OUR TRACTARIAN MOVEMENT.
ByANNE BEALE.
A
sthe Religious Tract Society never wearies of publishing wholesome literature, so tract distributors should never flag in spreading it abroad. Since our first sketch of work accomplished, we have had some experience, and are thankful to be able to say that religious books are now gladly accepted, where some years ago they would have been scornfully rejected. They are particularly welcomed on Sunday, when policemen, cabmen, firemen, and other public servants who cannot attend a place of worship, say they like to have something to read when they are off duty. Of course, the magazine or book is more acceptable than the mere tract, and when regularly supplied is often eagerly accepted and expected.
“I have had this before,” said a policeman, looking at a picture ofThe Cottager and Artisan. “I haven’t seen you for some weeks, and I thought you’d forgotten me.” The oversight was soon remedied. “You would be surprised if you knew how many of the Force will read this,” said another. “Perhaps a dozen of us. We pass it on, and it does us all good.”
“That’s just what I do,” said a cabman, who chanced to be near. “Perhaps, ma’am, you will read this which was given to me.” He took a well-thumbed book from his pocket, which we subsequently read and “passed on” also.
The railway officials welcome us gladly as they stand or sit at their enforced Sunday work.
“It is better than the papers,” said a young porter, whom we heard with some companions singing hymns below ground.
Even the newsboys, with the Sunday papers under their arms, like to have something profitable for Sunday reading. One ragged, pale little fellow was in the habit of telling us one Sunday what were the contents of the small book he received the previous Sabbath; and another youth of larger growth emphatically demanded “A big’un. I likes a big book, please.” These and sundry others are the hawkers of newspapers. Oh! why cannot people wait till Monday morning for such secular reading, and why are our ears to be deafened with cries of the ‘paipers’? Cannot we give one day in seven to the service of Him who said, “Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy,” and who added, “I am not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil”?
I wish all those who will not remember it had heard an undeserved rebuke administered to us on a weekday by a railway official; undeserved, because we do not travel on Sunday, either to hear popular preachers or otherwise amuse ourselves.
“I shall be happy to take your book to-day, ma’am; but I never accept one on Sundays,” he said. “Why?” we inquired. “Because you know we have to work all day Sunday for the public, and I don’t think people who travel on Sundays, and break the law themselves, have any right to give us books to teach us how to keep it.” Let Sabbath-breakers take this to heart.
It is very rarely that we meet with a rebuff. On one occasion, however, when distributing illustrated leaflets to a party of scavengers, we were arrested by the words, “No, thankee. I don’t want one.”
“Why?”
“Because I hate cant, and it’s all cant.”
“I am sorry. Do I look like a cant?”
“No; I can’t say as you do.”
“He’s a bad’un, and al’ays rude to the ladies,” whispered a neighbour confidentially.
We often encounter gangs of navvies, who have their own ideas on most subjects, and like to air them.
“I don’t want tracts; I have heaps of books at home, and read all Sunday and every evening,” said one. “I’ll warrant me I have some you haven’t. Have you got ‘Heaven is my Home’? and ‘Paradise Lost’?” He enumerated many others, after which he poured forth his feelings on political matters, inveighing against the Poor Law, the School Board, the distraint system, and saying what he would do if he were in power. When we ventured to suggest that he would not mend matters if he went the lengths he proposed, he began an argument that we were obliged to cut short both for his employer’s sake and our own; but he was a fair example of “The British Workman.” The navvy is a shrewd discriminator.
“Is that in favour of Bradlaugh?” asked one; “because, if it is, I must decline it.
“Oh, if it isn’t I’ll read it with pleasure.”
Another stood considering his small offering, and volunteered, “This don’t tell us to throw away one’s pipe and backy; somebody gave me a tract as did. They’ve kept many a man from doing a rash act. If I was without my backy I should sometimes be inclined to destroy myself. It calms one down, somehow, and makes one more contented. ’Tis all very well to preach against drinking, but as to backy, that’s different.”
