not the most afflicted, portion of the human race." He cited the case of a lady who had been shut up as a lunatic, but, as far as he and three other commissioners could judge, she was as sane as any woman in England. He spared no pains in sifting the evidence on both sides, and prosecuted the investigation day by day until he had proof indisputable that the lady was the victim of a cruel conspiracy, and was perfectly sane. She was, of course, set at Hb- erty with the least possible delay. He narrated an anecdote to show that emi- nent men sometimes formed their opinions as 26 Life of Lord Shaftesbury to the sanity of a patient on very flimsy evi- dence. Once, when he was sitting on the Com- mission as chairman, the alleged insanity of a lady was under discussion, and he took a view of the case opposite to that of his col- leagues. One of the medical men who was there to give evidence crept up to his chair, and in a confidential tone said, "Are you aware, my lord, that she subscribes to the Society for the Conversion of the Jews?" "In- deed," replied Lord Ashley, "and are you aware that I am president of that society?" One story out of many, illustrating the characteristic promptness with which, even late in life, he would examine a case and take immediate action, may be given here : A lady, Mrs. A , was on visiting terms with Mrs. B , a woman of fashion and po- sition. There was very little in common be- tween the two, and the visits of Mrs. A would have been less frequent than they were, had she not taken a more than passing interest in a charming young lady who was living in Life of Lord Shaftesbury 27 the home of Mrs. B . One day when Mrs. A called, Miss C was not there, and on making very pointdd inquiries, she was, after some hesitation, informed that her young friend was out of her mind, and was in an asylum fifty miles out of town. Mrs. A felt troubled and distressed. She had seen Miss C only a week before, and perceived no indication of a disordered mind. At length it occurred to her that Lord Shaftesbury was a commissioner in lunacy, and she went straight to his house, found him at home, and told him the whole story. It was evening when she arrived in Grosvenor Square, and dinner was on the table ; but within a quarter of an hour Lord Shaftesbury was on his way to the railway station to go down to the asylum and investigate the matter for himself. He did so, and on the following day the young lady was released, it having been authorita- tively stated that she was not insane. In his seventy-sixth year, his portrait was painted by the famous artist, Sir John Millais. 28 Life of Lord Shaftesbury The Times, in its art critique, said: "These worn lines in the face of the great philanthropist would be painful were they not pathetic." About this time he wrote in his journal : "Beyond the circle of my own commis- sioners and the lunatics that I visit, not a soul in great or small life has had any notion of the years of toil and care that, under God, 1 have bestowed on this melancholy and awful question." The year before he died, the commissioners of lunacy were attacked in the House of Lords, and it looked for a time as if Lord Shaftesbury's work would be overturned. Very pathetic are the outpourings of his heart as he contemplates the possibility of the labor, the toils, the anxieties, the prayers of more than fifty years being in one moment brought to naught. After a few weeks, the bill against the commissioners was shelved, and Shaftes- bury remained with the great work which he had carried on to such blessed success. Cljaptet HI IT was when Lord Ashley was beginning his * public career that attention was called to the position of the workingman. His only re- source was self-defense, his only argument was violence. Education was at a deplorably low ebb. It was found that a factory district with over one hundred thousand population did not have one public day-school for poor children. The amusements of the people were a fair index of their general condition. There was universal rioting and carousal at Easter; drunkenness was the great prevailing vice ; un- chastity was fearfully prevalent, and low-class dancing saloons, and still lower-class cheap theaters were largely frequented. The factory system, as we shall presently see, was cruel in its oppression. Mines and collieries were worked in great measure by women and chil- dren. Sanitary science was practically un- 29 2,0 Life of Lord Shaftesbury known. Ragged schools, reformatory and in- dustrial schools, and workmen's clubs had not begun to exist. The newspaper was fettered. Taxation was oppressive and unjust. The poor laws were pauperizing and degrading. The cheap literature reflected the violent pas- sions which raged on every side, and the Church was in a state of lethargy from which it was not effectually aroused for many years. In 1829, Sir Robert Peel's Act laid the foundation for the present police force. Be- fore that time the public were dependent for their protection upon a staff of parochial watchmen, who were muffled up in heavy cloaks, and beat a stick upon the pavement to announce their approach, and allow evil-dis- posed persons to get out of their way. At night they carried lanterns, whicli served, as the stick by day, to announce their where- abouts, and after they had made their rounds they retired to their watch-boxes. Robbery of all kinds was committed with impunity, and Life of Lord Shaftesbury 31 after sunset it was not safe to venture on the street. Strangely enough, the Robert Peel Act met with fiercest opposition and invective. It was considered an interference with personal lib- erty and a menace to public peace. The pop- ular prejudice yielded when it was found the best protection for life and property. It was fortunate for Lord Ashley that the police force should have been instituted at this period. It would have been impossible for him to get personally acquainted with the dens of infamy and the abominations in the hovels of the lowest of the low, without the assistance of the police, a body of men to whom he al- ways acknowledged his indebtedness. In 1833 the great work of factory legisla- tion began, in which for twenty years Lord Ashley was to take so prominent a part. Machinery was invented which children could manage almost as well as adults. A demand for child-labor was created, and it 32 Life of Lord Shaftesbury was supplied in a manner which scarcely seems credible to the humanity of to-day. Large numbers of children were drafted from the workhouses of London, Edinburgh, and other great cities, and placed in the mills as "appren- tices," where, at the discretion of sordid over- seers, they were worked unmercifully and bru- tally treated. Voices had been raised in pro- test against the cruel wrongs inflicted on these poor children, who were continually being sent down to Lancashire by barge-loads from the London workhouses. But in the excitement of stirring events, which were then occurring at home and abroad, those voices were un- heeded. ]\Ieantime, the condition of these unfortu- nate children was growing so bad, that the cruelty of the system under which they were held was hardly paralleled by the abominations of Negro slavery. A horrible traffic had sprung up ; child jobbers scoured the country for the purpose of purchasing children, to sell them again into the bondage of factory slaves. Life of Lord Shaftesbury 33 The waste of human life in the factories to which the children were consigned was simply frightful. Day and night the machinery was kept going, one gang of children working it by day and another set by night, while in times of pressure the same children were kept work- ing day and night by remorseless taskmasters. Under the "apprentice system" bargains were made between the churchwardens and overseers of parishes and the owners of fac- tories, whereby pauper children, some as young as five years old, were bound to serve until they were twenty-one. In some cases alluring promises were made to them. They were told they would be well clothed and fed, have plenty of money, and learn a trade. These deceptions were prac- ticed in order to make the children wish to go, and thus give an opportunity to the traf- fickers to say that they went voluntarily. Their first labors consisted in picking up loose cotton from the floor. This they did amidst the din of machinery in a burning at- 34 Life of Lord Shaftesbury mosphere laden ^vitll fumes of the oil with ^\ hich the axles of twenty thousand wheels and spindles were bathed. With aching backs and ankles inflamed from the constant stooping, with fingers lacer- ated from scraping the floors, parched and suffocated by dust, the little slaves toiled from morning till night. If they paused, the brutal overseer, who was responsible for a certain amount of work being performed by each child under him, urged them on by kicks and blows. When the dinner-time came after six hours labor, it was only to rest for forty minutes and eat black bread and porridge. As they grew older, employment involving longer hours and harder work was given to them. Lost time had to be made up by overwork, and they were required every other day to spend the dinner- hour cleaning the frames. They sank into the profoundest depths of wretchedness. In weariness they often fell upon the machinery, and almost every factory child was more or less injured. Life of Lord Shaftesbury 35 There was no redress of any kind. The iso- lation of the mills aided to conceal the cruel- ties. The children could not escape, as re- wards were offered for their capture, and were eagerly sought. They could not complain when the visiting magistrate came, for they were in abject fear of their taskmasters. If they perished in the machinery, it was a rare thing for a coroner's inquest to be held. When their indentures expired, after years of toil averaging fourteen hours a day, with their bodies scarred with the wounds inflicted by the overseers, with their minds dwarfed and vacant, with their constitutions injured, these unfortunate apprentices arrived at manhood, to find that they had never been taught the trade they should have learned, and that they had no resource whatever but to enter again upon the hateful life from which they were at last legally freed. If they had become crippled or diseased during their apprenticeship, their wages were fixed at the lowest possible sum. Some laws had been passed against the ap- 36 Life of Lord Shaftesbury prentice system, and limiting- the hours of labor for children, but all this applied to cot- ton factories only, and the abuses in woolen, linen, and silk factories were as great. Then a ^Ir. Sadler introduced his famous "Ten- hour Bill" in the House of Commons; but he was violently opposed, and finally not returned to Parliament. Then the poor mill-hands felt that the death-blow had been struck to all their interests. It was then that Lord Ashley, who had supported the Ten-hour Bill, was asked to take up the cause of the factory people. On the one hand lay ease, influence, promotion, and troops of friends; on the other, the most unpopular question of the day, unceasing labor amidst every kind of opposition, perpet- ual anxiety, estrangement of friends, and a life among the poor. It was between these he had to choose. Had he been ambitious of political distinc- tion, his abilities, his popularity, and his great oratorical powers would have commanded a Life of Lord Shaftesbury 37 prominent position in his party. Already he had won an appointment in the Government under the Duke of Wellington, whose conti- dence he enjoyed, and whose approbation he had won. But Lord Ashley was not a man to be in- fluenced by these considerations. "Already he had passed through the strait gate of his path in life, and had entered the narrow way." He remembered that day at Harrow when he vowed that he would fight against the mon- strous cruelty that allowed the weak to be trampled upon, simply because they were poor. But that vow had been made when he was a mere boy. Now he had a wife and a child, a home and a position. To espouse the fac- tory cause was to give up home comfort and domestic leisure, to relinquish scientific and literary pursuits. He laid the matter before his wife, painted in dark colors all the sacrifice it meant for her, and waited fgr her verdict. "It is your duty to 38 Life of Lord Shaftesbury go forward," she said, "and the consequences we must leave." It was characteristic of Lord Ashley that he did not wish to receive more than his share of credit. Later in life, when his speeches on this subject were published, he wrote: "I desire to record the invaluable services of the remarkable men who preceded me. Had they not gone before and borne such an amount of responsibility and toil, I do not believe that it would have been in my power to have achieved anything at all." Lord Ashley had made it a principle at the outset of his career, not to advocate any cause until he had acquainted himself with all the facts by close personal investigation. "I made it an invariable rule," he said, "to see every- thing with my own eyes, to take nothing on trust or hearsay. In factories I examined the mills, the machinery, the homes, and saw the work and workers. In collieries I went down into the pits. In London I went into lodging- houses, and thieves' haunts, and every filthy Life of Lord Shaftesbury 39 place. It gave me a power I could not other- wise have had. I could speak of things from actual experience, and 1 used often to hear things from the poor sufferers themselves which were invaluable to me. I got to know their habits of thought and action and their actual wants. I sat, and had tea and talk with them hundreds of times." When the Committee of Investigation was in Manchester, the entire company of child operatives marched in a body to the hotel. These men had never looked upon such a pro- cession before — three thousand ragged, wretched little ones, attended by at least fifteen thousand spectators. It was an argument of overwhelming force. Robert Southey wrote Lord Ashley, beg- ging him not to go to the manufacturing dis- tricts any more. He said : "The distressful recollections will be impressed upon you, and burnt in, and your health will be affected seri- ously thereby." Southey did not know that the whole path- 40 Life of Lord Shaftesbury way of his friend's life would lie throuorh scenes of suffering "burnt in," which need not have been his lot if he had not dedicated him- self to the poor and friendless. In a speech at Leeds, Lord Ashley in- stanced the case of a young woman in a mill at Stockport, who had been caught by the machinery, whirled around, and dashed to the ground, with limbs broken and body muti- lated. Her employers deducted eighteen pence from her wages for the remainder of the week after the accident happened ! Lord Ashley prosecuted the mill-owners, with the result that they had to pay £ioo damages to the girl, and expenses on both sides, amount- ing to £600. He showed them that the ex- penditure of a few shillings in properly boxing the machinery would have saved the financial loss to the mill-owners, and the more terrible loss to the injured girl. In a speech he called attention to some boys who were made to work for thirty-four hours successively in the foul cellar of a York- Life of Lord Shaftesbury 41 shire factoiy, the air of which was so bad that workmen tied handkerchiefs around their faces before going into the place. He reminded the House that when, in its wisdom and mercy, it decided that forty-five hours in a week was a term of labor long enough for an adult Negro, it would not now be unbecoming to consider whether sixty-nine hours a week were not too many for the children of the British Empire. Just when factory legislation became the burning question of the day, and it looked as though Lord Ashley would win his cause, an endeavor was made to thwart him from an- other standpoint. He was offered a position in the Government where it would be impos- sible for him to carry on a great political agi- tation. The pretext was made that his ''high mo- rality" required his services in the royal house- hold. Sir Robert Peel, who planned the scheme, did not know the man with whom he had to deal. He was incapable of realizing the high and generous motives of one who, for 42 Life of Lord Shaftesbury the sake of the poor and oppressed, was ready to sacrifice position and emolument, and close upon himself the gates leading to poHtical power. This was his reply: ''There are still i,6oo,- ooo operatives excluded from the benefits of the Factory Acts; until they are brought under the protection of the law, I can not take office." Later, in speaking of the obstacles which beset him at this period, he said : "I had to break every political connection, to encounter a most formidable array of cap- italists, mill-owners, and :nen who, by natural impulse, hate all 'humanity mongers.' They easily influence the ignorant, the timid, and the indifTerent." A record in his journal shows the spirit with which he worked: "Addressed a body of operatives last night. Admirable meeting. Urged the most concili- atory sentiments towards employers. Urged, too, the indispensable necessity of private and Life of Lord Shaftesbury 43 public prayer if the}^ desire to accomplish their end. Told what I felt, that unless the Spirit of Christ had commanded my service, I would not have undertaken the task. It was to re- ligion therefore, and not to me, that they were indebted for benefits received. What a place is Manchester — silent and solemn ; the rumble of carriages and groaning of mills, but few voices and no merriment. Intensely occupied in the production of material wealth, it regards that alone as the grand end of human exist- ence. Thirty-five thousand children, under thirteen years of age, many not exceeding five or six, are worked at times for fifteen hours a day ! O blessed Lord and Savior of mankind, look down on these lambs of thy fold, and strengthen me for this service !" There were times when the outcome of his cause looked dark. This appears most pathet- ically in his journal : "Twelve years of labor, anxiety, and re- sponsibility! I have borrowed and spent in reference to .my income enormous sums of 44 Life of Lord Shaftesbury money, and am shut out from every hope of emolument and path of honorable ambition. My own kinsfolk dislike my opinions, and per- secute me. I am excluded from my father's house because I have maintained the cause of the laborer. It has been toil by day and by night, fears and disappointments, prayers and tears, long journeys and unceasing letters." It was not until Lord Ashley had given fourteen years of such service that his bill was passed, and received the royal assent. This great victory was received throughout the country with intense enthusiasm. The rejoic- ing- in the manufacturing districts was such as had never been seen before. Lord Ashley was greeted with ovations wherever he went. Medals were struck in commemoration of the event, one of which was sent to the Queen from the operatives by the hand of Lord Ash- ley. His record of this event says: "I can find neither breath nor sense to express my joy. Praised be the Lord ! Praised be the Lord !" The bill limited the time of children to six Life of Lord Shaftesbury 45 hours a day. There was protection against accident, death, or mutilation from the un- guarded state of machinery, and the provision that no woman should work over twelve hours a day. Buildings must be kept clean. Chil- dren must not clean machinery while in mo- tion. A certain number of holidays were im- posed. The children must go to school, and the employer must have a certificate to that effect. Lord Ashley's perseverance brought over to his side many of those who had bitterly opposed him. One who had been particularly hostile stood forth in Parliament, and made his public recantation. He said : "Very early in my Parliamentary career. Lord Ashley, now the Earl of Shaftesbury, in- troduced a bill of this description. I opposed him, and was very much influenced in my op- position by what the manufacturers said. They declared that it was the last half-hour of the work performed by their operatives which made all their profits, and if we took away that 46 Life of Lord Shaftesbury last half-hour, we would ruin the manufac- turers of England. I listened to that state- ment, and trembled for the manufacturers; but Lord Ashley persevered. Parliament passed the bill which he brought in. From that time down to the present the factories of this country have been under State control, and 1 appeal to this House whether the manu- facturers of England have suffered by this legislation." This was greeted by loud cheering. It was officially declared that factory legislation had consolidated society, swept away a great mass of festering discontent, and placed the pros- perity of the district on a safe, educated, con- tented basis. In i860, on an August day, about four thousand persons assembled in the Free Trade Hall at Manchester, to witness the presenta- tion to the Countess of Shaftesbury of a fine marble bust of the noble Earl as a testimonial of the gratitude of the factory operatives. Life of Lord Shaftesbury 47 The Countess, in acknowledging the pre- sentation, said : "My good friends, it will not require many words for me to express the deep and heartfelt gratitude with which I receive this testimonial. I prize it highly as coming from a large body of my countrymen, whose intelligence and morality qualifies them to estimate at their true value any efforts made for the welfare of the community. . Having watched your exer- tions with lively interest, I warmly rejoiced in your success; and it is my fervent prayer to God that it may be blessed through many gen- erations to you and your children." The bust, besides being an admirable like- ness, was an exquisite work of art, and it was gratifying to know that the cost of it was de- frayed by a collection, almost entirely in pence, from the operatives. Cl^aptct: IV JV A R. PHILIP GRANT, in his ''History of -^ " ^ Factory Legislation," says : "The sacri- fice made by Lord Ashley can only be appre- ciated by those who best understood the pecuniary position of this noble-minded man. He had, at that time, a large and increasing family, with an income not equal to many of our merchants' and bankers' servants, and a position as the future representative of an an- cient and aristocratic family to maintain. Po- litical power, patronage, social ties, family comforts were laid down at the feet of the fac- tory children, and freely given up to the sacred cause of which he had become the leader." Added to this was personal hostility and fierce opposition from the Prime Minister, the ruling statesmen, and the leading newspapers. That all of this was hard to be borne appears in his journal : ''By chance I picked up the Morning Post, 48 Life of Lord Shaftesbury 49 and found there the most violent and venom- ous article I ever read against any public man, directed against myself. This is only a sample of the things which I endure. ' Were I just coming into public life, I should die outright ; but though affected, I am acclimated, and having endured other attacks, shall recover a part of my health, but no more." "The tone now is, among my adversaries, 'a well-meaning, amiable sort of man, with no fragment of penetration.' " "The Times charges me with weakness. How can I be otherwise, not having in the House even a bulrush to rest upon? 'No poli- tician!' 'No statesman!' I never aspired to that character ; if I did I would not be such a fool as to attack every interest and one-half of mankind, and only on behalf of classes whose united influences would not obtain for me fifty votes." He had, however, a firm friend in Prince Albert and Queen Victoria. The Prince had said when the position was offered Lord Ash- 50 Life of Lord Shaftesbury ley which he declined to accept : "I have asked that a peer be appointed to my household; but if I can get such a man as Lord Ashley, I will gladly take a man from the House of Commons." In his journal he speaks often of the Queen's interest in him and his work : "I am here at Windsor Castle by desire of Her Majesty. From the hour she became Queen to the present day, I and mine have re- ceived one invariable succession of friendly and hospitable acts." "Dined last night at the palace. I can not but love the Queen; she is so kind and good to me and mine. Poor soul ! she was low- spirited. O that she knew what alone makes a yoke easy and a burden light !" On one occasion Prince Albert said to him: "We want to show our interest in the work- ing classes, and we have sent for you to advise us how to do it." Lord Ashley had an answer ready: "Put yourself at the head of all social movements Life of Lord Shaftesbury 51 which bear upon the poor. On the i8th of May next, the anniversary of the Laborer's Friend Society will be held, and if your Royal Highness will accompany me, first to see some of the dwellings of the poor, and afterward to preside at the meeting, I am satisfied it will have a good effect." The Prince at once fell in with the sug- gestion. But when some of the lords heard thereof, they were frantic with fear, and brought to bear every possible objection. Lord Ashley encouraged the Prince to perse- vere in his intention, as he finallv did. With his brilliant cortege he visited house after house in Lord Ashley's company, and was everywhere received with great enthusiasm. Later, when he took the chair at the meeting, he "made it the occasion for the speech which first fairly showed to the country what he was." The little touches of domestic life and affec- tion, as they appear in Lord Ashley's records, are very tender and beautiful. Beginning with 52 Life of Lord Shaftesbury the first anniversary of his marriage-day, he says: "Mark this day with the red letters of joy, hope, and gratitude. How much more I should enjoy this visit to Oxford if Minny were with me ! I can not bear the shortest separation from her." He says concerning the christening of his Httle son : "May God, in his mercy, grant that as the child was this day signed with the sign of the Cross, so he may never be ashamed to confess and fight for a crucified Savior !" "Took a walk with Minny. Much interest- ing conversation with the darling. She is a most bountiful answer to my prayers. Often do I recollect the very words of my entreaties to God, that he would give me a wife for my comfort, improvement, and safety. He has granted me to the full all that I desired, and far more than I deserved. Praised be his holy name !" "Minny is gone, and I am all alone — not a bairn with me. I now taste by separation more truly the blessings of God's goodness. Life of Lord Shaftesbury 53 His gracious bounty has JDestowed upon me a wife and children — and such a wife and such children !" "My four blessed boys brought me to-day some money for the bishopric at Jerusalem. They offered it most willingly, even joyfully." "]\Iinny and I, through God's mercy, took the sacrament together. Afterwards, towards evening, we had a walk on the seashore, while the blessed children ran about the sands. We recalled the past, and anticipated the future in faith and fear and fervent prayer." Lord Ashley next turned his attention to the "climbing boys" employed by chimney sweeps. For more than a hundred years the miseries of these poor little creatures had been kept before the public by philanthropic indi- viduals, and yet their wrongs were not abol- ished. Little children from four to eight years of age, the majority of them orphans, inveigled from poorhouses, or apprenticed by poor-law guardians, or sold by brutal parents, were trained to furce their way up the long, narrow, 54 Life of Lord Shaftesbury winding passages of chimneys to clear away the soot. In order to do this, they had to move up and down by pressing every joint in their bodies against the hai:d and often broken surface of the chimneys; and to prevent their hands and knees from bleeding, the children were rubbed with brine. Their skin being choked with soot, they were liable to a fright- ful disease called chimney-sweeper's cancer, involving one of the most terrible forms of physical suffering. They began the day's work at four, three, or even two in the morn- ing. They were half stifled by the hot sul- phurous air in the flues, and often they would get stuck in a chimney, and become uncon- scious from exhaustion and foul air. They lived in low, ill-drained, ill-ventilated cellars, and often slept on the soot-heaps. They re- mained unwashed, and on Sundays they were generally shut up together, so that the neigh- bors might not see their miserable condition. They were morally and intellectually degraded to the lowest possible point. Out of three Life of Lord Shaftesbury 55 hundred and eighty-four boys examined