THE LIBRARY 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
COLONY OF MERCY 
 
 OR 
 
 SOCIAL CHRISTIANITY AT WORK 
 
rights reserved^ 
 

 Digitized by 
 
 the Internet Archive 
 
 
 
 
 in 2014 
 
 
 
 https://archive.org/details/colonyofnnercyorsOOsutt_0 
 
A COLONY OF MERCY 
 
 OR 
 
 SOCIAL CHRISTIANITY AT WORK 
 
 BY 
 
 JULIE SUTTER 
 
 WITH TWENTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS AND PLAN 
 
 NEW YORK 
 DODD, MEAD & CO. 
 5, EAST 19TH STREET 
 1893 
 
THIS BOOK 
 
 TO 
 
 THE COUNTRY OF HER ADOPTION 
 
 1491079 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE 
 
 WORD in explanation. About a year ago, the 
 
 writer found herself at this Colony of Mercy, this 
 Bethel. She did not know much about it, she had gone 
 to take a work there — a work for Africa, too much for 
 her own hands — and she went to fasten its threads in 
 that Pastor's study. But having gone for one thing 
 she brought away another : she brought away a vision 
 of a Programme of Christianity realised. She had 
 translated into German the booklet which sets forth the 
 mission of Christianity, showing it to be a comforting 
 of all that mourn. Strangely enough, the booklet was 
 printing just as she got to Bethel, the proof-sheets 
 actually finding her there, and how could she help 
 seeing the Programme realised before her eyes — for 
 Bethel is a comforter of all who mourn, proving her- 
 self such comforter in her wondrous work. " To bind 
 up the broken-hearted'^^ says the Programme, " to give 
 unto them beauty for ashes^ the oil of joy for mournings 
 and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness r 
 These words were ringing in her ears as she went about 
 
viii Introductory Note 
 
 the Colony, and she knew — for she saw it — the Pro- 
 gramme is true. 
 
 Thus the keynote of the booklet is the keynote of 
 this story, the true reading of Bethel having come to 
 her like a harmony set to this key. Bethel appeared 
 as a working model of the booklet's teaching. A Pro- 
 gramme deduced from the spirit of Christianity, however 
 beautiful, might yet remain a vision only, a noble theory ; 
 but she saw this vision realised, and knew therefore it 
 speaks true. 
 
 J. s. 
 
 Hampstead, 
 
 April, 1893. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PRISONERS OF ZION . I 
 
 " The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE GROUNDWORK I4 
 
 " The righteous is an everlasting foundation " 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 BETHEL 24 
 
 " ^ city set on a hill." 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 WALKS ABOUT BETHEL 47 
 
 " Your bodies a reasonable service." 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 MORE WALKS ABOUT BETHEL 74 
 
 " Out of the mouth of babes Thou hast perfected praise." 
 
X 
 
 Contents 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE MINISTRY OF MERCY 90 
 
 " ScrvtHS the Lord" 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 BABY CASTLE Ill 
 
 ^^Sujfer the little children to come unto Me." 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 BETHEL TO THE RESCUE . , 13I 
 
 ..." satv much people and was moved with compassion toward 
 them." 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE LABOUR COLONY I45 
 
 " There is room." 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 DARKEST GERMANY TRAMPING 171 
 
 " Compel them to come in." ' 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE SPIRITUALLY EPILEPTIC . . . . . . 192 
 
 Am I my brother's keeper ? " 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE CAVE OF ADULLAM 21 1 
 
 And every one in distress, and every one in debt, and every one 
 discontented, gathered themselves unto him, and he became 
 a captain over them." 
 
Contents xi 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 PAGE 
 
 workman's home 226 
 
 " Beauty for ashes." 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE BROCKEN SAMMLUNG . 256 
 
 " Gather up the fragments." 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE MESSAGE OE BETHEL TO OURSELVES . . - 275 
 
 " Go and do likewise.'" 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 L PASTOR VON BODELSCHWINGH . . . Frontispiece 
 
 IL ziON CHURCH Facing page i 
 
 III. VIEW OF THE CHURCH HILL FROM THE SPARRENBURG PageW 
 
 IV. TENT FOR PATIENTS . . . . . . . 21 
 
 V. EBEN-EZER . . . . . . . . . 29 
 
 VI. BETHEL HOUSE ,,36 
 
 VII. THE COLONY AS SEEN FROM THE RISING HILL 
 
 COUNTRY BEHIND HEBRON . . . . . 49 
 
 VIII. PATIENTS AT NINEPINS . . . , . . . ,, 61 
 
 IXi " WELL BOWLED ! " , . . . ,, 62 
 
 X. THE "field-marshal" OUT WITH THE BETHEL GIRLS 64 
 
 XL CENTRE OF THE COLONY > ) 95 
 
 XII. THE SISTERS' HOME OF REST. . . . . 99 
 
 XIII. A SISTER AND HER CHARGES I04 
 
 XIV. KINDERHEIM 117 
 
 XV. PASTOR VON BODELSCHWINGH's MANSE. . . . I3I 
 
 XVI. THE LABOUR COLONY, WILHELMSDORF . . . .,,143 
 
 XVII. COLONISTS RECLAIMING THE SOIL 15^ 
 
List of I Ihisf rations xiii 
 
 XVIII. A COLONIST ARRIVING AT WILHELMSDORF . . Page 1 56 
 
 XIX. A COLONIST LEAVING I57 
 
 XX. COLONISTS PEELING POTATOES ^,162 
 
 XXI. SAREPTA CONVALESCENTS s> 195 
 
 XXII. THE COLONY AS SEEN "FROM WORKMAN'S HOME" . ,, 235 
 GROUND-PLAN OF THE COLONY . . . . Appendix 
 
THE PROGRAMME 
 
 To bind up the broken-hearted ; 
 To proclaun Hberty to the captives, 
 
 And the opening of the prison to them that are bound. 
 
 To comfort all that mourn. 
 
 To give unto them — 
 Beauty for ashes, 
 The oil of joy for mourning, . 
 
 The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, 
 
ZION CHURCH. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 PRISONERS OF ZTON 
 " The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." 
 
 A FEW years ago a church was opened, the founda- 
 tion stone of which had been laid by the late 
 Emperor Frederick, then Crown Prince of Germany. 
 It is a beautiful church rising in a beech wood on a hill 
 in the Teutoburger Forest. It is cruciform, and the 
 people who meet there in a peculiar sense are bearing 
 a cross. " Come unto Me, ye heavy laden," says a 
 marble-wrought figure of Christ, the Healer, over the 
 main porch ; and as you enter with eyes uplifted, you 
 read the words over the high-arched chancel : " When 
 the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion," or, as the 
 German version, looking to a " restoring " to come, has it, 
 with fuller meaning, " When the Lord shall release the 
 bound ones of Zion, we shall be like them that dream." 
 Fitly, this church has been called Zion Church, for 
 the hundred and twenty-sixth Psalm in a beautiful 
 metrical rendering is the favourite song — the song of 
 longing, of hope, and of promise— of that congregation. 
 It is a congregation of epileptics. Fourteen hundred of 
 them are now gathered around that church. The name 
 of the colony is Bethel. 
 
 I 
 
2 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 Bethel is not an asylum, not a charitable institution as 
 we know them ; it is rather, and in the fullest sense, a 
 colony of mercy, a commonwealth of sufferers — the care 
 of epileptics being the central object round which other 
 needs have gathered, and as they arose, have been met. 
 Bethel never was planned : it is a growth, a living 
 thing. 
 
 From the main entrance of the church you have a 
 lovely view into what has popularly come to be called 
 the " Silly Valley," which name, however, is fast being 
 replaced by that of " Happy Valley," and the visitor 
 to the imbeciles and half-imbeciles sheltered there will 
 not be slow to discover the reason. We shall pay a 
 visit presently to the several Homes nestling in its 
 winding length ; we are at this moment content with 
 the view at our feet. It is a farmhouse to which one 
 or two newer buildings have been added ; the beech 
 wood opening out before you, the hills rising behind, 
 frame this picture, and the whole seems a vision of 
 peace. You are having a peep into the cradle of the 
 place. That farmhouse — it , was named Eben-Ezer — 
 saw the seed-planting of all this colony ; there, just 
 five and twenty years ago, a beginning was made with 
 four epileptics. If a creation, Bethel is a creation from 
 above ; but faith was the soil, love was the seed, and 
 there has been a mighty outcome. 
 
 The colony now consists of five distinct branches : — 
 
 I. The Homes for Epileptics, these being the Bethfx 
 proper. 
 
 II. The Westphalian Mother-house for the Training 
 of Deaconesses — Sarepta — which in the course of little 
 
Prisoners of Zion 
 
 more than twenty years has produced a nursing and 
 working staff of six hundred Sisters. 
 
 III. The Westphalian Brotherhood — NAZARETH — 
 forming the male complement of the Deaconesses' Insti- 
 tution ; it was started fourteen years ago, and over two 
 hundred Deacons or Brothers have since been trained. 
 
 IV. The Labour Colony — WiLHELMSDORF — to grapple 
 with social distress. 
 
 V. The Association Workman's Home; a scheme for 
 providing homes of their own for the labouring classes. 
 
 These are the main branches of the work done at 
 Bethel, but there are offshoots of noble effort in every 
 direction, which are best left to appear as the story is told. 
 
 The forlorn condition of epileptics was the need out 
 of which Bethel has grown. Has the reader any idea 
 how many of our fellow-creatures are suffering from this 
 terrible disease ? It is difficult to get at reliable statistics, 
 for epilepsy is one of the sorrowful afflictions of mankind 
 which both the sufferers and their friends endeavour to 
 hide ; but by a simple process, seeking to minister to 
 a host of out-patients over and above the flock taken in, 
 and by special researches from parish to parish, the 
 workers of Bethel have arrived at the conclusion that 
 one and a half to two per thousand is probably within the 
 mark. But this means seventy to a hundred thousand 
 epileptics in Germany. If this estimate may be applied 
 to England — and why should it not ? the disease is as 
 old as mankind and known all over the globe — nay, 
 taking but one per thousand, there would be about forty 
 thousand epileptics in this country. Are there ? Then 
 where are they, and what is being done for them ? 
 
4 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 Epilepsy is a mysterious and fearful affliction, an 
 unsolved problem. It is a disorder of the borderland 
 between body and soul, its seat the nerve-centres and 
 the brain — this is about all even medical science can tell 
 us. It was known to the ancients, and was probably as 
 frequent then as now. Hippocrates treats of it in a 
 special pamphlet. We learn from the New Testament 
 and other sources that its terrors abounded in the time 
 of our Lord. It prevailed in the Roman Empire, and 
 frightful indeed were the remedies which were then 
 employed. According to Origen, epilepsy was the thorn 
 in the flesh for the removal of which St. Paul thrice 
 besought the Lord, his prayer not being heard, or, rather, 
 being heard in the answer, " My grace is sufficient for 
 thee." Some of the greatest intellects the world has 
 known have gone through life with this " thorn in the 
 flesh." Julius Csesar was epileptic, and so was Moham- 
 med ; Peter the Great also and Napoleon I. suffered 
 from this malady ; Petrarch and Jean Jacques Rousseau 
 likewise were epileptics. With these sufferers the afflic- 
 tion must have been of a kind' which befell them at rare 
 'ntervals only, for it certainly never interfered either with 
 their ambition or with their clearness of mind. Yet its 
 deteriorating effects on the mental powers are well 
 known. To popular perception, this disease has always 
 been the " morbus sacerl' the " morbus dzvus" the punish- 
 ment of the gods, a punishment even for special sin — 
 Who has sinned, he or his father ? " Hippocrates knew 
 better — " It appears to me ' divine ' in no other sense 
 than any illness is divine ! " The Christian knows that 
 all illness is divine, sent, not always in punishment, but 
 
Prisoners of Zimt 
 
 5 
 
 always in love. Many of the " bound ones " of Bethel 
 are learning this lesson, as through the shadow of their 
 affliction they are growing to be children of peace. 
 
 Often enough it is the father's sin, drink especially,* 
 which lays this cross upon his child ; but it cannot be 
 said that heredity is the most common factor. According 
 to the experience of Bethel, the falling sickness in very 
 many cases is due to a shock to the nervous system, to 
 which attaches no personal blame. Here is a case of 
 one rendered epileptic through the sudden news of the 
 death of a relative. Here is another, a boy coming 
 upon a mutilated corpse in a wood is seized with fright 
 and falls in a fit. Here is yet another, a little girl 
 is playing at her mother's feet, a stroke of lightning 
 kills the mother, and the little girl from that moment 
 becomes epileptic. However caused, it is a terrible 
 affliction. Have you ever witnessed a fit ? seen an 
 apparently healthy person, your fellow-traveller maybe, 
 fall at your feet with a shriek that goes through you, 
 the cry of an anguished soul ? The limbs in con- 
 vulsions, the head jerking to and fro, the features set 
 with an expression of unspeakable agony, the eyes 
 rolling wildly and then glazed as in death, the mouth 
 foaming, — this is the aggravated fit, and no wonder 
 people shrink from the sight of it. The poor epileptic 
 
 * Though drink is not by any means the only predisposing 
 cause, yet it has been found that the percentage of this terrible 
 illness keeps pace with the consumption of alcohol ; in certain 
 districts in Germany where distilleries flourish, the number from 
 two rises to four and even six per thousand of the population. 
 It keeps pace with any kind of debauch ; but these are not the 
 only causes. 
 
6 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 is shunned ; his own family in many cases are almost 
 ashamed of him ; he is hidden away. In the [poorer 
 classes of society, where he ought to gain his own liveli- 
 hood, who will employ him ? The workshop, the office, 
 is closed to him ; the church even, once he has had a 
 seizure there, tells him not again to return. He is con- 
 demned to starvation, mental, moral, spiritual; no one 
 will have him anywhere. Now, this is sad enough, even 
 when there are means for his sustenance ; but think of 
 the poor ! 
 
 Here is a stonemason, on the death of his wife left 
 with four children under ten, one of these epileptic and 
 alone with her little sisters. Here is an orphan — there 
 are scores of them at Bethel — for which a poor parish 
 could do nothing but pay a pittance to the most 
 wretched cottage in the village for the keep of that 
 helpless worm. She had fits almost daily. There are 
 children, tended now and cared for by the hands of love 
 at Bethel, haunted in their dreams by the memory of 
 what they have gone through. A poor man is there, an 
 imbecile and has been so for years, but remembering, as 
 often is the case, this and that of his early life before 
 the never-ending night closed in upon him. He will tell 
 you, amid sobs, the story of his cruel childhood — he will 
 tell it you at the least sign of tenderness on your part ; 
 you have but to stroke his hand, you have but to look 
 at him with an eye of pity, and you touch that chord. 
 
 Here is another case, typical of the hundreds appeal- 
 ing to Bethel for admission : " I am a cripple, twenty-five 
 years of age, and since my fourteenth year have suffered 
 from epileptic fits. The first overtook me just after I 
 
P^dsoners of Zion 
 
 7 
 
 had been apprenticed. I was dismissed from the work- 
 shop, and though I tried and tried again, anxious to learn 
 a trade, no master would keep me. I tried work at home, 
 but it was almost impossible because of the constant 
 attacks. My parents are very poor, and never could pay 
 any one to look after me ; they are both at work which 
 takes them from home daily. Thus I have been in 
 constant danger of life and limb, with the result of 
 several serious accidents. I had learned to do a little 
 fretwork, and was rising from that occupation one day 
 to sweep away the cuttings. There was a heated stove 
 in the kitchen, and on it a kettle with boiling water. I 
 ought not to have gone so near, for I had a fit, fell 
 unconscious, and lay on the stove, the boiling water 
 pouring over me. In that state, terribly burned, I was 
 picked up some time after and taken to the infirmary. 
 Thirteen months I lay there, my right arm had to be 
 amputated, and I came away a cripple. The parish since 
 has allowed me half a crown a week ; I am not there- 
 fore starving, but what I need more than bread is a 
 friend to watch over me, and I pray you earnestly, 
 receive me into your homes." — Yet another case : a father^ 
 a busy workman, from morning to nightfall away in the 
 town, a stepmother absorbed in her own children, a poor 
 epileptic youth left to himself, wandering about the 
 village streets, or roaming the country uncared for, in 
 constant danger of being run over by passing vehicles. 
 He has hurt himself badly in his fits. He is, moreover, a 
 half-paralysed cripple, having a club foot and a palsied 
 hand. 
 
 Ill-cared-for epileptics are to be found everywhere, 
 
8 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 and as years go on, the disease works havoc not only 
 in the bodily frame. They grow irritable, distrustful, 
 quarrelsome ; but worst of all, the hand of imbecility is 
 upon them, and the end is idiotcy, the end is insanity. 
 Such are met with in every country, an army of helpless- 
 ness. 
 
 To Christianity, this very helplessness constitutes a 
 plea. To Christian charity every stricken one is a 
 creditor to whom she has a debt to pay — the debt of 
 service. One of the saints of the ancient church, once 
 being taunted with the poverty of his community, pro- 
 duced the cripples, the sick and suffering of that church, 
 and said, " These are our treasures." The church of our 
 own time, the true Christian among us, is learning to say 
 likewise — These are our treasures, our creditors, we owe 
 them service. But though there is provision among us 
 for almost every kind of human suffering, nothing was 
 done till within the memory of this generation to alleviate 
 the misery of epileptics. Hidden away with their trouble, 
 no one has sought them out. If they appealed for help, 
 there was the poorhouse, there was the idiot asylum, 
 or possibly a hospital. But are these the places for an 
 epileptic in the intervals of his affliction ? Remember 
 he can v/ork, and he ought to work ; for occupation alone, 
 keeping him from brooding over his trouble, will stay in 
 a measure the inevitable decay. If taken in hand in 
 time, not more than five per cent, would be given over 
 to helpless idiotcy ; yet even though taken in hand — 
 such at least is the experience of Bethel — not more than 
 seven to eight per cent, are likely ever to be cured, and 
 these only the very young ; thus there is an intervening 
 
Prisoners of Zion 
 
 9 
 
 host to be occupied, to be watched, to have their burden 
 eased till they lay it down in death. These are the 
 " bound ones " of Bethel. 
 
 Hope of bodily cure, then, is almost precluded ; yet the 
 great need of the epileptic is not a home for incurables, 
 but a refuge, a place where he can first of all be at rest, 
 learning the great lesson, " Rest thou thy soul upon the 
 Lord." What a restless thing that soul of his has been, 
 how driven between hope and fear ! How he has spent 
 himself, seeking help and finding none ! Doctors could 
 not restore him ; then how anxiously did he try the "un- 
 failing" remedies of quackery and superstition — there 
 are hundreds claiming mysterious power and promising 
 the certain cure — remedies often foolish, often disgusting, 
 and sometimes immoral, worse almost in their degrading 
 influence than the disease itself One need not go back 
 to the Romans for folly and darkness. Think of the 
 sufferer's inward state, seeking such help and finding 
 none ! Moreover, if he be a sensitive creature, the constant 
 cry of his agonised soul is, " I am an outcast, I am set 
 aside, I am shunned." He is far worse off in this respect 
 than the lunatic, for the insane man knows nothing of 
 his insanity, while the epileptic in most cases has a 
 clear enough perception of his condition. He knows 
 that every attack of his malady is a deadening blow to 
 his intellect ; he knows that his irascibility, his helpless 
 fits of anger, his maliciousness — part, these, of the dis- 
 tem.per he writhes under — are but the moral outbursts 
 of a trouble he cannot overcome. He knows there is an 
 uncaiininess about his affliction which makes even friends 
 say, " 'Twere better he were dead." 
 
TO 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 This is why first of all " Be still," the true medicine 
 for all our deepest woes, is the one thing he needs, and 
 those who would help him must help him first of all to 
 an atmosphere of that stillness. It is something better 
 than the tending of his stricken frame in a hospital, some- 
 thing better than mere shelter in the hour of his weakness, 
 it is the stillness of the children of Zion lifting their eyes 
 to the hills whence cometh their aid. " Bring him to 
 Me," said Christ, when not even the disciples could 
 help the stricken one ! And there is that about the 
 life at Bethel, healthful, natural and singularly free from 
 all religious excitement, which constantly reminds these 
 sufferers of a healing to come. It goes to one's heart to 
 hear them sing — that great congregation of incurables — 
 " When the Lord shall release the bound ones, we shall 
 be like them that dream ; then our mouth shall be filled 
 with laughter and our tongue with singing, for the Lord 
 hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad." 
 And there is a true measure of gladness with them even 
 now, a great hope ; they are learning to wait and to be 
 still. Their Pastors say, and one may see for oneself, 
 that of their very hymnbooks no part is more used and 
 leaf-worn than the songs of thanksgiving and of praise. 
 
 A strange feeling of awe naturally steals over the 
 visitor when, for the first time, he meets with this people 
 in their beautiful church. He has been warned there 
 will be " fits," and even as he enters he sees the pre- 
 paration for them — a curtained-off partition in the four 
 entrance lobbies, with couches which have a sad look of 
 much use about them. But everything is managed so 
 quietly ; you hear a moan or a cry, you see some 
 
Prisoners of Zion 
 
 13 
 
 brothers or sisters rising to take away the sufferer,— it 
 never creates a disturbance. And what though oc- 
 casionally a bad fit comes on — it often is but a giddiness, 
 a momentary unconsciousness, passing like a summer 
 cloud, yet at times you may witness a serious attack. 
 The beautiful antiphonal service, maybe, has attuned 
 your own heart, you are forgetting there is trouble, your 
 soul is away on the pastures green by the still waters ; 
 there is a sudden and terrible shriek — shriek upon shriek 
 as of the lunatic when the spirit tare him. A poor 
 fellow has started from his seat and falls foaming, the 
 night of unconsciousness quickly overtaking his vexed 
 spirit. They have carried him away, and he will be 
 lying on one of those couches, knowing nothing of his 
 trouble. The billows are passing over his soul ; he may 
 wake presently, and in through the little window will 
 stream the voice of the preacher, the song of the people. 
 It was close upon such a harrowing attack one Sunday 
 evening, the people rose and their hymn filled the building 
 — " Sun of my soul. Thou Saviour dear," they sang, " it is 
 not night if Thou be near " — and then they went home 
 through the darkening beech wood quietly, though every 
 one of these singers knew that he or she might be taken 
 with such a fit the very next moment, and what assurance 
 have they it is not the night of death upon them, the 
 last of their many struggles ? They are learning to be 
 still, with the stillness of Zion. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE GROUNDWORK 
 "The righteous is an everlasting foundation." 
 
 T F you ask Pastor von Bodelschwingh who is the 
 ^ true founder and promoter of the work of mercy 
 going on beneath the shadow of that church, he will 
 take you to the quiet burial ground on the hill, at the 
 farther end of the beech wood. There he will show 
 you, as the last in a long row of sleepers, the resting- 
 place of an aged pilgrim. You read an inscription : — 
 
 WILHELM HEERMANN, 
 
 THE FRIEND OF THE RAVENSBERGER PEOPLE, , 
 
 Born March 31^/, 1800; Died January 26th, 1882. 
 
 "The Lord shall be Thine Everlasting Light." — Isaiah Ix. 20. 
 
 This man had been blind for sixty years. A peasant's 
 son, of the Ravensberger country, he fell, when a young 
 man, from the hayloft of his father's farm, had concussion 
 of the brain, and lost his eyesight. But this closing up 
 of the outward eye opened the windows of his soul for 
 the light of heaven to stream in. He became a truly 
 godly man, a bright Christian, and a blessing through a 
 long lifetime to the whole country side. That Ravens- 
 
 14 
 
The Groundwork 
 
 15 
 
 berger Land, a province within the province of West- 
 phalia, no larger than a moderate English county, owns 
 a people of peculiar sterling worth, a peasantry of the 
 good old German type, thriving on their own soil, and 
 owing no man anything. A Godfearing people of old, 
 the light of the Gospel had grown dim, hid under 
 the bushel of a lukewarm ministry. Blind Heermann 
 saw deeper than others, and knew what was wanting. 
 Year after year he went about the country from village 
 to village — it was all he could do — and taught the people 
 to pray, to pray for Christian pastors. He went pleading 
 with the earthly authorities for true shepherds to the 
 people, going, upon occasion, as far as Berlin even, at a 
 time when railroads were not, to intercede with the king ; 
 and his pleading and his prayer found answer. From 
 one pulpit and another the gospel-sound was heard ; 
 faith grew, and love abounded — that love which, being 
 blessed in her own home, goes out to the highways and 
 hedges. It is not as a company of saints those peasant 
 folk would wish to be spoken of ; theirs is a simple and 
 wholesome Christianity, and it will appear in the course 
 of these pages what is understood by Christianity in the 
 Ravensberger Land. But if you would know what a 
 Missionsfest is, go there. If these people want a holiday 
 they go for miles in their Sunday clothes to hear a 
 missionary on leave, or their own pastors, conversant 
 with missionary matters, proclaim the victory of the 
 Cross in heathen lands. And they rejoice in the news, 
 returning the happier to dairy or plough. They come 
 long distances, and bring their offerings with them ; 
 those who have much, give much, but not the least noble 
 
i6 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 are the mites of the poor. Think of a farmer's lassie 
 found fainting as she was starting for her home after 
 one of these gatherings. Taken back to the place, she 
 begged the pastor, amid blushes, to let her have again 
 one halfpenny of a day's wages she had put into the 
 plate. She did not earn more than her keep, and had 
 thought she could go without food that day to send her 
 little all to the heathen. But she had set out in the grey 
 dawn of the morning, the way had been long, and a 
 Missionsfest in Germany never is short ; and though she 
 had feasted her soul, sitting fasting in the church, here 
 she was faint for want of a morsel. The afternoon sun 
 was low, and she had some ten miles before her : would 
 he return her one halfpenny to buy a piece of bread 
 with, and she hoped it was not robbing the Lord, she 
 had meant to give all. Needless to say, she did not get 
 back her halfpenny, but was taken to the manse for a 
 plentiful meal, and then went home to think of her 
 Missionsfest till the next came round. At such gather- 
 ings the wealthier peasant women have been known to 
 put their amber necklaces into the plate, strings of amber 
 beads as large as walnuts, ugly enough, but much prized 
 as heirlooms, part of the national costume, and some of 
 them worth ten pounds or more, for quantity of amber. 
 These are incidents of years ago, when the first love " 
 was upon the land ; but the good folk in that country 
 have never departed from their true interest in missions 
 and in any good work they can aid. 
 
 It is, of course. Pastor von Bodelschwingh's own beau- 
 tiful modesty if he takes the inquirer to that grave ; but 
 there is a deep truth in the humble assertion behind which 
 
The Groundwork 
 
 17 
 
 he would hide his own good share. Blind Heermann 
 for half a century ploughed the field on which a noble 
 harvest has grown ; and it is lovely to think that 
 for the last seven or eight years of his life he was an 
 inmate of Bethel — that is, more correctly speaking, of 
 " Sarepta " — not because he needed the sisters to nurse 
 him, being hale to the last, but he was old now, and 
 Bethel was thus paying back her debt. And the aged 
 man, awaiting the home-call in their midst, went in and 
 out among the epileptics, telling them of the Love he 
 had known ; and when he died the whole country-side 
 turned out, though it was in the depth of winter, to bear 
 testimony at his grave of what he had done for them. 
 
 If you want to start a Bethel, a true home for the 
 suffering, the sick, the destitute, the great thing required 
 is not, in the first place, money. You may collect a 
 hundred thousand pounds, and spend it too, yet your 
 hoped-for Bethel is not thus reached. It is not a founda- 
 tion of money, it is a foundation of men that is wanted, 
 of men and women with the love of Christ in their hearts. 
 It is a great thing to put your money into the plate ; it 
 is a greater thing to put in your own cherished amber 
 beads ; it is greatest of all to put in yourself Now, in 
 that Ravensberger Land, so long and so faithfully prayed 
 for, and prayed with, by that blind peasant, there is a 
 wondrous spirit of giving abroad ; when the harvests are 
 gathered in you should see the waggons of potatoes, 
 of wheat, of farm produce generally, arriving at Bethel 
 — the freewill tithes, largely given and gladly given, 
 and given simply because they love this giving. But 
 more than this, that people know how to give 
 
 2 
 
1 8 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 themselves ; in some parts there is scarcely a family but 
 one or more of the daughters and sons offer for service 
 in the Kingdom. Scores of deaconesses are of the 
 daughters of that land, dozens of ministering brothers 
 — or if you will go further, of missionaries — are drafted 
 from that stock. If Bodelschwingh has been able to 
 train such an army of helpers, it is because he has 
 such a countryside at his back. Bethel is indeed a 
 blossom of the Church, but it has grown on a soil of 
 Christ-stirred humanity ; it is the outcome of a people 
 with whom the religious life and the everyday life are so 
 blended that it is as natural to them to watch and pray 
 over any work of mercy going on in their midst, as to 
 till and tend their fields. 
 
 Bethel recently celebrated her semi-jubilee — a sight not 
 easily to be forgotten. It was on a splendid Sunday in 
 July, for on a week-day these work-a-day people could 
 not so largely attend. Some of them had started at two 
 in the morning, and by six o'clock they came streaming 
 up the valley, awakening Bethel — nay, Bethel was up by 
 that time — but greeting her with their splendid bands. 
 Posaunen-Q}i\o\x?> they call them, from the beautiful word 
 in the German Bible for the trumpet By way of military 
 instruments used for religious purposes, England has 
 her experience of the Salvation Army ; but let it be 
 understood, the Posaunen-Chdre of the Ravensberger 
 peasant folk are a thing to be heard. As chorale after 
 chorale came rolling up the valley that morning you 
 might have thought yourself in the heavenly Jerusalem. 
 Indeed, these Posaunen-bldser (trumpet blowers is a 
 miserable rendering), with their trombones, their clario- 
 
The Groundwork 
 
 19 
 
 nets and horns, great and small, could any day take 
 their place in a Handel or Bach choir. How has this 
 come about? Not by Blind Heermann, surely ? No ; but 
 among the pastors given to that blessed Ravensberger 
 country by his prayers, there was one who thought 
 with Luther that while a man makes music the devil 
 has little chance with him, and he started a band in his 
 village. This was the beginning, some twenty or thirty 
 years ago. These bands are now an institution all over 
 the country. Pastor Kuhlo, a son of the old Posaunen- 
 father, and like him a splendid musician, being band- 
 leader-general. Every village has its own band, but he 
 has them all under training ; they have their weekly 
 practice, each band for itself meeting at intervals for 
 common practice. The instruments are provided out of 
 a general fund, and the whole is managed with method 
 and orderliness. That day saw seven or eight thousand 
 people gathered at Bethel, and several hundreds of 
 instruments among them. And not only instruments : 
 the peasant girls and young women are trained by that 
 same Pastor Kuhlo to a hymn singing which is nothing 
 short of marvellous. They gave proof of it several times 
 that day, he, with his little trumpet for a baton, calling 
 upon them, and these women rising with a simple 
 dignity — girls mostly, but they looked women in their 
 national costume with their quaint little caps. There 
 was a pretty modesty about them, yet an almost queenly 
 absence of all shyness, and their voices were " soft and 
 low," sweetly modulated— you never thought of peasant 
 girls — but full of volume and clearness and musical 
 wealth. They sang, now the soprano, now the alto in 
 
20 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 response ; it almost brought the tears to one's eyes for 
 the unaffected simplicity of it. It was not art, it was 
 nature answering the touch of art, these voices all instinct 
 with the waving instrument which guided them. They 
 seemed as one voice. The songs of praise and of 
 thanksgiving were well rendered that day. 
 
 Consider for a moment the elevating influence of this ! 
 These people should not be taken for saints, but their 
 music is the music of saints, an occupation truly to the 
 glory of God. For one thing is quite certain : these 
 hundreds of trumpeters, while practising their instruments 
 together or singly, are far from the public-house. They 
 meet on two or three evenings a week, they lead the 
 singing of the congregation on Sundays, they have their 
 festivals, choral and instrumental, on all sorts of occasions, 
 of sacred music mostly, for which they practise dili- 
 gently ; the devil of drink, anyway, has no chance while 
 this goes on. 
 
 These people, then, came flocking, bands and all, to 
 greet Bethel on her " Jubilee." There was an early service 
 at 8 a.m. in the church to welcome the first arrivals — 
 the other services, morning and afternoon, being in the 
 beech wood, for the church could not hold such numbers. 
 Weather permitting, the Bethelites often have service in 
 the open air. It was a most stirring day — a sight to 
 witness — the epileptics in the centre, surrounded in very 
 deed by the Ravensberger Land. That day the hundred 
 and twenty-sixth Psalm rang mightily, the singing of the 
 home congregation being taken up by the visitors, and 
 the hundreds of instruments ; and what though even 
 amid such service of song the well-known plaintive 
 
The Grotmdwork, 
 
 21 
 
 shriek would rise, and a poor patient be carried to the 
 tent made ready to receive him, yet there was praise 
 and thanksgiving in every heart. 
 
 At the early service, the pastor's text for a short address 
 had been, " Let us arise and go to Bethel." He acknow- 
 ledged warmly and simply that in the active Christian 
 
 TENT FOR PATIENTS TAKEN ILL DURING OUT-OF-DOOR SERVICE. 
 
 love of these gathered peasant folk, the great work done 
 at Bethel had its mainstay. " You give not only of your 
 substance," he said, " you give us your sons and daugh- 
 ters ; and yet there is room ! " Then followed a stirring 
 appeal for more of these sons and daughters, and, with- 
 out doubt, yet more will obey the call. Yes, Bethel is 
 
22 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 strong in the love of Christian people such as these. 
 Here is proof: — 
 
 That day a new house was opened, having room for 
 eighty to a hundred epileptic imbecile little girls— it 
 had long been wanted, and here it was all ready for 
 occupation. It had been raised at a cost of four 
 thousand pounds. A fortnight before just about half 
 that sum was to hand, when the pastor suddenly was 
 fired with a great longing to present this house free 
 of debt at this Jubilee. He put out an appeal to the 
 friends of Bethel round about — Let all parents send one 
 penny as a thank-offering for every healthy child they have. 
 And there was a wave of response from far and near : 
 within one short fortnight four hundred thousand pennies 
 came in — four hundred thousand thank-offerings for 
 children hale and sound, and the good pastor had his 
 desire given him, his Baby Castle was free of debt. 
 Four hundred thousand pennies in one fortnight sent 
 by grateful parents, and they came with such pretty 
 messages — " four children, four pennies, for a child in 
 heaven two',' they paid doubly for the children the 
 Good Shepherd had taken home ! A happy husband 
 and father writing : " Five children, all sound and well, 
 five pennies ; for a splendid wife, five pennies to boot ! " 
 What a happy house that Baby Castle ! Four hundred 
 thousand pennies in one fortnight is wonderful enough ; 
 but to think that four hundred thousand glad thanks 
 were therewith presented, to think that so many thou- 
 sand hearts combined in turning their gratitude for their 
 own children into pitying love for the helpless ones — 
 that indeed is a strength to rest on ! Bethel need never 
 
The Grozmdwork 
 
 23 
 
 fear while she can strike her roots into such soil. 
 The love and the prayers of humble folk are the main- 
 stay of that work of mercy. 
 
 The peasant congregation gathering that day, how 
 happy they looked ! What a pride they took in hearing 
 of the growth of the year's work, aye the twenty-five 
 years' work, and how they went about in the intervals of 
 service from place to place, looking at the houses they 
 had dozens of times seen before ! " It is for love of the 
 Master," said an old man with weather-beaten face and 
 work-worn hand — " to further His work, that is the one 
 thing required of us." And they are satisfied this work 
 at Bethel is in the best of hands — they all know Pastor 
 von Bodelschwingh, and have long known him. 
 
 Several thousand " thank-offerings " that day were 
 added as an overflow ; but these people did not therefore^ 
 like the girl we have mentioned, pass the day starving. 
 Bethel could harbour her guests. By fifties and by 
 hundreds they were billeted upon the houses, and a 
 plentiful dinner, for which each recipient paid twopence, 
 was served them — the twopence being levied with a fine 
 tact, that an army of such visitors would not wish to feel 
 a burden. 
 
 Having witnessed that day, one understood how it was 
 possible that such a work had grown up and multiplied 
 within the short space of five-and-twenty years. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 BETHEL 
 
 A city set on a hill." 
 
 IVE-AND-TWENTY years ago Germany had 
 
 J- done as little for her epileptics as England has 
 to this day. In south-western France the cry first was 
 raised by Pasteur Bost, whose noble institutions at La 
 Force in Dordogne are known to Christian people of 
 this country, yet not so largely as they should be. He 
 has gone to his rest, but his work is still carried on. It 
 was he who first pointed out the moral wrong done to 
 a patient of this kind, even though he be intellectually 
 weakened, if there is no better provision for him than 
 the idiot asylum ; the great duty to him being an 
 upholding of his inner man with a firm kindly grasp, 
 and not to surround him with scenes to the level of 
 which he must the more speedily sink. The cry raised 
 was heard on the Rhine. A conference was called, and 
 men said the Church of Christ had a duty towards the 
 epileptics. It was not through medical progress, it was 
 through Christian sympathy, the perception gained 
 ground that a great neglect, medical, moral, spiritual, 
 was waiting to be redressed. Here was a whole class, 
 and a numerous class, stricken with all but incurable 
 
Bethel 
 
 25 
 
 disease, yet many of them capable of much good work 
 in the intervals of their disease, utterly neglected. 
 They were practically outcasts : even the Church had 
 said, " You are disturbing the rest." They had knocked 
 at many doors, they had wasted their substance on 
 many physicians, they were a host of sorrowing ones, 
 with only the idiot or lunatic asylum at the end of a 
 long vista of despair. They were told they had " fits," 
 yet is there not a sufficiency of love in the world 
 to stand by a man in the hour of his infirmity that he 
 may take courage between ? But the world was afraid 
 of them, the world of usefulness had said, " We cannot 
 employ you." 
 
 What then can the Church of Christ do? can it do 
 more than show them the heaven where epilepsy is not, 
 where even their tears are wiped away? No private 
 undertaking could ever sufficiently grapple with this 
 terrible need ; not even public charity can, for the public 
 asylum is not the thing wanted. A fellowship of Christian 
 service is the only thing which can effectually step into 
 this breach. The " Comfort ye, comfort ye," surely was 
 written for this people also. What the epileptic needs 
 most of all is a strengthening, a steadying of his soul, 
 and he sadly needs comfort. Give it him. Surround 
 him with sympathy. Give him nature, give him flowers, 
 give him the song of birds, give him the blue sky 
 drawing his eye heavenward, and give him work. Give 
 him all that will tend to the calming of his troubled soul 
 — give him love. He has been so fretful, so despairing ; 
 curtain him with compassion, and help him to be still. 
 " This kind can come forth by nothing but prayer 
 
26 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 and fasting." Prayer ? the inward stillness ; fasting ? 
 what is it but the great " Thy will be done " ! I used 
 to be so dreadfully afraid of these fits," said one, as we 
 went about Bethel seeking to understand their life, " but 
 now I am trying to think it is just a falling into the 
 hands of Christ." That man was beginning to know 
 the secret of living, the one lesson of life — a falling, in 
 things great, in things little, into His hands. It is easy 
 to fall when you are quite sure hands of love are about 
 you. 
 
 The Church of Christ, then, is the family to take in 
 this troubled one. In that Church all know they are 
 falling ones but for the Love which upholds them, and 
 it makes them very merciful, very tender ; they alone 
 can nurse the epileptic and be his stay. 
 
 It was in 1867 that Pastor Balcke of Rheydt, a little 
 town in the Rhine-land, took up the call, and the 
 provincial committee of Home Missions convened a 
 meeting at Bielefeld, a manufacturing town in Westphalia ; 
 a resolution was passed to make a beginning in that 
 populous centre. Bethel, with its beech wood and hill 
 — such a retreat of country quiet and azvayx\Q^?> from the 
 world — is in the very outskirts of busy Bielefeld. It lies 
 at the foot of an old castle, a stronghold of the Counts 
 of Lippe in days gone by, when it was thought necessary 
 to put such bridle upon a town. It is well worth while 
 on a fine evening to ascend the height on which that 
 turreted castle stands, the twin hill of what is now called 
 Zion Hill. You have a splendid outlook over the blue 
 ranges of the Teutoburger forest, the Weser mountains, 
 and the fruitful country between, the principality of 
 
Bethel 
 
 27 
 
 Lippe Detmold and that thrice blessed Ravensberger 
 Land — a glorious expanse of meadow and field and 
 woodland stretching away in the mellow distance. 
 It is the Germany of Tacitus, where Arminius, the 
 Prince of the Cheruscans, defeated Varus and his 
 Roman legions. The name of the castle is the Sparren- 
 burg, and at its foot, in the narrow valley, a mere cutting 
 between the two hills, stood a farmhouse. It is the 
 house on which we looked from the main entrance of 
 the church. A respectable peasant lived there, who had 
 been a well-to-do man, owning much of the land on 
 which Bethel now stands, and the hill with its beech 
 wood. It had been the home of his fathers for genera- 
 tions. That property was to be sold, and it was bought 
 by those friends who were seeking to make a home for 
 epileptics. 
 
 Even the little story connected with this property 
 now acquired by Charity is worth telling. That peasant 
 — his name is Steinkamp — had to part with the home of 
 his fathers for no fault of his own ; he understood his 
 farming and was an honest man, too honest and innocent 
 perhaps for a ne'er-do-weel brother of his, who dragged 
 him down in his ruin. The place got mortgaged and 
 poor Steinkamp was a beggar. He went abroad, seek- 
 ing to make his way among strangers. Years after 
 he returned, the love of home being strong. He was 
 old now and had neither kith nor kin ; and Bethel 
 did not close her gates against him. The visitor now 
 going about the colony is sure to fall in with an old man 
 somewhere about the fields, whitehaired, but as straight 
 as a pine, and with a look of old Wrangel about him. It 
 
28 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 is " Field-marshal " Steinkamp, over eighty now, but up 
 at four of a summer morning, and about the property 
 all day long to see that the farming goes well, and the 
 cattle are tended : the place is the property of his heart 
 anyway, and having no children of his own, there is 
 all this family of epileptics in their stead. Himself 
 one of the adopted ones of Bethel, he also has adopted 
 Bethel. He does not feel turned out now of house and 
 home, but rejoices to see what in the good providence 
 of God has come of it. He in no way is a recipient 
 of charity, though Charity took him in, for he fills his 
 place. This aged peasant, once the owner of all he 
 surveys, living in a little chamber opening out of 
 the hayloft, is simply the patriarch of this common- 
 wealth, where no man calls anything his own, where 
 there is a wealth of service, where every one, pastor or 
 nursing brother, is rich, having his daily need provided 
 for and spending his life in ministering to the rest. 
 
 This farmhouse then was bought, and a beginning was 
 made with four epileptics. It was named Eben-Ezer. 
 That was an hour of faith when a venerable pastor — in 
 position a bishop of the church, only they do not call 
 them bishops in Germany— took these four " first-fruits" 
 and, by way of opening the house, knelt down with 
 them quietly in the farm parlour asking God's blessing 
 upon the work. It was the planting of a mustard seed, 
 and what a tree has come of it ! 
 
 The greatest things have the smallest beginnings ; 
 Bethel has grown. There was no outward show, no 
 noise made. Those who put their faith into this work 
 five-and-twenty years ago were, quite satisfied to begin 
 
Bethel 
 
 29 
 
 humbly. Only that one farmhouse was then acquired ; 
 the rest of the property passing into other hands, was 
 bought in gradually as Bethel grew. The little home 
 
 \ 
 
 EBEN-EZER. 
 
 for epileptics had no money. Friends it had, and friends 
 of the best kind, friends who could pray ; but it had no 
 patronage. It began with simple faith that it was right 
 
30 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 to begin ; for epileptics abounded and no one did any- 
 thing for them. 
 
 Two years later another mustard seed was planted in 
 that same soil, indeed close by, and this also has grown 
 into a tree — Sarepta, the Westphalian Mother-house for 
 Deaconesses. And these two trees, although each is an 
 independent growth, doing its own work of sheltering, 
 have their boughs of mercy so intertwined, the one being 
 handmaiden to the other, that you could not do full 
 justice to either without pointing out that in truest sense 
 they are twins. 
 
 Again, a few years later, in 1872, when the seedling 
 trees had begun to grow, Friedrich von Bodelschwingh 
 was called to be the directing pastor of the work ; and 
 though not the original author, he has ever since been 
 the very soul of the colony, an instrument of God's 
 special preparing. He has of course been told that an 
 outline account -of the work was to be given to English 
 readers. " Do not say anything in praise," he urged, 
 " not of any of us : if anything has been done, it is by 
 the goodness of God, who has used us." And it needs 
 but a look into the face of the humble man, overflowing 
 with the love which fills him, to make one feel it were 
 almost wronging him to sing his praises, but they 
 are reflected in the work which has grown up about 
 him. 
 
 A Freiherr, that is a baron, by birth, of an ancient 
 Westphalian family, he grew up in surroundings which 
 by no means indicated the work awaiting him. His 
 father was minister of finance, and afterwards prime 
 minister, of Prussia. A^oung Frederick in those days 
 
Bethel 
 
 31 
 
 was a playfellow and schoolroom companion of his 
 august namesake, the late Emperor Frederick, who, to 
 the last, preserved a warm personal regard for him. To 
 this bojash friendship much of the kindliness is due 
 with which the three Emperors subsequently have been, 
 and in the persons of their present Majesties continue to 
 be, interested in Bethel. It is indeed curious, how, from 
 the throne to the cottage. Bethel now has friends. 
 
 Herr von Bodelschwingh, though quite ignorant of the 
 ultimate object of it, has had a perfect training, and is 
 at home in every department of the great machinery of 
 which he is the guiding hand. 
 
 First, his home training. 
 
 If anyv/here you see a great man, be sure there is a 
 true woman behind him, be she his wife, or mother, 
 or sister. Bodelschwingh's mother was the woman who 
 moulded him : one trait of her character suffices to show 
 this. Though the wife of a cabinet minister, having 
 to shine in society and be fashionable, she never, if she 
 could help it, dealt with fashionable tradespeople, but 
 ever tried rather to employ the small folk, those who 
 had difficulty in winning their daily bread. The humble 
 dressmaker, the shop in the back street, were those she 
 patronised wherever it was possible. Hers was the 
 true spirit of charity. Through her he early acquired 
 a love for the working people round about, and tried 
 to influence them. His early college training was ap- 
 parently aimless — arts chiefly, with a leaning to natural 
 science : yet, considering the grasp he now has of every- 
 thing pertaining to national economy, a career like his 
 father's in the public service would seem to have been 
 
32 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 his ultimate destiny. But his health was not strong, and 
 after having served his year in the army, he went through 
 a course of gentleman-farming, acquiring the practical 
 knowledge so useful to him now. For several years he 
 managed a large property, being steward of the estate to 
 a friend of his father. It was then, more even than in 
 his early home years, that he looked into the lives of 
 labouring men, endeavouring to be their helper in things 
 temporal and spiritual. 
 
 A little story is told of his distributing tracts to his 
 humble friends, and how one day conscience spoke : " Do 
 you read these tracts ? " He kept back one he was just 
 giving away ; it was a missionary tract, ending with the 
 home question, "What are you doing to bring the 
 heathen to Christ?" It was the turning point of his 
 life. That question haunted him, and did not again 
 leave him till he had made up his mind to become a 
 messenger of the Gospel. He went back to college, first 
 Berlin, then Basle, studying theology, in which he took 
 the degree of D.D,, resolving thereupon to offer himself 
 as a missionary. This was at Basle ; and the Basle 
 Missionary College was planning to send him to India ; 
 but before this was carried into effect, a discerning friend 
 invited him to Paris, telling him there were heathen 
 there, and lost sheep among the German ragpickers and 
 crossing sweepers. Among these he laboured, collecting 
 them into a little mission church which still does its 
 work. He lived in a wooden chalet, a contrivance in 
 portable sections, sent as a specimen of Swedish work- 
 manship to the great London exhibition of 1851, and 
 thence obtained by a friend for use of the mission. A 
 
Bethel 
 
 33 
 
 stone or brick building was beyond their means ; besides, 
 this missionary loved to live among his people, and they 
 were of the poorest. 
 
 To this humble abode, in the Faubourg La Villette, 
 he brought his young wife, a namesake and cousin of his 
 — no small thing for a girl who, like himself, had grown 
 up in a Berlin mansion. Her father also was in the 
 cabinet. And there his eldest child was born. It was 
 the young mother's health which eventually obliged him 
 to return to Germany. He was called to a pastorate 
 in 1864, in a village not far from his present sphere. 
 There three more children were born, and there God 
 took him through the furnace. His four little ones, 
 within a fortnight, were taken from him by diphtheria 
 ensuing upon whooping cough, and the poor parents 
 were left alone in the desolate manse. It was not long 
 after this sorrow that Bethel called him to gather about 
 him a great family of the helpless, and that is why he 
 is such a father to them, most loving to the most 
 stricken, most tender to the least ! God's ways often 
 are sharp and thorny, but the end is peace. And his 
 house was not left desolate ; God remembered him again, 
 even as He remembered Job. He had taken four 
 children from him, He gave him again four children, 
 and, curiously enough, in the same order — two boys 
 and a girl and a boy — and the second family so 
 like the flock in heaven that chance visitors, seeing 
 on the parsonage walls the photographs of the latter 
 at a time when the ages corresponded, would take 
 them for the likenesses of the four then running 
 about ! Bodelschwingh is a man now turned sixty 
 
 3 
 
34 
 
 A Colo7iy of Mercy 
 
 and his two elder sons are at college preparing for 
 the ministry. 
 
 When Pastor von Bodelschwingh accepted the call, 
 there were twenty-six epileptics at Eben-Ezer, male 
 patients only, but three hundred patients of every des- 
 cription were urgently entreating to be admitted. These 
 were of all classes of society, rich and poor, educated 
 and illiterate, and of all ages ; every stage of the trouble 
 was represented among them, and the ever recurring 
 cry in these requests for admission was not so much 
 " Help me to get well again," as " Help me out of 
 this despair, — I filled a position in life, I lost it ; I had 
 a home, it has grown afraid of me as of a man stricken 
 and marked." 
 
 " This then is to be our object," said Bodelschwingh ; 
 " to give them back in a measure what they have lost. 
 We will look after their health, but we will give them a 
 sense of home here ; we will give them a sense of useful- 
 ness — they may work ; we will give them family life and 
 a sense of community — they shall work for each other ; 
 we will have a school for the children and church life 
 for all. This place shall be their place, the church 
 their church. Above all, they shall know they have a 
 right to be ill here ; no one shall be afraid of them. Let 
 their trembling souls be comforted, and lean upon us ; 
 we will not fail them." 
 
 It has been the aim of Bethel for a quarter of a century 
 to alleviate the infirmity, which has its victims with grim 
 impartiality in the palace and in the cottage, by giving 
 to each patient a sphere of usefulness. If he can only 
 push a wheelbarrow, he shall have that wheelbarrow to 
 
Bethel 
 
 35 
 
 push ! It is the common sense of the treatment which 
 so strikes the beholder — attempting the cure from within. 
 They try to cure the man in him, reaching the body 
 through the soul. And the patient is surrounded with a 
 sense of fellowship : all are his friends there ; his poor 
 little skiff has run into a haven of peace. 
 
 A new great house was already rising, which had room 
 for about two hundred patients. But Bodelschwingh 
 came with new ideas, giving quite a novel departure to 
 the place ; and the house — a large three-storied building 
 of the usual charitable-institution kind — really is out of 
 keeping now with the general plan of the colony. It 
 had been begun as an enlarged Eben-Ezer, and was 
 named Bethel. It soon filled, male patients in the right 
 wing and women patients in the left — it is the " Bethel " 
 proper whence the name passed gradually to the whole 
 colony ; for " Bethel " became the mother of many 
 children, the central hive whence the whole apiary has 
 emerged. 
 
 For it soon became apparent that it is a mistake to 
 herd these patients together under one roof, as you might 
 any number of other sufferers in a great infirmary. The 
 nature of their illness is against it ; some are far gone in 
 imbecility, others halfway towards it ; others again are 
 of a fairly sound mind ; most are irritable, and it is 
 difficult to keep the peace among them. Now, though 
 Eben-Ezer was to retain the imbeciles, yet here there 
 were men and women, children and adults, poor people 
 and patients of the well-to-do classes, all collected in one 
 house. It grew more and more difficult to manage such 
 a conglomerate, there is too great a diversity of outward 
 
36 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 requirements and inward needs. Moreover, the question 
 was not, to receive a number of patients, sooner or later 
 
 BETHEL HOUSE. 
 
 to be replaced by others ; it was not an ever-changing 
 population, as in a sick ward; but most of these sufferers 
 came to stay, to be settled there for good ; and the 
 
Bethel 
 
 2,1 
 
 question was, how to fit the unequal elements into a 
 common homelife, to be carried on day after day, week 
 after week, with its education, its discipline, its work and 
 its play. They were to have family life, so they must 
 be separated into congenial groups ; and this principle 
 obtaining — a principle growing out of Bethel's daily 
 experience and daily need — they were parted according 
 to sex, according to age, according to the stage of their 
 illness, according to occupation. As these " families " 
 formed, they emigrated — leaving Bethel for homes of 
 their own ; and in this way, a process as natural as the 
 original peopling of the globe, the colony, counting now 
 over a hundred houses, grew and grew. The Bethel of 
 larger meaning may be set down at fully a hundred and 
 fifty houses, including all the outlying offshoots and 
 settlements gone out from her, not only of epileptics ; 
 while Bethel, the mother — that three-storied building — 
 continuing for a time as the first landing-place of all 
 newcomers, is reserved now for the bulk of female 
 patients, and sub-divided into fourteen stations. 
 
 This decentralising of course requires a much more 
 complicated nursing staff, and more than nurses — atten- 
 dants, guardians, teachers, friends — friends ever watchful, 
 ever remembering their charges are labouring under 
 grievous sickness, a sickness not always apparent, but 
 always there ; remembering that even trying " tempers " 
 must be met with unruffled gentleness and with a pity 
 greater than the most ungrateful outburst. Yet such 
 pity with tenderest kindness must combine firmest rule 
 — a wisdom knowing how to use restraint which shall 
 not seem a punishing of the patient, but rather a kindly 
 
38 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 assistance in the hour of his weakness. Such attendants 
 are not to be hired for money ; and it was the gift of 
 God to the growing colony that the twin tree, Sarepta, 
 had been planted near it, quite independently, it is 
 true, of its special need, yet likely to meet this special 
 need most fully. From the house of deaconesses an 
 ever-willing stream of true helpfulness has flowed for 
 Bethel, while, at the same time, the training genius of 
 the first " house-father " of Bethel proper produced a 
 staff of male nurses — the nucleus whence the "West- 
 phalian Brother-House," Nazareth, the complement of 
 Sarepta, presently evolved. 
 
 The most striking feature of this colony of sick folk is 
 its capacity for work ; the place is a hive indeed, and as 
 busy as a hive. And not merely work for occupation's 
 sake, such as oakum-picking in a reformatory, but work 
 of an elevating character, leaving with the patients a 
 sense of usefulness, of still being wanted ; scope for 
 ambition even — their own old aim and effort come back 
 to them. For life brightens, even though the sunny ray 
 be wanting, and gains in value just in proportion as we 
 know we are doing something in this world — something 
 worth doing, something for which somebody beyond 
 ourselves will be the better. And even that other cause 
 of content, that a man " pays his way," though it be a 
 sick man's way, is a wondrous help along that way ! It 
 is true sympathy which understands and meets this want 
 in a sick man's life. 
 
 Going in and out among the houses you come upon 
 what is called Workshop Street. You enter the first 
 house, paying a visit to the carpenters. You find some 
 
Bethel 
 
 39 
 
 forty men here doing the joiner's work of the place. 
 Last year alone seven new houses were added to the 
 colony, the woodwork done by these patients, besides 
 their meeting a never-ending demand for bedsteads, 
 chairs, tables ; and how often do they piece together the 
 little house which even the most homeless wanderer at 
 the last will have for his own ! Most of these forty are 
 joiners or carpenters by trade ; but it is a favourite 
 occupation, and often a gentleman patient, his mental 
 capacity weakened, by preference chooses the carpenter- 
 ing. These carpenters form a family living in that 
 house ; its name is. Little Nazareth.* The head of this 
 family is one of the brotherhood of Nazareth Deacon 
 House — a trained carpenter, who is also a trained nurse 
 and a trained evangelist. 
 
 These " house-fathers " as a rule are married men ; 
 a succeeding page will show their making and training. 
 They form a remarkable institution. The house-father 
 carpenter has the full management of Little Nazareth, 
 business and all, his wife managing the household ; and 
 to these two is committed the daily physical and spiri- 
 tual welfare of the carpenter family. The pastors and 
 medical men of the colony of course have their times 
 of visitation, and know exactly what is going on. Each 
 house-father has a staff of brother deacons at work 
 among the patients, acting as foremen and sleeping in 
 the night-wards. 
 
 There is a large dining-room, and a common sitting- 
 
 * What fitter name for a Carpenters' Home than Nazareth ? 
 But this was appropriated already by the Deacon House, hence 
 Little Nazareth. 
 
40 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 room, furnished with books and games; here you may 
 find your joiners when work is done, unless they are 
 taking recreation out of doors. Their work is not play- 
 work ; they do their eight or nine hours daily, and true 
 work is expected of them. Meal-times are the family 
 gatherings — five times a day. The early cup of coffee 
 at seven is followed by a more substantial breakfast a 
 couple of hours later ; there is a wholesome, simple, and 
 plentiful midday dinner, an afternoon cup of coffee, and 
 supper at seven. At nine the men go to bed, rising 
 between five and six. Before breakfast and after supper 
 the house-father conducts family worship, not forgetting 
 the reading of a psalm after dinner ; and if you happen 
 to pass at the moment, you will know that the singing 
 of a hymn is never omitted. There is a harmonium in 
 every dining-room. 
 
 You enter another house —Peniel, the Tailors' Home — 
 managed in the same way. The coats and trousers of 
 the colony are made here, and the needful repairing 
 done. Over against Peniel is Horeb, the Shoemakers' 
 Home. If you pay a visit here on a Monday morning, 
 you find a mountain of invalid boots and shoes to be 
 turned out hale by Saturday night. The next house is 
 the Smithy, Gilgal ; the next the Gardeners', Sharon, 
 with a seedsman's shop, doing a flourishing business 
 with the outer world by post. 
 
 There is bookbinding, there is printing ; a bookselling 
 establishment also, with a business connection all over 
 the country. You may order any book you like, of 
 wholesome literature ; the printing and bookselling 
 department is called Bethphage, the " house of figs," 
 
Bethel 
 
 41 
 
 and books should be wholesome food. Several patients 
 of the educated class are employed here. In the same 
 " house of figs " there is a depot for illuminated texts, 
 large and small, Christmas and birthday cards, photo- 
 graphs, engravings, etc. The texts and cards are largely 
 the work of talented patients ; if any have a capability 
 in any direction it is sure to be cultivated both for his 
 own happiness and the welfare of his companions. You 
 rarely enter this place without finding some customers 
 who have walked out from Bielefeld, or some peasant- 
 wife from the neighbourhood seeking a pretty acquisi- 
 tion for her cottage walls. Bethphage, quite apart from 
 its moral objects, really pays, occupying and housing 
 some twenty patients, and leaving a yearly surplus of 
 several hundred pounds. 
 
 You continue your round, finding almost every trade 
 represented ; there are saddlers, there are basketmakers, 
 and last, not least, there is the bakery. At Bethlehem 
 ("house of bread") there is quite a model house-father, 
 grown up with the place. He came as a baker's lad in 
 the early years of the colony, and now is bread-master 
 of Bethel ; ever cheerful, with a cheerful house-mother 
 who makes no trouble of anything, and a family of 
 olive branches, too, of his own, growing lustily about his 
 table — they count the rolling years in the place by these 
 never-failing babes. Bethlehem produces all the bread, 
 cakes and buns the colony consumes ; no small under- 
 taking, for there are nearly three thousand mouths daily 
 to fill. Over two hundred pounds' worth of flour is 
 required every month. The hands employed in this 
 establishment, if patients, of course are picked and 
 
42 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 chosen with some regard for those who eat the loaves ; 
 they are convalescents, not often troubled with fits. 
 Indeed, that house-father, if you ask him, with not a little 
 pride, and with a genial smile on his flour-powdered 
 face, will show you a former patient who "got quite 
 well here " ; the bakehouse, according to him, being 
 the finest sanatorium going, "especially for these poor 
 fellows." So let a man make bread for others when he 
 is in trouble ; it may tend to his healing unawares. 
 
 There is quite a family of such, and in their off-hours 
 you see them in their white bakers' clothes on a bench 
 before the house, the " olive branches " toddling in and 
 out among them, as happy a family as any in the colony. 
 The master himself in his off-hours, as likely as not may 
 be found in the great kitchen garden weeding a bed of 
 lettuces or planting out cabbages, and if you happen to 
 pass at the moment with an " Always busy, House-father 
 Baker ? " he is sure to answer : " It's all in the day's work, 
 bread or cabbages, and for the common good." In these 
 two words you have the secret of these men. He makes 
 nothing for his own pocket, nothing even for the little 
 pockets he well might think of; he and his children are 
 fed, housed, clothed, he making his loaves while looking 
 after his family of patients. It is all one to him, be there 
 five hundred loaves wanted or five thousand — it is for 
 the common good. Everything is managed well and 
 thriftily in the colony at large, so in Bethlehem ; and 
 even the visitor not initiated in baking mysteries can 
 understand the economy when he is shown three giant 
 ovens, one above the other like berths in a ship, and 
 heated with one fire running through a set of flues. 
 
