I saw the Brigadier in charge of the Men's Social Work in Glasgow at a great central Institution where hundreds of poor people sleep every night. The inscriptions1 painted on the windows give a good idea of its character. Here are some of them: 'Cheap beds.' 'Cheap food.' 'Waste paper collected.' 'Missing friends found.' 'Salvation2 for all.'
In addition to this Refuge there is an 'Elevator' of the usual type, in which about eighty men were at work, and an establishment called the Dale House Home, a very beautiful Adams' house, let to the Army at a small rent by an Eye Hospital that no longer requires it. This house accommodates ninety-seven of the men who work in the Elevator.
The Brigadier informed me that the distress3 at Glasgow was very great last year. Indeed, during that year of 1909 the Army fed about 35,000 men at the docks, and 65,000 at the Refuge, a charity which caused them to be officially recognized for the first time by the Corporation, that sent them a cheque in aid of their work. Now, however, things have much improved, owing to the building of men-of-war and the forging of great guns for the Navy. At Parkhead Forge alone 8,000 men are being employed upon a vessel4 of the Dreadnought class, which will occupy them for a year and a half. So it would seem that these monsters of destruction have their peaceful uses.
Glasgow, he said, 'is a terrible place for drink, especially of methylated spirits and whisky.' Drink at the beginning, I need hardly remark, means destitution5 at the end, so doubtless this failing accounts for a large proportion of its poverty.
The Men's Social Work of the Army in Glasgow, which is its Headquarters in Scotland, is spreading in every direction, not only in that city itself, but beyond it to Paisley, Greenock, and Edinburgh. Indeed, the Brigadier has orders 'to get into Dundee and Aberdeen as soon as possible.' I asked him how he would provide the money. He answered, 'Well, by trusting in God and keeping our powder dry.'
As regards the Army's local finance the trouble is that owing to the national thriftiness6 it is harder to make commercial ventures pay in Scotland than in England. Thus I was informed that in Glasgow the Corporation collects and sells its own waste paper, which means that there is less of that material left for the Salvation Army to deal with. In England, so far as I am aware, the waste-paper business is not a form of municipal trading that the Corporations of great cities undertake.
Another leading branch of the Salvation Army effort in Scotland is its Prison work. It is registered in that country as a Prisoners' Aid Society, and the doors of every jail in the land are open to its Officers. I saw the Army's prison book, in which are entered the details of each prison case with which it is dealing7. Awful enough some of them were.
I remember two that caught my eye as I turned its pages. The first was that of a man who had gone for a walk with his wife, from whom he was separated, cut her head off, and thrown it into a field. The second was that of another man, or brute8 beast, who had taken his child by the heels and dashed out its brains against the fireplace. It may be wondered why these gentle creatures still adorn9 the world. The explanation seems to be that in Scotland there is a great horror of capital punishment, which is but rarely inflicted10.
My recollection is that the Officer who visited them had hopes of the permanent reformation of both these men; or, at any rate, that there were notes in his book to this effect.
I saw many extraordinary cases in this Glasgow Refuge, some of whom had come there through sheer misfortune. One had been a medical man who, unfortunately, was left money and took to speculating on the Stock Exchange. He was a very large holder11 of shares in a South African mine, which he bought at 1s. 6d. These shares now stand at ￡7; but, unhappily for him, his brokers12 dissolved partnership13, and neither of them would carry over his account. So it was closed down just at the wrong time, with the result that he lost everything, and finally came to the streets. He never drank or did anything wrong; it was, as he said, 'simply a matter of sheer bad luck.'
Another was a Glasgow silk merchant, who made a bad debt of ￡3,000 that swamped him. Afterwards he became paralysed, but recovered. He had been three years cashier of this Shelter.
