The evangelization of a great city

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

THE

Chapter I. The Field Of Action

TONDON ! There is little need of an exclamation ^^ point to call attention to the greatest city of ancient or modern times. Its geographical position lies about the centre of the most densely populated half of the globe. It is the monetary and commercial centre of the world ; the first in population and civilization ; the greatest in commerce and in crime.

Taking a bird's-eye view from St. Paul's or The Monument, one can hardly believe that this smoky city of brick and stone, of domes and spires, of massive warehouses and lofty tenements, stretching away towards the horizon, was once the Roman Lindum — ** little more than a collection of huts on a dry spot in the midst of a marsh." This small patch of humanity has gradually spread, until the one square mile of the original site now covers an area of nearly seven hundred square miles, honeycombed by 6600 miles of streets, which are nightly illumined by a million lamps. There are 646,000 dwellings spread over 442,000 acres, containing a population of nearly five million. Here a birth is registered every three minutes and a death every five minutes. Every year there are added over 100,000 inhabitants. Its population is now larger than the ten largest cities of the United States or the five largest of the world ; and, should the present rate of increase continue, in fifty years London will contain the almost incredible population of eight million souls. So great is the crush of commerce on its crowded thoroughfares, and so long are the distances from centre to circumference, that its thrifty denizens must fly over the heads of the sluggish crowds, or burrow beneath their feet, to reach their distant destinations.

The cosmopolitan character of the population is as striking as its numbers. The Scotchmen in London outnumber those in Edinburgh, and the Irish those in Dublin. There are more Jews than in Palestine, and more Roman Catholics than in Rome itself Like Jerusalem on the feast day, you will find on London streets distinctive types of almost every nationality under the sun.

London is urbes in urbe. It boasts of its Spanish colony, its little Germany, its France and Italy, in whose several colonies we find the continental foreigners, speaking the languages and living the lives of their native lands.

London is a city of superlatives. It is the richest and the poorest, the most sacred and the most profane. Plenty and poverty, intelligence and ignorance, purity and vice, stand out in striking antithesis. The average dweller in the West End is as ignorant of the condition of his near neighbor in the East End as he is of the inhabitants of Thibet. Whatever vague information he has of either is received through the newspaper. There is little intercourse between Westminster and Whitechapel. On the one side are the classes, on the other the masses; and dives seldom crosses the busy city, that lies like a great gulf between, to visit Lazarus in poverty and misery.

London is a city of contrasts. It is estimated that within the confines of the metropolitan area there are half a million people who awake every morning, and know not how nor where to obtain their daily bread ; and yet the crumbs which fall from the rich man's table would feed this hungry multitude. Seventeen men and women were counted asleep upon the stone pavement of Westminster bridge (a small part of the large army which slept on the streets that night), and

THE FIELD OF ACTION.

upon the same evening ;^8o were given for a box at an elite opera. The price of \^\o bouquets at a " drawing-room " exceeded the yearly income of one of the oldest and most aggressive evangelistic societies.

London is a city of extremes. Walk through the West End, where money is freely spent and the fashions are lavishly displayed. Behold its royal palaces, attractive mansions, aristocratic clubs, beautiful parks, fragrant gardens and spacious thoroughfares. Then turn to the East End, with its murky docks, narrow streets, dirty purlieus and reeking tenements, and one cannot realize that he is in the same cit>^

Saunter through Hyde Park on a fine June evening between the hours of five and seven o'clock. You are in a veritable paradise, surrounded by chirping birds, beautiful flowers and spurting fountains. The air, laden with the fragrance of early summer, vibrates under the sounds of distant music and is noisy with the voices and laughter of a merry throng. Here are assembled the fashionable aristocracy, w^hose wealth is revealed in a long line of "elegant equipages and high-bred horses in handsome trappings, moving continually to and fro, presided over by sleek coachmen and powdered lackeys and occupied by some of the most beautiful and exquisitely dressed women in the world."