Bethel 
 
 43 
 
 Besides bread-making there is brick-making, there is 
 farming, there is also a grocery store — every house doing 
 its own shopping, and keeping its own accounts ; and 
 there is the brom kali (bromide of potassium) office, send- 
 ing this medicine — the one drug employed at Bethel — free 
 of charge, and with " advice " to epileptics in ten different 
 languages all over the globe. Not one applicant in ten 
 can be received at Bethel ; they take the most needy, and 
 correspond with thousands besides.* These are the poor, 
 whose claim is for Christ's sake. The great bulk arc 
 from the home provinces, but patients arrive from the 
 ends of the earth, sometimes knowing two words only — 
 Bielefeld and Bodelschwingh. A seven-year-old deaf-and- 
 dumb epileptic boy once came from Prussian Poland in 
 this way, having a paper with these two words sewn on 
 his coat. And Pastor von Bodelschwingh did not fail to 
 turn this little event to good use. A petition went to 
 Berlin setting forth that poor people could not afford 
 to travel long distances with attending friends, yet 
 surely it was taxing the travelling public to expect 
 them to look after such wayfarers — if these were taken 
 with a fit, it was taxing that public sorely. Would 
 government grant a reduction of fares to all epileptics 
 going to and from the colony? It was granted, and 
 Bodelschwingh's growing family ever since has travelled 
 
 * The stress on Bethel has been lessening as other refuges 
 for epileptics opened. Yet there is but one ^' Bethel," and 
 hundreds always lying at her doors. A law is now coming into 
 force in Germany, according to which, for the future, it is laid 
 upon every province to provide for its own insane, idiots and 
 epileptics. How this State provision will tell on the aims of 
 Christian charity is a serious question. 
 
44 ^ Colony of Mercy 
 
 on soldiers' tickets — that is, at one-third of the usual 
 fare. 
 
 That brom kali office just mentioned yields another 
 glimpse into Bodelschwingh's ways — ever merciful, ever 
 watchful, ever seizing his opportunity. There was a 
 chemist at Bielefeld who did not " get on." He knew 
 all about his drugs, was an upright man, but he had no 
 conciliating ways, and somehow his business came to 
 grief. He had a wife and eight children, and went to 
 Bodelschwingh saying they were starving. " Oh," says 
 Bodelschwingh, " I happen to want a chemist," — in that 
 place a man in trouble appealing for help somehow 
 always happens to be wanted, — " you could take charge 
 of our brom kali depot" The man was appointed ; he, of 
 course, settled in the colony, had a house given him, and 
 his eight children now nowise look starving. 
 
 Now, how has this act of kindness repaid itself? 
 Bromide is largely employed at the colony, the patients 
 taking it as regularly as their daily bread to keep 
 the fits under. Other remedies have been tried ; Bethel, 
 however, has always returned to the bromide as the 
 one drug which avails. But when an ever-increasing 
 number of epileptics lay waiting at her doors, and only 
 the most helpless of even the poorest could be admitted 
 for want of room, merciful Bethel made an effort to aid 
 them by post, sending them the medicine with careful 
 instructions as to their mode of living. For an astonish- 
 ing number of out-patients the gain of this was twofold : 
 in the first place they were kept out of the hands of 
 quacks, and in the secpnd place they received the medi- 
 cine in a purer form than obtainable at the ordinary 
 
Bethel 
 
 45 
 
 chemist's — a great thing, considering the quantities a 
 patient consumes, and the ill effects on some constitu- 
 tions unless the bromide is of the purest They are 
 very careful at Bethel, even with the purified drug, 
 making a study of every patient for the happy medium, 
 so that the medicine may lessen the malady without 
 producing what is known there as the " bromide face " 
 — skin eruptions, and not only on the face. 
 
 It is, however, an expensive process to produce this 
 bromide pure. It passes muster with the German phar- 
 macopoeia if it contains not more than ij per cent, of 
 other salts. But Bethel sought improvement ; and be- 
 cause of the enormous quantity required there, a Berlin 
 company found it worth while to set up more elaborate 
 chemical works in order to supply the colony with a 
 preparation which contains only \ per cent, of deleterious 
 substances. Bethel requires about half a ton of the 
 drug in one month — three hundredweight for home 
 consumption, the remainder for the ever-increasing host 
 of out-patients. Within the last ten years, ninety thou- 
 sand epileptics have thus been supplied in Germany 
 alone ! In many an instance, of course, this means the 
 selfsame patient applying again and again ; but the 
 books also show that the recipients often are pastors 
 or other public persons procuring the medicine for a 
 number of afflicted ones ; and thus, while from these 
 figures alone the percentage cannot be accurately gauged, 
 they yet give an idea how widespread the malady is. 
 They also exhibit the vastness of the charity dispensed. 
 Bethel, indeed, has out-patients in almost every part of 
 the world. Even a Sumatra chief once applied, and 
 
46 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 through her missionaries the healing hand of Bethel is 
 busy also among the bound ones of the Dark Continent. 
 The bromide can be had at cost price from the colony, 
 but no regular charge is made for the medicine thus 
 sent, and fully one-half of those out-patients had it quite 
 free — it only needs a line from some minister, or other 
 person of trust, to ensure that, and prevent abuse ; others 
 who can pay, send their shillings ; wealthier folk, grateful 
 for the service rendered, their half-sovereigns and 
 sovereigns, with the result that, although a real charity 
 is being shown to multitudes, yet this charity pays, 
 leaving even a surplus for the general treasury. And not 
 only has that chemist presiding over this vast dispensary 
 thus been provided for, but clerks and bookkeepers are 
 needed — of what class a future chapter will show, a 
 rescued class — and several patients are at work there, 
 preparing the consignments for postal transmission. It, 
 of course, entails an enormous correspondence, for Bethel 
 is in individual touch with very many of these out- 
 patients. What letters are received ! what experience 
 is gained ! and what a blessing is this establishment ! 
 Was not Bethel repaid, repaid grandly, for lending a 
 helping hand to a man in trouble? But Bethel has 
 made it her privilege to be the ever-ready comforter 
 of "all that mourn." 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 WALKS ABOUT BETHEL 
 
 "Your bodies a living sacrifice." 
 
 HAT a gift of genius to find work for such a 
 
 ^ ^ community ! It is possible only because of the 
 vastness of the undertaking. A smaller colony would be 
 ten times as expensive, ten times as difficult to manage ; 
 and it is because of the all-roundness of the charity 
 that every particular branch is so flourishing. Recipro- 
 city is the great watchword there. 
 
 Far better than the bromide for the patients, indeed, 
 is a wholesome and steady occupation. Nothing is 
 more hurtful to them than being left to their thoughts ; 
 they grow morbid and fretful, whereas work acts as a 
 tonic, physically even, and morally still more. Even 
 the poorest of them, joiner or tailor, has the feeling 
 that he is not, or not altogether, an object of charity, 
 but a man, though a stricken one, earning his wage. 
 And if but nominal in some cases, yet for the greater 
 part it is work, some of these patients actually having a 
 certain wage allowed them — the poorer ones especially. 
 They get it in the shape of pocket money, and often 
 for the sake of helping their own poor relations. When- 
 ever possible, a patient is employed according to the 
 
 47 
 
48 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 occupation he followed before the malady overtook him. 
 Indeed, most of them stubbornly cling to this link with 
 their past. It has been found almost hopeless to teach 
 them any new trade, no doubt because of a feeling on 
 their part they may after all get well again, at least well 
 enough to return to the world ; and they would like to 
 return, not as strangers, to the place which knew them. 
 
 Out-of-door labour, of course, is the most conducive 
 to their wellbeing, and a natural occupation with very 
 many of the men. Farming, therefore, almost from the 
 first, has been a recognised pursuit at Bethel. As you 
 pass on through Workshop Street, past the home 
 farm where the " Field-marshal " Steinkamp has his 
 little room, over against the hayloft, with some thirty or 
 forty head of milch cows beneath him, and past the 
 gardens where Sharon cultivates her kitchen stuff 
 and flowers and seeds, you follow a winding road lined 
 with buildings, all belonging to the colony — pretty 
 little houses, where many of the working-staff live ; 
 and ascending towards the uplands, fields all about you, 
 and meadows and woods and the hill-chains beyond, 
 you reach, about a mile from the centre of the colony, 
 the farm, Hebron. This farm was acquired in 1879. It 
 was the property of a drunken peasant whose wife and 
 children had been taken in at Bethel to be safe from his 
 ill-usage ; and the poor woman, far gone in consumption, 
 had died there. It is noteworthy that many of the 
 houses gradually joined to the colony before passing 
 into its hands were either public-houses or the neglected 
 homes of drunkards ; the area now covered by Bethel, 
 some four hundred acres, being in the precincts of a 
 
Walks About Bethel 
 
 51 
 
 manufacturing town (Bielefeld) with a reputation for 
 socialism. Thus Bethel, by extending its borders, 
 has actually lessened the enemy's camp — the angel of 
 mercy dislodging the devil of drink, and turning a field 
 of strife into a garden of peace. 
 
 The farm in question formerly went by the name of 
 " Chicken Farm," because of a tribute of barn fowl levied 
 of old by the counts of the Sparrenburg, the turreted 
 castle of which, with the home colony of Bethel at its 
 foot, offers a fine view as seen from here. It was re- 
 christened Hebron, and is quite a model farm. There 
 are nearly a hundred patients employed here ; and since 
 work is harder than on any of the other farms, much 
 uncultivated soil being gradually reclaimed, it is always 
 the strongest among the Bethelites who are drafted 
 off to this "station" — that is to say, those who are 
 tolerably well between their attacks, or do not have them 
 often. The health bill at Hebron is among the best of 
 the colony, yet here also at times there is trouble, patients 
 requiring to be isolated, and even put under restraint 
 in the " cell." Outbursts of temporary insanity are not 
 rare. 
 
 There is a pretty story how Hebron came by a house- 
 father. He was the son of a rich Westphalian peasant, 
 and heir to a large property. There is a real aristocracy 
 among this peasantry, of long descent — high-minded folk, 
 and of as thorough breeding as any nobility. This man 
 had a younger brother whom he loved, but who was 
 epileptic ; and the two youths together one day arrived 
 at Bethel, the elder coming with the younger to 
 tend him — to be his brother indeed. Of course he 
 
52 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 was allowed to stay. The invalid grew worse, and after 
 a few years the afflicted soul laid down its worn-out 
 shell. He was buried in the little cemetery, but the 
 elder brother did not then shake off the dust of Bethel 
 from his feet. Hale and strong, and heir to a life of this 
 world's good things, he had learned at Bethel to choose 
 the better part. He offered to stay for good, join the 
 brotherhood, and be ready for any service. He had 
 gone through the usual training of sick-nursing while 
 attending on his brother. He was a born farmer and 
 of the right stuff altogether. 
 
 Now Hebron with its eighty acres wanted a house- 
 father who knew all about farming ; and a house-father 
 must have a house mother by his side. This young man 
 had loved a girl, and was betrothed to her, she being the 
 daughter of another of these peasant lords. At first she 
 did not approve of her lover's " whims " : it was all very 
 well that he had been good to his own brother, but to 
 go and be "brother" to everybody else — any ailing 
 creature that might need him — was too much for her. 
 Besides, he must give up his prospects, and she had 
 intended to be a peasantess in state, governing her dairy 
 and presiding over her linen chests, with all implied 
 therein of dignity and housewifely glory. No, she was 
 going to jilt him rather than say yes to this. So be it : 
 he was going to throw in his lot with Bethel, for there 
 was a love passing the love of woman constraining him. 
 Now she had a true, tender heart, this youthful peasant 
 princess ; and, as he would not give in, she gave in : love 
 being strong, it can give in, even at a loss sometimes. 
 Only it turned all to her gain, and there js not a statelier 
 
Walks About Bethel 53 
 
 peasant-dame now, far and wide. Of course they gave 
 up their earthly claims, as far as entering into possession 
 was concerned — there was a third brother at the ancient 
 homestead who could " succeed." This young man and 
 his maiden true were married by Bodelschwingh on the 
 " deel " (threshing-floor) of the ancestral farm, according 
 to Westphalian peasant custom since time immemorial. 
 And a comely couple they were. 
 
 Their own families, though good folk at first, stood 
 aghast ; but, after all, they failed not to grace the wed- 
 ding, and even the young man's favourite sister, who had 
 been most staggered by these " whims " — whoever heard 
 of a Westphalian so slighting his own good peasant 
 prospects ? — relented sweetly, and presented Hebron, by 
 way of a wedding present, with her own primest cow. 
 It was, indeed, a giving up of " prospects," and a sacri- 
 fice quite as great, as regards any sense of position 
 and wealth and dignity, as if an eldest son of English 
 nobleman or country squire, on coming of age, gave up 
 his rights. 
 
 The pair thus were installed at Hebron, and it is 
 beautiful to see how they manage this farm with the 
 same pride as though it were their very own. In her 
 domain, dairy or kitchen, everything is spick and span ; 
 and for his part, the fields all about and the thriving 
 cattle speak for it. It is the farm of their heart, if not of 
 their pocket. And over and above the farm they have 
 taken to their hearts the hundred epileptics, teaching 
 them to be good farm labourers, and doing their best by 
 them in any way they can. There is the same home- 
 life at Hebron as there is at the carpenters', or in any of 
 
54 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 the houses. Hebron has a beautiful dining-room, low- 
 ceiled, and with plenty of casements, a farmhouse room 
 of truest style, and as clean as a young lady's boudoir, 
 Mrs. Bargholz — why should she not be named here ? — 
 looking after everybody's comfort, and ruling her women- 
 folk to the credit of the place. It is, indeed, the farm of 
 their heart, if not of their pocket. 
 
 Concerning that pocket, it may interest, almost startle, 
 the English reader to hear what these people actually do 
 get. These Nazareth brothers, house-fathers and all, 
 never have a penny of salary ; they get pocket-money 
 according to their need. A married house-father, such 
 as the one we are speaking of, has out of the general 
 Nazareth fund about twenty pounds a year to clothe 
 himself and his wife ; if there are any children, there is 
 an addition according to the number of children. For 
 the rest, they do not need any money ; they are fed with 
 the household they have adopted, and which has adopted 
 them. If they are ill, why. Bethel has three doctors, 
 and Sarepta six hundred nursing-sisters ; no one is left 
 uncared-for. When they get old. Bethel will still pro- 
 vide for her workers, for Bethel is a commonwealth, 
 and no man, once having entered that service of love, 
 need have any care for himself It is a lovely arrange- 
 ment, and only a man like Bodelschwingh could have 
 devised it ;— or, if others could have devised it, it is only 
 one like him, so possessed of the charisma of service, that 
 could so inspire every other worker about him with the 
 perfect beauty of self-surrender. These people — and we 
 give this just as an instance, there are others like them 
 in the colony — work for the place with as jealous an eye 
 
Walks Abotd Bethel 
 
 55 
 
 for its advantage as if it were a hundred times their 
 own. And, because of this, owners indeed they are 
 while they live. Who ever would turn out such a house- 
 father ? His very children will inherit the blessing, for 
 Bethel is a commonwealth. 
 
 In certain respects Mr. and Mrs. Bargholz do differ 
 from other " house-parents." There is an air of wealth 
 about them ; their children will come in for the father's 
 and mother's share of those Westphalian "prospects," 
 and their own people are good meantime to Hebron. At 
 the harvest season waggonsful arrive, as though Hebron 
 had stepped into the rights the heir to the Bargholz's 
 gave up on becoming a brother and house-father. So 
 Piebron is well off. 
 
 One afternoon Pastor and Mrs. von Bodelschwingh, 
 with their family and a number of visitors, had announced 
 themselves at Hebron, by telephone, for an afternoon 
 cup of coffee. We sallied out through the fields, and, lo 
 and behold, Mrs. Bargholz had bethought herself of her 
 housewifely pride, receiving us with stately dignity, all 
 smiles and blushes and curtseys, and having set a table 
 with her own china and silver — her family see to that — 
 and with cakes and cream abounding. Call her a 
 farmer's wife and a peasantess ! She has an artless 
 dignity about her, as to the manner born. It was a 
 pleasant afternoon, and one came away not only de- 
 lighted, but having gained a new insight. She has two 
 little girls of her own, and sees to their being well 
 educated. 
 
 There are considerable brickfields at Hebron, turning 
 out four millions of bricks a year, for home use partly, 
 
56 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 but also for business. These brickfields are a rising 
 concern, and a paying concern, as anybody can under- 
 stand. The bricks being made with machinery — the 
 management of which cannot be entrusted to epileptics 
 — are the work of men from the " Labour Colony," of 
 which anon ; but the Hebronites dig the clay and bring 
 it to the spot by means of little trucks on rails. When 
 the soil can no longer be worked for clay, it has to be 
 brought into use for grazing land ; besides, there is a 
 great deal of neglected forest land and waste heath- 
 country round about, which these patients by diligent 
 labour render productive. So life is busy at Hebron. 
 There is a fine show of milch cows, the farm selling 
 about five hundred pounds' worth of milk yearly ; there 
 are fowls and pigs, a number of horses, too, for use in the 
 brickworks when there is no ploughing ; also for taking 
 the milk-carts about the colony. 
 
 This is how Bethel does much of its work. Hebron, 
 farm and brickfields, costs the general treasury not a 
 farthing, for it amply keeps itself, its hundred mouths 
 and all, even with a surplus. It is a model farm, and 
 like Bethel itself, a city set on a hill. Everything is so 
 very ideal about Bethel, yet so very practical. Such a 
 colony never could be imitated : that is the beauty of it, 
 and its mark of the divine. Yet you may learn of 
 Bethel ! 
 
 To show the dark side of the picture, that very after- 
 noon we had so pleasant a cup of coffee, the pastor was 
 called downstairs to speak to a poor fellow who had had 
 bad fits lately, and had been put under restraint, having 
 been violent, and threatening to lay hands on himself 
 
Walks About Bethel 
 
 57 
 
 A few days afterwards, as the foundation-stone was 
 being laid for a house to receive temporarily such as he 
 — a lunatic asylum, with its walls of isolation thought- 
 fully hidden from the patient's eye by shrubberies — that 
 same fellow, in his right mind now, stood by the side of 
 the pastor, who spoke to him. " You didn't mean it, 
 Peter," says the pastor, with that look of compassion 
 which is hardly ever out of his eyes. " No," says Peter, 
 " only I could not help it." " Well," says the pastor, 
 " here, you see, we are building a house, where you will 
 never feel shut up, but only taken care of; and when 
 that evil spirit takes you, you must just always tell us, 
 and for a while come here." 
 
 A sister-farm of Hebron goes by the name of Mamre, 
 and some of us walked across that evening to have a talk 
 with the house-mother there. Mamre, related in character 
 to Hebron, yet altogether on a more modest scale, has 
 charge of about seventy patients, employed similarly to 
 those at Hebron. The house-father there had been a 
 simple farm labourer, a mere ploughman, before offering 
 for service at Bethel. He has a splendid wife, and the 
 legend of their loves has it that she disappeared from 
 their native village when he quitted the plough for 
 Bethel, thinking she was no wise good enough for him. 
 It turned out afterwards that he had thought he was not 
 good enough for her ; and, judging by appearance, you 
 would have said so too, appearances often leaving you 
 ignorant of riches and graces unseen. She entered the 
 service of a Dutch family, with whom she travelled as 
 lady's maid. But if you want a talk with a lady, go and 
 see Mrs. Engelmann, though you may find her in her 
 
58 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 kitchen with both her arms in a trough mixing salad for 
 her large family. She evidently has had an education 
 in her travels, and she has the education which comes 
 from within. Taking a chair, one watched her pro- 
 ceedings ; the subject of conversation was handy. 
 
 "To think of the mere feeding of these numbers " — 
 she had been saying they were peeling a hundredweight 
 and more of potatoes daily — " the peeling is one thing, 
 but to be sure of your potatoes always is another thing ! 
 It is marvellous." 
 
 " No, not marvellous," said she, looking up with her 
 calm light-blue eyes, her pleasant common-sense face — 
 " not marvellous ; it is very natural : while we have him 
 to pray for us (meaning Bodelschwingh) never a screw 
 will fall out of its place, never a wheel come to a stand- 
 still in this machinery." 
 
 " But it is hard work for you, and with such patients ! " 
 
 "Yes, hard work ; we are up at four and busy till night 
 — yet not hard. You see," she said, " you have got to 
 put your heart into it. There is one thing, you soon 
 know your fitness if you come to try your hand here. 
 There are only two attitudes you can assume towards 
 this work, — you are either hot to it, or cold to it, and you 
 know which before a week is out ; and unless you are 
 hot, right hot with the something burning within you, 
 you will be running away fast enough ; if need be, with 
 Holz-schuhenr 
 
 Whether with " wooden shoes " one runs more quickly, 
 she left unexplained ; but her meaning was patent — love 
 only keeps these folk to their post. We had supper 
 with them, a humble repast, the patients here being of a 
 
Walks About Bethel 
 
 59 
 
 poorer sort altogether. They came in from the fields in 
 their working blouses, a brother presiding at each table. 
 Grace having been said they fell to with a will. The 
 house-father came in late, for there had been a home 
 bringing of hay — a simple unassuming man, shorter than 
 his wife, and certainly no beauty to behold. Yet you 
 need give but one look in his face, and you see a beauty 
 unmistakable ; there is that written in his countenance ^ 
 which lets you know at a glance he is a Christian. It 
 is strange how one knows that at first sight, with some 
 people — that chastened look glorifying even the homeliest 
 features. We shook hands— his were hard and knotty 
 — and sat down ; he had not much to say. But he 
 conducted a little evening service like a priest of the 
 sanctuary. 
 
 " How came he to choose this life ? " He was not 
 quick with an answer, the wife answering for him : 
 
 " It was because of his ernsten Sinnl' — because of his 
 unworldly mind — said she quietly, as though it were the 
 most natural thing for a man to turn his face from the 
 things of this world for the serving of Christ's poor. 
 Possibly they never heard of " consecration," for they are 
 simple folk ; but theirs is the consecrated life, the 
 " living sacrifice," the " reasonable service " of which 
 Paul speaks. 
 
 They also have some rosy, flaxen-haired children 
 (there is the true Saxon type among these folk of the 
 Ravensberger Land), growing up among these poor. 
 The children of the colony are particularly thriving, as 
 though to gainsay the apprehensions of those who say 
 it is " bad " to be about epileptic patients. After supper 
 
6o 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 the industrious house-mother showed us over her 
 domain ; and seeing her linen closet, a big room, the 
 walls all covered with pigeon-holes, one for each man 
 with his weekly linen all ready, it being Friday evening ; 
 and being shown the mendings and washings all done 
 by her and her two or three young servants— think of 
 the socks only which these men wear into holes — one 
 wondered again. What paid labour could do this ? But 
 there is a love which never faileth and before which 
 mountains yield. We are told that simple house-father 
 prays with his wife for their epileptics every day, and 
 for each troubled one individually. This is the unseen 
 strength. 
 
 We went home, the sinking sun casting a glow over 
 the pretty country, so peaceful despite all the suffering 
 gathered there. We had had talk with the patients as 
 they sat or stood in groups about the yard after supper, 
 and were carrying away an impression that probably 
 they are happier now than ever they were in their lives 
 before. They tell you they have got to work, but they 
 always add, " It is good for us " ; and there is an air of 
 fellowship about them which is a power in itself Strange 
 that longing for fellowship, as though it were easing our 
 own burden to know there are others like us ! But here 
 sympathy comes in, saying, I am looking upon thy 
 burden as though it were mine. There must be a deep 
 meaning underlying this God-implanted need, else One 
 would not have spoken of " treading the winepress 
 alone." And he is truly man who truly shares. 
 
 On our way we passed a little homestead belonging to 
 Mamre, where a number of youths are housed with two 
 
Walks AbotU Bethel 
 
 6i 
 
 brothers — boys of fifteen and sixteen, who, having left 
 school, are now being initiated into the mysteries of 
 farming. They were just singing their evening hymn, 
 their " Abide with us " ringing over the meadows. But 
 
 PATIENTS AT NINEPINS. 
 
 as we neared Bethel the hand of evening was opening 
 doors everywhere. Young men were out playing at 
 ninepins — you heard the thud and fall the more clearly 
 as sounds of work were hushed ; and you met them in 
 groups, the carpenters, the tailors, the shoemakers, each 
 
62 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 with a towel slung across his shoulders going out to the 
 baths for a plunge or douche. 
 
 Let us go back to Bethel, the mother-hive, managed 
 by Sister Louise. There are only women now in that 
 large building — nearly two hundred, of all ages, from the 
 
 schoolgirl upward. Only about one-third of the patients 
 are of the weaker sex, for the simple reason that women 
 can be more easily managed at home. There are four- 
 teen " stations " in Bethel House ; for here also, though 
 under one roof, the family system prevails. Each dozen 
 or so of girls or women, parted from the rest, form a 
 
Walks About Bethel 
 
 63 
 
 " station," having their own dormitory, their work and 
 sitting-room ; meals only are in common. Work for 
 the women patients, of course, is less varied ; it consists 
 in household work, needlev/ork, gardening. Go into the 
 sewing classes, and you find some sixty or seventy of 
 the girls in four rooms busily engaged round a table, at 
 the head of which is a deaconess ; here garments are 
 made and clothes mended, not only for their own large 
 family, they also help their neighbours — Nazareth, for 
 instance, with its many boy patients and unmarried 
 brothers. And there is singing and reading aloud 
 while the work goes on. In another room you find 
 great baskets full of socks and stockings to be turned 
 out again for wear. And then Bethel has her own large 
 kitchen garden, having six hundred mouths to cook for 
 daily, some of the neighbouring families " — such as the 
 Nazareth boys and men — coming in for their dinner, or 
 dinners are sent out. Thus Bethel House keeps up her 
 position of " mother," and many of her inmates are 
 occupied in this department. Five times a day the men 
 and boys come streaming in, two or three hundred of 
 them ; they have a separate entrance into a large dining- 
 hall on the ground floor, not mixing at all with the 
 Bethel patients. You can hardly watch a meal when 
 such numbers meet without being a witness to their 
 affliction. There is a beautiful stained-glass window in 
 this hall, the gift of a thoughtful friend. It represents 
 Peter sinking in the waves but upheld by his Lord ; and 
 surely there is a silent help passing from that window 
 into the hearts of some as they sit there at meat, a 
 strengthening better than of earthly food. This hall. 
 
64 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 used at meal times only, registers about three thousand 
 fits in the course of the year. 
 
 The great kitchen of Bethel House, of course, requires a 
 goodly provision of garden produce ; and the girls and 
 women, in the intervals of their sewing and cooking, are 
 taken to the fields ; there is weeding to be done, or hoe- 
 ing, or the gathering- in of vegetables, and it is a pretty 
 sight to see them — always with a white-capped deaconess 
 
 THE "field-marshal" OUT WITH THE BETHEL GIRLS. 
 
 in their midst — doing such work as they can on their 
 own extensive domain. And possibly you may find 
 " Field-marshal " Steinkamp out inspecting their work. 
 Bethel also has large wash-houses, for much weekly 
 washing has to be done : there also her women and girls 
 find work. It is a laundry with every appliance, and a 
 couple of deaconesses always there, fellow-workers with 
 the patients. This laundry, if a busy place, would seem 
 
Walks Abottt Bethel 
 
 65 
 
 a happy place ; at least, you hardly ever pass without 
 hearing hymn or song. 
 
 And then Bethel has regular schoolrooms for girls 
 under fifteen ; you find them in three classes, four hours 
 daily, taught by deaconesses. The work done, of course, 
 is not fully equal to the curriculum of the national schools ; 
 the scholars are too unequal in mental capacity, and also 
 in previous management ; but it is a pleasant hour you 
 would spend in any of these class-rooms, especially if you 
 happen to chance on an " examination," combining, say, 
 the story of Noah's ark with a lesson in arithmetic, and 
 see the little fingers come up so eagerly announcing the 
 ready answer. The boys are similarly taught — at 
 Nazareth — religious instruction, history, geography, 
 ciphering, etc. But in all these class-rooms you see the 
 familiar couch — it is never wanting in any room, any 
 workshop you enter, and one of the most beautiful things 
 to witness is the mutual assistance rendered by these 
 afflicted ones to each other. They never wait for the 
 brother or sister to lift the stricken form if they can 
 do so. When first the question was mooted to collect 
 epileptic patients in a common home, fears were ex- 
 pressed that thereby, through fright, the trouble would 
 be increased — an epileptic, of course, having no idea of 
 the nature of an attack, unless he sees it in others, and 
 the shock, it was thought, might induce worse things in 
 himself But this fear has turned out to be quite ground- 
 less : possibly that sense of fellowship is the neutralising 
 agent. There seems to be something soothing in the very 
 knowledge that they are surrounded by fellows in grief 
 and are no longer the shunned exception ; and so far 
 
 5 
 
66 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 from taking fright at each other's attacks, they run to help 
 one another. The most common seizure is the mere giddi- 
 ness, the sudden unconscious shpping to the ground, or 
 falHng back in a chair ; but even in a bad fit, arms are 
 about such faUin^ one directly — the helpful arms of his 
 own companions. They know exactly what to do to pre- 
 vent him biting his tongue or hurting himself otherwise ; 
 even the little children know, and do it so tenderly, 
 supporting their sinking comrade till stronger hands are 
 near. 
 
 You get a beautiful glimpse of this fellowship if you 
 will station yourself outside their church on a Sunday, 
 say half an hour before service ; and having done so once, 
 you will not miss it again on any Sunday during your 
 stay. They arrive in batches, streaming up the hill, 
 some headed by brother or sister, but many filing up by 
 themselves, by twos and threes, and in little groups. 
 And then only you get a full impression what a stricken 
 company they are. There is scarcely one but the 
 malady has touched his bodily frame, — you see it in 
 their faces, you see it in their bodies, afflicted in many 
 ways. They are cross-bearers ! But how beautifully 
 they help one another up that hill ! — leading one another, 
 leaning on one another — it is impossible to witness it 
 and go away unmoved. " Bear ye one another's burden " 
 — unconsciously they act upon it. Is not such mutual 
 helpfulness in very deed the prayer of which the apostle 
 tells us that by praying for another we shall ourselves 
 be healed? 
 
 On the ground floor of Bethel, till quite lately, sixty 
 epileptic little girls were housed, perhaps one-fourth of 
 
Walks A bold Bethel 
 
 67 
 
 them unable to use their Hmbs, perhaps one-half unable 
 to speak, all of them more or less imbecile, some hopelessly 
 so. These are " the least of them." The rooms they oc- 
 cupied were scarcely spacious enough for half the number, 
 but who could refuse admittance to such helpless ones 
 when they knocked at Bethel's gates ? It is for these that a 
 new house has been built, opened at the Jubilee and paid 
 for by thank-offering pennies. The latest acquisition, it is 
 the most beautiful of all Bethel homes; and rightly so, says 
 Pastor von Bodelschwingh, for it is destined to receive the 
 most afflicted of these children of grief. Yet children 
 of love withal,— it needs only one look into the face of 
 Sister Mary, who is mothering this flock, to be sure of 
 this. How proud she is of them, proud because they 
 need her so ; and to tend imbecile children is no light 
 thing. Think only of cleanliness ! But Sister Mary 
 has a large heart, and she and her helpers spend a life 
 of happiness — she said so — bearing the burden of these 
 little ones. There are some blind among them, some 
 deaf and dumb, some who for intelligence never saw one 
 ray of light. But some can play, and some can sing, and 
 they sing their little hymns to the Shepherd of even this 
 flock. The new house is named Little Bethel " and 
 within a few months of the opening the number h?s in- 
 creased from sixty to nearly a hundred. Bethel itself has 
 rapidly filled up. There are so many always waiting 
 for leave to come ! 
 
 Sister Louise of Bethel has a brother, one of those 
 Ravensberger friends ; he owns a farm not many miles 
 distant, and he and his wife take a special interest in 
 Bethel. Again and again in summer-time an invitation 
 
68 A Colo7iy of Mercy 
 
 is sent to the Bethel girls — " girls " in general meaning 
 female patients ; they are such children, and com- 
 paratively few reach over thirty — to come out for an 
 afternoon feast in his orchards. And he sends waggons 
 to bring his guests, to whom such outings are a rare 
 delight — all they can have of such recreation ; they 
 cannot go holiday-making like the rest of us ! 
 
 Sister Louise's brother is not the only one who does 
 this. The good peasant folk round about vie with each 
 other in showing this love to the epileptics, and some 
 have been known to add to the invitation the special 
 request, Send us the most afflicted I They are not afraid 
 of them ; they think only of the pleasure they would like 
 to give to this band of misery. Is not this beautiful ? 
 Who among ourselves, having a large house or a garden, 
 would open it to such visitors ? Should we not say, we 
 would like to do so, but there are such sights to be 
 dreaded ; we pity them, but we cannot risk such visions 
 of distress in our own houses ? There is such a look too 
 about these patients — for epilepsy is not a beautifier of 
 the human face divine, and there is much about them 
 repulsive — should we not say it would really be too much 
 for us, we'll send them a contribution ? These peasant 
 folk then are before us — " Send us tJie most miserable ! " 
 And out they go, and there is singing, and there are 
 games and cherryfeasts and tables set, and hosts in their 
 Sunday best to honour these guests, and there is happi- 
 ness. And there is One among them Whom they see 
 not — " Ye have done it unto the least of these ^ ye have 
 done it unto Me'.' 
 
 As you go up the valley, leaving Bethel and Little 
 
Walks About Bethel 
 
 69 
 
 Bethel behind you, you nowise leave the colony — there 
 are some forty Houses in all, that is, homes of epileptics 
 — nearly a hundred buildings. We cannot enter them 
 all with our pen, though we have done so with personal 
 interest, visiting these patients by turn at meals, at 
 work, at play, whenever one could get near them. At 
 the far end of the colony in this direction there is a 
 homestead, Carmel, occupied by Sister Minna, who has 
 a taste for farming. Her patients — ;not by any means 
 bright ones — do washing, knitting, sewing, as women- 
 folk ought ; but they also work on the farm, the heavier 
 part, actual field-labour, being done for them by the 
 male patients of Bethsaida, a station close by. A visit 
 to these " girls " on a summer afternoon, and taking 
 in at a glance the pretty little farm, leaves one with 
 a happy feeling that such a pleasant retreat should be 
 provided for these troubled ones. It is a " women " 
 station (for adults, that is) ; but Sister Minna has carried 
 off to her rustic bower two of the epileptic half-imbecile 
 little girls — one of them a dumb child, but engaging 
 enough — to have something to pet, as she tells visitors. 
 
 We have not yet been to the " Silly Valley." The 
 colony is strewn about two valleys, meeting at an angle, 
 and having the hill with the church between them. The 
 " Silly Valley " is but a narrow cut, separating the twin 
 hills. It has been so named, popularly, because so 
 many of the clouded intellects are housed there ; but it 
 is " Happy Valley " now, for the Love going in and out at 
 Bethel made it her special abode. Eben-Ezer is in this 
 valley, and Zoar, and other homes of this kind. But 
 there are one or two houses among them which should 
 
70 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 be classified differently, such as the epileptic ladies' 
 home — Bethany. Here, patients of the upper classes 
 are received. Bethany consists of two houses with their 
 own pleasant garden between : the one house for " first- 
 class " patients, the other for " second-class " ; they pay 
 ^^"50 or i^ioo yearly, with this difference, that those of 
 the first class have a room to themselves, and every two 
 or three patients a sister between them. Bethany, 
 especially of the first class, is all a ladies' home should 
 be — sitting-rooms with cosy corners, pretty tables, 
 sofas, books, photographs and everything — pianos and 
 a harmonium, of course. There is a large, airy dining- 
 room, both classes meeting at meals, no difference in 
 food being made. The private rooms of the patients 
 are prettily furnished and decorated with their own little 
 knick-knacks. 
 
 There are some forty patients at Bethany, and the 
 ruling genius, the head sister, is a character. She is 
 the widow of a Prussian General, a lady of rank and 
 wealth, over sixty years of age now, and looking older, 
 but, as she herself says, " as tough as shoe-leather." Her 
 history is the school in which she was trained. Her 
 husband, thrown from his horse, grew imbecile and she 
 had the nursing of him for seven years, after which she 
 nursed a relative in similar trouble ; and now, having no 
 children of her own, she has dedicated the remainder of 
 her life to Bethel — " Sister Laura " now, but her girls 
 call her " Grannie." She is the regular General among 
 her flock, but a loving one, upholding strict discipline 
 with the funniest airs of command. Grannie is a great 
 favourite. 
 
Walks Abo2it Bethel 
 
 71 
 
 An English girl from Capetown was recently brought 
 there, not knowing anything of German. After a week or 
 so she had picked up a phrase, she had heard it so often. 
 " I am very happy here," she said, " though it is all so 
 strange to me in this strange country ; the sisters are 
 so kind, and I know a German word now — Mein 
 LieblingX'' It says something for a place, does it not, 
 that " My Darling " should be the first words a stranger 
 from a far country is sure to begin upon. What a boon 
 such a house is ! That Cape girl came a long way : 
 it was the only house of the kind her friends ever 
 heard of. 
 
 Epileptic patients of the wealthier classes, especially 
 girls, can be treated in their own homes ; they can at least 
 be kept from harm, and their own people surely would 
 be kind to them. But it often is a mistaken kindness — a 
 kindness which lets them have their own way ; the firm 
 hand is wanting. Such patients are far better in a home 
 of love like this ; they have a better chance of recovery 
 there, a chance, at least, of not getting worse, which 
 sometimes is all they can hope. Among the Bethany 
 girls quite a number are but in their teens, and they are 
 receiving such education as their capabilities admit of — 
 languages, music, drawing, reading. For the sisters in 
 that house, though nursing sisters, are women of culture, 
 are ladies. That Cape girl, for instance, has a charming 
 attendant, one she fell in love with directly, a clergyman's 
 daughter, herself quite young, of a cultivated mind and, 
 what is better, evidently of a cultivated heart. It was 
 she who taught that young stranger her first German 
 lesson— Mein Lieblz?tg, Even the 'ologies can be studied 
 
72 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 at Bethany, under these nursing sisters, if any patient 
 has a turn that way. Needlework, too, is done diligently, 
 either for the poor or for missions. And if you happen 
 to drop in of a morning, you may come upon some of 
 these girls, sitting round their " General " and shelling 
 peas or something of that sort. The busy wholesome 
 life is their medicine and discipline ; they, too, if cured 
 at all, are cured from within. Once a week, in a house 
 like this, there is Familien-abend, or, as we should say 
 here, an " At Home." Any visitors about are invited, 
 one of the pastors and his wife come to preside, there 
 is a tea-supper and a pleasant evening. 
 
 A little further up this valley there is Bethesda, a 
 similar institution for ladies, not epileptic, but of " weak 
 nerves " ; ladies old and young, the better for a little 
 supervision and regular living. They are all of good 
 position, of rank often, ladies who never had anything 
 particular to do, and never had their wills trained. It is 
 bodily treatment and soul strengthening they are here 
 for : they get it, and seem happy. 
 
 The valley ends where these ladies of weak nerves 
 might end if not taken in hand in time ; Magdala is the 
 terminus of this valley — a female lunatic asylum. It 
 was, in the first instance, the needs of the colony 
 which led to this development, a place of refuge being 
 required for women epileptics under temporary insanity. 
 But Pastor von Bodelschwingh has an idea that the 
 Church, as a Church, has a duty towards the insane, 
 and since asylums for lunacy are provided by the 
 municipalities, he will, at least, have this Bethel do 
 its Christian part, though it be but on a small scale. 
 
Walks About Bethel 
 
 73 
 
 This house has twenty regular patients, mostly in- 
 curables, and it is managed by deaconesses fitted 
 for the work, one of the medical men of the colony being 
 a specialist in diseases of the mind. A lunatic asylum 
 for male patients as already mentioned, is in course of 
 erection ; it is planned for about thirty to forty patients, 
 and is to be called Moriah. 
 
 The companion house to Bethany, for gentlemen, is 
 Hcrmon, in the midst of the beech wood on the hill, over 
 against the church. Pastor Schmidt and his wife arc 
 house-parents here. It is a large house, having patients 
 of all ages, youths and men. These gentlemen are all 
 busy according to their capacities, some as clerks in 
 the offices, some in the library — that is at Bethphage, 
 with its several departments — some doing postman's 
 work about the colony, or carpentering, or gardening. 
 They are tended by brothers, as Bethany is by sisters. 
 They have their books, they have music, they have 
 games. You find men there of many nationalities ; for 
 nowhere on the globe are there homes like these for 
 men thus stricken. 
 
 Bethel, though outwardly a sad gathering of human 
 misery, is nevertheless a college where sick folk may 
 graduate. It is beauty for ashes, even in their grievous 
 affliction, the hand of love leading them step by step to 
 the submission which is peace. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 MORE WALKS ABOUT BETHEL 
 " Out of the mouths of babes Thou hast perfected praise." 
 
 IT is a sight to see Pastor von Bodelschwingh among 
 his idiots — his children, as he calls them by pre- 
 ference. How they cling to his love ! Men, women^ 
 boys, girls, in four different houses. Bethel has a large 
 idiot colony, — nearly one-third of her numbers must be 
 counted imbecile ; many arrive such, others gradually 
 become such. If epileptics were taken in hand in time — 
 that is, if there were enough " Bethels " to take them in, 
 — this need not be ; not more than five per cent, need 
 sink away into that outer darkness. 
 
 How strange that, with clouded intellects — among 
 these epileptics, at least — the religious faculty often is 
 the one thing left ! They know their hymns and their 
 Bible verses when all else is gone. And it is cultivated. 
 It seems as if the deteriorating effects of this terrible 
 malady troubled the mind rather than the soul. The 
 affections, for instance, are left, when thought and reflec- 
 tion are almost gone ; gratitude is left — they do know 
 when you are kind to them ; the spiritual faculty is left, 
 — enough, at least, to be cultivated. There was the 
 head-sister's birthday — " Auntie," they call her — at the 
 
 74 
 
More Walks About Bethel 75 
 
 home for women idiots, so there was coffee and cakes, 
 and Pastor von Bodelschwingh and his wife were invited. 
 This house has locked doors, and is walled in, to warn 
 off curious strangers ; but, by a happy chance, one was of 
 the company. There are about sixty patients in that house 
 — poor, helpless things, not an unclouded mind among 
 them ! But Bodelschwingh began talking to them (the 
 house is called Siloam) : " Children, can you tell me 
 about Siloam ? " None but foolish answers. " Listen, 
 children ! " and he read to them and talked to them about 
 the pool and the blind man ; and they, some of them, at 
 least, presently understood that Jesus sent the blind man 
 thither to get eyes. " What sort of eyes, children ? " 
 And a poor imbecile girl actually cried back, " Herzens- 
 augeii I " " Yes, Herzens-augen^' says Bodelschwingh ; 
 " and stille Herzen — hearts that give up fretting and 
 quarrelling." And, somehow, he got them to understand 
 that " Herzens-augen " {eyes of tJie heart) to see Jesus 
 with ; and " stille Herzen," the stillness within, was the 
 one thing wanted of them ; and, however much or little 
 they understood, these two words were left with them 
 like two lights shining on their darkness. No sermon 
 could have impressed one more — the loving preacher, 
 the imbecile flock, the power of love making itself 
 understood. 
 
 On another occasion there was a similar gathering at 
 the same house. Pastor Stiirmer had arranged it : he 
 is Bodelschwingh's coadjutor for Bethel, on whom the 
 captainship of the epileptic colony long has devolved, 
 there being two other pastoral appointments besides, 
 one for Sarepta, and one for Nazareth. Sturmer was 
 
76 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 Bodelschwingh's friend before either of them came to 
 this work. He was his curate, and, indeed, an inmate of 
 his manse when the four little children died ; and there 
 is nothing which knits men more closely than a great 
 sorrow gone through together. If we were asked to 
 characterise Stiirmer, we should do it with the one 
 word — self-effacement. He is the very last to make 
 a " hero " of Bodelschwingh ; but unconsciously he is 
 setting him forth, and it is a treat at any time to get him 
 on this topic. But the thing to be noted is, that although 
 his is an independent position, the several pastors holding 
 appointment under a committee, and although he most 
 certainly goes his own way, he yet is the captain he is, 
 because so fully impregnated with the spirit of his 
 general — more truly said, of his friend. It is, more or 
 less, the same with all these workers : once appointed 
 they go their own way, only — it is Bodelschwingh's way. 
 He truly is their chief, yet not so much a ruler as an 
 influence, and his fellow-workers grow like him ; they 
 cannot help it. There is an educating spirit pervading 
 this colony, the spirit of not seeking one's own. The 
 wondrous thing in this chief is that magnetic power in 
 him attracting the right workers ; they are never looked 
 for, never sought ; they come, they are there ; they do 
 their own part as free agents almost, he so completely 
 trusting them, yet his spirit is in their every act. It comes 
 to this, that Christian genius is a spiritual force, ever 
 begetting, ever imbuing ; and this is the working secret 
 of this strangely constituted colony, the true characteristic 
 of which is found in the text, " He that is greatest 
 among you, let him be as the younger ; and he that is 
 
More Walks AboiU Bethel 77 
 
 chief, as he that doth serve." They are all servants 
 there, from Bodelschwingh to the youngest brother. If 
 there were a few more colonies like it, there would be no 
 social question left. 
 
 Stiirmer, then, is working pastor of the Bethel proper. 
 The patients never think of going to Bodelschwingh 
 direct ; but with all their little griefs, with their every 
 need, bodily or spiritual, real or imaginary, they have 
 free access to Sturmer any hour of the day ; and though 
 he be in the midst of his heavy office work — all the 
 Bethel accounts, the Bethel correspondence going through 
 his hands — how patiently he listens to their troubles, 
 how lovingly he enters into their need ! He is the 
 faithful shepherd of this flock, and if their troubled souls 
 find peace, it is largely due to this pastor's gentle and 
 indefatigable ministrations. 
 
 So Pastor Sturmer, according to his frequent habit, 
 was arranging that afternoon gathering at Siloam. He 
 read them a story — it was a Christmas tale, all about 
 dying, curiously enough ; but anything about death and 
 dying has a strange fascination for these epileptics. One 
 could not tell how much they took in of the reading ; 
 but the pastor kept their attention wonderfully, stopping 
 every few lines wanting a text from them or the verse 
 of some hymn fitting his subject, and they always gave 
 the right one, he setting the keynote, as it were, with 
 a leading word, and after they had repeated it once or 
 twice in chorus, it was sung. Their eyes simply were 
 riveted on the pastor, whose very voice upon occasion is 
 an echo of Bodelschwingh's. 
 
 The story having told about Christmas and the Babe 
 
78 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 in the manger, went on to tell how one Christmas day 
 a kind mother died, leaving her little ones orphaned. 
 " This is very sad," says the pastor, " but it would not be 
 right to go sorrowing always ; the Christian must be joyful 
 again, knowing it is the Lord, — for why ? And pat came 
 the answer — 
 
 Why should I go sadly weeping ? 
 
 If bereft, Christ is left, 
 He all joy is keeping." * 
 
 What better answer could even the wisest of us have 
 given ? One simply wondered, and went home in silence. 
 The memory for hymns they have learned seems about 
 all now left to them. But were they not faithful with that 
 one talent — shall He not be satisfied with these children ? 
 Even as that hymn was being said there was a terrible 
 bang, one of them falling forward, knocking her head 
 against the table. It created no disturbance : the girls 
 to the right and left of her lifted her up in their arms — 
 even the idiots do it so tenderly, stroking the sufferer's 
 face : not that this is any use in a fit, but yet ! but yet ! 
 They are so responsive to affection, these poor things ; 
 they crowd round you for barest sign of it ; they under- 
 stand that universal language of which the " Greatest 
 Thing'^ speaks. You have but to press their hand, 
 stroke their cheeks, and a wonderful gleam of light 
 passes over their faces, — yes, love is left ! 
 
 It is not easy to be still at Siloam, and they certainly 
 do a lot of quarrelling these poor fretful things — it is 
 part of their infirmity — the sisters have much ado to 
 
 * ''Warum sollt' ich mich denn gramen." — Paul Gerhard's 
 hymn. 
 
More Walks About Bethel 79 
 
 keep tJds flock still. But even they learn a little of 
 that stillness, acquire it by degrees ; it is so deeply im- 
 bedded in their environment, how can they but learn a 
 little ? and what a blessed change for some of them from 
 the homes they knew before Bethel opened her arms to 
 their distress ! There is much hymn singing at Siloam : 
 the sister raises the song, and they follow, follow. It is 
 thus their way Home is made easy — it is not so very 
 long a way for any of them, and then the night will 
 vanish, the morning break. 
 
 A number of them are quite capable of being set to 
 work ; they do some knitting, not very beautiful, but still 
 they do it. To whom little is given, of thenl little will 
 be asked. 
 
 Some of them go to church, and they do sit still. 
 Whether they take in much or little of the service, 
 there is at least the beautiful singing and the voice of 
 their own Pastor von Bodelschwingh, whom they all 
 love — such as they can love — and who has such a simple 
 way of talking to his flock from the pulpit ; or of Pastor 
 Stiirmer or another, it makes little difference to them ; 
 yet it is a soothing influence, and who shall say it is in 
 vain ? They at least recognise the name of Jesus when 
 they hear it, and who shall say that is vain ? The Great 
 Shepherd does not forsake these troubled ones in their 
 hour of darkness. They tell you the story of one who 
 had brain fever as a child, became epileptic, and lost all 
 mental powers. For eighteen years they had him, and 
 for eighteen years he sat shaking his head to and fro ; 
 and almost the one thing that passed his lips, and this 
 fifty times a day, was a baby song his mother had taught 
 
8o 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 him — " Because the Lord's dear lamb I be, He will ever 
 care for me " — the one thing he remembered ; it clung 
 to him, and with this he died. Who shall say this is 
 vain ? 
 
 The male patients of this class are at Eben-Ezer, 
 the house where a quarter of a century ago a beginning 
 was made with four. There are over fifty there now, 
 hopelessly shattered, physically and mentally. Yet there 
 are degrees even here. You mostly find them just 
 wandering in and out of the house and about the yard ; 
 when you go in, there is a troop about you directly, so 
 anxious to shake hands. Some tell you they are waiting 
 for letters. Some are occupied peeling potatoes — they 
 do it neatly enough — or on cleaning days busy with 
 broom and bucket. In the rooms they are divided by 
 tens or so, each room under a brother who has the care 
 of them, and sleeps in the night ward. 
 
 We dropped in one Saturday, and going from room to 
 room found one poor fellow, he might be about twenty 
 years of age, cleaning the boots of the " station " — there 
 was quite a basketful, a good deal of work for him, for he 
 could use his left hand only, the right being bent double 
 upon the wrist ; he held the boots between his knees 
 and seemed quite happy to get them to shine. " This is 
 your Saturday work, is it not?" — " Yes, and to-morrow 
 is Sunday, — I go to communion." — "Can he?" we said, 
 looking wonderingly at the brother. — " This one can, he 
 knows just that much that going to communion is going 
 to Jesus, don't you, Wilhelm ? " — " Yes," says Wilhelm, 
 lifting his clouded eyes, — "and He is good to us." 
 Possibly he mixes up Jesus with the pastor who is good 
 
Mo7^e Walks About Bethel 
 
 8i 
 
 to them, for he is a half imbecile — well, and if he does, 
 who shall say he should not go ? Does he not go with 
 the one thought " Jesus is good to us," and maybe 
 hungering for his share of that goodness ? 
 
 There are several smaller houses with patients of this 
 kind, all more or less imbecile, affiliated to Eben-Ezer, 
 the dining hall gathering the whole flock, about a hun- 
 dred and fifty, at meal times. The good house-father 
 of Eben-Ezer once was a shepherd ; he is " shepherd " 
 still, and has been these twenty years, shepherding these 
 helpless sheep ! His wife had come to Eben-Ezer as a 
 servant girl five-and-twenty years ago, when the work 
 first began. They have brought up five children of their 
 own, five promising boys, being father and mother also to 
 this helpless family ! Well may Bodelschwingh trust his 
 workers : these " house-parents " — watch them in any of 
 these houses, fathers and mothers true, what are they 
 but just shepherds for the great Shepherd of afflicted 
 men ! They all differ in character, for the Shepherd 
 Himself has had the original training of them. They 
 are simply Christian characters doing the common work 
 in their own way. And the houses differ just as human 
 families differ ; it is the inimitable beauty of this colony, 
 proving the living growth. 
 
 Over against Eben-Ezer, facing the same courtyard, 
 is Zoar, the home of the epileptic boy imbeciles — about 
 thirty, such little boys some of them, a pitiful sight. 
 Some attempt is made at teaching them— mere object- 
 lessons : there cannot be more than the humblest of 
 attempts and with the humblest results. 
 
 A few, the brightest of their number, are gathered in a 
 
 6 
 
82 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 Scripture class, faithfully and patiently taught till they 
 repeat a Bible story with baby understanding and sing 
 a hymn. One boy of seventeen can write his name, and 
 is very proud of the feat. 
 
 With Zoar a story is connected. The last time Pastor 
 von Bodelschwingh had an audience of the aged Emperor 
 Wilhelm, His Majesty said, " How was that about Zoar ? 
 tell me again." And the pastor repeated the story. When 
 the foundation stone of this house was being laid in 1878 
 a poor day labourer presented himself, confessing with 
 much contrition that two years previously he had made 
 a vow and had not kept it. He had been at the annual 
 meeting, and for the first time had seen with his own 
 eyes what it is to be an epileptic ; he had witnessed some 
 cases, children among them, and saw them carried away. 
 He himself had four little ones at home, all hale and 
 well, and the thought smote him he had never thanked 
 God as he ought. He resolved that in future he would 
 present a yearly thank-offering of a penny each for his 
 children. He had not done so, but now he was here 
 with sixteen pennies for two years past and for two 
 years to come. He did not want to give his name, not 
 even the name of the village he hailed from ; he was a 
 poor man, but he would say this : " Might not other folk 
 be asked to do likewise ? " Even the poorest of the poor, 
 he thought, if they had healthy children, could well afford 
 to spare a penny a year as an expression of their 
 gratitude to God. 
 
 Pastor von Bodelschwingh was not slow to act upon 
 this hint — a poor man's thought, who would fain do some- 
 thing for this work of mercy. The story was made 
 
Mo7^e Walks About Bethel 
 
 83 
 
 known, and people liked it, and the poor farm labourer 
 had quite a host of grateful imitators. The following 
 year, when Zoar the Little could be opened free of debt, 
 it was because the thousand pounds required had all 
 come in, in pennies mostly. And a book is kept at 
 Zoar in which not only the names, but many of the 
 messages sent with these pennies have been entered. 
 Not only parents had sent thank-offerings for their 
 children, but little children out of their money boxes had 
 sent pennies, that God might bless their kind parents. 
 And others joined, remembering all manner of mercies 
 to be returned thanks for. Some returned largely, but 
 most were the offerings of the poor. An old grannie 
 sent ten shillings because all her family were safe in 
 heaven ! 
 
 The aged Emperor also liked the story, and many a 
 thank-offering Jie sent to Bethel ; he never forgot Bodel- 
 schwingh's family when Christmas came round, or any 
 special help was required. But that poor man's happy 
 idea of thank-offerings has been very fruitful at Bethel. 
 There is an organised penny collection, mostly among 
 children, all over the country, and the offerings of the 
 poor on many an occasion are the drops filling the 
 bucket. 
 
 Thus, both Zoar and Little Bethel, the homes for the 
 little ones of this afflicted flock, have been built by thank- 
 offering pennies on behalf of children hale and sound. 
 
 It was not only Pastor von Bodelschwingh's idea, it 
 was the main principle laid down by Pasteur Bost who 
 was the first to gather in epileptics at La Force, in 
 south-western France^ — a principle he laid great stress 
 
84 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 upon — The epileptic patierit must first of all be brougJit to 
 Christ. There is little help for such in the body, but 
 One can heal the soul ; and, while very faithful, as we 
 have seen, to all that pertains to the body, this soul cure 
 is the main object at Bethel. Bodelschwingh says he 
 considers a patient " doing well" when he has learned to 
 bear his cross meekly ; that he considers him "cured" 
 when, laying down his poor tabernacle, he can die in 
 the faith of the Saviour. There is no religious over- 
 dosing at Bethel ; there is too much of true work, of 
 practical endeavour, there, to have time for unhealthy 
 excitement. The patients are simply surrounded by 
 the influences of the sanctuary, and many of them are 
 true children of peace. They become so gradually ; the 
 fruits of the spirit grow. The word of God is ever in 
 their midst, and the voice of prayer about them ; but 
 they are not driven — they are loved, they are nurtured. 
 They are not asked about their inward experiences, 
 about being " saved," and all that ; but they are every 
 day taken to Christ, and they know it. They learn it. 
 There are classes of religious instruction ; there is a 
 Young Men's Christian Association among them ; there 
 is their own beautiful choir, too, the singing and the 
 instruments — means these, surely, helping them to grow. 
 There is such an environment, so many about them 
 who can help them on. 
 
 There is a house-father of a house not yet mentioned, 
 Beersheba, a station for gentlemen patients of a more 
 troubled kind than at Hermon ; this house-father is a 
 retired schoolmaster, a man, too, of the Ravensberger 
 country, and, for the rest, you need but exchange two 
 
More Walks AbotU Bethel 85 
 
 words with him, and you will know. Such a look about 
 him, too ! His name is Budde ; he has long been a 
 fisher of men in his own way, and folk in the neigh- 
 bourhood call those " caught " by him Buddhists. He is 
 Father Budde at Bethel, anyway ; and one of those who 
 make one wonder so much — or rather, give up wondering 
 the more one sees of it — how Bethel has become such 
 a church of the saints : a church which does not talk 
 about Social Christianity, but which most truly acts it. 
 
 Father Budde tells the following of one of his patients 
 — a man of good position and education, who had been 
 making his way in the world. He became epileptic 
 through the shock on the news of the sudden death of a 
 beloved one. He had not troubled much about religion ; 
 but in the years of his affliction was noticed to open 
 gradually to the Word of God. He began to. value his 
 Bible ; he looked for its promises of comfort, of healing. 
 He had always been a silent man. One day he surprised 
 Father Budde with the question, " How was he to 
 picture to himself the Saviour ? " a question Father 
 Budde met by another question : " Well, how should 
 you say ? " Says this man, " I have seemed to see 
 Him lately — the face surrounded with a glory, and the 
 light seems to go out from Him, and I feel swallowed up 
 in the light. But I have a better vision still. I see Him 
 on the Cross, with arms outstretched, and then I can 
 pray to Him ; and I feel drawn close, and I lay my head 
 where John, the Beloved, laid his — quite close." Re- 
 member, the man in his day had not been a Christian, 
 and was fast going down the hill now ; he had no 
 memory left, no mental powers for any work to speak of. 
 
86 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 yet the things he heard, the teaching he received daily, 
 — scarce knowing it for teaching — did its work in him. 
 A few days later — it happened to be Ascension Day — 
 Father Budde read to them about the world to which 
 He has gone to prepare a place — -a place for them also, 
 where sorrow has passed away, and earth's crosses are 
 laid down. This patient listened ; they all listened ; all 
 such talk is made so plain and attractive to them. They 
 retired to rest, and this man was telling the two or three 
 he slept with he was just dying with a sense of Heimweh^ 
 a longing to be home ; and he repeated to them the verses 
 which had been read to them of the former things which 
 shall be past. And then he lay down quietly, and he 
 did go home. He had his last fit that night, and gently 
 passed away. They found him, with hands folded, and 
 with a look on his face as though he knew already why 
 his beloved was taken from him, wJiy he had to pass 
 through years of growing darkness — that he might wake 
 up, and know it is light. These patients often die in 
 a fit, or of the exhaustion ensuing. 
 
 On the whole they are happy — their pastors say so, 
 and one can see it for oneself : there is more contentedness 
 among them, contentment with the life which is their lot, 
 than you would find among an equal number of ourselves 
 perhaps. They have come through such deep waters, 
 most of them : they are learning to be content, and they 
 love Bethel. Some years ago another colony was founded 
 — there are about a dozen epileptic establishments now in 
 Germany — and it happened to be a Roman Catholic one 
 claiming her patients. So a number had to be sent 
 away — two or three waggonsful. A month after a 
 
More Walks About Bethel 87 
 
 petition arrived, signed by the whole of them with their 
 crooked letters and trembling strokes, entreating their 
 mother Bethel to take back her children. It was not 
 Bethel's fault the prayer could not be granted ; and at 
 this moment a number of patients from East Prussia are 
 under dread of being required to leave, the province of 
 Brandenburg being about to open an epileptic establish- 
 ment of a thousand beds. How it will answer will have 
 to be proved, for it is an undertaking of the public purse. 
 Still, Bethel cannot take in the hundred thousand 
 sufferers, and all efforts to mitigate the vast distress 
 must be welcomed. Would they all were Bethels ! 
 
 The mortality among these patients is very great; few 
 reach over thirty or thirty-five, very few over forty, and 
 only two or three in all these years of Bethel's expe- 
 rience have passed the age of fifty. The little mortuary 
 bell of the colony (including the Sarepta patients) may 
 be heard five or six times a week, Bodelschwingh 
 telling his people almost every Sunday, they are a con- 
 gregation of the dying — eine Genieinde der Stej^benden 
 — this too is vioritttri te saliLtant ! and it is strange 
 what a fascination their little cemetery has for them. It 
 is their favourite walk. When there is a funeral, the 
 coffin, whenever possible, is borne by the companions 
 of him who is gone ; and some of these patients would 
 not miss a funeral for anything. To what should one 
 ascribe this? It is noticeable even among the children 
 — dying and going to heaven is all one to them, and 
 like going from one room to another. Everybody there 
 talks quite freely about dying. We happened to meet 
 Pastor Stiirmer in the burial ground one afternoon, and 
 
88 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 we passed a youth sitting on one of the benches. We 
 forgot to ask was he epileptic, but he certainly was 
 consumptive. Says the pastor to him, with a nod, 
 " Well, Charley, you like to sit here and look at your 
 own little spot, don't you? it is all waiting." And 
 Charley smiled ; he said nothing, but he looked " yes." 
 The pastor did not make it an occasion for speaking 
 of the Beyond. It was just a sympathetic remark, as 
 he would take it, to a dying youth. Their cemetery 
 somehow to them is a garden of peace. That youth 
 was not alone in the little burial ground ; you always 
 meet patients there, and who can tell what passes in 
 their souls ? 
 