A fine, stalwart-looking young man lamented that he had had scarcely any schooling, and feared that the reading we offered him might be too abstruse for him. He had taught himself to write a little by copying letters, and could spell out easy sentences; but his education had ceased when he was six years old. His home was in Devonshire, but his navvy work had taken him far afield. We recommended him to go to a night-school, and he was well inclined to do so. We fell in with him several times afterwards, and found that he had followed our advice, and went three times a week. He said the teacher would not let him rest after he had spoken to him, but made him go at once.
All young men are not so amenable, and sometimes make a jest of what is meant to help them.
“Have you anything to suit me? I am an atheist,” asked one, glancing at our wares.
“They are sure to suit you; take which you like,” we replied.
He chose one haphazard, and the title was “Cross-bearing.”
“What’s an atheist?” asked a burly looking bystander of his mate.
“Oh, one of them Bradlaughites,” was the answer, as they both came forward for a book.
On another occasion a flippant young mason inquired if “it was about love.”
“Yes, the best kind of love; about Jesus,” we replied.
“Oh! I don’t know Him. I only love those I know,” he said, but he took the book.
It is melancholy to see how many youths seem to know little of Him who died to save them. One Easter Sunday we ventured to attack a knot of them who were holiday-making.The pictures always attract, so they were soon engaged in contemplating them.
“Is it about Jesus?” asked one.
“Yes.”
“Ah! He was a good man,” he continued.
“He was your Saviour, and mine,” we added.
“Do you believe it?” he inquired, with real earnestness.
“Yes; the little book will tell you so.”
What was the result? Who shall say?
We are sometimes astonished at the eagerness of the men and boys, working in scores or even fifties, to secure the tract, leaflet, or magazine. The supply rarely answers the demand, for even from the tops of high houses in process of being built, we hear a shout of “Don’t forget us, please,” while the workmen onterra firmavolunteer to distribute as many as we can spare. All seize with avidity onThe Child’s Companion, for all, or most, have families at home, and “something for the little ones” is a boon.
“I read them out while my wife sees to the house,” said one. “I can’t afford to buy them, but I carry home all I can get.”
“I read it to father, and father reads it to mother, and mother reads it to me,” was the satisfactory acknowledgment of a little girl who came in for one.
“Here are two young gentlemen who would like to study them, I am sure,” said a master mason, indicating his juvenile aids, he having accepted one himself.
The other day we were arrested by an old man, a scavenger, who said we couldn’t give him too many good books, for he loved them. “I was fifty-two years without entering a place of worship,” he added. “I was guard to a travelling wagon, and worked Sundays and weekdays. Four years ago I had a bad illness, and a lady converted me. I promised God, if He was pleased to restore me, that I would serve Him for the rest of my days. I thought I was dying, but I got better, thanks be to Him; and I have kept my word ever since. I have been to church three times a Sunday, and to mission-hall twice a week. I have been on my knees night and morning for twenty minutes, and I thank and praise the Lord.”
It is this Sunday working which is the cause of so much irreligion. Turn where you will, those employed have the same tale to tell. They all say that if only they could be ensured every other Sunday they would be satisfied, but to have no Day of Rest was bad both for body and soul. Indeed, one of them argued that the soul perished with the body, and that he could prove it from Scripture. Here and there we find men brave enough to refuse all Sunday work, and they say they have not lost by it.
“I never turn a wheel on Sunday,” said a cabman. “Many of us stand out against it, and all who do say they are better off than those who work.”
He was certainly a good specimen. His cab was his own; he was well dressed, and his horse as brisk as himself. It was evident that “the one day in seven” agreed with them. It is well known that the life both of man and beast is shortened by the breach of the fourth commandment, and it is clear that the Great Legislator blesses its observance.
