IN the midst of Drury Lane, we reach a Mission-house as the clock strikes one. A motley assemblage is gathered. Men and women, young and old, chiefly from the casual wards and refuges all around—they are the waifs and strays of our giant city. Drunken, dissolute, filthy, ragged, and incorrigibly idle, they come from day to day to pass away the time, to sit down without fear of the police, to get a little change, and, rarely, a chance of something to eat.
Why keep open such a place? Simply because there come among them girls and lads who can be, and who are, rescued from this shocking and dangerous condition. Scores of both sexes have been rescued, and are now doing well for this world, and, we hope and believe, for that which is to come.
But the time for our meeting has come; we enter, walk up the room, and commence our service. Tattered hymn-books are given out, a well-known hymn selected, and we sing. Can such a gathering sing? Of course, they have all been taught, and mostly in Sunday schools; therefore our singing proceeds smoothly, but never noisily, until the end. God’s precious Word read and briefly commented on, prayer followed, and then in a quiet voice came an address to the motley audience.
“Some few years since,” said the speaker, “I was laboring in the far east of London, when the dreadful cholera burst upon us with a suddenness and severity that caused us to stagger and be at our wits’ end. It carried off whole families before any preparation could be made; in many houses they died as they sank down, before help could reach them; children―motherless, fatherless, or both―were all around; and homes, from which all the children were swept as by a poison-breath, were not uncommon.
“As speedily as possible special wards were prepared in the hospital; but the nurses became panic-stricken, and we were upon the verge of a state of things I have never dared to contemplate. Then I felt it my duty to offer my services; and I was at once accepted, and installed in authority over a large number of beds.
“Truly the angel of death hovered there; scores and scores were brought in daily, of both sexes and all ages―some almost gone, others dying, all suffering dreadfully, except those who were beyond the reach of pain and help alike. We received all that were sent to us, did our best for them by effort and prayer: but they died terribly fast; one-half of all that came, perished speedily―no time for thought, no time for prayer or repentance, or seeking peace with God.
“Oh! if you had been with me there, had seen the weeping, the striving, the sinking into death, you would need no argument to prove that the worst possible place on earth to seek repentance is a death-bed, especially when writhing with the most excruciating pain. Therefore I beg of you to seek salvation now. I implore you, by these dreadful memories, to come to the Saviour while time and opportunity are afforded you; lest, in leaving it to the future, you may leave it to that which God has nowhere promised shall be under your own control.
“There I saw the little child clasp its hands and wither away; I saw the young man hurled to death in the pride of his strength! The song of the maiden was exchanged for screams of agony; the dying yell of the infidel and the blasphemer still rings in my ear; while, do what we would, we were powerless to help and save. They came, they suffered, they died, in that awful saturnalia of pestilence and death.
“There came to us, among others, one of the fairest girls I ever saw. I have seen female beauty in many lands, but none fairer than this blue-eyed daughter of one of the sunny homes of England. She was dreadfully ill when she was given to us; and from the first we feared for her, soul and body, when we found that the daughter of beauty was also the daughter of sin and shame.
“I went to her, and, kneeling by her bedside, warned her of her dangerous bodily condition, and inquired how it stood with her immortal soul.
“Never, never shall I forget the look of mingled astonishment, fear, and pain that passed over her face, as she replied, ‘Why do you ask? You do not think it possible that I am going to die, do you? I know I am very ill, but I have never thought of dying yet! I cannot die yet! I am not ready! I want time to think and pray, and I can do neither while in this awful pain.’
“Alas for her! her unreadiness could not, would not save her, or even add one minute to her life, any more than it will to yours! I and as I knelt, I implored her to seek mercy and salvation while time was given.
“ ‘Do you know what I have been?’ she said, hoarsely. ‘Do you know whence they brought me to lie on this very bed! If I cannot have time to repent, I am lost! lost! lost!’
“Her voice ascended in tone with her words; until the last one rang out in a shrill scream, that caused a shudder in every frame, and a paleness on every cheek within hearing.
“Then there came to her side one of England’s ladies, who has made her name a household word in the houses of her roughest countrymen, as well as in the mansions of the great and good. She was my colleague in that season and place of pestilence, and she said, reassuringly, ‘If you are lost, you are ready for Jesus, for He came to save such; and it is good part of the work done when the soul feels its lost condition, and its need of a Saviour from sin and its doom!’