 A pastor once died in their midst — Pastor von 
 Liibke. He had for years been principal of a missionary 
 college. He once came to preach at Bethel, and in that 
 pulpit confessed himself a brother in affliction. " I have 
 a right to speak to you, for I too am epileptic." He 
 gave them a sermon which must have gone through and 
 through them : " We are children of wrath," he said, 
 " dwelling in bodies on which He has set a mark." But 
 his text was Genesis ix., and it not only speaks of 
 judgment but also of the arc of peace. And he led 
 them on to Him who even in their mortal bodies shall 
 be glorified, and tJiey changed into His image. This 
 man remained in their midst for nearly a year, as 
 house-father of Hermon — a patient sufferer, bearing his 
 cross meekly, and helping others to bear theirs. And 
 his death spoke louder than any sermon. His wife had 
 been away, and he was going to meet her. The trap 
 stood at the door. It must have been in the premonitory 
 
More Walks About Bethel 89 
 
 excitement of a coming fit ; the gentle, quiet man was 
 suddenly seen dashing from the house, overturning 
 chair and table and leaping wildly upon the vehicle. 
 He seized the reins, and remaining standing whipped 
 and whipped the poor pony. It was little Fanny, a 
 quiet animal ; but she dashed away down the hill, he 
 still whipping and whipping. The maddened creature 
 fortunately took the road to her stable ; the vehicle was 
 seen careering through Workshop Street, stopping short 
 at the end. It was a sharp pull-up, and the poor pastor 
 was thrown ; when they picked him up he lay in a fit. 
 They could hardly hold him for violence ; but he had 
 knocked his head and the blood trickled down. It fell 
 on his hand, and he saw it. And there was a great 
 calm. " The blood of Jesus Christ," he said, " cleanseth 
 
 us — cleanseth us " and his spirit fled. 
 
 It was a going Home, even like Elijah's, in a chariot 
 of fire. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 THE MINISTRY OF MERCY 
 " Serving the Lord." 
 
 HE backbone of Bethel is found in the spirit of 
 
 her workers — the perfect surrender to a Christian 
 ideal. These sisters, these brothers, have made that 
 development possible. There is nothing in this country- 
 corresponding exactly to the German deaconess ; and of 
 ministering " brothers " we have so far not heard here. 
 Mildmay and Tottenham, following the example, have 
 trained deaconesses, we know ; but how many of their 
 sisters witness to the work by a lifelong devotion ? They 
 are to be counted by the dozen — by the score, perhaps. 
 Of German deaconesses there is an army, and a steadfast 
 army. What has made, what has constituted, it ? What 
 is the power at work, the spirit moving, what the cause 
 of this visible effect ? There are two things which stand 
 out bright in a Bethel sister : her humility, her perfect 
 obedience. If any doubt this, let them go to Bethel and 
 see. These sisters, these brothers, have made the sacrifice 
 of their own will completely ; not for a day, not for a 
 week, but completely. Yet they take no vow ; theirs 
 is the liberty of surrender, and the knowledge of this is 
 the strength of their work. They are not units, they are 
 
The Ministry of Mercy 91 
 
 freewill parts of a whole. We do not question the 
 humility, the obedience, in workers here ; but this we 
 say : The British character rather tends to individualise ; 
 the freeborn Briton survives even in consecration. This 
 yields splendid results of its own, able workers, but 
 it yields workers, rather than lifelong fellow-workers ; it 
 yields devoted lives in their own right. But there is 
 a limit to this : the strength born of union is wanting ; 
 nay, more, that is wanting which tells such worker he 
 or she is but an outpost of something stronger than 
 personality behind. Personality is a great thing, but a 
 fellowship of personalities is gi^eater. In one word, the 
 English deaconess is an embodiment of independent 
 charity, but the German deaconess is a blossom of the 
 Church, not of the visible institution, but of the Church 
 life of the country ; she is a part representing that 
 whole She is as much of the Church as the pastor is — 
 both being servants — and she knows that. It is easy to 
 give up your own will, to surrender personality, when 
 you know yourself part of a mighty power — the world- 
 conquering power of Christ. Using the word Church, 
 we mean the outward expression of this power — the 
 Church, apart from " 'isms " ; and it seems to us that 
 this spirit of Church-membership is the thing wanted 
 to lift the English deaconess to that higher level, 
 to make her one of a body, the ranks of which will 
 swell just in proportion to the strength of the living 
 thing behind that body. Vitality is the outcome of 
 Life. 
 
 If any doubt this, let them go to Bethel and judge for 
 themselves — only, by a mere visit they will not so easily 
 
92 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 discover this hidden secret of the work. Most emphatically 
 we would say, We do know that of English workers there 
 are splendid examples — examples not easily matched 
 in any country ; but speaking of this German body of 
 workers we are endeavouring to account for its strength. 
 It is a fundamental difference, the difference between in- 
 dependence and union, the difference between a " free 
 lance " and a soldier at his post. 
 
 The English sisterhoods each go their own way, 
 strangers to one another ; the German deaconesses, the 
 ten thousand of them, of about fifty houses, form in 
 reality one sisterhood, though each sister owes allegiance 
 only to the house of her training, or, as the case may be, 
 of her adoption. The houses — mother-houses they call 
 them — each raising its own family of sisters, may differ in 
 minor respects ; but there is a bond of unity in their 
 leading principles, in their working aims and efforts, in 
 their mutual upbearing ; and there is a strong esprit de 
 corps among them. The cause of one house is the cause 
 of all the other houses, and that cause is simply the 
 cause of handmaidens of the Kingdom — of a body of 
 handmaidens, all pursuing one object, following one 
 calling, having for " honour" no first and no last. It is 
 very beautiful, this work, which has nothing left of self- 
 importance ! These deaconesses are the Protestant 
 equivalent of the " Sister of Mercy," with all her dis- 
 cipline, with more than her devotion — a devotion 
 enhanced by the fact that she does not thereby lay up 
 for herself any works of righteousness she has done. 
 They are an army of Christian helpfulness going their 
 quiet way in the land, but an organised army ! They are 
 
The Ministry of Mercy 
 
 93 
 
 what Phebc of Ccnchrea was, whom St Paul himself de- 
 scribes as a servant of the Church and a succourer of many. 
 
 The name of Kaisers werth is known to English 
 readers ; there the first seedling of this organised work 
 was planted just upon sixty years ago. It has had a 
 wondrous development. Kaiserswerth has trained over 
 eight hundred sisters, and has sent workers into many 
 countries. The Westphalian House in so far is a child 
 of Kaiserswerth, as its original band of four sisters was 
 delegated by the elder institution, when a few Westphalian 
 pastors and Christian friends had resolved themselves 
 into a committee for the purpose of starting a deaconesses' 
 establishment in their own province. 
 
 Like Bethel itself, Sarepta also was first planned at 
 Bielefeld, the work beginning humbly in a small house 
 acquired by the committee. One of the four original 
 deaconesses. Sister Emily Hauser, has ever since been 
 the head-sister, or " mother," as she is called at Bethel. 
 She is over seventy now, and has seen the little band of 
 four expand into a sisterhood of six hundred, in little 
 more than twenty years. No other deaconesses' house 
 has had so rapid a growth, the reason here also being 
 the fitness of the soil. From that Ravensberger country 
 alone, over a hundred young men and women offer 
 yearly for the service of mercy. 
 
 The house at Bielefeld, where the work first began, is 
 now used as a home for aged women— one of the colony's 
 many out-stations. It soon grew too small, and when the 
 committee resolved on building, it was almost natural, 
 yet surely it was by a special guidance, that the site 
 bought was close to that other site where Bethel was 
 
94 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 rising ; for God was even then preparing His servant 
 who should carry this double work to a common de- 
 velopment and to a height not dreamt of by the founders. 
 The mother-house, " Sarepta," as we now see it, is a fine 
 Gothic building right in the centre of the colony, as 
 though to be " mother " even to the epileptic homes, 
 which, strictly speaking, are quite an independent 
 growth ; and, apart from being a training home for 
 deaconesses, it is an infirmary with about one hundred 
 and thirty beds. 
 
 It is a mistake to think that the deaconess is a sick 
 nurse only ; but this is true, that most deaconess 
 institutions devote themselves to sick-nursing exclu- 
 sively, and Sarepta, in this respect, materially differs 
 from the bulk of them. The sisters are all trained 
 to sick nursing — it is their own vocation ; but they are 
 also trained to parish work, looking after the poor, 
 the forsaken, the sinking, and they are trained to 
 teaching, infants especially. And if one in her own 
 past history has developed a special fitness in any 
 direction, that fitness is looked upon as a " talent " 
 and put to use. Bodelschwingh's six hundred sisters 
 are a power for good in the land. Is there one of them 
 in a parish — they never enter a parish unless called 
 — she is the pastor's right hand of influence. She 
 is sick nurse, Bible-woman, a messenger for Christ, and, 
 most important, she gathers in His lambs. They can 
 put their hand to almost anything ; and this yields a 
 beautiful arrangement for relieving the tension of over- 
 work : for instance, a nursing-sister worn with night- 
 watchings will be sent for a time to do infant-teaching 
 
The Ministry of Mercy 
 
 97 
 
 by way of a change ; or a Kinder-garten sister tired out 
 with her Hvely charges — they often have seventy or eighty 
 to manage — will be called to rest her voice by some 
 quiet sick bed. When it can be done, the perfection is 
 a trio of sisters in a parish — one for the infants, one for 
 sick-nursing, one for visiting ; such trio is like three 
 times three for strength, relieving one another, helping 
 one another — ^this too is fellowship. Such three make 
 a little home for themselves, the parish providing the 
 building, and the " keep " of the sisters — a home large 
 enough to accommodate the infants and, if need be, oc- 
 casional cases of nursing ; patients mostly being attended 
 in their own homes. This latter indeed on principle : 
 a patient's relatives, his or her neighbours even, should not 
 be deprived of the blessings inherent on sickness ; they 
 should be taught rather than relieved, taught how to 
 attend on a sick one and how to make a sick bed com- 
 fortable within their means and by their own efforts. 
 A great deal of help can thus be given, actually training 
 people to help themselves. This is one of the great 
 aims a Sarepta deaconess endeavours to keep in view, 
 mere relief often being but poor charity ; but that is 
 true charity which seeks to lift folk, friends and neigh- 
 bours included, to the level of any trouble requiring 
 relief. 
 
 Of course the six hundred could never all be wanted 
 about the colony itself : some seventy are employed 
 among the female epileptics, some thirty are stationed 
 by the sick beds of Sarepta, about twenty-five in the 
 infant schools of the neighbourhood ; the rest, nearly 
 five hundred in number, are at work on- two hundred 
 
 7 
 
98 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 different stations, in Germany, in the Netherlands, in 
 France, in America, in Africa. 
 
 Any young women offering for service — and they 
 come of all ranks, from the peasant maiden to the high- 
 born lady, but most are of the people— are admitted on 
 trial ; after six months or a year passed by the sick beds 
 of the mother-house they become auxiliary sisters. But 
 it is only after some years of probation they enter the 
 sisterhood by a solemn act of consecration, generally at 
 the annual meeting. They do not take upon themselves 
 any vow, neither of celibacy, nor of any other kind ; it 
 is, however, expected of them that by that time — none 
 being " consecrated " under the age of five-and-twenty — 
 they fully know their own minds, and are honestly 
 willing to devote their lives to the service, " unless some 
 plain guidance at any future time should point to 
 another path, in which case they shall consult the 
 mother-house with the deference of a child to its 
 parent, for the mother-house has ' adopted ' them." 
 There are occasional defections ; some sisters do marry, 
 some do change their minds, returning to their families ; 
 but, taken as a whole, they are a steadfast army. 
 
 The mother-house is mother indeed to this band of 
 daughters : it supplies all their wants ; feeds them, 
 clothes them, nurses them in sickness, sees to their 
 recreation when worn. They have a beautiful home of 
 rest, Salem, among the hills, a few miles distant, 
 where overworked sisters recruit, and a seaside home 
 on one of the Hallig Isles, in the German Ocean ; and 
 they are cared for still when old and no longer able to 
 work. A deaconess has no pay of any kind ; she may 
 
The Ministry of Mercy 99 
 
 not receive any pay or presents from patients ; if she is 
 nursing private cases any freewill gift is sent to the 
 mother-house — no claim is made ; for she is no pay- 
 worker, she does labour of love. For sisters sent to 
 
 SALEM, THE SlSTERs' HOME OF REST. 
 
 public hospitals — such as those working at Bremen, for 
 instance, sixty or seventy in number, or those stationed 
 in Berlin — the municipalities pay Sarepta at the rate of 
 nine pounds a year per sister ; parishes, too, pay at 
 this rate, or less, for a parish sister; but this is simply 
 refunding the mother-house for clothing and other 
 
loo A Colony of Mercy 
 
 incidental expenses, the mother-house supplying its 
 absent daughters as it supplies those at home ; supplying 
 them, not with clothing alone, but with a little pocket 
 money also of six to nine shillings a month, that she 
 may have to " give of her substance " to the poor, or to 
 missions. And there are deaconesses (like the mother of 
 Sarepta herself) who for a lifetime have thus lived and 
 worked, have always been cared for, have always spent 
 themselves, but never have had any money to speak 
 of to spend. This, too, constitutes a difference between 
 a deaconess here and a deaconess there. The Mildmay 
 and Tottenham sister is not paid, but Mildmay and 
 Tottenham are paid — taking their guinea or two a week 
 — if they send out sisters. It lowers the character of the 
 work. Much of the strength of these German sister- 
 hoods has its hidden root in this unpaid work ; having 
 no cares for themselves, present or future, they have 
 no thought for themselves, they can live for others. 
 It is the ministry of love ; and love begets love. The 
 funds of Sarepta, like the funds of Bethel, apart from the 
 provincial grants for poor patients, are largely made up 
 by the freewill offerings of a multitude of humble friends 
 — friends knowing the beauty of this work, happy and 
 proud, therefore, to support it. 
 
 If you speak to any of these sisters, you are struck 
 most with the brightness about them. They know they 
 are serving Christ. Their service is a living sacrifice — a 
 sacrifice of everything pertaining to self ; but they have 
 risen beyond the thought of " sacrifice," and they are 
 truly " cared for." They are a precious band, and those 
 who have authority over them know that anything worth 
 
The Ministry of Mercy loi 
 
 having is worth tending. We once heard Bodelschwingh 
 say, " If I want to nurse my patients, I must first nurse 
 my nurses." Then how does he nurse them, and how 
 does Sarepta ? The mother-house is in constant and 
 regular communication with its six hundred daughters. 
 For instance, Bodelschwingh holds a weekly class of 
 religious and professional instruction — meaning by " pro- 
 fessional " the moral apprehension of their calling. Now, 
 of course, only the home sisters can attend in person, but 
 all the rest of them attend by post. The questions set to 
 the home circle are sent out to all the absent ones — there is 
 a special " Sister Scribe " for that work — and the hundreds 
 of them far and near answer the papers, and send them 
 home, one of the pastors returning them corrected. And 
 in several other ways the mother-house is in personal touch 
 with the ever-growing band, the " Sister Scribe " sending 
 out a monthly letter, for instance, with all the home 
 news, and matters of interest concerning the work. And 
 every absent sister has a birthday letter and Christmas 
 present sent her of a useful kind. That " Sister Scribe " 
 is " Sister Sacristan " also, with no end of little duties 
 thereby involved ; she is a niece of the famous theologian 
 Hengstenberg, so for antecedents is all a scribe and 
 sacristan should be. And from time to time the sisters 
 from distant stations are called home, if not to the 
 mother-house itself, then at least to the colony, to 
 renew their sense of oneness with the place on which 
 they are taught to look as " home." 
 
 They have a weekly family gathering. Of a Wed- 
 nesday evening their large hall is set for a tea-supper, 
 a little more festively than for ordinary meals. All the 
 
I02 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 sisters about the place or from the near neighbourhood 
 who can be spared from their stations, attend — some 
 eighty to a hundred, perhaps, in all ; the several pastors, 
 with their families, and other workers about the place are 
 invited, and any visitors who happen to be at the colony 
 are sure to be honoured with a seat near Pastor von 
 Bodelschwingh. He, of course, presides, unless una- 
 voidably prevented. The meal over, the pastor gives 
 them a pleasant talk, telling them anything of interest 
 within the colony, anything of interest happening in the 
 world at large — a simple and pleasant way of keeping 
 them in touch with the world about them. Or, if there 
 is nothing happening, then he has a store of recollections ; 
 and if one could only be at many of these gatherings, 
 one could almost catch his biography unknown to him. 
 Pie will never tell it otherwise ; but he has a charming 
 and artless way on such occasions of diving into his own 
 history — a field rich and varied. 
 
 The sisters evidently value these evenings, if contented 
 faces are a criterion. One can imagine a stranger alighting 
 at one of these gatherings, stirred to the heart with 
 HeimweJi — that nameless longing which will be stilled 
 when wanderers reach home. We all know it at times, 
 but do not all own to it — that hunger for something we 
 have not. These sisters have won beyond it, or nearly 
 so. There is a great strength in such union ; they upbear 
 one another. No wonder the colony is growing and 
 spreading which has such workers. If England is ever 
 to start in right earnest a work for her epileptics — and 
 surely she should ! — she must first train such nurses. 
 
 The deaconesses are drafted off to the various epileptic 
 
The Ministry of Mercy 103 
 
 homes round about, simply on the strength of the love 
 which suffereth long — suffereth long even with loath- 
 some things ; for there is much that is loathsome about 
 epilepsy. And their thought is not to win heaven thereby, 
 but rather to make this poor earth a little more like 
 heaven than epilepsy has left it for these stricken ones. 
 
 But this is not all. Sarepta really is a power in the 
 land ; she is training others besides her own regular 
 sisterhood. The Order of St. John, for instance, has 
 made an agreement with the Westphalian mother- 
 house to train nurses for its purposes, to be ready for 
 summons in time of epidemic or of war. Many a 
 maiden offers for this service, goes through a six 
 months' term or so, of training at Sarepta, adding to her 
 experience in other hospitals, if she likes, as a candidate 
 of this splendid "order." And even private applicants 
 are received for training, the mother-house being of 
 opinion it is well for daughters and future wives to 
 understand something of sick nursing. All such go 
 through the regular course, and would be ready for any 
 national calamity. Sarepta herself is ready. Against 
 time of war, at least of invasion, the colony, in return 
 for facilities and actual aid granted by the country, has 
 pledged itself to put up a thousand beds, Sarepta and 
 Nazareth supplying them with their own deacons and 
 deaconesses. Everything is so thorough in the Father- 
 land, everything so methodical, so thought of beforehand, 
 there would be no bustle ; these good sisters, like the 
 great army itself, are ready to take the field at a 
 day's notice, the Kriegs-Schwestern, that is, the amateur 
 sisters just spoken of, taking their place the while at home. 
 
I04 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 Pastor von Bodelschwingh, as military chaplain, went 
 through the campaigns of i86^ and of 1870, so he 
 knows something about it. Some of the sisters get 
 first-rate surgical experience, the Charite of Berlin, the 
 great Infirmary of Bremen, and other large hospitals 
 being supplied with nurses from Sarepta. In lunatic 
 
 A SISTER AND HER CHARGES TAKING AN EVENING STROLL. 
 
 asylums also Sarepta sisters are found — in fact, there is 
 no branch of the work to which they are strangers. 
 Some are in rescue homes for the fallen of their kind. 
 Some have gone to Africa to do missionary sick-nursing. 
 Sarepta, in one word, is spreading a net of mercy, and 
 no place is too distant if she is wanted. She is not 
 encroaching, does not want to make proselytes for power 
 or influence ; she is simply a handmaiden of the Gospel 
 
The Ministry of Me7xy 105 
 
 of Christ, carrying help and healing, and serving for the 
 sake observing. Her great work is to the poor, because 
 they need her. 
 
 And the Brothers ! The deacons are of more recent 
 date than the deaconesses, and there are not many 
 deacon-houses as yet in Germany ; but they are yielding 
 firstrate workers. The visitor to Bethel will notice a great 
 red-brick building, standing at an angle between Sarepta 
 and Bethel House. It is named Nazareth, bearing the 
 inscription over its main entrance, " Can there any good 
 thing come out of Nazareth? Come and see." And if 
 you go and " see," this is what you find : It is scarcely 
 a dozen years since this house was opened, and much 
 good has come out of it. Out of Bethel's own need this 
 brotherhood has grown. Male nurses were required for the 
 epileptic colony, and it was found more and more diffi- 
 cult to procure an adequate supply from other quarters. 
 So the brothers at work there already set themselves to 
 train their own helpers and successors. The calling of 
 these deacons includes more than sick nursing ; they are 
 required for general home mission work, and trained, 
 therefore, as evangelists. Many of them, as they advance 
 in years and experience, become " house-fathers," such 
 as those we have spoken of ; and if not required at Bethel 
 itself, house-fathers, and junior brothers too, are wanted 
 for the labour colonies, and their kindred institutions — of 
 which anon — or they are sent to the foreign mission field. 
 The Brotherhood of Nazareth in these ten or twelve 
 years has grown to about two hundred and thirty members. 
 
 Many of the brothers have learnt a regular trade ; the 
 
io6 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 house-fathers at Bethel, for instance, as we have seen, 
 act as masters of the various workshops, and the junior 
 brothers as foremen to the patients over whom they are 
 set, being their nurses bodily and spiritual at the same 
 time. Others, again, are thorough farmers ; farming 
 was their occupation originally, and their knowledge is 
 turned to use in the brotherhood. In fact, in this 
 respect, these brothers are something like St. Paul, who 
 was a tentmaker. They do not renounce their trade 
 on becoming deacons ; it is put by, as it were, to be 
 called into service if wanted. It may be wanted ; it 
 may not be wanted. But sick nursing is the regular 
 course they all go through ; they are trained in the 
 Infirmary of Sarepta, and further educated by hospital 
 work in the great cities — in Berlin, Bremen, etc.,— and 
 they are sent out also for private nursing. While at 
 Nazareth, they are having religious and other instruction 
 by the pastors, to fit them for the deeper part of their 
 calling. They form a body, with rights of corporation, 
 and are governed by a Briider-rath,'' — a council, con- 
 sisting of the pastors of the colony and a number of 
 senior brothers, such as happen to be stationed about the 
 colony itself Every brother owes implicit obedience to 
 this council, by whom the work is appointed.* 
 
 Theirs are consecrated lives ; and you will know what 
 
 * As we go to press, we learn that Pastor Kuhlo, of trumpet- 
 fame (p. 19), has accepted a call to Nazareth, as Principal of 
 the Westphalian Brotherhood. What a start the Posaunen 
 Chor of the colony will be taking ! His work, of course, will 
 be the spiritual training of the brothers, but he will not, there- 
 fore, lose sight of that other work of his, the musical development 
 spoken of on a former page. 
 
The Ministry of Mercy 
 
 107 
 
 this means if you watch the brothers at work among the 
 imbeciles of Eben-Ezer, and Zoar. These houses are 
 the test-station ; it is the hardest work, that is, the most 
 repulsive to the natural man. So the young brothers, 
 those who have entered the service but lately, are put on 
 their trial there. If after a month or two in these houses 
 they still feel they can make sick nursing their calling, 
 then, indeed, they are fit for it, as far as the moral fitness 
 is concerned. We have no words to express the admira- 
 tion one feels — simple admiration — as one watches these 
 brothers. If a woman, through inborn pity and from the 
 love that sways her, can render to the suffering service in 
 itself distasteful, — well, that is largely implanted in her 
 nature ; she can scarcely help it. Motherhood is strong 
 in every woman, and naturally goes out to the helpless. 
 But that men should tend these imbeciles with woman's 
 tenderness is a marvel. It takes true charity to do what 
 we saw, and a rare devotion. Think what that " tend- 
 ing " means : sleeping with some ten of them ; and these 
 epileptics — partly due to the medicine — have an odour 
 about them which love only can put up with ; it means 
 seeing to the cleanliness of human creatures who have 
 lost all sense of cleanliness. TJiey do it — for what paid 
 servant would ? And as we watched the young brothers 
 at Zoar, some under twenty, mere bright-faced boys some 
 of them, we thought again. What power save that of love 
 can do this ? Yet whence have these boys such love ? 
 If men advanced in years, perhaps from life's teachings, 
 find strength for such service, it is marvellous enough ; 
 but what words will express one's admiration in seeing 
 such work done by young men, who have all life before 
 
io8 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 them, with its promises and shining hopes ! Admira- 
 tion is not the word, it is simple reverence. We ex- 
 pressed some of our thoughts to one of these youthful 
 brothers — he was but nineteen, and looked such a bright 
 youth — " How can you do it ? " " Well," he replied, " we 
 know we cannot in our own strength, and we are here 
 on trial for the life we have chosen. It is a little hard 
 sometimes, but there is a love which helps." And there 
 was a light in his eye which said he spoke true. He 
 was a mere boy, with no down on his lip, and his idiot 
 flock clung to him, crying, " Brother ! Brother ! " Truly 
 there is a love which helps ; one saw it, and felt rebuked. 
 And they do look happy, these brothers, as though they 
 had a real compensation in their work. It is for them 
 the Silly Valley will have changed its name. You may 
 scan their faces as they sit at dinner, some twenty of 
 them, with the imbeciles of Eben-Ezer and Zoar — they 
 are of all ages between eighteen and forty — and you will 
 not see one gloomy face among them ; degrees of bright- 
 ness you may notice. 
 
 It is not only the "brothers" who appear to be under the 
 spell of pitying love at Zoar. There is always a batch 
 of young men at Bethel fresh from college, and waiting 
 for holy orders. They come — some of them sent by the 
 Berlin Dom Stift^ — to undergo a little training, and 
 to gather some practical experience at this colony of 
 mercy as to what Charity is. Of course, they must 
 themselves be desirous of being fitted by some extra 
 " course " for the ministry awaiting them. These young 
 gentlemen, then, for a month or so, very readily are set 
 
 * The Divinity Hall in connection with the Berlin Cathedral. 
 
The Ministry of Me7xy 
 
 109 
 
 to make " studies " at Zoar, doing the regular brother's 
 work for the time being ; and some of these " candidates " 
 even are caught with the spirit of the place. One, a 
 young Swiss, stayed three months at Zoar, and went 
 away saying he had learned more there than in his three 
 years at college. Of course he had — he had matricu- 
 lated in that higher college of which the thirteenth of 
 the first of Corinthians speaks. 
 
 The " brothers " are mostly recruited from the so-called 
 lower classes — why do we call them lower, when they 
 yield such men ? — yet gentlemen sometimes offer. As 
 a rule, a " gentleman " who wants to serve Christ has, by 
 position and education, other roads before him ; but there 
 is now at Beersheba a brother, not quite a young man, 
 and lately entered, who was going to be a barrister, had 
 taken his degree at college, and all that, and, led by 
 what private life-teaching one would not inquire, came 
 to enrol himself a deacon at Bethel. 
 
 It is the wonderful spirit of service, emanating from 
 some central influence, and almost infectious, which is 
 the strength of this colony. Bodelschwingh holds a 
 Briider-Stunde on Sundays, the one hour in the week 
 when he talks to these brothers in training about the 
 life they have chosen. We can, of course, not speak of 
 it from personal knowledge, but we heard one of these 
 young men say that the brothers, after such talk, are 
 always ready for the lowest place, nay, fired with a long- 
 ing for it ! He, of whom they all learn, in his simple 
 heart-stirring way has been talking to them of the 
 Christ-taught washing of feet, till even the meanest 
 work of Eben-Ezer and Zoar becomes transfigured, and 
 
I lO 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 they see Christ Himself going in and out of these houses 
 lavishing His tenderest love on these helpless sufferers. 
 Having heard this, we understood the light in the eye of 
 a Zoar brother saying, " there is a love which helps " ; 
 we saw the mainspring of that work. This is why this 
 colony prospers, why it is so successful. Money, though 
 of course money is needed, is mere dross when you want 
 to do such work. It is the workers — men and women 
 consecrating themselves — who are the secret of all this. 
 It is real consecration. What outward gain is there? 
 Pocket-money to the extent of one shilling per week, 
 rising a little as years go on ; and, if they marry and 
 become house-fathers, then fifteen to twenty pounds or 
 so a year for clothing themselves, and attiring the house- 
 mother, of a like mind with themselves. 
 
 One cannot speak too strongly of this consecrated 
 work, this ministry of mercy, for this is the true spring 
 of all that goes on there. Epileptic homes, on a smaller 
 scale and of different character, could be managed per- 
 haps with paid labour ; but if Bethel had to advertise 
 for nurses, seek them, remunerate them, her work would 
 collapse. Such a colony requires the workers Bethel 
 has found. As our story goes on this will become 
 clearer still. It is only because Pastor von Bodelschwingh 
 has such workers he can spread like the tree planted by 
 the rivers of water, extending his branches of mercy in 
 every direction, and whatsoever he doeth does prosper. 
 
 For Bethel, if a working model of the Programme of 
 Christianity, is a wonderfully complete one. 
 
CHAPTER VJII 
 
 BABY CASTLE 
 
 " Suft'er the little children to come unto Me." 
 
 OU cannot spend a month at Bethel without 
 
 JL witnessing the laying of foundation stones and 
 the opening of new houses — it is one of the commonest 
 occurrences there. That colony has a marvellous faculty 
 of extending its borders, augmenting its work ; and if 
 growth means life, there is much life at Bethel. We 
 have already spoken of a Baby Castle, the beautiful 
 new house paid for by thank-offering pennies, " Little 
 Bethel," to which Sister Mary on the day of the semi- 
 Jubilee carried her sixty epileptic and otherwise afflicted 
 children. But there are two other " castles " for the 
 little ones. Bethel among her many missions, having a 
 special one devoted to the lambs of the flock. 
 
 The beech wood round about Zion Church on a sum- 
 mer's day is always an animated scene ; there are patients 
 about, and Sarepta convalescents, and deaconesses flit- 
 ting in and out, taking the short cuts through this centre 
 of the colony. Nor is the place they call their open-air 
 church hedged in for Sunday use only ; it forms a 
 week day class-room, in which the pastors on fine days 
 hold their catechisings and similar gatherings of the 
 
 III 
 
I I 2 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 stricken congregation. Walking about that wood, 
 therefore, in itself is an education in Bethel history. 
 One day we noticed a special commotion : a clearance 
 had been made in one of the quietest parts ; there was 
 levelling going on, a number of epileptics being busy 
 with wheelbarrow and shovel. A fortnight later the 
 wheelbarrows had disappeared, and one noticed a 
 foundation wall rising ; and presently the women folk 
 arrived with garlands, and a flagstaff was raised for the 
 hoisting of their Zion banner, " Let us arise — ." " What 
 is it all about ? " " Oh, Pastor Siebold is coming home 
 to-morrow, and we'll lay the foundation stone of the new 
 orphanage." And it was laid two or three days before 
 the Jubilee day. 
 
 So they have an orphan work at Bethel ? Yes, they 
 have. It has grown out of the infant classes of the 
 sisters. We have spoken in the previous chapter of the 
 Kinder-garten work in connection with Sarepta, these 
 sisters having about a dozen infant schools in neighbour- 
 ing parishes, and one at Bethel itself, which, at the same 
 time, forms the " academy " where deaconesses train for 
 this special work. This house — it bears the name of 
 " The Good Shepherd " — besides its little day -scholars, 
 the " infants " proper— has grown to be the centre of a 
 very remarkable orphan work. It gathers the waifs of the 
 province, but it does not keep them ; it finds parents for 
 them round about. That Ravensberger country is the 
 real orphanage. These wonderful peasant folk, when 
 they have brought up their own children, hand in their 
 names at Bethel for the receiving of any orphans, for 
 Christ's sake, Bethel can send them ; and Pastor Siebold 
 
Baby Castle 
 
 assured us that he has always more parents ready to take 
 his waifs to their homes and hearts than he has waifs 
 needing parents ! The house of " The Good Shepherd " 
 has collected about five hundred orphans these last ten 
 years, and most of them are out in these peasant homes. 
 This seems to us a wonderfully fine way for a province 
 to bring up its orphans. It is something like Dr. 
 Barnardo's and Miss Macpherson's plan, yet how alto • 
 gether different ! These children are not sent to strangers, 
 however kind, across the sea ; they are not expatriated ; 
 they are brought up in their own home country, in the 
 most natural way, by people as like their own parents 
 as possible, in outward surroundings as like as possible 
 to those in which they were born. How wholesome, how 
 natural this seems, does it not? It seems a way after 
 God's own heart, does it not, that Christian folk, having 
 brought up their own children, should be ready to bring 
 up a few more, just for His sake ? If we really believed 
 what Christ once said, that the angels of these little 
 ones always behold the face of their Father in heaven, 
 perhaps we too would deem it a privilege for His sake 
 to be father and mother to them here. Some of us in 
 this might learn a great lesson from these humble 
 Ravensberger Christians. But the fact is, we do our 
 charity by deputy, we send our subscriptions to an 
 orphanage ; and sending our sovereigns there, possibly 
 we send the blessings there, which, with one such little 
 one, might enter our own house and home. Did not 
 Christ say very specially, " Whoso shall receive one such 
 little child, receivetJi Me ? " Why do we not act as though 
 we believed this ? 
 
 8 
 
114 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 Well, these Ravensberger peasant folk believe it, 
 and act upon it ; they take in these children, Bethel 
 being " guardian " to the whole of them. Pastor Siebold 
 — Pastor von Bodelschwingh's coadjutor for Sarepta, 
 as Pastor Sturmer is for the Bethel proper — is in 
 regular correspondence with all these parents ; the 
 children are not lost sight of : however trustworthy these 
 foster parents in any individual case may be. Bethel 
 continues the mother of them all, and they are visited. 
 Father Budde, the house-father of Beersheba, goes his 
 regular rounds in this great orphanage, not announcing 
 his visits, but coming in upon these parents and children 
 on all sorts of unexpected occasions, so that Bethel may 
 be quite sure that her orphan family is doing well. At 
 regular times also Pastor Siebold arranges gatherings of 
 these adoptive parents and adopted children, sometimes 
 at Bethel, sometimes in neighbouring parishes, to keep 
 up their feeling of relationship with the colony. 
 
 As a Christian work surely this is beyond praise and 
 commendation — it is done simply for love ; work for 
 which no money whatever is wanted, work, therefore 
 wondrously pure and beautiful ! With a sense of shame 
 one says. It is what cannot be copied. It appears to us 
 a spark from the fire Divine, and such things needs must 
 grow from within. Yet might not some of us learn 
 a lesson of these simple Ravensberger Christians ? 
 
 Over and over again one asks oneself the question at 
 that colony. How is it ? One sees and feels the flowing 
 streams of Christ-inspired work. Is their main course 
 from the centre to the outer circle, or from the outer 
 circle to the centre ? Is Bethel the secret source of so 
 
Baby Castle 
 
 115 
 
 much blessing, her spirit overspreading the surrounding 
 country ? Is the country a land of the chosen, so that 
 a Bethel there cannot but grow ? We have spoken on 
 another page of the groundwork, yet it is a question 
 not easily answered : many things must work together 
 for such fruit-bearing ; but Bethel, both centre and outer 
 circle, is true to its name — a house of God among men. 
 
 Yet another Baby Castle — the real one, the Kinder- 
 heim. Our illustration speaks for it, showing the ailing 
 flock (not epileptic) in their summer haunt in the beech 
 wood. Sarepta means a refiner's place, and their text is, 
 " He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver." Well, 
 just over the way is the " Sarepta " of the little ones, and 
 the Refiner would seem to have His own chosen place in 
 this " Children's Home." There is much suffering here, 
 but the silver grows bright ; there is much dying here, 
 but Kinderheivi, altogether lovely, is one of the happiest 
 places in the colony. 
 
 We got our first impressions there, dropping in one 
 early afternoon, and happening upon the infants' ward — 
 a whole row of them, under twelve months, cot after cot. 
 They were all awake, all smiling, though the hand of 
 death was on every one of them. " What wonderfully 
 good babies ! " said we to the sister, not trusting ourselves 
 with more for the lump rising in one's throat. " They 
 have just had their midday sleep," says the sister, as if 
 that most fully accounted for it. But who, knowing 
 nursery life, ever heard of a dozen infants all going to 
 sleep together, and all waking up together, smiling? 
 It seemed as though even these unconscious little souls 
 had learned the one lesson of the place — self-surrender, 
 
1 1 6 ^ A Colony of Mercy 
 
 And if you went near, their little hands stretched out to 
 you. If you gave them a finger they clasped it almost 
 gratefully, and their eyes followed you — it was all the 
 talking they could do. Such white little faces : what 
 ails them ? " They are all in consumption," says the 
 sister — all in consumption, paying for father's or mother's 
 sin, children of drunkards, laying down their innocent 
 little lives. They in the Refiner's furnace, some of their 
 parents in prison the while — some in actual prison, all in 
 the prison of vicious living. Surely the angels of these 
 little ones behold the face of the All-Merciful in heaven 
 while this goes on — laying down their little lives for their 
 sinning parents ! There is much silent redemption going 
 on we wot not of Not many months will pass, and 
 every one of these babies will stand before the Throne, 
 little lambs of the Shepherd. And what of their parents ? 
 No brother can redeem a brother, we know; but these 
 death-marked infants spoke to us more loudly than any 
 sermon we ever heard of the dying Love paying the 
 debt for a sinning world. 
 
 Let no one say we are idealising, romancing, giving 
 subjective impressions. We showed a deputation of 
 magistrates round the place one day ; they had come 
 from a distant part of the country, wanting to start some 
 public charity in their own town. It was just before the 
 Jubilee, when everybody was busy, and we, beginning to 
 be at home in the colony, could not but take pity on 
 these forlorn deputies. It was not an infant ward they 
 were thinking of ; but we took them to these dying 
 babes, that they might hear that sermon also. And 
 we noticed the awe s^tealing over their faces, and 
 
KINDERHEJW. 
 
\ 
 
Baby Castle 
 
 119 
 
 one turning away to hide something very much like 
 a tear. Perhaps he had children at home— perhaps 
 troublesome children. He had been bending over one 
 of these cots, thinking his ticking watch would please 
 that dying infant ; and he saw a wasted baby face 
 turned up at him, a smile passing over it, and eyes 
 saying they were beyond glittering things, and he 
 suddenly turned and left the room. 
 
 Almost every week or two one of these children goes to 
 its crown : that Baby Castle also is a "congregation of the 
 dying," the mortuary bell going very often for Kinderheim. 
 But death has lost its terrors there. There are children 
 here up to the age of twelve or thirteen, but their one 
 talk, when one has gone, is : " Gone to the Hebe Heiland " 
 —to the children's Saviour in heaven. One wonders and 
 wonders, but it is simply true. It is Sister Lina who has 
 this lovely work among this flock ; they call her " Auntie " 
 — everybody is uncle or auntie to these children— but 
 she is tJie Auntie, and her influence is something mar- 
 vellous. A quiet, unpretending woman is Sister Lina. 
 What a heart hers must be, for there are fifty or sixty 
 always appealing to it ! and how jealous she is of laying 
 bare the inner life of Kinderheim, always drawing close 
 the veil of holy silence about these little ones, to present 
 them unspotted to Him who seeth in secret ! We have 
 watched her with a dying baby, and we shall never 
 forget it : there are things too sacred for words. When 
 we called the next day, the passing-bell having told us 
 the child had gone, she showed us the little conqueror 
 lying with hands folded, and wearing the victor's crown 
 — myrtle or laurel, she never omits that ! And presently 
 
1 20 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 the Nazareth boys come to carry the little coffin, she 
 collecting those of the children who are able, and follow- 
 ing the babe to its resting-place. How many she has 
 laid to sleep, and what a mother she will be in a Day to 
 come ! 
 
 If it were question of biography much could be said 
 of Kinderheim and its little lives. Truly there is a 
 refining going on there — a purifying, and the silver 
 grows bright. It was Christmas once at Kinderheim. 
 In the summer you may see them as in our illustration, 
 and hear their voices as of birds in the beech wood, 
 there being not only happiness, but even mirth at 
 Kinderheim amid all the suffering. But now it was 
 winter. The little convalescents, boys and girls, were 
 singing their hymns, and on Christmas Eve the cots of 
 the babes stood in a circle about the tree — a girl baby 
 of the number who would not much longer be among 
 them, evidently. The white wasted face was getting 
 more wasted every day, and the little chin more pointed, 
 and the children called her " Mousie " because of the thin 
 pointed face. Well, " Mousie " too had been taken to the 
 Christmas tree. She was perhaps a year old ; and her 
 eyes grew bright, she raised her wasted hands in baby 
 wonder, a smile flickered over her face — and she was gone. 
 It was somewhat unexpected, and it saddened all that 
 flock beneath the tree. But none more sorrowful than 
 little Laura — a frail child about ten years old, though 
 you would have taken her for scarcely more than six or 
 seven. Little Mousie had been her special charge, given 
 her by " Auntie," who teaches these children they are 
 one another's care. " I didn't pray for Mousie this 
 
Baby Castle 
 
 121 
 
 morning," she wailed : " I thought of Christmas only, and 
 now she is gone ! " But that night, when the children's 
 ward was hushed, the sisters being at their supper, a 
 song rose, and following the voices " Auntie " came upon 
 Laura and five or six others outside the door, behind 
 which Mousie lay sleeping : here they stood in their 
 night dresses in the dimly lit hall, singing a children's 
 hymn of little feet crossing the border — " To live is 
 Christ,'' they sang, and to die is gain!' It was Laura's 
 doing, who had called up the others — herself a dying 
 child and barely ten years old. We do not know what 
 the doctor said to this performance of little patients on a 
 December night ; but there are things by the side of 
 which " what the doctor says " shrinks into a corner. 
 
 Laura had been for some years in the Kinderheiin ; 
 she was but five when she was brought there by a parish 
 sister, who had found her utterly neglected. Her early 
 childhood had been nothing but misery; she was reticent 
 and shy, as though she had never known a beam of love. 
 It took some time before that chilled little heart thawed 
 to the influences of Kinderheiin ; but these influences 
 won her completely, and for six years — she was in a slow 
 decline, dying eventually of heart disease — she, in her 
 weakness, was the child-servant of the children. Not 
 that she did not require purifying. One day some 
 naughtiness had been committed. " I haven't done it," 
 says Laura, and another child was punished. Laura 
 went to bed that night, but could not sleep. Another 
 girl, knowing what was wrong, stepped up to her cot. 
 " Laura, aren't you asleep yet ? " " No," says Laura, " I 
 cannot sleep." " Do you know that our Auntie is sitting 
 
122 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 in the parlour and crying ? " At this La;ira, bursting 
 from her bed into the room adjoining, is on her knees 
 before Sister Lina. " Oh, Auntie, I have told a story ! " 
 But she never after this told another, growing in grace 
 almost visibly ; and to the last, even when she had to be 
 carried, and could sit on a sister's lap only, she never 
 missed the children's service in the home chapel, — white, 
 and frail as a lily, she never lost a word of the teaching 
 given these children. And quite a number of the dying 
 nurslings were her " care " ; she would sit by their cots, 
 spending her love on them, and heaven was the nearer 
 because so many of her little charges went there before 
 her. Her own sufferings often were acute, but when 
 asked, could she still bear the pain, her invariable answer 
 was, "If the Hebe Heiland has sent it, surely I can ! " 
 
 One day — it was not so very long before her own 
 going — Auntie said, half playfully, " Do you think there 
 will be room there for us to follow ? " " Oh," cried 
 Laura, " I can squeeze myself together : look how I can 
 squeeze ! " And she drew in her thin little figure as 
 though her one thought were to make room for all the 
 rest of them. Said another girl, "I am not so sure I 
 want to go, — I know what Kinderheim is, and I don't 
 know heaven." " Don't you ? " cried Laura ; " you would 
 then if you'd just believe the liebe Heiland is there ! " 
 
 And she would talk of the many children gone during 
 the six years of her own illness, right certain she would 
 meet and know them all again. By-and~by the home- 
 call came for this child also ; she lay with laboured 
 breath quite satisfied the time had come. " Look," she 
 cried, starting suddenly, " a host of angels, and — oh, 
 
Baby Castle 
 
 123 
 
 yes !— all the children among them ; and — oh, look ! — 
 little Mousie right on Jesus' lap ! " And thus this little 
 sufferer died in simplest faith that dying was to be with 
 Jesus, and with the " other children " in glory. When 
 they laid her to rest, the pastor gave this testimony 
 at her grave : " We preach the peace of God — she had 
 it." 
 
 What influences of the sanctuary must be playing 
 about these children's cots to ripen such fruit ! 
 
 There was another little sufferer about the same time — 
 little Jeannie, hopelessly scrofulous, her mother dead, her 
 father serving his term in prison. She was all swathed 
 in wadding and bandages, a little Lazarus to look at. 
 But she, too, heard and saw much at Kinderhehn she had 
 never heard or seen before, and was as willing a learner 
 as Laura. One day, when Auntie went her morning 
 rounds, the child showed her a fresh swelling about 
 her neck. " Oh, Jeannie," says Auntie, " I think I know 
 where you are going ! " " To church ? " cried Jeannie. 
 It had been her desire for weeks that she might be 
 carried once more to church with the others. " No," 
 says Auntie ; " I think you are going to a place better 
 still— don't you know ? " " We know," cried the other 
 children. " Jeannie will be leaving us to go to heaven." 
 And Jeannie was content to go ; she only was anxious 
 to know if there were churches in heaven ; she thought 
 there must be. And she was making ready to go, for 
 Auntie had said she should go. 
 
 This is how these children have the fear of death taken 
 from them — love standing by their cots, and telling 
 them of the " better place," as we talk to children of a 
 
124 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 a holiday treat. But Jeannie did not go just yet — there 
 was a work she yet should do — she, one of the faith- 
 ful ones also in the children's vineyard. Bethel about 
 that time had begun a mission-work in Africa, and 
 since in that commonwealth all bear together and suffer 
 together and rejoice together, and, as a colony, work to- 
 gether for the Kingdom, even the babes at Kinderheim 
 are within this circle of outgoing love. The first batch 
 of sisters had left for East Africa, and Sister Lina had 
 told her flock all about it, and of the black children out 
 there who never had a Christmas tree and never heard 
 of a Saviour. Little Jeannie was deeply moved, and 
 looking about in her play-box, gave Sister Lina one 
 halfpenny ; it was all she had, the gift of some visitor — 
 was it enough, she wondered, to send some of the good 
 things they had to that poor Africa ? And He who saw 
 the widow's mite will have seen Jeannie's halfpenny. 
 But the child did more — how the thought grew in 
 her little brain no one knows ; but for two or three 
 months after, this dying child-pilgrim, about to win 
 home, put out her bandaged hand to every visitor passing 
 by her cot, pleading for pennies for the poor black 
 children. And she collected nearly ten pounds ! Pastor 
 von Bodelschwingh was away in the colony's home of 
 rest by the North Sea when that child's home-call came. 
 She firmly believed he was away in Africa looking after 
 the black children, and she did not close her weary eyes 
 without sending him a letter, getting another child to 
 write it for her. " Dear Uncle," the letter said, " I think 
 I am going to heaven now ; I would have liked myself 
 to give you this money for the poor black children, but 
 
Baby Castle 
 
 125 
 
 I am so weak now, so this for them, with Jeannie's 
 love." 
 
 Will the reader tell us we are idealising a place in 
 which such fruit grows even among the children ? 
 Pastor von Bodelschwingh begged us not to say any- 
 thing in praise of any one, yet what can we do, telling 
 this story, but just say what we have seen and heard? 
 
 A dying child is there at this moment, little Henry — 
 Heini, they call him — seven years old, dying of hip 
 disease. If you ask him, " Heini, how are you ? " ( Wie 
 geJit es dirf) his invariable answer is, " Ganz gut !" And 
 indeed it " is well " with him, though his poor limbs are in 
 weights and bandages, and he wasted to a skeleton. It 
 was his one desire to see yet a Christmas here — " I am 
 going to heaven," he kept saying, " but I would so like 
 to have Christmas yet with all the children ! " It was 
 his first Christmas, he being of Jewish parents, and he had 
 it. He was carried in, the central figure of that flock 
 beneath the tree. These children had all come in with the 
 one thought they were coming to the manger, to sing 
 their hymns to the Holy Child Jesus born that night. 
 And the prayerfulness, aye the worship shining in their 
 upturned faces— one must have seen it in order 
 to believe. Pastor von Bodelschwingh conducted the 
 children's Christmas service, they repeating the Gospel 
 story, their verses and hymns one after another. To look 
 at them it was the one business of life to sing and say 
 of the goodness of God ; yet they were like other 
 children, being gathered for the presents human love 
 had prepared. They were to have their dolls and whips 
 and whistles, only their little service came first. And it 
 
126 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 was real. There was a hush ; Heini was folding his 
 hands to say what he had to say — a hymn of hosannas 
 for mercies bestowed ! " What then must heaven be," the 
 child was saying, " if this poor earth is so full of light ! " 
 He has never known aught but suffering here, yet with 
 his simplest conviction — you saw it in his eyes, a light 
 more shining than of Christmas tree — he spoke of the 
 shower of mercies making this poor life so bright — " What 
 then will heaven be ? " He is waiting to go — like a ripened 
 sheaf to be garnered home. He lingers yet, surely yet 
 having a mission — for is not such child a living sermon, 
 nay, one of God's own angel messengers to all that 
 ailing band ? No wonder there is peace at Kinderheim^ 
 and loveliest obedience, yea, holy submission, and happy 
 little lives ! 
 
 Even their everyday life is a pleasure to watch. Go 
 in, say at meal time, and you find the little things, such 
 as are up and too young to feed themselves, sitting on 
 low stools in a half circle, here six and there six, mouths 
 open, for all the world like swallows' nests, the feeding 
 sisters, black dress and white cap, hovering before them 
 like mother swallows, now filling this little mouth, now 
 that— it is the sweetest picture. One would love to 
 photograph Kinderheim in all its aspects. Little friend- 
 ships spring up. There is one little dot having taken to 
 its heart another little dot ; neither can walk for limb 
 disease, except by pushing a little chair ; but if dot two 
 cries, dot one is after it to wipe its tears. They are not 
 three years old. 
 
 There is a black child at Kinderheim^ not a sick 
 child, a little girl, Fatuma — Elizabeth Fatuma since 
 
Baby Castle 
 
 127 
 
 her baptism — saved from the slavers and sent home by 
 one of their missionaries. For Bethel has begun a 
 noble work in Africa, it is her latest development, and 
 we will just mention it here, little Jeannie being the 
 link between Baby Castle and the " poor black 
 children." 
 
 So even in the Dark Continent the merciful hand of 
 Bethel is busy. There are four stations in East Africa, 
 a fifth just forming, and some of her deacons and 
 deaconesses at work there, telling the story of Christ the 
 Healer to the " poor black children " who come to them 
 for bodily treatment. The leading missionaries, some 
 of them pastors gone out at their own expense, are 
 in every instance men who, whatever their college 
 honours, have gone through their course of training as 
 simple brothers among Bethel's own afflicted children, 
 learning to serve Christ humbly among the imbeciles 
 and epileptics before carrying His Gospel of good-will 
 to the heathen ; and who, gone out now to their larger 
 sphere, have taken with them the spirit of Bethel, that 
 comforting spirit to which every " bound one," black or 
 white, and bound in whatever fetters of Satan's kingdom, 
 is a Prisoner of Zion, a captive to be set free. And 
 these missionaries, these Bethel brothers and sisters, are 
 armed with a special strength, — ambassadors of Christ 
 they for that home-congregation, whose love, whose 
 prayers are ever with them. So this work too is likely 
 to grow ; you cannot go about Bethel and doubt this, for 
 her very patients — not only the little ones — are warmed 
 towards the Dark Continent. 
 
 This mission has quite a character of its own, and in 
 
128 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 certain respects it is unique : it is unique in its kind of 
 
 workers, its pastors, its deacons, its deaconesses ; it is 
 
 unique in its manner of finding and preparing workers ; it 
 
 is unique in the special blessing to be noted, that it is the 
 
 only African mission which after three years of work has 
 
 not a single death to record ! Bodelschwingh on taking 
 
 over the struggling stations of a Berlin Society — which 
 
 society still finds the funds, he finding the men — at once, 
 
 from the fever-breeding coast districts made a start for 
 
 the hill country, his ever being the practical eye, however 
 
 ideal the endeavour. The mission and hospital work at 
 
 Tanga and Dar-es-Salaam nevertheless goes on. 
 
 As for finding the men, the visitor, right in the centre 
 
 of the epileptic colony, in the beech wood, and in the 
 
 very shadow of Zion Church, will come upon a house 
 
 bearing for inscription Candidaten Convict,'^ the inmates 
 
 of which in every instance are university graduates 
 
 preparing for holy orders, some of whom, having heard 
 
 the call from Bethel, have come to this little college in 
 
 obedient surrender, to be fitted there for Christ's missions 
 
 to " the least of them," whether at home or abroad. 
 
 The one thing asked of them is a willingness to be 
 
 workers of the Kingdom in whatever sphere. And as 
 
 * " Convict," Latin convict us, from convivo, a boarding or living 
 together. It is a pet thought with Bodelschwingh that in this 
 Candidaten Convict Bethel has a Divinity Hall of her own, 
 where university graduates, leaving their college honours and 
 college wisdom behind them, might have an opportunity of 
 resting their minds awhile from ''higher criticism," girding 
 themselves for the time being with the towel of practical 
 theology instead. As shown in the foregoing chapter (p. io8) 
 many, coming to this little " Hall," return thence to the regular 
 ministry of the country. 
 
Baby Castle 
 
 129 
 
 you go about the colony you come upon these young 
 men everywhere, learning to be servants — Christ's 
 servants. But the so-called higher knowledge is not 
 therefore neglected : even Suaheli is being studied at that 
 " Convict,'' and Scripture instruction of course is there. 
 When they are ordained, some are sent to home mission 
 work, some to Africa, according to their fitness ; and 
 the lessons learnt at Bethel go with them to whatever 
 sphere they go. The African mission, however, one 
 cannot help seeing, is a pet child at Bethel, amid her 
 manifold work. Even among the clouded ones of her 
 flock, if you go and tell them there has been happy 
 news, a nice letter, faces brighten with expectance and a 
 deafening cry oi^^ Africa " goes through the room. Among 
 the epileptic boys at Nazareth, there is one, little Peter, 
 a nice bright lad, who spends all his spare time in 
 catching mice, getting a penny or two for every dozen 
 he traps ; and if you ask him what his efforts are for, it is 
 always " the black children," he investing his pennies at 
 Bethphage in illuminated cards and Bible pictures to go 
 out to Africa, where some sixty or seventy children 
 saved from the slavers have been gathered into a school 
 in which the Bethel children are deeply interested. 
 
 There are two Washamba boys at Nazareth, lads of 
 about fourteen or fifteen, doing well ; and it is their one 
 hope, as also it is little Fatuma's, that one day they may 
 go back to Africa, taking the message of Bethel with 
 them to their own people. Walking about the colony 
 the other day, we came upon two adult negroes— stalwart 
 young men. Who were they ? They had come to Bethel 
 of their own accord, one but lately, one some little time 
 
 9 
 
1 30 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 ago, bringing their story with them. They had been, the 
 one with a menagerie, the other with a circus troupe, 
 acting " wild men " till they were sick of it ; and hearing 
 of Bethel they came, one of them all the way from 
 Copenhagen, asking to be " saved " ! To be sure they 
 were kept— no one coming to Bethel with the prayer to 
 be helped is sent away — and being muscular fellows 
 they have been put into the smithy, to prove their 
 willingness of giving up the " wild man " for honest 
 labour. They are learning horse-shoeing now, or what- 
 ever may be going, no one taking any particular notice 
 of them — everything is done in such wholesome fashion 
 at Bethel— but they will be watched, they will be taught, 
 and they will be trained according to their fitness. 
 There must be something in these fellows worth 
 training, considering that of their own free will, having 
 come to the dregs of a miserable life, they yielded to the 
 power of attraction going out from this colony. They 
 are both of Jamaica origin, having run away, one of 
 them from Christian parents, but now safely landed at 
 Bethel. 
 
 Such is the connection of this colony with the Dark 
 Continent. It is because Bethel does so much at home, 
 that she has love and time and possibilities left to carry 
 her message of mercy to poor Africa also, " bleeding to 
 death through all her pores " with the horrors of slavery. 
 For Charity, beginning at home, never stops there. And 
 if there is one thing to be learned at Bethel, it is the 
 lesson of the love abounding — the love of Christ encom- 
 passing every human need, 
 
PASTOR VON BODELSCHWINGH S MANSE. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 BETHEL TO THE RESCUE 
 " . . . saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them." 
 
 BEHIND Pastor von Bodelschwingh's little manse 
 you notice a rough retaining-wall against the 
 slopes of the church hill. The path above leading 
 straight to the recreation ground of the convalescents 
 of Sarepta and Kindefheim, you naturally conclude the 
 wall to have been erected for their greater privacy, 
 shutting off, as it does, the beech wood from being too 
 freely entered by any chance passer-by. So it has ; 
 but it is a memorable wall. Great things have small 
 beginnings, and here the modern problem has been 
 
132 
 
 A Colony of Me7xy 
 
 solved — how to deal with social distress. That rough 
 stone wall is a monument ! 
 
 The question what to do with the unemployed has 
 been as much to the front over there as it is here. 
 There is this difference, however, between England and 
 Germany : that the " submerged " and starving here * 
 form the helpless sediment of the great cities, whereas 
 there they swarm over the country, or, rather, they 
 swarmed, for things are greatly changed. A way out 
 of Darkest Germany, has been found, and not only 
 found, it has been trodden these ten years by an ever- 
 increasing crowd of the submerged, many of whom are 
 being landed in positions of self-help and thrift. That 
 stone wall was the first lifeboat going out after them 
 into the surge. 
 
 Social distress had reached its height in Germany 
 with the reaction setting in upon what is known as the 
 Griinder Jahre\ — the years of speculative enterprise, 
 more sanguine than solid, and best described as 
 " bubbles " — following upon the national renascence 
 after the Franco-German war. Money had become 
 more plentiful, trade and commerce more active ; 
 speculation grew giddy, and presently there was a 
 collapse. Thousands were thrown out of work. The 
 rural population in masses, seized with the fever of the 
 day, had left the fields for the manufacturing centres, 
 wishing to better themselves, and dreaming of wealth. 
 But the years of plenty were followed by the lean years, 
 
 * Excepting, indeed, Scotland, as a succeeding page will show, 
 t From **grunden," to found, to set going: the mercantile 
 world all agog then for starting "paying concerns." 
 
Bethel to the Rescue 
 
 133 
 
 leaving a floating population, not so much submerged " 
 as caught on a wave of misery heaving to and fro in 
 the land. Moreover, there were wandernde Handwerks- 
 burschen — journeymen artisans, on the tramp for work 
 — a time-honoured institution, but much degenerated. 
 Beggars abounded. 
 
 Says Pastor von Bodelschwingh, " It always was a 
 habit with us that poor wayfarers knocking at the door 
 of our colony, now at this house, now at that, obtained 
 relief ; we never gave them money, but any distressed 
 individual who asked for a meal had it, sitting down 
 with his plateful at the doorstep where he was fed. The 
 good house-father or kindly house-mother, thus pitying 
 him, believed firmly such feeding of the hungry, if 
 charity, was not charity abused ; a hungry man must be 
 fed, be he ever so undeserving ; and if the food was con- 
 sumed under their own eyes, they were, at any rate, sure 
 it was not being converted into money for drink. Their 
 own hands were too full to watch these roving guests ; 
 no one, for a time, noticed that the same man would 
 return in a week, perhaps return a third time in a fort- 
 night, and so on. Nor did they notice that public-houses 
 in the neighbourhood throve and multiplied ; nor did any 
 one think of keeping count that two or three dozen of 
 these vagrants every day thus had their dinner at the 
 several kitchens of Bethel, the distance between the 
 houses concealing their numbers ; indeed, if any one had 
 counted these visitors, you would still not have doubted 
 it was rightful charity, for who could distinguish between 
 the deserving poor and the vagabond who will not 
 work ? And if any of the wretched beggars pointed 
 
134 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 to the rags he wore, was it not merciful to give him a pair 
 of boots that could be spared, or a shirt or coat ? Who 
 could tell that the selfsame man might appear all ragged 
 again to-morrow at your neighbour's door to be fed and 
 clothed, having sold what he had received at your pity- 
 ing hands yesterday ? When we grew more experienced 
 in their ways, we discovered that some of these daily 
 customers repeated that trick half a dozen times over ; 
 we discovered that some of them went their systematic 
 round of our kitchens, and having reached the last 
 returned to begin again at the first. But," says Pastor 
 von Bodelschwingh, " if a man will not work, he shall not 
 eat — or rather, if we feed them, let them do some work." 
 
 Hammers and trowels were procured, and one hour's 
 labour for a meal was asked of them. That stone wall 
 behind the Pastor's house — or, rather, its idea—wdiS full 
 of possibilities. It proved a test-wall; the daily 'band 
 of starving pilgrims diminished wonderfully ; instead 
 of twenty or thirty, only half a dozen appeared, some- 
 times two or three only, willing to do a stroke of honest 
 labourYor the food one was ready to give them. Among 
 the few those could plainly be distinguished who had 
 never handled trowel or spade in their lives. These mostly 
 were gratefully willing ; they even returned, saying, We 
 will gladly do this work we are not used to, if only you 
 will keep us." Then where should they be housed — 
 some of them in rags which had not seen a stitch or soap 
 and water for weeks and months ? They must be kept 
 from the public-house. The good house-fathers were 
 ready to receive them ; " only not in this condition," 
 they said. The men must first be new-clothed. How 
 
Bethel to the Resctie 
 
 ^35 
 
 was it to be done ? Why, they must give work for 
 clothes, as they gave work for food. And thus that wall 
 grew. 
 
 But this wall is the beginning of the LABOUR COLONY, 
 WiLHELMSDORF, based on a principle first laid down in 
 the building of that wall. 
 
 The winter of 1881 was a peculiarly hard one, and 
 band after band arrived starving, in rags, and willing to 
 work for food, for clothes. They came in such numbers 
 that Bethel could not keep them all, — the most needy, 
 the most starving, were those asked to stay. " Would to 
 God," said a hungry vagrant bitterly, " would to God we 
 too were epileptic, then you would keep us ! " That 
 went to the pastor's heart. " I will try and keep you — 
 find work for you," he said. And he went prospecting. 
 