Turn from this Vanity Fair in London's fashionable park to another scene in the same city. Between the hours of nine and eleven, that same evening, if courageous enough, venture, with a protector, into Whitechapel. The streets are filled with a motley throng of dejected creatures, some with infants in their arms or children dragging at their sides, who issue from cellars and garrets, from courts and alleys, into the highway, seeking, at that hour of the night, their precarious living, happy if they can beg, steal or earn enough to pay for a " doss " in a neighboring low lodging-house.

The dimly lighted streets are lined on either side with tall tenements and low rookeries, where many of these poor unfortunates occupy a room or a closet which they call home ! The air is odorous with the fumes of beer and tobacco, emitted from the numerous overcrowded groggeries that infest the place. The startling music that strikes your ear issues from a rattling piano and screeching fiddle in a low concert saloon, where the applause testifies to the appreciation of the auditors, composed largely of young men and women, with not a few boys and girls among them. The laughter and voices heard here are such as is forced in hollow sound from poisoned lungs and half-stupefied brains. Contrast such scenes as these within a few hours of each other — the one in the West End, the other in the East End — and you will rub your eyes and ask : ^' Are we still in the same city and under the same sky ? " And remember that this is one only of the many haunts of poverty and profligacy that lie off the commercial highways of the great metropolis.

How appropriately has the City of the Thames been likened to a strange woman, whose noble brow and jeweled hair glisten with costly gems; while her coarse skirts drag through the pestilential mire of filthy streets !

In such a city, with its teeming population and stretch of territory, it is impossible to conceal the wretchedness and wickedness that abound on every hand. The agencies of the devil are active night and day. "The beast" has left the conspicuous imprint of his cloven foot upon the life of this fair city. Intemperance — that noxious spring which feeds the polluted pools of vice and misery — is fearfully prevalent in every nook and corner of the metropolis. Its withering stream penetrates the homes of poor and rich alike, and bears yearly upon its deadly current tens of thousands of unfortunate victims to early graves. The

THE FIELD OF ACTION.

publican plies his profitable trade under the encouragement of the government every day in the week — as well in the palatial saloons under the towers of Westminster, as in the lowest groggeries in the purlieus of the Seven Dials. In one street every sixth house counted was a tavern, and no less than two thousand persons were noted upon a Saturday night entering a single gin palace. Pauperism, that sickly offspring of intemperance, has spread to alarming proportions. The official returns of one week report 92,528 paupers relieved by the authorities alone ; while the total number of vagrants relieved on the last day of the week was 1 1 17, of whom 883 were men, 203 women and thirty-one children under sixteen years of age — and this in the balmy month of September !

The prevalence of crime is startling. It is partly revealed in the daily reports of the newspapers, in the records of the courts of justice, in the ninety thousand law-breakers that are taken into custody every year, and in the twelve thousand constabulary that are supported for available duty. London is responsible for more than one-third of the crime committed in the entire country.

The social evil, that gnawing cancer upon the body politic, is vaunted in almost every street. It is estimated that there are fifty thousand women employed in this traffic.

The question of overcrowding, which has been the subject of so much parliamentary inquiry and legislation, is one of vital interest to the Christian workers, who find great difficulty in interesting families, of six and eight members, in the Gospel, when the aged and the young alike, persons of both sexes, are huddled together in a single room. It is an ascertained fact that in this great city 163,000 families are thus herded together. The last census gave the population of certain parts of the metropolis as five hundred and six hundred to the acre, while that of England and Wales was only seven to the acre. But a recent census reveals in the neighborhood of Spitalfields (an area covering a little over three acres) a population of 2307 souls.

With such forces of evil molding this vast population, we are not surprised to see the Sabbath openly desecrated, to hear socialistic agitators denounce government and property, to observe infidelity rampant, and skepticism scattering, by speech and press, the most blasphemous doctrines, and to hear that there are over a million, and, in some densely populated parts of the city, ten per cent., of its inhabitants who are indifferent to religious instruction and never attend the worship of God.

Do not judge, from this dark picture, that the noble city has been abandoned to the emissaries of the devil. The evils to be grappled with are manifold, and their magnitude is apt to appall the most optimistic philosophy; but the Christian, cheered by hope and strengthened by faith, does not despair of reclaiming this desolated land, and making the desert to bloom and to blossom like the rose.