by the Commission, only six could write and twenty-six could read very imperfectly. The labors of Lord Ashley in Parliament were, as a rule, the least part of his work on behalf of any cause he espoused; and it was so in this case. He went to see the climbing boys at their work; he confronted the masters; he took legal proceedings at his own expense as "test cases," and even made provision for life for the poor little sufferers whom he was able to rescue from their living death. In his speech he said that he had no idea that cruelties so barbarous could be practiced in any civilized country as had come under his notice. It was a fact within his own personal knowledge that a child four and a half years old was at the present moment employed in sweeping chimneys. The practice led not only to loathsome disease, but also to extensive demoralization. The children were sent up without clothing, and often spent the night on the soot-heap unclothed. As regarded the 56 Life of Lord Shaftesbury demoralizing effect, he stated that there were at that time twenty-three climbing boys in Newgate for various offenses. He became interested in a sweep whom he first saw back of his own house in London. He tried to buy him from his master; but the master saw his advantage, and refused to re- lease him. Lord Ashley sought the unnatural father, and tempted his help by the offer of a free education. This availed, and the boy, who proved to be of a very lovable disposition, was removed from his hateful bondage to a boys' Christian school of a most pleasant sort. The bill Introduced by Lord Ashley, for- bidding the employment by chimney-sweepers of climbing boys, was opposed by the Duke of Wellington, the great insurance companies, and many of the lords who feared that the safety of the metropolis was threatened. He kept on pleading for the ''four thousand children who were at that time engaged in this disgusting and unnecessary employment." At last he took up the case of two little boys who Life of Lord Shaftesbury 57 were suffocated in chimneys, and succeeded in having one of the masters arrested and sen- tenced to six months hard labor. Then the Times took up his cause, and in the agitation his bill was passed. His records have this item, which every reformer should read : "Let no one ever despair of a good cause for want of helpers. Let him persevere, persevere, per- severe, and God will raise him up friends and assistants !" We are convinced that Lord Ashley must have been an orator of no small power. A "word-portrait," written in 1838, says: "Lord Ashley possesses the purest, palest, stateliest exterior of any man you will see in a month's perambulation of Westminster ; in- deed, it would be difficult to imagine a more complete beau-ideal of aristocracy. His de- livery is fluent ; his voice rich and fine in tone. When he addresses an audience he stands with his hand resting on the platform rail ; he looks his hearers directly in the face, and with a very slight bowing movement, barely sufificient to 58 "Life of Lord Shaftesbury save him from the appearance of stiffness, he delivers, without a moment's hesitation, and with great dignity of voice and manner, a short, serious address. The applause with which he is alwa}s heard seems rather an in- terruption than a pleasure to him. I have heard that his lordship is very nervous, and yet his most striking feature is self-possession, which he never loses for a moment." His biographer said of him near the close of his life: "Of the thousands of speeches made by Lord Shaftesbury on every conceivable sub- ject, he was always guided in their preparation b}' a few simple rules. He did not write his speeches, and never used notes. He got to- gether all his evidence and everything he wished to quote, and these he put in shape ; but the connecting matter he never formally prepared. He thought the subject well over, made himself master of the facts, and trusted for the rest to the inspiration of the moment. Life of Lord Shaftesbury 59 It was a saying of his, that it was not of great consequence how a speech was comijienced, but it was all-important how it ended, and he almost always prepared his peroration, some- times committing it to memory." Cl^apter V A X rHILE still a student, Lord Ashley be- ^ ' came greatly interested in the study of Hebrew, declaring that he loved and vener- ated the Jews and everything that concerned them. We find him sending money to a He- brew convert in Jerusalem, saying that he wished to revive the practice of apostolic times, and "make a certain contribution for the poor saints that are at Jerusalem !" He prevailed on Parliament to ask for pro- tection and encouragement for the Jews, and through his instrumentality a vice-consul was appointed from the nation and a bishop from the Church, who were to establish an Anglican bishopric in Jerusalem, and build a church on JMount Zion. He said in his plea: "For centuries, the Greek, the Romanist, the Armenian, and the Turk have had their places of worship in the city of Jerusalem. 60 Life of Lord Shaftesbury 6i The pure doctrines of the Reformation have alone been unrepresented amidst all these cor- ruptions," Frederick William IV, King of Prussia, who had always been interested in the Jews, pro- posed that the two nations unite in the sup- port of the bishopric, and so include all Prot- estant Churches in the Holy Land within its pale. This brought forth hearty ''Te Deums" from Lord Ashley, who felt that the desire of his heart was being realized. He wrote : "The beginning is made, please God, for the resto- ration of Israel. Our bishops can not endure the notion of a Jeiv elevated to the episcopate. They remember that Moses says, 'They shall be a byword,' and forget that Paul declares them 'beloved for the Father's sake.' The order of Providence now seems to be, that in proportion as we have abased the Jew, so shall we be compelled to abase ourselves. His fu- ture dignity shall be commensurate with his past degradation. Be it so; I can rejoice in 62 Life of Lord Shaftesbury Zion for a capital, in Jerusalem for a Church, and in a Hebrew for a king." Lord Ashley never had a shadow of doubt tliat the Jews were to return to their own land, that the Scriptures were to be literally ful- filled, and that the time was at hand. Indeed, it was his daily hope and prayer. He always wore on his right hand a ring, on which was engraved, ''O pray for the peace of Jeru- salem !" The words were engraven on his heart as well. In 1843, Lord Ashley took up official alli- ance with a cause which, for more than forty years, was to receive his advocacy. He spoke against the opium trade with China, which was the first great indictment of the opium trade ever uttered within the walls of Parlia- ment. The history of the exportation of opium to China by the East India Company is briefly this: The company began enriching itself by the cultivation of opium, and the sale of it to Dutch merchants and others. Then the Life of Lord Shaftesbury 63 opium was clandestinely sold to the Chinese. Some of the East India officials and London directors objected to the importation of opium into China against the wishes of its rulers. But they pocketed the revenue, and openly sold the drug in Calcutta to merchants who shipped it off to China. Chinese authorities issued edicts enforcing severe penalties on the importation. But the company compensated merchants who had suffered loss through Chi- nese interference. The intelligent class in China saw that the nation was becoming en- feebled by the growing use of opium. The emperor determined on a bold stroke. He had his commissioner seize and destroy twenty thousand chests of smuggled opium. Eng- land declared war, and defeated the Chinese in spite of their gallant resistance, and by the Treaty of Nankin five ports were thrown open to the British trade, twenty-one million dollars were paid by China as a war indemnity and as compensation for the destroyed opium, and Hong Kong became a British possession. 64 Life of Lord Shaftesbury But in spite of all pressure brought to bear on them, the Chinese steadily refused to legal- ize the opium-traffic, although it was useless to try to enforce laws against it. Such was the state of affairs when Lord Ashley began his long crusade against the opium trade. The first words on the subject in his journal are about the war: "I rejoice that this cruel and debasing opium war is terminated ; but I can not rejoice (it may be unpatriotic) in our successes. We have triumphed in one of the most lawless, unnecessary, and unfair struggles in the rec- ords of history; it was a war on which good men could not invoke the favor of Heaven, and Christians have shed more heathen blood in two years, than the heathen have shed of Christian blood in two centuries !" When he was preparing his speech he wrote : "O what a question is this opium affair! Bad as I thought it, I find it a thousand times worse, more black, more cruel, more Satanic Life of Lord Shaftesbury 65 than all the deeds of private sin in the records of prison history. O God, be thou with me in the hour of trial, and touch my lips, like Isaiah's, with fire ofT the altar !" He brought the subject before the House of Commons by moving, "That it is the opin- ion of this House that the continuance of the trade in opium, and the monopoly of its growth in the territories of British India, are destructive of all relations of amity between England and China, injurious to the manufac- turing interests of the country by the very serious diminution of legitimate commerce, and utterly inconsistent with the honor and duties of a Christian kingdom ; and that steps be taken as soon as possible to abolish the evil." He declared that he had no hostile feeling toward the East India Company, that they had conferred great benefits on the Empire they were appointed to govern, and the guilt was not theirs exclusively; it was shared by the Legislature and the whole nation. 5 66 Life of Lord Shaftesbury From the testimony of witnesses, he showed that all Chinese society, from the im- perial family down to the lowest ranks, suf- fered from the baneful effects of the drug, that officials were corrupted and multitudes ruined, and that the trade was a source of danger, shame, and disgrace to all concerned. He showed that no progress had been made in commerce with China; testimony was over- whelming that the Chinese were anxious for trade, but the opium-traffic stopped the way. He then proceeded to give a vivid description of the general effects upon its victims, of in- dulgence in opium as a luxury ; their physical, mental, and moral debility; their hideous dis- figurement and premature decay, resulting in misery almost beyond belief, destroying myri- ads of individuals annually, and casting its victims into a bondage with which no slavery on earth could compare, and from which there was scarcely a known instance of escape. It stood in the way of the progress of society, the civilization of man, and the advancement Life of Lord Shaftesbury 67 of the gospel. Opium and the Bible could not enter China together. He showed them that the Baptist Missionary Society had decided to work through the agency of American mis- sions, because the public feeling in China was so strong against the English, that if the mis- sionaries hoped to work at all, it must be through America, which had kept aloof in a great degree from the disgraceful traffic. So it had come to this, that England, which pro- fessed to be at the head of Christian nations, was shut out by her own immoral conduct from sending her own missionaries to that part of the world which she herself had opened for civilization and Christianity ! He demanded that Parliament should de- stroy the monopoly which the East India Company possessed, of the growth and manu- facture of opium in India, and prohibit the cultivation of the drug in the territories of the East India Company. The Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, asked him to withdraw his motion. He indulged in 68 Life of Lord Shaftesbury a line of argument, the gist of which was that as we could not put down gin at home, we need not concern ourselves about introducing twenty thousand chests of opium into China every year. The Times said that Lord Ashley's speech was grave, temperate, and practical, well stored with facts, authorities, and arguments, and more statesmanlike in its views than those by which it was opposed, whose arguments amounted to this: "That morality and religion, and the happi- ness of mankind and friendly relations with China, and new markets for British manufac- tures were all very fine things in their way; but that the opium trade was worth £1,200,000 a year; and upon the whole we could not af- ford to buy morality and religion, and the happiness of mankind and friendly relations with China, quite so dear." His journal has this entry: "Last night, opium! Though I did not succeed in carrying my motion, yet I made a Life of Lord Shaftesbury 69 sensible impression on the House, and, I hope, on the country. I was, perhaps, more master of myself than on any former occasion, yet down to the very moment of commencing my speech I was in great dejection. God was with me, and I reached the consciences, though I could not command the support of several members. Spoke for nearly three hours; nevertheless, the House listened to me throughout with patience and sympathy." In 1840, Lord Ashley moved in the House that a humble address be presented to Her Majesty to direct an inquiry to be made into the employment of the children of the poorer classes in mines and collieries, and in the va- rious branches of trade and manufacture in which numbers of children work together. He said in conclusion: "I have been bold enough to undertake this task because I regard the objects of it as be- ings created as ourselves, by the same Maker, redeemed by the same Savior, and destined to the same immortality. It is in this spirit I 70 Life of Lord Shaftesbury entreat the investigation and removal of those sad evils which press so deeply and extensively on such a large and such an interesting por- tion of the human race." After a short discussion, the motion was agreed to, and a commission granted, — a con- vincing proof of Lord Ashley's power as a social reformer in the House of Commons. In 1842 the report of the commission was issued. A mass of misery and depravity was unveiled, of which even the warmest friends of the laboring classes had but a faint concep- tion. A very large proportion of the workers underground were less than thirteen years of age; some of them began to toil in the pits when only four or five. Young, timid chil- dren descended the steep shafts into mines which were always damp, dark, and close; water trickled down the sides; the floor was ankle-deep in black mud, and all around a labyrinth of dark, gruesome passages. The first employment of a very young child Life of Lord Shaftesbury 71 was that of a "trapper." The ventilation of a mine was a complicated affair not easily ex- plained. Suffice it to say, that were a door or trap left open after the passage of a coal-car- riage through it the consequences would be very serious, causing perhaps an explosion. Behind each door, therefore, a little child or trapper was seated, whose duty it was, on hear- ing the approach of a whirley or coal-carriage, to pull open the door, and shut it as soon as the whirley had passed. From the time the first coal was brought forward in the morning, until the last whirley had passed at night — that is to say, for twelve or fourteen hours a day — the trapper was at his monotonous work. He had to sit alone in the pitchy darkness and the horrible silence, unable to stir for more than a dozen paces with safety, lest he should be found neglecting his duty and suffer ac- cordingly. He dared not go to sleep — the punishment was the "strap," applied with brutal severity. The mines were infested with rats, so bold t-liat they had been known to run 73 Life of Lord Shaftesbury off with the lighted candles in their mouth, and explode the gas. All the circumstances of a little trapper's life were full of horror, and upon nervous, sensitive children the effect was terrible, producing a state of imbecility and ofttimes idiocy. Except on Sunday, they never saw the sun; their meals were eaten in the dark, and they had no hours of relaxation. As they grew older, the trappers were passed on to other employments, "hurrying," "filling," "riddling," "tipping," and occasion- ally "getting," and in these labors no distinc- tion whatever was made 'between boys and girls in their mode of work, in the weights they carried, in the distances they traveled, or in their dress, which consisted of no other gar- ment than a ragged shirt or a pair of tattered trousers, "Hurrying" — that is, loading small wagons with coals, and pushing them along a passage — was a barbarous labor, performed by women as well as by children. They had to crawl on hands and knees, and draw enormous weights along shafts as narrow and as wet as L/iFE OF Lord Shaftesbury 'j^ common sewers. When the passages were very narrow, and not more than eighteen or twenty-four inches in height, boys and girls performed the work by girdle and chain; a girdle was put around the naked waist, to which a chain from the carriage was hooked and passed between the legs, and, crawling on hands and knees, they drew the carriages after them. Their little bodies were bruised and blistered from contact with the walls, and their ankles strained out of all human semblance. They did the work of beasts of burden, be- cause human flesh and blood was cheaper in some cases, and horse-labor was impossible in others. "Coal-bearing"^carrying on their backs on unrailed roads burdens from half a hun- dred weight to one hundred weight and a half — was almost always performed by girls and women, and it was a common occurrence for little children of six or seven years to carry burdens of coal of half a hundred weight up steps that, in^the aggregate, equaled an ascent 74 Life of Lord Shaftesbury fourteen times a day to the summit of St. Paul's Cathedral ! The coal was carried in a basket formed to the back, the straps of which were placed over the forehead, and the body had to be bent almost double to prevent the coals from falling. Sometimes these straps would break in ascending the ladder, when the consequences would be serious to those who were following. Another form of severe labor to which chil- dren as young as eight years of age were fre- quently put, was that of pumping water in the under-bottom of the pits. The little workers stood ankle deep in water, performing their unceasing tasks during hours as long as those in the other departments of labor, and were sometimes required to work thirty-six hours continuously. In addition to the hard labor, the apprenticed children suffered terribly from the cruelty of the overlookers, who bargained for them and used them as they pleased. Brutal punishments were inflicted for trifling offenses, and the food of the children was al- Life of Lord Shaftesbury 75 ways insufficient and of the coarsest sort. Of course, these Httle beasts of burden suffered terribly in health, and lived short lives. Acci- dents of falling down the shaft, coal falling upon them, suffocation by gas, drowning from the sudden breaking in of water, were of the most common occurrence, which better regu- lations and machinery have now made very rare. Education was totally neglected, and the morals of the people were in the lowest pos- sible state. Wages were unreasonably low, and in some districts they were paid in goods from a neighborhood shop, where the neces- saries of life were very much dearer than else- where. For all the revolting cruelties practiced upon the poor children in mines and collieries ; for all the dreadful sufferings to which they were subjected ; for all the horrible indecencies daily passing before their eyes; for all the ig- norance, licentious habits, and social disorgan- ization springing out of this state of things. 76 Life of Lord Shaftesbury the main excuse given was, that without the employment of child-labor the pits could not possibly be worked with a profit; that after a certain age the vertebras of the back do not conform to the required conditions, and there- fore the children must begin early. Further- more, unless early inured to the work and its terrors, no child would ever make a good collier. Lord Ashley exposed the iniquity of the system in a speech so powerful, that it not only thrilled the House, but sent a shudder through the length and breadth of the land. For two hours the House listened so atten- tively that even a sigh could be heard, broken only by loud and enthusiastic applause. Many men wept, and a dozen members spoke in quick succession praising Lord Ashley, and pledging themselves to his holy cause. Mr. Richard Cobden, a man of very great influ- ence who had opposed Lord Ashley every step publicly and privately, raised no objection whatever to the Mines and Collieries Bill. On Life of Lord Shaftesbury ']'] the contrary, when Lord Ashley had con- cluded his great speech — a speech he always considered one of the most successful he ever delivered — Cobden came over to him, wruns: his hand heartily, and said: "You know how opposed I have been to your views; but I do n't think I have ever been put into such a frame of mind in the whole course of my life as I have been by your speech." He subse- quently declared that from that hour he was perfectly convinced of the genuine philan- thropy of the noble lord. Prince Albert wrote him : "My Dear Lord Ashley, — I have care- fully perused your speech, and I have been highly gratified by your efforts, as well as horror-stricken by the statements which you have brought before the country. I know you do not ask for praise, and I therefore withhold it ; but God's best blessing will rest with you, and support you in your arduous but glorious task. I have no doubt but that the whole 78 Life of Lord Shaftesbury country must be with you — at all events, I can assure you that the Queen is, whom your statements have filled with the deepest sym- pathy. It would give me much pleasure to converse with you on the subject. Believe me, with my best wishes for your total success, "Ever yours truly, Albert.'* The Mines and Collieries Bill, introduced by Lord Ashley, asked that all women and children be excluded from coal-pits. It is quite impossible to understand the prolonged trouble and anxiety Lord Ashley had to en- counter in putting his bills through Parlia- ment. It was always easier to move the House of Commons than the House of Lords. In this case we find him saying : "Much, very much trouble to find a peer who would take charge of the bill. It is 'the admiration of everybody, but the choice of none.' So often refused that I felt quite hum- bled. Disappointment and apprehension lie heavy on me. I sent the bill to the Lords with Life of Lord Shaftesbury 79 deep and fervent prayer, committing it to God, as Hannah consigned her son Samuel to his blessed service. May he, in his mercy, have respect unto me and my offering ! Were it not for public opinion, I should not be able to carry one particle of the bill. The promises of the ministry are worth nothing." The long period of anxiety and disappoint- ment came to an end at last. The bill, which was one of the greatest boons ever granted to the working classes, passed the House of Lords successfully. The victory is recorded thus : "Took the sacrament on Sunday in joyful and humble thankfulness to Almighty God for the success with which he has blessed my ef- fort for the glory of his name and the welfare of his creatures." Cl^apter VI T^HE poor were constantly in Lord Ashley's ^ thoughts. If he was weary with incessant labors, he would say: "I am reminded of the poor seamstresses and factory women. How tired they must get !" If he was ill, he would compare his luxuries and tender care with the sufferings of the sick who could not afford medical attention, nor even the barest comforts of life. His biog- rapher says : "He was never too proud to grasp the hand of a poor honest man, or take up a sickly little child in his arms, or sit in the loathsome home of a poor, starving needlewoman as she plied her needle. He never spoke down to their level, but sought to raise them up to his, and his kindly words were as helpful as his kindly deeds." 80 Life of Lord Shaftesbury 8i On one occasion, when addressing an as- sembly of young men, he said : "Depend upon it, the time will come when you will bless God if your career has been one by which your fellows have been benefited and God has been honored. Christianity is not a state of opinion and speculation. Christianity is essentially practical, and I will maintain this, that practical Christianity is the greatest curer of corrupt speculative Christianity." How truly he practiced his own theory we may know from every page of his life. When in 1848 there was an outbreak of cholera in London, and every one who could was running out of the city. Lord Ashley, with his colleagues on the Board of Health, was working night and day in the very midst of the plague. Reviled by the newspapers, hampered by red-tape, he persevered in his labors; and be it remembered that it was en- tirely unpaid service which he rendered throughout the whole of the dif^cult and dan- gerous time of the existence of the Board of 82 Life of Lord Shaftesbury Health. He cared not that his service was unappreciated, but he wanted his physicians to be known. He said : "I am unable to speak with adequate praise of the medical staff, mis- erably paid as they are. They have labored even to sickness, and when struck down by the disease have hastened back to their work, not for emolument (for they received fixed salaries), but for conscience' sake. And such are the men whose scanty recompense certain gentry would reduce by ten per cent." Lord Ashley was troubled because in this perilous time there was no turning to prayer. In vain he appealed to the bishop and arch- bishop. Not until there was a panic caused by two thousand deaths in one week, was there a call for special prayer in the churches. But not until the terrible summer had passed, and a fairly clean bill of health could be returned, did Lord Ashley allow himself the rest which he so sorely needed. Night after night he tramped oflf to East London to meet his various societies of poor Life of Lord Shaftesbury 83 people, or to lead an evangelistic service. His journal has this record : "It seems occasionally a wearisome journey to undertake on dark and rainy nights; but I always rejoice when there — all is earnest, pious, simple, and consolatory. The care- worn faces of the men and women become al- most radiant with comfort." On the grand occasion of the army encamp- ing on his estate, Lord Ashley set forth in his little open carriage to meet the general and his staff. On the road he met an old woman hobbling along; he at once stopped, gave her his place in the carriage, and himself mounted the box ! In this way he drove up to the spot where, in the presence of the Prince of Wales and dukes, he was to be received with all mili- tary honors as lord-lieutenant of the county. And he was absolutely unconscious that there was anything singular in the manner of his arrival ! In 1 85 1, Lord Ashley's father died, and he became the Earl of Shaftesbury. He wrote 84 Life of Lord Shaftesbury on the day of his father's funeral : "And now I bear a new name which I did not covet ; and enter on a new career, which may God guide and sanctify ! If I can by his grace make the new name attain but to the fringes of his honor and the welfare of mankind, I shall in- deed be thankful." Some time before the death of his father, Lord Ashley had determined not to take his seat in the House of Lords. But to use his own expression, "The leading of Providence was the other way." His two Lodging-house Bills would soon pass the Commons, and he must himself pilot them through the House of Lords. It is needless to say that there was genuine sorrow that "Lord Ashley" had left the House of Commons. Sir Robert IngHs made it the occasion to speak of him on this wise: "During the last fifteen years of Lord Ash- ley's Parliamentary life he has been emphatic- ally the friend of the friendless. Every form Life of Lord Shaftesbury 85 of human suffering he has, in his place in this House, sought to lighten ; and out of this House his exertions have been such as, at first sight, might have seemed incompatible with his duties here. But he found time for all, and when absent from his place on these benches he was enjoying no luxurious ease, but was seated in the chair of a Ragged School meeting, a Scripture-reader's Association, or a Young Men's Christian Institution. I will add no more than that the life of Lord Ashley in