 You follow the bending course of the valley in a south- 
 eastern direction, and presently it opens out into a 
 sandy plain, some thirty miles long and ten broad, running 
 along the western slopes of the Teutoburger Forest, and 
 known to geologists as the " Gulf of Munster." The 
 German Ocean, in bygone ages, rolled its waves here. It 
 is called the Senne (or Sende), for it is a vast tract of 
 sand. Nothing indigenous but coarse grass or heather, 
 and stunted fir trees. If you examine that soil you find 
 at a depth of from two to four feet, the cause of its 
 natural unproductiveness— a stratum of ochreous deposit, 
 a bog iron ore, nowhere more than a few inches thick, but 
 hard as iron ; no root or sucker of plant can pierce it, and 
 it lets no moisture through. A farm dotted here and there 
 struggles against this barren soil. If you dig deep enough 
 to turn up that layer, leaving it exposed to the air, it 
 
136 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 soon disintegrates ; and if you examine it presently, 
 you find a powdery ferruginous earth, a rich natural 
 manure, changing your sandy waste into fruitful soil. 
 This, however, presupposes toilsome labour, and does 
 not pay the ordinary farmer. But it would " pay " 
 Bodelschwingh, who could bring a peculiar capital to 
 bear, called Charity, and who was in search of labour of 
 a peculiar kind. 
 
 Here was a problem : a soil " submerged " ages ago, 
 but fit to be reclaimed, and a " submerged " humanity 
 struggling in the waters of social distress, but capable of 
 being reclaimed,— why not set the one to reclaim the 
 other ? This, too, was reciprocity — a grand inspiration, 
 a stroke of genius. Bodelschwingh set the two forces at 
 one another — the latent productiveness of the soil, and 
 the latent labour capacity of these starving men, and in 
 the course of ten years that Senne has become a garden : 
 a stratum is turned up, and a sunk stratum of men, 
 hundreds of them, are " turned up " in the process — up 
 to that higher level of thrift and industry whence they 
 have fallen. This, too, is geology. 
 
 Having completed his investigations, Pastor von Bodel- 
 schwingh called together the magistrates and leading 
 men of the province and unfolded his plans. He made 
 a speech which first startled them, and then startled the 
 country. His speeches are always simple in the extreme, 
 but to the point. His voice carries conviction, and 
 there is that in his face and bearing which captivates. 
 He is so simple, so unpretending, so modest, so humble, 
 this nobleman born, this Doctor of Divinity, this Knight 
 of St. John and three or four other orders which he 
 
Bethel to the Rescue 
 
 137 
 
 never wears ; he has no rhetoric, if thereby you mean fine 
 language, polished style, clever exposition ; he just talks 
 to you, but that talk, like a swelling river with a resist- 
 less undercurrent, carries you along. " Love is the one 
 motive power," he once said : " the question is. Have you 
 a sufficiency of it ? " He does not always lay bare that 
 undercurrent when he addresses such meetings, but the 
 unpretending pastor, with all his simplicity, on such 
 occasion gives proof he is a ruler of men and a born 
 political economist. He knows all about the social 
 trouble, he knows the laws which exist and the laws 
 which ought to exist ; he knows, for the simple reason 
 that he is so interested ! He has the country's trouble 
 at heart, her resources, her prospects, the whole situation, 
 therefore, at his fingers' ends. His father was minister 
 of finance and prime-minister, and if this pastor were 
 not the humble servant of mercy, he, for administrative 
 faculty, like the Bodelschwinghs before him, might have 
 been the right hand of kings. 
 
 He gave that meeting a lesson in arithmetic. At the 
 lowest computation, there were then a hundred thousand 
 unemployed begging their way through the land ; and 
 some estimated their numbers at a hundred and fifty, 
 even two hundred thousand. The country has got 
 to keep them, though it keep them only by beggar's 
 pence. These fellows at the least beg their shilling a 
 day ; some with little trouble make their two shillings, 
 even three and four shillings, daily, for they are practised 
 in the trade. But even taking the lowest figures you 
 have the net result of about two million pounds sterling 
 a year collected by beggars, for the public-house mostly. 
 
A Colony of Mercy 
 
 " We could keep them all, house and clothe and feed 
 them, at a tenth the present expense, if we gave them 
 work, for that is what they want," suggested the pastor. 
 " We must help them back to a thrifty, useful life. 
 1 propose to start a Labour Colony^ if the province will 
 back me, and I promise that in the space of a couple of 
 years the province will be rid of the pest." 
 
 Bodelschwingh is a sanguine man, full of optimistic 
 views, if a great idea has a hold of him. He even 
 promised the astonished magistrates that the example 
 would be followed in no time, and that in sheer self- 
 defence, by the other provinces ; " for, look you," he said, 
 " how was it with the fox in the fable ? How does he, 
 when he wants to rid his coat of certain inmates ? He 
 takes a bunch of hay between his teeth and slowly 
 backs into the water, tail first : the lodgers he wants to be 
 rid of, quitting his hind-quarters, seek refuge on his back, 
 then on his shoulders, his head, and lastly in the hay- 
 bunch. Then he drowns them all, dropping the hay, and 
 walks away rejoicing. The moral is plain — we must rid 
 our own province, the tail ; the neighbouring provinces 
 for a time will swarm the more : let them do then as we 
 have done — let each province start a colony of its own. 
 Yet we are not going to drown all our poor fleas ; those 
 who will work shall work, and shall be helped, but the 
 rest — every good-for-nothing one — will disappear ; the 
 country presently will be rid of them." Now, this was 
 optimism of the purest water ; the magistrates, the friends 
 said so ; but Bodelschwingh is a man who before then 
 had shown people he might at least be trusted for an 
 attempt. And though some laughed and others shook 
 
Bethel to the Rescue 
 
 139 
 
 their heads, they did trust him. The province gave him 
 a loan, a couple of thousand pounds free of interest, 
 following it up with a further loan as the work grew. 
 
 The result proved that Pastor von Bodelschwingh was 
 right. He started a labour colony for the unemployed 
 of Westphalia and one or two neighbouring provinces ; 
 and what was begun in a side lane behind his own little 
 manse, that rough stone wall, has grown and multiplied. 
 By sheer force of example, Wilhelmsdorf has become 
 the mother of five-and-twenty similar colonies all over 
 Germany, and the great mass of starving vagrants, 
 formerly accosting you at every turn, has practically 
 disappeared from the country. 
 
 Land was bought in the Senne, and the old farm- 
 house upon it renovated and enlarged. In March 1882 a 
 band of convalescent epileptics, farm labourers, went out 
 from Bethel to form the nucleus of the labour colony, 
 or rather to set about establishing it. But long before 
 the place was ready for its intended occupants, news had 
 gone like wildfire along the highways of Germany, and 
 north, south, east and west, it was known among the 
 tramping population that tables were being spread, 
 a refuge opened for every hungry beggar, if he zvotdd 
 work. On the whole, it was the most honest of the sunken 
 mass who first appeared— a man willing to be saved is 
 already half saved — and the place soon was as full as 
 it could hold. On August 17th, 1882, this colony was 
 opened, a day to be held in remembrance by all who love 
 the people, a birthday of " good-will unto men." The 
 aged Emperor stood sponsor — it is after him that the 
 first labour colony is named — and a few months later 
 
140 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 his noble son, the late Emperor Frederick, wrote a letter 
 to Pastor von Bodelschwingh, accepting the Protectorate, 
 in these words : — 
 
 " It is with the most gracious approval of my august 
 father. His Majesty the Emperor and King, that I, in 
 compliance with the desire of your Committee, herewith 
 accept the Protectorate of the Labour Colony, Wilhelms- 
 dorf, expressing the glad hope in doing so that this 
 undertaking, which has set itself to combat a far-spread 
 evil, will not only continue as successfully as it has 
 begun, but that it may soon be imitated in other parts 
 of our country, for the trouble is everywhere. The 
 colony Wilhelmsdorf, though existing but a few months 
 as yet, has already proved its efficiency in rescuing from 
 utter perdition hundreds of the sunken and lost, leading 
 them back to orderly and industrious lives. It is not too 
 much, therefore, to say that you have started an institu- 
 tion deserving the sympathy and support of all among 
 us who are anxious to further a healthy national de- 
 velopment. It is not too much, to say that this effort, 
 independent of religious or political differences, should 
 be the common cause of all who are striving to uphold 
 the foundations, well aware of the clouds gathering 
 overhead. 
 
 " Frederick William, 
 " Crown Prince. 
 
 "Berlin, December i^^th, 1882." 
 
 Wilhelmsdorf, legally, is the property of Bethel, for to 
 the epileptic colony. Bethel, as trustee of the fund, the 
 loans in question were made. It is very beautiful that 
 
Bethel to the Rescue 
 
 the first Jminan loan, the first eighteen settlers, were from 
 Bethel's own stricken children, — a number of epileptics 
 capable of work. It is ever those who themselves have 
 known trouble that are the fit helpers of others. These 
 eighteen, indeed, themselves were being helped when, 
 headed by a house-father, they went out into the Senne 
 to make room there for the starving ; for Bethel, at whose 
 doors every year between two and three hundred fresh 
 cases stand waiting for admittance, no longer had any room 
 for them. The convalescents must leave her, and where 
 should they go ? Sending them back to the outer world 
 and the less careful life, too often means sending them 
 back to their own old trouble. So here was a beautiful 
 arrangement : let them help themselves by helping 
 others. And when their work was done, when the call 
 had gone forth from Wilhelmsdorf, " Come hither, ye 
 homeless and starving, we have made room for you," 
 these eighteen again became the nucleus of a settlement. 
 Back to Bethel they could not go, but the Senne Jias 
 room. 
 
 About a mile from the labour colony there was another 
 broken-down farm. This too was acquired, and the 
 eighteen settled there. They wanted a name for their 
 new home, and they found it in the twenty-sixth 
 chapter of Genesis. The farm - settlements in the 
 Senne have always followed the chances of water, a 
 little brook seeking its course through the sandy waste 
 being the first condition of better things. That new 
 home also had its brook ; and when it was dedicated to 
 its new destiny, the pastor gathered the eighteen and 
 read to them the story of Isaac, and his digging again 
 
142 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 the wells of water of his father Abraham, which the 
 Philistines had stopped. Isaac too was homeless just 
 then, and only when he got to the third well he might 
 stay ; and he called it Rehoboth, saying, " For the Lord 
 hath made room for us." And the eighteen called their 
 new home Rehoboth, for now they " had room," and were 
 able to make room for more of their brothers in affliction. 
 Rehoboth now has room for about sixty convalescent 
 epileptics, and as their numbers increase and further 
 room is needed, further room yet will be made. And 
 thus Bethel's convalescents, instead of returning to a pre- 
 carious, unwatched and too often unbefriended existence, 
 have this beautiful refuge. It is easy to dig wells in the 
 Senne ; water is bursting up everywhere — plentiful and 
 clear, if you dig but ten or twelve feet ; and in the 
 Senne the consolations of Christ's Programme are an 
 ever-welling fountain ; patients and vagrants alike may 
 sit down and drink. But the convalescents have ever 
 since been working hand in hand with the moral " con- 
 valescents" of Wilhelmsdorf, reclaiming that barren soil; 
 with this difference only, that whereas of the former, 
 so far there are about fifty, there have on an average 
 never been less than a hundred and fifty of the latter. 
 Wilhelmsdorf " has room " for four hundred of the un- 
 employed, and in winter time this number has often been 
 reached. 
 
 Thus Love went out, found a desert and turned it into 
 a garden. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE LABOUR COLONY 
 
 " There is room. 
 
 BOUT a year (strictly speaking fifteen months) after 
 
 -^^^ the labour colony was first opened, a deputy 
 magistrate paid a visit, and thus reported : *' I found 
 two hundred and twenty-five colonists, mostly occupied 
 on the fields, and working cheerfully though it was 
 pouring with rain. T/iej/ were of all classes — men who 
 had been in the army, men who had been to college. 
 It is a mistake to think the out-of-work, the sunken 
 and submerged, are of the lower ranks only. There 
 was a former custom-house official among them, there 
 was a man who had been in the civil service ; there 
 was another who had been a Landwehr officer, and 
 one decorated, too, with the iron cross ; there was a 
 man who had served in Algiers, another who had 
 been a well-to-do gentleman farmer, and another an in- 
 spector of a coal-mine ; there was a surgeon, there were 
 schoolmasters who had lost their pupils, there were 
 clerks, waiters — in fact, there were all sorts and condi- 
 tions of men. Here they were ; they had come starving, 
 they had come ragged. They were decently clothed now 
 and looked well fed, and the work I found them doing 
 
 [45 
 
 10 
 
146 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 was not play-work. A house-father and some brothers 
 (deacons) are set over them, and you cannot help seeing 
 how these just live to be an example to them, help 
 them, comfort them, show them how to work. I mar- 
 velled how such a number of by no means easy customers, 
 considering their antecedents, could be managed as one 
 family. About one-half of their number before coming 
 here, were " known to the police " ; about one-fifth were 
 actual convicts ; but they apparently gave no trouble — 
 the wheels of that queer household seem wonderfully 
 oiled. I simply marvelled. (This magistrate forgot 
 there is an oil called brotherly kindness.) There are 
 strict rules to be observed in the colony, but there is no 
 punishment. They are spoken to if insubordinate, they are 
 exhorted, and if that avails not, they are just dismissed ; 
 yet a man rarely need be dismissed, — they are thank- 
 ful enough to obey while in the colony. During the 
 first fourteen months, 1200 in all have been admitted. 
 Of these, only 42 (3^^ per cent, that is) ran away from 
 the colony ; 966 left for regular employment, and of 
 these 830 have actually been placed by means of the 
 Labour Committee in connection with the colony. The 
 place, the houses, everything is a pattern of cleanliness. 
 The men are well cared for, the food is of the simplest, 
 but sufficient and wholesome — rather above the pro- 
 visioning of the army — for these men arrive starving, 
 and as labour at once is required of them, they must 
 be fed up." / - J: 
 
 The figures have not continued quite so favourable as 
 in this report, and for the simple reason that the earlier 
 colonists were of the better sort of the unemployed. 
 
The Labour Colony 
 
 147 
 
 Those who first came to be helped were the most worthy 
 of help, the most capable of being reclaimed ; the per- 
 centage of men who had " come down in the world," and 
 not always criminally, being larger at first than it is now. 
 These, by means of the colony, have largely found their 
 way back to an honourable life, and the work, so to 
 speak, is now amid a lower stratum. 
 
 But the figures of ten years are these : There are now 
 twenty-six of these colonies in Germany— we should 
 speak of twenty-two only, for the four latest have only 
 just been started ; and of the twenty-two, one only, 
 Wilhelmsdorf, is ten years old. About sixty thousand 
 vagrants and men described as " unemployed " have 
 passed through them. Of these, no doubt, the lesser pro- 
 portion only has actually been saved, yet is it not a 
 great thing that year by year so many thousands — say ten 
 thousand yearly, now that so many colonies exist — are 
 within the chances of being saved, are kept, taught, fed 
 outwardly and inwardly ; so many thousands who other- 
 wise would rove about the country, starve, and do mis- 
 chief? Is it not a great thing, if only one-fifth, if only 
 one-tenth are saved ? It is, of course, difficult to venture 
 upon figures when you speak of being "saved." The 
 lives of those leaving the colony cannot be followed up 
 very far. The results of the whole rescue-work, as will 
 appear presently, are gauged in a different way. 
 
 And, in any case, let the reader not take the word 
 " saved " in the sense of the Salvation Army ; they do 
 not use the word in its highest meaning quite so freely 
 in Germany. The good men at work at Bethel, and 
 watching over the welfare of Wilhelmsdorf, know that 
 
148 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 " saving," in that sense, is of the Holy Ghost : it is not 
 expected of these vagrants quite so readily as the change 
 from their rags into clean clothes — this, too, is " saving." 
 But the spiritual saving is growth, and a very slow 
 growth sometimes. The influences of salvation are all 
 about these men at Wilhelmsdorf ; they are beset behind 
 and before with them ; they are so, because we all are : 
 it is God's way — a way not always noticed, not always 
 seen ; and they are so, because of the influences streaming 
 in from Bethel. But these men are not saved wholesale : 
 they do not undergo processes of kneeling down a 
 sinner and rising up a saint. We do not say that such 
 holy process is not God's way sometimes ; it was God's 
 way with Paul ; but conversion is not made a condi- 
 tion at the labour colony. They are not asked much 
 about their inward experiences — they are fed, cleansed, 
 loved ; and the rest is left to the Love abounding. They 
 are taught too ; but those who teach them know that the 
 teaching of the Spirit is required. They are prayed witJi 
 — the day at Wilhelmsdorf begins with prayer and ends 
 with prayer, as a family ; but there is no overdoing it — 
 and a great deal more are they prayed for. If the labour 
 colony has succeeded, it is because of the natural whole- 
 some spirit pervading it. The thirteenth of the first of 
 Corinthians is the great text-book in that house. There 
 are indeed some entering the colony as prodigals who 
 leave it children of their Father's house ; but these things 
 are not spoken of, not printed in the reports — those who 
 manage these know better; and if the word "saved." 
 occurs in these pages, what is meant thereby is the 
 change from the disorderly to the orderly life, a change 
 
The Labour Colony 
 
 149 
 
 back to industry, and very often to that humility for 
 sins remembered to which a blessing pertains — a lifting 
 up, in short, out of the mud. 
 
 It was a beautiful day in June when we first drove out 
 to the Senne. The man who drove us was one of the 
 original settlers — he had gone out with those eighteen — 
 now employed as driver and farm servant at Bethel. 
 He is but a homely, poor-bodied fellow, with a crippled 
 wife too : they do not earn much money : children they 
 have none, but these two, for Christ's sake, as he said 
 simply, have brought up one after another sixteen of 
 those orphans which Pastor Siebold puts out to those 
 who, "for Christ's sake," will take them. Some are 
 with this couple still ; and, as we drove along, he ex- 
 plained his mode of training. " You have just got to 
 love them," he said. He showed also how he tried to 
 foster faith in them : " you must be true to them, for 
 they have got to believe in you." As for his wife, going 
 to see her, we found her walking on crutches. More 
 than twenty years ago she had a leg amputated — 
 " by God's own love to me," she said. Is not this 
 being a mother in Israel ? a crippled woman, and in a 
 humble cottage, having taken, one after another, sixteen 
 orphan children to her heart—and he but a farm- 
 labourer ! They keep them at their own expense ; train 
 them in the fear of God, aye, in the love of God ; they 
 keep them till they can earn their own living ; some of 
 them are grown up now and married, looking upon them 
 as parents still. It is their own doing ; they began 
 it " for Christ's sake," before Pastor Siebold started that 
 orphan-work. We have seen this humble little home, 
 
A Colony of Mercy 
 
 and the adopted children there now (three, at this 
 moment, between the ages of seven and seventeen), and 
 we can only say, Happy those children ! * 
 
 But a simple labourer, that man has managed an 
 education somehow, if by education you mean insight 
 and understanding. He is Spirit-taught, and it is won- 
 derful what that does for a man ; you never think of 
 " gentleman " or " not-gentleman " if you talk with such 
 a one. This man would tell you all about the growth of 
 the Senne — it is an " evolution," he said, an Entwicklung, 
 actually using the word. We met him again, just before 
 leaving ; he had discovered meanwhile that there was 
 an intention of telling English folk something of that 
 Entwickhmg. " May God give you a blessing upon it," 
 he said ; " for it is most important. It is like putting 
 seed into the ground ; if you tell them something about 
 it, it may grow ! " He is but a farm labourer, knowing 
 about seed and growth and God's blessing, and he said 
 it was " evolution." 
 
 * We earnestly beg any of our readers who may visit Bethel, 
 not to tell these humble people they have read of their work. 
 They do it in all simplicity, that they " may have a family 
 of children in heaven one day, having none here." They do it 
 not knowing the rare beauty of it — jewels they of Christ's own 
 crown. It is a simple fact ; their work is not generally known at 
 the colony even, or, if known, where so much is done, it is the violet 
 blossoming unseen. Let friends beware lest the breath of earthli- 
 ness touch the perfect beauty of this ! But if any reader be moved, 
 as well he may be, the writer of these lines will gladly receive any 
 token of sympathy, to be spent, first of all, in a bath-chair for that 
 crippled woman, who hardly ever on her crutches can manage to 
 climb the hill now to Zion Church. Her husband's earnings are 
 half-a-crown a day. 
 
The Labo2ir Colony 
 
 153 
 
 After about an hour's drive, you saw you were getting 
 into sand — sand right and left and before you — but a 
 good firm road led through that sandy waste, a road 
 made by the colonists. And presently you saw this 
 waste, heather-grown only, and dotted with stunted firs, 
 assume signs of cultivation, fields stretching away on 
 either hand — and such fields ! — and after another half- 
 hour's drive, Wilhelmsdorf was reached. The colony 
 owns about a thousand acres now, and some of the 
 colonists are continually at work in trenches digging up 
 that stratum, — there is work left for years to come, and 
 when all is under cultivation, why, they can acquire 
 more. There is room for growth in the Senne, room to 
 spread. If you take up some of the subsoil, after it has 
 been lying on the surface awhile, you find it a lump very 
 much like chicory for colour and substance, crumbling 
 to powder, too, at your touch, like a cake of chicory. 
 The men are interested in showing it to you ; they have 
 quite a regard for the soil which costs them such honest 
 sweat of the brow. Last year twenty-six additional 
 acres of land were brought under cultivation ; they have 
 mostly required a four-foot digging. 
 
 The harvests in 1892 yielded 334 cwt. of rye, 196 of 
 oats, 1500 of potatoes, 2100 of turnips, 240 of beet, 200 
 of Indian corn, 1800 of hay, and 1250 of straw. There 
 is a good deal of irrigation work, and of plantation 
 making ; roadmaking, too, goes on, and. there is a flour- 
 ishing live-stock. There being plenty of water, they 
 are planning to set up a mill to do their own grinding. 
 This will naturally be followed by their own bakery. 
 As yet the Bethel bakery provides Wilhelmsdorf 
 
154 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 Six hundred and twenty colonists were received last 
 year, over six thousand having been registered in this 
 colony since it first was opened. 
 
 Any one presenting himself is admitted, those of the 
 province having first claim. The clothes he wears, if 
 worth anything, which hardly ever is the case, are dis- 
 infected and put away against the time of his leaving ; 
 for every man, as a preliminary, is put into a new suit 
 of clothes. This is a wonderful stroke of Christian 
 genius : a man feels a new creature ; he has put on 
 respectability. But there is nothing of the uniform 
 about these clothes ; the men are not treated as 
 convicts — not even as charity boys. They may choose 
 what they fancy out of a large stock of clothing always 
 on hand. And they generally choose in accordance 
 with their former condition of life ; so by their very 
 clothes, and by their own doing, there is a sort of 
 distinction of class in the colony. They have to pay 
 for their clothes ; money they have none, so the 
 articles are given them on credit, against which their 
 labour is set. A man then is no longer a beggar ; he is 
 beginning to work his way up, and, as a first step, he has 
 to pay for his own new clothes. These clothes, ser- 
 viceable and good, are cheap ; they are given them at 
 manufacturers' prices, the colony not making one penny 
 upon the transaction. The men know that. At manu- 
 facturers' prices ; but these clothes are not made in 
 wholesale factories at sweating labour. Pastor von 
 Bodelschwingh has a wonderful knack of killing two 
 birds with one shot. These clothes are made for the 
 colony by all sorts of poor women in the neighbour- 
 
The Labo7ir Colony 155 
 
 hood, widows by preference ; no middle-man is required, 
 there is no "sweater" or anybody wanting to make 
 any profit, so the poor seamstresses earn their decent 
 penny, and yet the clothes are cheap. How full of 
 little strokes of this kind is the economy of Bethel ! 
 And what a head that man must have ! — but it is 
 his heart rather than his head which does such 
 thinking. 
 
 The colonist signs a contract on entering the colony, 
 one clause of which says that the clothes are not his 
 property till he has fully worked for them ; and that he is 
 acting feloniously, and will be prosecuted for thieving, if 
 he runs away with his new clothes unpaid for. And this is 
 no false threat : it does not happen often ; but if a man thus 
 robs the colony, the police are forthwith communicated 
 with. The men know that, and probably honour the 
 place the more. Indeed, the contract they sign is exceed- 
 ingly strict in many ways. For instance, by signing it 
 they agree that they have no claim whatever to any 
 remuneration beyond their food, though they do eight, 
 ten, and, in harvest time, twelve hours a day. They 
 agree that whatever is given them over and above their 
 food, that even the work provided, is a free gift, and 
 found for them by the kindness of those who would help 
 them. Thus the colonists at once are taught that eating 
 one's own bread, that is, bread one has honestly worked 
 for, is a possession and a blessing in itself. They are 
 treated as men capable of appreciating that blessing. 
 During the first fortnight they receive no wages. Then 
 they receive twopence-halfpenny a day ; after a month, 
 if they work well, they get fivepence, but never any 
 
156 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 more if they work by the day. For the colony is a 
 
 A COLONIST ARRIVING AT WILHELMSDORF. 
 
 bridge towards better times, and not — as, for instance, 
 the sociaHsts would have it — an institution for supply- 
 
The Labour Colony 157 
 ing a man with work on public responsibility. The work 
 
 A COLONIST LEAVING. 
 
 provided for them is the benefit, the gain lying in the 
 work, not in the pay. 
 
158 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 Nor are these wages ever given to the men ; the 
 money is booked for them, and if there is a surplus, over 
 and above the clothes to be paid for, such surplus is 
 not handed over to them even on their leaving, else 
 public-houses would spring up all around and catch 
 the men in a body as soon as the colony has dismissed 
 them. If the men go into a situation on leaving, their little 
 savings are remitted to the care of their new employer ; 
 if they go to seek work, the sum is sent by post-office 
 order to any address they can name at a safe distance. 
 For provision along the road they are directed to the 
 " Verpjlegungs-stationl' (of which anon,)* or, as the case 
 may be, a railway ticket to their destination is given 
 them at their own expense. 
 
 The colony endeavours to encourage piece-work, 
 especially when the men do more than eight hours a day ; 
 for thus the diligent man gets more than the loiterer, and 
 industry is inculcated. Also piece-work, singling out 
 the laborious man from the idler, enables the former to 
 repay the colony the sooner for the clothes given. And 
 once this stage is reached — requiring some months, of 
 course, even with an industrious man, if he has been 
 fully clad — the battle towards respectability generally is 
 won, and the man may be drafted back to the outer 
 world. For the colony is not only a helper in distress, 
 it is also a labour agency, assisting the men to regular 
 employment elsewhere ; and the sooner this can be 
 effected, the sooner others may be received in their 
 place. 
 
 There is a healthy look about the men^ and if you 
 * Vide p. 174. 
 
The Labour Colony 
 
 159 
 
 talk to them, they express themselves satisfied. It is 
 hard work, but it is just as hard as it should be, and it 
 is what they are told they have come for. Most are 
 thankful for the well-ordered life — it is luxury con- 
 sidering the life left behind. 
 
 There is of course perfect discipline, although really 
 there is no one to enforce it. At 5.30 of a summer 
 morning the men have had their breakfast, and are 
 standing in rows in the farmyard, awaiting the house- 
 father's telling them off for the day's work, every troop 
 going its way with an overseer — not a slave-driver but a 
 man to keep them to their work by just working with 
 them : it is a brother of Nazareth, not to talk religion 
 to them, but to act religion before them, and be their 
 example. He keeps up the cheerful tone, and shows 
 them the beauty of work. They may get religion along 
 with that, but unconsciously. There is a time for every 
 thing, is the order at Wilhelmsdorf, and there is a time 
 for saving, even for soul saving — by the sweat of the 
 brow. Besides the fields surrounding, there is a beauti- 
 ful garden producing a variety of vegetables, strawberries 
 and other fruit. Walking about, you would see a fine 
 nursery of fruit trees bursting with their first blossoms after 
 being grafted. The colonist who had done that grafting 
 was watching his work with evident love for the saplings, 
 and maybe he was learning something of the new life, 
 and the pruning away of old sins. At any rate he had 
 it there before him in nature, and he looked like a man 
 pruned — one would not ask him. Yet this man had 
 been a ragged tramp, an habitual out-of-work, and had 
 been in the house of correction for loafing and disorderly 
 
1 60 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 doings. He had been nearly a year at Wilhelmsdorf, 
 when he did that grafting. 
 
 Much of course depends on the house-father, and 
 Wilhelmsdorf has a house-father and house-mother 
 after Bodelschwingh's own heart. There was a soldier 
 in the Franco-German war, a peasant's son of the 
 Ravensberger Land, who, pressed by the enemy one 
 day, vowed a vow, if he should be spared, to consecrate 
 his life. On returning to his native village, he found 
 that on that very day, his father, with an old friend 
 (none other than blind Heermann !), had been on their 
 knees for hours, praying for their soldier lad, moved 
 with a sense of his danger. This man, Meyer by 
 name, returned to his calling — he was bailiff on a 
 large property. Several years passed, and he had not 
 redeemed his vow — he did not " quite know how." One 
 day a Missionsfest was announced, a special missionary 
 gathering, at which Pastor von Bodelschwingh was to 
 speak. Meyer had heard of Bodelschwingh, but he had 
 never heard or seen him, and was anxious for that 
 treat. So he took a holiday from his farm labour — he 
 was away on the Rhine — and went. Bodelschwingh 
 probably that day, with his usual warmth, pleaded 
 for labourers in the vineyard. Meyer was conscience- 
 stricken, and offered himself to Bodelschwingh for one 
 year's collector's work * at his own expense. This, 
 some one had told him, might be his thank-offering. 
 But Bodelschwingh looked at him — " Stay your year by 
 all means," he said : " perhaps you will stay altogether. 
 I want a house-father for the unemployed — one who can 
 
 * Vide p. 269. 
 
The Labour Colony 
 
 i6i 
 
 teach them how to work." And this is how the first 
 labour colony came by the man to whom most of the 
 outward success is due. 
 
 Meyer is a splendid farmer, and a true-hearted 
 Christian. And there is a house-mother — he found 
 her only after he had decided for that work — his true 
 helpmeet. That simple couple manage these hundreds 
 of degenerate men ; and everything is in order, every- 
 thing under authority, everything cared for. One 
 wonders how — but there it is, one cannot help seeing it. 
 Everything as it should be. It needs but a look at the 
 place, and seeing is believing. That quiet house-mother 
 in her kitchen, with only three young servant-maids 
 under her, managing such a household ! Everything is 
 spick and span, the colonists supplying rough labour — - 
 a plain farmhouse kitchen, with saucepans like engine 
 boilers, clean as a drawing-room, and the little house- 
 wife explaining to you, as you follow her wonderingly, 
 how she is ever trying to do well by the men, yet not in- 
 creasing expenses. There is no law as to expenses, no rule 
 laid down to guide her — " so you have to satisfy your own 
 conscience both ways,'' she said, and surely all is as it should 
 be. Her contrivances bear examining. That kitchen 
 would cost double in this country, and not turn out more 
 satisfactory food. Conscience and heart are two wonderful 
 possessions in such a house-mother — a wealth in them- 
 selves ; spending wealth, that is kindness, yet keeping 
 under expenses. No one who works along with Pastor 
 von Bodelschwingh is under any law, save that one law, 
 " Do it as unto God," and this is how the colony works. 
 
 Dining with the labour colony of course was a novel 
 
 I T 
 
1 62 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 experience ; but having walked about all the morning, 
 one was ready to share labourers' fare. The Crown Prince 
 
 COLONISTS PEELING POTATOES. 
 
 once had done so, refusing any extra culinary attention, 
 and Bodelschwingh always sits down with his Wilhelms- 
 
The Labour Colony 
 
 163 
 
 dorfer when he visits the colony. But you might have 
 been in a Trappist cloister for silence. They had done an 
 honest morning's work — hard work — and ate with a will. 
 It was with a strange sensation, even with a lump in 
 one's throat, one watched these men ; they all looked 
 alike, some a little more heavy than others, some a little 
 more wistful than others — not much difference ; and yet 
 one knew that side by side with the cottage-born out- 
 cast, here one and there one, were those not born to be 
 there — men of gentle birth and training, who had come 
 hither by the way of transgressors, which is hard. As 
 one scanned their countenances, one could not say there 
 was bitterness among them, nor did they look cowed, 
 but rather humbled, and thankful for their food. Who 
 can tell what goes on in the hearts of these men ? A 
 Psalm is read after dinner, and then they have an hour 
 to themselves, the midday rest. 
 
 Mrs. Meyer has five little children, rosy and fair, 
 growing up among these outcasts — a happy family of 
 their own. The house-father kindly gave up a whole 
 afternoon to our inquiries, though it was harvest time ; 
 and one learned much of him. His unostentatious ways, 
 his real piety, his honest manhood, and affection for his 
 large family, help one to understand how this rescue 
 work is done. His eye is everywhere — a simple, guile- 
 less eye, but nothing seems hidden from it — and obedience 
 to him seems, not the law, but the natural condition of 
 the place. The men — remember they are a collection of 
 vagabonds of all ages between sixteen and sixty — all 
 call him " House-father." How much there is in that one 
 word to educate these men ! 
 
164 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 Wilhelmsdorf has not only its fields to show, but also 
 a fine live stock. They began ten years ago with two 
 cows ; there are now about fifty, all bred and reared in 
 the colony ; horses, also, some of them the house-father's 
 pride ; and last, but not least. Master Bacon and family — 
 such a tribe of them. There is a pattern swineherd, too, 
 one of the colonists, a regular Wamba — Gurth, we ought 
 to say, but somehow he reminded us of Wamba. The 
 man is over seventy, but if ever you go to Wilhelmsdorf, 
 be sure and watch him. " Aren't they darlings ? " he said, 
 showing his herd — there must have been nearly a 
 hundred, old and young, boar, sow, and sucking-pigs, 
 and they did look flourishing. He has a way of cluck- 
 clucking for them, quite tenderly, like a hen for her 
 chickens, and they come running after him, rolling and 
 waddling — there appears to be room for affection even 
 in a pig. He at least said, " You have got to love 
 them else they won't thrive ! " He was right, if his 
 meaning was, " whatsoever thou doest, do it with all thine 
 hearty 
 
 He is quite a character, that man, tall and lean, with a 
 long white beard, wearing an indigo-coloured blouse with 
 a leather belt. Call him Wamba ? he is more like that 
 honest old swineherd of the Odyssey, in whom Homer 
 delighted. He has been in the colony some six or seven 
 years, so is quite a fixture, old and useless as the world 
 goes, yet surely earning his bread. He is a Roman 
 Catholic, and it so happened when Romish Rhineland 
 started a labour colony of its own persuasion, poor old 
 Wamba was induced to report himself there. He went. 
 But labour colonies are no houses of detention, and 
 
The Labour Colony 
 
 165 
 
 before long he presented himself again at Wilhelmsdorf, 
 asking for re-admission, was received and for the rest 
 was silent. A visiting magistrate after awhile got it out 
 of him : " Why did you not stop at Maria Veen ? — that's 
 the place for you!" — "Didn't like the food," says 
 Wamba. " Oh no, surely," urged the visitor, " the monks 
 cook well, besides we don't pamper you here." " No," 
 says Wamba, " but the pigs is cared for. . . . You see," 
 he broke out, " them monks is always a-praying, and 
 that church bell never stopped. / could nohow do my 
 duty by their pigs — and that's why I came back ! " And 
 so to this day, a queer-looking solitary man, he is doing 
 " his duty " by the bristly creatures which are kith 
 and kin to him, he having neither kith nor kin left 
 elsewhere. 
 
 There are several " fixtures " of that sort at Wilhelms- 
 dorf. A son of a pastor is there, having no one left to 
 care for him, and who, in consequence of an illness, has 
 grown deaf and dazed, but who is earning his bread 
 honestly on the farm— a " faithful soul," said the house- 
 father. What more can a man be, even at Wilhelms- 
 dorf, than faithful ? 
 
 Wamba's opinion as above given has not been recorded 
 to disparage the Roman Catholic labour colony, but 
 rather to show his own affection and loyalty for 
 Wilhelmsdorf, which had first taken him in. Wilhelms- 
 dorf, as the original labour colony, fitly stands as a type ; 
 moreover, it is the only one of which these pages may 
 speak from personal observation. Maria Veen does good 
 work, both agriculturally and as a rescue agency, among 
 the Roman Catholic population which preponderates in 
 
1 66 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 the Rhine-land. It was opened three years ago, and has 
 registered about six hundred inmates. 
 
 It were necessary, perhaps, to visit the several colonies 
 in order to get a comprehensive impression of the com- 
 pleteness and thoroughness of the undertaking ; certainly 
 in order to grasp fully the whole machinery in its details. 
 It so happened that a Frenchman has done so, a M. 
 Georges Berry, deputed by the Paris Municipal Council. 
 France had heard of these colonies, and, standing face 
 to face with her own social question, delegated a com- 
 mission, headed by M. Berry, to consult her neighbour 
 across the Rhine. Now, no one will accuse Frenchmen 
 of a natural leaning to enhance the merits of that neigh- 
 bour; and going from colony to colony, this commission 
 in duty bound will have examined things with a critical 
 eye; but their report, written purely for the Paris 
 Municipal Council, is a fine feather in their neighbour's 
 cap. M. Berry prefaces his Bulletin with the admirable 
 remark : II y a beaucoup a apprendre chez les Alleinands^ 
 mats pen a prendre " — i.e., " We have much to learn 
 from these Germans, but we cannot just copy them ! " 
 His report, however — quite a pamphlet, soberly written — 
 is brimful of the sincerest approval ; and returning to his 
 own Paris, he urges his fellow councillors not to " copy," 
 h\x\.to do likewise. 
 
 He describes several of the colonies minutely, especially 
 the Berlin colony, which is an industrial one, and the one 
 at Magdeburg which is both industrial and agricultural. 
 This latter was started only in 1888, and according 
 to this Frenchman is not only in splendid working order, 
 but is actually a " paying concern," due to the fact 
 
The Labotn^ Colony 
 
 167 
 
 that it is situated on ground for which only a nominal 
 rent, so far, was paid, and which now, at a nominal price, 
 is about to become the property of the colony. This 
 colony from the second year of its existence has paid its 
 way, even with a surplus — the result chiefly of market 
 gardening. 
 
 We inquired of House-father Meyer how Wilhelms- 
 dorf stood in this respect ; and he told us, if he never had 
 more than a hundred mouths to feed, Wilhelmsdorf 
 would in time be self-supporting. Be it remembered 
 the land in question has first to be reclaimed ; surely 
 this is no small measure of success, if along with such 
 soil-reclaiming one can feed a hundred labourers, and yet 
 see one's way to being self-supporting! But Wilhelmsdorf 
 in the winter, when work is slack, has been feeding three 
 and four hundred men at times, finding occupation for 
 them purely for their own sake. These numbers, however, 
 have lessened, as other colonies rose to do their part. 
 Two hundred to two hundred and fifty inmates is the 
 normal winter figure now. The whole capital sunk in 
 the Senne, including Rehoboth and several other 
 stations, is about fifteen thousand pounds, and 
 Wilhelmsdorf has a yearly subsidy of fifteen hundred — 
 at most two thousand pounds. These are modest figures, 
 considering it means " saving " six hundred men year by 
 year and reclaiming land which year by year gains in 
 value ! And the province is not out of pocket by making 
 these grants, but very much to the contrary. In all 
 these colonies a certain number of the submerged get 
 sufficiently reclaimed to be put into positions of trust on 
 the working-staff ; some in the offices, others supplying 
 
1 68 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 the machinery of the household. In fact, these colonies 
 do answer, and in a very real sense they pay. 
 
 A further development of the system is the HeimatJi 
 Colonie near Bremerhaven, which purposes to receive 
 selected cases from all the other colonies — men who by 
 industry and good behaviour have proved their claim to 
 further help. These are to be settled at that " Oivn Home 
 Colony " on little plots of land, having to work their way 
 into possession, something after the fashion of " Work- 
 man's Home" (of which anon); except that their own 
 labour is the purchase money. A certain Pastor Crone- 
 meyer is the mover of this extension scheme ; but it is 
 just a development of Pastor von Bodelschwingh's own 
 grand idea of a " hearth and threshold of his own " for 
 every deserving vian, as the truest means of salvation in 
 earthly things. It is too soon to judge of this further 
 project ; but as to its principle — who could question its 
 wisdom in these days of social democracy ? And, there- 
 fore, there is little doubt but that it will be worked out 
 aright, and that its own measure of success presently 
 will speak for it. 
 
 We will conclude this chapter with a Christmas scene 
 in one of the colonies, reported by a chance visitor. 
 
 There are good voices among the colonists — why 
 should there not be ? — and for weeks, encouraged by the 
 house-father, there is much practising of the carols and 
 Christmas hymns, which even these outcasts remember 
 from the days of their childhood when they had mothers 
 to teach them, or at any rate attended a school. What 
 silent chords these carols and hymns may touch ! what 
 memories of brighter, purer days ! And through the long 
 
The Labour Colony 169 
 
 December evenings these songs ring out into the wintry 
 night. And day after day the postman never faihng, 
 brings parcel upon parcel ; friends of the friendless far 
 and near remembering these strangers. All sorts of useful 
 things are sent, and even pretty things, little fingers here 
 and there filling the pockets of the Christkind for the 
 cheering of the homeless colonists. There is much 
 poetry in the Fatherland about Christmas time, and the 
 Christ Child is busy. And they of the colony, life- 
 hardened, aye sin-hardened though they be, feel some- 
 thing of the breath blowing about them. Even they 
 look for Christmas : who does not, though his world 
 seem all empty of love ? 
 
 And on Christmas Eve they are busy from an early 
 hour in the day ; evergreens and fir branches have been 
 brought in by the cartload, and the whole house is hung 
 with garlands. And then the colonists, like children, 
 are turned out of the room ; the Christmas tree, as tall 
 as the room will hold, is brought in for the house-father 
 and house-mother to decorate. And when the doors 
 open at nightfall upon this family there is a sea of light : 
 the message of a German Christmas tree is all light — 
 the Light that came into the world. 
 
 They had put up a picture at the foot of that 
 tree, transparent and illumined from behind — Ludwig 
 Richter's beautiful picture representing the stable and 
 the manger and the kneeling shepherds before the 
 Child. And silence fell on these men, these colonists — 
 they in the background, and the house-father's little 
 children in front beneath the tree. And the children's 
 voices sang the children's hymn of the angels, and 
 
r 70 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 shepherds, and the flocks by night. The house-father 
 thereupon, turning to the second chapter of St. Luke, 
 read the old old story, yet ever new — new to these men 
 that night. And then they had their presents, each man 
 what love had provided — a love he knew not, and yet it 
 remembered him — an earthly friend's love, to tell him of 
 a Love beyond. 
 
 And so, even at a labour colony, there is Christmas 
 Eve ; the more solemn strain changing into merriment 
 and laughter and nut-cracking, and rejoicings over the 
 unexpected gifts. 
 
 The visitor present asked that house-father was there a 
 true blessing ? Foolish question : when eyes grow bright 
 or shine with the hidden tear, when the touch of love 
 quivers through the soul, when rough men stand in holy 
 silence because the hush of Eternity is upon them, will 
 you want to see the blessing with your earth-bound 
 eyes ? 
 
CHAPTER X 
 DARKEST GERMANY TRAMPING 
 " Compel them to come in." 
 
 HE labour colonies throughout Germany, though 
 
 each an independent institution, act hand-in- 
 hand, forming a moral leverage of growing power. It 
 is by Pastor von Bodelschwingh's indefatigable efforts 
 that this united action has come about ; he knows that 
 union is strength, and to him it is mainly due that a 
 central committee, to which each local committee sends 
 a representative, is now in full working order, with head- 
 quarters in Berlin. Count Zieten-Schwerin is President, 
 and there are regular sessions to consider the weal and 
 woe of the unemployed, investigating and comparing 
 the experiences and results of the several colonies 
 established for their benefit, and being ever on the look- 
 out for improvement. They issue a monthly magazine 
 called The Labour Colony (now in its eighth year), 
 and publish the reports and balance-sheets of all the 
 colonies. Thus, what by mercy and charity is done 
 in a corner, is proclaimed on the housetop for the 
 nation at large to watch and to know. Every penny 
 is accounted for, and whoever cares may know exactly 
 what is being done. 
 
 These labour colonies are semi-private undertakings, 
 
A Colony of Mercy 
 
 invariably set on foot by private action ; there is always 
 a grant by the province or country to start them, and 
 subsidies are continued to them according to the 
 need they set themselves to combat, but a great deal 
 is done by voluntary effort and free-will contribution 
 locally. Each colony is a provincial institution, yet 
 they render the most public account of themselves 
 year by year. This is one reason why they prosper ; 
 they are to all intents and purposes a public organisa- 
 tion for the good of the people, benefiting not only 
 the unemployed, but the country itself 
 
 And it is a powerful organisation, quietly spreading 
 a net over the land — over Darkest Germany at least ; 
 it has a hold upon the vagabonds. A man's antecedents 
 are tolerably known at the colonies ; for on first pre- 
 senting himself, although his own deposition is taken, it 
 is not implicitly relied on. Wilhelmsdorf, for instance, 
 employs a special secretary, himself a saved character, 
 whose business it is to identify any applicant with his 
 past. This is possible in a country like Germany : you 
 have but to send a letter of inquiry to that man's 
 Heiviath—his home-parish. A man's " home " in the 
 eye of the law, firstly, is the place of his birth and 
 early upbringing, but, secondly, any place where he was 
 domiciled for two years and upwards. Also any town 
 or village where he has been at work will have registered 
 him and his doings for the time being. A man can 
 be traced in Germany, and the labour colonies generally 
 surprise their inmates after two or three weeks by 
 knowing all about them, especially if there are things 
 a man would prefer to hide, such as having been in 
 
Darkest Germany Tramping 
 
 173 
 
 prison. This may be a curious revelation to the free- 
 born Briton, but it is not altogether amiss, for if the 
 country has a hold of you, you also have a hold of 
 the country ; and if you are an honest man in trouble, 
 your home-parish, even of two years' residence only,* has 
 certain duties towards you ; meanwhile you certainly 
 are under control. A man here is known to the police 
 only if he misbehaves himself ; in Germany he cannot 
 be long in any place without being duly registered. 
 It is the paternal government. 
 
 But to return to the colony. A man on leaving is 
 not altogether allowed to drift. He may leave any 
 day, even if in no wise a saved character, the duration 
 of his stay at the colony being quite voluntary, except 
 for the conditions of the contract he has signed ; but on 
 leaving he carries with him a Wanderschein (vagrancy 
 certificate) to which more explicit reference will be made, 
 further on,t and by means of which, if he chooses to 
 avail himself of assistance by the way, his intermediate 
 life can be followed up. Also, if he misbehaves himself 
 at one colony, or if he leaves feloniously with clothes 
 unpaid for, this is made known to all the other colonies ; 
 he is entered in the " black book," as even the vagrants 
 call it. This black book, a sort of outside conscience, 
 acts as a wholesome restraint. 
 
 * The labour colonies, for instance, never keep a man longer 
 than one 3'ear and eleven months, after which he is sent away 
 with permission to return. If they kept him over two years 
 they would be bound to provide for him — he would become 
 heimaths-berechtigt, entitled to claim his "home" in the 
 colony ; not that many do stay to that length of time. 
 
 t Vide p. 177. 
 
174 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 It is indeed a fact that a net of guardian helpfulness, 
 quietly but steadily, is spreading over Darkest Germany, 
 gathering in the vagabonds, of which net the labour 
 colonies only form a part. The colonies, so to speak, 
 are the lowest rung of the ladder by which the un- 
 employed may climb back to the hopeful life ; they 
 are for men who have sunk, who are submerged. But 
 what if one could prevent their sinking? what if one 
 could carry the labour-seeking population along the 
 high roads, helped and cheered — helping them to food, 
 keeping them from drink, assisting them to work 
 thus cheering them ? Then they need not sink. And 
 is prevention not better than cure ? It is being done. 
 
 Natural-verpflegungs-station, even with hyphens, is 
 a dreadful word, and quite untranslatable ; it means 
 an open door for the unemployed tramp, where he 
 will find relief in kind. These stations — we will call 
 them relief stations for short— form the great network 
 we have spoken of; they are organised all over 
 Germany, an essential part of the whole system for 
 aiding the unemployed. That German name, long as 
 it is, does not fully describe them, leaving out the im- 
 portant fact that these stations do not treat the vagrant 
 as a pauper simply ; he is expected to work for the 
 relief provided, and, if he is an honest labour-seeker, his 
 search is assisted. These stations operate in connection 
 with the labour colonies. The English reader will 
 scarcely believe it, but there are close upon two thousand 
 of them in Germany — to be correct, they number at 
 this moment 1967, being added to continually — open 
 to any labour-seeking, moneyless individual, and costing 
 
Darkest Germany Tramping 175 
 
 the country the nowise heavy sum, considering, of a 
 million and a half of marks yearly (;^7 5,000). 
 
 The relief stations are a creation of the last ten or 
 twelve years only. They have their origin in a law of 
 the State, then introduced, which provides that every 
 German subject in distress may at least claim one 
 night's lodging and one day's food at the hands of the 
 parish within whose boundaries he may happen to be. 
 (Of that " home-parish " above-mentioned he may claim 
 more under certain conditions.) Says Pastor von 
 Bodelschwingh, " Who, then, is in distress, if not the man 
 driven to beg because there is no one to employ him ? " 
 
 Now, these stations, first thought of in Wiirtemberg, 
 South Germany, to combat house-to-house begging, 
 have passed through various phases : they were ap- 
 proved and disapproved by public opinion, and they 
 were not at first in every instance what true charity 
 would have them be. But there was a power at work 
 to shape them, to draw them into a system, and though 
 they are still in some respects in a transition state, 
 they are fast becoming a high-road along which 
 " Darkest Germany " is passing with increasing benefit. 
 
 It was Pastor von Bodelschwingh who, at a home 
 mission congress in 1884, moved "the organic unity 
 of all labour colonies and relief stations throughout 
 the Empire " ; it was in answer to this appeal that the 
 Central Committee at Berlin, already spoken of, was 
 formed, and has ever since been working for that end. 
 He pleaded : " The labour colonies are the provision 
 of charity for the sunken, but it is truer charity to prevent 
 a man from sinking, and the colonies will be simply 
 
1 76 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 swamped if there is not a systematic effort throughout 
 the country for assisting the honest unemployed in 
 search of work. A man shall not beg ; he can give 
 half a day's work for a day's food and a night's 
 lodging, and he shall be driven to seek the labour 
 colony only when his clothes are in rags. To be a 
 true relief station every such station must be a labour 
 agency. The unemployed will tramp the country ; 
 hold your hand over them, help them to be honest 
 tramps, keep them from the public-house, assist their 
 search for work. Put them under a certain discipline 
 for the benefit they receive, and the results in time 
 will be marvellous." 
 
 This, then, is the present state of affairs concerning 
 the unemployed in Germany. Along the great high 
 roads — north, south, east, and west — there are Natural- 
 verpflegungs-stationen, at a distance one from another 
 of half a day's march. The unemployed scarcely 
 can help tramping : let them tramp in stages ; they 
 will fall in with the plan if they know dinner is 
 awaiting them and a night's rest. The morning is 
 for tramping, the afternoon for work as a rule, though 
 the season of the year and other circumstances may 
 modify the arrangement. The work shall not be 
 considered dishonouring, and though it be stone- 
 breaking, a man is not a pauper for that ; but at 
 most stations they provide the more welcome labour 
 of wood-chopping. These unemployed largely make 
 the firewood for the Fatherland. A man arrives by mid- 
 day, has his dinner — most plain, of course, but whole- 
 some and sufficient — and then he must do his required 
 
Darkest Germany Tramping i 7 7 
 
 amount of work ; then he has supper, a social evening 
 with brethren in distress ; no drink, and a decent bed 
 in the dormitory. Next morning he has breakfast, 
 and cfo he must ; his dinner is at the next station. 
 Only over Sunday two nights are allowed, and on 
 Sunday of course the vagrant is a guest, free of work. 
 
 A beautiful arrangement, says the English reader, 
 but how do you prevent this from becoming a gigantic 
 system of abuse, pampering the out-of-work instead 
 of really aiding him, furthering vagrancy instead of 
 suppressing it ? Well, in this way : a man may not 
 tramp as he likes ; he must tramp in strict order 
 from station to station — that is why the stations are 
 planned to be within an able man's walking distance, 
 and there is no turning aside, no doubling back 
 upon your road. A man, setting out, say, from 
 Cologne to Berlin, under pretence of seeking labour, 
 is received at the first station — indeed, at any station 
 — be he an honest labour-seeker or not, for who can 
 tell ? But on leaving the first station the Wander scJiein 
 is handed him, the vagrancy certificate : a little book, 
 paged and ruled into squares, a sort of blank diary. 
 In the first blank square, the first station which gave 
 him relief enters its stamped signature and date ; 
 the second square must be filled by the next station 
 in the order of the road, and so forth ; and if your 
 tramp turns aside from his appointed, indeed self- 
 appointed, way, the next station will not receive him 
 — this is his discipline : and if he arrives at the last 
 stage as unhelped as when he started, that is without 
 having found regular employment (every station being 
 
 12 
 
178 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 ■ a labour agency) he is likely to be a man who will 
 not work, and the house of correction may receive him 
 in the end. For at the stations any employer of the 
 district makes known his want of hands, and a man 
 who can and will work need not tramp for ever. The 
 VVanderschein^ also, is valid for two or three months 
 only, after which it has to be renewed ; and it would 
 not be renewed without inquiring into a prolonged 
 want of employment. The inveterate out-of-work is 
 thus brought to book. 
 
 These stations partly keep themselves by the men's 
 labour, the deficiency being borne by the respective 
 districts, at a great saving to the public purse, always 
 remembering it is cheaper to aid your beggar than 
 let him beg. And it is a wondrously merciful arrange- 
 ment : an unemployed man in Germany positively, by 
 means of these stations, can travel through the length 
 and breadth of the empire without having one pe7iny 
 in his pocket. He is fed and taken in for the night 
 in return for the work he gives. His clothes are not 
 replenished ; if he tramps himself into rags, his next 
 stage is the colony. 
 
 These relief stations (nearly two thousand of them, 
 as we have said) in the course of the year thus 
 receive for a night's lodging and a day's food 
 thousands upon thousands of labour-seeking vagrants, 
 making them work for their absolute necessities, keep- 
 ing them from the need of begging, and largely from 
 the public-house, till regular work is found. The night's 
 lodgings given last year amounted to about three million ; 
 or, in other words, some eight thousand vagrants, on 
 
Darkest Gertnany Tramping 
 
 179 
 
 an average, are in these refuges daily. And although 
 such a gigantic system of regulated helpfulness cannot 
 be free from abuse, yet the use is greater than the 
 abuse — the men are at least under discipline. 
 
 But Pastor von Bodelschwingh and other friends of 
 the movement are not fully satisfied with the existing 
 state of things. They want to see these stations lifted to 
 a higher level, bringing Christian influence to bear as 
 much as possible ; they want to unite the relief stations 
 with another organisation for labour-seeking wanderers 
 — to see them work in connection with the Herbergen 
 zur Heimath. 
 
 What are these ? 
 
 Again we fail to translate the designation. A 
 Herberge is a place for a traveller to put up at — an 
 inn, if you like, only not just an inn. If you take a 
 wayfarer to your fireside you are giving him herberge — 
 " harbouring " him. There is a touch of poetry about 
 this word, a touch of welcome home ; it is an old- 
 world German word, before inns were public-houses. 
 And Heimath means just " home " ; the whole appellation, 
 therefore, meeting the wanderer's eye on a signboard, 
 says to him : " Put up here ; we will try and make it 
 a home." And for whom this home ? For wandernde 
 Handwerks-burschen^ — journeymen artisans travelling 
 for work. If the stations just spoken of are the second 
 rung of the ladder, the Herbergen are the third, a step 
 higher still ; for there a man, though taken in by 
 Christian helpfulness, is not just taken in by charity. 
 He pays his honest penny, and can therefore stay at 
 will, that is, till the employment he seeks is found. 
 
i8o A Colony of Mercy 
 
 Homc-lovcrs as the Germans are, there is a migratory 
 impulse in the people ; and ever since the Middle Ages 
 the young artisan, having served his apprenticeship, 
 took stick and knapsack and went auf die Wanderschaft 
 — a travelling — on foot of course, now stopping here with 
 a master of the craft, now there, thus gaining skill and 
 experience. Indeed, by the guild rules a man could 
 not himself aspire to be a master, establishing a work- 
 shop of his own, until he had had at least three years 
 of this itinerant practice of the craft. He was now a 
 Geselle, a " fellow." There was much that was beautiful 
 about this life in the good old times : it was the young 
 man's first experience of the larger life, the wider 
 horizon. What though he tore himself away from an 
 affectionate father, from a loving mother, the world was 
 bright, he was uncorrupt and could pass along the high- 
 ways uncorrupted. Not that temptation was wanting ; 
 temptation might be part of his training, but temptation 
 did not stalk the highways hand in hand with starvation. 
 The world was not so crowded as it now is, and if 
 there was no work to be had in one village, there was 
 the more chance of finding it in the next, the mediaeval 
 town and city being the high school where the Geselle 
 graduated. The Geselle was not, like his modern repre- 
 sentative, merely the paid workman, who gives his day's 
 work for the day's wage, no one caring two straws for 
 his human needs, or having a kindly interest in his 
 off-hours. The Geselle in those days was an inmate of 
 the master's family, — the master might have half a 
 dozen of them sitting at his table and sleeping beneath 
 his roof, and the master's wife, the Frau Meisterin, was 
 
Darkest Gcriimny Tiawiping i8i 
 
 a good mother to them, mending their clothes too ; and 
 sometimes the master had a pretty child, a growing 
 daughter for the Geselle to win. These were the good 
 old days, the days of poetry and of warmth ; nowadays 
 we have grown colder, the day's wage is all one expects, 
 and the journeyman's chances of his share of the home 
 life are poor. 
 
 But though the heart has died out of this old 
 institution, the habit has survived, and wandernde 
 Handwerks-hurschen — journeying artisans — to any num- 
 ber are within the memory of the present generation. 
 A portion of them might be honest and keep honest, 
 but the century of railroads and of machinery, of over- 
 stocking and consequent dearth of labour, has sadly 
 demoralised the Handiverks-biu'scJi. He, even, in these 
 days of railroad and steam, departed from the old 
 appellation, calling himself a Reisender, a traveller ; and 
 presently he was an " armer'' Reiseiide7% a " poor" traveller, 
 accosting you as such, an awful vision of rags and 
 unkemptness at every turn. They no longer wandered 
 for labour, they tramped for beggar's pence, and had 
 them largely. In such numbers they trod the country, 
 streaming along the highways, that the w^ord Stromer 
 came into use for them. They grew desperate, and 
 people, in villages at least and in lonely country places, 
 were much 'afraid of them. The " streamers " were the 
 pest of the land till within a dozen years ago ; half 
 the crimes committed of highway robbery, of murder, 
 of violence, were by the hand of some Stromer. They 
 were starving, to be sure. i\t first they got no work, 
 and then they would not work. They had their own 
 
l82 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 experience of the battle of life ; fechten (to fight) 
 was their slang for begging, and thus " fighting" they 
 throve— throve sufficiently at least to lead a terrible 
 life from gin shop to gin shop, the publican in his 
 turn, like a vampire, thriving on the Stromer. And 
 if there was an honest Handwerks-bursch among them, 
 he soon got corrupted in these places of drink, and 
 worse things, by day and by night. Where were such 
 to go for a bed ? The owners of the low lodging- 
 houses were their masters in wickedness, and kept 
 them to it for their own gain. It was there they 
 obtained a list of all the houses in the neighbour- 
 hood where a good-natured wife or a careless and 
 frightened servant might be expected to give — give 
 money, or food and clothes, the food and clothes being 
 money too, and saleable for drink. This was the life. 
 
 The following pen-and-ink portrait, as graphic as 
 pitiful, is from the pen of a well-known German writer, 
 and the Englishman abroad before 1880 will readily 
 recognise the likeness ; he will have seen similar figures 
 at every turn in his travels. Says our author : " The 
 vagabond's face is a study — a mixture of sadness, 
 of hopelessness, of peevish discontent, with a glare of 
 hatred sometimes and of bitter sarcasm about his 
 mouth. Of whom his hatred, — of himself, or his neigh- 
 bour who Jias a home? Is it regret eating away at 
 his heart, repentance? is it good intentions — those never 
 kept mtentions with which he is paving his road to 
 hell ? Yet I pity the man — he is so wretched, so 
 forlorn. I would like to say a word to him, comfort 
 him, whisper a word of advice. I scarcely dare. ' Poor 
 
Darkest Germany Tramping 183 
 
 fellow, are you unwell ? ' I venture at last ; ' can I 
 help you in any way ? ' He fails to comprehend ; he 
 stares at me ; there is wonder, there is distrust in his 
 gaze — why should I want to help him ? T meet his 
 gaze, hoping for a chance of reading this riddle of a 
 soul, of understanding something of this walking misery. 
 But no ! the man has sunk too deep even for sympathy ! 
 It is beyond his comprehension that another human 
 being might want to enter into his feelings, beyond 
 his comprehension that he might ease his own heart by 
 unburdening it. One thing he does comprehend. Rising 
 heavily from the stone seat on which I found him, he 
 lifts his tattered hat, and his wretched lips mutter 
 the well-worn sentence : ' Sir, have you a copper to 
 spare ? ' In other words, ' The only relationship between 
 you and me,' he says, ' is the penny you may give me 
 for a dram, and I will forget that I am a hungry and 
 homeless wretch.' " 
 
 The late Professor Perthes, of Bonn University, was 
 the first to direct Charity towards her duty by these 
 rovers. The first Herberge zur Heimath — "journey- 
 man's home " we may call it — was set up at Bonn in 
 1854. Of these Herbergen^ or "home inns," there are 
 now about four hundred in Germany, with some thirteen 
 thousand beds, and always well filled ; so well, indeed, 
 that it is only to meet the demand, should those interested 
 in the movement plead for more of these homes. The 
 journeymen artisans passing through them may be out 
 of work, but they are not the habitual " out-of-work " 
 they are not ragged, they are not the demoralised unem- 
 ployed. The Herberge is to keep the Handwerks-burscli 
 
i84 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 from becoming a Stroiner ; it is for the respectable 
 journeyman passing from one town to another in search 
 of work. Such a one pays for his board as you would 
 pay at an inn, but the charges are the lowest possible 
 — ninepence to a shilling a day for bed and food, 
 eighteenpence if a man have a room to himself 
 
 The characteristic difference between the relief 
 stations and these " homes " is this : the former are a 
 development of parish relief, the latter an expression 
 of brotherly love ; the relief stations are merely secular, 
 and based on a poor-tax which a given district has 
 agreed to levy within its borders for the suppression of 
 indiscriminate charity to street beggars (which in Ger- 
 many includes the beggar's knocking at your own door), 
 whereas the Herberge is established and kept going 
 a committee of home missions. The relief stations in 
 certain respects may be compared to the casual wards 
 in this country, while the Hei^berge has a look of the 
 Young Men's Christian Association about it, — which, 
 indeed, often is connected with these homes, these being 
 of a strictly Christian character. The relief station is 
 managed by an overseer, the Herberge by a Jiouse- 
 father, a brother (deacon) provided by Nazareth and 
 similar institutions. 
 