“‘I don’t mean that,’ said the girl; ‘I want to get well and go back. I don’t want to repent, or to die, or to have anything to do with religion; it’s too late for that! Stoop down, and I’ll tell you. I was my mother’s only one, her pet, her darling; and when I would come to London, to get more money, and have more liberty, she warned me, and begged me to stay in vain. When she heard what had happened to me, it broke her heart; she withered and died! Her death and my shame broke down my poor gray-headed father, he has never been the same since. Often in the night, when I’m sober, I see them both―he suffering and dying―she, where I shall never be! O mother! mother!’
“ ‘Have you ever sought his forgiveness?’ questioned my colleague.
“ ‘No, no,’ she said, ‘I’ve never been sober when I could help it! As sure as I became so, I saw my heart-broken, murdered mother!’
“‘Let us send to your father,’ said I, ‘he ought to know where and how you are. Tell me his address, and I will telegraph at once.’
“‘Do you think he will forgive me?’ she quietly asked.
“ ‘I hope and believe so,’ I replied; but this I am sure of—if he will not, the dear Saviour will, if you will only ask Him.’
“‘I will wait and hear from my father first,’ she wearily decided; ‘then if he forgives me, I shall have courage to go to Jesus.’
“ ‘Go to Him first,’ implored my colleague, ‘you may wait too long.’
“Busily, with constant accessions and changes of the living and dying, passed the day away with us. In the afternoon we received a reply, informing us, ‘It was all but impossible for her father to leave his sick-bed, but they would cautiously deliver the message, and leave it to himself to decide.’ We sent again, that unless he could come at once, he would surely be too late; and then I leaned over her, as she was lying all but unconscious on her bed of death, telling her our reply.
“‘Raise me up,’ she said, ‘he may come! I begin to hope that he will, and that I shall die forgiven.’ We raised her on the bed, and she sat with a look of the keenest watchfulness upon her face, never taking away her glance from the entrance-door of the ward.
“ ‘Shall we pray that he may come, and that you may see him?’ asked my colleague, as the night closed in.
“‘Do you think God will hear for me if you do?’ she questioned in reply.
“ ‘I am sure He will hear,’ was the answer; ‘and if we can ask in faith He will give us a favorable reply.’
“Oh, dear friends, that prayer, beginning with the request that the heavenly Father would send the earthly one, ready to forgive and bless; and then entreating, agonizing, that the dying girl might be helped to see the loving, blessed Saviour waiting to be gracious, ready to forgive, mighty to save whosoever would come unto Him! Oh, those soft, low tones of earnest pleading, the wrestling faith, that strove for the erring, sinning sister in the darkness of unbelief! She lay and listened―wearily at first, soon interested, then tearful, then with clasped hands, and streaming eyes joining softly in the low earnest cry for mercy, that could scarcely be heard at the next bed.
“‘Read to me of Jesus,’ she said; ‘how He pitied and forgave the one that was like me; there may be hope there for me.’
“We complied with her desire; and then read to her, softly and slowly, how He suffered and died, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God, and then we urged her lovingly to trust herself wholly in His hands, and to believe and trust in His will and power to forgive and cleanse.
“Through the night she watched, and waited, and prayed, until the pearl-gray of the morning appeared, and the sweet smell of the hay, as it was conveyed to the early market, ascended through the open windows of the ward. The light increased, and the bustle of the morning became plainer without; still she watched, and waited, and prayed; until softly calling me to her, she said, ‘That she felt she was forgiven, and that her father would come and forgive her before she died.’
“Hour after hour passed away, the great clock in front of the building marking their passage; and still she watched, and waited, and prayed. But her strength was well-nigh gone, her bright eyes were dimming, and her tones fainter and lower as the hours passed away; and we knew that unless his coming was very speedy her wish could not be fulfilled. So we prayed earnestly together, my colleague and I, and, the dying girl, that strength might be given to watch and wait until he came.
“And it was so. While I was holding her, I saw the dying eyes brighten, I felt strength reanimate the frame as an old man tottered and staggered into the ward, supported by two friends who had traveled to London with him.
“He came to the bedside and sank upon it for a moment, then raised himself, and received his dying child in his arms. She looked into the tear-stained, convulsed face with unutterable entreaty, and murmured, ‘At last, at last! Father, father! forgive and bless me before I die!’
“He had no words wherewith to comply; but he bent down over her and kissed her―oh! so lovingly and forgivingly―again and again. One last long look of love, one long-drawn sigh of supreme contentment and rest, one quivering prayerful spasm of the lips, was the last of earth, and, we humbly hoped, the prelude and the first of heaven.”
There was not a dry eye among us; corners of ragged shawls, sleeves of torn coats, and backs of unclean hands were all busy together, as our quiet friend ended her narrative, with an earnest appeal to turn to that loving, mighty Saviour at once, who was so able and willing to save. C. J. W.