and out of this House has been consecrated, in the memorable inscription of the great Haller, 'To Christ as found in the person oi the poor!' " In June, 185 1, Lord Shaftesbury (as he will hereafter be known) took his seat in the House of Lords, and on the evening of that day he wrote in his journal : "It seems no place for me; a 'statue gal- lery,' some say a 'dormitory.' Full half a dozen Peers said to me within as many min- 86 Life of Lord Shaftesbury utes, 'You '11 find this very different from the House of Commons: no sympathies here to be stirred.' " The following day he made his first speech in the House of Lords. It was in behalf of the inspection and registration of lodging-houses. He spoke in a low tone of voice and with great brevity, and took occasion to explain that it was the deep interest he felt in the objects of this bill, and the urgency there was for legisla- tion on the subject, 'that had induced him to address their lordships so early after his call to their lordships' House." It was an unprecedented occurrence for one member to carry a measure through all its stages in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. This was, however, ac- complished by Lord Shaftesbury, and his bill became law. It has been acted upon through- out the kingdom, and police authorities, mag- istrates, medical men, city missionaries, and all whom it concerned, have been unanimous in their testimony as to its beneficial results. Life of Lord Shaftesbury 87 Charles Dickens said to Lord Shaftesbury some years afterward, "That is the best law that was ever passed by an English Parlia- ment." Let us look for a little at the breadth of Lord Shaftesbury's sympathies and service. In 1850, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin," For years Lord Shaftesbury had watched every movement bearing upon American slavery. He had been distressed beyond measure by the Fugitive Slave Law, by which "a whole nation, blessed by God with freedom, wealth, and the Holy Scriptures, declares it to be impossible to emanicpate a slave, and penal to teach any one of them the first principles of Christianity." He wrote to Mrs. Stowe to express his admiration of her work, and his gratitude to God, who had stimulated her heart to write it. He then drew up an address from the women of England to the women of America, asking them to consider how far the system of slavery was in accordance with the Word of God, the 88 Life of Lord Shaftesbury inalienable rights of immortal souls, and the pure and merciful spirit of the Christian re- ligion. In course of time the "Address" went forth, signed by tens of thousands of the wo- men of England. While Lord Shaftesbury was engaged in this anti-slavery agitation, many of the Amer- ican papers attacked him with great severity, and urged him to turn his attention to the working classes of his own country. The ed- itor of one of the religious papers of the South was greatly roused, and in an angry article he wrote : "And who is this Earl of Shaftesbury? Some unknown lordling ; one of your modern philanthropists suddenly started up to take part in a passing agitation. It is a pity he does not look at home. Where was he when Lord Ashley was so nobly fighting for the Factory Bill and pleading the cause of the English slave? We never even heard the name of this Lord Shaftesbury then." Life of Lord Shaftesbury 89 Lord Shaftesbury enjoyed a good joke, and he often told this story with great relish. Be it known that this nobleman, Lord Shaftesbury, was called the "Father" of the Shoeblack Brigade. The Brigade was organ- ized just before the great Hyde Park Exhi- bition of 185 1. It was Lord Shaftesbury who established regular stations, and "set up" these friendless, penniless little fellows in a business which brought them one thousand pairs of shoes a day to be cleaned, and an income of twenty-five hundred dollars. To-day the Bri- gade is one of the permanent institutions of the land, having educational extensions and social improvements of many kinds. In 1855 the army of the Crimea had a ter- rible winter. The Times declared that "The noblest army England ever sent from these shores has been sacrificed to the grossest mis- management. Incompetency, lethargy, aris- tocratic hauteur, official indifference and stu- pidity, reign, revel, and riot iu the camp before 90 Life of Lord Shaftesbury Sebastopol, in the harbor of Balaklava, and in the hospitals of Scutari." "Every day fresh tidings came of privation, sickness, and death ; of unspeakable suffering from neglect; of medical stores decaying at Varna that were intended for Scutari; of tents standing in pools of water for want of imple- ments to dig trenches; of consignments of boots all for the left foot; and so forth. One good came out of the evil, destined to affect every battlefield for all future time; namely, the landing in Scutari of Miss Florence Night- ingale and the noble band of women who ac- companied her as nurses to the sick and wounded. Thus was inaugurated the Geneva Red Cross Association, which has since done so much to mitigate the horrors of war." In the face of fierce opposition in the War Department and from political lords. Lord Shaftesbury bent all his energies towards the organization of a Sanitary Commission to pro- ceed with full powers to Scutari and Balaklava, there to purify the hospitals, ventilate the Life of Lord Shaftesbury 91 ships, and exert all that science could do to save life where thousands were dying, not of their wounds, but the result of bad sanitary conditions. Florence Nightingale wrote Lord Shaftesbury some time afterwards, "That Commission saved the British army !" In the city of Florence there dwelt two small shopkeepers, Francesco and Rosa Ma- diai. They were simple, sincere, common peo- ple, who, under the influence of Protestant teaching, were led to regard the Church of Rome as in error. The Scriptures became their delight, and although warned not to read them, they persevered, and endured patiently the persecution which followed. The matter was then referred to the Grand Duke of Tus- cany, who condemned them to five years' im- prisonment with hard labor in the galleys. When this story reached the ears of Shaftes- bury, he wrote Prince Albert, calling his atten- tion to it. The King of Prussia was asked to make a joint representation with the Queen, and send a deputation to intercede with the 92 Life of Lord Shaftesbury Grand Duke. The deputation set forth, but was unable to effect anything. The Grand Duke replied : "They are Tuscan subjects, and have been condemned to five years' of punishment for propagating Protestantism, which is forbidden by our laws as an attack upon the religion of the State." Lord Shaftesbury at once announced that he would start off in search of the Madiai. He agitated the subject before Parliament and in the newspapers. All the country was aroused, and the Grand Duke could no longer stand the storm of indignation which he had aroused. The Madiai were set at liberty. We would expect that Lord Shaftesbury would take a lively interest in the Sepoy Re- bellion, as he did. He had the courage to arraign the Government of India. He urged repeatedly that, instead of "harping upon that odious word, neutrality in religion, there should be a distinct and manful acknowledg- ment of Christianity on the part of the Gov- Life of Lord Shaftesbury 93 ernment." Throughout this anxious period, when the past and future of English dominion in India were in question, he showed them that the revolt had opened up a wide and noble field for Christian enterprise, and he urged upon all missionary societies the necessity of sending forth missionaries and copies of the Bible. When peace was restored, he began an in- vestigation of the factory system of India, which resulted in an Address to Her Majesty, praying her to instruct the Viceroy of India to take into immediate consideration the neces- sity of passing a law for regulating the labor of women and children in the factories of In- dia. The movement was a success as far as Lord Shaftesbury was concerned. The bill was passed in India, but has not accomplished all that was designed, because there was no public opinion in India to demand that its provisions be enforced. The high position Lord Shaftesbury main- tained in the political world, and his reputation 94 Life of Lord Shaftesbury as a lover of humanity, made him to be sought by men of all nationalities. Thus it happened naturally that those who were struggling for the freedom of Italy wrote Lord Shaftesbury. He replied with a letter of fervent sympathy and commendation. This brought a letter from Garibaldi, as follows : "My Lord, — You have, in two letters pub- lished in the papers, done justice to the Ital- ians, and have assumed the patronage of their noble cause. I express to you, in the name of my country, the deepest sense of gratitude. Accept, my Lord, that of a soldier and your devoted G. Garibaldi." Lord Shaftesbury replied, urging Garibaldi to come in person and receive a manifestation of hearty approbation. He declared that the great general, "as the representative of a gen- erous and oppressed people struggling for civil and religious liberty, would call forth such an Life of Lord Shaftesbury 95 expression of national feeling as would be, if possible, equal to the occasion and the merits of the man." In 1864, Garibaldi came to England. Lord Shaftesbury was his constant companion the whole of the time he was in London, never leaving him, in fact, except when Garibaldi "would go to the opera." One of the subjects which particularly in- terested Garibaldi during his visit was Lord Shaftesbury's work in relation to the housing of the poor. He obtained all the information he could, with a view to the construction of better dwelling-houses for the working classes in Italy. When they parted, Lord Shaftesbury presented him with a copy of the New Testa- ment in Italian. It had this interest attached to it, that it was the only copy of the Scrip- tures that was finished printing while Gari- baldi was in Rome. In giving it, Lord Shaftesbury begged him, as a personal favor, that he would read it, and this Garibaldi prom- 96 Life of Lord Shaftesbury ised he would do. He left in Lord Shaftes- bury's hand a little note full of tender thank- fulness. -Of that name," said Lord Shaftesbury, referring to Garibaldi in a speech, "no man can speak without emotion. He is a man that rep- resents in himself the best qualities that adorn mankind." In 1863 all civilized nations were thrilled with horror at the cruel manner in which Rus- sia was engaged in putting down an insurrec- tion in Poland. The tyranny of Russia had provoked some bloody struggles, and when in i86i some thirty thousand Poles were as- sembled near a battle-field engaged in singing hymns and prayer for the souls of those who had fallen, and the Russian cavalry rushed m and slaughtered numbers of them, intense na- tional feeling was kindled. The indignant populace joined in other demonstrations of a patriotic character, and the result was fresh massacres by the Russian soldiery. The Poles were forbidden to meet together, even in the Life of Lord Shaftesbury 97 churches, and all who were mourning for rela- tives killed in the massacres were severely pun- ished. The great nations tried to intervene diplomatically, but their remonstrances were utterly disregarded by the Czar. "Every- where in Poland blood was flowing freely, and the midnight sky was red with the flames of burning villages and homesteads. Fines and confiscations brought all the wealthier inhab- itants to the verge of ruin, and the whole pop- ulation of suspected villages was put to the sword." A great meeting convened in the name of the Lord Mayor in London, to express Eng- lish sympathy with the Poles. Lord Shaftes- bury made the address, which he considered the greatest speech he ever made. Referring to it twenty 3^ears afterward, he said, "It tore me to pieces to deliver it." When he was pleading the cause of oppressed nationalities his utterances had a peculiar pathos and power. It was in vain that the great nations used all of their diplomacy and moral influ- 7 98 Life of Lord Shaftesbury ence. Poles were executed, driven off to Si- beria in crowds, and Poland lost her last item of independence. The Franco-Prussian war brought him an immense increase of labor and anxiety. He set forth the Christian duty of relieving the horrors of war. He urged that the distribu- tion of help be given equally to French and Germans. The result of his agitation was the establishment of the National Society for Aid- ing the Sick and Wounded in time of War," of which Lord Shaftesbury became president, and in whose operations he took an active part. Thus the loving thought and care of this sreat-hearted man included equally the little friendless child and the nations of the earth. Cl^aptet VII T ORD SHAFTESBURY'S interest in the ■■— ' religious life of England is no small part of his own history. In 1836, when he was only thirty-five years of age, he presided at a meeting of clergy and laity to discuss the best method of "extending the means of grace in and to necessitous parishes, in strict conformity with the spirit, constitution, and discipline of the Established Church." The result of this meeting was the estab- lishment of the Church Pastoral Aid Society — "for the purpose of benefiting the popula- tion of our own country, by increasing the number of working clergymen in the Church of England, and encouraging the appoint- ment of pious and discreet laymen as helpers to the clergy in duties not ministerial." The Society at once met with opposition and condemnation. It was declared that it 99 loo Life of Lord Shaftesbury was started without Episcopal sanction, and was false to the principles of the Church. The High Church party objected to the lay agency to be employed. Some contended that the laymen should be only those who were can- didates for holy orders. Many bishops, who were willing that laymen should labor for the spiritual welfare of those around them, ob- jected to a distinct order of lay teachers, who, they claimed, would not be amenable to ec- clesiastical authority. The Society was desirous to be at peace with all men, and yet it was unwilling to aban- don lay agency. It finally compromised by declaring that lay agents might be employed in destitute places, even if not candidates for holy orders, but they would be under the di- rection of the clergy of that district. When this decision was announced, Gladstone (then a young man of twenty-six), who had been vice-president of the Society, withdrew, and established an institution called "The Addi- tional Curates' Society." Life of Lord Shaftesbury ioi Shaftesbury's biographer writes : "The first vears of the existence of the Pastoral Aid So- ciety were years of trial, difficulty, and cease- less controversy, and entailed upon Lord Shaftesbury an enormous amount of labor. His good judgment, his tact in smoothing down differences, his experience of the re- quirements of poor and neglected parishes, his patient attention to the details of every new move of the Society, and the influence of his tongue and pen, were invaluable at this time. For nearly fifty years he was hardly ever ab- sent from the chair on the occasion of the annual meeting, and always reserved for that meeting the full expression of his opinion on the state of the Church and the signs of the times. His speeches on behalf of the Pastoral Aid Society give the religious history of nearly half a century. "Lord Shaftesbury was appalled to find, from reliable authority, the state of spiritual destitution prevalent in many parts of the country. He was surprised to learn from offi- I02 Life of Lord Shaftesbury cial documents that one hundred thousand souls were, in spite of every effort, annually added to those who, in Protestant England and under the wing of an Established Church, had neither pastors, sacraments, nor public worship, but were left unheeded, with no man to care for their souls. It w^as this sense of ever-increasing need that urged him to make the Pastoral Aid Society the efficient institu- tion it has become; and from first to last he claimed for it, in spite of all argument to the contrary, full recognition as a Church of Eng- land Society, regarding the wants of the Church on the one hand, and observing the order of the Church on the other." In 1 841 and 1842 there was a crisis in the history of religious thought in England. Ra- tionalism, imported from Germany, was mak- ing rapid advances ; but the Church was in far greater danger from ''foes within." The High Church party issued "Tracts for the Times," as they were called, being, indeed, statements favorable to popery and the confessional. The Life of Lord Shaftesbury 103 University of Oxford was the center of the Tractarian movement, but every section of the Christian Church felt its influence. The prin- cipal leaders of the Oxford School were the "seraphic Keble," Richard Froude, Dr. Pusey, and John Henry Newman. Their claim was that the real Catholic Church was the Church of England ; that the successors of the apostles were to be found in her. "The battle of the Reformation had to be fought over again," and for forty years Lord Shaftesbury was one of the leaders in the fight on the Evangelical side. He wrote to Sir Robert Peel, who was about to become Prime ^Minister: "The Church will present more serious dif- ficulties than any other matter of Government. There are now within its bosom two parties, divided against each other on principles irrec- oncilable, heart-stirring, and vital. The party denominated the Puseyites are strong in num- ber, possess character and learning, but are confined chiefly to the clergy. Their oppo- nents are the majority, but do not enjoy the I04 Life of Lord Shaftesbury advantage of being concentrated in a univer- sity; they have more piety and less reading, but carry with them the great body of the laity. These parties regard each other with the greatest dislike and suspicion. The Pusey- ites consider their opponents as little better than Dissenters, the Evangelicals look upon the Puseyites as almost papists. The Pusey- ites assert that the Evangelicals depreciate the authority of the Church and the Fathers; the Evangelicals maintain that the Puseyites pre- fer it to the Bible. My purpose is to point out to you the consequences that must come from the elevation to high ecclesiastical offices of persons distinguished for the new opinions. The Church will be shaken by violent commo- tions. My belief is that many of that party are actually Romanists in creed, and will declare themselves to be such, whenever conscience gets the better of Jesuitry." This last was a prophecy which was fulfilled in due time. The Puseyites put forward as candidate for the chair of Poetry at Oxford a man who pro- Life of Lord Shaftesbury 105 miilgated their views. Lord Shaftesbury re- fused to vote for him, and instead supported a man with Evangelical sympathies. Shaftes- bury's man was elected. His correspondence with his opponents, Dr. Pusey (who was his cousin) and Rev. John Keble, show the spirit in which he conducted his opposition. He writes to Dr. Pusey: "Every one, however deep his piety, how- ever holy his belief, however simple and per- fect his reliance on the merits of his Redeemer, is consigned by you, if he be not episcopally ruled, to the outer darkness of the children of the devil, while in the same breath you desig- nate the Church of Rome as the sweet spouse of Christ, and hide all her abominable idol- atries under the mantle of her bishops. This is, to my mind, absolutely dreadful. "For yourself, I must ever entertain real kindness and esteem. No one, amidst all this conflict of passion and principle, has at any time doubted your sincerity and devotion. It is sad that we differ, but let not that difference io6 Life of Lord Shaftesbury amount to enmity. I have enough of foes ; my public course has begotten me many haters among the powerful and wealthy. You and I have now lived more than half our time, ac- cording to the language of the psalmist. We are hastening to the grand end of all thif.gs, and then may God lead you unto living foun- tains of water, and in his mercy wipe away all tears from your eyes !" Closing a letter to Keble, he writes : "Perhaps you have forgotten, what I well recollect, that you were one of the examining masters when I took my degree some nine- teen years ago. Your amiable and gentleman- like demeanor then made an impression on my mind which has never been effaced. I can not take leave of you without adding that I shall always think of you with respect, not unmingled with affection." In 1844, Keble wrote: "We go on working in the dark, and in the dark it will be, until the rule of systematic confession is revived in our Church." Life of Lord Shaftesbury 107 An effort was then made to get an endow- ment for a Catholic college, which was suc- cessful. The next move was by the Church of Rome, declaring that England had been re- stored to the Romish communion, and would henceforth be ecclesiastically governed by the new hierarchy. A great meeting was held in London to invoke aid for the suppression of Romish innovation in the Church of England. Lord Shaftesbury presided, and in a great speech full of wise forecasting and burning patriot- ism he made a profound impression, which produced immediate results. The Roman Catholics in England saw with regret the results of their policy. They sent up an ad- dress of loyalty to the Queen, and asserted the purely spiritual character of their organiza- tion. A Roman Catholic peer publicly re- gretted the ill-advised measure of the Roman pontiff, which had placed English Catholics in the position of having "either to break with io8 Life of Lord Shaftesbury Rome, or violate their allegiance to the Queen." The more prominent Ptiseyites went over to the Catholic Church, and Lord Shaftesbury thanked God, and took courage. Who but a leader of great wisdom and mighty influence could have led the multitudes through those trying times? Lord Shaftesbury, although a Protestant of the Protestants, entertained most charitable views towards Catholics. He voted and worked for Catholic emancipation. He was a trusted co-worker with a big-hearted Cath- olic woman, who was carrying out a coloniza- tion scheme. He always spoke with deepest respect of the Sisters of Mercy, who went about doing good. It was only when clergy- men of the Established Church, whose hearts were with the pope, sought to get control of the Church, or to seize or enslave his country, that he assumed a bold defensive. As we shall see, he found the Established Church cold and apathetic and very conserv- ative concerning the philanthropic reforms Life of Lord Shaftesbury 109 which were of such vital interest to him. When he was trying to get the Ten-hour Bill for factory women, he wrote : "I find, as usual, the clergy are m many cases frigid; in some few, hostile. At first I could get none. I fear that many of them are timid, time-serving, and worshipers of wealth and power. I can scarcely remember an instance in which a clergyman has been found to maintain the cause of laborers in the face of pewholders." On another like occasion he wrote plaint- ively: "As usual the 'saints' were against me, and the 'sinners' were my helpers." His journal has this record: "To-day I presided at a Mothers' Meeting in Westminster. A wonderful, a miraculous spectacle! It was a sight to bless God for; such a mighty reformation of drunken, idle, profligate, dirty, and cruel parents ! As usual, none of the clergy were there. A work of this kind, and of this high and spiritual character, effected by an unordained person, a humble layman, who, without the intervention of a no Life of Lord Shaftesbury bishop or a college education, had nothing but the grace of God and the Holy Scriptures, is too powerful, too convincing, too irresis- tible. It overwhelms 'apostolical succession' by an avalanche of practical truth." His creed was of the simplest sort. This is revealed in a record made one Good Friday : "As I taught my little children to-day, it seemed to me wonderful in how small a com- pass is contained the whole sum and substance of Christian religion. Volumes without end, years of study, years of controversy, immense thought, immense eloquence, all expended, and mostly wasted, to dilate or torture that which may be comprehended by the under- standing and relished by the soul of a simple child. What will all the learning of the world add to the plain facts of the fall of man and his salvation by Jesus Christ?" He said to his biographer: "I am an Evangelical of the Evangelicals. I have worked with them constantly, and I am satisfied that most of the great philanthropic I^iFE OF Lord Shaftesbury hi movements of the century have sprung from them. I believe in the necessity of a *new birth' through the revelation to each individ- ual soul, by the agency of the Holy Spirit and the Word. I believe in the Christian life as a humble, continuous trust in the Atoning Blood, a simple faith in Scripture, a constant prayerfulness, and a recognition of the hand of God in all the events of life. "I believe that the sole remedy for the dis- tracted state of the Church is to do what we can to evangelize the people by preaching on every occasion and in every place, in the grandest cathedral and at the corner of the street, in the royal palace and in the back slums, preaching Christ to the people. I do believe that the preaching of Christ is still the power of God unto salvation. If it has ceased to produce its effect, it is because so many of the sermons (not from Church of England pulpits alone, but also from some Noncon- formists), instead of setting forth the gospel in its simple yet majestic power, are mere milk- 112 Life of Lord Shaftesbury and-water dilutions of the saving truths. This may satisfy fine folks, but the great mass of the poorer sort of people and our agricultural laborers will either have religion of the best quality, or none at all. I have been very much among this class, and I know that the religion for them is that which addresses itself to their inmost affections, softens all their sorrows, and alleviates their miseries by showing them that they bave ttie sympathy of their fellow-men and the still higber sympathy of a Heavenly Father. "I remember one night at the George Yard Ragged School. A magic-lantern had been purchased to interest the poor things, and I went down to have a talk with them. Some pictures on the Life of Christ were to be ex- hibited. There were about four hundred peo- ple in the room, and the police told me that between four and five hundred were turned away. The interest in the pictures was in- tense, and I shall never forget their earnest, excited faces as the scenes in the sacred drama passed before them. The last picture repre- Life of Lord Shaftesbury 113 sented our Lord standing beside a closed door, and the text at the foot of the picture was, 'Behold, I stand at the door and knock.' The effect was startling; it seemed to bring the story home to every heart, and when I said, 'What you see there is going on at the door of every house in Whitechapel,' they were moved to tears. It was a revelation to them, and when I told them that if they w^ould throw open the door He would 'come and sup with them,* there was something so coz}^ and com- fortable to them in the idea of it, that they came pouring round me and thanking me. Poor, dear souls! they do not care much for churches and chapels and the outward forms; they like their religion to be cozy. It fills them with hope of what may some day be their lot, for now they have no comforts in their lives. I wonder how it is they do not die of despair!" As late as 1855 Lord Shaftesbury found an unrepealed law forbidding gospel teaching and worship in private houses where, beside 8 114 Life of Lord Shaftesbury the family, more than twenty persons were gathered. Any rehgious gathering not under the protection of the Established Church might be dispersed. Lord Shaftesbury moved for its repeal. He presented the facts: mil- Hons of non-church-goers; all the Churches together unable to overcome the prevailing immorality and infidelity; and this law in full force, which could shut up every Sunday- school, Cottage School, Ragged School, and city mission. Strangely enough, he encoun- tered fierce opposition. Some said that the decree was a dead letter. He replied that "a dormant reptile is not dead, and may be warmed into life when occasion serves.'