The Great Acceptance: The Life Story of F. N. Charrington. Thorne Guy

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СКАЧАТЬ even gone into the great tent or the ordinary mission halls were to be found in the transformed haunts of their ignoble week-day pleasures, and the souls that were led to the foot of the Cross were incalculable.

      In connection with Lusby's Music Hall, in particular, I cannot refrain from recalling at least one case of very special interest.

      A poor man, a dock labourer, who had not attended a service of any kind for several years, entered the hall one Sunday evening when Mr. Joseph Weatherley was the preacher. The sinner's need and the Saviour's power to save him were clearly set before the people, and the man that night rested his soul on the finished work of God. The next day, while at work in the dock, he fell down a ship's hold, and was carried to the London Hospital very much injured. The nurse (a Christian woman), under whose care he was placed, saw that he was dying and spoke to him of Jesus. She found him happy in the assurance of sins forgiven, and on asking how long he had been a child of God, he replied, "Last Sunday night, through the preaching in Lusby's Music Hall." He died rejoicing.

      I shall have so much to say of Lusby's Music Hall in a forthcoming part of this book that I will not attempt, in this place, any word-picture of the services there.

      In connection with another establishment of the same kind, and, if possible, much lower and more disreputable than the usual thing, I am able to reconstruct a typical scene of the many that occurred there when Mr. Charrington and his friends turned it for one night in each week from a place of sin and corruption to a stronghold of our Lord.

      Wilton's Music Hall, or, as it was affectionately called by its habitués, "The Mahogany Bar," was a music hall opening on a quiet square notorious as the Ratcliff Highway, then regarded as the most disreputable street of its kind in the whole world. Ratcliff Highway – has it not obtained an evil immortality in the words of innumerable songs which are minor classics in their way? – was the resort of the lowest characters of all nations, the very scum of the earth. It was here that "Poor Jack" fell a prey to the vilest harpies in Christendom, it was a den of prostitution, vice, drunkenness and crime, tenanted by fiends in human form, who made their unholy gains out of the passionate outbursts of the misguided sailors, who, by their orgies, their desperate affrays, and frightful excesses, did so much to confer its evil notoriety upon the street.

      One Saturday night, Mr. Charrington and a friend, armed with handbills announcing that Wilton's Music Hall was to be opened on Sunday and that seats were free, turned into Leman Street, en route for some of the lowest drinking, dancing, and singing saloons that East London could boast.

      They entered fifty public-houses and singing saloons of the worst type. There was a sink of iniquity known as "The Paddy's Goose." "The Gun Boat," "The Jolly Sailor" and "The Kettledrum" were hardly any better.

      Hardly any middle-aged women were to be seen, seafaring men, from the apprentice to the mate, from the nigger to the English tar, men of all stamps, sizes, nations, and colours; girls with shawl-covered heads, usually in parties of three and four, under the supervision of horrible old hags, made up the crowd that thronged these dens. Elbowing their way through a group of sailors and wretched girls gathered at the door of one of the establishments, and brushing past one or two ragged little urchins who were peeping in at the chinks, wishing, perhaps, to catch a glimpse of the comparative comfort within, they entered those swinging portals, which move so easily inwards, but with so much difficulty outwards. They found themselves in a large and crowded drinking saloon. With the reflection that "the righteous shall be bold as a Lion," they met the stare of the many eyes turned upon them with a rather painful composure. The landlord, a sporting-looking character, received them with evident astonishment and curiosity.

      He was soon acquainted with their mission – "Would he kindly allow a bill or two to be placed upon his counter?" Appealed to in this fashion, he could not refuse. In one case, such was the obliging condescension, yet amazing incongruity, exhibited, that the monarch of the bar declared that "he would do anything to help the cause."

      The company were soon supplied with notices, and acknowledged them with varying degrees of politeness. Some hardly looked at them, while others criticised them narrowly. "Ah! it's not for the like o' me," exclaimed one man, with the marks of many a tempest upon his brow. "Take it away, it only adds to my sins." "What! the Mahogany Bar opened on a Sunday!" objected a would-be wit, "No, no; we'd go there to-night, but on Sunday – " And the speaker concluded his sentence with a well-affected pretence at remonstrance.

      The opening service was on Sunday. For the first time within the "Mahogany Bar" Music Hall, God's praises were sung on February 24, 1877. Never before had the cry "Stand up, stand up for Jesus" rung from its benches, and never before, perhaps, had the Spirit of God descended in mighty power, breaking the hard heart, subduing the rebellious will, and making light to shine even in the stronghold of Satan. Most encouraging it was to find that, notwithstanding the service had been only scantily advertised by posters, and by the bills alluded to, the hall was at seven o'clock very fairly filled, and filled, too, by those same individuals that the Rescue party had addressed the night before. Such a congregation was rarely seen in those early days. Seafaring men were there in scores; and the girls of loose character they had brought with them – "the sailors' women," as they were known, almost entirely composed the audience.

      Mr. Charrington conducted, and Mr. J. Manton Smith preached. Considering they were on their good behaviour, and evidently felt the restraint of silence during the prayers to be irksome, the people were much quieter than was expected. The sailors, however, sat with their arms round the girls who accompanied them as if it were quite the right thing to do – otherwise they remained quiet and listened most attentively to the preacher.

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