Another arrived at the Shelter in such a state that the Officer in charge told me he was obliged to throw his macintosh round him to hide his nakedness. He was an engineer who took a public-house, and helped himself freely to his stock-in-trade, with the result that he became a frightful14 drunkard, and lost ￡1,700. He informed me that he used to consume no less than four bottles of whisky a day, and suffered from delirium15 tremens several times. In the Shelter—I quote his own words—'I gave my heart to God, and after that all desire for drink and wrongdoing' (he had not been immaculate in other ways) 'gradually left me. From 1892 I had been a drunkard. After my conversion16, in less than three weeks I ceased to have any desire for drink.'
This man became night-watchman in the Shelter, a position which he held for twelve months. He said: 'I was promoted to be Sergeant17; when I put on my uniform and stripes, I reckoned myself a man again. Then I was made foreman of the works at Greendyke Street. Then I was sent to pioneer our work in Paisley, and when that was nicely started, I was sent on to Greenock, where I am now trying to work up a (Salvation Army) business.'
Here, for a reason to be explained presently, I will quote a very similar case which I saw at the Army Colony at Hadleigh, in Essex. This man, also a Scotsman (no Englishman, I think, could have survived such experiences), is a person of fine and imposing18 appearance, great bodily strength, and good address. He is about fifty years of age, and has been a soldier, and after leaving the Service, a gardener. Indeed, he is now, or was recently, foreman market-gardener at Hadleigh. He married a hospital nurse, and found out some years after marriage that she was in the habit of using drugs. This habit he contracted also, either during her life or after her death, and with it that of drink.
His custom was to drink till he was a wreck19, and then take drugs, either by the mouth or subcutaneously, to steady himself. Chloroform and ether he mixed together and drank, strychnine he injected. At the beginning of this course, threepennyworth of laudanum would suffice him for three doses. At the end, three years later (not to mention ether, chloroform, and strychnine), he took of laudanum alone nearly a tablespoonful ten or twelve times a day, a quantity, I understand, which is enough to kill five or six horses. One of the results was that when he had to be operated on for some malady20, it was found impossible to bring him under the influence of the anaesthetic. All that could be done was to deprive him of his power of movement, in which state he had to bear the dreadful pain of the operation. Afterwards the surgeon asked him if he were a drug-taker, and he told me that he answered:—
'Why, sir, I could have drunk all the lot you have been trying to give me, without ever knowing the difference.'
In this condition, when he was such a wreck that he trembled from head to foot and was contemplating21 suicide, he came into the hands of the Army, and was sent down to the Hadleigh Farm.
Now comes the point of the story. At Hadleigh he 'got converted,' and from that hour has never touched either drink or drugs. Moreover, he assured me solemnly that he could go into a chemist's shop or a bar with money in his pocket without feeling the slightest desire to indulge in such stimulants22. He said that after his conversion, he had a 'terrible fight' with his old habits, the physical results of their discontinuance being most painful. Subsequently, however, and by degrees, the craving23 left him entirely24, I asked him to what he attributed this extraordinary cure. He replied:—
'To the power of God. If I trusted in my own strength I should certainly fail, but the power of God keeps me from being overcome.'
Now these are only two out of a number of cases that I have seen myself, in which a similar explanation of his cure has been given to me by the person cured, and I would like to ask the unprejudiced and open-minded reader how he explains them. Personally I cannot explain them except upon an hypothesis which, as a practical person, I confess I hesitate to adopt. I mean that of a direct interposition from above, or of the working of something so unrecognized or so undefined in the nature of man (which it will be remembered the old Egyptians, a very wise people, divided into many component25 parts, whereof we have now lost count), that it may be designated an innate26 superior power or principle, brought into action by faith or 'suggestion.'
That these people who have been the slaves of, or possessed27 by certain gross and palpable vices28, of which drink is only one, are truly and totally changed, there can be no question. To that I am able to bear witness. The demoniacs of New Testament29 history cannot have been more transformed; and I know of no stranger experience than to listen to such men, as I have times and again, speaking of their past selves as entities30 cast off and gone, and of their present selves as new creatures. It is, indeed, one that throws a fresh light upon certain difficult passages in the Epistles of St. Paul, and even upon the darker sayings of the Master of mankind Himself. They do, in truth, seem to have been 'born again.' But this is a line of thought that I will not attempt to follow; it lies outside my sphere and the scope of these pages.