* Lord Shaftesbury, with his accustomed zeal, investigated the working of the law, and found that it had been repeatedly used for pur- poses of intimidation, and he quoted a case in which it had been enforced: A gentleman, a county magistrate in a northern county, early in 1854, came to reside on his estate, and found the parish in a most Life of Lord Shaftesbury 115 neglected condition. At the gates of his park was a large coal-mine, and a dense population around it. One evening in every week he went to the largest cottage, read a chapter of the Bible and some religious tracts. The meetings were largely attended; but after a few months he was obliged to close the serv- ice. And why? It was hinted to him that per- sons were about to bring information against him for a breach of the Conventicle Act. He, being an active county magistrate, felt that it was not right in him to set an example of breaking the law, so he gave up his reading. The gentleman might have had a cock-fight or any sort of amusement, and nobody would have objected to it, but the moment this gen- tleman, commiserating the religious destitu- tion of the people, went to their cottages, read to them a chapter in the Bible, and joined with them in religious worship, the law said, "Mind what you are doing, for if you are caught at this again, you will be fined £20." Eleven bishops opposed the repeal of this ii6 Life of Lord Shaftesbury law, and finally offered a clause granting per- mission to offer prayer in opening or closing a service. The very idea of "permission" to pray was intolerable to Lord Shaftesbury. "It may as well be said," he exclaimed, in- dignantly, "that I am to have permission to breathe the air !" The law was repealed by a majority of one vote. In speaking of the opposition which met him in his own Church, he said: "They call me a Dissenter and the greatest schismatic who was ever produced. A schis- matic, according to the Bible, is one who de- nies the doctrines which Christ taught. But to apply this word to one because he can not con- form to all the decrees of the bishops and every form of priestly assumption is, I hold, a great profanation of the word, and a want of principle in the man who so dares to use it." He was so in the habit of looking at every question from the standpoint of the poor, that Life of Lord Shaftesbury 117 when the subject of Evening Communion was being considered by the clergy, he made a strong plea in favor thereof. He said : "We must remember that vast numbers of these people have not a moment's leisure from domestic duties until the evening, and the rec- tors of large parishes tell me that for one poor man or woman who has attended morning communion, fifteen have attended evening communion. And it is the testimony of those who have witnessed such scenes, that it is quite refreshing to observe the earnest, humble, and devout manner in which these poor creatures assemble around the table of their blessed Lord. If it is announced that the ministers do not care to consider their convenience and necessities, they will certainly stay away from the churches altogether. And how, I ask you, in such a refusal, can the Church of England call herself the 'Church of the People?' " He was a warm advocate of open-air preaching, and, in fact, was an open-air ii8 Life of Lord Shaftesbury preacher himself, having spoken most effect- ively on such occasions. He said of them: "I look upon these services as perfectly- normal; they are certainly primitive. The very earliest preaching of the gospel was in the open air, on the shores of the Lake of Gali- lee, by our blessed Lord himself. And they are unquestionably ecclesiastical. In the ear- liest times of the Reformation there was open- air preaching at Paul's cross. All the wor- thiest of the bishops preached there; there, too, Bishop Latimer preached to hundreds those words of truth which brought forth good fruit." In 1857 we find Lord Shaftesbury rejoic- ing that a special religious service was to be held in Exeter Hall on Sunday evenings. They were designed to bring the clergy and people more closely together, and to remove the impression that the clergy were "only gen- tlemen who wore black coats and received large salaries." They appealed especially to the working classes, by providing that there Life of Lord- Shaftesbury 119 should be no distinction of persons, no re- served seats, no collections, and, in short, that every one should be on the same footing as if he were the first man in the land. Twelve services were held, and, notwith- standing the heat of the weather, five thousand eager listeners thronged the hall, and half as many more were sent away for want of room. At this juncture the clergy of that parish forbade the minister who had been engaged to ofificiate at those unusual services. Al- though Lord Shaftesbury doubted the legality of the inhibition, his judgment was overruled, and the services were stopped. Application was made for another hall, but this clergyman was afraid of an irregular service, and forbade it. Just here the Nonconformists came to his help, and of them he declared in his speech: "To the members of the Nonconformist body we owe a debt of gratitude for the man- ner in which our places have been supplied. They have, in this instance, acted with a deli- cacy and -a forbearance which redound infi- I20 Life of Lord Shaftesrury nitely to their credit. They declined to engage Exeter Hall until they had ascertained that it would be quite impossible for us to renew our services; and having taken the hall, they of- fered to give it up whenever we might desire. They selected the hymns which we used to have sung, and the officiating minister read a lesson and a portion of the Litany of the Church of England, while in his discourse he never, directly or indirectly, alluded to the difficulties under which the Church of Eng- land was placed, or to the freedom of the party to which he belonged." Lord Shaftesbury proposed a clause to the Religious Worship Act which would legalize these services, but it was refused. The Arch- bishop of Canterbury introduced a bill mak- ing necessary the sanction of the bishops, and this was carried, and after some delay the sanction was obtained. In i860 seven great theaters were opened for religious worship, with an average attend- ance of twenty thousand people. Lord Life of Lord Shaftesbury 121 Shaftesbury often led those vast meetings him- self. It was an interesting sight when he stood upon the stage, Bible in hand, and read a chapter of the "sweet story of old." From floor to ceiling, the great house was thronged : costermongers, street-cadgers, and laborers; women in fluttering rags, many with babies in their arms; boys in their shirt-sleeves; young men and maidens in their gaudy "Sunday best." Before the service there was much con- fusion, but when the opening prayer was of- fered, the silence throughout the whole house was intense and solemn. When Lord Shaftes- bury rose to read the Scripture, there was a buzz of approbation. Like the priests in Ezra, he "read in the book of the law of God dis- tinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading," and thereby touched their hearts and consciences. When the preacher told the simple story of the gos- pel of Christ, the people listened as if they had never heard the subject before. It soon became apparent that these services 132 Life of Lord Shaftesbury were accomplishing a vast amount of good. As we might expect, the movement did not meet with universal approval. A certain Lord Dungannon arose in the House of Lords "to call attention to the performance of divine service at the theaters Sunday evenings, and to move a resolution that such services were highly irregular, and calculated to injure the progress of sound religious principles." Lord Shaftesbury, "the only culprit in the House, and one of the principal movers in originating these services," replied. His speech was the most interesting of its kind ever heard in that august House, With terri- ble earnestness, in graphic language, he held his audience for nearly three hours as he told the story of the movement. He quoted letters from the chief of police, testifying that at every service the people had conducted themselves with the greatest propriety. In conclusion, he said: "My lords, you must perceive the rising struggle to get the gospel. Will you say to Life of Lord Shaftesbury 123 these destitute and hungering men, 'Come, if you like, to Episcopal Churches, and there you shall be preached to in stiff, steady, buckram style? We will have you within walls conse- crated in official form; otherwise you shall never hear from us one word of gospel truth !' "Do you admit that the Church of England is bound so tightly by rule and rubric? In that case the people will reply : 'Let the Non- conformists do the work then, but let the Church of England take up her real position as the Church of a sect, and not that of a na- tion!" It was perceived that Lord Shaftesbury had the sympathy of a majority of the House, and Lord Dungannon withdrew his motion. Contrary to what one would expect, Lord Shaftesbury was not in sympathy with the Sal- vation Army movement. When It was only a year old, he was invited to join. He refused, and gave his reasons. He felt that the ex- cesses of the Army produced great Irreverence of thought and action, turning religion into 124 Life of Lord Shaftesbury a play, and making it grotesque. He could not believe that the proceedings were founded on Scripture. He acknowledged that there was need of an increase of lay missions in the great city, and he spoke with great respect of the gifts and influence of General and Mrs. Booth, while he commended their temperance work as the strongest point of the Salvation Army. Lord Shaftesbury was a stout opponent of the revision of the Bible. But after the re- vision appeared, he acknowledged that his fears had not been realized. He feared that the sturdy Saxon would be set aside for Frenchified or Italian words. He speaks lov- ingly of the "racy old language, which is music to everybody's ears, and which, like Handel's music, carries divine truth and comfort to the soul." He rejoiced to know that the King James Version was not set aside, but loved and studied more than before. For the Young Men's Christian Associ- ation Lord Shaftesbury entertained an almost Life of Lord Shaftesbury 125 parental affection, and was wont to speak of its members as his sons. He said : "I have al- ways looked upon this association and all kin- dred associations in all parts of the United Kingdom and in America as grand cities of refuge." In 1875, Moody and Sankey commenced a series of "revival-meetings" at Islington. Lord Shaftesbury contributed to the fund, and regarded the arrival of Mr. Moody as that of the right man at the right hour. His descrip- tion of the service is most interesting as com- ing from a Church of England man. He says : "The music was the simplest possible, adapted to the poorest and least taught mind. And yet it went to the inmost soul, and seemed to empty it of everything but the thought of the good, tender, and lowly Shep- herd. The preacher was clad in ordinary dress; his language was colloquial, abounding in effective illustrations, often bordering on the humorous. The voice was ill-managed. There is no eloquence, and yet the result is 126 Life of Lord Shaftesbury striking and effective. These two simple, un- lettered men from the other side of the Atlan- tic have had no theological training and never read the Fathers ; they are totally without skill in delivery, and have no pretensions to the hio-hest order of rhetoric. God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. Moody will do more in an hour than Canon Liddon in a century. I agree with Gamaliel, 'If this thing be of men, it will soon come to naught; but if it be of God, ye can not fight against it.' To my mind there is something in it superhuman." Lord Shaftesbury's friendship with Mr. Spurgeon, the well-known Baptist minister of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, was close and beautiful. In spite of the eccentricities of his eariy days. Lord Shaftesbury prophesied that his great gifts would become the inheritance of the whole Church of Christ. Cl^apter Vin TN 1843, I-'Ord Shaftesbury first turned his -'■ attention toward the Ragged School ques- tion. For some years the condition of the waifs, the vagrants, and outcasts of London had been a source of great anxiety 'to him. Because they seemed utterly neglected and left to perish, soul and body, his big loving heart took them in. But the problem of how to reach them and how to hold them was a great one. It was in his thought day and night. And in the meantime he saw that there was growing up in London an enormous population of thieves and vagabonds. He did not know of any effort that was being made to reclaim them. "They lived in filthy dwell- ings or under arches; they begged or stole; they grew up in horrible ignorance of every- thing that was good, and with a horrible knowledge of everything that was evil; and 127 128 Life of Lord Shaftesbury sooner or later they became acquainted with the prison or the hangman." One February day, Lord Shaftesbury read in the Times this advertisement : Ragged Schools. field lane sabbath-school "The Teachers are desirous of laying before the public a few facts connected with this school, situated in this most wretched and de- moralized locality. It was opened in 1841 for instructing, free of expense, those who, from their poverty or ragged condition, are pre- vented from attending any other place of re- ligious instruction. The school is superin- tended by the London City ^Mission, and is opened on Sunday and Thursday evening with an attendance of seventy adults and children. The teachers are encouraged by the measure of success which has attended them. But money and teachers are needed at once to give permanency to a work of charity, com- t> Life of Lord Shaftesbury 129 menced and supported by a few laymen whose means are inadequate." Lord Shaftesbury said : "I never read an advertisement with keener pleasure. I could not regard it as other than a direct answer to my frequent prayer." The first reply to this notice was from him. He entered heartily into the movement, and from that day to the close of his life he was the champion and leader of every effort in be- half of Ragged Schools. He made himself personally acquainted with every detail of the work, and the neigh- borhood in which it was carried on. Field Lane, where the Ragged School was situated, was one of the most disreputable parts of Lon- don. It was in the heart of what was known as "Jack Ketch's Warren," so named because a great number of the people who were hanged at Newgate came from this district. The disturbances which occurred here were of so desperate a character that policemen vis- ited it in companies of forty or fifty, well- 130 Life of Lord Shaftesbury armed men, it being unsafe to act in fewer numbers. "For a century this district had been the resort of the most notorious evil-doers. Some of the houses were close beside the Fleet Ditch, and were filled with dark closets, trap- doors, sliding panels, and other means of con- cealment and escape, while extensive base- ments served for the purpose of concealing stolen goods, and in others there were furnaces used by coiners. On the north side of the street were a number of tenements fearful to approach, called Black Boy Alley. The method pursued by the Black Boy Alley Gang was to entice the unwary by means of prosti- tutes; then gag them so that they could not give the alarm ; after which they would drag their victims to one of their dens, and, hav- ing robbed and murdered them, throw their dead bodies down into the ditch. These atrocities became so common that special steps were taken by the Government to pursue Life of Lord Shaftesbury 131 the offenders, nineteen of whom were exe- cuted at one time." In such a locality as this the Ragged School work was born. It was not long before Lord Shaftesbury was as famiHar with this district of Field Lane as with the neighborhood of Grosvenor Square, where he Hved. Only a genuine love for human beings could have drawn Lord Shaftesbury from his happy home to these loathsome haunts, where visitors must close their senses to sickening sights and sounds and smells. Charles Dickens described his visit to this Ragged School when it was first started, and again after Lord Shaftesbury had taken it under his protection. "I found the Ragged School pitifully strug- gling for life under every disadvantage. It had no means; it had no suitable rooms; it derived no power or protection from being recognized by any authority; it attracted within its walls a fluctuating swarm of faces, 132 Life of I^ord Shaftesbury young in years, but youthful in nothing else. It was held in a low-roofed den, in a sickening atmosphere, in the midst of taint and dirt and pestilence, with all the deadly sins let loose, howling and shrieking at the doors. The teachers knew little of their office. The pupils derided them, sang, fought, danced, robbed each other, seemed possessed by legions of devils. Some two years ago I, found it quiet and orderly, lighted with gas, well white- wasbed, numerously attended, and thoroughly established." Under Lord Shaftesbury's direction there was established a free day-school for infants; an evening school for youths and adults; a woman's evening school to teach housekeep- ing and other domestic arts; industrial classes to teach youths tailoring and shoemaking; a home for boys ; a night refuge for the utterly destitute; a clothing society for the naked; a distribution of bread to the starving; baths for the filthy; Bible-classes, through which about ten thousand persons were brought to Life of Lord Shaftesbury 133 know the gospel story; a school missionary, who scoured the streets and brought in the wanderers ; and a Ragged Church for the wor- ship of God. "Having taken the matter in hand, he at once proceeded to get a firm grip of it by seeing for himself everything that was to be seen in connection with the work, and hearing for himself all that was to be heard. He went into the vilest rookeries, and became ac- quainted with the most ignorant and de- praved. He visited the few Ragged Schools that were in existence at that time, and in- spired hope and courage in the teachers by his presence. He took his place in the school beside them, and spoke kindly words to the wondering listeners. A strange sight was a Ragged School audi- ence in those days. There were to be seen the cunning expression of the cadger; the sharp, acute face of the street minstrel ; the coster- monger out of work ; the cropped head of the felon, who had just left prison ; the pallid and 134 Life of Lord Shaftesbury thinly-clad woman weakened by long-continued sickness and penury; tke spare form of him who, once in affluence, had wasted his substance in riotous living. And among this motley assem- bly Lord Shaftesbur}' would sit, with his calm eyes gazing sorrowfully upon them, and his pleasant voice tr^'ing to utter words of hope." When he saw what was being accomplished in one district, he longed to have the work ex- tend. Isolated efforts could not affect the general condition of the waifs and strays of the metropolis. There were thousands of the children of the lowest and most ignorant classes springing up, sturdy of growth as weeds in a wheatfield. "They swarmed the streets; they gamboled in the gutters; they haunted the markets in search of castaway food; they made playgrounds of the open spaces; they lurked under porches of public buildings in hot and wet weather; and they crept into stables or under arches for their night's lodging. They lived as the street dogs lived, and were treated much in the same way; Life of Lord Shaftesbury 135 everybody exclaimed against the nuisance, but nobody felt it to be his business to interfere. The first practical effort to reach these street Arabs was to lure them to the Ragged Schools." It was at just this time that three Ragged School teachers, men in humble positions, met and discussed the hardest problem of the day. They resolved, "That to give perma- nence, regularity, and vigor to existing schools, and to promote the formation of new ones throughout the metropolis, it is advisable to call a meeting of superintendents, teachers, and others interested in these schools for this purpose." This was the beginning of the Ragged School Union. Lord Shaftesbury was very scrupulous about giving honor to whom honor was due, and when he was called the founder of the Ragged Schools he modestly declared that while he would rejoice if it were true, he was neither the founder of the schools nor the Ragged School Union. 136 Life of Lord Shaftesbury This, however, is true, that from the time he joined the movement, it grew marvelously in importance and power, and for forty years his love and zeal in its behalf knew no abate- ment. The Executive Committee consisted of Shaftesbury, William Locke, and Joseph Gent, whose names appeared in all public announce- ments and on the certificates of deserving scholars. Curiously enough, these names stood in a similar position two hundred and fifty years ago in a bit of history connected with America. King Charles II gave to the first Earl of Shaftesbury a tract of land in America in the latitude of Charleston City. The two rivers bounding the city north and south were named Cooper River and Ashley River, in honor of the Earl. He framed a constitution for the embryo colonies, and called to his help the illustrious Locke and a man named Gent, who visited America, and whose emigrants built Life of Lord Shaftesbury 137 the village which subsequently became the city of Charleston. Shaftesbury's biographer compares the work of the two sets of men, and says: "The labors of the latter trio have been to reclaim the moral wilderness, to purify and cultivate the moral wastes, and to set up spiritual fort- resses that shall be unassailable by the great enemy." Public meetings were held in most of the churches and halls of London and the large towns. Lord Shaftesbury presided at these occasions, and in short, earnest addresses set forth the claims of the poor. He also was in the chair at the quarterly-meetings, where practical subjects were discussed and progress was reported. "For many years the ragged children of London were rarely out of his thoughts, wak- ing or sleeping. He visited them in their wretched homes and at their daily work. He sat beside them in their schools. He let them 138 Life of Lord Shaftesbury come to his house to tell him their troubles. He pleaded for them in religious and political assemblies. He carried their cause into the House of Commons and into the House of Lords. He interested the whole country in their welfare, and, as we shall see, he achieved great things for them." In 1846 he chose two companions, and ex- plored the unknown parts of London to see for himself the alleys and lanes and houses in which the poorest of the poor and the lowest of the low dwelt. One of his companions was a physician, and the other was a missionary. Such a mission needed no ordinary man, and Lord Shaftesbury brought to it no ordi- nary gifts. He could enter an abode of filth and wretchedness where every sense was sick- ened, and appear perfectly at ease. He could win the confidence of the poor and outcast. He could benefit without patronizing, and pre- serve his own dignity amid the rough and law- Life of Lord Shaftesbury 139 less, without placing any barrier to mutual approach. This great-souled man saw in the miserable creatures before him, "not thieves and vaga- bonds and reprobates, but men with immortal souls that might be saved, and with human lives that might be redeemed from their cor- ruption. In the woman with unkempt hair and tattered garments, he saw, not the aban- doned harlot, but the woman that was a sin- ner, who might yet be brought to the feet of Him who would say to her in the tenderest of human accents, 'Go, and sin no more.' " His special sympathy went out to little children. He was throughout his life the champion and friend of children. He was wont to say that the greatest com- pliment ever paid to him came from a little child. He was standing at a street crossing in the heart of London. A little girl stood at the curb, afraid to attempt going alone. She glanced from face to face with an anxious 140 Life of Lord Shaftesbury look, and then slipping her tiny hand into Lord Shaftesbury's and looking up into his face with a trustful smile, said, "Will you please carry me over?" His biographer says : "It is no exaggeration to say that in the whole course of his life he hardly ever passed a ragged child in the street without the desire to stop and talk to it. Morning, noon, and night the welfare of the uncared-for and unthought-of children weighed upon his heart, and he looked upon any day as lost in which he did not do some- thing to make the weariness of their lives less weary, and their sadness less sad. The words of the Master were ever ringing in his ears, 'Feed my lambs.' "He possessed in perfection the art of speaking to children, and few men ever spoke to them with greater effect ; not because he was a 'lord,' but because he could lay hold of the heart of a child, and because the whole bearing of the man impressed the fact that he was intensely in earnest. Year after year he Life of Lord Shaftesbury 141 had seen the law of kindness produce the most wonderful effects on the minds of the wildest, the rawest, the most ungovernable children. It was always through the children that he hoped to win the parents. "Wherever he went, the people clustered about him in groups, and received him with respect." In fact, throughout his life, although he went freely among vagrants, thieves, and crim- inals of every kind, he never received an in- sult. The people everywhere seemed grateful for his interest, and freely answered his ques- tions. He found a condition of things a hundred- fold worse than he had thought possible. He found large populations packed into the area of a good-sized barn, without drainage, venti- lation, or sunlight, where contagion and dis- ease ran riot. He found that there were few house-rents so high as those paid by the veri- est outcasts of the street. "The tenant of a mansion paid a lower 142 Life of Lord Shaftesbury nightly rent, in proportion to the space he oc- cupied and the cubic feet of air he breathed, than did the miserable urchin, who spent his two or three pence for permission to stow him- self under a bed of a low lodging-house filled to suffocation by the most abandoned of all ages — one of the twenty or thirty inmates of a space not large enough for the accommo- dation of more than two or three." He made these facts public before an influ- ential audience met with the "Society for Im- proving the Condition of the Working Classes." He told his audience of rooms so foul, that W'hen a physician who was used to such places visited them, he was obliged to write his prescription outside the door. He gave them graphic descriptions of courts and alleys thronged with a dense, immoral popu- lation, defiled by perpetual habits of intoxica- tion, and living amid riot and blasphemy, tu- mult and indecency. Lord Shaftesbury recommended that the society erect a model lodging-house, where Life of Lord Shaftesbury 143 human beings might have the decencies and comforts of life at a moderate rent. This was the beginning of the great model lodging- house system, which has transformed many of those London courts and alleys which were reeking with filth and misery into abodes of comfort. His journal shows how the subject of Rag- ged Schools was absorbing him : "April 28th.