Part 41 (1/2)
Mr. Hall shook his head.
”I have brought you one;” and the missionary drew a small Bible from his pocket. ”No man is safe without a Bible.”
”Oh, I am glad! I was just wis.h.i.+ng for a Bible,” said Hall as he reached out his hand to receive the precious book.
”If you read it every night and morning--if you treasure its holy precepts in your memory, and call them up in times of trial, or when evil enticements are in your way--G.o.d can come near to your soul to succor and to save, for the words of the holy book are his words, and he is present in them. If we take them into our thoughts, reverently seeking to obey them, we make a dwelling-place for the Lord, so that he can abide with us; and in his presence there is safety.”
”And nowhere else,” responded Hall, speaking from a deep sense of personal helplessness.
”Nowhere else,” echoed the missionary. ”And herein lies the hope or the despair of men. It is pitiful, it is heart-aching, to see the vain but wild and earnest efforts made by the slaves of intemperance to get free from their cruel bondage. Thousands rend their fetters every year after some desperate struggle, and escape. But, alas! how many are captured and taken back into slavery! Appet.i.te springs upon them in some unguarded moment, and in their weakness there is none to succor. They do not go to the Strong for strength, but trust in themselves, and are cast down. Few are ever redeemed from the slavery of intemperance but those who pray to G.o.d and humbly seek his aid. And so long as they depend on him, they are safe. He will be as a wall of fire about them.”
As the missionary talked, the face of Mr. Hall underwent a remarkable change. It grew solemn and very thoughtful. His hands drew together and the fingers clasped. At the last words of Mr. Paulding a deep groan came from his heart; and lifting his gaze upward, he cried out,
”Lord, save me, or I peris.h.!.+”
”Let us pray,” said the missionary, and the two men knelt together, one with bowed head and crouching body, the other with face uplifted, tenderly talking to Him who had come down to the lowliest and the vilest that he might make them pure as the angels, about the poor prodigal now coming back to his Father's house.
After the prayer, Mr. paulding read a chapter from the Bible aloud, and then, after words of hope and comfort, went away.
CHAPTER XXI.
”_I TAKE_ reproof to myself,” said Mr. Dinneford. ”As one of your board of managers, I ought to have regarded my position as more than a nominal one. I understand better now what you said about the ten or twenty of our rich and influential men who, if they could be induced to look away for a brief period from their great enterprises, and concentrate thought and effort upon the social evils, abuse of justice, violations of law, poverty and suffering that exist here and in other parts of our city, would inaugurate reforms and set beneficent agencies at work that would soon produce marvelous changes for good.”
”Ah, yes,” sighed Mr. Paulding. ”If we had for just a little while the help of our strong men--the men of brains and will and money, the men who are used to commanding success, whose business it is to organize forces and set impediments at defiance, the men whose word is a kind of law to the people--how quickly, and as if by magic, would all this change!
”But we cannot now hope to get this great diversion in our favor. Until we do we must stand in the breach, small in numbers and weak though we are--must go on doing our best and helping when we may. Help is help and good is good, be it ever so small. If I am able to rescue but a single life where many are drowning, I make just so much head against death and destruction. Shall I stand off and refuse to put forth my hand because I cannot save a score?
”Take heart, Mr. Dinneford. Our work is not in vain. Its fruits may be seen all around. Bad as you find everything, it is not so bad as it was.
When our day-school was opened, the stench from the filthy children who were gathered in was so great that the teachers were nauseated. They were dirty in person as well as dirty in their clothing. This would not do. There was no hope of moral purity while such physical impurity existed. So the mission set up baths, and made every child go in and thoroughly wash his body. Then they got children's clothing--new and old--from all possible sources, and put clean garments on their little scholars. From the moment they were washed and cleanly clad, a new and better spirit came upon them. They were more orderly and obedient, and more teachable. There was, or seemed to be, a tenderer quality in their voices as they sang their hymns of praise.”
Just then there came a sudden outcry and a confusion of voices from the street. Mr. Dinneford arose quickly and went to the window. A man, apparently drunk and in a rage, was holding a boy tightly gripped by the collar with one hand and cuffing him about the head and face with the other.
”It's that miserable Blind Jake!” said Mr. Paulding.
In great excitement, Mr. Dinneford threw up the window and called for the police. At this the man stopped beating the boy, but swore at him terribly, his sightless eyes rolling and his face distorted in a frightful way. A policeman who was not far off came now upon the scene.
”What's all this about?” he asked, sternly.
”Jake's drunk again, that's the row,” answered a voice.
”Lock him up, lock him up!” cried two or three from the crowd.
An expression of savage defiance came into the face of the blind man, and he moved his arms and clenched his fist like one who was bent on desperate resistance. He was large and muscular, and, now that he was excited by drink and bad pa.s.sions, had a look that was dangerous.
”Go home and behave yourself,” said the policeman, not caring to have a single-handed tussle with the human savage, whose strength and desperate character he well knew.
Blind Jake, as he was called, stood for a few moments half defiant, growling and distorting his face until it looked more like a wild animal's than a man's, then jerked out the words,
”Where's that Pete?” with a sound like the crack of a whip.