After the Officer who used to consume four bottles of whisky a day, and is now in charge of the Salvation Army work in Greenock, had left the room, I propounded31 these problems to Lieut.-Colonel Jolliffe and the Brigadier, as I had done previously32 to Commissioner33 Sturgess. I pointed34 out that religious conversion seemed to me to be a spiritual process, whereas the craving for drink or any other carnal satisfaction was, or appeared to be, a physical weakness of the body. Therefore, I did not understand how the spiritual conversion could suddenly and permanently35 affect or remove the physical desire, unless it were by the action of the phenomenon called miracle, which mankind admits doubtfully to have been possible in the dim period of the birth of a religion, but for the most part denies to be possible in these latter days.
'Quite so,' answered the Colonel, calmly, in almost the same words that Commissioner Sturgess had used, 'it is miracle; that is our belief. These men cannot change and purify themselves, their vices are instantaneously, permanently, and miraculously36 removed by the power and the Grace of God. This is the truth, and nothing more wonderful can be conceived.'
Here, without further comment, I leave this deeply interesting matter to the consideration of abler and better instructed persons than myself.
To come to something more mundane37, which also deserves consideration, I was informed that in Glasgow, with a population of about 900,000, there exists a floating class of 80,000 people, who live in lodging-houses of the same sort as, and mostly inferior to the Salvation Army Shelter of which I am now writing. In other words, out of every twelve inhabitants of this great city, one is driven to that method of obtaining a place to sleep in at night.
In this particular Refuge there is what is called a free shelter room, where people are accommodated in winter who have not even the few coppers38 necessary to pay for a bed. During the month before my visit, which took place in the summer-time, the Brigadier had allotted39 free beds in this room to destitute40 persons to the value of ￡13. I may add that twice a week this particular place is washed with a carbolic mixture!
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inscriptions
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| （作者）题词( inscription的名词复数 )； 献词； 碑文； 证劵持有人的登记 | |
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salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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destitution
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| n.穷困，缺乏，贫穷 | |
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thriftiness
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| 节俭，节约 | |
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dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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adorn
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| vt.使美化，装饰 | |
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inflicted
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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holder
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| n.持有者，占有者；(台，架等)支持物 | |
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brokers
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| n.（股票、外币等）经纪人( broker的名词复数 )；中间人；代理商；（订合同的）中人v.做掮客（或中人等）( broker的第三人称单数 )；作为权力经纪人进行谈判；以中间人等身份安排… | |
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partnership
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| n.合作关系，伙伴关系 | |
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frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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delirium
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| n. 神智昏迷,说胡话;极度兴奋 | |
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conversion
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| n.转化，转换，转变 | |
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sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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imposing
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| adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的 | |
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wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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malady
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| n.病，疾病(通常做比喻) | |
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contemplating
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| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的现在分词 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
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stimulants
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| n.兴奋剂( stimulant的名词复数 )；含兴奋剂的饮料；刺激物；激励物 | |
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craving
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| n.渴望,热望 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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component
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| n.组成部分，成分，元件；adj.组成的，合成的 | |
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innate
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| adj.天生的，固有的，天赋的 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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vices
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| 缺陷( vice的名词复数 )； 恶习； 不道德行为； 台钳 | |
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testament
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| n.遗嘱；证明 | |
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entities
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| 实体对像； 实体，独立存在体，实际存在物( entity的名词复数 ) | |
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propounded
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| v.提出（问题、计划等）供考虑[讨论]，提议( propound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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commissioner
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| n.（政府厅、局、处等部门）专员，长官，委员 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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miraculously
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| ad.奇迹般地 | |
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mundane
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| adj.平凡的；尘世的；宇宙的 | |
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coppers
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| 铜( copper的名词复数 )； 铜币 | |
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allotted
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| 分配，拨给，摊派( allot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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destitute
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| adj.缺乏的；穷困的 | |
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