— This is my birthday. Al- though the day was very tempting here at home, I took the chair at a Ragged School as a sort of thankful offering and appropriate duty." "May 29th. — Dined yesterday with . The courtesies of life and friendship demanded it. A splendid display of luxury and grandeur. The contrast was so great to the places where I have spent so many hours lately, that I felt almost uneasy. The few pounds, too, that I want, and shall not get, for the establishment of Ragged Schools, seemed wasted in every dish. A greater simplicity would be more 144 Life of Lord Shaftesbury beneficial to the poor, to society, and to them- selves. O, if some Dives would give me two or three hundred pounds, the price of a pic- ture or a horse, I could set up schools to edu- cate six hundred wretched children !" "Jwne 1 2th. — I am now begging for four objects. Busy in founding a Ragged School. Alas ! alas ! I can set up a school, which shall give education every evening to two hundred and eighty children, for fifty-eight pounds a year, hardly more than it costs to prosecute one criminal — and yet I can barely collect the sum !" "July 6th. — Much rain yesterday. My poor little children of the One Tan Ragged School had a day in the country, and must have been sadly disappointed because they could not roll on the wet grass. Poor little things ! No doubt they bore it well — better than we higher folks should have done. "Do you want to read the story of a sturdy beggar? Rambling in the lowest parts of Westminster, I found a Ragged School held Life of Lord Shaftesbury 145 in a deserted stable, cold and vile. I went back to the House of Commons, stood at the entrance of the House, and asked every one whom I thought well disposed to the cause, to give me a sovereign. Having got twenty- eight pounds, I went back and ordered the place to be put in repair. I was very proud of the act then, and I am proud of it now." In seven years after its organization, a hun- dred new schools were added to the Union, attended by more than ten thousand children. Lord Shaftesbury's labors multiplied with the schools. Each had its opening ceremonies, or its anniversary, or its prize distribution night. It required constant diligence to perform the duties devolving upon him. Conferences with teachers, interviews, correspondence day after day; and in all parts of London the inevitable speeches night after night. Every detail of the Union was in his thought and care. When he saw that, as order was established and de- cent rooms were supplied, there was a tend- enc}^ to admit children of a class and con- 10 146 Life of Lord Shaftesbury dition for whom the schools were not in- tended, he said : : "So long as the mire and the gutter exist, you must keep the schools adapted to their wants, their feelings, their tastes, and their level. I feel that my business lies in the gvit- ter, and I have not the least intention to get out of it." He inspired the teachers with his own in- domitable activity and courage. In a fervid address to them he gave utterance to this con- viction : "I tell you, my friends, that if, with all the success you have attained, with all the knowl- edge you have acquired, with all the blessings you have received, you pause in your course a,ny longer than is necessary to take breath, gather strength, survey your position, and thank God — why, then, I say. never again come into this hall, for, if you do, I will be the first to say to you, as Cromwell said to the House of Commons, 'Out upon you ! begone ; give place to honester men.' " Life of Lord Shaftesbury 147 The industrial classes, refuges, and homes, which were the outgrowth of the Ragged School Union, all felt the touch of his sym- pathy and the wisdom of his guidance. The workers met with a good many dis- couragements. The districts were flooded by a periodical deluge of the miserable popula- tion of Ireland. The best results of the work were removed by the emigration scheme which Lord Shaftesbury subsequently started. No support came from the Government, and but very little from the wealthy classes. And yet Lord Shaftesbury was able to say: "We have organized a system of prevention by which to stop crime while it is in the seed, and sin before it has broken into flower and deso- lated society. We maintain that every one of those whom we have reclaimed would, from the very necessity of his position, have been either a thief or a vagabond." One feature of the Ragged School system was the gift of a prize to each scholar who had remained in one situation for twelve months 148 Life of Lord Shaftesbury with satisfaction to his employer, and for good conduct. Lord Shaftesbury ahvays gave these prizes, and his addresses to the children on these occasions overflowed with "fathediness" and loving interest. He never lost an opportunity of saying ad- miring words for the Ragged School teachers. He thrilled his audiences with stories of their zeal and courage. He declared that he saw at Field Lane school the most remarkable exhi- bition of human nature and the most beautiful testimonial to woman's influence that he had ever beheld in all his life : "I have there seen men of forty years of age and children of three in the same room — men the wildest and most uncouth, whom it was considered dangerous to meet, and per- haps it would be dangerous to meet them in the dark alone ; but in that room they were perfectly safe. I saw there thirty or forty men, none of them with shoes and stockings on, and some without shirts — the wildest and most awful-looking men you can imagine. They all Life of Lord Shaftesbury 149 sat in a ring, and the only other human being in the room was a young woman less than thirty years of age, and, allow me to add, one of the prettiest women I ever saw. She was teaching all of those wild, uncouth creatures, who never bowed the head to any constable or any form of civil authority, yet they looked on her with a degree of reverence and affec- tion that amounted almost to adoration. ]\Ieeting the superintendent, I said : 'My good fellow, I do n't like this ; there she is among all those roughs. I am very much alarmed.' 'So am I,' he said. 'Then why do you leave her there?' I asked. He replied: *I am not alarmed from the same reason that you are. You are alarmed lest they should offer some insult to her; but what I am afraid of is this, that some day a man might drop in, who, not knowing the habits of the place, might lift a finger against her, and if he did so, he would never leave the room alive ; he would be torn limb from limb.' So great was the reverence that these lawless and apparently ungovern- 150 Life of Lord Shaftesbury able creatures paid to the grace and modesty of that young woman." In i860 the Ragged School teachers made a presentation to Lord Shaftesbury of an oil- painting illustrative of the benefits of his work. It was accompanied by an elegantly bound volume, containing an address beauti- fully engrossed, to which was appended the signatures of no less than seventeen hundred subscribers. The signatures were of all sorts and conditions of men. In replying to the address, Lord Shaftesbury said : "I would rather be president of the Ragged School L'nion than have the command of armies or wield the destiny of empires. That volume, with its valuable collection of signa- tures, will show to our posterity that some have been good enough to say that I have not been altogether useless in my generation." The painting hung over the mantelpiece in the dining-room at Grosvenor Square ; the vol- ume was kept in a case in the room, and both Life of Lord Shaftesbury 151 were shown with pride and pleasure to visitors to the very close of his life. Lord Shaftesbury took a strong personal interest in every individual for whose behalf he labored. A letter written in 1849 was found, thirty- six years after its date and shortly after his death, in the box which he always carried about with him, as containing the things he most valued. It is written in a cramped, ill- formed hand, with some misspelled words, and is addressed: "Lord Ashley, Exeter Hall, Westminster, London." On the cover Lord Shaftesbury had written, ''Very precious to me, this letter." It ran thus: 'Tort Adelaide, South Australia. ''Most Noble Lord, — I arrived at Port Adelaide after a pleasant passage, and am now in a comfortable situation and with very pious people. I have need to thank you for your kindness in sending me out. I think with per- 152 Life of Lord Shaftesbury severance I shall do much better here than in England. I do not think I shall ever forget the good advice I received at Palace Yard Ragged School, and sincerely thank them all for their kindness. "Please to accept the thanks of your obliged and thankful servant, "Caroline Walker." On the back of the letter, v^ritten evidently many years later, is the following: "She went into service, behaved so well that her master gave her in marriage to his son. She became a considerable person in Australia, and afterwards went to India. Where is she now? God be forever with this Rao;oed School girl! Shaftesbury." •^iato' A friend who called to see Lord Shaftes- bury found him in his library at Grosvenor Square, with two portraits before him. One was that of a poor, puny, destitute child in rags and tatters. The other was a handsome wo- IviFE OF Lord Shaftesbury 153 man in fashionable attire. He held them np before his guest : "Ji^^st look at these portraits. They have rejoiced my heart more than I can tell. I am more delighted than if I had be- come possessed of half the kingdom. Years ago, late at night, there was a knock at the door. Somehow it attracted my attention more than usual. Presently I heard the angry voice of a man in altercation with my servant. I felt a strange prompting that it was my duty to go and see what was the matter. There was a man with a little child in his arms, which he was endeavoring to thrust into the arms of my servant, who, of course, would not take it. 'What is ah this about?' I asked. The man turned to me, and said: 'Lord Shaftesbury, I have brousfht this child to vou. I do n't know what else to do with it. I can not trust my- self to be its father, and I can not abandon it altogether.' "I let the man in, and took down from him all particulars, and the end of it was that the child was left with me. I did not know very 154 Life of Lord Shaftesbury well what to do with the poor little thing, so I had her sent to an inn close by for the night, and the next day when she was here, a lady happened in \\ho knew of a home where a child was wanted. The mistress of the home liked the child, and adopted her. And that portrait of the fine lady is the portrait of what that little ragged, destitute child has devel- oped into. I feel as convinced that I was moved to do what I did by our blessed Lord as if I had seen him in person and heard his voice." Some one asked Lord Shaftesbury if he did not find a good many hopeless cases. He was aroused at once. ''Hopeless, indeed ! Why, look at my friend 'Punch' — as we called him. Punch had been a source of annoyance to almost all the workhouses of the metropolis. He showed, himself to be one of the most abandoned scamps in London. At last he came to the Refuge in Great Queen Street. Seeing him there, I said to him: 'Punch, how can vou iro Life of Lord Shaftesbury 155 on ill this way? You have got some good about you ; you have good abilities and you have strength. Shall we make a man of you, Punch?' "Punch replied, 'Well, I do n't mind if you do.' "We set about trying, and, by God's bless- ing, we did make a man of him. Having been made a first-rate shoemaker, he set out to Natal to carry on business there, where I hope he is maintaining the honorable character which he had wdien he left the Refuge." Many stories are told of Lord Shaftesbury's love for homeless children. A little girl who was sheltered in one of the Refuges, which had a new dormitory to be fur- nished by subscriptions, took it upon herself to write to him, and ask him for a subscription. She had no name but Tiny: "Dear Lord Shaftesburv, — You will see by the address that I have changed my home from Albert Street, where I remember you 156 Life of Lord Shaftesbury spoke to me, and told me about your dog. If you please, Lord Shaftesbury, I want to ask you if you will give a bed to our new home. Fifty of the girls from the highest division have been sent from Albert Street here, and we have contributed the cost of one ourselves out of our little store. You will come, I hope, and see our new home. I am sure you will like it, for I do, and my sister is with me. Please come and see the pictures a gentleman gave us. I remain }ours respectfully, "Tiny." This was his reply : "My Dear Small Tiny, — I must thank you for your nice letter, and say that, God will- ing, I will certainly call and see your new home, and you, too, little woman. You ask me to give a bed to the new home. To be sure I will. I will give two if you wish it, and they shall be called 'Tiny's Petitions.' "I am glad to see how well you write. And I shall be more glad to hear from your friends Life of Lord Shaftesbury 157 that yon are a good girl, that you read your Bible, say your prayers, and love the blessed Lord Jesus Christ. May he ever be with you ! "Your affectionate friend, '"Shaftesbury." In 1871 we find this record in his journal: "I ran to Whitechapel to-day to see a little piece of stranded seaweed — a poor, parentless girl of eight years old, whom God, in his good- ness, has manifestly intrusted to my care. I sent her in emigration to Canada with a re- ligious family. May the Lord bless her in body and in soul !" The Refuge and Reformatory L^'nion, which was an outgrowth of the Ragged School movement, ultimately came to have five hundred and eighty-nine homes, accom- modating fifty thousand children ! Three hundred thousand children were brought under the influence of the society ! To estimate the blessing which this single movement brought to the neglected classes of 158 Life of Lord Shaftesbury England by simply looking at the statistics, would be like calculating the blessing of sun- light by trying to weigh the sunbeams. In that army of lawless, ignorant street arabs was the embryo of an English Revolution, which in development would have turned the peace- ful kingdom into a battlefield of terror and bloodshed. Cl^aptct: IX IN 1848 the spirit of revolution was abroad in all Europe. Louis Philippe, King of France, was expelled from his capital, his pal- ace plundered, and himself cast down to a pri- vate station. Riots and turbulence were everywhere. All Englishmen were driven out of France with circumstances of great oppres- sion and dishonor. They were not allowed to bring away even their property, nor to receive their arrears of wages. They were denied em- ployment and public relief, and were met at the savings bank where their earnings had been deposited with the answer of "No funds." They crowded the French outposts, and begged to be sent back to their ow-n country. Lord Shaftesbury originated a scheme for the relief of refugees, six thousand of whom were brought over, cared for on their arrival, and passed on to their respective destinations. 159 i6o Life of Lord Shaftesbury In England the Chartists were demanding their rights, and shouting, " Dissolve the Par- liament!" "Give us the People's Charter!" The great demonstration by the Chartists, for which the nation had prepared strong mihtary defense, and concerning which it felt great alarm, proved to be not at all terrifying. The meeting at no time exceeded thirteen thousand people. We must believe that Lord Shaftesbury's sympathy and influence with the turbulent classes had not a little to do with the peaceful ending of what threatened to be a dangerous riot. Although there was distress in the manu- faciuring districts, the people showed their appreciation of Lord Shaftesbury's kindness by remaining trancjuil, some thousands of the operatives enrolling themselves as special con- stables. When the panic was over, Sir George Grey, Home Secretary, wrote to him, and thanked him for his valuable aid. The Times acknowledged that his influence Life of Lord Shaftesbury i6i had been of a pacific sort in perilous times, even tliongh political economists and men of the world did vote Lord Shaftesbury a bore. The Morning Chroui,; e had an editorial of this sort: "No thinking man concurs with Lord Shaftesbury ; but it is a very good thing in these days to have a nobleman who brings for- ward the distresses and needs of the people, and gives them assurances that their case will be considered." The next great practical question which en- gaged Lord Shaftesbury was that of emigra- tion. In the June of 1848 he brought forward in the House of Commons this motion : "That it is expedient that means be annu- ally provided for the voluntan emigration to some one of Her Majesty's colonies of a cer- tain number of persons of both sexes, who have been educated in the schools ordinarily called Ragged Schools, in and about the me- tropolis." The speech was a fine piece of oratory, II i62 Life of Lord Shaftesbury filled with vivid descriptions and interesting anecdotes, and with statistics, which in his speeches were never dry bones, but full of life and thrilling interest. He announced at the beginning that as he was not introducing a controversial question, or assailing any inter- est, he did not expect any opposition, except from those who believed they could suggest a better plan. He declared that he brought forward his plan, not from any overweening confidence that he had hit the only true method, but from a desire to excite discussion and stimulate thought in this direction. He stated that, through the London city mission- aries and Ragged School teachers, he had come to know of these thirty thousand naked, filthy, roaming, lawless, and deserted children, quite distinct from the ordinary poor. He said: "Till very recently the few children that came under our notice in the streets and places of public traffic were considered to be chance vagrants or beggars, who by a little exercise Life of Lord Shaftesbury 163 of magisterial authority might be either extin- guished or reformed. It has only of late been discovered that they constitute a numerous class, having habits, pursuits, feelings, cus- toms, and interests of their own ; living as a class in the same resorts, perpetuating and multiplying their filthy numbers." He described to the House the habits and dispositions of this wild race, their pursuits, manner of life, and dwelling-places. He ex- amined sixteen hundred of these Arabs, and found that nearly two hundred had been in prison many times. A hundred of them had left the places they called home because of ill- treatment. One hundred and seventy slept in lodging-houses, which were the nests of every abomination that the mind of man can con- ceive. Two hundred and fifty confessed that they lived together by begging. Seventy were the children of convicts. Many of them had lost one or both parents. He brought forward the startling fact that in the previous year there were sixty-two thou- 164 Life of Lord Shaftesbury sand persons taken into custody, of whom twenty-two thousand could neither read nor write, and twenty-eight thousand had no trade, business calling, or occupation what- ever. He said : "These chiklren, bold, pert, and dirty as London sparrows, but pale, feeble, and sadly inferior to them in plumpness, retire for the night, if they retire at all, to all manner of places — under dry arches of bridges and via- ducts; under porticoes, sheds, and carts; in sawpits, on staircases, and in the open air. Curious, indeed, is their mode of life. "I recollect the case of a boy who, during the inclement season of last winter, passed the greater part of his nights in the iron roller of Regent's Park. He climbed every evening over the railings, and crept to his shelter, where he lay in comparative comfort. Hu- man sympathy, however, prevails even in the poorest condition. He invited a companion less fortunate than himself, promising to 'let him into a good thing.' He did so, and it Life of Lord Shaftesbury 165 proved a more friendly act than many a similar undertaking in railway shares. ''A large proportion do not recognize the distinctive rights of meiim and tuitm. Property appears to them to be only the aggregate of plunder. They hold that everything that is possessed is common stock; that he who gets most is the cleverest fellow, and that every- one has a right to abstract from that stock what he can by his own ingenuity. "They make Httle or no secret of their suc- cessful operations, cloaking them with eu- phemistic terms. They 'find' everything, they 'take' nothing. No matter the bulk or quality of the article, it was 'found' — sometimes nearly a side of bacon, just at the convenient time and place. The buyer of these stolen goods has the high-sounding title, 'dealer in marine- stores ;' and many are the loud and bitter com- plaints that the dealer in marine stores is ut- terly dishonest, and has given for the thing but half the price that could be got in the market. i66 Life of Lord Shaftesbury "These children are like tribes of lawless freebooters, bound by no obligations, and ut- terly ignorant or utterly regardless of social duties. They trust to their skill, and not to their honesty; gain their livelihood by theft, and consider the whole world as their legiti- mate prey. With them there is no sense of shame; nor is imprisonment viewed as a dis- grace. In many instances it has occurred that after a boy has been a short time at one of the Ragged Schools, he suddenly disappears. At the end of a few weeks he comes back to the very spot in the school where he sat when he was last there. The master, going up to him, says, 'My boy, where have you been?' The boy answers, 'Very sorry, sir, I could not come before; but I have had three weeks at Bridewell.' "Going to prison is with these children the ordinary lot of humanity. They look upon it as a grievous act of oppression, and when they come to school, they speak of it as one gentle- man would tell his wrongs to another. Life of Lord Shaftesbury 167 "Fourteen or fifteen of these boys pre- sented themselves one Sunday evening, and sat down to the lessons; but as the clock struck they all rose and left, with the exception of one, who lagged behind. The master took him by the arm, and said, 'You must not go; the lesson is not over.' The reply was, 'We must go to business.' The master inquired, 'What business?' 'Why, do n't you see, it 's eight o'clock; we must catch them as they come out of the chapels.' "A city missionary who had endeared him- self to the whole of a wretched district, one evening put on a new coat, and went, about dusk, through a remote street. He was in- stantly marked as a quarry by one of these rapacious vagabonds. The urchin did not know him in his new attire, and therefore without hesitation relieved his pockets of their contents. The missionary did not discover his loss, nor the boy his victim, until in his flight he had reached the end of the street. He then looked round, ai^d recognized in the distance i68 Life of Lord Shaftesbury his old friend and teacher. He ran back to him, breathless. 'Hallo/ said he, 'is it you, Mr. ? I did n't know yon in 3^our new coat ; here 's your handkerchief for you !' "The affection they entertain for their teachers is very striking, based on the unhappy fact that, except for these devoted mission- aries, they have never enjoyed the language of kindness. Two gentlemen were walking through the neglected district, when one of them was accosted by the familiar salutation, ' How are you, there ?' He turned to look at the vagabond who had addressed him so familiarly, and who shrank back with a disappointed face, and muttered, 'O, I thought you were teacher ; if you had been, I 'd 'a' shaken hands with you.' "I have been asked, 'What will you do with these children when you have educated them?' I reply with a question, 'What will you do if you neglect to educate them?' They are not soap-bubbles nor peach-blossoms — things that can be puffed away with a child's breath. They are the seeds of future generations, and IviFE OF Lord Shaftesbury 169 the wheat or the tares will predominate, as Christian principle or ignorant selfishness shall govern our conduct. With a just appreciation of their rights and our own duties, we must raise them to a level on which they run the course that is set before them, as citizens of the British Empire and heirs of a glorious im- mortality." The proposition which he made to the Gov- ernment was this : that the Government should agree to take every year from the Ragged Schools a number of children — perhaps five hundred boys and five hundred girls — and transplant them at the public expense to Her Majesty's colonies. He maintained that if it was held out to these children as a reward of good conduct, that the children would be eager and glad to strive for such a prize as a removal from scenes where everything was painful, to others where they can enjoy their existence. He de- clared his conviction that amongst those guilty and disgusting children were many 170 Life of Lord Shaftesbury thousands who, if opportunities were given them, would walk in all the dignity of honest men and Christian citizens. A grant of fifteen thousand pounds was made by the Government for the purpose of an experimental trial of the scheme. This was all too small, and Lord Shaftesbury would have found himself crippled for funds if his friends had not made generous contributions. Fortunately, in the course of his life there were many who thought that the greatest good they could do with their money was to place it in the care of Lord Shaftesbury. He always had schemes on hand which needed help. "And he was like the "Good Bishop" in "Les Miserables," of whom it is said : "When he had money, he visited the poor; and when he had none, he visited the rich." Every one who knew him, knew that as a trustee of money he was scrupulously exact, and that not a penny intrusted to him would fail to accomplish some direct end. At one Life of Lord Shaftesbury 171 time a legacy of fifty thousand pounds was left to him for distribution among charities. After the first grant, the Government failed to further his emigration among Ragged Schools, and then he was entirely dependent upon private gifts for his great enterprise. It was a serious disappointment when the Government withdrew its support, especially since there never was an effort attended with greater success. Testimony came from many sources as to the conduct and efficiency of the Ragged School boys who were sent out to the colonies. Some lord, who undoubtedly had voted against a grant of funds for emigration, spoke of these children as belonging to the "danger- ous classes." To this, Lord Shaftesbury re- sponded with fierce indignation : "Talk of the dangerous classes, indeed ! The dangerous classes in England are not the people ! They are the lazy ecclesiastics, of whom there are thousands, and the rich who do no good with 172 Life of Lord Shaftesbury their money ! I fear them more than whole battalions of Chartists !" The children were carefufly selected and specially trained, and each was impressed with the idea that he was to go forth as the repre- sentative of a large reserve. Before each de- tachment started, Lord Shaftesbury visited them, and "some of his farewell addresses on the eve of their departure are worthy of being written in letters of gold, so full are they of tender fatherliness and Christian love." His biographer has recorded one: "I see you now, my boys, probably for the last time. You are going to a land where much will depend upon yourselves as regards your future prosperity and success. I hope when you are far away, you will not forget your friends here. The remembrance may, in time of temptation, deter you from doing that which would disgrace yourselves, and bring discredit on them. "Especially, let me tell you, boys, that however you may rise in the world (and there Life of Lord Shaftesbury 173 is no reason why you should not rise) you must still be working men. Christianity is not a speculation; it is essentially practical. You have something to do for others as well as for yourselves. You must not, by any misconduct of yours, bring disgrace upon those who have ?one out before vou. Manv of those lads who are now roaming about the streets, houseless and friendless, may be helped or hindered in their future course by your conduct. If there is one single thing more than another which tends to make a man feel great, it is that he is answerable for his own conduct to God and to society at large. Whatever your duty or circumstances may be, nczrr forget prayer. You may rise to high stations; they are open to you. Whatever worldly success may be yours, still, my lads, never forget that the greatest ambition of the Christian is to be a citizen of that city whose builder and maker is God." In consequence of his speech in the House of Commons, Lord Shaftesbury entered into 174 Life of Lord Shaftesbury a unique and exceedingly interesting experi- ence in connection with London thieves. There was a city missionary, named Thomas Jackson, who had been appointed to the Rag Fair and Rosemary Lane District, where he was known as the Thieves' Missionary. They took him into their confidence; they went to his house day or night when they needed ad- vice or consolation. He knew more about the habits of pickpockets, burglars, and every form of convicted or unconvicted roguery than the most skillful policemen. He became a very valuable guide to Lord Shaftesbury, as well as a very close friend. Soon after Lord Shaftesbury's speech, in w'hich he set forth his emigration plan, it oc- curred to him to ask a notorious adult thief whether he would like to avail himself of such a scheme. "I should jump at it," was the reply. Thus encouraged, he had the same question proposed at one of Mr. Jackson's meetings, where the audience was composed entirely of discharged criminals. Life of Lord Shaftesbury 175 "It would be a capital thing for chaps like us," was their unanimous answer. Then one of them arose, and proposed that they should write Lord Shaftesbury a letter on behalf of themselves and all their tribe, ex- tending an invitation to him to meet them, and give them his opinion, and advise as to how they could extricate themselves from their present position. A formal petition was accordingly pre- pared and sent to Lord Shaftesbury, asking him to meet them. It was signed by forty of the most notorious thieves and burglars of London. A date was arranged, and without hesita- tion Lord Shaftesbury accepted the invitation and went. Although he was accustomed to unusual assemblies, he acknowledged that he was not prepared for the strange sight which met his gaze. There in a large room were four hundred men of every appearance, from the "swell- mob" in black coats and white neckcloths, to 176 Life of Lord Shaftesbury the most fierce-looking, rough, half-dressed savages he had ever seen. They had stationed at the door several of the best known and experienced thieves to prevent the admission of any but thieves. There was a little suspicion about some four or five individuals, and they were called for- ward and put through an examination, in which they proved beyond a doubt that they w^ere members of the dishonest fraternity. The reason for this caution, they explained, was to find out if there was any one there who would betray them. Lord Shaftesbury was received with genu- ine enthusiasm, and, having taken the chair, lie opened the meeting by devotional exercises! He was anxious to know in which depart- ments of roguery his audience belonged. Some of them were exceedingly well dressed. But many of them had no stockings, and some of them had no shirts. The missionary an- nounced : "His lordship wants to know the particular character of the men here. You Life of Lord Shaftesbury 177 who live by burglary and the more serious crimes will go to the right, and the others will go to the left." About two hundred of the men at once rose and went to the right, as confessed bur- glars and living by the greatest crimes. Lord Shaftesbury then addressed them, and declared his willingness to befriend them. He proposed that they should tell him about themselves. A number of the men then spoke, and Lord Shaftesbury declared : "Anything more curious, more graphic, more picturescjue, and more touching I never heard in my life. They told the whole truth without the least difificulty, and knowing that they were there to reveal their condition, they disguised nothing. I had recommended a re- linquishing of their old practices, and new re- solves for the future. 'But how,' said one of the men, 'are we to live till our next meeting? We must either steal or die.' " It was an awkward cpestion. Lord Shaftesbury acknowledged that he had never 12 178 Life of Lord Shaftesbury felt so utterly impressed with the magnitude of the task. He confessed that when Jackson urged them "to pray, as God could help them," he felt a certain amount of sympathy when one of the men arose, and with great earnestness said : "My Lord and Gentlemen of the Jury, prayer is very good, but it won't fill an empty stomach !" And at once there arose a general response of "Hear ! hear !" Lord Shaftesbury was sure of one thing. These men were dissatisfied with the life they were leading, and wanted to know how to break away from it. Every one of them was enthusiastic concerning his emigration scheme, and he promised them that he would do all he could for them. They asked him, "But will you ever come back to see us again?" "Yes," he answered, "at any time and at any place, whenever you shall send for me." As he said this, a low, deep murmur of gratitude went round the room. The result of that night's work can never be estimated. Within three months from that Life of Lord Shaftesbury 179 date thirteen who were at that meetnig were starting life afresh in Canada, and a Httle later nearly three hundred of those professional thieves had emigrated, or had passed into dif- ferent employments, and had no need to re- turn to the old dishonest life. Lord Shaftesbury had a friend who was a banker, and of whom he was wont to speak as "a prince in the Israel of God." This gen- erous man furnished the funds which made possible the emigration of these men who so sorely needed help in the right direction. Lord Shaftesbury had learned that the Gov- ernment knew no gratitude. One of his keen disappointments came in connection with his labors on the Board of Health. It will be re- membered that he had rendered services of untold value, involving great personal sacri- fice, during the cholera panic. This was but a small item of his work. In every particular he looked after the sanitation of the city. The Times had declared : "To purify the In- ferno that reeks about us in this metropolis is i8o Life of Lord Shaftesbury one of the labors to which Lord Shaftesbury has devoted his Hfe ; and we can never be suffi- ciently obliged to him for undertaking a task which, besides its immediate disagreeableness, associates his name with so much that is shocking and repulsive. To his legislation we owe the gratifying fact that lodging-houses are explored by authorized persons, and that ventilation, lighting, and drainage are pro- vided for. To change a city from clay to marble is nothing, compared with a trans- formation from dirt, misery, and vice to clean- liness, comfort, and at least a decent morality.'' Nevertheless, when "the unpardonable ac- tivity" of the Board had brought it into col- lision with the undertakers and water commis- sioners and sewer agents, the great newspaper went over to their side. It soon became apparent that the Board of Health must be disbanded, and that some cold, idle, comfortless, do-little office would be set up in its stead. It was a positive grief to Lord Shaftesbury, who declared sadly: "I Life of Lord Shaftesbury i8i have given six years of hard labor, and have not received even the wages of a pointer, with 'that 's a good dog.' We have left no arrears of business. And thus closes six years of gra- tuitous and intense labor. I may say v^'ith old George III on the admission of American In- dependence, 'It may possibly turn out well for the country, but as a gentleman I can never forget it !' " In a great speech which he made on Sani- tary Science, he said : "When people say that we should think more of the soul and less of the body, my an- swer is, that the same God who made the soul made the body also. It is an inferior work perhaps, but nevertheles it is his work, and it must be treated and cared for according to the end for which it was formed — fitness for his service. I maintain that God is worshiped, not only by the spiritual, but by the material creation. You find it in the Psalms : 'Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all ye stars of light.' And that worship is shown in the i82 Life op Lord Shaftesbury perfection and obedience of the thing made. Our object should be, to do all we can to re- move the obstructions which stand in the way of such worship, and of the body's fitness for its great purpose." In 1872 he laid the foundation-stone of a workman's city, called by his own name, Shaftesbury Park. It was a town on all the modern principles of sanitary arrangements, with recreation grounds, clubs, schools, li- braries, and baths. It contained twelve hun- dred houses, and accommodated eight thou- sand people. On his own estate, Wimborne St. Giles, he built a model village, where the cottages were furnished with all the appliances of civilized life, and each had its allotment of a quarter of an acre, the rent being only a shilling a week. Cljapter X AMONG the interesting experiences into ''*■ which Lord Shaftesbury entered, none were more so than his acquaintance and friendship with the costers. AYe find the first outgoings of his heart in this direction, in a book for which he wrote the Preface: "The pursuit of knowledge under diiificul- ties has always been praised, and justly so; but why should not the pursuit of an honest livelihood amid great temptations be alike ad- mired? Both are great moral efforts ; but I am inclined to think that the poor, painstaking costermonger, proof against enticements to fraud and falsehood, is, on the whole, the bet- ter citizen of the two. Literature may adorn a nation, but the uprightness of its citizens is its bulwark." What is a coster? Johnson's Dictionary defined the term thus, "A costermonger is a 183 184 Life of Lord Shaftesbury person who sells apples," But one of the pro- fession indignantly repudiated this definition, and gave a more complete one: "A coster is a cove wot works werry 'ard for a werry poor livin', and is always a-bein' hinterfered wuth, and blowed up, and moved hon, and fined, and sent to quod by the beaks and bobbies." A Mr. Orsman, a man holding a humble position in Government service, started the mission. He was attracted to the large popu- lation of costers w^ho "'■•erded by thousands in an area about Golden Lane. He determined to devote his leisure time to the work of evan- gelizing them, and established a mission, which very soon had a valuable friend in the person of Lord Shaftesbury. It was a great day for Mr. Orsman and his work when he received this letter: "Dear Sir, — You seem to be engaged in a grand work for the benefit of the poorest classes of the metropolis. The secretary of the Ragged School Union calls it 'a noble work.' Life of Lord Shaftesbury 185 I shall be very glad to aid, so far as I can, such admirable efforts ; and if it can be of any use, to accept the office of president. "Your obedient servant, "Shaftesbury." Mr. Orsman found the costers to be care- less, improvident, merry, and thoughtless, with little rehgion and less politeness. Street life necessarily cultivated coarseness of lan- guage and manners. At night the donkey, the children, the fathers, and mothers all hud- dle together in the same room. The stock of fish, fruit, or vegetables is stored under the filthy bedsteads, to be carried out the next day and sold on the streets. They must go to market very early in summer, and as soon as it is light in winter, purchasing the cheapest stock when there is an over-supply, or a better article which has been cheapened by remain- ing too long on hand. Their profit is very small, and their patronage is in the poorer streets. It was discovered that many of them i86 L»iFE OF Lord Shaftesbury made their best profit by using false weights and measures. Lord Shaftesbury could n't blame them so much for this, when he learned that they were themselves the victims of injustice. Although their capital was small, it was generally bor- rowed at a most exorbitant rate of interest from money lenders, who took advantage of the necessities of the poor fellows. Lord Shaftesburv became a sort of banker for the concern, loaning them money at small interest, and encouraging them to deal to others as they would be dealt by. He showed, in his speeches, how useful these costers are to the people, as they bring to the door of the working classes cheap fruit, fish, and vegetables, which otherwise they could not get, being too far from the country, and not being able to patronize the large mar- kets. Their income was most uncertain, de- pending on the weather and the chance of over-supply. Like all such people, they were very improvident, and knew what it was to Life of Lord Shaftesbury 187 suffer with hunger through the long winter. Their highest ambition was to own a donkey and a truck. Most of them were too poor to have their own, and rented by the day or week. From the beginning of his knowledge of these people, Lord Shaftesbury took the live- liest interest in them. He always delighted to call himself a "coster," and nothing would in- duce him to lose an opportunity cf spending a social evening with his "brethren." He organized a Barrow and Donkey Club, and enrolled himself as a member. This made it necessary for him to buy a barrow and don- key, which he would loan to those who were unfortunate. The barrow was a handsome one, and bore upon it the Shaftesbury arms and motto. Happy and proud was the coster who had the loan of these precious pieces of property. He had it in his power to help them in im- portant directions. For example, the vestry of St. Luke's Church issued an order forbid- i88 Life of Lord Shaftesbury ding costermongers to trade any longer in Whitecross Street. As this was a profitable district, the costers were alarmed for their in- terests. Lord Shaftesbur}'- made a plea before the parish magistrates, and they at once with- drew their order. At one of the meetings Lord Shaftesbury told the men that if at any time they had grievances which he might be able to redress, they should write him, and he would answer promptly. "But where shall we send our letters?" asked one. "Address your letter to me at Grosvenor Square, and it will reach me," he replied ; " but if after my name you put ' K. G. and Coster,' there will be no doubt that I shall get it." Did ever England's proud order know such a combination as Knight of the Garter and Coster! It was proverbial tliat the donkeys were shamefully ill-used. Lord Shaftesbury was president of the Society for the Prevention of Life of Lord Shaftesbury 189 Cruelty to Animals, and at once he set about improving the condition of the patient little beasts. He had tests made to show how much better work they could do if they rested on Sunday. He instituted donkey shows, where he gave a prize to the coster whose donkey gave evidence of the best care. It was no uncommon thing to see him stop in the street to salute a coster and pat his don- key, and commend its appearance and ask how business was going. One day Lord Shaftesbury received an in- vitation from the costers to meet them in their liall, where they wished to make him a presen- tation. He went, and took the president's chair as usual. Over a thousand costers with their friends w-ere present, and with surprising thoughtfulness some ladies and gentlemen had been invited, and were there on the platform. A handsome donkey, extravagantly decorated V. ith ribbons, was led on to the platform, and presented to Lord Shaftesbury. He at once vacated the chair, and made way for the new 190 Life of Lord Shaftesbury arrival. And then, putting his arm around, the animal's neck, he thanked them in a short speech. He said : "When I have passed away from this life, I desire to have no more said of me than that I have done my duty, as the poor donkey has done his, with patience and un- nuirmuring resignation." The donkey was then led down the steps of the platform, and Lord Shaftesbury remarked : "I hope the reporters of the press will state that, the donkey having vacated the chair, the place was taken by Lord Shaftesbury !" The donkey was sent to St. Giles, where he was a great pet. Its death is thus recorded: "Dear Orsman, — I am grieved to say that Coster is no more. He broke away from the stable, and made a dash for the paddock. In so doing, he fell and smashed his thigh. The veterinary surgeon was sent for, who pro- nounced him incurable, and advised that he should be put out of his pain. "The friendly and useful creature was Life of Lord Shaftesbury 191 buried with all honors in a place I have within a thick plantation, where the pet dogs and horses that have serv^ed the family and de- served our gratitude are gathered together. "Remember me very warmly to my brother costermongers, their wives, and their children. "Shaftesbury." The costers sent another to supply his place, and of him Shaftesbury wrote: "Dear Orsman, — The brown donkey has won the afTection of every one. My grand- children declare it is the most attractive, ami- able creature they ever knew. It follows them like a spaniel. "Give my love to the costers, and say how happy I would be to meet them again. "\\'hat day will suit my brother costers for the show? Yours, S." His journal has many references to the costers : "A wonderful meeting in Gold&n Lane last 192 Life of Lord Shaftesbury night. A spectacle to gladden angels — com- fort, decency, education, and spiritual life, in the midst of filth, destitution, vice, and misery. This work of the gospel is administered by a clerk in the post-ofifice, who gives all his spare time and the most of his money to advance the knowledge of Christ, and the earthly and heavenly interests of man. It was enough to humble me. Few things are more marvelous than to see what can be done by one man, whatever his social position, if he have but the love of Christ in his heart, and the grace of our Lord to lead him on." "February 28th. — I went with Orsman through Golden Lane to visit my coster- mongers. Well do these poor people put us all to shame. Piety, resignation, faith, in the depths of penury, and seemingly without hope. "On the 5th I went to Orsman's tea-party of aged costers in Golden Lane — poor old dears ! Had to give them a 'hortation/ as Hobbcs translates Thucydides." Life of Lord Shaftesbury 193 Although he knew so many people, they were not known to him as a class; but he re- membered the individual — their particular needs and circumstances. We see this in ex- tracts from letters to Mr. Orsman: "Do you ever perambulate your district by day? If so, I should like to accompany you." "Do not forget the woman who made the braces. We promised her something. I have sent two copies of the 'Faithful Promiser' for the two wives of the cabinetmaker and the old paralyzed man." "Your missionaries must talk to the poor cabinetmaker, and pray with him. He is not hardened. Let him have what he wants in his necessity." "I have sent you a book for the two sons of the spectacle-woman and the paralytic hus- band. Also picture cards, as I promised, to the little girl who is daughter of the shoe- maker's wife, who went security for a water- cress girl." Thus he entered into their lives with fullest 13 194 Life of Lord Shaftesbury sympathy, and we must remember that the costers were but one class of the many for whom he thought and worked and suffered. One night he went from the House of Lords to a devotional service held by the cos- ters. He contrasted these two places in a way which showed where his heart was. He speaks of the House of Lords as "that vast aquarium full of cold-blooded life," and then he alludes tenderly to the simple-hearted piety and loving hearts which he found in the costers' prayer-meeting. He regarded the costers' mission as one of the happiest successes of all the movements with which he had been identified. And he was especially gratified that the costers' kind treat- ment of their donkeys had led to a universal improvement in the care of beasts of burden all over London. In 1875, after the greatest sorrow of his life, the death of his wife, he turned his thought toward the watercress and flower girls of the great city. In memory of his wife he estab- Life of Lord Shaftesbury 195 lished a fund, which he named the Emily Loan Fund. It was a scheme to enable these poor girls, whose battle with life is very hard, to earn their living when watercress and flowers are out of season. Lord Shaftesbury placed in the hands of the committee of the mission a sum of money, from which deserving applicants might draw, fo enable them to purchase stock-in-trade for the winter. Poor women came in companies, and made application for the loan of baked- potato ovens, coffee stalls, barrows, and boards. The condition upon which the loans were granted was, that borrowers must find secur- ity for the full value of the article, thereby pro- tecting the fund from loss, and giving the best guarantee of the honesty and industry of the borrower. When the value of the article was repaid, it became the property of the hirer. Lord Shaftesbury said : "I beheve that among these watercress girls there are many as honest and as pure as are to be found in all London. 196 Life of Lord Shaftesbury Those who are successful go into business, and often buy a cofifee-stall, the outfit for which costs as much as ten pounds." He was one day at the office of the super- intendent of the mission, when a nice-looking girl came in. She said : "I want a loan, please, of a very large sum." "What for, my dear?" "For flowers and basket." "Have you anything in the world?" "Not a sixpence." "Can you give security?" "O yes! the shoemaker's wife will go bail for me." "How much do you want?" "Well, I do n't think I can do with a penny less than one pound." It was given, and every farthing was repaid. The girls change their business with the seasons. They are fruit girls in summer, flower girls in spring, coffee-stall keepers in winter. Lord Shaftesbury declared that it was the Life of Lord Shaftesbury 197 most successful loan establishment in all Lon- don. They had out a thousand loans, and did not lose fifty pounds during the whole period. Not in a single instance did they have to re- cover by legal means. The little that was lost was by reason of sickness or death, and not by fraud. One of the side activities of the Ragged School movement was the cultivation of plants and flowers under certain regulations by the scholars. On a given day they were all brought together in a large hall, and at this flower show prizes were awarded for the plants which showed the best care. "The advantages of these flower stows in a social aspect were many. They provided a source of simple recreation, and gave a new interest in home by adding unwonted cheer- fulness to the comfortless rooms of the poor. They became the means of drawing attention to some of the social wants of the working classes, such as the need of fresh air and venti- lation and more space. They taught them 198 Life of Lord Shaftesbury simple habits of forethought and prudence; for if they would win the prizes, they must purchase their plants long beforehand. Their chief good was that in watching the growth and progress of the flowers under their care the children and their parents were brought into close contact with something pure and innocent — something that should speak to the better part of their natures, and tell them of Him who has made the earth beautiful. "It seemed almost incredible that many of the plants and flowers exhibited at these shows were reared and watched and tended in some close cellar or garret by the little ragged urchins, who, a short time before, were whin- ing in the street for alms." The flowers, humble and simple enough, breathed whispers of strange histories. Some were reared In crowded slums, where the owner stole a few minutes from the hardest toil to tend them. Some came from West- minster Hospital, where they had been cared for by sick and suffering children. Some were Life of Lord Shaftesbury 199 sent from the Cripples' Home, and some from the kitchens of domestic servants and the quiet homes of working people. Dean Stanley was the president of this So- ciety for Promoting Flower Culture, but Lord Shaftesbury always gave the prizes at the an- nual flower show. He used to tell with great pleasure a little incident that occurred on one of these occasions. As he was going about among the people, he felt a little hand slip into his, and a little girl looked up in his face, and said, "Please, sir, may I give you a kiss?" The loving- hearted Earl smiled down into the little pinched face, and answered heartily, "I am sure you may, my dear, and I '11 give you one, too." In speaking of it, he said, "What would London be without her children?" The year of his great sorrow he wrote Dean Stanley, saying that he had better find some new and younger chairman for the annual flower show, and adding that he was in the condition of a tree which, as Lucan says. 200 Life of Lord Shaftesbury "casts a shadow no longer with its leaves, but only by its stem." Dean Stanley replied with the following verses : "Well said old Lucan, Often have I seen A stripling tree, all foliage and all green, But not a hope of grateful, soothing shade; Its empty strength in fluttering leaves displayed. Give me the solid trunk, the aged stem, That rears its scant but glorious diadem; That, through long years of battle or of storm, Has striven whole forests round it to reform; That plants its roots too deep for man to shake; That lifts its head too high for grief to break; That still, thro' lightning-flash and thunder-stroke, Retains its vital sap and heart of oak; Such gallant tree for me shall ever stand, A great rock's shadow in a weary laud." Lord Shaftesbury wrote under this: "I knew that the dean was very kindly disposed towards me. But I did not know how kindly." He withdrew his resignation and attended the show, where he made the most fervent ad- dress he had ever given to these people, whom he loved so tenderly. Cl^aptet: XI 1 X TE have given but small attention to the ' ' personal and home life of this great man. That he was very often drawn away from the delights of his own circle by the many calls of his public life was a constant grief. Only the conviction that he was called to this sacred work for the poor and neglected children of men kept him in the slums and missions of the great city, when his own home was the spot in all the world where most he wished to be. ^^^^en he placed his eldest son at school, we find him writing: "Dear Antony is about to start for school. How can I let him go ! He is such a joy to me ! Well can I understand the gracious and precious wisdom that shone in the hearts of Josiah and King Edward. O God, make him like Samuel, to walk before thee in youth and in age with joyful obedience!" 20I 202 Life of Lord Shaftesbury When he goes to get him to bring him home for his first vacation, he is as happy as a child. He says: "I took Minny with me, and also Francis, Maurice, and Evelyn. Very expensive; but we had incautiously made the promise. Chil- dren hold much to such engagements; and the loss of money is of less account than the loss of confidence." When he was obliged to leave his little flock his heart staid behind. He says : "My heart misgave me as I saw baby straining her darling little face through the bars of the pier to get a last sight of me. I commit my little flock unto God and the word of his grace." When he decided in favor of Rugby instead of Eton as a school for his son, he gave his reason thus: "Eton fits a man beyond all competition for the drawing-room, the club, St. James Street, and all the mysteries of social elegance. But it does not make the man required for Life of Lord Shaftesbury 20 o the coming generation. We must have nobler, deeper, and sterner stuff; more of the inward, not so much of the outward gentle- man ; a just estimate of rank and property as gifts from God, bringing with them serious responsibilities." In the fall of 1846 Ireland was on the brink of starvation. Lord Shaftesbury maintained that every one ought, by private self-denial, to aid the legislative effort for relief and lessen his own consumption, that "all might have a little." He was one of the first to practice his own preaching. When he found all provisions rising in price, he gave orders that no more potatoes should be bought for the house, say- ing : "We must not, by competing in the mar- ket, raise the cost on the poor man. He has nothing after this to fall back upon." An impression prevailed, that because Lord Shaftesbury had succeeded to the earldom, and possessed large landed estates, he must, of necessity, be possessed of wealth. The fact is, that his financial difficulties were often most 204 Life of Lord Shaftesbury distressing. As the head of a noble house which must be maintained, and as the father of ten children who must be educated and cared for, he found his income all too small. And yet these were not the largest items in his expense account. His biographer says that "heroism" is not too large a word to use with reference to the long, hard battle he fought in his endeavor to obey the apostolic injunction, and "to owe no man anything." As a leader in every charitable organiza- tion of the day he could not urge Hberal giving upon others, and not give freely himself. The demands upon his private charity were almost incredible in number and extent. When Lord Shaftesbury put his name down on a subscrip- tion-list, he offered to God that which cost him self-denial, self-sacrifice, and anxiety. A lady called on him one day, and brought to his attention a distressing case — a Polish refugee, who was in a state of utter destitution. "Dear me!" he said, "what is to be done? Life of LvOrd Shaftesbury 205 I have not a farthing. But the poor fellow must have something at once. What can I do?" He was as distressed as though some strong personal trouble had come to him. Suddenly a happy thought seized him. He remembered that he had put away in his li- brary a five-pound note in reserve as a nest- egg, and bringing it in with an air of great delight, he asked his visitor to relieve the man's distress as soon as possible. We find these records in his journal : "I have made up my mind that I must sell the old family pictures and the old family es- tates. It is painful, because ancestral feelings are very strong with me. But it is far better to have a well-cottaged property, people in decency and comfort, than well-hung walls which persons seldom see, and almost never admire unless pressed to do so ; and as for es- tates, it is ruin to retain them in the face of mortgage, debt, and the necessary provision for my children ! 2o6 Life of Lord Shaftesbury "To-day I sent to St. Giles for two more pictures to be sold. The house must be re- paired, and I must not do it from any revenue by which moneys devoted to charity would be diverted. I must, therefore, surrender my heirlooms, dismantle my walls, check ancestral feeling, and thank God that it is no worse." It seems incredibly sad that a man of Lord Shaftesbury's ability and benevolence should have had financial embarrassments. Fortu- nately, he had a friend in Lord Palmerston, the Premier of England, who had married his mother-in-law, and who ventured to ask him if his agents were trustworthy, and if, in his laudable desire to improve every part of his estate, he had not trusted his manager to de- vote a larger portion of his income than should have been allotted for such a purpose. The inquiry came none too soon. The ex- tent of Lord Shaftesbury's losses were never fully known, but were probably not less than fifty thousand pounds. For many years he was to have trouble and Life of Lord Shaftesbury 207 anxiety without ceasing, endless lawsuits and vexations. Things were at their worst, when Palmerston sent to Lord Shaftesbury's wife five thousand pounds, stating that he must be allowed to pay his half ''of his son's start in the world." This generous gift was truly appreciated, and gave the temporary help which was sorely needed. The dread of debt was a horror of great darkness before him. He wrote to a friend : "If I appear to fail in life and vigor, it is not for the want of zeal, but from that kind of Promethean eagle that is ever gnawing at my vitals. May God be with you and keep you out of dcbtf Had he been a man of less determination and courage, he would have abandoned his great undertakings, overwhelmed with his per- sonal obligations. Not so, Lord Shaftesbury. He entered more heartily than ever into the work to which he had given his life. His journal of this time says : "Engaged more than ever. Small works 2o8 Life of Lord Shaftesbury compared with the political and financial movements of the day — a Lodging-house, a Ragged School, a Vagrant Bill, a Thieves' Refuge ! No wonder that people think me engaged in small work, and yet I would not change it. Surely God has called me to this career. "I imagine some young man saying to me, '\\^ould you counsel me to follow the career that you have chosen and pursued?' I reply that, in spite of all vexations, disappointments, rebuffs, insults, toil, expense, weariness, all loss of political position, and considerable loss of personal estimation ; in spite of being al- ways secretly despised and often publicly ig- nored ; in spite of having your 'evil' most ma- liciously exaggerated, and your 'good' evil spoken of, — I would for myself say, 'Yes.' If you desire to rise in the world, to have a party, to be much thought of, to be a great man at court or in poHtics, I should say, 'No.' If you desire internal satisfaction, that humble joy through Almighty God that will attend you Life of Lord Shaftesbury 209 in retirement and thoughtfulness, I say em- phatically, 'Yes/ " In a letter to his intimate friend, Mr. Hal- dane, he said : "When I was younger I had some ambition for myself; I have now no desire except to possess so much influence as may enable me to do good. The public grows weary of its servants; it is tired of 'humanity,' and dead sick of mc. Whether by being out of sight for a time I shall come forth like an old coat with a new f^ufif, is a matter of speculation. I much fear that they will find me out, and as the showman said to Lord Stowell, when he went to see the mermaid, 'You have been a cus- tomer to me, my Lord, and I '11 not take you in ; it is only the old monkey !' So they will say, 'Do n't attend to that speech, it 's only the old monkey !' " On one occasion when he went into the committee rooms of the House of Lords, he heard one of the members say : "What ! are we not to have any new speakers, none but the 14 2IO Life of Lord Shaftesbury old ones?" Lord Shaftesbury said: "He blurted out, not at all in an intentionally of- fensive spirit, a sad truth. The guilt and pun- ishment of thirty years of platform work rushed upon my conscience. But I was obliged to proceed." He felt very keenly the abuse of the news- papers. When he was advocating open-air services for the poor people, the Daily News called him "an obtrusive professor of street- corner piety," and added that "the Pharisaism of Lord Shaftesbury is unimpeached and un- impeachable !" He said : "A great majority of mankind as- sume that if a man be stamped as a 'philan- thropist,' he can not have common sense. They hold that it betokens a softening of the brain ! Alas ! poor Yorick !" He was one of the most overworked men in all the great city. At the beginning of the year 1849 we find him laying out this pro- gram for himself: "I must stir up the Board of Health to Life of Lord Shaftesbury 211 more vigorous efforts. One hundred and fifty children have recently died of proved neglect. They will be the martyrs of a cause of reforma- tion. Next, I must carry out my plan for the general subdivision of all the larger parishes, so that the population of each parish shall not exceed four thousand, a plan that I feel sure will effect a greater amount of moral, social, and religious improvement than a whole code of laws. Then the completion of Ragged School projects, especially in relation to emi- gration. And, finally, the invitation to the stragglers in the lanes and streets, and the arrangement for evangelistic services in the great theaters. Add to this the ordinary and existing work, and there is my budget !" Before many months had passed, he began to have most unpleasant symptoms — terrible noises in his ears, his whole body appearing to vibrate like a Jew's-harp. He consulted a physician, and sorrowfully records his verdict : *'Over-toil, over-anxiety, over-sensitiveness to the subjects handled during many years, 212 Life of Lord Shaftesbury have unnerved you completely. You must be more moderate, or utterly disabled." After a brief rest, he writes : ''I am harassed by letters, interviews, chairs, boards, speeches. I am worn, worn by tliem all, surrendering all amusements and so- ciety, giving all the day and half of almost every night to business and meetings, and all this in the face of weak health and tottering nerves." When it was rumored that he was very ill, four hundred poor people called at his door in a single day to inquire about him. This touched him deeply, as the sincere attentions of humble people aJways did. After he had passed the threescore and ten milestone, his activity knew no cessation. There was scarcely a social, political, or relig- ious movement set on foot in which his co- operation was not solicited, and, if possible, obtained. He said at one of the meetings of the Rag- ged School Union : "This is the ninth hour I Life of Lord Shaftesbury 213 have been in the chair to-day. Moreover, I have taken the chair for two and thirty years consecutively, and having made two and thirty speeches, I hardly know in what form to ad- dress vou." It is to be regretted that more of Lord Shaftesbury's speeches were not preserved, to take a permanent place in the literature of the country. Not alone because of their literary value, but because they are the utterances of a man intensely in earnest, who had thor- oughly mastered every subject he discussed. It was a great pleasure to Lord Shaftesbury that his wife and children entered heartily into his plans and partook of his spirit. When his son Evelyn wrote to congratu- late him on the success of one of his ^reat speeches, he replied : "God bless you, my darling boy, for your kind and sympathizing letter. The success was indeed wonderful. You ask me how I get through so much work; why, as I hope you will hereafter, by hearty prayer to Al- 214 Life of Lord Shaftesbury mighty God before I begin, by entering into it with faith and zeal, and by making my end to be his glory and the good of mankind." We find this record in his journal of i860: "Last season in London my four daughters attended twice a week at the Cripples' Hos- pital to amuse the little, helpless ones, and read to them. It was signally successful, and blessed by God's grace to the teachers and the taught. Never have I felt more joy than to see that the more wretched the object, the more degraded and helpless the sufferer, the greater the sympathy of my children, and the greater their devotion. 'Every good and per- fect gift Cometh down from above !' " The first great sorrow of his life was the death of his second son, Francis, who sickened and died at Harrow, where he had made a most remarkable record as a student. He, perhaps more than any other child, was like his father in temperament, religious fervor, and philanthropic spirit. His father reached him in time to give him his blessing, and to Life of Lord Shaftesbury 215 assure him that he had the prayers of hundreds of ragged children. His face kindled at the thought, and it seemed to please him most of all. Lord Shaftesbury alludes to it thus : "Yesterday, at eight o'clock in the evening, it pleased Almighty God to take our blessed Francis. It was the work of a moment, and we were like amazed persons, so great had been the promise not many seconds before of returning strength. Yet we must not mur- mur, for all is wisdom and mercy and love that Cometh from Him. The child is with Christ, which is far better. When the physician told him he could not live, he simply added, 'What- ever is God's will, is enough for me.' " For many months there is scarcely a page of his journal that does not record the name of "my blessed Francis." His portrait was on the mantelpiece in the study at St. Giles; and thirty-six years later Lord Shaftesbury de- clared his belief that not one day had passed without some conscious memory of his be- loved son. 2i6 Life of Lord Shaftesbury Within a week of the funeral we find him busy with his Ragged Schools. He says a new motive impelled him: "Work of the 'Ragged' kind recalls his im- age so vividly, and his dear words of sym- pathy and approval. How could I please him more, w^ere he here, or if he knows of my doings, than by seeking the welfare of these forlorn lambs of our Master?" His son Maurice became the victim of a malady which affected his intellect, and finally terminated his life. Lord Shaftesbury had for him a feeling of peculiar tenderness. He said : "Wonderful it is that this feeble boy had such a charm about him. I have directed a monument on which will be engraved two texts which he cherished and often repeated : 'The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want ;' *It is good for me that I have been afflicted.' How good, he now knows in reality ; he knew it before by faith. Frequently in speaking and in writing I have been permitted to comfort him by quoting the words of our blessed Lord, Life of Lord Shaftesbury 217 'What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.' '*I have lost two precious sons for the short time of human life; but I have housed them forever in heaven." In 1861 his darlinj daughter, Mary, after an illness of a year and a half, died with con- sumption. He speaks of the beautiful love between mother and daughter, which grew stronger as the invalid grew weaker: "The mother's devotion to the child, and the child's affection for the mother, are God's own gifts." In 1857, Lord Shaftesbury's eldest son, An- tony, was elected to the House of Commons from Hull. He writes : "It was accomplished without a bribe, treat- ing, or any illicit inducement. His success is wonderful, and is of God's goodness. May it be the beginning of a career noble, patriotic, useful, religious, to his Master's honor and man's welfare ! Evelyn was there, and showed every quality of a clever, energetic man of business." 2i8 Life of Lord Shaftesbury At a public dinner given to his son, Lord Shaftesbury said: "You have taken that youth by the hand, and started him in the race of life with every hope of usefulness and honor. It is a matter of deep emotion that I should now see my son, in his earliest years, placed in that position where many men have terminated their career; that I see him commencing life in the highest situation that British freemen can confer upon their fellow-citizens; that I see him intrusted with mighty interests, and the member for the third seaport in the kingdom." When the first grandson was born, he wrote a joyful letter to his friend Haldane : "My little village of St. Giles is all agog with the birth of a son and heir in the very midst of them, the first, it is believed, since about 1600, when the first Lord Shaftesbury was born. The christening yesterday was an ovation. Every cottage had fiags and flowers. We had three triumphal arches, and all the people were exulting. *He is one of us.' 'He L,iFE OF Lord Shaftesbury 219 is a fellow-villager.' The tenants, too, and clergy, have, in grand consultation, resolved to present a piece of plate as an heirloom. I doubt whether in many counties there would now be found such a feeling between the owner and the occupiers of the land. Much is due to Antony, who has lived among them, and made himself deservedly popular." We have seen how little this great man cared for the honors of the world, although he did care very much for the good-will of those whom he believed to be true and good, whether in high or lowly life. When the chancellorship of Oxford was made vacant by the death of the Duke of Wellington, and Shaftesbury was approached as to whether he would receive it, he said : "It would, of necessity, call me away from the duties I have undertaken. Is there one that I would surrender for this honor? Not one. It is an honor I do not covet, a com- fortless dignity. Let those who are ambitious for it, obtain and enjoy the post. There will 220 Life of Lord Shaftesbury be candidates enough. I had rather, by God's blessing and guidance, retain those places for Avhich there are no candidates — the presidency of the Ragged School, the Field Lane Refuge. This is clearly my province. I am called to this, and not to any political or social honors." In 1854, when he was fighting battles for chimney-sweepers, and for the kings of the east, and in behalf of Ragged Schools and sanitation and pure literature, he received the following letter from the Prime Minister: *']\Iy Dear Shaftesbury, — It would give me great pleasure if you would permit me to submit your name to the Queen for the vacant Blue Ribbon. This is not intended as a po- litical appointment; for although I hope your general feelings are not unfriendly to the Gov- ernment, I make the proposal exclusively from •a desire to mark my admiration of your un- wearied exertions in the cause of humanity and of social improvement. Life of Lord Shaftesbury 221 "I am aware that honors of this description are usually conferred from very different mo- tives; but I feel certain that the distinction was never better deserved, and I doubt not that I shall myself receive credit for making such a selection. "Believe me, very truly yours, "Aberdeen." As w'as usual with all weighty questions, Lord Shaftesbury discussed it in his journal: "May 5th. — Though my immediate im- pulse was to decline it, I prayed to God for counsel and guidance. The point to be con- sidered is, '^^"ill it impede or will it promote my means of doing good?' IMinny wants me to accept it, 'as a just acknowledgment,' so she says, 'of my deserts.' I am unwilling to do so, lest it should be considered a payment of them, and I be told hereafter, either that I was never disinterested in my labors, or, when I appeal to Government for aid in my 222 Life of Lord Shaftesbury projects, that they have done enough to oblige me, and that they can do no more ! It might lead ignorant or malicious persons to cry down all public virtue, and say that every public man had his price. "The novelty of this reward for such serv- ices as mine would offend many people, and lower the value of the decoration among those for whom it is principally intended. "And the fees would amount to more than a thousand pounds, a sum which, if I had, I must devote either to my children or to duties towards my people. God give me a true judg- ment!" "jMay loth. — I have written to Aberdeen, and declined the Garter. But I thanked him heartily and affectionately for his kindness, and for the estimate he put on my public serv- ices. He understood mv difficulties, and sent my letter to the Queen. I regret the necessity of the determination, for I am not indifferent to the honor; but I am sure that I have done wisely. God be praised!" Life of Lord Shaftesbury 223 A week later he wrote: "The Government in the House of Com- mons threw out the Chimney-sweepers' Bill, and said not a word of sympathy for the wretched children, nor of desire to amend the law. I am ver}- sad and low about the loss of the Sweeps Bill. The Collar of the Garter might have choRed me. At least, I have not this or any other Government favor against me as an offset to their oppression. I must persevere, and, by God's help, so I will ; for, however dark the view, I see no Scripture reason for desisting ; and the issue of every toil is in the hands of the Almighty." As we have seen, this bill was finally passed, and recorded as a victory for Lord Shaftes- bury. In 1855, Lord Palmerston had become Prime Minister, and he offered Shaftesbury the same honor. "I never was in such perplexity in my life," said Lord Shaftesbury to his friend Hodder. "I was at my wit's end. On one side was 224 Life of Lord Shaftesbury ranged wife, relations, friends, ambition, influ- ence; on the other, my own objections, which seemed sometimes to weigh as nothing in comparison with the arguments brought against them. I could not satisfy myself that to accept ofifice was a divine call. I was satis- fied that God had called me to labor among the poor. There was no Urim and Thummim ; no open vision. I could do nothing but post- pone, and, in doing this, I was placing Pal- merston in a most awkward position. But God interposed for me." Lord Palmerston was in a dilemma. He had been unable to find any one who would satisfactorily fill the vacancy, otherwise he would have relieved his friend from the pres- sure that he knew was intolerable. His own light and hopeful spirit made him believe that once in ofiice, all the objections would disap- pear, and only good would ensue. But had he seen any way of escape for his friend, he would not have continued his urgent demands. A message was sent to Lord Shaftesbury to Life of Lord Shaftesbury 225 put on his court dress, and be at the palace at a given hour. To use his own words : "I never felt so helpless. I seemed to be hurried along without a will of my own ; with- out any power of resistance. I went and dressed, and then, while I was waiting for the carriage, I went down on my knees and prayed for counsel, wisdom, and understanding. Then there was some one at the door, as I thought, to say that the carriage was ready. Instead of that, a note, hurriedly written in pencil, was put into my hands. It was from Palmerston, 'Do n't go to the palace.' That was thirty years ago, but I dance with joy at the remembrance of that interposition, as I did when it happened. It was, to my mind, as dis- tinctly an act of special providence as Avhen the hand of Abraham was stayed and Isaac escaped." Another man had been found, who was acceptable to the Queen. Six years later. Lord Palmerston renewed his offer of this honor, declaring that the na- tion demanded his acceptance, and that the 15 226 Life of Lord Shaftesbury financial hindrance had been removed. Lord Shaftesbury's acceptance of the honor is re- ferred to thus: "Strange to say, I am become a 'Knight of the Garter.' I could not persist in refusal, so great was Palmerston's anxiety, and so urgent his arguments. I wished on iiiany grounds to avoid the honor; but obstinacy in refusal would have been almost personal to him, and misunderstood in myself. I do not despise, nor would I publicly depreciate, such rewards. They have their real value. It has been de- clared to be an acknowledgment of services hitherto considered to be of no public value. So far I rejoice. "How my precious, precious Mary would have been pleased ! But the darling has better things to please her now. "Palmerston assured me he had made an arrangement with the Treasury about the fees, which amount to about a thousand pounds. I have reason to believe that the arrangement he made was to pay the whole expense him- Life of Lord Shaftesbury 227 self, but to keep it secret from me. This is indeed generous." In the closing years of his life many honors were publicly accorded to him. In 1884 a great banquet was given at the Mansion House, at which he was the guest of the even- ing. It was a splendid ovation, three hundred persons, representing all the great social, re- ligious, and political interests, responding to the invitation. In June of that year, amid great pomp and circumstance, he received somewhat tardily the freedom of the city of London. In acknowledging the honor, he said that if he could not add any luster to the citizenship, the time for him was so short that there would be little opportunity for him to tarnish it, and added that, if any one should ever undertake the task of writing his biog- raphy, he begged him to have the goodness to record that he died a citizen of London. In 1872 came the great sorrow of his life. There is nothing in all literature more pathetic than the record of his grief. 228 L/iFE OF Lord Shaftesbury On the anniversar}' of his wedding day he had written : "Forty-one years ago I was united to that dear, beautiful, true, and affectionate dariing, my blessed Minny. What a faithful, devoted, simple-hearted, and captivating wife she has been to me ! And what a mother ! Lord, give me grace to thank thee evermore, and rejoice in thy goodness. Lead us in the way of serv- ice. She is still away with my precious, sufifer- ing Constance, who is seeking health in a milder climate. God in his mercy, bring them home speedily and safely!" It was while caring for her invalid daughter that the health of Lady Shaftesbury gave way. As soon as she ^^-as able to bear the journey, she returned to London. The physicians de- clared it a "grave case." In the hour of his overwhelming anxiety Lord Shaftesbury wrote to Mr. Orsman: "I am writing to you with the very pen my costefmonger friends gave me. I write to ask Life of Lord Shaftesbury 229 my brothers and sisters In Golden Lane to pray for me. My wife and daughter are very ill I believe much in the prayers of Christian people; and I know there are many among you. Do not forget me. Our Lord teaches us that there is mighty power in the fervent supplications of the poor. The children, too, must remember me, as I have often remem- bered them. May God be with you! "Shaftesbury." For several days Lady Shaftesbury ap- peared to be gaining in strength, but there was a serious relapse, and on October 15th we find this record in his journal : "Minny, my own Minny, is gone. God took her soul to himself at about twelve o'clock this morning. She has entered into her rest, and has left us to feel the loss of the purest, gentlest, kindest spirit that ever lived. O my God, \yhat a blow ! But we bow before thee in resignation and sorrow. She whis- pered to me, 'None but Christ.' What do I 230 Life of Lord Shaftesbury not owe to her and to thee, O God, for the gift of her? But now to-night will be a ter- rible event. For the first time I must omit in my prayers the name of my precious Minny." Four days later the body of Lady Shaftes- bury was committed to the grave in the little village church of Wimborne St. Giles. A sim- ple tablet near the family pew bears a tribute : "To the memory of a wife, as good, as true, and as deeply beloved as God, in his unde- served mercy, ever gave to man." Expressions of sympathy poured in upon Lord Shaftesbury from Her Majesty, the Queen, who wrote a most beautiful and tender autograph letter, and from many humble Ragged School teachers, and from a multitude of illiterate costers. It seemed impossible that Lady Constance Ashley could survive the shock. But she ral- lied, and her physicians said her only hope was on the shores of the IMediterranean. His record tells of the pathetic struggle for life: "The doctors say, Mentone; but how get Life of Lord Shaftesbury 231 her there? How find her strength for the long, fatiguing journey? How get her across the water in wind and rain? O God, be gra- cious to us! "To-day I went to St. Giles on business. How sad and solitary and silent it is ! When it was dark I crept into the church, and prayed near her dear resting-place, and I had peace. " Mentone. — We arrived here very sorrow- ful. I could enjoy nothing, for she was not here to share it with me. I must live for Con- stance's sake. No attention, no sympathy can approach that of a mother — and such a mother ! "December i6th. — To-day my precious Constance left me for heaven. Never was a going so joyous. Heaven itself seemed open before her eyes. Her face was radiant as she spoke to every one. 'Dearest father,' she said, *I want to bless you now for all that you have taught me.' The darling girl taught me in one half-hour more than I had imparted in her whole life. She said: 'I know that I am 232 Life of Lord Shaftesbury going to die, for I feel so happy.' With these words she fell into a soft sleep, and was gone. Was her blessed mother there? She said, 'Christ is very near.' I will ever maintain that this was a special mercy to mitigate our sor- row. We were positively raised into joy. Neither speech nor writing can adequately de- scribe what it was. The sudden change was like a resurrection." "December 28th. — Yesterday was the bur- ial. The day was dark and gloomy; but aa we started on the procession, the sun came out Hke a smile of heaven." Whenever he returned to St. Giles, he seemed to feel his loss and sorrow more keenly. When his son, the Hon. Evelyn Ash- ley, was returned as member of Parliament, the little village held a glad celebration, and Lord Shaftesbury writes : ''The bells are ringing joyfully ; but she, my beloved one, who lies beneath them, hears them not. How glad would her dear heart Life of Lord Shaftesbury 233 have been in the success of her sympathizing son! But she is Hstening to other sounds — the music of heaven. "In her old age she was as beautiful to me as the day when I married her." Cl^apter XII AS we have seen, Lord Shaftesbury revered *~^ the Church of England for the truths which she held, and for what she might be. He acknowledged sorrowfully that her clergy had failed to stand by him in his great work. He was often denounced and opposed by the Establishment because of his broad catholic spirit, which reached out to sympathize and co-operate with every humanitarian effort un- der whatsoever Church or creed. He declared himself that he was "an Evangelical of the Evangelicals." He requested his biographer, "Do not tone down or explain away my un- popular religious z'iezvs." On one occasion, speaking of Church re- form, he said : "I have talked a great deal, always with a view to the safety of the Establishment, about ecclesiastical reforms. Ecclesiastical reforms 234 Life of Lord Shaftesbury 235 seem just as remote as they were before any- thing was said on the subject. I am not going to speak about such things any more, and I will tell you why. Two hundred years ago, an ancestor of mine, the Lord Shaftesbury of that day, was making a speech in the House of Lords. Behind him sat the bishops, and one of them whose name I find recorded in his- tory, and who disliked the Lord Shaftesbury of that day, perhaps, nearly as much as the bishops now dislike the Lord Shaftesbury of the present day, exclaimed, 'When will that lord have done preaching?' My ancestor turned round to him, and said, 'Whenever your lordships begin.' Well, I will not go on preaching any more about ecclesiastical re- form, because it would be utterly useless, be- cause I know their lordships, the bishops, will iiez'er begin." He describes a ritualistic service, and closes with a Scripture verse, which surely is the best comment which could be made : "On Sunday I went to St. Alban's Church 236 Life of Lord Shaftesbury in Holborn. In outward form and ritual, it is the worship of Jupiter and Juno. A high altar, a cross over it — no end of pictures. The chan- cel very large, and separated from the body of the church by a tall iron grille. Service in- toned and sung, except the lessons, by priests with white surplices and green stripes. *'This being ended, a sudden clearance. All disappeared. In a few minutes, the organ, the choristers, abundant officials, and priests ap- peared, the middle one having on his back a cross embroidered as long as his body. This was the beginning of the sacramental service. Then ensued such a scene of theatrical gym- nastics, such a series of strange movements of the priests, their backs almost always to the people, as I never saw before even in a Romish temple. Clouds upon clouds of incense, the censer frequently refreshed by the high priest who kissed the spoon as he dug out the sacred powder, and swung it about at the end of a silver chain. A quarter of an hour sufficed to administer to about seventy communicants, Life of Lord Shaftesbury 237 out of six hundred present. An hour and three-quarters was given to the histrionic part. The communicants went up to the tune of soft music, as though it had been a melo- drama, and one was astonished at the close that there was no fall of the curtain. 'God is a Spirit; and they that worship him must wor- ship him in spirit and in truth.' " He speaks of presiding at a meeting of the London Missionary Society in aid of their missions in China, and added sadly: "I shall, I suppose, give great ofifense to my friends in the Establishment. Am sorry for it ; but the cause is too holy, too catholic, too deeply allied with the single name of Christ, for any considerations of Church system and Episcopal rule. What is the meaning of 'Grace be with all those who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity?' Did not Morrison, Mof- fatt, Williams, love him? If grace, then, was with those men, shall I, vile man, presume to say that I will not be with them also?" He was thoroughly in sympathy with the 23S LriFE OF Lord Shaftesbury British and Foreign Bible Society. His inter- est was first made manifest at the time of the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park in 185 1. The religious societies desired to make it the occa- sion, while so many foreigners were in the land, of pressing the claims of the gospel in various ways. Lord Shaftesbury tells of his efiforts to obtain a place for the translation of the Bible: "There was no difficulty whatever in ob- taining abundant space for all the implements of war and of human destruction that the mind of man could imagine. A large proportion of the Exhibition was taken up with guns, can- nons, torpedoes, everything that could annoy and desolate mankind. It was suggested that we should erect for the Bible Society some place in the Exhibition, where we could show proofs of all that we had done to the praise of God, and all we were capable of doing. Some said we had no right to appear. I had a long interview with His Royal Highness, the Prince Consort, on the subject, and he took Life of Lord Shaftesbury 239 the view that the Bible Society had no right to a position there. I said : " 'Putting aside the religious aspect of the question, I will put it before you from an in- tellectual point of view. I ask you whether it is not a wonderful proof of intellectual power that the Word of God has been translated into one hundred and seventy distinct languages, and into two hundred and thirty dialects? Is it not a proof of great intellectual power that the agents of the Bible Society have given a written character to more than thirty distinct languages, enabling all those people to read the Word of God in their own tongue?' "He said : 'You have proved your right to appear. It is a great intellectual effort, and I will do my best to secure for the Society such a position as is befitting.' " That year he took the chair for the first time as president of the British and Foreign Bible Society, a position which he held through his long life. In moving a resolution that the meeting should unite in expressing 240 Life of Lord Shaftesbury their best wishes that the blessing of God should rest upon their new president, the Earl of Harrowby said: "I am sure, my Lord, that you will not hold cheap the honor which has been conferred upon you. I conceive that it is the highest honor within the realm of England to be the representative of her religious principles and feelings ; and I believe that there is not a man in the whole realm who enjoys the general approbation of his fellow-citizens more than your lordship. You have pursued your serv- ice for mankind, undeterred by difficulties, by opposition, by sneers; uninjured by popular- ity, uninfluenced by unpopularity. We are convinced that your conduct throughout has been based on the deepest personal religious convictions." His biographer describes a great meeting of the Society near the close of Shaftesbury's life. It was at Exeter Hall, and on the occa- sion he made one of his famous orations on the Bible. It was an answer to the Neologists, Life of Lord Shaftesbury 241 who had been publishing a declaration that the Bible was effete. "Multitudes are pressing in at the open doors of Exeter Hall. A group of foreigners on the opposite pavement are looking on in blank astonishment ; they are gazing at a sight which is more characteristic of English life and feeling than can be seen at any other place, or at any other season. It is the festival time of England's great religious societies. "Enter the building. It is thronged in every part. Presently the organ ceases to play, and there is a stir and a flutter in the audience as divines, philanthropists, and social and religious leaders take their position on the platform. But the signal for a spontaneous burst of enthusiastic greeting is given when the secretary precedes a tall, slender, pale- faced man, who gazes for a moment with cold, passionless eyes upon the sea of heads and the waving handkerchiefs as he holds the rail of the platform nervously, and then, after a formal bow, buries himself in the depths of a 16 242 Life of Lord Shaftesbury huge arm-chair. Every person in the hall claims to know and revere him. *'He rises to speak, and again the hall rings with repeated cheers. He stands unmoved — still as a statue. He seems unconscious that he is the object of attention. As the cheering continues, he seems almost displeased with the demonstration, for no shadow of a smile passes over the strongly-marked lines of his face. When the echoes of the thunderings have died away, he draws his slight form to its full height, grasps firmly the rail of the plat- form, and commences his speech. It proceeds on a somewhat dead level, although uttered with great dignity until he alludes to certain philosophical works recently issued to teach that the Bible is unsuited to the present times. Then the whole manner of the man is changed; the pale face kindles; the voice be- comes clear and ringing; the slender form is all alive with strength and energy; the whole man is transfigured. He marshals in swift array the nations of the world, and shows that Life of Lord Shaftesbury 243 the Bible has brought to them liberty and civilization and blessings untold. He closes with a peroration of wonderful power : " ' They tell us that the Bible is effete. It is effete as Abraham was effete when he became the father of many nations, when there sprang of one, and him as good as dead, as many as the stars for multitude and the sands upon the seashore innumerable. It is effete as eternity. It is effete as God himself is effete, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.' " He enjoyed the close personal friendship of many famous men and women — the Duke of Wellington, Garibaldi, the Prince Consort, and Queen Victoria. A letter written to him from Daniel Webster just before Webster's appointment as Secretary of State, is interest- ing, as indicating the friendly feeling existing between the great American statesman and the English philanthropist: "I owe you many thanks for a kind note which I received at the moment of my depart- 244 L'?" " Know of him !" answered a man standing up in the audience; "why, sir, I 'm a sweep, and what did he do for me? Didn't he pass the bill? When I was a little 'un, I had to go up the chimbleys, and many a time I 've come down with bleeding feet and knees, and a'most choking. And he passed the bill as saved us from all that. That 's what I know of him." If the poor had many memorials of Lord Shaftesbury, he certainly had many of them. Over his bed in Grosvenor Square hung a handsome "sampler," worked by factory girls, the first-fruits of their leisure hours. The clock in his dining-room was presented to him by flower and watercress girls. His bed cov- erlet, under which at St. Giles he always slept, was made out of little bits of material, with Life of Lord Shaftesbury 269 a figure in the middle, and a large letter "S," the work of a company of ragged children. Speaking one day at the Annual Meeting of the Reformatory and Refuge Union, he tried to tell how much he was indebted to these children, and said: "I believe I have been pretty well clothed by day and night because of their service; I have had all sorts of things made and given to me ; I have had slippers and stockings ; I have had shoes and waistcoats and bed linen, cov- erlets, counterpanes — well, everything but a coat; I have had desks and arm-chairs and a quantity of writing-paper, all well stamped, sufHcient for six months' correspondence. I love these gifts, because they have been called forth from the dear little hearts of these chil- dren, and so they are more precious than the noblest present could be. "I thank God for the day when I was called by his g^ace to participate in this holy work. Of all the things to which I have been called by his good and all-wise providence, there is 270 Life of Lord Shaftesbury not one like it, not one that has brought me so much comfort, not one that I can look back upon with so much consolation, and there is not one that I look forward to with, so much hope." We should expect him to be kind and thoughtful towards the servants of his house- hold; and so he was. When speaking on behalf of an institution in which he took a great interest, the Aged Pilgrims' Friend Society, he was able to refer to the fact that his housekeeper had been fifty- two years in his service ; that as nurse she had brought up all his children; that not one of them would ever think of retiring to rest in his house without bidding "good night" to that "female patriarch," and that she was held in reverence by all the household. He did not say, what was nevertheless the fact, that every morning after prayers it was his habit to shake hands with the aged house- keeper, and inquire after her health, and of things that were of interest in her little world. Life of Lord Shaftesbury 271 Many who had bitterly opposed his work in his earlier years, became his warm admirers in the later part of his life. A great dinner was given by a society of noble rank, to celebrate the admission of Lord Hartington, who made a speech on the occasion. He said : '*I find upon the roll the names of Lord Grey, Lord John Russell, Lord Holland, and Mr. Hume; and coming down a little later, I find the names of Lord Palmerston, Lord Clarendon, and Mr. Cobden; and descending to our own time, I find the name of Mr. Glad- stone; and last upon the roll, I find the name of one who has been admitted, not for political services, but for services purer, nobler, and more illustrious than any which we politicians can hope to render; I mean that of my noble friend who sits beside me — Lord Shaftes- bury." Lord Shaftesbury speaks of the occasion thus: "There was one little episode that greatly pleased me. It came from Lord Hartington, 272 I^iFE OF Lord Shaftesbury the hero of the evening, as we had met to honor his admission to the freedom of the company. I did not expect it. I did not know that he cared anything for me person- ally, or had watched my career." His humility helps us to understand how great he was. On his seventieth birthday he wrote : "I have been thinking of my past career and present position; and am astonished how I went through one, and now stand in the other. I am without pretense to literary at- tainments, though with an immense fondness for them. I am intellectually not strong; a poor and ineffective orator, though foolishly desirous of being a great one. Yet I have had successes, great successes. How were they attained? I know not. The only qualities I can claim for myself are feeling, conviction, and perseverance. These have, under God, brought me to the position I now hold. What is my stock-in-trade for the duties of the next session? So far as I can estimate, they are LriFE OF Lord Shaftesbury 2^^) remnants of intellectual power, remnants of influence, remnants of doings considered as past services, remnants of zeal, all backed by a certain amount of public forbearance." At an evening party given by Sir Henry Rawlinson to the members of the Arctic Ex- pedition, at which Lord Shaftesbury was pres- ent. Sir Bartle Frere took the opportunity to urge upon him that he should visit the United States. Referring to this, he says: "It is what I had long and often wished; but as St. Paul says, 'Was let hitherto.' Now I am too near the sensible decay of physical and mental power for such an effort as that would be. The demands on my strength in every form would far surpass what I could have endured, even in my younger days." At another time he said concerning our country : ''The United States are a young country; and so far as an analogy is good, have all the hopes and prospects of healthy and vigorous youth. They contain within themselves every- i8 274 Life of IvOrd Shaftesbury thing, however various, that nature bestows, and in abundance inexhaustible. In art and science, they are equal to the best; in energy of character, superior. They have nothing to fear from internal dissensions; they are be- yond the power of foreign aggression. Their territory is nearly boundless, and so close as to furnish a ready safety-valve to all their dis- contented spirits. Every year adds enor- mously to their numbers and resources, and wealth seems to grow like the grass of the field. "The Government is essentially republican ; and there is actually nothing left to contend for in the way of more liberal institutions. They may, and will, have party strifes and struggles for the possession of place and power; but what social question remains? There is no State Church to be invaded ; no aristocracy to be pulled down ; no king to be replaced by a President." The evening-time of his life found him la- boring on, his faculties keenly alive, his heart Life of Lord Shaftesbury 275 tender as ever, his sympathies just as fresh, and his plans as numerous as at any period of his life. He prayed, "O Lord, let me die in the harness!" Lord Shaftesbury's eightieth birthday was celebrated as a national event. Under the au- spices of the Lord Mayor, the committee of the Ragged School Union took the initiative to do honor to their president, and a great meeting in the Guild Hall was arranged to celebrate the day, and to present him with a portrait of himself. It was a famous gather- ing. Long before the commencement of the proceedings, every part of the great building was crowded. On the platform was assem- bled a distinguished company, including mem- bers of both Houses of Parliament, clergy- men, merchant princes, men and women representing every estimable phase of polit- ical, religious, and social life, to do honor to the man who had proved himself the greatest benefactor of his generation. It was a brilliant assembly. 276 I^iFE OF Lord Shaftesbury But even more suggestive was the scene outside the building, where flower-girls with their well-filled baskets of spring flowers, and costermongers with their gayly-dressed don- keys and barrows, and Ragged School chil- dren, crowded around the hero of the day, scattering flowers in his path, and pouring upon him "the blessing of the poor, and of him that was ready to perish." The Earl of Aberdeen, Mr. W. E. Forster, and the Lord Mayor were the principal speak- ers. When Lord Shaftesbury arose to reply to the addresses, he was greeted with a perfect tempest of applause. He was calm and self- possessed, and amid all the excitement and fatigue he did not omit one point of interest in his career, nor did he forget to render trib- utes of gratitude to the many who had sup- ported him in his lifelong labors. There were many incidents in that mag- nificent celebration which affected him, but nothing more than the manly and generous Life of Lord Shaftesbury 277 speech of Mr. W. E. Forster. He valued it, not because of Mr. Forster's high official po- sition, but because he was a mill-owner in Yorkshire who knew the evils which had ex- isted in the factory districts, and who had been one of the first to speak a kind word to him on his earliest visit to the town of Brad- ford. There was one expression in the speech which particularly gratified Lord Shaftesbury, and he said afterward : "If anything is told of my life after I am gone, let those words of Forster's be recorded. In the whole course of my life, no words have gratified me more." These were the words : "The good conduct on the part of the pop- ulation was, in a great measure, due to the moderating influences which were brought to bear on them by Lord Shaftesbury. How I wish that all agitators, when they are advo- cating the removal of great and real griev- ances, would take an example from him, and 278 Life of Lord Shaftesbury remember with what care they should con- sider both the immediate and the ultimate effect of what they say upon those who are suffering." All the doings of that day were issued in book form by the committee of the Ragged School Union, a special copy of which was presented to Lord Shaftesbury. On the fly- leaf he wrote : "Deep and lively is my gratitude to the men who conceived, organized, and executed this celebration, and much do I feel the sym- pathy of those who honored it by their pres- ence." Letters of congratulation poured in from all the great men and women of England ; tele- grams flashed and presents were unloaded at his door. But the gift which he most highly prized was a bouquet of paper flowers, made and presented by the little children of the One Tun Ragged School. Life of Lord Shaftesbury 279 He received this beautiful message from his sister: "I have thought much of you to-day, you dear, blessed darling. May God continue to watch over your most precious life ! "Your devoted sister, Charlotte." Every day brought its labors — meetings, speeches, interviews, letters involving deliber- ation and wise action. He was eighty-two years old when he made his great speech at the Luther Commemoration. It was a mag- nificent eulogium of "a man chosen by God himself, to deliver us from the most terrible and degrading thralldom of mind and spirit that ever fell upon the human race." The same day he laid the foundation-stone of a place of worship at Whitechapel, and at- tended a great meeting in the evening, where he presided. He said : "I got through it all without pain or fa- tigue. Speeches, of course, at each. I bless 28o Life of Lord Shaftesbury Thee, O Lord! He can, and he does, often- times make an iron pillar out of a bulrush." Large sums of money came into his hands every year for the support of his great enter- prises. A few months before his death, he received the astonishing announcement that a lady had left to him in her will for distribu- tion among the charities of London the sum of sixty thousand pounds ! The toil and anxi- ety consequent upon the disposal of this large sum can be understood only by those who knew how scrupulously conscientious Lord Shaftesbury was in dealing with every far- thing of money of which he was trustee. May of 1885 came, and brought the great religious festivals of the year. It was his earnest desire that he might be able to pre- side at the Bible Society meeting and at the Ragged School Union. His friends did not see how it was possible for him to bear the fatigue and excitement attendant upon these great gatherings ; but he Life of Lord Shaftesbury 281 was there. And his voice rang out as clear and strong as of yore. He was also able to get to the anniversary of the Flower Girls' Mission. He made two important speeches, one on I behalf of Ragged Schools, at Grosvenor House; and one at Mansion House, for the protection of helpless women and girls from dangers in the streets. When he saw that he had not strength to carry this measure through and secure legislation, he was quite heartbroken. He said to a friend: "I feel old age creeping on, and know I must soon die. I hope it is not wrong to say it — but / can not bear to leave this world with all the misery in it." It gave him great joy to install as superin- tendent of a school a fine young tradesman who had been a wretched little vagrant, but, educated in the Ragged School, had become fitted for the position. He made his last visit to these schools. 282 Life of Lord Shaftesbury which had been his thought and care for so many years. A superintendent writes: "I shall never forget that visit. He went the round of the rooms, interested in the poor children and people as much as ever, speak- ing tenderly and sympathizingly to sorrowing : ones, and telling them of Jesus, an ever-loving and ever-present Savior. Then he said : " 'I do n't think I shall ever see you in the flesh again. I am ill, and at my time of life I can not expect to be long here. What a com- fort it is to know Christ as a personal Savior ;' and, after a pause, he added, 'My Savior.' " His physicians decided that he must get away from the excitement of London life for a time at least. He left London, July 25th, for the last time, and went to Folkstone, where he could drink in the invigorating sea-air. Very sacred grew that chamber where the prayer was constantly breathed, "Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly." He would ask his daughters or his valet to read to him portions of the Bible he named to them. Every morn- Life of Lord Shaftesbury 283 ing he called for the twenty-third Psalm, be- ginning, "The Lord is my Shepherd: I shall not want." His only regret was that he could not die in his own home. When a letter from the Dean of Westmin- ster was read to him, in which a resting-place in Westminster Abbey was proposed, he said in an earnest voice, "No — St. Giles's!" His sons and daughters, whom he had loved with an untold affection, knelt for his benediction. He said to them with a restful smile : "I am in the hands of God, the ever-blessed Jehovah ; in his hands alone. Yes, in his keep- ing, with him alone." The first day of October, when the sun- shine, which he loved so much, was flooding his chamber with light, he passed, without pain or sigh, into the presence of the King. A week later, as simple a funeral procession as ever marked the public obsequies of a great man moved away from the door of his house 284 Life of Lord Shaftesbury in Grosvenor Square. It needed not the pomp of any earthly pageant to do him honor. Flowers sent by poor and rich alike formed the only display. There were signs of mourn- ing in the clubhouses and mansions of St. James Street and Pall Mall; but it was far more significant to see the thousands of arti- sans, laborers, factory hands, flower-girls, the poor and destitute from all quarters of Lon- don, lining the streets through which the pro- cession was to pass. Even the poorest had managed to procure some little fragment of black to wear upon the coat-sleeve or in the bonnet. The stillness was solemn and impressive. And as the simple procession passed, every head was uncovered and bowed as with a personal sorrow. He had "clothed a people with spontaneous mourning, and was going down to the grave amid the benedictions of the poor." His biographer says: ^'As the funeral carriages passed into Par- liament Street, a sight was seen which will Life of lyORD Shaftesbury 285 never be forgotten while this generation lasts. Deputations from the Homes and Refuges and training-ships, from the costermongers' society, from missions and charities, each with their craped banners emblazoned with such words as these, 'Naked, and ye clothed me,' 'A stranger, and ye took me in.' As the pro- cession passed, the deputations fell in, and marched towards the Abbey. "Rarely, if ever, had there been such a com- pany assembled in Westminster Abbey as on that day. Royalty was represented; the Church, both Houses of Parliament, diplom- acy, municipal power, society, were repre- sented. But the real importance of that enor- mous gathering, filling every inch of space, lay in the spontaneous homage of the thou- sands of men and women representing all that was powerful for good in the whole land. The Abbey was full of mourners. Never before in tha memory of living men had there been brought together, at one time, in one place, and with one accord, so many workers for the 286 Life of Lord Shaftesbury common good, impelled by a deep and tender sympathy in a common loss. For no other man in England, or in the world, could such an assembly have been brought together." After the burial service, with its sweet words of Christian joy and the strong words of Christian confidence, that vast congre- gation joined in singing Charles Wesley's hymn: "Let all the saints terrestrial sing With those to glory gone, For all the servants of our King, In earth and heaven, are one." The coffin was buried beneath masses of exquisite wreaths — the offering of the Crown Princess of Germany resting beside the "Loving tribute from the Flower-girls of London." As the procession moved from the Abbey, the band of the Costermongers' Society played the hymn, "Safe in the arms of Jesus." A poor laboring man, with a piece of crape Life of Lord Shaftesbury 287 sewed on to his sleeve, turned to one who stood beside him, and, with a choking voice, said: *'Our Earl's gone! God A'mighty knows he loved us, and we loved him. We shall not see his likes again !" Ten thousand such tributes as this were paid that day to this English nobleman, whose nobility was less that of the garter and the escutcheon than of the Christian and the uni- versal benefactor. Next day, in the little church of St. Giles, the "good Earl" was laid to rest in the ances- tral burying-place, beside the faithful wife and daughters whom he had loved so tenderly. This beautiful hymn closed the simple service : "Now the laborer's task is o'er. Now the battle-day is past; Now upon the farther shore Lands the voyager at last. Father, in thy gracious keeping Leave me now, thy servant sleeping." A plain tablet has since been placed in the village church where he sleeps. He directed 288 Life of Lord Shaftesbury that there should be nothing but a little tablet, and chose the Scripture verses for it: Antony Ashley Cooper, Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury. Born, April 28, 1801. Died, October i, 1885. " What hast thou, that thou didst not receive ?" "Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest lie fall." "Surely, I come quickly. Even so, come, Lord Jesus." When, in 1885, the Duke of Argyll said, "The social reforms of the last century have been due to the influence, character, and per- severance of one man — Lord Shaftesbury," Lord Salisbury indorsed this eloquent tribute, by adding, "That is, I believe, a very true rep- resentation of the facts." •; While those who thronged the Abbey that sad day shed their tears, ten thousand times ten thousand of operatives, whose labor he had lightened, of orphans he had sheltered, of out- casts he had rescued, of the oppressed he had set free, of ragged children he had clothed, of Life of Lord Shaftesbury 289 emigrants he had transplanted to new spheres, of Christian laborers whose zeal he had in- creased, paused in their daily tasks to share in the expression of universal grief. The statute-books showed that his service had benefited a population of two million and five hundred persons! He was the founder of a new order of no- bility — an order of men who, inspired by his beautiful example, and catching his sublime enthusiasm for the lessening of human suffer- ing and for the salvation of hnmankind, are bringing in the kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Is it too much to say that he was the great- est man England has ever produced? 19 UNRTRSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. IT' w<^.«. INTERLIBRARY L^^'^J^f^ m|^ 7 NOV 4 1965 FOUR WEEKS FROM DATE Or qtCtlPT NON-RENEWABLE L'A ^W^- •'FCE'V^ u>' MAY 11 W Uni JAN 1 3 1976 1979 '■Tl sa ilfcut ii& % OEC 1« 1965 ^ k 319T5 iSi NOV pO£Hi l/y-60m-4V6Jr(B899is4)r'444 RENEWAL ^ fffto U» Uffl. FES A?/1K .'^ ^ 3 1977 v^y 3 1 58 00095 9006 UC SOUTHFRN RFGinNAi i iRRiRv FACILITY AA 000 415 484 I , ^«'S BOOK CARD ? 1 IT-i-^ >i '^ ^-■^^^s,ty Research L/bro > > /•-.K?J rum /■jSjv-i;,*-..; ^m f„<>