 The English traveller can scarcely move through any 
 German town, even of moderate size, without coming upon 
 a comfortable-looking, substantial house bearing the in- 
 scription over the lower row of windows, Herberge ziir 
 HeimatJi. Let him enter. He will find a spacious guest- 
 chamber, set with tables and wooden benches, simple and 
 solid, the red-chequered table-linen, and the geraniums or 
 
Darkest Germany Tramping 185 
 
 carnations in the window, lending warmth to the severe 
 simplicity. Everything is tidy and clean. A few pictures 
 on the wall, along with an ordnance map of the district 
 showing the roads, and, more important still, lists giving 
 the names of local employers in search of hands, complete 
 the furniture. This apartment joins another, fitted as a 
 reading-room. Here a man may write his letter, may 
 rest and read ; here also the house-father gathers any 
 who will be gathered to morning and evening prayers. 
 The house is open to any respectable artisan, no matter 
 of what creed, or no creed ; the house is a Christian 
 house, meaning this at once in the narrowest and in 
 the broadest sense ; its doors stand wide, but no man 
 entering is asked about his religion. He is received ; 
 the good influence of the place is ready to do its best by 
 him ; not urging this " best " on him, but making him 
 feel, " it is good to be here." The truer our Christianity, 
 the more widehearted its charity. The house-father is 
 an evangelist, but an unobtrusive one, and the house is 
 a Christian " public "-house. A man may order his glass 
 of beer, but not more than his glass ; spirits are forbidden, 
 and getting drunk elsewhere means dismissal. The 
 evenings are social : no card-playing, but other amuse- 
 ments, and story -telling and laughter ; there is singing, 
 and, of course, the inevitable pipe. A German would 
 not thank you for any religion precluding that : he will 
 smoke himself into paradise or stay out — most of them, 
 at least. But, if plenty of merriment, there is order and 
 discipline. At 9.30 to 10 p.m. this " family " breaks up, 
 and the house-father then invites them to prayers. If 
 he has understood how to make the evening pleasant to 
 
A Colony of Mercy 
 
 them, gaining their confidence by entering into their 
 joys and sorrows, their hopes and anxieties concerning 
 earthly things, he will find it the easier to draw them 
 after him into the room set apart, there to sing a hymn, 
 have a Bible reading, and join in prayer. And if you 
 take these men aright, you will find that most of them, 
 far from. " religious " though they may be, have signs 
 of a hunger somewhere about them — that hunger, 
 though all unconscious sometimes, which God alone 
 can still. And when they go their way, the atmosphere 
 of the house goes with them ; they know the difference 
 between a Christian Herberge and a public-house, and they 
 seek the Herberge again when the next need comes 
 round. What though to many it be the difference to 
 their purse only and the helpfulness gained, is it 
 nothing that about two hundred thousand working 
 men pass through these homes yearly ? Who knows 
 how many, by their quiet influence, are saved from 
 drink — saved too from Socialism,* and helped to lead 
 steady lives? It is the first step in the upward growth. 
 They may stop there, yet it is a step. 
 
 The Herberge homes, then, primarily are open doors 
 for the respectable unemployed, the journeymen artisans 
 passing through a town ; but they are open also, where 
 there is sufficient accommodation at least, to the young 
 men of the place, the working men in employment. 
 There is a room set apart for these, a sort of Young 
 Men's Christian Association room, with books and all 
 that, well warmed and lighted, so that any young 
 artisan — joiner, shoemaker, or tailor — his day's work 
 * Socialism in Germany, for the most part, is simply anarchical. 
 
Darkest Germany Tramping 187 
 
 done, may know where to go. It is his public-house 
 minus his usual temptations. It is often the want 
 of a cheerful home, of a welcome somewhere, which 
 drives the young men in our cities into the places 
 where their feet cannot stand. In the Herberge no 
 religious expectation of any kind is put forward to 
 these visitors ; they may come of a Sunday, read their 
 book, write their letter home ; there is a kindly word 
 from the house-father, and they feel welcome. By 
 degrees they are likely to stay for the evening gathering, 
 and hear a word that may stick. 
 
 At Bielefeld there is a beautiful Herberge^ to which the 
 relief station, with its wood-chopping premises, is joined 
 — that is to say, they are under one roof and managed 
 by the same house-father — the former a child of the 
 local home-mission, the latter a provision of the town, 
 the house-father being the uniting link. The religious 
 influence is dealt out to all alike, the inmates of the 
 Herberge and the vagabond strangers otherwise, of 
 course, not being treated on a par. It is a large house, 
 with splendid accommodation — with large public rooms, 
 too, to gather in the working men round about ; and 
 they are gathered in ! The very air of the house tells 
 of " Social Christianity " combating Socialism. 
 
 All the Herbergen throughout Germany now form an 
 association known as the Deutsche Herbergs- Vereiiiy 
 which has its headquarters at Bethel. How numerous 
 are the threads running together in Pastor von Bodel- 
 schwingh's little study ! But it is the fourth of his 
 coadjutors. Pastor Morchen, who, as general secretary 
 of the Deutsche Herbergs-Verein^ has a hold of this 
 
i88 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 special thread by which the labour-seeking artisans are 
 being led. He is a man wide awake to every improve- 
 ment on their behalf, and has the welfare of his 
 " itinerant parishioners," as he calls them, warmly at 
 heart. 
 
 This, then, is the triple alliance — the Labour Colony, 
 the Relief Station, the Herberge—\N\\\Q}c). is spreading its 
 net quietly, but surely, over all Germany. As a united 
 effort, it has been in working order a few years only, 
 passing from growth to growth, from improvement to 
 improvement ; but it has gathered in the vagabonds, 
 aiding the orderly among them, and making the dis- 
 orderly, if they will tramp, at least tramp decently and 
 in order. You hardly ever see the Stromer now ; both 
 his unkemptness and his desperation have disappeared 
 from the highways. There is method in everything in the 
 Fatherland ; and the State has not been slow in recog- 
 nising, even in working hand in hand with, these efforts 
 of Christian charity. The State has stepped in to say 
 more sternly, and justly too : " If a man is now found 
 starving and ragged, begging and loafing, it must be 
 his own fault, for there is the relief station and there is 
 the colony " ; any loafer, therefore, now has to answer 
 for himself to policeman or gendarme, and the in- 
 veterate vagabond finds himself landed without much 
 ado in the house of correction, there to consider his 
 ways. The house of correction thus, to retain Pastor 
 von Bodelschwingh's fable, is the bunch of hay in which 
 the incorrigible flea eventually is drowned. Many of 
 the " incorrigibles," of course, turning up their noses at 
 the work-providing Fatherland, have simply left the 
 
Dai^kest Germany Ti^amping 189 
 
 country, seeking their begging fortunes under more 
 lenient skies. Constantinople and other Eastern haunts 
 appear to be the present El Dorado of trampdom. We 
 should not wonder, however, if a fair proportion of the 
 " inveterates " were walking the streets of London at 
 this moment, since Britain, too, is a harbour of refuge, 
 asking no questions ! Thus, in plain language, some of 
 the " fleas "' got rid of by Germany are no doubt feeding 
 upon England now. Well, let England follow the 
 example — let her start her own colonies in self-defence. 
 We have shown how Germany has been rid of the 
 pest. 
 
 Not that there is not much misery left in Germany, 
 especially in the great cities. Germany is the home of 
 SociaHsm ; but Socialism, in one direction at least, is 
 being taken in hand with a merciful grip. Thus much 
 seems proved, that out-of-workdom can be grappled with ; 
 and if you set about it aright you will have something 
 to show for your effort — enough certainly, greatly to 
 encourage you to proceed. And the thing to note is, 
 that all this is being done in Germany at a marked 
 saving to the public purse, that is, the combined capital 
 of the country. In the first place, indiscriminate charity 
 is suppressed ; in the second place, and on principles 
 of political economy, it is cheaper to address yourself 
 systematically to the whole lump of misery called social 
 distress than to let each starving beggar go fishing for 
 himself in its turbid waters, or to leave him to the 
 spasmodic efforts of private benevolence. Now, no one 
 would have believed this before Pastor von Bodelschwingh 
 worked out his figures, and put it all on paper for folk 
 
I go A Colony of Mercy 
 
 to consider as a simple lesson in aritiimetic, showing 
 that the rescue of the submerged is not only a duty of 
 Christian charity, but also a bit of ciphering productive 
 of actual gain. He did not go to the country saying, 
 " We must come out handsomely with a hundred thou- 
 sand pounds for these starving beggars." No ; he said, 
 " I will show you how to save them mercifully and 
 kindly, and save our own purses to boot. Charity, of 
 course, appeals to our purses, but it will cost us much 
 less to do it thus and thus ! " Now, folk are apt to be 
 charmed with proposals for the public benefit which go 
 upon lines of saving, of political economy that is — doing 
 charity wisely and well. 
 
 Another point to note — and this brings us to actual 
 results — is this : that not only have the vagabonds 
 largely disappeared, but public crime also has diminished, 
 some of the reports say by about 30 per cent. ! Even 
 the houses of correction, working, so to speak, hand 
 in hand with the colonies, are less needed. There 
 are about twenty of these about the country. In 1885 
 they counted twenty-three thousand inmates; in 1890 
 thirteen thousand. This is progress ! this is saving ! and 
 in a double sense — men, are saved from despair and con- 
 sequent crime, and the public purse is saved, for crime is 
 costly. No wonder, then, that Pastor von Bodelschwingh 
 is believed in for his lessons in arithmetic. He always 
 gets the money he wants, for people know it bears good 
 interest. He is the son of a minister of finance, but he 
 is something else. He is the simplest and most modest 
 of Christians ; and if you talk to him about these things 
 .and the secret of success, he will say, with a beautiful 
 
Darkest Germany Tramping 191 
 
 light in his eye, " Love is the great propeller ; we only 
 need enough of it, and to set to work humbly." 
 
 Charity, it will be seen, is thus fast becoming a science 
 in Germany, if science means system and method and 
 thoroughness. Mere sentiment is a weak prop to phil- 
 anthropy : even pitiful action alone is ; but combine 
 method with both, and you have a system — you have a 
 science. 
 
 / 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE SPIRITUALLY EPILEPTIC 
 " Am I my brother's keeper ? " 
 
 DRINK, of course, is the road by which many of the 
 unemployed eventually find themselves in the 
 labour colony. Either it was drink which in the first 
 instance threw them out of work, or, being out of work, 
 drink was their miserable solace ; and the habitual 
 drunkard, by the nature of him, continues unemployed. 
 
 They come to the colony to be aided, starving as they 
 are, all other doors being closed to them save the house 
 of correction ; but one cannot really aid them without 
 going to the root of their woes. How is it to be done ? 
 Walking about the colony for three or four months with 
 the blue ribbon fastened to your coat, figuratively — for, 
 of course, there is no drink there, save water and your 
 cup of coffee twice a day — and though you work while 
 there, or are made to work ever so diligently, this is no 
 certain cure. What, then, is to be done ? 
 
 Speaking of the colonies as a whole, it is perhaps too 
 early for them to face the question to the full extent of 
 action ; but Wilhelmsdorf, their pattern from the first, 
 has taken the lead in this also. Wilhelmsdorf found it 
 
 had a very special mission to the unemployed drunkard. 
 
 192 
 
The Spirihially Epileptic 193 
 
 As we have abundantly seen, things are never directly 
 planned in that domain of charity. They arise out of 
 the necessities of the work. It is only that an ever- 
 watchful eye is present seeing the necessity, and an ever- 
 ready hand finding a way. But the seeing and the 
 finding in this instance also has its own story. 
 
 At Kinderheim^ in Bethel, where the sick babes are 
 nursed, there is a free bed, the legacy of a poor 
 drunkard. Many beds are free at Kinderheim — indeed, 
 the fifty are free, if need be ; but this one is set 
 apart, and the dying infants /passing through it — a 
 growing family they — will stand in glory one day, and 
 will they not say to that drunkard, " We were forsaken 
 orphans ; we were consumptive, rickety, helpless little 
 things, the children of drunkards ; but thou didst take 
 us in "? 
 
 That drunkard finished his earthly course in his twenty- 
 seventh year. He had early fallen among thieves, and been 
 a vagabond on the highway. The public-house and low 
 lodging-house keepers, and the ill companions gathering 
 at those places, did their work by him — the work through 
 which so many, who but for their terrible surroundings 
 would perhaps not fall so grievously, are ruined body 
 and soul, and brought to an early grave. The Good 
 Shepherd went seeking that youth. He was picked up 
 one night in a quarry into which he had fallen, and with 
 fractured ribs and broken limbs was taken to Sarepta. 
 He was drunk when he met with his accident, and as he 
 lay for three months, nursed by the sisters, he resolved 
 to drink no more. But before the year was out another 
 infirmary had the nursing of him for a similar reason, 
 
 13 
 
194 ^ Colony of Mercy 
 
 He had again been drinking, and got into a street brawl at 
 night ; had again a Hmb broken. He did think he could 
 stand now, for twice he had been punished ; but two 
 years later, from a distant prisor^ a letter came to Pastor 
 von Bodelschwingh, written b)^ the prison chaplain, 
 saying they had a poor convict, fast dying of consump- 
 tion, who was anxiously entreating for leave to die at 
 Sarepta. It was that youth. Drink had brought him 
 the criminal's reward, and now he lay dying. Sarepta, 
 of course, had a bed for him. 
 
 Now, what brought him ? He was not a Christian, 
 but he knew he was dying. What brought him ? He 
 came to find peace at Bethel. A stranger's grave in the 
 little cemetery there was given him, and they put these 
 words for an inscription : " Christ Jesus came into the 
 world to save sinners." Before he died he bequeathed 
 his humble patrimony for the purpose above named. 
 Often enough in the beech wood behind Sarepta, where 
 the invalids breathe the strengthening air, would he have 
 seen the little cots carried out by the sisters. He had 
 been left fatherless, and he pitied the orphan children of 
 drunkards. He was just upon seven-and-twenty, and 
 his little patrimony had not been touched, his mother 
 having left it to be held in trust for him till he should 
 have passed his twenty-eighth birthday, hoping, perhaps, 
 that her prodigal by that time might be " coming home." 
 And so he" was. And this is how a vagabond, a convict, 
 and a dying drunkard made his will. 
 
 His soul was saved, but for this life he paid the 
 penalty ; and those who stood by his dying bed learned 
 from this that a few months of even the truest guardian- 
 
The Spiritually Epileptic 195 
 
 ship will not suffice to wean a drunkard from his 
 temptation without fear of relapse. Such a one requires 
 to be nursed body and soul, and time only, combined 
 with wisest care, can hope to effect a cure. For that 
 young man was not the only slave of intemperance who 
 has found his grave in the little sleeping-ground where 
 epileptics rest from their affliction, the labour colony 
 
 SAREPTA CONVALESCENTS. 
 
 always numbering some dying ones, dying from drink, 
 among her outcast flock ; and, one by one, such were 
 coming to the sick wards of Sarepta. Nor was this 
 all ; for many a one, though coming to die, like that 
 first one of the number, yet came to find life. The 
 sadness was rather for those who also might be said to be 
 dying ones, who stayed awhile at the colony, and had 
 to be dismissed because they would not submit to the 
 
196 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 wholesome restraints put upon them there. Drink is 
 forbidden, but a man, if he so wills, cannot be kept from 
 attempts to procure it ; and dismissal is the only punish- 
 ment for breaking the rules of the place. Such, of 
 course, only leave to sink the deeper. They might be 
 good labourers, they might have done well at the colony 
 in this respect, even finding employment on leaving ; 
 but they are like him whose chamber was swept and 
 garnished for a time, and whose last state is worse than 
 the first. And even with those who stand well at the 
 colony the danger of relapse is very great when the 
 temptations of the unguarded life once more beset them. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is not wholly right to say : It is their 
 own fault ; we have tried to help them, we have done our 
 best ; the colony took them in, but they are irreclaim- 
 able. Truly they are sinning, but society ^^o—you and 
 you — has sinned against them. You met the poor un- 
 employed in rags and tatters, you pitied his starving 
 face, you listened to his tales of woe, you gave him 
 your coppers and walked away. You either should 
 have done mo7'e for him oj^- less^ says the " Greatest 
 Thing " ! The coppers alone may be his ruin. It is 
 largely through your ill-considered charity that man has 
 become what he is ! And with the tenth part of the 
 money given in the streets of our great cities shelters 
 and work-stations could be erected all over the country 
 to take in the unemployed before they sink, making 
 them work fo their keep till regular employment is 
 found. Prevention is not only better, it is also easier, 
 than cure ! And the cure need hardly ever be required 
 if we al knew and did our duty towards preventing. 
 
The Spiritually Epileptic 197 
 
 Ask yourself, honest reader, are you quite sure you could 
 withstand the temptation on a raw November day, in the 
 streets — no work, no home, but pennies to be had for 
 the asking ? Then for God's and your poor brother's 
 sake do not give your pennies any longer, but go and do 
 some preventing, if only by joining pennies together in 
 the right direction ; they will make a stronger hand 
 than yours for the upholding of your brother. 
 
 There is another class — the crippled or half-crippled 
 beggars : surely we may pity them ! They cannot 
 do much work. They beg, they drink, they perish. 
 Even the labour colony is not for such ; for they would 
 need to be there more permanently, and thus would 
 keep out others. Yet, is it right to let them perish ? 
 They are drunkards, they are unemployed : what is 
 to be done with them ? 
 
 It is for these among her flock — for the drunkards, 
 hale or crippled — that Wilhelmsdorf went further afield, 
 founding another little colony at a little distance, and 
 naming it Friedrichs-Hutte. It is a labour colony 
 also, for labour here also is the medicine prescribed ; 
 but it is for inebriates solely. Those who are admitted 
 are supposed to stay at least one year — two or three 
 if thought advisable ; indeed, they pledge themselves 
 on entering this refuge not to leave it again of their 
 own choice. It is expected that their friends, or the 
 parish, should pay a yearly sum for their maintenance 
 over and above their own wages, which, after the manner 
 of Wilhelmsdorf, are never handed over to them in cash. 
 They receive wages on the condition only, that such are 
 forfeited if a man breaks his abstinence pledge. 
 
198 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 But whence the name Friedrichs-Hutte — " Frederick's 
 Cot " ? We have seen that the late Emperor, then 
 Crown Prince of the Empire, was Protector of Wil- 
 helmsdorf. On the occasion of his silver wedding 
 in 1883 a collection of silver pieces — crowns and half- 
 crowns and other coin, the gift of the country, had 
 resulted in a handsome present in cash to their Im- 
 perial Highnesses ; and they made the noblest use of 
 it, furthering the scheme then started for rescuing the 
 unemployed. This Home for Inebriates was opened 
 in 1888, just after the royal sufferer had laid down 
 his earthly crown. It will be remembered from an 
 earlier chapter that in their youth he and Pastor 
 von Bodelschwingh had been playfellows ; what more 
 natural than that the Prince in after years followed with 
 warmest sympathy the pastor's endeavours^ and what 
 more natural than that the pastor in his latest effort 
 should commemorate the Prince's name ? Friedrich 
 in German means ricJi in peace ; and at FriedricJis-Hutte 
 the poor drunkards, perhaps for the first time in their 
 lives, may gain a perception of peace — " liberty to the 
 captive, the opening of the prison to them that are 
 bound." 
 
 It is such a peaceful spot, a farmhouse to which 
 another building has been added, shaded by sparsely 
 planted trees, through which you have a beautiful 
 view over the spreading fields of the Senne to the 
 blue hills beyond. It was a lovely summer evening 
 when we stood there, the golden sunbeams slanting in 
 and steeping the place in a flood of amber. The 
 " patients " had returned from work, and were saunter- 
 
The Spiritually Epileptic 199 
 
 ing about or sitting in groups here and there ; some 
 were foddering the cattle. They are doing real hard 
 work during the day, field labour mostly ; we had 
 watched them making trenches and digging up the 
 subsoil There is a garden, too, well kept by them. 
 Some few are occupied indoors — the endeavour ever 
 being to employ a man according to his fitness. For 
 instance, there was one who had been a cigar manu- 
 facturer, a spare little man, whose limbs ached all over 
 on the fields. He implored those in authority to let him 
 go back to his own trade. Well, and he did go back : 
 these patients are permitted smoking, and they may 
 as well smoke home produce. Friedrichs-Hiitte has 
 some thirty to forty inmates, and a Wilhelms-HUtte, a 
 second refuge, is already springing up, a couple of 
 miles distant. If an " Own Home " colony, such as 
 the one spoken of on a former page, is the extension 
 of the whole scheme at the upper end, colonies like 
 Friedrich's and Wilhelm's-Hiitte are the much-needed 
 provision at the lower ; in the former, men really " worth 
 saving " can be stablished in the worthier life they are 
 trying for, in the latter, those who have sunk too low for 
 strength of will of their own, can at least be controlled 
 and kept from their great temptation, if so be that the 
 educating hand in the end, after all, may set them free. 
 
 Many of these patients are of respectable antecedents 
 — a son of a clergyman, a son of an officer high in the 
 army, a man of good family who had been a wine- 
 grower in Portugal, another whose father is Pasha 
 Somebody in the Sultan's service, are among the 
 number. All these have arrived in the labour colony 
 
200 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 "submerged" through drink. Sometimes also a good- 
 for-nothing youngster is sent there by parents in despair- 
 of managing him. There was such a youthful prodigal 
 newly arrived, and turning up his nose superbly at 
 the idea of work. He looked sadly helpless, poor 
 boy, in rather a fine, if dilapidated suit of clothes, 
 having but just come to the place ; a pickaxe was 
 lying on one side, a copy of Moliere on the other side 
 of him, as he stood in one of the trenches, — " As if / 
 could do such work," he said. " You will soon do it," 
 the Pasha's offspring said consolingly — " it's the one 
 thing here " ; and he certainly set him a good example. 
 There is a house-father of thorough peasant stock, who 
 looks after all their needs — their spiritual needs too — 
 and the pastor (the Senne has its own chaplain set 
 over this flock by Bodelschwingh) is in personal touch 
 with each of them. After a year or more, a trial is 
 given these patients at Bethel itself — and how Bethel 
 employs these rescued sheep the next chapter will tell. 
 
 The Crown Prince one day inspected this sandy 
 waste fast turning into a garden — salvation colonies 
 truly, and bearing the royal names. At 5.30 one 
 summer morning he arrived at Bielefeld, coming straight 
 from Potsdam, and drove out to the Senne. At a 
 village halfway two thousand school-children, gathered 
 from all the neighbourhood, stood awaiting His Im- 
 perial Highness. He graciously reviewed the youthful 
 parade, and listened to their singing. For weeks these 
 children had prepared for the Crown Prince, and as his 
 eagle eye scanned the bright-faced rows, he spied a 
 little girl, poorly clad, and with a nosegay of wild- 
 
The Spirihtally Epileptic 201 
 
 flowers. The little maiden kept in the background, 
 for she was barefoot ; but he went up to her with 
 his most winning smile : " I know, those pretty flowers 
 have been gathered for me," he said ; he took them at 
 the hands of the blushing child, stroking her upturned 
 face, and she, the poorest of them all — she who was 
 last, was first. 
 
 As you go about the Senne — a walk around, in 
 truth, is quite a transformation scene — passing through 
 a growing plantation, the work of Wilhelmsdorf, you 
 suddenly come upon what appears a castle in the wood. 
 You have entered a little oak forest of fine old trees ; 
 it is the one spot in the neighbourhood where there is a 
 break in that ferruginous stratum, an oasis of good soil, 
 of fertile growth therefore in the sandy waste. So 
 oak-trees grew and spread their branches. They spread 
 them all around a little glade, and here your castle 
 rises — a sylvan retreat of perfect charm ; you fall in 
 love with it at first sight. It is the Eichhof- — Oak 
 Court. 
 
 If you look about, you soon discover this too was 
 originally a farmhouse, one of the regular Westphalian 
 peasant glories, for the very entrance hall is but the 
 former threshing-floor swept and garnished. The hand 
 which transformed this place into what it now is, was 
 gifted with the touch of art ; the rooms — drawing- 
 room, dining-room, the little bedrooms, each with a 
 look-out into the deep green — having an old-world 
 style about them which is perfectly enchanting : quaint 
 furniture, high wainscoting, windows lozenge-paned and 
 
202 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 set deep in the mullions ; you fancy yourself in some 
 mediaeval forest haunt ; you picture some high-born 
 dame ruling her thrifty maidens and providing the 
 home comforts for the absent men. You cannot help 
 weaving garlands about this homestead swept by the 
 broad breath of nature ; you would fain build taber- 
 nacles here, stay here for ever, and let the world roll 
 on without you. Goodness and purity seem to have 
 stood sponsors to this Oak Court. 
 
 Yet what is it we have come out to see ? It calls 
 itself, with innocent euphemism, " Pension for gentlemen 
 in search of temporary quiet." It is a refuge for prodigals 
 of high degree. You stop a couple of days at the 
 EicJihof, and as you join the family circle — at meals, for 
 instance — you feel sure they are perfect gentlemen ; so 
 they are, of outward graces, in breeding and in manners, 
 and not, it seems, unhappy in their voluntary or involun- 
 tary retreat. They, too, have come the road of trans- 
 gressors — at least the road of selfish enjoyment, where a 
 man's will is his paradise, doing as he pleases, working 
 his own ruin and that of others. Not all were drunkards — 
 a proportion of them were — there is other intemperance ; 
 there is gambling, there are the fashionable vices which 
 the world condones. Happy they for whom such a place 
 is waiting to take them in when they have come to the 
 dregs. 
 
 The pensionnazres, so far from being of the submerged, 
 are of the upper ten — counts and barons and all that 
 — who when nothing was left but to cut their own 
 throats, were glad to seize the hand good Pastor von 
 Bodelschwingh was holding out to them. They have 
 
The Spiritually Epileptic 203 
 
 mostly been in the army till even the army could no 
 longer keep them. They are of all ages between five- 
 and-tvventy and forty or so. They are pensionnaires — that 
 is, they are kept in every way Hke gentlemen ; they, or 
 their friends for them, pay their ^80 or ;^ioo a year, but 
 tJiey must zvork. There is a large kitchen garden, and 
 these high-born gardeners do theif regular eight hours 
 a day. There is a tale that they once complained to the 
 Pastor, — they pay well, why should they work as well. 
 Said he, " You pay not for your keep only, you pay for 
 the luxury of work provided for you : you never knew 
 that luxury before, and it is so good for you ! " And 
 they own it is good, the health of the place enveloping 
 them. 
 
 The wonder is not so much that they come, but that 
 they stay. There must be invisible cords, and strong ones, 
 which hold them ! We happened to witness the first 
 meeting between Pastor von Bodelschwingh and the latest 
 comer — a young Freiherr of about eight-and-twenty, a 
 handsome good-natured sort of fellow, with not the 
 faintest look of debauchery about him ; he had run 
 through his fortune, and here he was. He had come 
 into Bethel on the Jubilee day with two or three others. 
 Said the pastor to him, " And who are you, viein Lieber}" 
 The baron's name was given in due form and with a bow. 
 But the pastor drew him close, putting his arm about 
 him, and repeating his " rneiii Lieber " as only Bodel- 
 schwingh can. " Let love be among you," he said, " and 
 peace abide." He had laid the young man's cheek 
 against his own, who blushed violently. English folk 
 despise men kissing, deeming it unmanly ; but this was 
 
204 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 the kiss we read of in Luke xv. 20. And if there were any 
 salvation for that young man, it was coming to him even 
 with a father's kiss — it was strong Love putting out her 
 hand saying, " I am thy keeper." A few days after, this 
 same young baron was watching his first attempts in the 
 Eichhof garden — he had sown a row of lobelias, and was 
 very anxious they should be no discredit to him. There 
 was promise here : if you are faithful over your lobelias, 
 there is hope you will be faithful presently over greater 
 things. A man need not be hopelessly bad for being at 
 the Eichhof: it is a young man's upbringing often, the 
 want of a firm hand in time, which lets him slip and fall. 
 The Eichhof, then, is a blessed place for such. 
 
 The rules of the house are strict. No one, having given 
 himself in charge there, may leave the precincts of this 
 oasis without permission, and if he gets leave to go to 
 town (Bielefeld — some seven miles distant), he is under 
 pledge not to enter any place of refreshment save the 
 " hospice " at Bethel. They do not seem to suffer from 
 dulness at the Eichhof : their eight hours done, they have 
 their smoking-room to enjoy a cigarette after meals, or 
 a game of chess, or other amusement. They do not 
 exactly work the flesh off their bones, yet a fair amount 
 of labour is got through. Meadows have been put under 
 irrigation, and the natural oak wood has been turned 
 into a park by these high-born workmen ; they have 
 made paths intersecting the wood ; they have put up a 
 pleasant " Rest and- be thankful " here, a rustic arbour 
 there ; they have made ponds and stocked them with 
 gold-fish. And as you wander through that lovely 
 greenery you once more are enchanted with the charms 
 
The Spirihially Epileptic 205 
 
 of the place ; it is a fairy haunt ; you almost look for the 
 Sleeping Beauty, for a Prince to wake her — the sleeping 
 soul of these men. And there is an awaking in some 
 cases, a breaking through the thorny hedge, an opening 
 of the prison to them that are bound. Fruit is ever 
 slow in growth, but fruit there is in some cases at least. 
 And if most of these men go back to the world and 
 youk now not for what good they have been with you, 
 yet surely a blessing goes with them — a memory, a 
 haunting sense of a goodness they have seen. Who 
 shall say it is in vain? They take away a seed with 
 them, and who shall say it will not grow after many days ? 
 
 Will the reader stop and consider the wonderful good- 
 ness which planned this home ? Homes of charity for 
 the poor we are used to, but here is a home— a charity 
 in truest sense — :for the nobly born " poor," poor because 
 they have not the riches of grace to stand before the 
 temptations of the world. And how beautifully it is 
 done, just meeting their need, their weakness ! There is 
 nothing of the charity institution about it. But wisdom 
 knows these men arrive at a point when they look about 
 them despairingly, like a drowning man for a plank. This 
 is the moment to say to them, " Come here — rest here — be 
 here a while at peace ! " They are physically down, meet 
 them on that level ; take them, Rousseau-fashion, back to 
 Nature, to the kitchen garden, to the oak wood ; and then, 
 Christ-fashion, draw them close as Bodelschwingh did ; 
 for even your man of the world, your prodigal of 
 manner thrice-guarded, has a hole in the armour for 
 simple love to creep in. It is by love only, love taking 
 us at our level, that any of us ever are saved. 
 
2o6 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 The Eichhof is an ideal, a " working model " in itself. 
 There are hundreds of young men like that Freiherr, 
 fashionable, good-natured, not just very wicked, but no- 
 wise " good," scions of noble families, with no particular 
 object in life — hundreds of them everywhere. Who is 
 holding out a hand to such in this country ? Who says 
 to those who are fast slipping down the incline. You are 
 aweary, come and rest here ? Who provides a resting- 
 place for such in pleasant England, with her secluded 
 parks, her highland wilds — a place so original in its 
 planning, that men would come for the very novelty of 
 the thing, come to taste the luxury of work so ingeni- 
 ously rendered inviting, with companions of their kind ? 
 a place of which they would say, despite themselves, It is 
 good for us to be here, and thus stay ? For at the Eichhof 
 a man is quite free to come and go — this is the marvel. 
 
 Perhaps there is something in this feeling of being 
 among their kind — their " kind " not only in the " upper- 
 ten " sense. They have all known the husks. But 
 the chaplain resident in the house gives his testimony, 
 that good breeding comes out strongly ; a man's previous 
 history though known, in part at least, to those who 
 admit him to that refuge, is never subject of talk among 
 themselves ; they readily fall in with the tone of the 
 house, which is that of cultured company. A man is 
 apt to feel as he is treated, and the wisdom of rescuing 
 love shows most in little things. These men are treated 
 as gentlemen. Nor arc accomplishments forgotten ; if a 
 man has a leaning towards literature he may follow his 
 bent — there are books, there is music ; so dulness is not a 
 feature of the place. 
 
The Spiritually Epileptic 207 
 
 The resident chaplain is pastor of all the Senne flock ; 
 before God, and in that humble place of worship, there 
 is no difference. There " all have sinned and come 
 short." There is a little chapel newly built for the out- 
 of-work, for the prodigals of high and low degree, for 
 the convalescent epileptics of Rehoboth, also, to meet 
 together on a Sunday. There is one point for the eye 
 to rest on in this chapel, a picture — " The Prodigal's 
 Return" — at least a Prodigal's return — for the picture 
 represents Christ Himself receiving the returning one, 
 and the thought embodied in^ that picture is rest, is 
 peace. It is an illustration of — 
 
 Lay down, thou weary one, lay down 
 Thy head upon My breast." 
 
 The original is the work of an artist of no mean skill 
 for putting truth upon canvas ; the copy in the chapel 
 has been made by a lady, who, herself tasting a season 
 of unrest, thought there could be no better use for 
 it than to give it a place in that chapel, through which 
 hundreds of prodigals ever are passing, some of them 
 returning, some of them on their way home. 
 
 There is a collection of autobiographical sketches 
 written by men who have gone through Wilhelmsdorf — 
 men who came there lost and undone, and who, through 
 the labour colony, found the upward way ; it was 
 especially during the earlier years of the colony that 
 Pastor von Bodelschwingh encouraged the inmates, those 
 who could, to write down their life-historj^, showing 
 the road by which they had come. Some of these 
 accounts are simply heart-rending, all are touching, 
 leaving a feeling with the reader, " Who art thou, that 
 
2o8 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 God has kept thee from this ? Who art thou, to throw 
 a stone at thy brothers ? " These manuscripts, of course, 
 are not for the public eye. No two of them are alike-— 
 they are such different ways by which these men had 
 sunk to the level of the unemployed, the vagabond, 
 the starving outcast. But one keynote runs through 
 them all — now more veiled, now frankly confessing — 
 this is the one cry, " I have sinned ! " If a few 
 only could add, " I will arise and go to my Father," 
 yet the depth through which they had passed had 
 brought them to say, " I have sinned ! " and if truly so, 
 this depth already is a rising. It is so easy to look at 
 an unfortunate man with the Pharisee's " Thank God, I 
 am not Hke him ! " We may not be like these Senne 
 folk, never doing a thing men can blame us for ; yet 
 some of these outcasts of society, prodigals though they 
 were, may one day be first when some of us are 
 last. There is nothing more soul-destroying than mere 
 respectability. It will be true of Wilhelmsdorf, as it must 
 be true of any collection of men, that many are called 
 and few chosen. Maybe that but few who pass through 
 its blessings of seclusion, its saving influences, will really 
 be saved — saved with their soul's salvation in the end. 
 But of some it may be said— it can be seen in these 
 biographies, and House-father Meyer bears witness, 
 having their grateful letters — that they take with them 
 one of the greatest blessings to be won in the valley 
 of humiliation, the meek and chastened spirit, the 
 Prodigal's crown. 
 
 A drive through the Senne on a summer evening 
 leaves with you one feeling only — beauty for ashes! 
 
The Spiritually Epileptic 209 
 
 How wretched were their Hves : they had sinned, they 
 had strayed, they were unsuccessful, and ashes only 
 were left. Nothing left to naake life worth having, not 
 even work. They came here. The Senne itself is 
 rising out of nature's ashes, being fast clothed in the 
 fair garments of beauty honestly won. The hand of 
 industry guided by brotherly love has done it. The 
 ripening fields, the verdant meadows, the hills and the 
 brooks, the plantations and the heather of the yet un- 
 claimed wastes, the little church rising in the midst — 
 what a picture of peace ! And as the sun goes down, 
 and the purple shadows creep over the hills, you know, 
 for you have seen it that day, that the gospel of Christ 
 is not for them that never knew hunger ; it is for the 
 suffering, the sinning, for them that are bound, opening 
 their prison and proclaiming to them the acceptable year 
 of the Lord. A man must have known something of 
 ashes to be ready for Christ's beauty, and the true oil 
 of joy is for the mourners first of all. Do we not know 
 that Christ never had many messages for the rich, the 
 well-behaved orderly folk of society ; but that His tender- 
 ness was for the poor, the sinning, the outcast — the 
 " submerged," in fact, of those days ! Why is this ? Is it 
 because each of us is a brother's, a sister's keeper, but 
 we keep them not ? we know their temptations, yet we 
 do not even outwardly " keep " them — helping them to 
 purer surroundings ; we have our two coats, our 
 abundance of the easier life, and we say we are thankful 
 we have ! Is it because we have so very little to spare 
 for these brothers, not even the steadying hand — that 
 therefore Christ, the merciful, has to make up to these 
 
 14 
 
2IO A Colony of Mercy 
 
 poor ones for our coldness ? and He does ! Jesus of 
 Nazareth, first of all, is the friend of the poor ! Pastor 
 von Bodelschwingh says there is not more distress in the 
 world than is good for us — for us who are not distressed 
 — that there is only just enough to keep love going. 
 For every hungry one there is another who has enough 
 and to spare, for every one in tatters there is one with 
 two coats — is not Christ's meaning obvious ? Thus even 
 squalid poverty becomes transfigured : it is Christ's 
 training ground not only for the poor, but for the not- 
 poor to learn a great lesson ! Am I my brother's 
 keeper ? 
 
 What if there were not more distress in England, 
 not more drunkenness born of ill-housed poverty, not 
 more unemployed, ill-fed misery, than is good to bring 
 wealthy England to Christ ? Why should there not be 
 a Senne in this country also? 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE CA VE OF ADULLAM 
 
 " And every one in distress, and every one in debt, and every one 
 discontented, gathered themselves unto him, and he became a captain 
 over them." 
 
 HIS is literally true! Pastor von Bodelschwingh 
 
 has a way of his own of proclaiming liberty to 
 the captives, of opening the prison of them that are 
 bound. He trusts a man ; even if a man has been 
 to prison, he finds ways and means of trusting him 
 yet He saves him by trusting him! And it pays! 
 
 One of the wonderful things about Bethel is the art 
 it has developed of " making room." It is a favourite 
 expression there " Enlarge the tent ! " and with singular 
 ease they pull out the pegs of even the fully-stretched 
 tent, enlarging it yet again. It is so elastic, this tent of 
 theirs — so adaptable, too ! It has gathered the poor 
 and the maimed and the blind, and yet there is 
 room. 
 
 Has a man lost his footing in the world, from what- 
 ever cause ? is he in trouble ? is he in despair of any kind 
 — honest despair that would be helped? let him go to 
 Bethel. A hand is sure to be wanted about the offices 
 that very day : most fortunate you have come ; these 
 
212 A Colo7iy of Mercy 
 
 books want revising ; that clerk is overburdened ; some 
 important copying work has got to be done ; just stay 
 and help us ! xA.nd the man stays ; and he feels wanted 
 — one of the finest moral pulleys in this world of sink- 
 ing folk. He picks up courage directly, he picks up 
 self-respect, he looks an inch taller before the week is 
 out. A noble pride has risen to repay such trust. 
 The observant eye marvels at this unwritten page of 
 Bethel's history. Even here we must not do more than 
 just touch upon it. One is at a loss what more to admire, 
 the trust given or the trust repaid. For it answers — in 
 a wonderful way it answers ; it stands proved and tried. 
 
 A great staff of subalterns, of course, is required about 
 such a colony — men outside the actual circle of labour 
 of love, men who work for a living : clerks, book- 
 keepers, cashiers, secretaries, copyists— nearly all these 
 at Bethel are shipwrecked mariners ; and Bethel not 
 only is the lifeboat to carry them ashore, it also is 
 the terra firma on which they eventually may stand. 
 Or, more properly speaking, in many an instance Bethel 
 is lifeboat and nothing more — taking a man in for a 
 time and piloting him back to the world whence he 
 has slipped ; but in many another instance the ship- 
 wrecked stranger remains and develops into a useful 
 worker. He was helped — he stays to help. 
 
 This has come about quite naturally, as things are 
 apt to come about at Bethel. Among the " submerged " 
 passing through Wilhelmsdorf, among the victims of 
 intemperance finding refuge at Friedrichs-Hiitte, there 
 are many concerning whom true charity says, " Give 
 that man another chance." They are of the educated 
 
The Cave of Adttllam 
 
 213 
 
 classes. They have had a fall. Their friends have 
 disowned them ; or, if friends would condone, they 
 cannot easily find the employment they are fit for. 
 They stand discredited. Yet the man may be worth 
 saving, worth trusting. We might have fallen, in his 
 environment. We are our brother's keeper, says Bodel- 
 schwingh ; we must put out the hand of love to steady 
 him, and he may stand. 
 
 There is a curious house at Bethel, called " Ephratah." 
 You may spend weeks about the place and take no 
 notice whatever of this house ; it is not talked about. 
 If you do take note of it, you are told a retired mis- 
 sionary required a post of usefulness, and he found it 
 in that house, there being an ever increasing number 
 of clerks and others employed at Bethel, and it is 
 kind to gather them into a family. This missionary 
 is their house-father. He is answerable for some five- 
 and-twenty of these mariners. They do not now look 
 shipwrecked, but they still need piloting, and they 
 know they do. 
 
 A typical case : The son of respectable parents was 
 articled as a clerk, and got an appointment in Berlin. 
 He had a good salary ; but, after the ways of young 
 men in the great capital, the day's earnings barely 
 sufficed for the evening's dissipation. He got into 
 difficulties. A friend advising him change of air," to 
 go and see something of the world, he came to London ; 
 but his Berlin experiences had ill fitted him for the 
 greater struggle in the English metropolis. He fell a 
 prey, all too easily, to companions worse than himself; 
 and, waking one morning to the fact that he was 
 
214 ^ Colony of Mercy 
 
 hopelessly ruined, he procured a revolver, and that 
 night in Hyde Park attempted his life. He was 
 picked up insensible by a fellow-countryman, who took 
 him to a hospital, and who, when the hospital dis- 
 charged him, paid for his ticket back to the Fatherland. 
 He arrived on German soil, but only to begin the 
 vagabond's life ; for who now would employ him — trust 
 him ? Tramping the country hopeless and penniless, 
 yet with a spark of promise somewhere in his soul, he 
 one day heard of the labour colony, Wilhelmsdorf, 
 and " I will arise " quivered through him, fanning that 
 spark to a flame. He arose and went. 
 
 But men at the labour colony are not all treated 
 alike. The helpful hand held out there to each and 
 all alike is ruled by singular judgment ; it discrimin- 
 ates ; it watches a man ; it says, " This man, though 
 he has fallen among thieves, is yet not altogether a 
 thief, and it singles him out for different treatment. 
 That man is now at Ephratah, has been there for 
 eighteen months. He is in one of the offices, a useful 
 hand in the bookkeeping department, filling his post 
 faithfully and endeavouring to work his way back to 
 the level whence he has fallen. When he shall have 
 served his two years, Bethel will stand surety for him 
 to any situation he may apply for ; the past will be 
 forgotten, and he may once more begin his way in 
 life with an experience which perhaps with all its 
 humiliating recollections is none too dearly bought. 
 Is he a " Christian " ? He at any rate has learned two 
 things — to distrust himself, and to be faithful. For the 
 present he is never missed from his place in Zion Church. 
 
The Cave of Adullam 
 
 215 
 
 Church-going is not exactly compulsory for these 
 gathered-in sheep ; they know, however, that it is 
 expected of them. But some have been through all the 
 teachings of Socialism, and their ideas about religion are 
 much awry. Some years ago a little band of them wotdd 
 absent themselves. They were not driven, but they were 
 watched; possibly they were all the more earnestly prayed 
 for. One Saturday evening, in the gloaming, one of 
 them, as spokesman for the rest, appeared in the pastor's 
 study — it was one of Bodelschwingh's coadjutors — as he 
 was preparing his sermon, and with much confusion 
 confessed his utter inability to believe this and that the 
 Church would have him believe, and " his companions 
 were of one mind with him." They did not wish to be 
 humbugs — they did not " feel good." But they were 
 willing to come to the pastor of an evening once or 
 twice a week. Would he try to explain things to them ? 
 Only they would rather not let it be known. The pastor 
 willingly agreed to this Nicodemus request, and the 
 secret disciples, who could not believe, and who would 
 not be " humbugs," but who did ask to be taught, had a 
 little service all to themselves, as they had begged for. 
 The results are with Him who weighs men in His balance, 
 and who judges them with a judgment all His own. 
 
 Most of these men are a credit to the trust placed 
 in them. Some continue black sheep — black in heart, 
 though outwardly submitting to restraint ; but for most 
 it can be said that Wilhelmsdorf, and after that Ephratah, 
 has been the turning-point. 
 
 For all the restraint put upon them — they may not 
 leave the precincts of the colony without the house- 
 
2 1 6 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 father's permission, and they have signed an agreement 
 that if they visit any public-house or other place of 
 low company they forfeit every right to return to their 
 haven of refuge— for all their past history, which is more 
 or less minutely known, they are not treated as men 
 lost to honour. On the contrary, they are put on their 
 honour, and it generally answers. They are among the 
 officials of the place. They are paid for their work at 
 the rate of sixpence to ninepence a day, besides their 
 full keep. This money is not given them — at least, not at 
 first. The house-father keeps it for them, and by degrees 
 only, beginning with small sums, they are entrusted with 
 money. They know they are under treatment for the 
 breaking of fetters which bound them, under treatment 
 to give them strength for weakness ; and, like a sick man, 
 they submit to a physician wiser than themselves. Two 
 years is considered a full course of treatment, and after 
 that they are helped back into situations corresponding 
 to their capacities. On the whole, they are a credit to 
 the treatment undergone ; and their grateful letters show 
 they have learned a lesson. 
 
 Ephratah is the first stage. Some get beyond its 
 leading-strings, taking up their life for good at the place 
 which has saved them. These are on the regular staff of 
 officials. Indeed, there is hardly a man employed in the 
 offices who has not come to Bethel with a more or less 
 troubled history ; yet not every shipwrecked man has 
 been wrecked criminally. 
 
 The great Rothschild, it is said, once was asked con- 
 cerning the secret of his success. " I never employ a 
 man who has been unfortunate." Well, it depends upon 
 
The Cave of Adullam 217 
 
 what is meant by success ; but Pastor von Bodelschwingh, 
 though by preference he employs " unfortunates," does so 
 with singular success. He has surrounded himself with 
 a staff of workers who have all come to him out of 
 troubled waters, and who are now "his friends." He 
 always addresses them as Lieber Freimdl' his spiritual 
 co-workers, of course, being " Lieber Bruder." It is some- 
 thing to be called friend by such a man, and these men 
 have earned it. 
 
 It is with reluctance one singles out a few of the most 
 remarkable cases : one feels it a breach of confidence 
 almost, a treading on sacred ground ; yet this is written 
 for English readers, as a working model, as a bright 
 example ; and if a German eye, even if the eye of those 
 concerned, should meet this, they will know it is to the 
 glory of true charity, it is to the honour of the Pastor 
 who has been the good Samaritan — yea, a friend to them, 
 it is to their own honour and encouragement these lines 
 are written. 
 
 Pace any man of Rothschild's way of thinking, will 
 the English reader deem it very strange that two of the 
 staff, in places of exceptional responsibility, who have 
 thousands passing through their hands, are men who 
 once barely escaped the arm of the law for dishonourable 
 bankruptcy? They have been for a number of years 
 in their present position of trust, and fill it honourably. 
 They have had a house of their own given them. 
 Bodelschwingh has a great idea of people having houses 
 of their own, he is always making homes and building 
 houses. One of the confidential clerks actually is an 
 ex-convict. He had appropriated trust money, not with 
 
2l8 
 
 A ColoJty of Mercy 
 
 evil intent, but meaning to replace it. He served his 
 term. He then came to Bodelschwingh, was put on trial, 
 and found worthy of trust. He has been for some 
 years now at Bethel, and is doing well. 
 
 There is quite a number of such men who have come 
 to Bethel, utterly discredited by their darkened past, who 
 have been tried and trusted, and who have stood the 
 test These things are barely known at the colony ; 
 they are known only to those who needs must know, and 
 are not talked about. There is a beautiful freemasonry 
 of trust and of humility, which says, " We all have 
 sinned, and come short of the glory." You go about 
 Bethel trying, perhaps, to read the inner history ; you 
 may want to know as much as possible about things 
 there, desirous perchance of telling the story, as a 
 working model, as a bright and shining example. You 
 talk to one of the staff-workers ; he has given you much 
 valuable information ; you find him especially interested 
 in the labour colony and kindred institutions for saving 
 the submerged — in fact, he is doing much useful work on 
 their behalf ; you express your admiration to him of 
 much you have seen and heard, and you actually tell 
 him something like this : That one of the loveliest things 
 about this colony of mercy is this rescue work among 
 its very officials, this putting of ex-convicts even into 
 positions of trust. Like a thoughtless innocent, you have 
 rushed in where angels would fear to tread. You are 
 aware of it suddenly, noticing a slight blush overspread- 
 ing the man's features. He is a man of middle age and of 
 most sober appearance ; but here he is blushing, and you 
 feel your own cheeks mantling at the sudden revelation. 
 
The Cave of Adtdlam 
 
 219 
 
 Well, he too is an " unfortunate " ; a faithful worker now 
 for the very men who might all end their days in prison 
 but for the helping hands stretched out to them. All 
 honour to that man ! 
 
 Pastor von Bodelschwingh's own private secretary, 
 his right hand, and trusted with all his correspondence, 
 with much private knowledge too, is a young man saved 
 from " prison " also ; not in this instance the prison of 
 stone and mortar, but a worse prison, an unprincipled 
 relation of his, a doctor, having taught him the abuse of 
 morphia. He was a slave to it, his prospects in life were 
 ruined when he landed at Wilhelmsdorf ; but his fetters 
 have been broken. He is one of the most capable and 
 faithful men now about Bethel. He won the affections of 
 a Bielefeld girl last winter, and Bodelschwingh himself 
 went surety for him to the girl's parents. 
 
 Is this prudent of the Pastor ? Let the question be 
 answered by an example to hand. They tell you at 
 Wilhelmsdorf how one of their flock, who had done well 
 at the labour colony, found his way back to the world 
 of blameless living. He was a gentleman, and a man 
 need not be a reprobate for having been to Wilhelmsdorf 
 He was fortunate in getting a good situation, and for a 
 while nothing but good was heard of him. He was 
 making friends, and presently he too was engaged to a 
 young lady — her people knowing nothing of his unfor- 
 tunate antecedents. One day, out walking with the girl 
 and her parents, an ordinary workman accosted him with 
 an offhand, " How d'ye do, Charley ?— got back to the top 
 I see ! " A natural inquiry followed. How did he come 
 to be chum with a mere working man ? "I knew him 
 
2 20 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 at Wilhelmsdorf," was the simple confession. That was 
 enough for these respectable people : the match was broken 
 off — little blame to them perhaps, and yet ! The poor 
 fellow in utter despair left the neighbourhood which now 
 looked askance at him, and a despairing man is not likely 
 to be fortunate ; he took to drink, and the second stage 
 of that man was worse than the first ; yet this second 
 stage need never have been ! It is the difference between 
 Rothschild's wisdom and Bodelschwingh's charity : the 
 former may drive a man back to the mire, the latter may 
 be his staff to uphold him. It is by being believed in 
 that a man often is saved ! 
 
 Several of these rescued ones thus are settled at 
 Bethel, having their own fireside. It is beautiful, this 
 setting up of houses, clusters of home-life about the 
 colony. Says one : " But this is an expensive way of 
 doing it ! Secretaries can be had by the score at 
 secretaries' pay, and here you pay a man and give him 
 a house besides, with something very like a tacit promise 
 even, to have a care for his family." Well, there are 
 two ways of looking at this, and Bodelschwingh may 
 be quite sure that his way is winning him helpers 
 who will go through fire and water for him. This is 
 worth paying for : there is something in faithful service 
 coming from the heart of gratitude. But Bodelschwingh 
 never considers money when he has men to consider. 
 " I care not one jot what it costs," you may hear him say ; 
 " I care about the human beings in question." 
 
 Is not this a Christlike way of doing things ? Christ's 
 companion who went with him into Paradise had been a 
 thief! Some of Bodelschwingh's "companions" in his 
 
The Cave of Adttllam 
 
 221 
 
 great work of mercy, his staff of helpers, and now his 
 " friends," have, some of them, been thieves, some of 
 them convicts, all of them men who were " unfortunate," 
 men whom the successful Rothschild would not have 
 employed. It might not answer with a great banker ; 
 it does answer at Bethel, it answers admirably, even 
 as a matter of worldly wisdom ! For although Bodel- 
 schwingh might sometimes get a secretary, a cashier, 
 " cheaper " than he does, he yet gets much extra work 
 done by means of this general rescue agency. It is 
 charity repaid. ^ 
 
 There are other " unfortunates " gathering about this 
 captain. The first evening we spent with Pastor 
 Stiirmer we found him reading a letter just received. It 
 was from a prison chaplain, telling a strange story of a 
 girl in trouble. A fortnight later that girl quietly arrived 
 at Bethel, and was placed as " help " in one of the houses, 
 no one asking where she had come from, no one being 
 told. It is one of the silent streams of healing flowing 
 at Bethel that such girls are taken in. No one knows 
 what has become of them, save a friend or two ; they 
 have disappeared from their former surroundings, and 
 Bethel is their home for a while. " You would scarcely 
 think it," said Pastor Stiirmer, " but we have girls here at 
 times, quiet and helpful, coming to us from the strangest 
 antecedents. Where should they go?" Such are not 
 always best placed in a penitentiary, for the stain of that 
 would cling to them. Bethel is not a penitentiary, yet 
 it is a haven of refuge, a bridge to many, leading to a 
 better, purer future. One may well ask what form of 
 human trouble is not taken in at Bethel ? But then the 
 
222 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 great text of Bethel is, " to comfort all that mourn " — all ! 
 Is a man, is a woman in trouble ? have they appealed to 
 us ? that suffices — we can but try and comfort them. 
 Yes, it is Christlike. 
 
 Even minor troubles find a hearing there. At the 
 epileptic carpenters', below the general workshop in the 
 engine room, there is a noisy steam-saw, — surely an epi- 
 leptic patient is not entrusted with it ? " Oh no, and you 
 see it is so noisy, quite a trial to ordinary mortals ; but 
 we have picked up a deaf-and-dumb artisan, he manages 
 this part of the engine room."* Several deaf-and-dumb 
 in fact, are employed about Bethel. Of two men applying 
 for a post at the colony, both equally fitted for the work 
 they would do, and equally trustworthy, he who can 
 plead he is in trouble is sure to have the preference. 
 They have an office boy with a painfully disfigured face ; 
 he was born with this affliction, and though otherwise 
 hale and capable no one would employ him. He found 
 his niche at Bethel ; he is but a youth, he may live to 
 prove a grateful worker. 
 
 It is curious also how many pastors you meet at 
 Bethel ; you come upon them at every turn, — men 
 
 * This machinery, primarily for joinery purposes, is utilised also 
 for the production of electric light, at present for the joiners' 
 benefit only ; but there is talk of introducing it into some of the 
 other houses. This little world in many ways is quite up to date. 
 The pastor's study, for instance, is connected by telephone not 
 only with the more important Homes about Bethel, but with the 
 labour colony at Wilhelmsdorf (and with the Eichhof) seven 
 miles distant ; the telephone connecting the colony also with the 
 telephone and telegraph of Bielefeld. As a matter of fact, there- 
 fore, Bethel is in speaking connection with all the civilised 
 world. 
 
The Cave of Adtdlam 
 
 223 
 
 overworked, men broken down, men maybe in spiritual 
 trouble, who formerly would have fled to the cloister ; 
 they gather to this captain, to the wholesome Christian 
 life of this colony, — this, too, is Cave of AduUam. 
 They throw themselves into the work, and presently 
 they return to the harvest-fields of the world taking a 
 new life with them. Let any man, let any woman, go 
 to Bethel who, for whatever reason, may feel worsted in 
 the battle to be fought ; no one will set up to teach 
 them, but they will learn a lesson there — they will be 
 shown how to buckle on the , armour afresh, and be 
 different men, different women, thereafter. 
 
 It has happened sometimes that the good comfort 
 dealt out so freely at Bethel is wasted on a man un- 
 worthy ; there are those on whom salvation's trust is 
 lost. It does happen occasionally that a man runs 
 away with a few hundred marks — there have been no 
 more serious defalcations — but this leaves Bodelschwingh 
 quite unconcerned. " The money is nothing," he says, 
 " when we are trying for men," and he will just go on 
 with his trust policy. He has one painful recollection. 
 
 A nobly born " unfortunate " once presented himself 
 in his study, imploring to be saved. Well, what could he 
 put his hand to ? Nothing much : he had frittered away 
 his youth ; he knew about postage stamps — the mania 
 for stamp-collecting then being at its height. Well, then, 
 he should start a stamp collection. It would occupy 
 him, if it did not pay. But things are always done 
 with a will at Bethel,— that is, thoroughly. The colony 
 is in communication with missionaries and consuls all 
 the world over, and before long everybody was sending 
 
2 24 ^ Colony of Mercy 
 
 used postage stamps — it was the beginning of a Postage 
 Stamp Bazaar^ which now requires a house of its own, 
 occupying a score of patients, and carrying on a 
 vigorous sale by post. You can order rare and valuable 
 stamps from Bethel, and more still are they pleased if 
 you send them any ; for it is business now, though it 
 began in an act of charity.* 
 
 But this unfortunate nobleman did not prove himself 
 trustworthy. With rare patience the Pastor tried for 
 that man's soul, and tried again, he all the while cheat- 
 ing his benefactor and selling the more valuable stamps 
 for his own purposes, going his own evil ways eventually 
 and dying in prison. He had been for a couple of years 
 at Bethel, an amiable good-for-nothing. They knew it, 
 
 * Stamps may be sent to " Markenhaus, Bethel, Bielefeld, 
 Germany," and English collectors of these valuables may find it 
 worth while to write there for stamp assortments, little books all 
 ready for postal transmission, each stamp marked and priced. 
 Hundreds of letters go and come daily, and while we were in the 
 office the other day an eager stamp-lover even ordered by tele- 
 gram one of these coveted bits of paper — some ancient twopenny 
 stamp, fancy value five pounds. Bethel, of course, does not fix 
 the five-pound price ; the Stamp Exchange does. Some of our 
 readers may feel inclined to send their duplicates to Bethel ; if 
 they want to sell them. Bethel gives fair value and no cheating ; 
 but sending them as a present might leave a happier feeling, for 
 it is helping a great work. The Markenhaus," though in its 
 enlarged form it is but a few months old, turns a monthly capital 
 of ^150 to ;^2oo, gaining perhaps ;^5o, the primary object and 
 gain in this instance also being the employment procured for 
 epileptic patients. The ''Markenhaus" is worth a visit, even 
 if you have no hankerings after used postage stamps ; it is under 
 the efficient management of a man who for years has been in the 
 merchant service of the Basle Missionary Society, who is a pro- 
 ficient in stamp-lore, and knows a forgery at half a glance. 
 
The Cave of Adttllam 
 
 225 
 
 and yet they tried. He lived at their expense, but his 
 soul was worth more to the pastor than the money 
 wasted on him and by him. Nevertheless, Bethel has 
 not in the end been out of pocket by even this act of 
 charity. That stamp bazaar, which had so curious a 
 beginning, now is a paying concern on a firm business 
 footing. And the solicitude bestowed on this stray 
 sheep, though wasted on him, was yet not wasted, but 
 rather bore fruit in showing a way for the gathering in 
 of other sheep ; the house " Ephratah," spoken of at 
 the beginning of this chapter, has developed out of this 
 first endeavour. Bodelschwingh sees a man much need- 
 ing to be rescued, — he tries, he fails ; but he remembers 
 there are others like him, and this is how a work begins. 
 
 One day a man, overcome with admiration at this 
 wealth of Christian charity, this power of comforting 
 all that mourn, came to Bodelschwingh. " I just want 
 to see your face," he said. " Nay," said the pE^stor, 
 " there is One Face to look into, even that of the Man 
 of Sorrows, and you will not be able then to let any 
 sorrow pass your door unhelped." 
 
 15 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 WORKMAN' S HOME 
 
 Beauty for Ashes." 
 
 HOSE only who never had a home of their own 
 
 can appreciate the full force, even the kindness of 
 our Lord's promise to His troubled disciples — " In My 
 Fathers house are many mansions — / go to prepare a 
 place for your They were about to be homeless ; for 
 home does not mean chairs and tables, it does not 
 mean hearth-room only, it means heart-room, and He 
 was the friend to whom their love had gathered even 
 in an earthly sense. " ]\Iany mansions " is not the 
 happiest rendering, for we are not to understand heaven 
 to be all palaces : there will be degrees even there ; if 
 palaces, no doubt then cottages also, whatever they be, 
 with this difference only, that one and all quite equally 
 will be dwelling-places of content, for the former things, 
 the sorrow, the pain, the strugglings and longings 
 will have passed away. " In My Father's house 
 are many dwelling-places, I go to prepare your place, 
 and yours, and yours " — an abiding-place for each 
 homeless, home-coming wanderer — this rather is the 
 meaning, taking into account each personal need to 
 be met there in His own way. Human friends often 
 
Workman s Home 
 
 227 
 
 are very dense, but the One Friend understands, and 
 at this solemn time of His going to the death for them, 
 Sin-bearer for them all, He did not say, I go to 
 mediate for you at the right hand of Glory ; no, He 
 left them with the far simpler promise of dwelling-places^ 
 a place for them. " Heaven will be the warmer to those 
 who had but little covering here," says David Elginbrod ; 
 and Christ's promises are fullest of meaning to those 
 who have not — to them that hunger. How can they 
 who have " many mansions " here, long with an equal 
 longing for Christ's mansions with those who have not ? 
 Yes, they can, by His first cutting the strings which tie 
 them to the " mansions " below — often a painful process. 
 And even a poor man may be tied to his wheelbarrow. 
 But to these others. His homeless ones, to them is the 
 promise. " I had not where to lay My head," He says ; 
 " I know your want." 
 
 But there is a state of homelessness in modern life 
 which should not be — homes which are no homes, 
 human dwelling-places in which it is next to impossible 
 for a man to grow fit for heaven ; in which want of 
 cleanliness is the soil for impurity, where men and 
 women grow drunkards in despair, A German judge 
 the other day summed up his experience in the curious 
 sentence : " Social crimes are in exact proportion to 
 the surface of friction in our dwellings " — in plain 
 English : want of elbow-room is the mother of half our 
 wickedness. It is concerning this want of elbow-room 
 among the working-classes we now have a word to say, 
 for Bethel, that large-hearted comforter, has set herself 
 to combat this also, seeking redress for this glaring want. 
 
2 28 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 Bielefeld, in the outskirts of which our colony is 
 situated, a manufacturing place of some importance, 
 enjoys the reputation of being an advance-guard of 
 Socialism ; there are large sewing-machine works in that 
 city, and linen manufactories employing their thousands 
 of hands. The year 1885 brought troubled times to 
 Bielefeld, culminating in a general strike, quiet being 
 eventually restored only by military interference. 
 Peaceful Bethel was involved in an unexpected way. 
 
 Some travelling locksmiths and other iron-workers 
 happened to be at the Herberge when the strike broke out, 
 and this gave rise to the altogether unfounded assertion 
 that Wilhelmsdorf was coming to the rescue of the 
 forsaken manufacturers. The strikers sought revenge, 
 and took the nearest at hand. Twice that spring the red 
 flames shot up in the dead of night in the midst of 
 the colony — the work of incendiaries. The most cruel of 
 these deeds of wickedness was the setting fire to Eben- 
 Ezer, the home of the male imbeciles. No lives were 
 lost, for Bethel has her own brigade, her deacons training 
 for this also, and the brothers more than once have 
 proved themselves efficient firemen. The scene never- 
 theless was terrible ; the poor imbecile epileptics, not 
 understanding why in the night time they were dragged 
 by main force out of their beds, but seeing flames, set up 
 their shrieks and yells, fighting against their rescuers 
 as for very life. But more terrible than this, and more 
 heartrending, was the fact that scores of men stood by 
 watching the ghastly scene, never lifting a finger; and 
 not strong-armed men only, but women lost to all 
 tenderness, gloated over the disaster. " Serve you 
 
Workman s Home 
 
 229 
 
 right," they cried, " you pious sinners, for having turned 
 honest folk out of house and home to make room for 
 these wretches ! " And mutterings went round, " See if 
 we don't set fire to the lot of you." 
 
 Now, there was a grain of truth in this accusation. 
 Farms had been bought up, but only when they were in 
 the market, and in most cases the owners actually had 
 come to Bodelschwingh offering to sell. But these de- 
 caying farm properties sometimes comprised sublet- 
 tings, and these tenants could not be consulted when 
 the property changed hands. " It is true," said Pastor 
 von Bodelschwingh, " some twenty or thirty families of 
 dependent folk in the course of these twenty years have 
 thus lost their little cots. It was not their property, 
 yet they looked upon it as such, having rented it for 
 years. Against their will they were driven to seek 
 quarters in the overcrowded city, where a plot of garden 
 was an impossible luxury for such as they. There is 
 therefore some truth in the charge, and it becometh us in 
 this also to fulfil all righteousness^ And from that day 
 the good pastor, over and above the many efforts up- 
 borne by his strong shoulders, made it his business to 
 see to the housing of the poor. An association was 
 formed, called " Workman's Home," the roots of which 
 are struck in Bethel, where all the planning is done and 
 furthering aid given to this work of mercy also. 
 
 But Pastor von Bodelschwingh is a man who goes to 
 the bottom of things ; — mere chance charity, mere senti- 
 mentalism at any vision of distress, though it may yield 
 momentary aid, is not what satisfies him. He went to 
 the bottom of this also, and there found that much of 
 
230 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 the Socialism, so rampant in Germany, and threatening 
 to sap the very foundations of society, has its root in 
 the ill-housing of the working population. He made 
 himself the champion of this grievance. 
 
 In a public lecture, delivered before the Social Con- 
 gress in Berlin, he recounted how, as a young boy, fifty 
 years ago, he already had opportunity of studying the 
 social problem, having his own childish thoughts then 
 how it might be met. His sisters and their companions 
 had a sewing class for the poor, but they were not them- 
 selves allowed to enter the homes of misery, the boy's 
 tutor — a future pastor — being delegated to inquire into 
 the people's needs, and he would take young Frederick 
 with him. Here the boy had his first vivid impressions 
 of the hunger, the cold, the cruel sufferings of the poor, 
 and especially was he moved with what seemed to him the 
 unjust portioning out of earthly goods between rich and 
 poor : the rich might do with somewhat less, the poor 
 need not be so very poor, the boy thought. One day 
 there had been a state dinner in the Minister's palace, 
 the boy watching the great preparations, and noticing 
 the splendour. Simple as his parents were, his mother 
 especially, on such a day they suited their station. A 
 day or two after, being allowed to accompany his father 
 out walking, he poured out his heart ; and the father 
 explained to him how that these things must be, and 
 that, bad as they seemed, they were not without a re- 
 deeming point, since by the very luxuries of the rich 
 many of the poor find a living. The boy was old 
 enough to understand this, but still he insisted that 
 the rich and great need not feast and dress quite so 
 
Workman s Home 
 
 231 
 
 sumptuously, while so many went starving, and scarcely 
 had a sufficiency of rags to keep out the cold. Especially 
 would he grieve at the long suite of state rooms, stand- 
 ing empty and with blinds down, for the most part ; and 
 he would compare their gorgeous emptiness with the 
 miserable garrets in which whole families were huddled 
 together. He remembered having been taken by his 
 tutor to see a poor widow, who, with seven children, 
 lived in such a garret ; there was not even a fireplace, 
 and only one bed in the room, which was somewhat 
 enlarged at night by the only other piece of furniture 
 excepting a table, a wooden bench pushed alongside. 
 On this bench the mother slept, leaving the bed proper 
 to the seven children ; there was not room for a second 
 bed in the garret, even if the poor woman had had 
 another. And the boy went to his own bed that night 
 stung with shame at the comfort provided for him, 
 his own spacious chamber where three or four other 
 beds could have stood ; his boyish charity would have 
 taken in that widow and her seven children if only 
 he could have done so. But these childish impressions 
 were not lost ; and the child is father of the man. 
 The man is fast finding homes now for the struggling 
 poor. 
 
 Bodelschwingh's idea is this : settle the working 
 classes, each family in their own little house, with their 
 own garden — their own acquired plot of land — and 
 you nip all Socialism, all Nihilism, in the bud. This 
 may sound Utopian in English ears ; for where in this 
 country of landlords are " own plots " for the people so 
 easily to be had — their real own ? We are, however, 
 
232 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 describing a working model, and it will be for thoughtful 
 readers to draw their own inferences. 
 
 It is chiefly from the ranks of the embittered working 
 classes of great cities that social democracy draws its 
 recruits — draws them in ever-increasing numbers. And 
 why are they embittered ? For one reason, might not 
 there be here also some want of elbow-room ? Have you 
 ever considered, you, who shut up your town house 
 when the hot summer makes it unpleasant to you, what 
 thoughts must rise in the mind of some factory-worker 
 slaving away in the same hot city ? What is he likely to 
 think, and feel, on passing these empty houses, visions to 
 him of comfort and coolness, on his way from the stifling ^ 
 factory to the scarce less stifling tenement he calls his 
 home ? But Home is too beautiful a word. Is it wonder 
 if his heart fills with envy at these empty palaces? 
 Is it wonder if he thinks : Why are we so much worse off 
 than they ? That man would be satisfied with the tenth 
 part of the house you calmly leave with blinds down for 
 weeks and months. Bodelschwingh says he is ashamed 
 to look such a man in the face ; yet his is a modest little 
 manse, and he leaves it but for the scantiest holiday. 
 But then his sympathy enters into such a man's feelings ; 
 he does not approve of his levelling ideas, but he under- 
 stands them : he understands how easy a prey such a 
 man's mind is to the teachings of Socialism. Put that 
 man in ever so humble a home, a real home, away from 
 the stifling city ; give him air, give him sunlight, give him 
 a garden to move in, and his Socialism will be blown to 
 the winds. There is no solving of the social problem 
 except by putting ourselves alongside of such a man's 
 
Workman s Home 
 
 233 
 
 feelings — then we shall understand him. Perhaps we 
 ourselves would turn Socialists in that man's place. 
 
 The thing to try for, is : to lead that man to a sense 
 of content ; and it is astonishing how easily, according to 
 Bodelschwingh, this is done. It is possible to give that 
 man beauty for ashes — contentment for bitterness — a 
 home to satisfy his humble need, even a beautiful and 
 healthful home, for the fever-breeding, sin-and-misery- 
 waking hole in which he now sits, cursing you and his 
 own cheerless fate. And, mind you, for that hole, in 
 proportion, he pays treble the rent you pay for your 
 palace ! Is it to be wondered at, if he is embittered ? 
 
 He is more than embittered, he is hopeless, for he sees 
 no way out ; and there is another hopeless one beside 
 him — the poor wife, working, perchance, in a factory too, 
 or charing, or straw-plaiting, or anything ; yet they scarce 
 can keep body and soul together. Partly their own 
 fault this, to be sure, since the public-house is their great 
 comforter — what good to save your pennies when you 
 see no way out ? Without an aim, without some bright 
 and shining star beckoning us onward, none of us would 
 do much. But even fair Hope for these people sits in 
 ashes, averting her face ; they see no star, nothing to work 
 for ; they spend their little in drink, or, at best, in sheer 
 improvidence ; and their children grow up to this misery, 
 continuing the same weary round. 
 
 But help that man, or rather show him how to help 
 himself; for this recipe "beauty for ashes," this little 
 home of his own, in his own garden, his own plot of 
 land, is not a charity to be given him ; he is to buy it, 
 to acquire it honestly ; and he can. The principle laid 
 
234 ^ Colony of Mercy 
 
 down is this : Help the working classes by making them 
 help themselves. 
 
 Now for the working model : 
 
 They have an architect and a house-building office at 
 Bethel, needing both for their own ever-enlarging tent. 
 And among the epileptic patients there is an increasing 
 number of men fit for office work, book-keepers, draughts- 
 men, men of this and that kind of technical proficiency 
 for whom occupation is wanted. Here was a new opening 
 for them ; these all were brought into requisition. They 
 set to work examining what had been done in any 
 country for the housing of the poor, they made calcula- 
 tions, drew plans, worked out proposals what might be 
 done for their own neighbourhood, the working classes of 
 Bielefeld. And presently the pastor from his own study 
 window spied some plots of land on the hillside over 
 against the colony. They were for sale. " I should like 
 to buy that land," he said, " and settle some of these 
 discontented workmen there with their families. I have 
 an idea it would answer admirably, and no doubt they 
 would pay me back in good time." He did buy that 
 land. And then more of the epileptics, men who 
 could only push wheelbarrows or work with the spade, 
 some twenty or thirty of them, might be seen day after 
 day busy on that hillside, digging and levelling. And 
 away at Hebron the bricks were made for this vision to 
 be realised : Workman's own little home on its own plot 
 of land. " And so," says Bodelschwingh, " our poor epi- 
 leptics at the very outset made up for the accusation 
 brought against them ; their own hands actually raising 
 ^he groundwork on which these new homes should stand." 
 
Workman s Home 237 
 
 Thus once more from this colony of stricken ones 
 streams of heahng began to flow, and Bethel, the mother 
 of Wilhelmsdorf, becomes the mother of Workman's 
 Home. Where anywhere on the face of the earth is there 
 a colony of human misery so prolific of helpfulness, so 
 successful in alleviating misery ? " Our own sick ones 
 have turned the first clod of earth for this and this new 
 effort," says the pastor with a noble pride, for he loves 
 these sick ones. They do not cumber the ground, they 
 are the Master's helpers even in their trouble, and instru- 
 ments of His mercy. ^ 
 
 But the plan evolving was. this : The great obstacle in 
 the poor man's way is want of capital ; if you can find the 
 needful capital for him at a reasonable rate of interest, 
 and if you turn that capital into a sinking fund he can 
 pay it back by yearly payments ; and it will not take 
 more of his earnings, but considerably less, than he now 
 pays in mere rent. He now rents a wretched tenement ; 
 put him into a new, clean house, built specially for him, 
 and tell him, if he sets to work thriftily, he may, in ten 
 years or so, be owner of that house, soil and all. He may 
 do this in even less than ten years, for it has been proved 
 — a man entering into rights of ownership on the Bethel 
 plan after one-third of the capital is paid up. Tell him, 
 show him, how to set about it, and see if he will not ! 
 Why, you at once lift that man half a dozen pegs above 
 his present level, even supposing he has all along been 
 an honest working man ! He feels he has attained the 
 position of an honourable man of business, to whom 
 capital is lent because he enjoys credit. What cannot 
 be made of a man if he feels trusted and believed 
 
238 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 in ? Above all, you have filled that man's heart with 
 hope. 
 
 But here is the difficulty : who is going to believe in 
 him — even the most honest, the most thrifty working 
 man — if it is a question of lending him capital at 3^ 
 per cent. ? He undertakes to pay you back, but where 
 is your security? Says Bethel, I will be security; I 
 will be trustee for him, and the legal owner of the 
 house until he has paid back one-third of the loan ; I 
 reserve to myself the right to buy him out if at any 
 time he fail in his yearly payments, and I reserve pre- 
 emption at the original price, if at any time he should 
 propose to sell — this in kindness to him, to protect him 
 from speculators. 
 
 Bethel is a corporation which enjoys credit ; and people 
 are willing enough to invest sums in any undertaking 
 for which Bethel goes bail, for Bethel is as safe as the 
 Bank of England, and has security to offer in her own 
 landed property. So Bethel, as a first step, borrowed 
 capital at 3 1 per cent., for which the "acquirers" of the 
 little houses she undertook to build were to pay interest 
 {i.e. house rent), 3I per cent, besides paying back the 
 capital in easy stages. A working man usually pays 10 
 and 12 per cent, in rent, so there is room for paying 
 back capital over and above the 3 J per cent, on the 
 ' capital raised on his behalf 
 
 For instance, the cost of one of these "Workmen's 
 Homes" at Bielefeld averages ^325, including the 
 plot of land, and road expenses. The annual rent 
 on this capital, at 3^ per cent, comes to i^ii "js. 6d. ; 
 the top story is sub-let to another family at £7 ys. 6d., 
 
Worhnans Home 
 
 239 
 
 leaving to the " acquirer " the bottom story at £\ — each 
 story having, as a rule, three good-sized cheerful rooms 
 and a kitchen ; the cellar, containing washhouse and 
 storing-places, the garden, accommodation for a pig or 
 goat, etc., being shared. The " acquirer," over and above 
 the interest or rent, is pledged to pay back the capital at 
 the rate of 2 per cent, burdening his yearly budget with 
 another £6 \os, ; he may do more, if able — this is the 
 minimum ; and this " paying back," of course, is simply 
 paying his way into ownership. Altogether, the reader 
 will see, here are two families worthily housed — a gain 
 in every direction on tenements. What speculative 
 owner would let to a working man three rooms and 
 a kitchen and his share of the garden at seven guineas 
 a year — three shillings a week ? It can be done : will 
 any one try in this country — even if, on account of higher 
 wages, the seven guineas must- be called ten? 
 
 Another plan worked out by that pastor of epileptics 
 is this : " Of course, even our credit is limited ; we 
 could not raise capital ad infinitiLm^ but a loan of 
 ;f 5000 can be obtained to-morrow if a hundred people 
 join my building association with a subscription of 
 ^s. a year — this being the difference of interest between 
 3^ and 4 per cent. Now any savings-bank or other 
 public fund will lend capital at 4 per cent, and if you 
 hundred friends can mulct yourselves each to the 
 amount of 5^. a year, you enable us to loan out the 
 capital thus obtained at 3 J per cent, to our honest 
 working men who are trying for a house of their own ; 
 if you subscribe \os. a year, we can let them have 
 it at 3 per cent. : will you do this ? " And a hundred 
 
240 A Colo7iy of Mercy 
 
 people thus ready to help are actually found, for it 
 is a beautiful plan ; and, as we have seen, the ;^5ooo 
 thus raised — as they build, not seeking their own in- 
 terest — provides about thirty families with house and 
 garden, one house, as a rule, for two families, top and 
 bottom story ; and, lo and behold ! you have turned 
 an embittered, struggling lot into hopeful men and 
 women. Is not this worth working for ? 
 
 So they have a building-fund at Bethel, to which is 
 added a building savings fund, into which any workman 
 wishing to begin saving up towards a house of his own 
 puts his sixpences and shillings as he can spare them ; 
 he being advised to have some few savings before offer- 
 ing for a house. Land is never bought till a number of 
 married working men of good character, say a dozen or 
 more, are ready to join the association, expressing their 
 willingness to become house owners under the conditions 
 provided for them. Then only the houses are built ; and 
 by a beautiful thoughtfulness, they not only get a house, 
 but they get one as they would have it. For this dozen 
 or score of houses are not built as building societies run 
 up houses in London, one as like the other as a dozen 
 matchboxes set on end ; no, these houses are built to be 
 a pleasure to the man ; more still, a pleasure to the wife 
 who is to keep this home tidy, for one would have them 
 love these little houses, and be happy in them. Only 
 the perfect love that would do the very best for these 
 people could hit on this plan. It means, of course, untold 
 extra work for that architect at Bethel — happily a man 
 truly interested himself, an architect, in this, for Christ's 
 sake— he is brother to one of the pastors ; but this extra 
 
Workman s Home 
 
 241 
 
 work is gladly given, and though they have built nearly 
 seventy houses, not two of them are alike. 
 
 When it is a question of drawing the plans, every 
 intending owner and his wife come to the office and say 
 what they would like ; and according to their needs, 
 according to their wishes, even according to their 
 fancies, if possible, the plans are drawn, and the little 
 house is built. Also they may name the workmen 
 they would wish employed, for they may have uncles, 
 or cousins, or friends, who are masons, or carpenters, 
 or plumbers, and at their desire, these will have the 
 benefit. What a wondrous thing true charity is ! 
 " Ltebe 7nacJit erfinderisch" — love is the cleverest of in- 
 ventors — says the German proverb, and truly so, for 
 love only, perfect brotherly love, can think of all these 
 things. Again, what wisdom in this love ! Does it 
 not make these people believe in you? do they not 
 see how truly you consult their welfare ? Have you 
 not won them by the simplest of means, prevailing on 
 them to make an effort themselves for the moral gains 
 you have in view for them ? Love, truly, is wise as a 
 serpent. 
 
 Then, here is another wise thing : The dozen or score 
 of intending owners, combining to be housed on a 
 certain plot of land, form a sort of community among 
 themselves : they actually engage to be each others 
 keeper in certain things. For instance, they have all 
 undertaken to keep the public-house banished from 
 their midst. If any of their number should ever turn 
 his house into a public-house — no one could hinder him 
 from obtaining a licence for the sale of liquor — but if 
 
 16 
 
242 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 he does, Jie forfeits three hundred pounds to that com- 
 munity. He has entered into possession under this 
 condition, and the rest of the house-owners, with Bethel 
 at the head of them, have power to enforce this clause. 
 So these little homes, indeed, are " beauty for ashes," 
 kept pure from the devastating influences of drink. A 
 man dwelling there has some distance to go before he 
 finds a public-house ; and the chances are he stays at 
 home, if the home is made pleasant. 
 
 One of the great attractions, making these homes 
 pleasant, is the principle laid down, and defended by 
 Bodelschwingh with all his warmth, that a working man's 
 house shall stand in its own garden — a garden large 
 enough to provide the two families living in that house 
 with potatoes and vegetables ; the working man — he 
 should be home from his work at half-past six or seven — 
 spending his spring and summer evenings in that garden. 
 They even strive to inculcate the principle that a man in 
 that garden shall plant his own apple and pear-tree, there 
 being a wonderful power, says Bodelschwingh, in the 
 trees he has planted for making a man heart-ov^n^r of 
 his house. He will much less be tempted ever to sell 
 that house, if he has stocked its garden with trees of 
 his own rearing ; it will be his home, and the home of his 
 children after him. There is provision in each house, 
 also, for keeping a couple of pigs or goats, which will 
 cost the people next to nothing, and bring in a clear 
 gain. Bodelschwingh estimates the garden produce of half 
 an acre to be worth about five pounds to these people, if 
 it is their own property^ which is a great deal more than 
 ordinary farming yields. And then there is the moral 
 
Workman s Home 
 
 243 
 
 gain already mentioned, which is greater still. " Where 
 does your husband spend his evenings ? " asked an in- 
 quiring friend of a housewife established in one of these 
 little houses. " He used to go to the ' public/ when we 
 lived in the town yonder, but since we came here the 
 garden keeps him at home." That man was being saved 
 by his apple and pear trees, by the produce of the soil, 
 the work of his hands. And social democracy will die 
 out in such places, for these people have little left to 
 grumble at. The idea of two families in one house is 
 just this : that, as children grow up, married son or 
 daughter may live under the same roof with their 
 parents, or a young couple may take in the old people 
 as tenants ; also, that the little children in any house 
 should never be left uncared for, if the mother has to 
 absent herself. And lastly, they can help one another 
 in sickness. 
 
 It is about six years since the first house was built, and 
 the plan has fully answered. The best proof is this : that 
 many of these people are paying up at double the rate 
 they are pledged to by contract. The figures are : that 
 on forty houses built with a capital of fourteen thousand 
 pounds, about four thousand pounds have already been 
 paid back, so that quite a number of these thrifty " ac- 
 quirers," in the course of a few years, have entered into 
 the rights of ownership. What will not even a working 
 man do, if you help him to his own little house — his own 
 plot of land ? These men have saved and saved, keeping 
 every penny from the drink-shop, for the pride of this 
 ownership. And are they not likely to continue respect- 
 able and thrifty, having proved to themselves, and to 
 
244 ^ Colo7iy of Mercy 
 
 others, what may be done with their ordinary wages in 
 half a dozen years? Help a man to be respectable, 
 to respect himself, will he not thank you, and try and 
 be so ? For there is manhood sufficient, even in your 
 working man. Much will depend, of course, how you 
 help him, and what star of hope you kindle in his heaven. 
 At any rate these people are not objects of charity, though 
 you have assisted them with a wondrous charity : you 
 have made independent men of them. It must of course 
 be said, it is the better-class working men who apply for 
 the privilege. You have got to begin with those most 
 worthy, hoping for the blessing to spread gradually by 
 the forces of example and rivalry. 
 
 And are these people really grateful for the great 
 thing done for them ? Well, this pastor says, with 
 Gordon : " Do good to people as if they were chairs and 
 tables " ; that is, not looking for gratitude, lest you be 
 disappointed ; but experience shows you find some 
 gratitude — at any rate, you see these people in an 
 improved condition, and that is what you were mainly 
 seeking. 
 
 There are now three such colonies of " Workman's 
 Home" round about Bielefeld, numbering seventy houses. 
 About a dozen new houses are at present planned for, 
 ' i.e.^ so many intending " acquirers " are ready to begin 
 working their way towards ownership, while over a hun- 
 dred are paying into the building savings fund, with 
 the hope of making a start before long. All this shows 
 how the privilege is appreciated in Socialistic Bielefeld. 
 
 But more, the man who has set this great work going 
 
Workman s Home 
 
 245 
 
 is no provincialist ; his horizon is wide, and his charity 
 large-hearted. The Building Association, started under 
 the auspices of Bethel, has subdivided its functions ; it 
 is now, firstly, a local society, working as shown above ; 
 it is, secondly, a centre for spreading just principles all 
 over Germany. 
 
 Something had already been done in Germany by 
 great factory owners, men of charitable instincts ; and 
 the State also had provided dwellings for the miners 
 in its direct employ. But the principle emanating from 
 Bethel goes further : it says. Help the working classes 
 by making them help themseWes. Be their patrons in 
 thrift, go surety for them in the raising of capital, 
 lend them your intellectual capital, planning for them, 
 arranging matters for them ; but let the main thing, 
 the object-gaining industry, and above all, its reward, 
 be theirs. Let them have all the advantage, all the 
 profit of the building schemes you are interested in, let 
 them see it is purely and simply for their benefit ; and 
 you may educate them to almost anything. Unselfish 
 love is the greatest power on earth : it will even help 
 you to get rid of a nest of social democrats, and people 
 the land with peaceful citizens. 
 
 Bethel is setting the example : she is doing a noble 
 work, lending her own great machinery, her willing 
 hands, her name, her credit, without burdening the 
 undertaking with working expenses ; she is steward 
 of its aims, laying out the capital, collecting the re- 
 turns and laying them out again — that is all. And 
 the example is being copied ; the association Arbeiter- 
 heim (Workman's Home) is spreading ; and what 
 
246 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 though it take fifty years or more to realise these great 
 hopes for the country at large, yet surely such a be- 
 ginning is a hopeful thing. 
 
 Pastor von Bodelschwingh is indefatigable in proving 
 to the nation the economic advantages in the interest 
 of the nation itself, not only as a negative blessing in 
 stamping out or at least in materially lessening, Socialistic 
 tendencies, but in very reality a gain. For one thing, 
 a more healthy generation than can possibly be looked 
 for in overcrowded city dwellings will be the outcome ; 
 crime will decrease and the standard of morality be 
 raised. The authorities know well enough what they 
 owe to these efforts ; the three Emperors have given their 
 fullest approval, and shown it by yearly gifts. And thus 
 protected, the Association "Workman's Home," planted 
 as a mustard seed at Bethel, has every prospect of 
 developing into a spreading tree under the branches 
 of which a contented working class may dwell. 
 
 But in order to aid these endeavours on a larger scale, 
 turning the effort into a national enterprise, the wise- 
 headed pastor has hit on a plan worthy of a statesman. 
 
 The English reader — some, at least, for it is strange 
 how much indifference and consequent ignorance is to 
 be met with in either country concerning each other's 
 home affairs, even of vital importance — will be aware 
 that public provision has been made in Germany by a 
 beneficent law which came into force two years ago for 
 the insurance of every working man and working woman 
 towards sickness and old age. It is an admirable 
 law certainly, as regards the kindliness of its intentions 
 How it will work has yet to be proved, for it is on its first 
 
Workman s Home 
 
 247 
 
 trial; but it has resulted already in securing five million 
 pounds sterling, the sum total of all these insurance 
 pennies ; * it will result in twenty years in five-and- 
 twenty millions, in eighty years in fifty millions sterling. 
 
 Now, all this money is collected on behalf of the 
 working man, and his own pocket has furnished one- 
 half ; it is all intended for his good, but he does not as 
 yet see this, — he may not see it for years to come. He 
 looks upon it as an extra tax, though it is levied but in 
 pennies ; and though wise men are strong in approval of 
 the enforced provision, yet among the working classes 
 for whom these benefits are intended there is a good 
 deal of grumbling. But whatever the intention and 
 ultimate benefit, here are great sums collected, requir- 
 ing to be put out to use. How best to do this for 
 some time past has occupied the attention of financiers ; 
 but the pastor of Bethel has planned and submitted the 
 following scheme to the authorities for consideration. 
 
 His plan in short is this : this capital collected in part 
 out of the working man's savings and altogether for his 
 eventual benefit, should also in the meantime be em- 
 ployed for his benefit and flow back to him in loans — 
 in other words, it should be invested in Workmen's Homes 
 all over the country. On the strength of the trial made 
 at Bielefeld, Bodelschwingh shows in a memorial that 
 this capital would be a sort of revolving fund which every 
 ten years or so would replenish itself, to be used again 
 and again for a purpose than which no truer remedy 
 could be found for pacifying the great discontent among 
 the working population. Moreover they would thus 
 * Vide Appendix. 
 
248 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 see that this money is indeed intended to benefit them ; 
 they would have the advantage of insurance in case 
 of sickness and in old age over and above the 
 benefit of a house of his own for every thrifty man. 
 The pastor pleads that this money should be ob- 
 tainable for this purpose in loans at 3^ per cent., 
 •submitting that the working man from a public savings 
 bank only gets 2\ per cent, for his deposits, and the 
 difference between his getting and giving should not be 
 too great* The capital would be quite safe if managed 
 on the Bielefeld plan by " Workman's Home " committees 
 to be formed throughout the country. These committees 
 would act as the working man's patron, even as Bethel 
 does, not " patronising " him, but managing for him, 
 and going surety for him. Men are to be found, says 
 Bodelschwingh, who will be proud to give such honorary 
 service for so great and beneficent an object ; and three 
 men only are required — an experienced land steward, a 
 capable architect, and a revenue official. " As for the 
 architect," says the Pastor, " it is a great deal more 
 difficult, and altogether a truer art, to build well in the 
 interest of poor folk, than to build palaces." f 
 
 * As we go to press we learn that one province after another, 
 there being Home Rule in Germany in such matters, is acquiescing 
 in the proposal. So capital will be forthcoming for many a 
 Workman's Home. Why should not the funds of the Post Office 
 Savings Bank in this country be available for such purpose ? 
 These funds also are largely out of the poor man's pocket, the 
 Post Office giving interest 2\ per cent. ; so the Post Office might 
 still do business if Workman's Home loans could be forthcoming 
 at 3 or 3J per cent ! 
 
 t The ''Workman's Home" at Bielefeld should be inspected 
 both for costs and pleasing results. 
 
Workman s Home 
 
 249 
 
 A further proposal is that young folk about to marry, 
 might apply as intending house acquirers, if, between 
 them, they have saved up say twenty-five pounds, the 
 man not to be younger than six-and-twenty, the woman 
 at least to be out of her teens, and the latter, more- 
 over, should be required to give satisfactory proof of 
 understanding something about housekeeping — thus to 
 counteract thriftless marriages. The house in any case 
 should be an incitement to, and a reward of, thrift, 
 diligence, and respectable living. 
 
 Also, it would be a marked gain, tending to the 
 general well-being of the country, thus to stem the 
 ever-growing influx of the working classes into the 
 great cities, drafting them back into such colonies 
 of " Workman's Home," their own property, at a 
 wholesome distance from the centres of industry, the 
 railways running special workmen's trains, at a moderate 
 rate, morning and night. And the chiefest gain, one 
 not to be overestimated, would be this, that the country 
 gradually would be pacified, and Socialism would have 
 to seek a soil elsewhere. 
 
 The pastor urges that the answer to his memorial 
 should not be " Paul, thou art mad " ; he says, he be- 
 lieves, on the contrary — for he has already proved it — 
 that he is proposing reasonable things. Yet there is time 
 to save the country, to elevate the masses, by giving 
 them what we simply owe them : more light, more air — 
 aye " elbow-room " to live decent lives. 
 
 Is this pastor too sanguine, too much of an enthusiast, 
 too Utopian ? It would not seem so, to judge by what 
 already has been done ; yet even if his hopes were too 
 
250 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 great, too ideal, to realise — it being indeed a mighty 
 scheme — it is something surely at least to have tried ; to 
 be trying at this moment. Hope is strong, and he knows 
 there is a strength unconquerable called faith — the faith 
 of which One has said it removes mountains. Assuredly 
 it is well to try for the removal of this mountain of 
 hopelessness oppressing the ill-housed poor. But a 
 certain measure of success seems guaranteed, inasmuch 
 as the idea has caught in Germany, if one may judge by 
 the fact that, from all parts, those interested in the 
 question apply at Bethel (i.e., at the office Arbeiterheim 
 established there), for estimates, for building plans, for 
 the experience collected at that office ; and this office, 
 having constituted itself central office for a national 
 endeavour, only too gladly meets the demand — indeed, 
 they have undertaken to furnish complete building 
 plans gratis to any one applying for " Workman's Home " 
 purposes. That architect at Bethel is an overworked, 
 at any rate a well-worked, individual, but then no one 
 at Bethel considers time his own ; and it is curious to 
 note that the active secretary of this great scheme is 
 that same young man, saved from the morphia " prison," 
 in whom Pastor von Bodelschwingh believed sufficiently 
 to go bail for him for a wife and a house. These men from 
 the Cave of Adullam, at any rate some of them, train 
 into fit workers. He is private secretary for the pastor 
 in the morning, and " Workman's Home " secretary in the 
 afternoon — no sinecure, surely, even with a helper or 
 two. 
 
 The eye of the German Emperor is on these efforts. 
 His Majesty has repeatedly expressed his warm ap- 
 
Workma7ts Home 
 
 251 
 
 proval, and all well-disposed thoughtful men in the 
 country — of course there are enemies, too — all who 
 truly wish well by the people, have long learned to 
 apply to any effort emanating from Bethel, the Psalmist's 
 words : " Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." Thus, as 
 far as promising circumstances go, the great scheme seems 
 not too great to realise. It is on a sound business basis 
 — nothing Utopian in this respect ; Bodelschwingh's 
 schemes, with all their idealism, always bear that test ! 
 The yearly balance sheets of " Workman's Home " may 
 be inspected, and will be found models of economy and 
 thrift. 
 
 One wonders, could such a scheme ever be thought 
 of in England? All deference to the noble efforts of 
 Miss Octavia Hill, to other friends of the poor who strive 
 to introduce wholesomeness into the overcrowded tene- 
 ments ; all honour to the Peabody model lodging-houses ; 
 but that is not " beauty for ashes" in fullest sense ! It 
 is not Workman's Own. The garden is wanting, the 
 apple and pear tree of his own planting ; the poetry is 
 wanting ; the strong moral force residing in the little 
 word " own " is wanting ! 
 
 Could there ever be any such poor man's " own " 
 in this country, apple trees and all? Yes, possibly, 
 when the slowly moving wheel of progress will have 
 somewhat altered the meaning of the land question ! 
 Then the time may dawn when a British workman 
 too will be considered worthy of an "own." He too 
 may then rise six pegs above his present level, and the 
 many public-houses diminish. What incitement has he 
 
A Colony of Mercy 
 
 now to be thrifty, to lay by, to be his own helper ? He 
 does not as a rule lay by even for the rainy day, and 
 when illness overtakes him, or cold weather, he is a 
 hopeless out-of-work. But the root of the mischief of 
 all social distress, as Bodelschwingh rightly says, is the 
 want of a home, a home inalienable, a home worthy to 
 be improved by the sweat of your brow, the labour of 
 your hands — the want, in fact, of something to live for, 
 something to attain by diligent work. The bright and 
 shining star called Hope is wanting. Could it not be 
 kindled for the working classes in this country also? 
 Is not there land enough and to spare? One feels 
 inclined to say, with Boy Bodelschwingh, "Could not 
 the rich do with a little less, and the poor not be quite 
 so poor? " 
 
 Think of the hopelessness, the homelessness, cooped 
 up in East London ! What star of hope ever rises on that 
 sky? It is a mean thing, says that pastor, our com- 
 forting the poor with hopes of a better Beyond : could 
 we not first do something for a better Here ? Give them 
 something to live for, give them a more decent home, 
 a home worthy that name, and half your preaching will 
 not be wanted. This is a strong saying for a pastor, and 
 such a pastor ; but it is true. We are so ready with 
 our tracts, with our city missionaries, our lady visitors ; 
 and then we go home to our comfortable drawing-room 
 and think we have done the kind thing by the " lower 
 classes." It has become the fashion for beneficent people 
 who have money to spare to buy up poor people's houses 
 — more properly, the abodes of poverty, for they never 
 were theirs — whitewash and clean them, and keep a sort 
 
Workman s Home 
 
 253 
 
 of an eye on the tenants by collecting their weekly rents. 
 This is doing it after the example set by Miss Octavia 
 Hill — not by any means a bad example ; nor yet a bad 
 investment, rows of houses which let in tenements paying 
 better than gentlefolks' residences. It even is a kind 
 thing, but it is not the kindest thing — for one thing it is 
 too patronising. Why should the working man's family 
 have their house broken into once a week by the in- 
 specting lady visitor ? All well and good, if your tenants 
 can only be got to walk in leading-strings ; but what if you 
 aimed higher, made free men and women of them with 
 a wholesome ambition of their own, by giving them a 
 home to be truly theirs ? Could not the same beneficent 
 people do the still nobler thing, devoting such money 
 they now invest in buying up rows of tenements, to 
 the formation of a building fund, be satisfied with a 
 return of 3, or 3J per cent., and let the capital create 
 a true workman's home after the fashion of Bodel- 
 schwingh? Is the English working man less worthy 
 of this trust, this being lifted to a higher level, than a 
 German working man ? Do not believe it. Try, and 
 you will soon raise a generation of freeborn Britons 
 indeed, even among your working men. That Httle 
 word " own " possesses a wondrous charm : it will lock up 
 public-houses, it will educate the people far more quickly 
 than any mere patronage of yours ever could hope for. 
 It is curious that folk are mostly what we make them. 
 Children are what we make them, and the common 
 people are exactly what we make them. Now, the 
 English working classes for generations have been called 
 poor people — an unbearable expression — and consequently 
 
2 54 ^ Colony of Mercy 
 
 they are " poor " — poor of spirit even. Why should you 
 call a man " poor " who works for an honest wage, 
 however true the epithet "struggling" may be? Let 
 him rather know you see he is struggling, and help 
 him to struggle — to struggle out of the mire, beyond 
 the drink and the filth into the breathing spaces even 
 a working man should reach. This is the meaning of 
 " beauty for ashes," and the meaning of workman's 
 own. 
 
 One other aspect. See how the Workman's Home 
 dovetails with all other social efforts, the labour colony, and 
 the whole chain of provision for the unemployed. These 
 will presently not be wanted. For these homes must 
 needs stand in an inverse ratio to the need of labour 
 colonies ; a generation will rise which will not so readily 
 sink to unemployed-dom. The memories of a happy 
 home go a long way, even in a working man's life. One 
 main idea of Bodelschwingh's " garden " is, that the 
 mothers should no longer have cause to go to factory- 
 work, but stay at home, attending to that garden, 
 attending to house and home, with a chance of bringing 
 up the children in a more wholesome way. This would 
 be the simple result of your true charity ; these people 
 would save presently all they now spend in rent. And 
 mothers are mothers the world over ; even the mother 
 in humble life, with a home she can take some pride in, 
 will be a better mother to her children than if she 
 wears out her strength behind some spinning-wheel, or 
 passing sheets of paper through a printing press, turning 
 into a machine herself. It is this terrible humdrum of 
 factory-work, killing the body and killing the heart, 
 
Workman s Home 
 
 255 
 
 which Bodelschwingh, for the women at least, would 
 replace by that garden, that home of their own. For 
 turn about this little word " own," and it reads zvon. 
 Home-life won ; family-life won ; home-blessings won — 
 "Beauty for Ashes." 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 THE BROCKEN SAMMLUNG 
 " Gather up the fragments." 
 
 OME little children we knew, growing up in a 
 
 widowed home where things were scanty, had 
 contracted a habit, almost as soon as they could speak, 
 of meeting any new thing entering that home with their 
 cautious misgivings. " Whatever will it cost ? " and 
 " Whoever is to pay for it ? " these mites would ask. It 
 was a true question with these children, for they had 
 often seen their mother's tears. Yet one was sorry for 
 them, for it is childhood's privilege never to wonder at 
 " What will it cost ? " Bethel, too, is " child " in this ; 
 she does her work not influenced by " what it will cost." 
 But if the reader of these chapters ask this question, 
 that is another matter ; he even has a right to ask, and 
 we must endeavour to answer. 
 
 The observant reader will have formed some idea 
 already, from the hints strewn about these pages ; but 
 we will try and sum up the main points concerning the 
 Bethel treasury. We will begin with the latest develop- 
 ment, for visitors almost invariably begin there, feeding 
 their wonder on the astonishing " fragment collection," 
 the realm of the ingenious Bi'ocken-king. Some time 
 
The B7^ocken Sammlung 
 
 257 
 
 before General Booth propounded his plan of a " Salvage 
 Brigade," the " gathering up of fragments " was thought 
 of at Bethel. Saimnelt die ubrigen Brocken,'' is the 
 German text, hence the name of Brocken-smmnlung. 
 But, first, this also has grown^ and grown out of Bethel's 
 invariable habit of being the ready comforter of " all who 
 mourn " — of all in trouble, coming to her for advice, for 
 aid, for comfort. 
 
 We have shown how she trains her officials, first help- 
 ing them, and then being helped in her work by them 
 — the most perfect, the most Christian, example of reci- 
 procity we ever heard of. Some years ago, a gentleman 
 sought refuge at Bethel, He was not an " unfortunate " 
 in the sense that he had committed any wrong, or even 
 in being wanting in those capacities which we name 
 collectively self-help ; but he was sorely tired of the 
 world. His was a life on which the Great Refiner had 
 laid a shadow — no matter of what kind — but the silver 
 had grown bright, and the Brocken-kdnig is one of those 
 whose " life is hid," even as Paul's was. He came to 
 Bethel seeking rest, seeking Christian fellowship, seek- 
 ing a corner where he might do some work for the 
 Master. He had been in business, and at first he simply 
 was put on the staff — he was accountant for the Sarepta 
 treasury. But his trouble returned ; he Was laid aside, 
 unable to devote himself to any work for months, and 
 his place got filled up. When he was well again, the 
 pastor was planning another niche for him — he knew by 
 that time the simple fidelity of the man, and, what was 
 nobler still, his rare humility. There are many walking 
 in shadows in this life who will be stars of the kingdom 
 
 17 
 
258 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 to come. So the pastor was planning a niche ; but 
 the man himself had hit upon a corner — a plan of work 
 unique. He was, by this time, at home in the colony, 
 feeling himself part and parcel of the place ; he had 
 entered the commonwealth. Now, in a commonwealth 
 — at least, in such a one where the spirit of Christianity 
 rules — folk discover their capacities, because they look 
 for them, anxious to turn them to use for one another. 
 This is how in such a colony so many strokes of genius 
 abound — it is the power of invention pertaining to out- 
 going love. We have not heard that this man did rare 
 business while he was in business, but he does rare 
 business now. He had set his heart on making money 
 for the colony — for money touched by Love and used 
 by Charity is no longer dross. He started a " salvage 
 brigade," but in this way : printed slips went forth from 
 the Bethel press, inviting their friends all over the 
 country to send them anything they "didn't want," 
 about their premises, any cast-off articles, any rubbish 
 littering their houses. And they were invited to send 
 these things, if possible, in ten-pound parcels because 
 the Imperial Post carries ten pounds in weight at 
 threepence under fifty miles, or sixpence over that dis- 
 tance, and no one minds a sixpence by way of getting 
 rid of a ten-pound lot of rubbish, the Brocken-sammlung 
 thus collecting its stock-in-trade free of expense. The 
 Imperial Post, however, has had to start a special branch- 
 office in the precincts of the colony, overwhelmed with 
 the parcels and letters marked " Bethel." The idea 
 appears to have appealed to the thriftiness of the nation, 
 and it is simply marvellous to behold what is sent : 
 
The Brocken Sainmltmg 
 
 259 
 
 garments, from the valuable gold-embroidered Court 
 dress-coat of cabinet ministers, down to the most ridi- 
 culous kind of articles from anybody's private wardrobe 
 — ^just anything people do not any longer require, but 
 which Bethel, somehow, can turn to use again. Just 
 think of gentlemen, or of their female representatives, 
 sending their broken braces ! you see them hang up by the 
 hundred. What for ? Well, the leather mostly is good, 
 new straps are fitted to the button-hole slips — it gives 
 employment to some of the patients— and thus, not only 
 the male portion of the colony is kept in braces at 
 nominal cost, but any poor man in the neighbourhood 
 can come and buy a pair for twopence or threepence ; 
 for Bethel always thinks of others beside herself. This 
 is just an example ; you could write a book on the 
 Brocken-sammlung. 
 
 We have saia the Brocken-man himself hit upon this 
 stroke of genius ; but things in the kingdom of God 
 often are the property of several inventors, — possibly by 
 some genius divine, lest any man vaunt himself. And 
 thus it has to be recorded that a poor widow away on 
 the Rhine also took her share of the invention. Never 
 having heard of Brocken or salvage brigades or anything 
 of the sort, this poor widow, with the love of God in her 
 heart, and longing to do something for Bethel, having 
 not even any halfpennies to spare, bethought herself of 
 widow's mites in kind. She wrote to the pastor that for a 
 long time she had collected all the cork stoppers she could 
 get hold of in her neighbourhood, and that she had quite 
 a garretful of them now. Could they possibly be of any 
 use ? In fact, this poor woman's letter coincided with the 
 
26o A Colony of Mercy 
 
 BrockeiM?ian's early thoughts of the scheme. Her heap 
 of old corks was the first instalment of " rubbish " sent ; 
 and it is quite true to say that out of her innocent, yet 
 love-inspired collection of wine and beer bottle-stoppers 
 has grown, what now fills several houses, and yields 
 employment for some forty patients and men of the Cave 
 of Adullam, and brings in about i^2000 clear annual 
 gain. At least, this figure has been nearly reached for 
 the year just closed. But the Brocken-sammhmg, though 
 it fills three houses, is but a baby as yet, a few years 
 old : give it time and see what that Brocken-king will 
 make of it ! Not in mere flattery has he been called 
 — not fragment-gatherer, but fra.gment-h'ng. He is a 
 king of inventiveness. He, too, enjoined us not to say 
 anything in praise of the colony ; but how can one help 
 just telling what one has seen ? He has lately gathered 
 his men, such as are not epileptic patients, into a house- 
 hold, of which, worn and weary as he is, he has begged to 
 be " house-father," that he might seek to serve them, help 
 them on the upward way. 
 
 If a " king," he is a humble one ; and certainly not in 
 his own estimation, but in his own way he is a genius. 
 Here is an example. 
 
 Many of these incoming fragments are large consign- 
 ments ; so presently deal-boxes upon deal-boxes began 
 to litter the establishment. At first they were used for 
 firewood, but the Brocken-king after a while declared : 
 This is expensive firewood. And he set his business 
 brain to work ; he offered his empties to various whole- 
 sale houses, and one, a soap manufacturer, closed with him. 
 But the latter would not pay in cash, he pays in soap, 
 
The Brocken Sammlung 261 
 
 with the result that the Brocken-sammlung has started 
 a soap depot ; while quantities of empty little bottles 
 coming in — people do send such funny things : fancy 
 sending your empty hair-oil flasks ! — put them up to the 
 idea of filling them again, which can be done cheaply 
 enough, for these sort of things at hairdressers' and 
 perfumers' sell at the 250 per cent profit, and the 
 Brocken-sammlung, not being nearly so rapacious, yet 
 drives a thriving trade with the neighbourhood. We 
 ought to have mentioned above that the cork stoppers 
 are sold to a manufacturer who turns them out again as 
 linoleum. 
 
 And as for rags leaving the Brocken-sammlung — 
 woollen stockings, old clothes fit for the unravelling of 
 texture only — you should see the towering waggons 
 leaving the place, sackfuls by the score, returning 
 presently as bales of new goods. 
 
 What do you think your photograph album.-covers are 
 made of, your handsome leather blotting books, your 
 little dress-combs ? Old boots and shoes are sent to 
 the Brocken-sammlung in alarming numbers ; what can 
 be mended up again is mended up and sold. But many 
 are beyond patching ; they are picked to pieces, the 
 " uppers " are sent to a manufactory in Alsace, which 
 works them down and turns them out as pressed-leather 
 articles, the soles by-and-by seeing the light again as 
 galvanite combs and things. And did you know that 
 half the " Japanese " lacquered wares we buy so cheap 
 are made in Alsace of old book-covers and the like? 
 The Brocken-sammlung knows all that, turning its " frag- 
 ments " to good account. 
 
262 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 This is very instructive ; it shows there really is nothing 
 new under the sun— except what is fresh, of God's own 
 making, and even He has made nature a great refuse- 
 gatherer, the autumn's decay being the seed-bed of the 
 spring's new bloom. It is instructive, though of course in 
 itself nothing new ; else wholesale rag-pickers would not 
 have been known to become millionaires. But he who 
 runs may read : it has seemed to us that Bethel herself 
 is a refuse-gatherer, collecting the fragments of sin-worn 
 humanity : has not Christ Himself said gather them up^ 
 that nothing perish " ? meaning the five-loaf fragments 
 when He said so, but is it not His holy meaning for each 
 and all of the " least of them " ? Gather them up — " it is not 
 the will of your Father in heaven, that one of these little 
 ones should perish ! " Gather them up ! Yes, this book 
 will have shown that Bethel in truth is a great Brocken- 
 sammlung herself, taking in the " fragments " under the 
 purifying hand of the affliction upon them ; taking in the 
 " fragments," the sinking, the undone ; gathering them 
 in simple obedience to the Master's behest " that nothing 
 perish." And who shall say how many by her instru- 
 mentality are being clothed with the new garment, are 
 entering the new life, leaving old things behind them, 
 and becoming new creatures ? A future day only will 
 reveal this, when all things are new. 
 
 But to return to the Brocken-sammlung — it not only 
 tells of business, it tells of charity. There are quantities 
 of old clothes in tolerable condition sent in. Everything 
 on arriving is disinfected. Then some of the women 
 patients are set to work, to sort the things, to mend 
 them, to make them fit for wear again ; and if you enter 
 
The Brocken Sanimlung 
 
 263 
 
 the Brocken shop, you see for what use. They are 
 sold, quite cheap, to the working population of the 
 neighbourhood — quite cheap, for Bethel has a motherly 
 heart for the poor, that is, the struggling folk round 
 about. She could put double the prices on the things, 
 but she does not ; though living by charity herself, she 
 is ever ready with her own charity, and she thinks 
 it gain sufficient, if over these Brocken some of her 
 patients are occupied, the things themselves going at 
 nominal prices, to make the meeting of ends a little 
 more easy in working men's homes round about. The 
 Brocken-king is thoroughly imbued with Bodelschwingh's 
 spirit, which is a giving rather than a taking. 
 
 The Fatherland is noted for its smoking propensities, 
 and little boys and girls upon a hint from the Brocken- 
 king have set themselves to watch for the little conical 
 clippings of their father's or elder brother's cigars — you 
 see these contributions from smokeland collecting in 
 many a German family, and in the Brocken-sammlung 
 you may vent your surprise over a giant boxful of them. 
 They go back to the cigar manufactory, undergo pre- 
 paration, and start afresh as " blend," — quite valuable 
 they are, collected in such quantity. Little boys and 
 girls, too, collect used postage stamps for Bethel, and 
 they have been told to send the envelopes bodily, these 
 envelopes yielding a threefold gain : firstly, work for the 
 imbecile epileptic children, who can manage to cut out 
 the stamps ; secondly, the paper, which goes to the 
 paper mills ; thirdly, the stamps themselves, which are 
 handed over to the postage stamp bazaar spoken of 
 on a former page, and which, originally a branch of the 
 
264 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 Brocken-sainmlung, now does business independently, as 
 we have seen, requiring a house of its own. 
 
 Old books too — what is not sent to that wonderful 
 place ? A second-hand bookshop is the outcome ; the 
 Brocken-king, however, has an eye on this stray litera- 
 ture, much of which is simply burned, for books should 
 be wholesome food. But the population round about 
 can buy good books, and instructive books, of every 
 kind, very cheap at the Brocken bookshop. The 
 books even are catalogued and business done by post. 
 Epileptic patients, educated men, are at work here. It 
 was with a queer feeling we found some of our own 
 "adopted children," The Greatest Thing in the Worlds 
 and the rest of them, in German edition, the white- 
 robed, gilt-edged things, sold at twopence, alas — 
 
 "Das ist das Los des Schonen auf der Erde ! " 
 Well, if at twopence they carry their message a second 
 time, bless them and let them go. 
 
 So this is the Brocken-saminlung^ and it illustrates 
 the management of the place — frugal, farseeing, thrifty, 
 successful ; a growth like everything else there, and 
 grown from a seed of brotherly kindness — a man in 
 trouble helped, he growing into an army of helpfulness. 
 It is the way of the Kingdom. What a wonderful thing 
 such a colony is, which, never seeking them, finds such 
 workers ! But it is simply a gathering of like to like — 
 it is the powerful attraction of spirit-taught things. 
 
 The yearly expenditure of Bethel is about i^6o,ooo 
 to ^70,000, apart from the labour colony, spoken of 
 separately, but including everything else we have 
 mentioned ; it means about £20 a year per head of 
 
The B roc ken Sammlung 265 
 
 the colony— there being over three thousand souls 
 counting the out-stations. Surely this is reasonable 
 considering what is done ! Exceptional land invest- 
 ments of course are extra, but these figures, besides 
 all current expenses, include the ordinary building 
 going on, the constant enlarging of the tent, the mani- 
 fold charity dispensed, even in far-away Africa. It is 
 because of the vastness of the undertaking, and the 
 mutual helpfulness, that this is possible. They cannot 
 of course keep their patients, or indeed any one, 
 on £20 a year — this figure too means " reciprocity." 
 Union is strength, even as regards the lessening of 
 expenses ; everybody there works for everybody else, 
 and that is why they can do it at such moderate cost. 
 It has to be borne in mind that the great wealth of 
 Bethel lies in her unpaid workers ; this is her real 
 treasury, without which not the tenth part of that 
 work were possible. As for the patients, for the bulk 
 of them but nominal sums are paid — no one is refused 
 because he cannot pay, if his claim appeal otherwise ; 
 and if he does not pay, money is forthcoming from 
 some other source. The first-class patients, those 
 kept as ladies and gentlemen, pay the usual boarding- 
 house prices, ^^50 to ^80, in some cases even £iQO^ 
 according to requirements. The charge for poorer 
 patients is £20 to £2^ per annum ; but in many cases 
 not half of this is really received, the claims of poverty, 
 even of poor parishes, being readily taken into 
 account. Altogether about ^^"20,000 is coming in for 
 the 1400 patients, rich and poor, paying and non- 
 paying — in other words, about £\\ per head. This is 
 
266 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 barely one-third of all current expenses ; the remain- 
 ing two-thirds, and everything else that is wanted, year 
 by year, being found in their own beautiful ways. 
 
 The harvest contributions in kind of those Ravens - 
 berger Christians, for instance, are never forgotten — 
 these being included in the yearly budget above- 
 mentioned ; and since it is a coal-mining country, even 
 pit-owners of the neighbourhood remember Bethel, send- 
 ing their waggon loads of coal, not expecting to be 
 paid. True, not first-class coal generally is sent, but 
 Bethel has splendid stove arrangements, and burning 
 the "small stuff" keeps everybody well warmed. Could 
 not English pit-owners find room for their " small stuff" 
 in the Kingdom of Mercy ? 
 
 Then there is the penny collection (p. 83), mostly 
 among school-children, which never fails with its annual 
 ^1500 or so. Bethel, in fact, is sure of her friends and 
 is never in a position of alarming the country with 
 agonised cries of empty coffers. True, Bodelschwingh 
 is a rare beggar, but even his begging is ideal : done 
 so calmly — so nobly we had almost said, and with such 
 certainty of response. Germany has not by any means 
 the wealth of England ; nor — though she has some 
 noble givers on her lists — is it the contributions of the 
 wealthy by which Bethel is chiefly supported ; but, as 
 we have seen, by the self-imposed tithes of a people 
 whose riches are of the wealth unseen. 
 
 We have shown how, twice over, thankoffering 
 pennies came to the rescue of special effort. A little 
 more than a year ago Bethel found her supply of 
 water run short. They looked for a spring up in the 
 
The Brocken Samiithmg 
 
 267 
 
 hills, to be brought down by means of an aqueduct, 
 the " bringing down " to be done by her own patients ; 
 they had found one, but it necessitated the buying of 
 a farm through which that water rill took its course, 
 ^2500 were required, — that is 50,000 shillings. Bodel- 
 schwingh's appeal went forth for 50,000 " quarts of water " 
 — simply enough, just "water for our patients, they 
 need it " — and in the course of three months or so, 
 not 50,000 but 60,000 " quarts " had come in — Bodel- 
 schwingh somehow always gets the overflowing measure. 
 They came from all sorts of people, rich and poor ; 
 folk liked the idea, for surely it was the " cup of 
 cold water " ; and, as usual, many a pretty message 
 graced this giving, many a story of the kind which is 
 chronicled by some angel. One evening last winter, as 
 we were sitting by the pastor's side at one of the 
 weekly gatherings of the sisters, he read them a letter 
 just come with a " quart of water " — fourteen sous — 
 sent by a German crossing-sweeper or rag-picker in 
 Paris, one of the Pastor's own old flock, who years 
 ago had been in his Sunday-school, He had done 
 extra work for these sous carrying earth loads for 
 a gardener for a fortnight. Surely this shows the 
 power of attraction of the spirit at work at Bethel ! 
 It is because this man and his labour of love are so 
 thoroughly believed in, he can put out his appeals ; and 
 the response is as certain as the incomings of the Bank 
 of England. 
 
 But more ; these 50,000 shillings after all are not 
 sunk as a dead investment, bringing that water to 
 the colony and nothing more. Some would be satisfied 
 
268 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 with this, for the water was greatly needed. But money 
 doubles and trebles directly in that man's hand, doing 
 double and treble work. We have said a farm had to 
 be bought because of the water. Not many weeks passed 
 before a house-father sallied forth with a band of patients 
 to turn that farm into one of their out-stations. So the 
 water is got, and the farm is got, and a work is set on 
 foot ; and that farm has entered the circle of reciprocity, 
 keeping itself going, and helping to keep the colony 
 going, looking after some of its patients. If this is not 
 financial genius, it is something very much like it. 
 
 Here is another example : Behind Hebron, nestling 
 on the hill slope, is a beautiful homestead, with its own 
 fields and plantations. It was for sale some six or seven 
 years ago, and some one having just mooted the question 
 of a "home of rest," where the brothers might recruit 
 when worn and in need of a change, it was bought there 
 and then, — they never consider long at Bethel, for things 
 are sure to " pay." This station, named Bella, is fast re- 
 funding itself; it is a lovely retreat for any rest- needing 
 brother, and they — that is, the house-father and his staff, 
 not the rest-needing brothers — have charge of about a 
 dozen pensionnaires , paying patients, pastors and pro- 
 fessors and suchlike, who have overdone their brains. It 
 is just the place for them ; it does its work for the colony 
 as the Bella of the brothers, and it does not cost any- 
 thing. 
 
 Telling our story, we have mentioned the home pro- 
 ducts of the colony, the work done by the patients ; this, 
 of course, also stands for " funds," and is balanced against 
 the expenditure. The work of the patients yields about 
 
The Brocke7i Sammlung 269 
 
 £^,000 a year ; it has, however, to be borne in mind that, 
 for the larger part, their work can scarcely be counted in 
 cash, yielding its own substantial evidence in buildings, 
 improvements of property, etc. The whole value of the 
 Bethel property is put down at 50,000, against which 
 stands a debt of £j^,ooo ; this debt including her bor- 
 rowings for great schemes, such as, for instance, the 
 starting of the Labour Colony, for which a loan of 
 
 1 5, 000 was obtained. But some of these borrowings, 
 be it noted, are free of interest ; given because the work 
 is so thoroughly believed in. 
 
 Then the home provinces make yearly grants, about 
 £ydOO — apart from Wilhelmsdorf— having in return the 
 right of sending poor patients both to Sarepta and to 
 Bethel. Besides this. Bethel has permission from the 
 authorities to go house-to-house collecting in these 
 provinces — this instead of sending out letters for sub- 
 scriptions, as is done here. ;^ 10,000 or so is thus 
 collected yearly. It is not begging, it is an authorised 
 calling for free-will contributions on behalf of the 
 afflicted within such province, their being no poor-rate 
 in Germany. 
 
 And Bethel's way of setting about this is very charm- 
 ing. Some sixty collectors are employed. Who are 
 they ? We had almost said, they are the blind and halt 
 and maimed of the country round about. But, indeed, 
 they are something very much like it. It is, like every- 
 thing else, a charity within a charity. Those are made 
 collectors who for some reason or other, generally reasons 
 of health, are more or less unfit for their real work — an 
 asthmatic tailor, for instance, or a consumptive stone- 
 
A Colony of Me^^cy 
 
 mason ; it will do them good to be sent for change of air 
 about the country. They get about four or five shillings 
 a day while collecting, for they are on their own keep, 
 besides railway expenses, but they only get it while they 
 collect, which is three or four times a year, a few weeks 
 at a time, returning to their own employment between. 
 (At least in most cases ; some few are permanently en- 
 gaged and settled in the outskirts of the colony.) Now, 
 this is not only a wondrous charity to these men, it is an 
 actual saving to the colony, for they do not need to pay the 
 bulk of their collectors the whole year round, nor engage 
 them at a salary. Is not this financial genius, and yet 
 charity of purest kind, even beneficence, for the rare kind- 
 liness of the thought? These men carry the colony's 
 authorised books, in which everything is entered by the 
 subscribers ; the plan is quite safe from abuse. Some of 
 these collectors have been in Bethel's service for years. 
 As one discovers these things, one no longer wonders 
 that the colony works successfully, for kindness must 
 repay itself. And you cannot inquire into anything at 
 Bethel, but you come upon some such kindness at the 
 bottom. Charity vaunteth not itself^ is not puffed up, but 
 Charity is kind! is kind ! They hardly know the beauty 
 of their own work at Bethel — it is plain they do not, for 
 their humility is genuine ; they do their work, and there 
 is an end of it, as far as they are concerned, but the kind- 
 ness running through everything, the simple kindness — 
 what is it, if not just Christlike ? When we asked the 
 pastor why at such a place they do not keep a chronicler, 
 so that an unfortunate story-seeker like ourselves could 
 draw information from him, he gave us a smile. We felt 
 
The Brocken Samvdung 271 
 
 almost ashamed of the question. " Oh no," he said, 
 " these things are best forgotten." Yet it is for example 
 they should be written, engraven on stone even ; and for 
 example we have written them. It was not easy to get 
 at them, but we felt armed with the key of sympathy ; 
 and what we have written, however inadequate, is 
 true. 
 
 We would warn our readers. We are afraid our writ- 
 ing will let loose a swarm of visitors upon the colony ; we 
 would beg them to refrain, lest they be disappointed, 
 for no one has any time there for mere sightseers. 
 When those magistrates had been — they came at an 
 unfortunate moment, else they, of course, being a depu- 
 tation and on business, would not have needed to have 
 recourse to our marshalling — some one said to the 
 pastor in our hearing, there really was need for a regular 
 appointment — a person knowing all about everything, 
 and fit to take charge of visitors. " Oh no," said he 
 with that smile of his ; " we are not a bear show." 
 
 Bethel, at the same time, never is without visitors ; 
 there is a special " hospice " set apart for them, with an 
 amiable hostess at the head of it. Friends of the 
 patients are welcome there, and so is any one who has 
 any business, any true call for troubling the colony. 
 Bielefeld of course has hotels, and people putting up 
 there can walk about the colony unhindered. And 
 what would they see — a lot of buildings, most of them 
 unpretending enough, outward show not being one of 
 Bethel's characteristics ; they might even enter some of 
 them and see the patients, and they might see some 
 brothers and sisters, and they might come away — we 
 
272 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 promise them — disappointed. For the story of Bethel 
 is of the hidden things, and they are not a bear 
 show. 
 
 But any one into whose heart the seed-sowing of this 
 story has fallen, and fallen on good ground, any one 
 anxious to " go and do likewise," will be heartily 
 welcome there : even in that case no one will have much 
 time to devote to him ; but let him go and see for him- 
 self and bring away a great impulse, and do something 
 in his own country to prove he has not been in vain. 
 True friends, in short, are welcome there— friends of the 
 afflicted, the hungry, the homeless — and to such the 
 story of Bethel will be an open book. 
 
 We have said the good folk there had asked us not to 
 " say anything in praise " ; and they did beg of us, since 
 we were bent on telling their story, to be sure and " look 
 for the Schatten-seiten as well " — the imperfections, the 
 shadows ! But now that we have written the book, 
 given the picture, we fear we have not put in any 
 Schatten-seiten at all ; but, indeed, we honestly have 
 looked for them, and we only remember one. Anxious 
 to be truthful, we will give it. Some of these houses 
 might with advantage be turned out for a thorough 
 airing — the ventilation is not up to modern requirement. 
 But be it remembered the colony has grown, and grown 
 out of farmhouses largely. Moreover, simple charity, 
 rather than sanitation, has had the planning. There is 
 no denying this is a Schatten-seite, but it is the only 
 one we have noticed, and it is being improved. 
 
 But, seriously, no common-sense reader, no one of any 
 Christian insight, will think for one moment that at this 
 
The Brocken Smmnlung 273 
 
 place, though it be a Bethel, and however lovely its work, 
 there are no Schatten-seiten — no imperfections. A colony 
 of three thousand human beings, however noble its scope, 
 will have its shortcomings. But they will be of a kind 
 not seen by an outside critic in their just proportion, 
 and they will be most keenly felt by the workers them- 
 selves. A stay in their midst of a few weeks, even of 
 a few months, will scarcely reveal such imperfections ; 
 nor was it our business to look for them : it would even 
 be unjust to do so ; for the " perfections " are the reality 
 outshining them. We have not idealised the story of 
 Bethel, though we have set it forth as an ideal^ for such 
 it is, if by an ' ideal ' you mean a thing great in its own 
 high aims, a thing greater in its humility, a thing greatest 
 of all in the full measure of success given to such 
 humility, a thing, therefore, pure and noble despite what 
 of imperfection may cling to it, and fit to stand as 
 an example. And Bethel is this. Her imperfections 
 will be the human shortcomings of all Christian en- 
 deavour, cleaving even to Spirit-born beauty while yet 
 in this mortal coil ; the true soul within ever striving 
 to overcome these, and overcoming them step by step. 
 If Bethel speaks of her Sckatten-seiten this is but 
 another proof that she is a living growth, that hers is 
 the spirit of true Christianity, ever ready to take the 
 lowest place, and when she has done her noblest work 
 to say, " We are unprofitable servants." We most em- 
 phatically say it was not our business to look for any 
 Schatten-seiten ; but, having seen her ideal beauty, it was 
 our business to set forth in fullest light both the work 
 and the working secret of Bethel, that any who run 
 
 18 
 
2 74 ^ Colony of Mercy 
 
 may read, and go and do likewise. This, we take it, 
 is the meaning of an ideal 
 
 Bethel has a noble motto ; we will give it in conclu- 
 sion : — 
 
 " Pray, and work." 
 
 Not that they write it up anywhere ; but enter any of 
 their houses and you see it — the busy life, the simple 
 Christianity — the very patients growing up to its whole- 
 some meaning. 
 
 In minor respects, the English visitor will notice some 
 few things strange to the English eye : for one thing, the 
 utter absence of what we should think mere becoming- 
 ness, say, in dress, in appearances ; they are homely 
 folk, and such adornments as they have are of the 
 hidden man. We do not say that the " English eye " 
 is all wrong in this, but Bethel is of a different stamp. 
 Bethel could never " dress." 
 
 Bethel does not need any dress, any show, she is the 
 handmaiden of Him who was meek and lowly in heart, 
 who has said, I am among you as one that serveth." 
 Bethel has many missions, but they are all summed up 
 in her mission of service. We have heard her pastor 
 say, when some one expressed anxiety lest he be over- 
 borne by the mighty load resting on his shoulders — his 
 one regret was this, we heard him say, he could no longer 
 serve, personally serve, some dying babe at Kinderheim, ^ 
 
 What a crown this man will have when the servants 
 are where the Master is ! — a crown which yet is within 
 the reach of every one of us, if we but thought of it ! 
 if we but lived for it ! 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE MESSAGE OF BETHEL TO OURSELVES, 
 
 COUPLE of months ago, when this book was first 
 
 thought of, the idea was, to dedicate it as a working 
 model to the readers of the booklet whence the present 
 writer drew her first inspiration — a vision of the " Pro- 
 gramme of Christianity " not on paper only, but translated 
 into life ; not an ideal only, but an ideal clothed with 
 reality ; a doing, not a thinking only, nor yet an admiring 
 only. But now that the story is told — a true story, 
 though it read like a fairy-tale of charity — it seems to 
 require a larger audience ; and one ventures to address 
 all English readers, into whose hands this book may fall ; 
 for a serious question has to be answered. This work- 
 ing model is a message. 
 
 Why should England, bountiful England, have such a 
 working model held up to her from another country? 
 For large-hearted endeavour, for splendid results, the 
 charities of England indeed rank nobly — no country 
 more ready to respond to any tale of woe than this 
 country. And yet ! the reader will have asked him- 
 self, over and over again, on perusing these pages, why is 
 there nothing like this, not anything at all like this, 
 
 " Go and do likewise.' 
 
276 
 
 A Colo7ty of Mercy 
 
 among ourselves ? Why, indeed ! It is not to sing the 
 praises of Germany that this is said — Germany is behind 
 England in many things. It is said, that English people 
 themselves may look for an answer to the question, 
 " Why are we so seriously behind, when we are so ready 
 to help ? " 
 
 One answer to the question may be : The perfect 
 humility which alone can do great things, the perfect 
 charisma of service which serves, scarce knowing it is 
 serving, the love unbounded which admits of no limit 
 anywhere, the faith which removes mountains, nay which 
 sees no mountain in its soaring flight, are qualities not 
 so easily found united in any one man, and such a man is 
 the'gift of God. Bodelschwingh, though he would look 
 at you with the smile of childhood and the largest eyes of 
 surprise if you told him so, is a man of centuries. Now to 
 such a one forces naturally gravitate. The forces are here 
 in England, plentiful enough ; the charity is here, the 
 educated purse is here — English folk are in advance of 
 Germany in general open-handedness — true Christianity 
 is here : the one thing wanted, it would seem, is such a 
 centre of gravity round which forces may gather, like to 
 like, for an equal result. True, there is a difference of 
 soil, and that particular soil on which Bethel stands 
 strong-rooted and firm — a " Ravensberger Land," with 
 a people of the humblest, a peasantry whom no one ever 
 called " poor people," though they live by the sweat of 
 the brow, a people rich with unseen riches, independent, 
 self-respecting, God-fearing, strong-handed because 
 strong-hearted, this particular soil — well, we have not 
 seen it here. The land laws are against it But there 
 
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 277 
 
 is other soil in this England, equally rich though dif- 
 ferent, with a productive power of its own ; and a harvest 
 no less beautiful for completeness might grow on it. 
 
 Completeness— vAiy is English charity lacking in this 
 respect, when it is so bountiful, so ready to give ? Might 
 it not be because it is too patronising'^ Everything 
 more or less, is done by patronage here ; but Charity, the 
 beautiful, the free, should not stoop to that — no, nor seek 
 it ! But the same feeling which makes English folk 
 say " poor people," seeks to patronise them in their very 
 deeds of charity. Is it love of power ? Givers here like 
 to have something in return for their sovereigns — some 
 influence, something to witness to their having sovereigns. 
 Is it not so ? Or why is it that one has to move heaven 
 and earth, canvassing for votes, writing hundreds and 
 thousands of begging letters to subscribers, taking 
 months, in order to put one little cripple, one helpless 
 incurable into some of these institutions ? Institutions 
 therefore they are, and never anything else — no living 
 growths. How should they, dependent as they are on 
 " Life Governors," on charity mixed with love of power, 
 ever grow to be working models, comforters of all that 
 mourn? It is not likely. THE KINGDOM OF MERCY, 
 LIKE THE KINGDOM OF GRACE, SHOULD BE FREE. 
 
 Say you, we have then some charities thus " free " ? 
 Granted. They may be free of Life Governors and 
 votes, they are not therefore free of patronage. What 
 is it but stooping to patronage, if you must stand up in 
 Exeter Hall, with a platform of the great and fashionable, 
 before you can carry your objects ? The Salvation Army 
 is about the only thing free of that — no, not even they, 
 
278 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 for they took their semi-Jubilee to Exeter Hall for a 
 demonstration, a show. It was with a curious im- 
 pression one watched Bethel at her Jubilee the other 
 day : excepting a few pastors and the like, there were 
 scarcely any gentlefolk present. Bethel, though she found 
 the friendship of Emperors, has her roots struck in 
 humble soil. That Ravensberger country had turned 
 out by the thousand, those peasants — true givers they — 
 who know how to give themselves and their prayers 
 more even than their pennies, and never heard of votes. 
 That was their Exeter Hall ; and one could not help 
 thinking, this is the difference between charity here and 
 charity there. 
 
 And then the outward expression of charity here is a 
 " society " — Christian England is choke-full of societies ; 
 Bethel is a " colony," a personal human fellowship of 
 sufferers and helpers. What constitutes a " society " ? 
 Take up any charity reports and you will see ; the most 
 staring thing about them invariably is the list of sub- 
 scribers. This is the strength a society rests on, else, 
 why give it this prominence ? But the strength of a 
 ^' Colony of Mercy " is the personal surrender to a 
 Christian ideal of personal service. The one is a money- 
 giving, lavish if you like ; the other is a self-giving, a 
 personal washing of feet. This is a fundamental dif- 
 ference. True, there is only one Bethel in Germany : 
 Christianity is in the minority in the Fatherland, sadly so. 
 For quantity you have it here — churches and societies 
 abounding ; for quality go to Bethel. It takes some- 
 thing to be a Christian in Germany — even to attend a 
 church regularly — some of the " reproach of Christ " ! 
 
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 279 
 
 Maybe this is another reason, keeping the quality 
 pure. 
 
 But comparisons are unsatisfactory. We did not mean 
 to make any, only we are sure the reader himself has 
 asked the question, Why are we behindhand? It is 
 in perfect faith we say the charities of England, for 
 splendid endeavour and far-reaching result, rank nobly. 
 But yet ! 
 
 Bethel, speaking to us through her silent work, has a 
 message to this country, and it subdivides itself readily 
 under three heads : 
 
 The Epileptics, 
 The Unemployed, 
 The Ill-housed. 
 
 It will not be of much use to turn to statistics or 
 census-papers for information, as to how many epileptics 
 there might be in this country. Germany never knew 
 anything like correct figures till Bethel began her work. 
 Doctors did not know, no one knew ; but there are one 
 and a half to two per thousand of the population. 
 This at an equal rate would mean sixty to eighty 
 thousand epileptics in this country. But to be quite 
 sure we are not overstepping the mark, let us say 
 one per thousand— ^i^r^ thousand of our English fel- 
 low creatures stricken with this affliction. Where are 
 they? Could — should not there be a Bethel for them 
 also ? 
 
 It is curious that England, having homes even for 
 stray dogs, homes for almost every form of human 
 
28o A Colony of Mercy 
 
 distress, so far has had no home proper * to take in 
 these afflicted ones. But it is a pleasure to record 
 that in some hearts the need has found an echo, and 
 some hands at this moment are striving to fill the 
 gap. Even while this book has been in preparation, 
 we have heard of two efforts, independent of each other, 
 but both inspired by Bethel. 
 
 Two years ago Lord and Lady Meath, carrying their 
 own good work to Germany, the ministering children's 
 band, heard of that Colony of Mercy, and naturally 
 visited it. They spent a week there ; and the writer 
 may be forgiven if, without asking permission, she 
 quotes his Lordship's impression of what he then saw, as 
 summed-up in this — one of the sayings he left behind 
 him. He now understood, he said, and for the first 
 time truly felt, what is meant by Take off thy shoes, 
 for this is holy ground ! " So he would have " taken off 
 his shoes " as an expression of the simple feelings we 
 have endeavoured to put down in these pages. But 
 Lord and Lady Meath did not merely express a 
 sentiment — people often admire and stop there — they 
 went and did something. 
 
 The daily papers have reported that in August 
 last a home was opened at Godalming — " The Meath 
 Home of Comfort for Epileptics." It was opened with 
 the usual show. Royalty and all — things somehow don't ^ 
 do in this country without show, and one cannot help 
 contrasting the quiet way in which Bethel began. But 
 
 ^ Excepting a little home at Maghull, near Liverpool, opened 
 about three years ago by a parish doctor, who in workhouses had 
 come across the terrible need, and who had seen Bethel. 
 
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 281 
 
 the beginning nevertheless is admirable ; here is a fine 
 old country house and grounds of about ten acres bought 
 by the Countess and presented free, with the hope the 
 home may be supported by voluntary gifts. It is for 
 females only, with six cots for children, and can take 
 about a hundred patients. But before the house was 
 opened there were already four Jiundred applications. 
 There will be hundreds upon hundreds before long — 
 there will be no difference in this respect from Bethel's 
 experience. The new home is put in charge of a 
 committee, with the vicar of Godalming at its head. 
 
 We simply quote from the newspapers, struck with 
 the coincidence of this opening with the message of 
 this book. Would to God this new home might grow 
 into a Bethel ! — its name has hit the right thing, " Home 
 of Comfort for Epileptics " ; and it is to go on Bethel's 
 plan — find work for the patients, give them back some- 
 thing of what they have lost. One is very glad of this 
 beginning, but the question rises. Where are the fit 
 nurses — the ministry of mercy to develop this seedling ? 
 If this Home of Comfort has to advertise for them, to 
 seek them, to remunerate them, it will, we fear, collapse : 
 at any rate, it will never be a Bethel. The reader who 
 has followed us through Bethel's history will perhaps 
 even join us, if we ask. Could not a twin seedling 
 be planted, at Godalming or elsewhere — for mutual 
 development it would be best side by side — a seedling 
 for raising the true sisters to nurture up that home? 
 And if such seedling were to grow into a tree and 
 spread branches of healing, like Sarepta with her band 
 of six hundred, what a power in the land ! " Homes 
 
282 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 of Comfort " could take heart then, and do their work. 
 These pages have been written in vain if they have 
 not shown the strength there is in fellowship, in recipro- 
 city, to develop a commonwealth of illimitable growth, 
 even a working model of Christ's Programme for the 
 comforting of all that mourn. One cannot help looking 
 at that Godalming seedling, knowing its origin, without 
 asking, What manner of child shall this be ? Will the 
 mantle of Elijah fall upon it, even the spirit of him 
 whose touch is upon the thought that conceived it ? 
 
 Lady Meath in her opening address referred to 
 another effort, — "seeking to make provision for male 
 patients chiefly on the lines of this German work." 
 
 A printed appeal of this ''other effort" has reached 
 us, its present endeavour being to raise 0,000 
 with the intention of buying a farm and starting a 
 colony like the one from which it has taken the idea- 
 Some benevolent folk of this country visited Bethel, 
 coming away with the thought that England must no 
 longer be behind Germany in this respect. Surely she 
 should not ; but this is not the way in which Bethels are 
 raised, and the raising of 10,000 alone will never 
 give you a Bethel. One is very thankful for any 
 such efforts, but it is important they should not miss 
 the one right track ; very thankful, for it proves 
 that thoughts are moving, and the country perchance is 
 coming awake to the epileptics' need. The good people 
 supporting this scheme have resolved themselves into a 
 committee, calling a meeting at the Mansion House the 
 other day to inaugurate their endeavour. The newly- 
 born charitable enterprise in due form was christened, to 
 
The Message of Bethel to Oiir selves 283 
 
 be known henceforth as The National Society for the 
 Employment of Epileptics. This is a grand name, pledg- 
 ing England to the work. The Lord Mayor was in 
 the chair, some one even calling him the godfather of 
 this babe struggling into life. It was a well-supported 
 meeting : the Church, the law, the medical profession 
 were represented, the latter predominating ; but we were 
 struck with one thing — the only word spoken that after- 
 noon which witnessed to this meeting not being a 
 collection of " Jews, Turks, and Infidels " was spoken 
 by the Lord Mayor — he being a Roman Catholic. One 
 of the speakers, referring to the epileptics' need of em- 
 ployment, made much of Carlyle's " Gospel of Work " — 
 calling it the gospel of the nineteenth century, the 
 gospel also of the Mansion House. His Lordship dis- 
 claimed this, saying the gospel of the Mansion House 
 was Love thy neighbour as thyself. This was a brave word. 
 Not Carlyle, then, in the first place, for the epileptic, 
 but Christ. Another thing which struck us was that not 
 one of the speakers — several of them referred to Bethel, 
 having been there — not one of them touched upon the 
 moving spring of that Colony of Mercy. They called it 
 a " brilliant success," but not one of them with one word 
 went to the root of that success, nor faintly hinted at it — 
 the service of mercy, the self-surrender, the Christ-taught 
 love, on which that commonwealth is based— a "brilliant 
 success " becaiLse of this. 
 
 England, we have said, is pledged to this new and 
 much-needed endeavour, for it is to be a National 
 Society. But among the letters read in apology for 
 absence was one from the Chief Rabbi, who was 
 
284 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 " unavoidably prevented from attending." He had been 
 asked along with the Lord Chancellor and other great folk. 
 Now it is to be a National Society ; and lui^e is Christian 
 England^ we thought, coming to the rescue of her forty 
 thousand epileptics. " Bring him to Me',' said Christ ! 
 
 It is not that we preach exclusiveness. Bethel takes 
 in Jewish patients, and the Bielefeld rabbi may visit 
 them ; Bethel took in the Roman Catholic epileptics of 
 the province, till the Romish Church claimed her own 
 patients. No, not exclusiveness ; but even " Social 
 Christianity," which is but a newly discovered name for 
 the philanthropy we long have known, even Social 
 Christianity, if it is to be true, if it is to be a living force, 
 can only grow on a Christ-stirred soil. 
 
 Speaking subsequently to a friend much interested in 
 the object of this meeting, who also had been to Bethel, 
 we asked him, " Where are the nurses — the sisters, the 
 brothers ? " " Well," he said, " that is a great want here 
 — the ' deaconess ' somehow never grew in this country ; 
 we must work with what we have got." And he 
 thought, something after all could be done with paid 
 nurses — he even spoke of paid " house-fathers." But 
 our thoughts went back to Bethel, to the Colony of 
 Mercy, to the commonwealth for Christ's sake, and a 
 hopeless feeling stole over us. This new society, we 
 thought, though it call itself " National " will be an institu- 
 tion like the rest of them — sending out its yearly cries » 
 of empty coffers, going to Exeter Hall, very likely, each 
 returning May, presenting its yearly reports like the 
 rest of them. But there will be no inspiring story 
 to tell five-and -twenty years hence — no one would read 
 
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 285 
 
 it if any one wrote it — unless the life yet be infused 
 into this effort which alone can result in true growth. 
 Who is to be the guiding hand, the Bodelschwingh 
 of this National Society, whether a doctor or layman, 
 we could not learn. " We have not got to the length 
 of that," said one, of whom we inquired ; " but it won't be 
 a parson ! " 
 
 These few words set us thinking. This " National " 
 Society is going to be tmdenoniinational, so undenomina- 
 tional that even the Chief Rabbi has to be included. If 
 anything in Christian England wants to be " National," 
 it must not show its colours. " It won't be a parson " — 
 for if we take a Churchman the chapel people stand 
 aloof, and if we take a Nonconformist the Church of 
 England folk leave us unbefriended ; and we want 
 subscriptions all round. It is this desperate need of 
 subscriptions. One of the speakers at the Mansion 
 House actually said : " We will start this much-needed 
 work if you make it possible by giving us the funds ! " 
 in other words : this work is going to be done in the 
 strength of your sovereigns — and sovereigns to be sure 
 are all of one colour. Love is not, faith is not, but 
 money is — this desperate need of subscriptions. So we 
 invite the Chief Rabbi, we are undenominational, and 
 our Bodelschwingh is not to be a parson. 
 
 It is not the " parson " we plead for : we plead for a 
 right spirit of this new society. Its promoters have been 
 to Bethel; they did not stay long enough, maybe, to 
 read the full story they may now read in these pages, but 
 surely they caught some glimpse of the working secret ? 
 Ten thousand pounds are nothing if you want a Bethel. 
 
286 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 The resolution pas:ied at the Mansion House said this 
 
 work should be " as much as possible on the lines of the 
 
 Bielefeld colony." So you do want a Bethel ! Ten 
 
 thousand pounds, then, are nothing — it is a foundation 
 
 of men and of women which is wanted ; you want 
 
 the upholding power of ten thousand hearts. We too 
 
 would be "National" in our pleading for England's 
 
 epileptics : let the Church of Christ arise here also and 
 
 spread her arms about these " falling ones," that church 
 
 of which every one is a member who can do a thing 
 
 for Christ's sake. It is not church or chapel which 
 
 is wanted, but faith and love, and the Christ-spirit of 
 
 service. We have set forth our working model, and 
 
 even that Mansion House meeting declared, England 
 
 should not be behind Germany any longer. In simple 
 
 earnest, then, Is Christian England, having read this 
 
 story, not going to rise for the seeking out of the 
 
 epileptics of this country — the forty thousand, or how 
 
 many of them ? * — that they also may sing the song of 
 
 the bound ones of Zion, the song of a healing whereof 
 
 they may be glad ? Think of them, such as are not 
 
 imbeciles already, hidden away in their silent despair, — 
 
 they may not go to your churches, your chapels ; and 
 
 every object in life is denied them, — will you not gather 
 
 them in a Colony of Mercy, of true helpfulness, round 
 
 about a cJmrcJi of their own where no one shall be 
 
 afraid of them, and where they may learn to be still? ' 
 
 * It was said at the Mansion House meeting that England 
 had eighty thottsand epileptics — that is two per thousand of the 
 population. We had thought one per thousand terrible enough, 
 considering that nothing to speak of has yet been done for 
 them. 
 
The Message of Bethel to Otir selves 287 
 
 " Comfort ye, comfort ye this people," saith He who has 
 thus afflicted them, thus bound them, not for their sakes 
 only, with cords of mercy wherewith to draw them, but 
 for your sake — yours and yours — that you may learn 
 the better your own lesson in charity. It is because we 
 have seen what is done at Bethel that we put out this 
 appeal to Christian England. 
 
 As for the ministry of mercy, is it so hopeless to try 
 for it here — for sisters, for brothers ? If that new society 
 indeed could start in the right spirit, should it not be 
 able to train its own workers ? Hundreds and thousands 
 in this country are standing idle in the market-place ; 
 what seems wanted is a centre of influence to attract 
 them. Only a few days ago we heard of the mistress of a 
 large household, who, worn to death by servant worries, 
 advertised for ladies to be cook and housemaids in her 
 establishment. She was overwhelmed with applications, 
 and is now trying the experiment of ladies below stairs 
 — one of them a clergyman's daughter. Is it not, then, 
 that hundreds and thousands stand idle in the market- 
 place? True, these ladies will have applied because 
 everything else had failed, and it won't do to be a 
 deaconess because everything else is failing ! Still, we 
 plead, if the right centre of attraction could be formed, 
 the workers might be found, and if the right spirit were 
 at work, the right training would follow. '^England 
 shoidd not be behind Germany in this ! " We endorse this 
 resolution passed at the Mansion House on behalf of a 
 " National " Society. It is because we have seen what is 
 done at Bethel, that we do appeal to Christian England. 
 
^288 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 Again, no one can have read certain chapters in 
 this book without thinking of certain " other efforts " for 
 the unemployed. Let us begin by adducing the im- 
 partial witness of an American. Professor Peabody of 
 Harvard University, in the Forum^ speaks of the 
 German Labour Colonies, notably of Wilhelmsdorf — he 
 has visited Bethel — and he says : " When General 
 Booth and his advisers first proposed his series of 
 ' Colonies ' the scheme seemed to most persons quite 
 without precedent. How much as a matter of fact it 
 was suggested by the German experiment is not even 
 now known by the German administrators ; but it is 
 certainly most interesting to see the ' Darkest England ' 
 plan actually at work, and to learn the lessons which 
 these years of experience have to teach," the Professor 
 then proceeding to describe Wilhelmsdorf and its kind- 
 red institutions. 
 
 Readers will remember how the country two years 
 ago resounded with the " Darkest England " scheme, as 
 with a novel and original proposal, the General's big 
 book, if we remember right, selling a hundred and fifty 
 thousand copies within a few months on the strength of 
 this novelty — for the country is anxious to be shown a 
 true remedy for its cankerworm, the social distress. It is 
 to the honour of the country that the " Darkest England " 
 book was so eagerly bought ; and much of the displeasure 
 recently vented on the Salvation Army is due to a sense 
 of this eagerness : people do not like to remember their 
 own enthusiasm when results after a while prove it to 
 have been a steed leaving its cart far behind. Only, the 
 * February 1892. 
 
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 289 
 
 " cart " is of the General, and not of the country, and 
 this is the great mistake. Yet it is to the honour of 
 General Booth that he put forth this scheme. Will he 
 and " his advisers " forgive us, if in the interest of their 
 own good effort we venture a question or two ? 
 
 Plagiarism in charity is not only venial, it is even 
 enjoined, for we are told to go and do likezvise. It is 
 even a virtue. So General Booth, in writing his " Darkest 
 England," cannot have been guided by any desire of 
 coming forward with a novel and original proposal. Yet 
 why did he not say, and say emphatically, the startling 
 proposal has already stood the test ? Why, to strengthen 
 his own hands, did he not refer to Darkest Germany and 
 its way out, trodden these ten years ? Why did he not 
 thus silence at the outset any opposition that might arise ? 
 Would he not, for his own good scheme, have been ten 
 times as strong if in the largest print obtainable, he had 
 made it plain to the country that so far from being any 
 unprecedented Utopianism, the ideal of Darkest England 
 already stood realised — that he had not one, but a score 
 of working models, nay, shining beacon-lights beckoning 
 him on ? For his effort is good. Why did he not thus 
 strengthen his hands? It cannot have been an over- 
 sight ; and it was not ignorance, for one of his officers 
 was at Bethel, inspecting Wilhelmsdorf, before the 
 British public was informed of " Darkest England and 
 the Way Out." We repeat, we ask these questions 
 for the sake of his own good scheme ; we do not doubt 
 that folk may have original ideas though others may 
 already have had them, since there is really " nothing 
 new under the sun " ; but we persist in asking why did 
 
 19 
 
290 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 he not fortify his own position by bringing into the field 
 his score of models ? Did he forget there is strength in 
 union, even though it be a union of spirit ? And does he 
 not know, that in order to convince the masses there is 
 nothing like the gospel of success, and could he not have 
 written a whole book about the successful way out of 
 Darkest Germany ? * 
 
 His scheme in itself is so honourable and true, and it 
 is so important it should not end in failure, that we may 
 be forgiven our questions. We are loth to tread pn 
 dangerous ground ; but since this book may tend to aid 
 his effort, prepare the English public more fully than yet 
 has been the case for the way out of social distress by 
 means of labour colonies, it is best not to beat about 
 the bush ; and General Booth and his advisers, for the 
 sake of the submerged they would succour, will perhaps 
 review their position, and themselves look for any 
 weak point. For Charity seeketh not its own but the 
 good it would do — Charity therefore never is offended. 
 
 There has been much writing lately about the " Social 
 Scheme." Friends and foes have spent themselves in the 
 daily press, attacking and defending. A " Committee of 
 Inquiry " had to be called to exonerate the Salvation 
 
 * To show how unostentatiously this great German work has been 
 carried on, we again quote from the Forum : " In 1887 two agents 
 of the British Government visited Wilhelmsdorf and reported 
 briefly on its condition in a * blue-book ' of March 1888. (German 
 Workmen's Colonies.) In October, 1890, the Earl of Meath in- 
 spected the colony, and describes his visit in the Nineteenth 
 Century for January 1891. An officer of the Salvation Army 
 was there in i8go. Beyond these, Wilhelmsdorf could recall 
 no foreign visitors." 
 
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 291 
 
 Army, and find for Hadleigh a " certificate of success.'' 
 But surely Hadleigh should be its own certificate by its 
 own two years' work ! Surely all attacks on the arith- 
 metic and wisdom of the colony should slink into a 
 corner before the visible fact called Hadleigh ! 
 
 We do not for a moment question the high character 
 of the Committee of Inquiry ; but proving the expendi- 
 ture to have been correct does not test the working of 
 the scheme : it does not prove true results, not even a 
 true direction. Nor was this included within the " scope 
 of the inquiry." Might not, as the simplest of all tests, 
 the homely proverb be laid down here as a measure, 
 that the proof of the pudding is in tJie eating} Should 
 not the Darkest England work appeal to the public 
 conscience simply by its own true tangible results'^ 
 
 When Wilhelmsdorf had been at work a little over 
 a year, a visiting magistrate could report* that 1200 
 unemployed had been admitted, of whom only 42 had 
 run away, and 966 found regular employment ; that 
 830 of these had actually been placed by means of 
 the Labour Committee in connection with the colony. 
 In other words, here are nearly one thousand of the 
 submerged ' saved ' after one year's work. Such figures 
 go a long way to convince a country, convince it even 
 of i," 1 00,000 if need be ; and Wilhelmsdorf, moreover, 
 was fast proving its claim on the nation's faith by the 
 procreative power inherent in life — her children, other 
 colonies in other parts of the country, were already 
 rising to call her blessed. This, as a " certificate," is 
 worth a hundred committees ! 
 
 * Vide p. 145. 
 
292 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 As for General Booth's much-talked-of ^100,000, and 
 his deficit of ;^70,ooo— well, some folk have a knack of 
 spending money. But Wilhelmsdorf and her five-and- 
 twenty children together have scarcely exceeded these 
 figures. Some folk have a knack of spending money 
 well. This is not hinting at misappropriation : we trust 
 the General and his advisers in this respect. But spend- 
 ing is one thing, and spending effectively is another ; and 
 for the sake of the General's own effort, nay, for the sake 
 of poor Darkest England itself, ought there not to be 
 something more than spending great sums, though it be 
 in accordance with the plan laid down? Ought there 
 not to be an equivalent — even something like a fair 
 prospect of a hundred thousand pounds' worth of good 
 results ? It is not surprising if the original supporters of 
 the scheme withhold further subsidies till this prospect 
 appear on the horizon to do its own pleading ; and it is 
 not unfair to measure Hadleigh by its models. 
 
 In Germany they set about their colonies with a 
 modest grant — and what is better, in a modest spirit : in 
 most cases not the tenth, not the fifteenth part of the 
 sum asked for here is required ; every penny, so to speak, 
 is accounted for by the work done ; there is success — 
 results which make even a Frenchman say, " L et us 
 learn of these Germans." Wilhelmsdorf alone, as one 
 of the largest colonies, if not the largest, has required 
 in all about one-sixth of the General's original sum, 
 ^15,000 being sunk in land investment and in buildings, 
 etc. ; but much is being done in that Senne. General 
 Booth has informed the country he will require a yearly 
 subsidy of ^^30,000, once he is fairly afloat ; Wilhelmsdorf 
 
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 293 
 
 is subsidized with as many ' marks ' {i.e.^ shillings) ; 
 ;^2,ooo a year has been the highest figure reached for 
 provincial yearly aid to Wilhelmsdorf, even when six 
 hundred outcasts passed through its gates. ;^30,ooo a 
 year, indeed, subsidizes the whole of the German colonies, 
 the twenty-six of them, for they are all in good working 
 order, more or less earning their own. True, General 
 Booth's aims from the first have claimed grander scope 
 than any of these German colonies, but aim and achieve- 
 ment do not always hit it off together. It would seem a 
 patent lesson, to be learned from these German colonies, 
 that beginning humbly, walking surely, and leaving 
 room for growth is a wise thing. And Wilhelmsdorf, 
 after one year's work, was an achievement beyond any- 
 thing Hadleigh has yet reached, or we fear on present 
 lines is likely to reach. Should those interested in 
 Hadleigh, nay, should the General and his advisers 
 themselves, for the sake of their own good effort, not 
 endeavour to get at the true bottom of this discrepancy 
 between aim and achievement ? 
 
 For one thing — has Hadleigh any such person to guide 
 its plough as that house-father Meyer? Wilhelmsdorf 
 perhaps would not be what it is but for its splendid 
 \iOViS^-father, that humble Christian, that thorough 
 farmer ; nay, we must say, but for him and his wonderful 
 little house-7;/<?///^r, as humble as he, as thorough as he. 
 The Committee of Inquiry has suggested that Hadleigh 
 farm for the future be put under the sole management 
 of some thoroughly competent man — the best available, 
 whether of the Salvation Army or not ; apparently ex- 
 pressing an opinion thereby that hitherto there has been 
 
294 ^ Colo7iy of Mercy 
 
 no such competent management. But the thorough 
 farmer alone won't do ! Remember, education is wanted 
 for these submerged ; an education, moreover, they will 
 submit to, scarce knowing it for education ! It is a 
 lovely stroke of Christian genius which at Wilhelmsdorf 
 has set, not a competent manager over these men, but 
 which gave them a house-father, a house-mother ! The 
 child soul, at bottom, is the truest thing in man ; even 
 in the prodigal it vibrates. These men arrive, fallen, 
 submerged, hopeless — depraved, perhaps —but hungry ; 
 and what do they find ? Not " officers " to command them, 
 not "competent men" to set against their own wretched- 
 ness, but a house-father, a house-mother. How much in 
 this one word to educate these men ! It is taking them at 
 the one point where there is hope left they will succumb. 
 A tide of love has set in upon their neglected natures — 
 the purest, the most natural of all loves — father ! mother ! 
 This book repeatedly has spoken of the strength there is 
 in the brothers, the house-parents Bethel has trained : 
 it has stood its finest test at Wilhelmsdorf Yet in 
 many an instance it is not Bethel, but a Higher Hand, 
 that had the preliminary training. The wondrous thing 
 ever again is the magnetic power in Bodelschwingh, 
 attracting the right forces. They come, obeying the 
 Voice calling them. They do his work — not slavishly, 
 but as free agents almost, with a liberty all their own, 
 only that his spirit is moving in that liberty. It is 
 the magnetism of inborn rulership blended with noblest 
 humility on his side, it is the response of purest 
 devotion on theirs — a yielding, in the first instance, not 
 to him, but to the mighty calling of brotherly love. 
 
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 295 
 
 For Bethel is a Christian commonwealth. Will any one 
 go to Wilhelmsdorf, have a talk with these house-parents, 
 — nay, just watch them, reading their faces a little. 
 Perhaps he will then agree with us, that this is what is 
 wanted for the hungry " millions " * here — some one to 
 be father to them, to be mother to them, to bring them 
 home. 
 
 The Salvation Army at present seems the only agency, 
 on a large scale, willing to grapple with the social 
 distress. All honour to them for this willingness ! — for it 
 is a noble effort. And they have, for power at any rate, 
 an almost perfect machinery ; as far as discipline and 
 union among themselves are concerned, they stand as 
 one man. What could they not achieve ! Then, in the 
 name of the many-headed hydra they have set themselves 
 to combat, will they not examine their own two years' 
 work by the simple figures to be had from any of the 
 six-and-twenty German colonies ; or examine it even by 
 that Frenchman's report, and see what may be amiss 
 with their one colony here? Even if because of 
 differences of national character, because of differences 
 of circumstance, social, legislative or any other kind 
 they must say with that Frenchman, "// y a beaucoup 
 a apprendre cJiez les Alleniands^ mais pen a prendre^' will 
 they nevertheless examine their efforts by the light 
 afforded by these working models, and see if they cannot, 
 though not " copy," yet learn something to further their 
 own good scheme? They owe it to the country, for 
 they have money collected in the country; they owe it to 
 
 * This is the estimate of " Darkest England " — the suhnerged 
 tenth— wo figure of speech presumably. 
 
296 A Colony of Me7^cy 
 
 themselves, for they have been attacked and accused, and 
 committee reports alone are not a sufficient voucher ; and 
 most of all, they owe it to the submerged, to the ragged 
 and starving millions in sore need of being " saved." 
 
 We ask these questions in the name of these starving 
 ones, because we have seen Wilhelmsdorf at work, and 
 have seen what can be done. Surely the General is of 
 Bodelschwingh's mind, that love is the great propeller ? 
 It is a fine thing to man the lifeboats going out into the 
 surge, but love means many things ; it means, for one 
 thing, losing ourselves entirely in the work we would do. 
 The Salvation Army should be a means, and never an 
 object, when the hungry millions of England stand 
 crying to be saved. 
 
 Another salient point which cannot fail to strike the 
 thoughtful reader is this : General Booth is the Pope of 
 the Salvation Army ; he is responsible to no one. Now 
 such a position is unwholesome for any one short of 
 the Archangel Gabriel — mortal man grappling with such 
 schemes, and investing such sums, should for his own 
 peace of mind be most fully responsible. Having his 
 accounts audited does not affect the question. Does 
 not the Darkest England Trust vest in the General an 
 " absolute discretion " in applying the funds as he may 
 " think fit " (applying them for the scheme, of course), 
 provided that he publish a duly audited yearly balance- 
 sheet ? Is "auditing" anything more than attesting 
 correctly rendered figures ? Who framed that trust 
 deed? No other agency of the Kingdom, doing large 
 business for the Master, leaves its funds to the " absolute 
 discretion " of any one trustee ; not that this one trustee 
 
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 297 
 
 might not be the most angelic steward, but it is unad- 
 visable and apt to raise needless controversy. Nor is 
 it good to be a pope in mere dictatorship ; it is good for 
 a man, even for the most guileless general, to have a 
 power over him. He wants people to believe in him for 
 the good of the masses he has at heart ; would they not 
 believe in him tenfold if they saw him the perfect 
 servant, not in any way seeking his own ? Might not 
 there be some love of power here also ? 
 
 Are we too hard upon the General? Has not the 
 Committee of Inquiry itself suggested, by one of its four 
 " conclusions," that the General should join " adequate 
 safeguards " to his own sole trusteeship ? and has not the 
 General in his subsequent letter to his friends, inviting 
 them to subscribe the further ;£"70,ooo, forthwith dis- 
 claimed any such safeguards, confessing frankly they 
 might " interfere " with his " discretion " ? What is this, 
 if not pope and autocrat combined? It is unwise; it 
 is unwholesome 
 
 Pastor von Bodelschwingh is nowise a pope, nor is he 
 Autocrat of all the Russias ; truly he is chief of all 
 that colony, but only because Christ has said, he who 
 serveth best is greatest. It is not by any false humility 
 that he calls himself the " first " servant of the colony, he 
 is so in very deed, and at a touchingly modest salary too,* 
 
 * So modest, the reader would not believe it. Pastor von 
 Bodelschwingh has long divested himself, for the Master's sake, 
 of all he inherited from his aristocratic parentage — money, coronet, 
 and all. He never stands on his ''von," though he is a baron 
 born ; and, what is more, people talking to him forget giving 
 him his " honours." His wife has some means left, enough to 
 
298 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 and his committee could depose him to-morrow. He is 
 responsible ; and he renders account of himself most 
 fully. Not that we would suppress the half plaintive, 
 half proudly-approving, and altogether amusing way, in 
 which some of this pastor's committee tell you : "We are 
 just nobodies to that man, he soars in front of any of us, 
 and generally asks our leave and permission to things 
 when they are done." That committee know their 
 pastor, and trust him. All the same, this chief is a 
 responsible man ; the yearly reports of his governorship, 
 figures and all, are published ; any one can examine 
 into his stewardship, and his committee, however fully 
 they trust him, " audit " his administration. Is not this 
 a wise way of doing things, likely to further and not 
 hinder a great work? 
 
 And then Pastor von Bodelschwingh, though he starts 
 the schemes, and most truly is owner of the great 
 thoughts he launches, never keeps things in his own 
 hands. The guiding threads may meet in his closet of 
 moral chieftainship — how can he help being the guiding 
 influence ? But the moment any work is started, he 
 puts others at the helm. It is so in all little things, 
 in every house of the colony, every smallest post of 
 trust; and it is so completely in the important schemes. 
 The Labour Colony, though the child of his brain and 
 heart, from the very first was put under a provincial 
 committee ; it is not his colony, it is the colony of the 
 
 educate their sons. All her jewellery and such things he long 
 ago found better" use for. Friends, knowing all this, sometimes 
 send cheques for " personal use "; but Bodelschwingh invariably 
 endorses these cheques to the Bethel treasury. 
 
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 299 
 
 province. The magistrates can inspect it any day, 
 and some of them are on the committee. And it is so 
 with all the labour colonies, the twenty-six of them ; 
 although they have their own private union among them- 
 selves, with their own head-quarters in Berlin. This is 
 German thoroughness ; this is method, and also what 
 is known historically as Deutsche Treue^ that com- 
 plete loyalty with which knight of old served his 
 country — with which worker true at any time loses 
 himself entirely in the work of his heart and hand. It 
 is the surrender of service which seeketh not its own. 
 
 And this decentralising may be a reason why Bethel 
 is so wondrous a growth ; it may be a reason why these 
 labour colonies work successfully ; a reason also why 
 they are believed in. 
 
 In conclusion, though one wishes every possible suc- 
 cess to this one English labour colony, why should there 
 be but one ? A member of the Committee of Inquiry 
 is reported to have said, " It would be a national 
 disaster if the Darkest England scheme must collapse 
 for want of prompt and adequate support." Is not this 
 rather tying the nation to General Booth's apron-string ? 
 Bodelschwingh did not start the twenty-five other 
 colonies, nor did Wilhelmsdorf, except by force of ex- 
 ample. The country, beholding that sure and certain 
 beginning, the country rose to the need, every province 
 standing to its post. Has not England a duty towards 
 her unemployed, her starving millions ? Could not, on 
 the example shown in these pages, a more complete 
 endeavour be set on foot ? Could it not be done 
 " scientifically," with thoroughness and method ? Could 
 
300 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 not a net be spread, as they have done in Germany, a 
 hand-in-hand endeavour for the gathering in of Darkest 
 England ? Will they not come, if you spread it aright ? 
 Should you not even " compel them to come in " ? Let 
 the country consider these questions. Let the country 
 decide whether Darkest England should not somehow 
 follow in the wake of Darkest Germany. A growing 
 number of smaller colonies, independent of each other 
 and yet united, would work better and have a better 
 chance of success than General Booth's one giant 
 undertaking. This, at least, seems one of the lessons 
 taught by the twenty-six models. Some of these are 
 on quite a modest scale (beginning humbly, with room 
 for growth, being one of the rules there), but they do 
 the work required of them^ and are parts of the v/hole. 
 Let Hadleigh take the lead by all means — the lead of 
 setting a good example. But more than ever the social 
 distress appeals to the conscience of England, and 
 having shown our working model, we can but invite this 
 country — not to " copy " (for England is not Germany) 
 — but to go and do likewise^ 
 
 * Should the English reader resent being so persistently 
 referred to German example, we give the remark of an English 
 coroner — but first its cause : The daily papers of the closing 
 year published an East End story of "starving at Christmas," 
 telling of a woman, in the pains of childbirth, so poor that 
 she was lying on a heap of straw with nothing to cover 
 her. There was no food, no furniture, in the house. Little 
 wonder that the newborn infant died when only five hours old. 
 " There must be something terribly awry with our system of poor 
 relief (says the Daily Chro?iicle) when such things are possible 
 in wealthy, Christian England." But this is what the coroner 
 said: Acco7^ding to our poor-law, a man must tumble into 
 
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 301 
 
 We cannot help giving expression here to a thought 
 which has struck us : these labour colonies seek the 
 saving of men only. What if one thought of women 
 to be saved ! Would not a female labour colony in 
 God's pure nature be a fine substitute for the washtub 
 penitentiary ? We even know of a working model : it 
 has been working these ten years — silent, unknown. 
 It is not known to this day except to the two or three 
 connected with it. It was opened, curiously enough, 
 the same month Wilhelmsdorf was opened, but quite 
 independently — independent of the thought even. Nor 
 does it call itself a labour colony ; it is one, though ! 
 It is of the selfsame inspiration. This to console 
 General Booth, showing that inspirations can spring 
 up in duplicate as it were, and yet be original thought. 
 They have the selfsame root. The great thoughts of the 
 Kingdom never are meant to be the property of any 
 one servant : they are of the commonwealth of Christ, 
 and crop up here, there and everywhere, when wanted. 
 
 But this is the working model : A certain wealthy 
 manufacturer in Germany never somehow made a lucky 
 hit investing in landed property. Among other unfor- 
 tunate ventures he found himself possessed, through 
 mortgage and otherwise, of a certain " Hof," a gentleman 
 farmer's property, away in the hills, and labouring under 
 all sorts of difficulties. A good deal of money was sunk 
 
 the gutter before he can be ;picked u;p. In Germany they try 
 to prevent a man tumbtiitg into the giUter. It is a question 
 whether this is not the cheapest in the end ; it certainly is more 
 humane." Thus the coroner, registering the case with the long 
 roll of " starved to death," in the foremost city of the world. 
 
302 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 in it with hopes of improvement ; but the undertaking 
 remained obstinately hopeless — so hopeless that the 
 owner could not even throw it upon the market. So he 
 made a present of that " Hof " to the kingdom of Mercy. 
 Would he have done so if it had not been a dead loss on 
 his hands ? Well, anyway, he did so now ; and, curiously, 
 Charity among other things is a great refuse gatherer, 
 turning all things, even non-paying investments — if only 
 they are given her — to her own good use. This manu- 
 facturer has a wife, and she hit upon the idea. 
 
 This lady — we will call her Frau Elisabeth, for her 
 little labour colony was christened ElisabetJien-Hof — 
 was always interested in penitentiary work. She had a 
 " Magdalene " institute near Frankfort, and the difficulty 
 often was what to do with these Magdalenes. Now, 
 here was this " Hof" of her husband's, of no good to any 
 one ; so the thought struck her to devote it to this work. 
 A house-father was got, one of those evangelist brothers. 
 He, of course, had to be a farmer, with a wife equal to 
 the endeavour ; and the fallen ones were taken there 
 for wholesome work. They could not do the heavier 
 labour — the ploughing and the like — and this was the 
 great difficulty ; for these women labourers could not 
 be shut up as prisoners, nor always work in gangs. But 
 the difficulty has been solved without ill consequence. 
 The few men employed on the " Hof" in every instance 
 are steady ploughmen, over fifty, married, and of good 
 report. Anyway the venture has worked. There is 
 much, even of field labour, these women can do ; and 
 there is all the dairy work besides. The results, in 
 short, are very satisfactory. The " Hof " yields no gain 
 
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 303 
 
 to the owner, but it keeps itself, and it keeps this work 
 — surely a great measure of success, considering. As 
 for the true " returns," the saving of these women — these 
 workers are satisfied to do the beautiful thing, leaving 
 the results to be known in the great harvest day. These 
 women at any rate are in "saving" surroundings for a 
 considerable time, and then places are found for them, 
 and some of them are brands plucked from the burning. 
 
 Now, the suggestion which has struck us is this • it is 
 almost a cruelty to shut up a penitent street girl in these 
 washtub homes ; they are used to the roving life, the 
 open air, the freedom of limb. How should they thrive, 
 soul and body, cooped up ? But if you could take them 
 into the country, right away from all cities, and give 
 them nature's freedom ! The chivalrous Briton will not 
 have women do field labour ; but might not some of the 
 billions of eggs now imported, enriching the foreigner, 
 be raised on British soil ? It would be a bit of national 
 economy. Why should not there be a penitent female 
 labour colony and poultry farm combined ? We almost 
 fancy it might pay ! We suggest this thought to some 
 of the landed proprietors who now groan with farms on 
 their hands ; and we suggest it to the Ellice Hopkins', 
 the Mrs. Butlers, and others interested in rescue work. 
 It appears to us a fruitful idea. We will give the 
 address of that Elisabethen-Hof to any of these ladies 
 who might wish to move for such a labour colony ; for 
 Frau Elisabeth is a cousin of ours — we have not asked 
 her leave to publish her quiet work. 
 
 Labour colonies will come to be less and less needed 
 
304 A Colo7iy of Mercy 
 
 when the working classes are worthily housed, when 
 they find " beauty for ashes " in their own little homes, 
 given them not as a chanty but as their simple due. 
 
 We all know the state of the London poor. Travel 
 into London by almost any of its railway lines : what 
 awful visions as you enter upon the brick-covered area i 
 " Is this London ? " asks the wondering stranger. It is 
 only the suburbs where the poor live, you tell him, 
 trying to explain. And this goes on for miles, only the 
 merciful railway whisks you through it quickly. You 
 have looked into back yards a few feet square, and into 
 windows — the darkness within hiding the squalor ; you 
 can only think of ashpits — no beauty for ashes here at 
 any rate. It is here the British workman lives, paying • 
 a pretty penny for rent too, considering. And going 
 farther into London, you may visit that chamber of 
 horrors, St. Giles's — some of us have been through it, 
 though the policeman says a lady shouldn't — and there 
 is the East End, where the "bitter cry of outcast London," 
 despite everything that has been written, goes up to 
 heaven day and night. 
 
 You say the poor themselves are greatly to blame, 
 they are so improvident, — so they are ; they find begging 
 and lounging about the streets cheaper than work, — so 
 they do ; and the misery . continues, and children are 
 born to that misery ; and though spasmodic efforts are 
 made to wage war on that misery, you look on again 
 after a while, hopeless to cope with it. It is the over- 
 crowded state, you say : London has grown too big : — so 
 it has. 
 
 We have begun to take the poor into the country once 
 
The Message of Bethel to Ottrselves 305 
 
 or twice a year, to give them a w hiff of fresh air and show 
 them the clean things of God ; but this is almost a 
 cruelty, — it is almost telling them, " Look, how nice the 
 world is, but not for you ! " for we take them back at 
 night to the big city. A little pale-faced London child 
 taken into the country once, to stay awhile and get 
 strong, sent the message to those she had left behind, 
 " Tell father, in the country the sun always shines ! " 
 And there is another story of a little City child who, in 
 the slum which was her world, loved and tended one 
 blade of grass, and how bitterly she cried when rude 
 boys, discovering her heart's delight, tore out that one 
 blade ! Now, in the name of God and our own common 
 sense, ought this to be, when the world is full of green 
 grass, and the country sky full of sunshine, room enough 
 and to spare for all the thousands of pale-faced mites ? 
 
 The working population of London must be con- 
 siderably above one million : why should they continue 
 cooped up in that Babylon ? Would it not be possible 
 for some of those who have long pitied the condition 
 of the poor to put their heads and hands together — no, 
 their hearts — and work for an exodus after the pattern 
 set down in a former chapter ? It is not charity in the 
 sense of almsgiving which is wanted, but that truer 
 charity which, feeling with the feelings of the poor, will 
 begin to say they are men and women like ourselves, 
 and have the same right to God's fair earth as we have. 
 There is land enough and to spare within railway access 
 of London to house all the poor and give them a garden 
 — beauty for ashes — if only the owners of that land could 
 see this. Owners after all cannot carry the land with 
 
 20 
 
3o6 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 them to heaven, but they could carry with them the 
 blessing of many a struggling man and woman, if they 
 could sit a little less hard-and-fast by the land they own. 
 There is the English Litany praying every Sunday, 
 " From hardness of heart, good Lord, deliver us." What 
 if once in a while this were paraphrased : " From hearts 
 bound up with our lands, good Lord, deliver us?" If 
 you went far enough out of London — it should be in 
 pretty country — the land would not be so very valuable 
 in these days of depreciated farming-land ; possibly it 
 might even pay the owner to sell some plots of land for 
 a Workmen's Home ; possibly it does not at present yield 
 as much as 3I per cent., for everybody says farming is 
 down nowadays. 
 
 They won't go out of London, say you? Well, try 
 them. Try them with the prospect of this little house 
 and garden of their own — their real own — and see if they 
 will not go ! Tell them, ten years of the money they 
 now spend in rent will give them this " own," and even if 
 it be fifteen years, see if they will not ! If the English 
 working population all gravitates towards London, is it 
 not because you have made the country almost impossible 
 for them ? If a true peasant stock could thrive in this 
 country with land of its own, London would not be the 
 one centre of attraction for all English poverty, as it is 
 pretty nearly of all English wealth ! The working 
 classes are not beyond being educated, if only you take 
 them in hand aright, not patronisingly, but helpfully. 
 They soon see whether, setting up a building society for 
 improved dwellings, you seek your own dividends or 
 their well-being. And you could have your dividends, 
 
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 307 
 
 — 32 P<^i* cent, fully secured, which is more than the 
 national debt pays, if you invest in English consols. 
 And surely it is altogether a more satisfactory investment 
 than putting into Argentines, getting your 6 per cent, 
 for awhile and then losing capital and dividends together. 
 And it is an investment in the bank of Jesus Christ, 
 which pays a dividend known to yourself only. 
 
 This to beneficent people who have some money to 
 spare. 
 
 Such working men's villages within fair distance of 
 London, on principles of guardian helpfulness like that 
 Arbeiterheim^ what a boon they might be! How they 
 would lessen that " surface of friction " which is the 
 mother of half the London crimes ! Would not that be 
 a gain to the country, a downright gain in pounds, 
 shillings and pence ? Would it not be worth while for 
 Government to aid this process ; even if some laws must 
 be made for cutting some of the strings now tying hearts 
 to lands ? Another generation would grow up, if this 
 question of housing the London working classes really 
 could be faced along the lines indicated — a generation 
 which could only add to the wealth of the country, 
 certainly to the happiness, to the content of the country ! 
 In the name of common sense, then, is it not worth 
 while trying ? 
 
 London is not the only Babylon. Take Edinburgh. 
 Could not the Cowgate, the Canongate, be turned out into 
 the country ? Would not the poor folk go if you tried 
 them ? Edinburgh is one of the most drunken cities in 
 the kingdom — perhaps some of us would drink, if we 
 lived in the Cowgate. Supposing you try the remedy of 
 
3o8 
 
 A Colony of Me^^cy 
 
 blue sky by way of blue ribbon : it may answer better 
 than you think. 
 
 The traveller approaching " Caledonia stern and wild " 
 will, after crossing the border, be rudely shaken in his 
 dreams of beauty as he is carried through certain 
 districts where the iron smelting goes on. Here you 
 have workmen's village, if you please, right beneath the 
 smoke-belching chimneys. No matter who has run up 
 these workmen's homes — possibly the owner of the 
 chimneys, anyway a man who did not think of beauty 
 for ashes. It is country, but scarcely a tree will grow 
 for the heaps of cinder and ore refuse lying about ; the 
 sun does shine overhead, but its beams are ever strug- 
 gling with a cloud of smoke particles, fixed over these 
 hapless dwellings. How do you expect a housewife 
 there even to attempt keeping a tidy room, when every 
 chair and table in her possession must be covered with 
 a constant layer, as with the ashes of Gomorrah ? 
 The wonder will be if these people ever think of wash- 
 ing ; for they will be all black and smutty again directly. 
 This is not written to hurt any one's feelings, not 
 knowing who is owner ; but this is the state of 
 things as seen from the travelling carriage. These 
 working-men's homes — and there is quite a number 
 of them in that region of furnaces — are a pitiful sight. 
 Little use to think of workmen's gardens there, for 
 scarce a flower could grow in that atmosphere, certainly 
 not grow in purity ; and yet you expect fairer flowers, 
 even the little children of God's planting, to grow up 
 in such environment ! How can they grow up to 
 physical health, not to say to moral well-being, in such 
 
The Message of Bethel to Oui^selves 309 
 
 surroundings ? for cleanliness zs next to godliness, is very 
 largely the road to it. 
 
 Are the coal-mining and smelting districts of England 
 any better? One can but speak of what one has 
 chanced to see. But if they had beauty for ashes, no 
 doubt one would have heard of it. 
 
 It has been said of Glasgow, the overcrowded state 
 of its working classes " is immoral." What is this but 
 in other words the opinion of that German judge that 
 half the social crimes are due to the too much " surface 
 of friction " in our dwellings ? If this is so, who 
 then will give elbow-room to the working population 
 of Glasgow, just in setf -defence and for the prevention 
 of crime ? Little wonder if the Glasgow poor chafe 
 under the want of elbow-room ; for they, or their fathers 
 before them, are very largely of the children of the soil 
 turned out from the Highlands for the sake of deer and 
 deerstalkers. Say you, the Highlands are poor and 
 could not keep them — well, that is a question ! But 
 another and more pertinent question is this — who, 
 knowing the state of things to be " immoral," will raise 
 the cry to have it altered ? A great deal may be done 
 in this world if you make enough noise. Is there not 
 room enough and to spare round about Glasgow? 
 People rave about the beauties of the Clyde and districts 
 adjoining ; are they too beautiful to give some corners of 
 them to be " beauty for ashes " to the Glasgow workman ? 
 Who are the owners of that land ? Will they consider 
 this question ? Will they consider that One gone to the 
 right hand of Glory will say, " Ye took Me in " ? 
 
 Would it spoil your scenery, interfere with tourists' 
 
310 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 delight, to find some room there for Workman's 
 " Own " ? We happened on the Callander coach last 
 summer, going through the Trosachs with a batch of 
 tourists. It was a perfect day for the glories of nature. 
 A fine group of larches was passed. " Oh, what lovely 
 trees ! " Dropped the response from the lips of one of 
 these tourists — I suppose these are the Scotch firs one 
 hears about." Such tourist surely could take his know- 
 ledge of nature, and consequent enjoyment thereof, as 
 well to some other part of the globe. Another of these 
 lovers of nature apparently got drowsy, for no sooner 
 were we afloat on Katrine than he fell asleep, waking in 
 time for a stretch as the boat landed at Stronachlachar. 
 No doubt he went home to say he had been on Ellen's 
 Loch. Abroad, in Switzerland for instance, the natives 
 indulge in a good deal of quiet fun over the average 
 British tourist : " they rush through our loveliest scenery 
 with eyes buried in their guide-books, as if they didn't 
 know what to think of our Rigi till they have seen 
 it in print." 
 
 Of course there are tourists and tourists ; but for a 
 number of them it can be said that even the most 
 struggling working man will prove as good a lover of 
 nature as they. Then why should not some of the 
 Glasgow poor be housed in its regions of beauty ? Is 
 there no one in Glasgow of the spirit of Bodelschwingh 
 who would at least try ? * 
 
 * We understand that a commission appointed by the Glasgow 
 Presbytery has been busy lately inquiring into the conditions of 
 ill-housed Glasgow, working earnestly to improve matters. May 
 we invite this committee to consider the Bielefeld plan of 
 
The Message of Bethel to Oitr selves 3 1 1 
 
 The " Programme of Christianity," the booklet, page 40, 
 says much of the power of " beautiful things in haunting 
 the mind with higher thoughts and begetting the mood 
 which leads to God." It speaks of " the moral effect 
 even in a clean table-cloth." What, then, might not be 
 the " moral effect " of the beauties of nature ? Do you 
 think, really, the working man has no eye for such? 
 Beauty of nature alone will not help him, else every High- 
 lander were a saint ; but other things given, beauty of 
 nature is a " spiritual force." 
 
 Even a tinsel angel, a mere Christmas card, the 
 booklet says, once had power to " arrest a drunkard," to 
 do something towards transforming his squalid room — 
 no, transforming him. We believe this. But the question 
 comes up. Perhaps the poor fellow would not have been 
 a drunkard, if the room had not been squalid ! Would 
 you not at least give that man a chance ? If such be 
 the power of a mere Christmas card, should we not 
 raise a voice that room for such poor fellow be found 
 in the fair realms about Glasgow, right away from the 
 city and the drink shop ? What would not a clean house 
 and clean surroundings do for such soul, seeing what 
 even a Christmas card did ? Always understood a clean 
 house marked " own " ! 
 
 Is there a " Programme of Christianity " ? Have we 
 admired it ? Should we stop there ? Christ's " beauty for 
 ashes," we know, is yet another and different thing — 
 
 ''Workman's Own" — made possible in the way above delineated ? 
 A whole measure, a radical change, might do far more towards 
 raising morality, than working, however earnestly, for the im- 
 provement of existing conditions. 
 
312 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 a thing all of us are in need of — but there is an earthly 
 beauty on the way to it, and should not a beginning be 
 made, knowing the " squalid room," to let the healing 
 streams of such beauty play about the lives of these 
 thousands of now hopeless poor ? Surely then the ques- 
 tion may be asked, and should it not be answered ? — are 
 the regions of the Clyde, some corners of them, not so 
 very much would be wanted — are they too beautiful for 
 " Workman's Home " — little homes of their own for the 
 Glasgow poor? If not, then the next question is, cannot 
 an effort be made to give it them ? Glasgow is the 
 second largest city of the kingdom, and " the over- 
 crowded state of its working classes is immoral^ 
 
 We happen to write this in a Highland cottage. That 
 is how our eyes have roamed to Scotch cities ; but the 
 Highlands are no less a witness to the ill-housing of 
 the poor — nay, we must here say, of the people. You 
 cannot go a couple of miles anywhere in these High- 
 lands without coming upon ruins — actual ruins ; it might 
 be the plain of Nineveh instead of Christian Scotland — 
 a few staring walls left of what once, and not so long ago 
 either, were cottages, as though the Turks with murder 
 and rapine had been scouring the land. It is the one 
 altogether miserable sight in this beautiful country. In 
 the whole of civilised Europe there is not another such 
 spectacle. No wonder the hills look at one with a 
 wistful beauty, lonely and desolate, as though they had a 
 story to tell. Where are the people who once lived here ? 
 Gone. They or their children, if they have not gone 
 right abroad, are toiling away in those cities where the 
 
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 313 
 
 over-crowding is " immoral," where a poor fellow has 
 to be saved by a tinsel Christmas angel when all nature 
 here could minister to his want. You go up a glen, miles 
 long, no human trace anywhere except these tell-tale 
 ruins till you get to the top ; and there, in perfect sur- 
 roundings of mountain and river and heath-covered brae 
 you come upon a house. They call it a shooting-box ; 
 very beautiful of course, wild, solitary, enchanting. 
 
 Saith the prophet of old : Woe ttnto those who join field 
 to field till there be no place^ that they may be alone in 
 the earth I In plainer English — who join mountain and 
 glen till there be no place for the children of the soil, 
 that they may shoot the grouse. Vi^oe unto them, said 
 the prophet ! This, in half a dozen words, is the story 
 of ruined cottages which send up their silent cry to 
 heaven in almost every glen of these wilds. 
 
 Seeing these remnants of a bygone civilisation, one 
 naturally endeavours to get at the bottom. One over- 
 hauls one's knowledge of Scotch history. The folk who 
 build these lovely shooting-boxes must have some kind 
 of a right to be there. How did they get that right ? 
 Now, the Scotch have a history of their own, different 
 from every other nation in Europe. Till within a hun- 
 dred and fifty years ago they lived a patriarchal life, 
 frugal, blissful, marauding. The clan went to the death 
 for the chief, and the chief was loyal to the core to the 
 humblest clansman. Every shepherd of Clan Tartan — 
 not to mention names — had a right, a veriest birthright, 
 to look to The Tartan for protection, for assistance, nay, 
 almost for keep. The country of that clan, with some 
 sense then, belonged to The Tartan, he being owner for 
 
314 
 
 A Colo7ty of Mercy 
 
 all the rest, the clansmen being as proud of and jealous 
 for his ownership as he was himself ; nay, more so, for he 
 was their darling. Lawless, cattle-lifting, fray-seeking 
 though they were, there was beauty in this, a charm 
 which has not died out of the country, for their great 
 poet has fixed it. 
 
 But beautiful things in this rolling planet do not last 
 for ever, and Old-Scotland could not last. The Sassenach 
 introduced modern life ; and the clan-system, struggling 
 nobly to a man almost, bled to death. 
 
 Now, whose ivas the land by right after that struggle 
 when English civilisation, stretching north, had cut the 
 strings between chief and clansman. Was it the chiefs 
 and chiefs heir by right, the sole property of The 
 Tartan by right, to the exclusion of every humbler 
 Tartan that might be left ? Is this " for the right " ? Is 
 this historic Justice ? It is by right only in the sense 
 that possession is right, and that possession is nine- 
 tenths of the law. We do know that white-robed Justice 
 is trodden underfoot easily in troublous times. Years 
 roll on, and possession turns into ownership : this is how 
 the demarcation between right and wrong, a borderland 
 not at any time easily guarded, gets effaced ; and who in 
 after time shall right it ? And this is how, standing by 
 these ruined cottages, we read the growth of the landlord 
 power in this country. 
 
 And more. The Tartan and his heir often could not 
 hold their own ; some chiefs got impoverished, some 
 morally impoverished, for families decay ; those lands, 
 those old clanlands presently were in the market for any 
 moneyed man to buy. And this is how deer-forests 
 
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 315 
 
 have been made, and shooting-grounds, and the children 
 of the soil went to the wall, crowded out by capital. 
 The Celt everywhere has gone to the wall. The wheel of 
 nations is cruel to those who cannot hold their own ; and 
 we are only trying to unravel present ownerships, show- 
 ing there is actually a hopeless, miserable sort of right in 
 the possessors of these shooting-boxes having "joined 
 mountain and glen "— actually a show of right ! For a 
 man may do as he pleases with the land he has paid for. 
 And yet the prophet says, Woe unto theni ! 
 
 The moneyed man having bought a Highland property 
 is lord, of it, people and all. The small farmers are his 
 tenants ; they never had a chance of buying that bit of 
 land ; they have no chance now. We know there is the 
 " Crofters' Act," passed a few years ago, for regulating 
 the rents of non-leaseholders under thirty acres ; and 
 there is the " Small Holdings Act " come into force 
 lately. Whether this is more than an Act on paper 
 remains to be seen ; we trust it is, for it is not com- 
 pulsory. An " Act " is one thing ; the people being in 
 the position of availing themselves of it is another. 
 But one hails these efforts as promise of better times. 
 Rome was not built in a day, and the real Act to help 
 these people has yet to be framed. Hitherto the land, 
 leaseholdings and all, was the landlord's irredeemably, 
 and we fear it is so still. 
 
 We need go back forty to sixty years only, if we 
 want to hear about evictions.* Scotland is a poorly 
 
 * See " Highland Clearances," by Alexander Mackenzie, F.S. A. 
 Scot., a pamphlet which should never be out of print while 
 there is a Scotchman left to blush for his country. 
 
3^6 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 populated country because Highlanders by the shipload 
 have been carried to Canada, " carriage-paid " by their 
 landlords, after their cottages had been pulled down over 
 their heads — actual cold-blooded eviction. The evicting 
 landlords, in most cases were descendants of the old 
 chiefs — " morally impoverished " chiefs, alias landlords, 
 who evicted for avarice ; turning into sheepwalks the 
 land which historically was not exclusively theirs. But 
 ill-gotten gains never prosper, and these sheepwalks on 
 an Australian scale before long were bankrupt. Then 
 capital came in, with the deer-forest and the shooting- 
 lodge, as we now see them. The landlord of this genera- 
 tion is more civilised ; the estate may have come to him 
 empty, swept and garnished ; if not — if he chooses to 
 turn more of the property into forest or shooting-cover, 
 he does not evict his tenants, his own conscience and 
 popular public policy forbidding, but he does so little 
 for them that it is next to impossible to make a subsist- 
 ence. This is the process of squeezing out; the poor 
 folk presently go " of their own accord," leaving the 
 cottage of their fathers, weeping, behind them. For the 
 Celt loves the clod on which he was born. This too is 
 " joining field to field," and a good deal of what within 
 the memory of man was grazing-land is now grouse 
 cover or plantation. Ministers and others assure us 
 that twenty years ago these tell-tale ruins were more 
 plentiful still, — they do away with them gradually, 
 ashamed of the tale. 
 
 You may see empty cottages in this country, not yet 
 fallen to pieces, in which remnants of furniture are left, 
 even a bedstead now and then, the people having gone 
 
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 3 1 7 
 
 away, probably just in the clothes they wore, when their 
 measure of starvation was full. Any one looking about 
 him can see such forsaken cottages — mute witnesses of a 
 rotten system ; for a country should hold its people. 
 
 If a Royal Commission would follow us, we could 
 show them strange things in cottages not yet forsaken. 
 Let the reader take his mental view of some such 
 cottage here or there about the Highlands. It might 
 be situated in one of the more favoured parts even — on 
 a tolerable farm, too, something over thirty acres — but 
 the cottage is a disgrace to the country. The tenants 
 of this model dwelling, overtaken by sickness — when they 
 are well they stand it — take refuge under an umbrella 
 in their own cottage when the Highland ' mist ' turns 
 into a ' pour.' Then why do they not mend their 
 roof? If you have to pay a pound an acre for a 
 thirty-acre arable farm at an altitude of about eight 
 hundred feet above sea level under these northern 
 skies, there is little left to hold body and soul together, 
 after the demands of the landlord are satisfied, not to 
 say to repair cottages ; even allowing for what extra you 
 gain by acting as the Sassenach's gillie. These people, 
 after paying their rent, just make enough to find their 
 own porridge, literally ; the landlord requiring his pound 
 an acre — we had almost said his pound of flesh — through 
 fair weather and foul, as though these hard-yielding 
 uplands were Ayrshire or the Lothians. A pound an 
 acre in these parts in itself is a cruelty ; but our theme 
 is the cottage. 
 
 The tenant has put up a piece of zinc roof on the 
 ■ tumble-down affair to do away with the umbrella in the 
 
3i8 A Colony of Meixy 
 
 little sitting-room at least— the ben en\ in Scotch parlance. 
 The real family chamber is the kitchen, and that con- 
 tinues a place for landlords to weep over. Indeed, the 
 tenant has not yet been able to find the money for this 
 bit of repairs, so how should he have covered the whole 
 roof? And he a man who does his hardworking best 
 with a thirty-acre farm ! 
 
 Why don't they throw up the farm ? Why indeed ! 
 What if, apart from the fact that the place to them is 
 hallowed by the manes of their forbears — the present 
 tenant's great-grandfather was born there — this misera- 
 ble abode were the one plank between them and the 
 great Unknown ! The man now, however struggling, 
 is yet a respected farmer ; if he goes he is a beggar, and 
 there may be that of true manhood in a man which 
 clings to this shred of a link between him and an 
 honoured past. That man is fighting his battle, de- 
 fending the soldier's post. For the past was more 
 prosperous ; but, one bit after another, the grazing-land 
 within these last twenty years has been taken from 
 them for plantation and grouse cover ; they cannot keep 
 the sheep now they once kept, and but half the cattle. 
 Paying rent was comparatively easy then ; now it is 
 drawing the blood. Says the landlord. They may leave ; 
 I am only keeping them on because my family never 
 have evicted, and we will plant the whole then. Does he 
 say so ? Then let him be answered : This farm of four 
 generations is the home of their hearts ; they cling to 
 this shred of their past, having nothing besides ; they 
 are suffering for the Highlander's home love, and it is 
 draiving the blood ! 
 
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 319 
 
 Those who speak up for landlords, say the tenant 
 could compel his landlord by means of the county 
 council. Could he? Perhaps he is too disheartened 
 with tenant's hardship to risk that plan ; and should a 
 landlord require compelling? Is he not bound, of his 
 " own accord," to give the tenant weather-tight buildings ? 
 Such a cottage is a standing offence to the Public 
 Health Act. But it could possibly be matched by 
 another cottage, not quite a hundred miles distant, in 
 which the parish doctor one recent winter is said to 
 have waded ankle-deep through water to the bedside 
 of a dying patient, — if this were not too much for the 
 reader to believe. Yet we could take him to these 
 pitiful abodes, in which even an umbrella landlord 
 would shrink from leaving his horses or pointers. Then 
 why does the sanitary inspector not interfere? We 
 know not ; but while the real sufferer submits, there is 
 a good deal of condoning on the part of those who 
 should cry out on his behalf Maybe, landlords are of 
 the powers that be : one is afraid of them. 
 
 So this tenant has been sitting with an umbrella 
 inside his own cottage and by his own fireside. But, 
 umbrella and fireside apart, on a drenching day, and 
 they are not rare in these parts, you will have difficulty 
 in finding a dry spot in that cottage, except where that 
 bit of zinc roof now covers : the kitchen floor any rainy 
 week is a lake, and the umbrella in requisition with the 
 waterworks overhead, the people taking their share of 
 the running wet even in their beds ; and the whole 
 cottage, every stone and stick of it, is a blot on civilisa- 
 tion. Yet these people deserve the cottagers' prize for 
 
320 
 
 A Colony of Mei^cy 
 
 neatness ; that bit of a roomie, the ben en\ is kept as 
 clean and tidy as a doll's house, fit for the Queen to 
 step in. The blot upon civilisation lies not at their door. 
 A farmer of any decency elsewhere would not thus 
 house his cattle. But then cattle are capital, and the 
 asthma and rheumatics of these people cost the land- 
 lord nothing. The cattle habitations adjoining threaten 
 the lives of poor beasts every night. There is other 
 proof of tenants' hardships ; but the housing of the 
 people is our plea for these pages. 
 
 We would gladly presume this to be a solitary instance, 
 at least one of the worst examples of landlord rule in 
 Scotland. But what though there be scores of landlords 
 of angelic goodness, and quite as patriarchal to their 
 tenants as chief of yore ever was, doing for them all in 
 their power, short of letting them buy their holdings — 
 landlords kind, helpful, considerate ; we yet maintain tJie 
 system is wrong\ A people should not depend on the 
 goodness or badness of a landlord for their well-being, 
 but there should be laws in a land under which every 
 man may dwell as under his fig-tree. 
 
 We have, however, seen other cottages, in another 
 part of the country, which we did not enter, for we were 
 driving and unable to stop ; cottages which an innocent 
 stranger never took for cottages till, coming close, a film 
 of smoke was seen rising, not through a chimney even, 
 for such badge of civilisation did not crown these efforts 
 at housing the people. Perhaps, earth-hovels as they 
 were, they were at least dry. Yet these cottages, too, 
 will belong to some landlord. To us they appeared 
 mere heaps of turf, fit for a respectable beaver, or at 
 
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 321 
 
 best for an Esquimaux in heathen Greenland. " But is 
 not this Christian and civiHsed Scotland ? " said we, 
 opening our eyes in wonder. 
 
 It is not that we are railing against landlords. It is a 
 wise adage which says, " live and let live " ; and even 
 a landlord must live. We are roused only at these 
 specimens of landlords' rule ; and from what we have 
 seen with our own eyes we draw the simple conclusion : 
 A system which has no better results to show as regards 
 the well-being of the people must be a rotten system, 
 and it is time to replace it by another. By the very 
 look of the cottages, the system in force hitherto has 
 been weighed and is found wanting. In fairness, then, 
 let the wheel of progress move a turn forward ; let another 
 system be tried. 
 
 Indeed, it would appear that some of the landlords 
 themselves are sufferers, hard as some of them are upon 
 the tenant ! In that favoured region, at least, where 
 half the property and more is covered with plantation, 
 a landlord, though he let his shooting, by some strange 
 law of circumstance barely makes 2| per cent. Why, 
 he would have done better lending his capital at 3 J 
 per cent, for " Workmen's Homes," reaping a people's 
 blessing instead of — but we will not speak of curses. 
 Do not his own poor returns speak of retribution ? 
 Is not this proof sufficient that an unrighteous system 
 brings about its own condemnation ? 
 
 It is not Home Rule as Home Rule which has prompted 
 these pages, but the condition of the people, pleading 
 for a legislation at the hands of either party which shall 
 ensure weather-tight cottages. It is not even " beauty 
 
 21 
 
322 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 for ashes " now, but dry for wet. Possibly English mem- 
 bers have enough to do south, and some of them, maybe, 
 never have explored these regions ; they cannot be 
 expected to be very active, then, about anti-umbrella 
 laws. It may take a Scotchman, one who has a heart 
 for the people (and a Parliament sitting in Edinburgh in 
 that case certainly would be the thing to hope for) in 
 order to see in these parts, regarding the land, anything 
 like a state of affairs that shall not be a disgrace to 
 civilised Europe. We wish no ill to any landlord ; but for 
 the sake of a long-suffering people we plead that a Royal 
 Commission look into these dwellings ; and if a look 
 convince them not, will any representative of the nation 
 spend one week in that umbrella cottage? — the people 
 gladly would turn out, leaving him lord of the wet he 
 surveys for a week. A week ? no ; one drenching day and 
 night would suffice, for we would not have him catch his 
 death of ague, he not being inured to such measure of 
 miserable discomfort. Indeed, would not the landlord him- 
 self be a fit commissioner ? What if he were instructed 
 by Government to report on that cottage ! He would 
 need being shut up in it for twenty-four hours with a 
 sufficiency of porridge in order to reflect upon the proper 
 use of umbrellas on the one hand, and upon a certain 
 old saying of doing unto others as one would be done 
 by on the other. We should have some hope of his 
 report then ! Let no one say we are unreasonable ; 
 he being my lord Somebody, and his tenant only a 
 poor Highlander — when it comes to umbrellas^ 7nen are 
 equal. It is not, then, that we are a Radical wanting to 
 dispossess the landlord ; but if such cottages are the 
 
The Message of Bethel to Otir selves 323 
 
 upshot, it is plain landlords' rule has failed of its 
 mission, and anti-umbrella laws, whatever they be, will 
 be required to set that right. We would not do such 
 an unkind thing as to publish this umbrella story 
 outside the British Isles ; but the truth is we should 
 not be believed, for Britain enjoys the reputation of 
 being a God-fearing country. 
 
 Once upon a time the Lord Jehovah made a land law. 
 He knew that for all sorts of reasons, even by the 
 people's own fault sometimes, the propertyships get 
 wrong ; so He provided that every fiftieth year the land, 
 no matter what might have happened to it in passing 
 hands through Chieftain to Sassenach, should return to 
 its true owner — the " children of the soil " of those days 
 — every family to its land. For the land was of the 
 clan — they called them tribes in those days. Says the 
 nineteenth-century landlord, " We aren't Jews, and we 
 can't go back to the time of Moses." No, we cannot. 
 But this does not do away with the fact, that the only 
 land law, of which we know that God in heaven had the 
 making, was to this effect. In other words, according to 
 His thoughts of right, the land is of the people — some 
 niay have more of it, some less — but the land shall hold 
 its own people. The Highlands, then — at least some parts 
 of them — for the Highlanders. 
 
 Now, it is very curious that in Britain this ancient law 
 has obtained, with a twist in its application. The 
 Jubilee law of course could not be allowed nowadays 
 as a guiding measure to benefit the people, but the great 
 landlords, in the south anyway, have a hold of it ! It 
 appears to us that this Jehovah statute is at the bottom 
 
324 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 of what we often have been tempted to call an ante- 
 diluvian institution, that curious arrangement by which 
 soil in London is leased out for ninety-nine years, 
 and then returns, house and all, to the owner of the 
 soil. But what is sauce for the goose ought to be sauce 
 for the gander ; and by that same right then the soil up 
 here after ninety-nine years might return to Clan Tartan 
 — even with the shooting-boxes upon it ! 
 
 We are no lawyer ; we do not pretend really to pene- 
 trate the deep mysteries of these abstruse questions con- 
 cerning British soil. We are prepared to listen meekly 
 if we shall be chidden for impracticable moonshine. 
 Yet we know one thing concerning this British nation : 
 we believe in its fairness — a fairness sometimes clouded 
 but always shining forth again ; and we are right certain 
 it was British equity which made this same proverb 
 declare " Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander." 
 We humbly submit our sole crime after all consists in 
 putting in a plea for this poor gander. We cannot help 
 it, standing by these deserted cottages and hearing the 
 soughing night-winds sing a song of the desolate hills. 
 
 It is with British equity, then, we are pleading — be it 
 Jubilee law, be it any other law, it is for this we plead : 
 that Equity look into the hard lives of these people, and 
 if great wrongs go unrighted, for her own fair sake to try 
 and right them. 
 
 We have heard it said, these glens are mere heather- 
 grown wastes ; no farm-holdings could pay their way in 
 them ; they may as well be used for the sportsman's 
 delight. Not pay their way ? That is it ; for it means 
 paying their way to the landlord \ Caledonia's soil at 
 
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 325 
 
 best is hard-yielding ; it never was meant by nature to 
 pay two owners, both landlord and tenant ! But if some 
 of these glens could ever be the property of these hard- 
 working people, their real property with that little word 
 " own " attached to it, they would make it worth their 
 while to put them again under sheep, and they would pay 
 their way; not grandly, for there is Australian competition, 
 but yet humbly and to their own content. And these 
 glens would not lose in beauty ; Nature would still hold 
 her own. It makes all the difference if a stretch of land 
 is farmed by the avarice of one man, or the industry of 
 a dozen families. At present some of the tenants even 
 practise the " field-to-field " trick. If a tenant has any 
 money at all, he is tempted to do as his betters do, 
 " to be " alone in the earth." We know a Highland 
 farm on which a generation ago there were a dozen 
 families — all humble, all content ; now it is one farm, 
 because one moneyed tenant offering higher rent to the 
 landlord has managed to squeeze out, one after another, 
 his poorer neighbours. No wonder there are ruined 
 cottages ! But this was a case mostly of turf dwellings, 
 which, pulled down and scattered over the fields, make 
 a rich top-dressing — manure in fact ! What species of 
 government, save landlord-rule, is equal to this — getting 
 rid of labouring hands, and turning homes into top- 
 dressing ! What became of the poor folk and their 
 children ? who cared ? who inquired ? What appeal had 
 they, what law in the land to shelter them from the 
 blast? The industry of such squeezed-out families is 
 lost to the soil ; no wonder the glens are barren ! 
 
 Yet these glens cannot be more unyielding than that 
 
326 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 Senne was, and has not that Senne been turned into a 
 garden — a garden thrice beautiful because of the moral . 
 beauty enveloping it? Pastor von Bodelschwingh was 
 telling us in the summer how he would like a holiday 
 in these Highlands. He only thought of the perfect 
 quiet, not knowing these goings-on. We cannot help 
 thinking what a lesson in arithmetic he would adduce 
 from these glens, what a lesson in political economy, 
 not to say in common-sense. This country is wasting 
 her substance ! Now every housewife has a duty to see 
 that no waste goes on in her kitchen ; and this may be 
 another reason why there should be a Scotch Parlia- 
 ment for the Scotch to inquire into this tremendous 
 waste. These moors are let to the sportsman at a 
 guinea per brace of the grouse he is likely to shoot. 
 If he sells the birds he kills, he can at best realise three 
 shillings per brace — this is guess-work, but we know 
 that grouse at the London poulterers' can be had at 
 five and six shillings the brace. This is not political 
 economy, it is idiotcy. The guineas of course go to 
 the owner of the shooting-box — the yieldings to the 
 one, instead of to the many — and if he is a Sassenach 
 that money is not even spent in the country. If he 
 spend it in the country, even this is not national economy, 
 for the people themselves ought to have some of the 
 spending — or, shall we say, saving? at first hand, and 
 not be beholden for it to the one man, acting as his gillie 
 or what not, before they earn their share of the country's 
 produce. It is high time, then, that a Scotch Parlia- 
 ment sat in Edinburgh and went through a course in 
 political economy before it did anything else. It may 
 
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 327 
 
 interest the innocent reader to know that stalking a stag 
 costs fifty pounds sterHng to the stalker, at least to him 
 who rents the shooting-box for the season, for they let 
 at such fancy prices. If he may kill fifty stags he pays 
 £2,^00 rent for that box of a house for the two or 
 three months. That lovely shooting-lodge we have been 
 talking about, at the top of a beautiful glen, lets at 
 ;£"4,ooo or thereabouts for the season, deer and grouse 
 combined. Nor is this a solitary instance. And what 
 on earth has made the stags the property of such glen- 
 owner ? If they walk away over the hills, they belong to 
 another man till they come back again. And what 
 on earth has made the hills his property ? Mountain 
 ranges nowhere under the sun belong to private indi- 
 viduals. Fancy the Alps being shut up as the Grampians 
 are ! Wouldn't the British tourist with an injured air 
 write his letter to the Times ? There are chamois to be 
 stalked in the Alps and there is lesser quarry, but the 
 mountains the Lord God has made belong to the country 
 — that is, to nobody, and therefore to all. Here some of 
 the landlords have even tried to shut up tracks over the 
 hills ; at least it required a right-of-way society to be set 
 up in Edinburgh in order to prevent it. And it required 
 Professor Bryce's Bill to open the hills during winter and 
 spring ; they are shut up during the sporting season : by 
 what right an ignorant person vainly inquires. This is 
 joining " hill to hill " till there be no place for ordinary 
 mortals to enjoy the glories God has made. And, to 
 come back to the great grievance — "till there is no 
 place " for the children of the soil. 
 
 A friend of ours, with a leaning to landed proprietors, 
 
328 \ A Colony of Me7^cy 
 
 said to us, " You would not rave like that, if you were 
 owner." Well, possibly — " from hardness of heart, good 
 Lord, deliver us." When we looked at that shooting- 
 box at the top of the glen, wild, solitary, enchanting, 
 lover of nature as we are, we said, " What perfect enjoy- 
 ment to spend a summer all to oneself in such a glorious 
 spot ! We should delight in it." Of course we should, 
 and if we were of sporting mind, possibly we might 
 enjoy the moors, and we might enjoy overtaking a poor 
 stag by the superior intelligence God has given to man. 
 Possibly. It is the natural man in us that would thus 
 enjoy ; but there is a higher being, at least there ought 
 to be, in every one of us — the still, small voice ; and it 
 says. This is selfish enjoyment, for others have to pay for 
 it, others have to suffer for it ! And since beauty of 
 earthly kind ever trails a shadow, these lovely glens with 
 the enchanting lodges, the pleasure ground of the rich, 
 have their dark side in those who are rendered home- 
 less because of this enjoyment. There is a homeless 
 and houseless Scotland. There is a Darkest Scotland 
 tramping. 
 
 Scarcely a day passes but a dozen of homeless 
 creatures come to the door of this cottage. They 
 knock, they ask for a " piece," and they get it ; for the 
 cottager, little as he has, shares his little with those who 
 have less. Not that this is commendable, for it keeps that 
 tramping class alive ; but let that pass for the present 
 We are told they are tinkers ; we are told they are gipsies. 
 Gipsies ? Then there is a curious cast of the Celt about 
 very many of them. There are Lowland tramps among 
 them, there are even Irish tramps, since there is a 
 
The Message of Bethel to Ou7^selves 329 
 
 homeless Ireland ; but a great proportion of them look 
 like simple Highlanders. It seems to us that, likely 
 enough, gipsies were not scarce in the land a hundred 
 years ago ; every country in Europe, a century ago, 
 had its true gipsies. But then that began its work 
 for Scotland which has turned so many cottages into 
 deserted ruins ; and we imagine that some of the 
 people rendered homeless refused to leave the country of 
 their love ; they preferred taking to the road, and their 
 children and children's children have come to be called 
 gipsies, along with what gipsies proper there may be. 
 
 Be this the explanation or not, it is astounding what 
 numbers live on the road in this sparsely populated 
 country. We are told the tramping population of Scot- 
 land is one hundred and fifty thousand. There are as 
 many vagrants hereabouts daily as there are cottage 
 roofs in all the countryside. A dozen, we said : on 
 many a day we have counted them by the score. 
 And, be it understood, " Darkest Scotland " in one respect 
 is worse than " Darkest Germany " ever was ; we never 
 heard that the German tramp carried wife and child 
 along with him. Here it is families tramping — a family 
 having a horse and cart of their own, otherwise a home- 
 less, houseless, floating lump of wretchedness — a wave 
 of misery truly, heaving to and fro in the land. Not 
 all have cart and horse, but very many of them — the 
 " aristocracy " these of unhoused Scotland, they have at 
 least a cart for a home ! They do a little business, 
 hawking, rag-collecting, tinkering, even horse-dealing 
 some of them — beggars besides. 
 
 Only a few days ago we watched such a roving family — 
 
330 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 they rested by the roadside, giving their horse a graze — 
 father, mother, and seven children : a baby's curly head 
 peeping out of a rough-and-ready saddlebag, having its 
 cradle on the flanks of the horse, a little girl, and five 
 boys, ranging between six and thirteen, one would judge, 
 barefoot, ragged and unkempt, otherwise thriving enough, 
 for they beg their food. Beautiful children too, some of 
 them, wild and untamed, with the look on their faces 
 Murillo loved. 
 
 Now in the name of Christian Scotland what a state 
 of things ! What are these seven children other than 
 animal, other than heathen — never inside a school, never 
 inside a church ? We spoke to a minister ; we spoke to 
 a poor-law officer. " Can nothing be done ? " " Nothing," 
 they said, " for there is no law to embrace this class." 
 Then it is high time for some such law to be made. 
 What chance have these children, growing up to the 
 same miserable life — homeless, houseless ? Can nothing 
 be done to gather in this homeless Scotland, the hapless 
 residue of Clan Tartan ? We have written this book in 
 vain if the passion awake not in some hearts to gather 
 in these vagrants, to gather in these children. Cannot 
 a net be spread, of mercy, of wisdom, of brotherly kind- 
 ness, yet of firmness withal, to seek the gathering-in of 
 Darkest Scotland ? Will any one give up his stalking, 
 his shooting, till this be done ? It is an appalling need. 
 The stalking is not wrong, the shooting is not, but these 
 things are ! The glass of wine hurts not ; yet some of 
 us have turned abstainers because of the terrible abuse. 
 Who, enjoying the moors now, not thinking, perhaps not 
 knowing, will have it in him to " abstain " as a protest ? 
 
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 331 
 
 for it is time to protest ! It is the true-hearted man 
 only who could do this ; yet there are some true-hearted 
 among those even who now enjoy the sport. They 
 would be fit helpers. 
 
 There ought to be a " giving up " ! Here we have 
 talked about a " Programme of Christianity." Can we not 
 try and act upon it ? Cannot a PROGRAMME OF CHRIS- 
 TIANITY Union be formed to gather in these children — 
 nor rest till laws are made to make this possible ? Are 
 not some of us these children's keeper — brother to them, 
 sister to them ? And here they are, living on the road 
 — animal, heathen ! Who is going to try and house this 
 homeless Scotland after the example set by this working 
 model ? Say you it is impossible ? Do not say so till 
 you have tried. Has " beauty for ashes " not been written 
 for this people also ? There is beauty abounding in 
 Scotland, all about them ; but the vagrant's life is a 
 sitting in ashes ; it must end in despair. 
 
 In one thing at least these homeless wanderers are 
 like Him who had not where to lay His head. Yet 
 shall we not have to answer Him one day why they have 
 not where to lay theirs ? Wandering up and down the 
 country, room enough and to spare, children of the soil, 
 yet soil for a cottage denied them ! Of a truth, God 
 will require this one day at the hands of this country ! 
 
 Where do these people spend the nights ? the many 
 drenching days ? the cold winter ? About a fortnight 
 ago — it was in the latter end of September,* there had 
 
 * These observations on ill-housed Scotland being a photo- 
 graph from life, we leave the references to the time of year 
 when taken. 
 
332 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 been a heavy frost, unusually early, and touching, well- 
 nigh every sheaf of the yet ungarnered crop, to the hurt 
 of the poor tenant only, for it makes no difference to the 
 landlord's rent — a vagrant knocked at this cottage door 
 for a cup of tea in the early morning, and he had it. He 
 was all covered with the hoarfrost, hair, tatters and all. 
 
 " Poor fellow, where have you spent this grim night ? " 
 
 " the wood!' 
 
 " It's the drink has done this for you," says the wife 
 who gives him the cup. 
 
 " Yes, the drink and my own foolish ways. I cannot 
 help it now. I shall drink again, when I can earn some 
 money." 
 
 What an appalling state of things : spending the 
 night in the wood — such a night — coming for a cup of 
 cottage tea, and going his way again, and knowing he 
 has sinned ! 
 
 Who is going to be such a man's keeper, trying 
 to house poor sinning, drinking, homeless Scotland ? 
 The tinsel Christmas angel will not save this man, for he 
 has not even the squalid room to which he could take it. 
 
 We could almost write a book on Scottish tramps, 
 from the observation of a few weeks only. Yesterday a 
 woman accosted us with a bundle in her arms. It was 
 an infant, four days old. " Goodness sake ! and where was 
 it born?" " On the road, please : I couldn't get no further." 
 A lazy lout of a husband with a pony and a troop of 
 children was bringing up the rear. We have not a word 
 to say for the work-shirking tramp ; but in the name of 
 universal motherhood who could look unmoved at that 
 bundle ? The state of the road this week past has been 
 
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 333 
 
 one deluge, an unusual downpour even for Scotland ; and 
 here was a woman who had not even an umbrella 
 cottage to receive a little stranger in. Here it was, four 
 days old, and she already on the tramp again, having 
 walked seven miles since the morning. We know she 
 spoke truth in this, for the child has been registered in 
 the place she named — the law seeing to that much of a 
 tramp's life. What could we do but take her, deserving 
 or not, to our cottage? We got her story out of her. 
 She married at seventeen a fellow of nineteen, and they 
 have been on the road ever since, this being the ninth 
 of their children. Why did they take to the road ? 
 Well, her people had always been' tramping, his people 
 had been crofters till the cottage fell down about their 
 ears — no repairs, no new cottage — and his father dying, 
 he took to the road. This is a state of things ! the 
 unhoused cottar, then, it would seem, goes towards the 
 making of a gipsy in Scotland ! She said they were gipsies, 
 and her weatherworn complexion was " gipsy " enough ; 
 but she had the clear blue eye of the Highlander — no 
 true gipsy from Adam ever has had blue eyes. Did she 
 think she was a real gipsy ? But all she understood by 
 " gipsy " was " the roadr What was her name ? " Both 
 the ' man ' (man, she said) and mysel' are Stuarts." 
 And she knew about their people on both sides back to 
 great-grandfather — all Stuarts — the royal clan actually. 
 Then what is this if not the "hapless residue of Clan 
 Tartan " ? We are told there is a tribe of so-called 
 Stuarts who have always intermarried, always been 
 "gipsies" since time out of mind. But that blue eye 
 does not hail from the Ganges, nor does the sandy wig, 
 
334 Colony of Mercy 
 
 half yellow, half red, of those children. Stuart or not, 
 what are they, if not the hapless residue of Old-Scotland ? 
 And is this gipsydom to continue ? 
 
 Of course not many hours passed after this tramping 
 family had left us before we knew our pitiful soul had 
 been sadly duped. The woman had been to the manse 
 with her bundle, carefully hiding all trace of the clothing 
 and other bounty the good minister's wife had given 
 her, before calling for a repetition of the same at our 
 hands. And an hour or so later we met her again a 
 couple of miles down the road, we protected by water- 
 proof and umbrella, she sitting cheerfully in the wet 
 with that four-day bundle, having a cottage wife after 
 her with sympathy and supplies. She will repeat that 
 trick a dozen times tramping along, that infant being 
 her stock-in-trade for a while. As we came up to her 
 she pointed to some smoke rising fifty yards further : 
 "that's the man, getting camp ready, I canna get 
 further." Indeed she had done well with nine miles 
 that day, considering. We walked on, and getting hold 
 of the " man " by himself, w^e gave him a bit of our mind. 
 " You should work instead of dragging about the woman 
 and bairn in that condition." " She is awfu' weak," he 
 replied. " Yes, but an able-bodied man like you should 
 be working." " She is awfu' weak ! " And say what we 
 would about his working, " she is awfu' weak," was all 
 the response we got. We gave him up in despair.'^ 
 
 * A couple of days after writing this we actually had a letter 
 from this tramp, — he apparently having got some one to act as 
 clerk for him — thanking us for our interest, etc. If this, in a 
 tramp, is not a trait of clan royal ! He signed himself with his 
 own pot-hooks, " Stuart." 
 
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 335 
 
 Getting back to our own temporary fireside, we heard 
 from a woman of these parts who had been to that 
 parish seven miles off, where this four-day infant first 
 saw the light, that this part of the story was true 
 enough ; the parish doctor had attended that roadside 
 arrival in the gipsy's half-egg-shaped tent, and when 
 he came to revisit his patient the second day she was 
 on her feet and away to the " public," infant and all, for 
 a " drappie," feeling " awfu' weak." This is Darkest 
 Scotland tramping. 
 
 There is a screw loose, if there is no law to take in 
 this class. That four-day infant was born and registered 
 
 at the parish of . If it should live to be a cripple or 
 
 otherwise disabled, that parish will have the keeping of 
 this pauper ; then in common sense this parish now ought 
 to have a right to say, " We'll see that child educated, 
 brought up to decent work." Here are two able-bodied 
 parents, having been on the road these sixteen years 
 apparently undisturbed by the country's law ; they may 
 be past saving as far as useful membership of society is 
 concerned. All they seem good for is to inflict a child 
 upon a parish and to walk off on the fourth day with full 
 liberty of ruining that child, bringing it up carefully in 
 the way it should not go. They are breeding the next 
 generation of vagrants — nine infants theirs already ; they 
 may enrich the country by fifteen if their luck continue : 
 and shall the training of such nine or fifteen be left to 
 their mercy? Has the country no duty, even in self- 
 defence, to gather in these children ? 
 
 Say you, parental authority must not be interfered 
 with, and British liberty is a sacred thing ? Yet there 
 
A Colony of Mercy 
 
 is a limit to both : we do not allow a lunatic authority 
 over his children, and these parents are morally de- 
 mented ; we put a limit upon British liberty when it 
 turns into licence. We do not allow a man to drown 
 himself if we can help it ; we do not allow him to throw 
 himself before a passing railway train, if we can prevent 
 it : in short we do not allow him the personal liberty of 
 committing suicide. Now, these people are not only 
 working their own destruction, body and soul ; they are 
 working their children's. At this point parental authority 
 and British liberty should find themselves face to face 
 with a wholesome law. 
 
 Could not compulsory education be extended to 
 vagrants' children, requiring a child's attendance between 
 the ages of six and fourteen ? That would kill two birds 
 with one shot : it would bring the children to school and 
 it might tend to forcing the parents into settled life. 
 Such " settling " would require much supervision, much 
 helpfulness : it is a difficult question ; but the solving of 
 it should not be beyond the wisdom of the country. 
 
 Could it not work hand in hand with a general effort 
 for the unemployed — with an effort, possibly, of re- 
 peopling some of these glens ? Shall we be laughed at 
 for this suggestion ? Tramps' children ! Then we ask, in 
 what are they less promising than those who were the 
 making of Australia ? Tramp or not, they are Scotia's 
 children. A little story went through the papers a few 
 years ago. The Prince of Wales was visiting at the 
 late Duke of Sutherland's, and the Duke took His Royal 
 Highness up a hill whence there was a beautiful outlook 
 up and down one of the Sutherland glens. Said the 
 
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 337 
 
 Duke, " There is not a finer stretch of country anywhere 
 in Scotland." Said the Prince, "It is beautiful, but to 
 me it would be more beautiful still if it were the home of 
 a peopled That was a royal speech ! There was not a 
 dwelling in sight. Shall bonny Scotland continue a 
 beautiful waste? shall one hundred and fifty thousand 
 of her children continue homeless, houseless vagrants? 
 What a fine opening here for historic justice — yea, for 
 atonement ! The present generation can wash its hands 
 in innocency, it never evicted — but your fathers did\ 
 The residue of Clan Tartan is wandering about, every 
 hapless child born to these vagrants is a cry to heaven 
 for restitution. Let some of the country return to them 
 after ninety-nine years ! Let Scotland open her arms to 
 her own children ; she has been stepmother all too long ! 
 Sending them off to Canada is not restitution— too 
 many have been sent — the desolate country is here. 
 "They do better there," say you? They may, but 
 Scotland is their mother country, and if things were as 
 they should be, some would do well here. When we have 
 wronged folk, maybe it is convenient to send them to the 
 antipodes, salving our conscience with a " they do better 
 there." The depopulated country is here ! Let some 
 of the glens, then, go back to the people ; let there be a 
 Jubilee to atone for the past. Or shall it be said by 
 your grandchildren, Scotland has lived to see the last 
 Highlander take her pride to a far country. She is 
 fairly on her way to this ! Will any one who has a glen 
 to give, will any landowner consider this, yea, and take 
 heart for a noble work ? It is a fine thing to take the 
 lead in high-minded endeavour, and there is a special 
 
 22 
 
338 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 blessing on those who make homes for others ; they shall 
 find a home all ready for them in the Mansions beyond. 
 
 But to come to simple figures — one hundred and 
 fifty thousand vagrants in Scotland.* They must live ! 
 Take them at five shillings or so a week — they cost the 
 community that one way or another — and this is two 
 millions sterling, roughly, a year ! a nice sum, most of 
 it going in " drappies ! " They beg their food, supporting 
 the public-house with their earnings — it comes to the 
 same ! As a rule they ask modestly for the " piece." 
 But we have known them entering cottage kitchens 
 with simple orders — " Gie us a quarter pound o' tea, half 
 
 * We wrote these pages simply from our own observation, and 
 from such information as we ourself gathered in the Highlands ; 
 but, subsequently, we came across a Glasgow Report of Com- 
 mission on the Housing of the Poor " for 1891, in which we find 
 reference to the alarming growth of vagrancy in Scotland, to 
 which the Commissioners' attention had been called by a letter 
 on the subject from a Glasgow parochial of&cer, which letter 
 was published, and from which we quote the following : — 
 
 "From the statistics given in the report of Her Majesty's 
 Inspector of the Constabulary for Scotland for the year 1885 (I 
 go back to this year simply to furnish some idea of the increase), 
 it appears that the number of vagrants were 59,214 males, 21,513 
 females, 10,840 children — total 91,567. In 1886 there were 70,754 
 males; 23,015 females; 12,892 children— total, 106,661 ; while 
 for the year 1887 the total return is 138,748 ! Surely these figures 
 demand the most serious consideration of every intelligent rate- 
 payer." 
 
 Surely they do ! These Constabulary Reports are annually 
 laid upon the table of Parliament, they are printed in blue-books, 
 yet the nation at large apparently has no suspicion of even the 
 possibility of such figures, as above quoted. It was thought an 
 alarming state of things, that Germany, with her fifty millions 
 of inhabitants, had about 150,000 vagrants, and here is Scotland 
 reaching that figure upon not five millions ! 
 
The Message of Bethel to Ou7^selves 339 
 
 a pound o' sugar, and a joog o' milk ! " and tJiey get ity 
 as though they were the clan royal indeed, levying 
 contribution. There is quite a superstitious feeling in 
 Highland cottages concerning bounty to these tramps — 
 much to be blamed of course — but might it not be the un- 
 conscious sense of kinship? Nay, there is more — the 
 cottager, while present conditions last, never knows but 
 that his own children one day may be on the road — it is 
 this sorrowful sense of kinship ! Thus these vagrants 
 are kept in food, their pennies keeping the public-house. 
 Is the country not going to stop that, find provision for 
 them at a less cost, even though at the cost of their own 
 personal liberty, of which they are no fit keepers ? In 
 short, is it not in simple arithmetic a duty to " compel 
 them to come in," wisely, kindly, but still compelling, for 
 the sake of their children, the future vagrants of Scot- 
 land ? For these children live ! " It won't ketch cold," 
 said that tramping mother, consolingly ; " it's born out ! " 
 There will be a great many more than one hundred and 
 fifty thousand, if you let that state of things go on 
 unchecked. 
 
 We must stop, else this chapter itself will grow into 
 a book. The one thing wanted is an anti-umbrella law. 
 It will mean a great many things. If the land laws can 
 be seen to for Scotland, better times will dawn. 
 
 One word to cheer the heart of the gander. It is 
 better to " give than to receive," and it is better to be sat 
 upon than to sit upon. We used to wonder where the 
 poet got his David Elginbrods and Alec Forbeses ; we 
 used to think they must be the children of his own large- 
 
340 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 hearted imagination, but one knows better, getting to 
 know Highland cottagers. It is good for a man to bear 
 the yoke, and not only in his youth ; and these Highland- 
 men, if they do not go to the bad for very heaviness of 
 spirit — that umbrella cottager does not drink, but if he 
 did, who could wonder ? — go, very much so, to the good. 
 They are a fine race, with roots the firmer for the 
 ungenial soil, and, like their own Scotch firs, the better 
 for the blast. Men are but in training now. Highlanders 
 and all, for a time to come, and in that day much that 
 was wrong here will be found right. In that day some 
 of these humble cottagers, who now are last, may be first ; 
 and, who knows ? may then be saying to some of their 
 landlords, "It is you who made us what by the grace of 
 God we have grown." It is good for a man to bear 
 hardship. 
 
 We know a young farmer on the borders of a northern 
 deer-forest who was but two-and-twenty when he took 
 over the holding of his father and grandfather, some 
 fifty acres ; and not only is he driving a steady plough, 
 picking up job work besides, but he is bringing up 
 his four brothers, keeping one of them at college 
 too. This is fine ! These are the poet's heroes, young 
 men of hardy field labour in vacation, and doing well 
 during the session at Aberdeen. For, as that young 
 farmer says of his younger brothers — " they shall have 
 their chance." This, we repeat, is fine ! We should like 
 to know where in England, in Germany, in sunny France 
 you could easily match this ? Landlord's son, even, if 
 he have any, will he at two-and-twenty be equal to 
 that, and do it? Will landlord say. Then by your 
 
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 341 
 
 own showing they cannot be so badly off? Does he 
 say that ? It is the hard-yielding soil, it is the hard- 
 ship borne, — the frugal life, the steady plough, the growth 
 of the inner man because of the weight upon him. 
 
 We met a boatman in our Scotch travels, a mere 
 common boatman on a loch, and a bit of a crofter. We 
 had talk with him twice, thrice, and thought there was 
 something in that man. He told us he had not married 
 — " I couldn't keep both wife and the old mother," he 
 said. When we bade him good-bye, he asked us, could 
 we not send him some German reading ? 
 
 " Why, Jim, do you know German ? " 
 
 " Well, it's this way, I've got a bit bookie, English 
 words down one side and German down the other, and 
 I compare the two. I can make it out fine, and thus I 
 cdicate myself" 
 
 " And what sort of reading would you like ? " said we, 
 breathless. 
 
 " Oh, most anything you could send. . . . Now, if there 
 were such a thing as a German Shakespeare, I think I 
 could make him out." 
 
 After that we did send some reading to that wonderful 
 Jim ; and of the wintry nights, long and dreary, he 
 will be sitting in his humble croft with the old mother 
 " edicating " himself with the help of his dictionary.* 
 We have seen many countries, but nowhere have we met 
 the like of this ! It is the hard-yielding soil, the hardship 
 borne. 
 
 * This boatman is by no means a solitary instance. One of the 
 finest British Goethe scholars, we are told, has thus educated 
 himself in a Highland cottage. 
 
342 
 
 A Colony of Mercy 
 
 Well for a man if he bear the yoke, and not only in 
 his youth ! Scotland is blessed in a race like this. Let 
 the gander take heart. 
 
 We would fain add a word also to an umbrella 
 landlord. Proof of tenants' hardship is rife in that 
 region, but this book is not a muckrake. Yet this : the 
 tenant of that cottage never by any chance in this fitful 
 climate makes a £'^0 rent of thirty acres. It is a simple 
 fact that this man and his family have to do hard 
 work off the farm, doing gillie work and other service 
 between the seasons, in order to find the landlord's rent. 
 If the landlord farmed that bit of land himself, he could 
 not make so much as ten shillings an acre, perhaps not 
 five with paid labour ; this family, then, slaves away for 
 his gain. This were hard enough, if harvest never failed ; 
 but it does fail, and half-fail often ! This very year, with 
 incessant rains and early frost, it has suffered seriously — 
 not a sheaf garnered by the end of October, but snow 
 on the ground ! And here they are with their wretched 
 cottage, winter once more upon them, suffering in health 
 too, the man ill as we write with this week's wet in the 
 cottage, yet not daring to appeal to the landlord for 
 a reduction of rent lest he show them the door ! Can 
 these lords of the soil be forgetting there is a Door, 
 before v/hich the children of men one day will stand 
 knocking for admittance? Is there any one among 
 them who would not have it said of him then : He was 
 a landlord in the days of his earthly life, but he was 
 faithful? Do they not know that landlords actually 
 will be wanted in heaven to be set over five cities, over 
 
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 343 
 
 ten, but only if they were faithful over the one city — the 
 property — they held here? Landlords are not singular 
 in this : it is true of every one of us, we all one day shall 
 stand knocking at that Door. . . . 
 
 Yet it is not so much the landlord as the iniquitous 
 system^ which is at bottom to blame, and the country is 
 answerable for the system. Such landlord rule, such 
 cottages, should be a recollection of the dark ages. But 
 future history will have to chalk up the strange fact that 
 a civilised country at the latter end of the nineteenth 
 century had returned to the childhood of nations in 
 having a nomad people — homeless, houseless tribes, for 
 sheer want of cottages. ' 
 
 And what of the Christian country, sending her 
 missionaries to the ends of the earth to convert the 
 heathen, the Chinaman, and her own wandering children 
 never inside a school, never inside a church — born by 
 the roadside, and, for aught we could learn, dying by the 
 roadside, animal, heathen ? Who, think you, will have 
 to answer for this when Britain, as a nation, one day 
 
 shall stand knocking at that Door ? 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 We expect to be told this is a queer book, beginning 
 with epilepsy and ending with land trouble. But we 
 could not help it. We only followed upon the track of 
 our working model. Bethel, large-hearted and high- 
 souled, ever ready to comfort all manner of human 
 sorrow coming under her notice, is launching out in 
 every direction, and we have caught some of her spirit. 
 Beginning these pages, we had not the remotest intention > 
 nor faintest suspicion even, we should eventually alight 
 
344 ^ Colony of Mercy 
 
 on Scottish home affairs ; it is only that we have hap- 
 pened to carry our manuscript to these Highlands, and 
 once here we were helpless : our receptivity window 
 standing open, impressions have streamed in, till we . 
 were overpowered : we simply could not help receiving 
 them, putting them on paper, and here they are. 
 
 For this is a true tale, and thus it was obtained : The 
 writer having had her vision last winter of the " Pro- 
 gramme of Christianity " realised^ returned to Bethel in 
 the summer to pick up the story. She was prevented 
 unfortunately, or fortunately, from taking any notes, 
 having sprained the wrist of her writing hand. As for 
 those in authority, they really were little help ; with Pastor 
 von Bodelschwingh she twice got ten minutes, — in the 
 winter, when there was no question of book-making, she 
 had seen more of him. The other pastors were a little 
 more accessible ; but everybody there is far too busy to 
 attend to you, even if you want to write their story. 
 Statistics they have, plenty, and report papers, a tre- 
 mendous collection, which Pastor Stiirmer after some 
 coaxing handed over. But these, after all, were not what 
 one wanted : one wanted talk, one wanted to hear and 
 see, one wanted impressions. So all this unfortunate 
 writer could do, labouring as she was with her vision, 
 the mighty message of Bethel, was to throw open the 
 shutters of her soul that impressions might stream in by 
 the window of receptivity. She had four weeks of this, 
 and often wondered was there enough for a book? 
 Some one suggested, in fairness to the colony she ought 
 to stay six months. " No," she said, " such a book must 
 be written while the * first love ' is strong." She went 
 
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 345 
 
 about with her soul in her ears, in her eyes, watching ; 
 and unawares some of the folk were got to talk, little 
 hints of the working secret leaked out, little stories 
 of the past. One day, towards the end of her stay, 
 Pastor Sturmer inquired solicitously, had she transcribed 
 a sufficiency of his mountain of report work ? Not a 
 word. And then she told him how she rather relied 
 on her receptivity window. " That will be a nice muddle 
 you have got," he said, looking at her doubtfully. She 
 had even told him statistics were no good, and that she 
 wanted to catch the ideal spark, to fling as a kindling 
 power into English souls. " H'm ! " he said, " that's 
 a big mouthful." Pastor Schmidt of Hermon had a 
 truer word, as she bade him good-bye — he was seeing 
 her a little way through the beech wood, past Zion 
 Church. "It will be just like this," he said; "it will 
 be as it is with us when we are making a sermon : 
 you may have your mind brimful of preparation, but 
 after all God has the making of that sermon'' And 
 so — her window open still — she went to that Highland 
 cottage, right away in the solitary wilds, with the one 
 hope, that God Himself would have the writing of 
 this book. 
 
 * . * * ^ * 
 
 There is a science which says " Survival of the Fittest," 
 and capital, that awful power, says so too. But Bethel 
 says — the spirit of Christianity says : " Salvation of the 
 Least." 
 
 THE END. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 The Im;perial Law of Insurance of German working men and 
 working women agaiitst Permanent Ill-health a7id Old 
 Age, passed Jtme 1889, c^'f^e into force January 1891. 
 
 This law may well be called the aged, Emperor William's legacy 
 to his people. It was his darling thought, and the preparation 
 for it occupied the waning years of his life. For fully five years 
 some of the wisest men of the empire put their heads together 
 to work out this provision for the German working man and 
 working woman, and the present Emperor did not fail to carry 
 out this bequest of his august grandfather, a true gift to the 
 people. 
 
 Like all insurance, it is based on the principle of mutual 
 assistance, with this difference, that those insured — viz., the 
 working population, of which there are about twelve millions in 
 the empire — do not solely bear the burden of the premium, but 
 one-half only, the other half being paid by their respective 
 employers. No working expenses attach to this insurance, the 
 business part being managed by the Imperial Post Office, so 
 that the full benefit of the funds collected may flow back to the 
 insured working people. 
 
 It is compulsory. 
 
 Every man-servant and woman-servant, every factory worker 
 (male and female), every man and woman working for any 
 wage whatsoever — in short, the whole working population of the 
 country — is required by law to join this insurance after the com- 
 pletion of his or her sixteenth year. Clerks, small tradespeople, 
 and others may join whose incomes are not above ;^ioo a year; 
 such self- insurers," as they are called, paying the whole pre- 
 mium, there being no employers liable on their behalf. 
 
 347 
 
34^ Appendix 
 
 There are four classes of this insurance, according to the 
 wages of the individual, viz. (omitting fractions) : — 
 
 Class I. on wages of ^18 a year and under, 
 jj II. £2'^ „ ,, 
 
 „ III- n ;^42 „ „ 
 
 IV. above ;^42 not exceeding 100. 
 
 The weekly premiums, to be paid equally by every working man 
 (woman) a7td by their employers, are : — 
 
 Class I. (seven Pfennige) about ^d. 
 „ II. (ten ,, ) „ Id. 
 „ III. (twelve „ ) „ lid. ' 
 „ IV. (fifteen „ ) „ i\d. 
 
 Thus, be it understood, for every penny paid by the working man, 
 the servant, and the factory hand, the employer pays a supple- 
 mentary penny ; and the employer is bound to see that both 
 pennies are duly paid up every week. Speaking of pennies," in 
 actual value it is tenpence to the shilling. 
 
 Some employers grumble ; for, if a great factory owner employs, 
 say five hundred hands, the insurance mulcts him in about £^ 
 weekly — about £2^0 a year. Yet is it hard on the great employers 
 of labour, asking them to assist in making provision against the 
 rainy day for their " hands " ? 
 
 This provision for the future is going on in every German 
 household. If you have a cook and housemaid, you have to 
 see to their being insured by means of their weekly twopence 
 and your additional twopence. If you employ a charwoman 
 — but to show how well it is regulated : workers by the day, 
 of course, also pay their weekly pennies and it is the employer 
 who takes the first day of any given week (the Monday em- 
 ployer ; or, if they stay at home on a Monday, the Tuesday 
 employer) who has to supplement the insurance. No one 
 grumbles at this ; your charwoman once a week has a right to 
 ask for her penny over and above her day's wage. Indeed, if 
 one were to inquire in German families, one would find that the 
 paterfamilias y in very many cases, not only pays his penny 
 cheerfully, but the cook's and housemaid's penny also. The 
 trouble is not the penny, but the despatching of it properly 
 and regularly. 
 
Appendix 
 
 349 
 
 For it has to be taken to the Post Office, which gives a certain 
 oblong stamp for the penny (or pennies), the weekly stamp being 
 affixed on a card, which card has to be kept by the insured person. 
 When full, it is exchanged for a fresh card, on which the summed- 
 up value of the previous one is duly entered. If you are inex- 
 perienced enough to go to a German post-office for your ordinary 
 postal affairs on a Saturday — which seems the chosen day for 
 most of these insurers, in certain districts at least — you may learn 
 a lesson in patience watching the stamp-sticking insurance 
 business of your more humble fellow-mortals. Some impatient 
 person has nicknamed the insurance the "stick-law" in con- 
 sequence, which designation, sad to say, has passed into 
 currency. 
 
 Now, by this " stick-law," which came into force two years 
 ago, over five million pounds sterling have already been col- 
 lected. Twenty years hence, it is computed, there will be an 
 accumulated fund of twenty-five millions, eighty years hence an 
 accumulated fund of fifty millions. 
 
 The benefits accruing are that any working man, any working 
 woman, thrown permanently out of employment by sickness or 
 accident, draws a sick pension, or, living over seventy years of 
 age, an old-age pension. The claim to the sick pension is estab- 
 lished if less than one-third of the yearly wage has been received; 
 if health returns, the pension, of course, is discontinued. These 
 pensions are not large, else the weekly premium would have to 
 be larger than it is and become a burden. They are intended to 
 make the sick one, the aged one, a welcome addition to any house- 
 hold of his or her own class, which otherwise might look askance 
 at them. 
 
 A man or woman is entitled to the sick pension after having 
 paid insurance for five years ; indeed, there is a generous pro- 
 vision in this kindly "stick-law" that if any man or woman be 
 thrown permanently out of employment even during the first or 
 second year of its working, if he or she can prove they have 
 been in receipt of an honest wage during the last five years (in 
 which case they would have been insured if the law had already 
 existed), they are entitled to its beneficent provision forthwith. 
 Similarly, some aged pilgrim already near his three-score and 
 ten can, after having paid in for one year, draw the old-age 
 pension, if he can prove he has earned his livelihood during the 
 last three years. This is doing it generously. 
 
 The pensions paid in case of permanent want of employ- 
 
350 
 
 Appendix 
 
 ment through sickness or accide7tt (after five years and under) 
 are : — 
 
 Class I. (omitting fractions) 14^-. a year. 
 
 J J II- £^ S^- 
 
 „ HI. „ £6 IIS. 
 
 5> I^* 55 £7 J) 
 
 These pensions rise proportionately with the years of insurance. 
 Thus a man or woman, having paid in for fifty years, would 
 receive : — 
 
 Class I. (omitting fractions) ^8 — a year. 
 „ II. £12 10s. „ 
 
 » III. - 
 „ IV. „ £20 iss. „ 
 
 While any man or woman, irrespective of sickness, having 
 passed his or her seventieth year and having paid in for thirty 
 3^ears, is entitled to an old-age pension, viz. : — 
 
 Class I. (omitting fractions) 6^-. a year. 
 „ II- „ £^ i5-^- 5, 
 
 5, III- 3-5"- 
 
 IV. „ £^ \\s. 
 
 Two cases to exemplify the working of this insurance and the 
 benefit received : — 
 
 Take the case of a woman aged thirty-seven ; in her twenty- 
 fourth year she lost her right arm, through sickness or accident, 
 no matter which. If the law now in force had been in force then, 
 she would from her sixteenth year have paid into the insurance, 
 and so would her employer ; she would have paid (say Class II.) 
 in about eight years some 38^., but she would have been drawing 
 for the last thirteen years a yearly pension of £(i 15^"., in all over 
 ^80 ; and she will draw her pension as long as she lives. 
 
 Take the case of a man aged forty-nine, who for the last eleven 
 years has been permanently unfitted for work in consequence of 
 ill-health. If the provision had already been in force, he would 
 have been insured for twenty-two years ; he would (say Class III.) 
 have paid in all about £(i a^s. (his employer paying the same 
 amount on his behalf), but for the last eleven years he would 
 have drawn a pension of about £10 %s. a year ; he would have 
 drawn some £ii'2. in these eleven years, and his pension will 
 continue while he lives. Now, supposing this man to have a 
 thrifty wife earning a weekly sum on her own account, perhaps 
 
Appendix 
 
 351 
 
 some growing sons and daughters bringing a few shillings each 
 to the household, such household, even with a disabled head 
 bread-winner, would not be badly off. 
 
 To every pension paid the public purse adds £1 \os. a year, 
 which is included in the figures above given. It is a State pro- 
 vision, and the State does its part, having the use of the funds 
 meanwhile. 
 
 If servant-girls or other female workers marry, they have the 
 option of continuing the insurance — in which case the whole 
 premium, of course, falls to their charge — or they may discon- 
 tinue it ; receiving in that case the sum standing to their credit — 
 not a bad arrangement for a bride in humble life. Also, if a 
 man dies without in his own person having drawn the benefit of 
 the insurance, his widow or his children, if under fifteen years 
 of age, inherit the sum standing to his credit. Likewise, if a 
 woman dies in similar circumstances, her children, if fatherless and 
 under fifteen, inherit what may be standing to her credit. The law, 
 indeed, is rich in sub-paragraphs, witnessing to the true benevo- 
 lence which framed it. For instance, if a man or woman entitled 
 to the pension be habitual drunkards, the pension is not given 
 them in cash, but in kind ! 
 
 These, briefly, are the main features of the compulsory in- 
 surance of the German working population, and the great point 
 to be noticed is this : the pensions are not a charity ^ like parish 
 relief. These men and women, are entitled to draw this benefit, 
 having themselves made it possible, by paying up their pennies. 
 They are not ^ait^ers, then, when the ills that flesh is heir to 
 overtake them. It is a fine thing to keep a man above the pauper, 
 and by his own exertion, too, supplemented by your charitable 
 foresight. Moreover, it is not every man for himself only, but 
 every man for his neighbour ; it is a lifting of the whole working 
 population to a higher level. As we said above, the provision 
 is on its first trial ; a weak point here, a weak point there, may 
 claim modification ; but the same benevolence which framed the 
 law will no doubt watch over its workings, and will amend it 
 whenever need of improvement may become evident. The spirit 
 of the law is admirable, and its aim a truly noble one, ensuring 
 not only pensions, but a moral growth of the people— an im- 
 perial gift indeed. 
 
 Printed by Hazell, Watson, cS* Viney, Ld., Lotidon and Aylesbury . 
 
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