We have occasionally fallen in with the regularcolporteurs, and been convinced of the good done by the sale of their religious literature. Once at a coffee-stall we were greeted by an emphatic “God bless you and your work,” and the gratuitous contribution did not seem to interfere with the monetary. The holders of these stalls are always glad of something to read, and are willing to distribute wholesome reading to their customers. Strange incidents sometimes occur when you take a poor, wearied, out-of-work yet respectable fellow-creature, for a cup of coffee and a plate of cake or bread and butter, to one of these wayside restaurants. One evening at dusk we encountered a glazier, who, having received the tract, said he had not tasted food since daybreak. He was a foreigner, a Pole, who had been in England ever since the Polish insurrection of some thirty years ago. His father was a gentleman. He had a wife and children, and had been looking for work all the day. A trifle for them and refreshment for him opened his heart, and he gave his address. Subsequently a district visitor found it, and discovered that he was a Polish Jew. He was not in, but his wife said that it was contrary to their faith to receive relief from one not of their own religion; but in his hunger food was heaven-sent through “a sister,” and he could not refuse it. Neither did she reject a shilling. The family were subsequently placed under the protection of a charitable Jewish lady, who said, with truth, “That her people took such care of their own poor, that they had no need to apply to the Christian.” Still, it is well that Jew and Gentile should meet, as they now do, happily, in works of general benevolence. The reign of Christ will begin when universal love takes the place of sectarian hate, and religious persecution ceases.
Time and space would fail us to tell how the men of the Fire Brigade love reading, and how they showed us with pride a number ofThe British Workman, sent to them monthly by Miss Weston—for are not the brave fellows mostly sailors? Or how other public servants speak gratefully of monthly gifts of religious books sent by friends interested in them, and circulated amongst them. Let no one imagine that either tract, magazine, or book is thrown away, though a kindly discretion, and, perhaps, a cheerful manner are needed for their distribution. We have made an inroad into one of the great laundries, and find that both men and women employed rejoice at “something to read” during their brief leisure. Text cards are always welcomed.
“I shall have this framed. It just suits me,” said one.
“I wonder that ladies do not visit our large laundries,” remarked the superintendent.
This visitation has been begun by members of the Y.W.C.A. May it prosper! These workers in the steam laundries have a hard life of it, and stand for long, long hours over their laborious toil. Here are elderly women and young girls, ready to welcome anyone who will say a kind word to them, and, perhaps, benefit them thereby.
“I like a whole story that I can read all through,” said one of the latter, and the cheap reprints of good stories published by the Religious Tract Society are invaluable. Moreover, they can be lent from one to another.
It is strange that one still meets with people comparatively young who cannot read. Much of their religious knowledge is often due to hymns. A man said he liked the old hymns best, and had known “Glory to Thee” by heart ever since he was a boy. Others are proud of the fact that their children will read to them whatever we are pleased to give them, and sometimes even beg for a book apiece for all the olive branches—“For fear one should be jealous of the other,” said a cabman. To which we replied that “jealousy was expensive.”
The other day we fell in with a gipsy encampment: vans and tents settled on a bit of waste land, having been turned out of a neighbouring holding for building purposes. In one of the tents we found a young man and woman, a lovely three-year-old child, and an infant not yet a fortnight old. The father of the family, aged twenty-two, had been to night-school once upon a time, but his learning was nil; the mother, seated on the ground, baby in arms, could not read; but a ragged urchin who had crept in was going to school the following Monday. The young couple were strangely handsome, and rejoiced in the gipsy name of Loveridge. The woman said she had prayed to the Lord when she was ill. “What else was there to do? I have never been a great sinner; you know what I mean, ma’am. A gentleman comes here to preach on Sunday.”
She did not seem fully to apprehend her need of a Saviour, but acknowledged that we were all sinners. It was a strange, sad scene. She, seated on her bed of rags at one end of the small, dark, smoky, stifling tent; her husband also on the ground making skewers at the other, and apologising for untidiness; the infant apparently dying, the little girl affectionately stroking our garments. The mother said she had had no food that day, for the times were bad; and the trifle we offered was instantly despatched to a shop at some distance for “a little oatmeal and arrowroot,” the husband being the joyful messenger. Still, she said she liked tent-life better than she should life within stone walls. “I have been used to it, and I suppose it is what we are brought up in that we like best,” she added, simply, and in perfect English.
Thanks to Mr. George Smith, tent and barge are becoming alive to the teaching of the Gospel; and soon, we hope, the Testament or tract will be legible by all their long-neglected inmates. At present, comparatively few, of the seniors especially, can read them. Nevertheless, we will scatter the seed far and wide, convinced that it will bring forth fruit if sown to enlarge and to sustain the kingdom of our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ.