John Weylland - The Man with the Book; or, The Bible Among the People

TO all who desire to obtain an accurate knowledge of the inner life of London, and probably of all our large towns, and would ascertain, by studying the results of experience, the best mode of grappling with its evils, the following pages will be deeply interesting. They give the history and fruits of many years' labour among the most filthy, destitute, and degraded classes of the whole Metropolis. Yet these classes are by no means the most hopeless. A grand aggressive movement of Christianity against those strongholds of vice, disease, and misery, would end in a larger victory than in one of equal vigour against the obstinacy and self-satisfaction of the great body of the skilled artisans.

The publication of such papers is very important in these days, when inquiry and discussion are busy to discover the true secret of what is required at the present crisis for dealing with the vast masses of the people. So far as I can see, they have as yet reached no other conclusion (whether it be avowed or not) than that all existing arrangements and organizations, singly and collectively, are inadequate to the task. The Established Church, by itself, is feeble; the Non-conformists still more so. The two, working together in harmony, might attain some happy issues; but, even on the supposition of their cordial union, a new machinery must be devised, as an adjunct to all our actual systems of operation.

It is vain to conceive that bricks and mortar, and the multiplication of churches and chapels, would accomplish the purpose. The sudden exhibition of many places of worship would rather avert than attract the people, who, through our long neglect of them, are full of prejudices and superstitions about such matters. The money laid out on these edifices would be better expended on an increase and maintenance of living agents of every sort and degree, as manifold, as various, and as special, as the wonderful congeries of human beings to whom their efforts would be addressed.

All the several agencies now at work have their merits, and the conductors of them can recite many instances of real success. But there is a lower depth into which we have to descend, and descend, not by fits and starts, but regularly and systematically. It is the steady continuity of the effort, and not its occasional vigour, that will make the profound and lasting impression. And this continuity cannot be kept up by the committees and directors alone. It must draw the main force of its life from the zeal, the fervour, the hearty feeling, and class-experience of the workers themselves. They must be numerous and active, and not a few of them be drawn from the very ranks they are enlisted to assail. The first movements must be made on individuals, or at most on twos and threes. Every filthy court must be invaded, the dark and terrible retreats be disturbed and enlightened. Such labours may be—nay, will be—oppressive and revolting, but perseverance will drive away discouragement. Doubtless it is a fierce trial to stand day by day, and hour by hour, face to face and hand to hand with the inhabitants of these pestilential and gloomy recesses; but patience for a while, and they may be brought from the private conversation to the cottage lecture, from the lecture to the mission-room, from the mission-room to the church or chapel, from unqualified misery to comparative joy. The condition of their dwellings is an awful impediment; but even this, in many instances, may be partially overcome. The cause is great; and the blessing of God has ever rested on the prayers and labours of those who have sought to comfort and instruct the most suffering and degraded of the children of men.

That such men are to be found, and that their efforts enjoy no small success, is proved by the narratives of this book. These excellent men have established the principle, they have produced the results. It only remains that many should arise to imitate their good example, and extend, far and wide, the operation of this wise and solid benevolence. And why should they not arise, and in sufficient numbers?

It is a remarkable fact—but fact it is—that, by the special mercy and Providence of God, a due supply of agents, able and effective for such a career as this, can ever be found by those who diligently seek them. Men and women of true hearts, of earnest piety, and of adequate powers, spring in abundance out of the less affluent classes of society, and are trained for the highest and noblest purposes. In what other way can we account for the array of some 450 men of the London City Mission, men with special zeal and special fitness to go among the masses? How else for the peaceful army of Bible-women and Bible-nurses? That such large numbers should answer to the call, and that so few, after trial, should be found unworthy of their vocation, is a positive marvel, and proves that the slow diffusion of what is good and restorative is due, not to the lack of qualified agents, but to the parsimony of those on whom God has bestowed the means of putting His gifts into life and motion.

It is so—for these people, who thus devote themselves to the cause of our Lord, must be fed and clothed with the rest of mankind. "They that preach the gospel, must live of the gospel;" and the rich of the earth should be told that if the first and highest motive be wanting in their hearts, the second one may be deserving of their serious consideration. These agencies tend to the tranquillization of society; and as a tranquillizing influence, they tend to the security of property. Look at the results of the efforts of Miss de Broen among the Communists of Belleville, and it will be seen that by the spread of the gospel among those terrible masses, a beginning has been made more likely to establish a happier order of things than the indefinite multiplication of soldiers and gendarmerie .

I know not how far these suggestions may recommend themselves to the judgment of the public at large. I offer them simply as the conclusions of long observation, backed by the judgment of many far more experienced than myself. It is at least worth while to make the effort, and try to what extent we may rouse and utilize the dormant qualities of the poorest ranks of society. We may oftentimes discern delicacy of feeling, honesty of character, and vigour of resolution, among these degraded but immortal beings. With many terrible exceptions, their parental affections are strong; and it is touching to observe how even poverty, weariness, and disease, are all, as it were, forgotten in their desperate struggles to maintain their children. Hidden beneath these sentiments there is a mighty engine wherewith to begin the work.

Well, here they are! and here they will remain! Will you leave them alone to fester and to die? But in festering and dying they will breed a moral, and a political, if not a physical, epidemic.

Will you advance on them in their swarming retirements of profligacy and pestilence? Why, then, there is a hopeful promise that the Word of God shall not return unto Him empty; and as the High Priest bore on his turban, "Holiness to the Lord," so may the missionaries—the agents, the men, the women, all who go forth to this great enterprise—bear imprinted on their foreheads, a motto of no inferior power, " Christo in pauperibus ."

Paris, May 12, 1878 .

THIS book was written in detached papers, for Evening Hours and other Journals, without any intention to republish them in the form of a volume. Meagre details and want of connection will thus be accounted for. The narrative extends over a period of many years, and is substantially true, although the writer had to depend upon memory aided by a few notes: verbal accuracy cannot therefore be expected. The difficulty of recording the histories of individuals and families in a few paragraphs, without their connecting links, was felt, and this may have given a touch of the wonderful to some incidents, which a more full account would have avoided. The object of the work, even in its detached papers, was to illustrate the mode of Missionary visitation among the very poor and the depraved classes; and to show the power of simple teaching from the Word of God among them.