We gladly turn from the malignant forces that seek to destroy the moral life of London, to view, in succeeding chapters, those benign forces, generated by love, that oppose with irrepressible energy every evil tendency that manifests itself. If the devil is active, so is the church. If the demands upon Christian sympathy are great, they are adequately met by philanthropic efforts and evangelistic aggression. The best idea one can get of the number and variety of these organizations is to spend the month of May in London, when almost every day is occupied by the anniversary of some of its ten hundred societies. One cannot see where there is room for another institution. There are at least one thousand agencies recorded in the Charities' Register and Digest, at work relieving distress, both physical and spiritual. There are two thousand places of worship, with all the evangelistic agencies for aggressive work, almost one-half of which belong to the Church of England, in three hundred of whose churches there is a daily service; while in the great Cathedral of St. Paul there are no less than six services daily. In most of these pulpits the Gospel is proclaimed by eloquent and orthodox pastors. Moreover, there are a number of churches exclusively for foreigners. There are the Greek, Bavarian, Sardinian, Danish, Dutch, French, Welsh, Swiss, Italian, Polish, German, Spanish and Swedish churches, wherein divine worship is conducted in foreign tongues.

In addition to their usual services, many of the London churches carry on numerous mission enterprises among the poor. They send out evangelistic bands to conduct meetings in the open air ; they support colporteurs, Bible readers and missionaries, who devote their entire time visiting among the people of the parish.

To reach those who will not attend the churches, special services are held in concert halls, theatres and hundreds of mission rooms scattered throughout the city, where attractive music, spirited singing and brief Gospel addresses interest, instruct and influence many to a better life. There are special agencies that look after the spiritual welfare of the soldiers ; others that care for the sailors. The policemen, the firemen and the post-office employes also have their special services. There are missionaries who visit the market places, railroad stations and the cab stands. There are hundreds employed in colportage work, in tract distribution and speaking to individuals as opportunity offers. There are missions to the Jews, Catholics and foreigners ; while the thousands of toilers along the river are not neglected. The hospitals, almshouses and penitentiaries are visited, and weekly services held therein. The criminal is met as he comes from the prison gate in the early morning; the prostitute is accosted as she plies her trade in the streets at midnight; the homeless urchin is aroused from his hard couch, with, literally, "a stone for his pillow,'' and provided with comfortable bed and board, and brought under the influence of a Christian home. The message of salvation is proclaimed through tens of thousands of Bibles and Scripture portions, tons of tracts and numerous volumes of Christian literature, which are scattered broadcast through the agencies of the Bible, Religious Tract, and Christian Knowledge Societies, whose publications you find in the hotels, at the railway stations and on the street corners.

Nor does this Christian charity remain at home. Evangelists are sent out to neighboring towns and cities ; mission boats cruise about the coasts, visiting the coastguards and lightships in their isolation ; hospital ships are dispatched to the fishing fleets in the North Sea, to administer both temporal and spiritual comforts to the toilers of the deep. And yet all this expensive service does not diminish the magnificent fund annually contributed to send the Gospel to heathen lands. No class seems to be overlooked. All are brought under the direct appeal of the Gospel messenger — all hear the "glad tidings of great joy."

In addition to these united efforts, there are many individuals engaged in evangelistic work. England's Christian queen becomes an evangelist to the families of the poor crofters in their Highland cabins, and other members of the royal family count it a privilege to visit the poor and distressed in the hospitals and asylums. Members of the nobility lay aside the cares of state to preach the Gospel to the poor. The Christian banker, merchant and editor supplements his daily labor by evangelistic work after business hours. He erects a building or rents a hall wherein to gather the lost sheep ; while he himself often becomes the pastor of the flock. Sons and daughters of the aristocracy, students of the universities, representatives of the learned professions, have given up their homes to live among the people, and have consecrated their time, talents and means for the " help of the Lord against the mighty." And what shall we say of those unknown and unregistered Christians who spend many hours of the night and day in distributing tracts, reading the Scriptures in the homes of the poor, addressing groups on the street corners, seeking out the most wretched and neglected, and bringing them under Gospel influence ?

Back of all this personal and combined effort for extending the kingdom of Christ is the sympathy and encouragement of the English government, whose sovereign bears the title *' Defender of the Faith." Everywhere one sees, amid the surrounding wickedness, traces of the nation's trust in Almighty God and professions of Christianity. It is inscribed upon her chief commercial establishment, in the humble declaration, "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof" Upon her public buildings, her monuments and fountains. Scriptural quotations are carved in stone. The corner-stones of her banks, temples and institutions are laid with fitting religious ceremonies and dedicated to the '' Giver of every good and perfect gift."

These evangelistic agencies, stationed like a mighty army throughout the metropolis — contesting every foot of territory against the encroachments of the Kingdom of Darkness, and winning glorious conquests for the Kingdom of Light — have weakened the power of the destroyer and defended London from his complete mastery.

There have been marked improvements during the last thirty years in the moral and social condition of

10 TitE EVAI^GELIZATION OF A GREAT CITY,

the people. London is wicked, but London is growing better. Official statistics testify to a healthier atmosphere, and the Christian visitor notices a decided improvement in the moral and social condition of the people. The prisons have fewer occupants, the poorhouses fewer boarders, and the public-houses fewer customers, than a few decades ago. The wage-workers live better and dress neater. They have discarded corduroys for tweeds, and fustian for neat black clothes. The wife and mother keeps herself and children more tidy and her home more inviting. A few pictures or chromos, in rough frames, or no frames at all, adorn the walls ; a flower-pot or box, with a bright geranium or an aspiring fern, decorates the windows. The people show more respect for the clergy, and even welcome the Christian visitor. The minister is invited to the workingmen's clubs, and his address is cordially received. The deepening interest in spiritual things is manifest in the increased attendance at the churches and other places where religious services are held.

Through open-air preaching, colportage work and mission services, the people have been brought more into contact with the Gospel, and through the visits of the Bible readers. Christian nurses and devoted deaconesses, the poor are beginning to learn that, after all, the church is their friend. This is evidenced in the experience of a young curate, whose open-air services in one of the courts of his parish was protected by five men of notorious character, who agreed, among themselves, to see '^fair play,'' because the parson was kind to the women and little ones. Contrast this with Bishop Bloomfield's experience in being pelted with stones when he went to lay the cornerstone of his first church at Bethnal Green.

We do not for a moment mean to imply that the millennium has come, and that this improvement has been made uniformly throughout all the lower classes.

It has been noted principally among the working people who, twenty-five years ago, were very indifferent to the claims of religion. Such is the testimony of many of the clergymen laboring in the East End.

AH the Christian world is anxiously watching the contest that is being waged in London between sin and righteousness, between the followers of Christ and the followers of Belial. This anxiety arises from the intimate relationship existing between this noble city and the cities of other lands. The throb of London's life is felt throughout the world. If her moral pulse is weak, the effect is visible on people that live afar. Moreover, every city must witness the same struggle within its walls as is now being waged in the British metropolis. It is only a question of time when the fair cities of other English-speaking lands will house a population as large as London. They must face the same enemies and resist the same giant evils that threaten their most sacred institutions. Places that are designated upon the map as towns and villages to-day will, in a few years, be metamorphosed into cities with teeming populations. The same social and religious problems will arise. The ''bitter cry'' will be heard. The ''sweating commission" will be appointed. The burning question of" city evangelization " will have to be solved. Those who live in the cities are already in the midst of these questions.

"How shall we reach the masses?" is the subject of interesting discussion in our conferences. It furnishes a topic for elaborate essays in our ministers' meetings, and it meets us more practically in our daily parish ministrations — in the indifference of the people to the ordinances of religion, and in the empty pews. Sabbath after Sabbath, that reflect the voice in hollow echo through the sanctuary.

We will do well, therefore, to turn to the mother country, which has given us so much profitable instruction in art, science, literature and law, and learn from its Christian activity the methods adopted and the success attained in evangelistic work among the millions of the chief city of the world. We will thereby be better able to grapple with these same evils before they reach the same threatening proportions, and thereby stay the destructive onslaught of the enemy, by weakening and scattering his gathering forces.

CHAPTER 11.

FROM HOUSE TO HOUSE.

T "\ rE ARE resting in the office of the Secretary of ^ ^ the London City Mission, after inspecting the commodious building recently erected in Bridewell Place for the use of the society, at a cost of ^10,000. From this centre of religious influence go forth daily, into the highways and byways of the vast metropolis, nearly five hundred missionaries, who herald to the poor the welcome invitation to the Gospel feast. From this distributing agency thousands of Bibles, tons of tracts and pamphlets, innumerable religious books and letters are sent upon their mission of light and life. Here are the offices of the committees and Secretaries, also the large conference hall and the library, containing nearly five thousand volumes of theological and standard works for the u^e of the missionaries.

The Secretary informs us that the entire force engaged in this gigantic Gospel enterprise, as committeemen, officers. Secretaries, Superintendents and missionaries, numbers a thousand earnest Christian workers, whose far-reaching influence is revealed by the following summary of one year's work:

Total number of Missionaries 481

Visits and calls paid 3,288,763

Of which to the sick and dying 279,047

Testaments and portions distributed .... 22,669

Religious tracts distributed 4,541,094

Books lent 60,244

In-door Meetings and Bible Classes held . . 44,539 Additional in-door Meetings in factories,

workhouses, penitentiaries, etc 24,005

Persons visited or conversed with in factories, etc 315,610

14 THE EVANGELIZATIOI^ OF A GREAT CITY,

Out-door services held 8,233

Readings of Scripture in visitation 825,044

New Communicants 2,068

Restored to Church Communion 357

FamiHes induced to commence Family Prayer 93 1

Drunkards reclaimed 1^975

Unmarried couples induced to marry .... 198 Fallen women admitted to asylums, restored

to their homes, or otherwise rescued . . . 327

Shops closed on the Lord's Day 103

Induced to attend Public Worship 5,447

Children sent to Sunday Schools 5,409

Adults visited who died 7,773

Of whom visited by the Missionary only . . 1,954

Total Receipts for the year ^87,738, 9^.

The successful equipment of such an organization was not the labor of a day. Its history is like the development of the harvest — " first the blade, then the ear; after that the full corn in the ear.''

When the City Mission was established, the tide of London morality had reached its lowest ebb. Few, if any, of the social and moral reformative measures were then upon the statute books. The overcrowded condition of the poor and the immorality of some districts may be inferred from the sobriquet given to certain localities, such as ''Jack Ketch's Warren," *' Little Hell," "The Devil's Acre," etc. Strange as it may appear, some of these haunts of vice were in the very midst of the central parishes, whose circumference, like deceitful fruit, was attractive, but whose heart was rotten. The sinks of iniquity were almost inaccessible to anyone but the denizens, who could burrow through the narrow courts and winding alleys into the wretched habitations of gamblers, thieves, drunkards and beggars. A criminal once within these precincts was comparatively safe from the law's punishment ; for no officer, even if he were brave enough to venture in, could find his man or bring him out. The members of these communities spent their time either lounging

PROM nomE TO HOUSE. 15

in the innumerable groggeries, penny gaffs and rat-pits that infested the district, or plundering their more industrious and respectable neighbors.

The churches were indifferent, both as to their duty toward, and the danger from, these neglected masses. The few spasmodic efforts put forth to reach them were obviously perfunctory. The Established and Non-Conformist bodies, instead of uniting their forces against the evils that menaced society, were at war with each other — wrangling over non-essential theological subtlties and petty political jealousies. But God had a few faithful ones in this wicked Nineveh. Here and there, as upon the desert air, arose the voice of this faithful company pleading for " heathen London." That prayer was soon to be answered in a most remarkable manner.

About this time there were gathered in a room, in the city of Dublin, a few Christians, whose hearts yearned for the godless multitudes in the metropolis across the sea. Among them was David Nasmith, a Scotch merchant, who had abandoned a lucrative commercial position in Glasgow to devote himself to the work of bringing the Gospel to the homes of the unchristian masses in his native city, and who had organized many similar societies both in Europe and America. These Irish Christians pledged their prayers and purses to this man, if he would go to London and organize a city mission, which proposition he promptly accepted.

When Nasmith reached London, his scheme was met with a cold indifference sufficient to chill the ardor of a less consecrated soul. After laboring in vain for several weeks to secure the co-operation of the churches, he failed to find even two representative men who would act upon his committees. At last he invited several sympathizers to meet at his own house. In answer to this call, two friends met with him at six o'clock on the morning of the sixteenth of May, 1835. After devotional exercises, Mr. Nasmith offered a resolution that those present form themselves into " The London City Mission Society." The constitution and by-laws were read; Mr. Dear seconded the resolution; his friend held up his hand ; the motion was unanimously carried, and these three men commended the society to the care of Almighty God.

The object of the London City Mission is to extend the knowledge of the Gospel, especially among the poor inhabitants of London and its vicinity, *' without reference to denominational distinctions and the peculiarities of church government." This object is effected by the employment of paid lay agents, who devote their time exclusively to the work assigned them in a particular district.

No sooner was the machinery of the society put in active operation than the hitherto indifference of many Christians assumed an attitude of decided opposition. "The innovation of lay workers would subvert the influence of the clergy," and *' the enormous expense of the undertaking rendered it impracticable," were specimens of the objections urged against the infant society. The archbishop of the diocese went so far as to forbid any of his clergy to loan their churches or to serve the society in any capacity whatever.* Notwithstanding this opposition, the work of the society commended itself to the community at large, as evidenced by the fact that upon the occasion of its first anniversary the yearly receipts were reported at £2J\\, 9^., 8<^., and forty missionaries had been sent into the most wretched parts of London.

In the third year of its history the society, with its limited force of missionaries, undertook the task of

* It is in justice, however, to the archbishop to state that this embargo was withdrawn when he became convinced of the society's usefulness, and he himself afterwards became one of its most helpful supporters.

supplying every destitute family with a copy of the Scriptures. As a result of this canvass, there were found six thousand families who stated they had never possessed such a book as the Bible; while many others were found who had been without a copy for many years. There were distributed at this time, through the generous co-operation of the Bible Society, 35,393 copies of the Scriptures.

Into the darkest and most dangerous communities, where even the policemen would not venture alone, where drunkenness, wretchedness and starvation stalked forth in hideous and appalling form, the missionary searched his way. He picked his steps along narrow streets, where the venturesome stranger was garroted in open day. He penetrated murky courts and dark closes, where gambling was carried on upon the doorsteps, and where half-naked children ran wildly about; he climbed rickety stairs, so adjusted as to pitch him from top to bottom; he entered dismally overcrowded rooms, whose drunken occupants were rnore willing for a scuffle than a sermon ; he discovered settlements where only one-fifth of the children attended school one day of the week, and where 114 adults out of 439 families could not read the Bible placed in their hands. Into such dangerous places and among such barbarous people, with no other weapon than sanctified common sense, a love for perishing souls, and the message of the Gospel of Christ, " the man with the Book " forced his way.

This pioneer work was by no means carried on with impunity. These faithful messengers were met with a determined antagonism. The dark looks of debauched men and women, and the suspicious scrutiny of ''jail birds," had to be bravely met; curses, garbage and stones had to be patiently endured, until their suspicion at his self-denial gave place to curiosity at his strange mission. Then they admired his courage, confided in his friendship and appreciated his sacrifices.* At first he was scarcely tolerated to intrude upon the jealously guarded precincts of the community ; after a time he was permitted to mingle among the groups of men, and at last invited — aye, welcomed — into their cheerless rooms, to speak to the " women and children;'' but it was noticed that the man himself was often present to hear what the " preacher had to say." Thus family after family was added to the visiting list, until he was compelled to divide his district with another missionary.