CHAPTER XLI. LETTER FROM EVA TO HARRY'S MOTHER

My Dear Mother: I sit down to write to you with a heart full of the strangest feelings and experiences. I feel as if I had been out in some other world and been brought back again; and now I hardly know myself or where I am. You know I wrote you all about Maggie, and her leaving us, and poor Mary's trouble about her, and how she had been since seen in a very bad neighborhood: I promised Mary faithfully that I would go after her; and so, after all our Christmas labors were over, Harry and I went on a midnight excursion with Mr. James, the Methodist minister, who has started the mission there.

It seemed to me very strange that a minister could have access to all those places where he proposed to take us, and see all that was going on without insult or danger but he told me that he was in the constant habit of passing through the dance-houses, and talking with the people who kept them, and that he had never met with any rudeness or incivility.

He told us that in the very center of this worst district of New York, among drinking saloons and dance-houses, a few Christian people had bought a house in which they had established a mission family, with a room which they use for a chapel; and they hold weekly prayer-meetings, and seek to draw in the wretched people there.

On this evening, he said, they were about to give a midnight supper at the Home to any poor houseless wanderer whom they could find in those wretched streets, or who hung about the drinking-saloons.

"Our only hope in this mission," he said, "is to make these wretched people feel that we really are their friends and seek their good; and, in order to do this, we must do something for them that they can understand. They can all understand a good supper, when they are lying about cold and hungry and homeless, on a stinging cold night like this; and we don't begin to talk to them till we have warmed and fed them. It surprises them to have us take all this trouble to do them good; it awakens their curiosity; they wonder what we do it for, and then, when we tell them it is because we are Christians, and love them, and want to save them, they believe us. After that, they are willing to come to our meetings, and attend to what we say."

Now, this seemed to me good philosophy, but I could not help saying: "Dear Mr. James, how could you have the courage to begin a mission in such a dreadful place; and how can you have any hope of saving such people?" And he answered: "With God, all things are possible. That was what Christ came for—to seek and save the lost. The Good Shepherd," he said, "leaves the ninety and nine safe sheep in the fold, and goes after one that is lost until he finds it." I asked him who supported the Home, and he said it was supported by God, in answer to prayer; that they made no public solicitation; had nobody pledged to help them; but that contributions were constantly coming in from one Christian person or another, as they needed them; that the superintendent and matron of the Home had no stated salary, and devoted themselves to the work in the same faith that the food and raiment needed would be found for them; and so far it had not failed.

All this seemed very strange to me. It seemed a sort of literal rendering of some of the things in the Bible that we pass over as having no very definite meaning. Mr. James seemed so quiet, so assured, so calm and unexcited, that one couldn't help believing him.

It seemed a great way that we rode, in parts of the city that I never saw before, in streets whose names were unknown to me, till finally we alighted before a plain house in a street full of drinking-saloons. As we drove up, we heard the sound of hymn-singing, and looked into a long room set with benches which seemed full of people. We stopped a moment to listen to the words of an old Methodist hymn;

"Come, ye weary, heavy-laden,
Lost and ruined by the fall,
If you tarry till you're better,
You will never come at all.
Not the righteous—
Sinners, Jesus came to call.

"Come, ye thirsty, come and welcome,
God's free bounty glorify.
True belief and true repentance,
Every grace that brings us nigh,
Without money,
Come to Jesus Christ and buy."

It was the last hymn, and they were about breaking up as we went into the house. This building, Mr. James told us, used to be a rat-pit, where the lowest, vilest, and most brutal kinds of sport were going on. It used to be, he said, foul and filthy, physically as well as morally; but scrubbing and paint and whitewash had transformed it into a comfortable home. There was a neat sitting-room, carpeted and comfortably furnished, a dining-room, a pantry stocked with serviceable china, a workroom with two or three sewing-machines, and a kitchen, from which at this moment came a most appetizing smell of the soup which was preparing for the midnight supper. Above, were dormitories, in which were lodging about twenty girls, who had fled to this refuge to learn a new life. They had known the depth of sin and the bitterness of punishment, had been spurned, disgraced and outcast. Some of them had been at Blackwell's Island—on the street—in the very gutter—and now, here they were, as I saw some of them, decently and modestly dressed, and busy preparing for the supper. When I looked at them setting the tables, or busy about their cooking, they seemed so cheerful and respectable, I could scarcely believe that they had been so degraded. A portion of them only were detailed for the night service; the others had come up from the chapel and were going to bed in the dormitories, and we heard them singing a hymn before retiring. It was very affecting to me—the sound of that hymn, and the thought of so peaceful a home in the midst of this dreadful neighborhood. Mr. James introduced us to the man and his wife who take charge of the family. They are converts—the fruits of these labors. He was once a singer, and connected with a drinking-saloon, but was now giving his whole time and strength to this work, in which he had all the more success because he had so thorough an experience and knowledge of the people to be reached. We were invited to sit down to a supper in the dining-room, for Mr. James said we should be out so late before returning home that we should need something to sustain us. So we took some of the soup which was preparing for the midnight supper, and very nice and refreshing we found it. After this, we went out with Mr. James and the superintendent, to go through the saloons and dance-houses and drinking places, and to distribute tickets of invitation to the supper. What we saw seems now to me like a dream. I had heard that such things were, but never before did I see them. We went from one place to another, and always the same features—a dancing-room, with girls and women dressed and ornamented, sitting round waiting for partners; men of all sorts walking in and surveying and choosing from among them and dancing, and, afterwards or before, going with them to the bar to drink. Many of these girls looked young and comparatively fresh; their dresses were cut very low, so that I blushed for them through my veil. I clung tight to Harry's arm, and asked myself where I was, as I moved round among them. Nobody noticed us. Everybody seemed to have a right to be there, and see what they could.

I remember one large building of two or three stories, with larger halls below, all lighted up, with dancing and drinking going on, and throngs and throngs of men, old and young, pouring and crowding through it. These tawdrily bedizened, wretched girls and women seemed to me such a sorrow and disgrace to womanhood and to Christianity that my very heart sunk, as I walked among them. I felt as if I could have cried for their disgrace. Yet nobody said a word to us. All the keepers of the places seemed to know Mr. James and the superintendent. He spoke to them all kindly and politely, and they answered with the same civility. In one or two of the saloons, the superintendent asked leave to sing a song, which was granted, and he sung the hymn that begins:

"I love to tell the story
Of unseen things above,
Of Jesus and his glory,
Of Jesus and his love;
I love to tell the story—
It did so much for me—
And that is just the reason
I tell it unto thee."

At another place, he sung "Home, sweet home," and I thought I saw many faces that looked sad. Either our presence was an embarrassment, or for some other reason it seemed to me there was no real gaiety, and that the dancing and the keeping up of a show of hilarity were all heavy work.

There seems, however, to be a gradation in these dreadful places. Besides these which were furnished with some show and pretension, there were cellars where the same sort of thing was going on—dancing and drinking, and women set to be the tempters of men. We saw miserable creatures standing out on the sidewalk, to urge the passers-by to come into these cellars. It was pitiful, heart-breaking to see.

But the lowest, the most dreadful of all, was what they called the bucket shops. There the vilest of liquors are mixed in buckets and sold to wretched, crazed people who have fallen so low that they cannot get anything better. It is the lowest depth of the dreadful deep.

Oh, those bucket shops! Never shall I forget the poor, forlorn, forsaken-looking creatures, both men and women, that I saw there. They seemed crouching in from the cold—hanging about, or wandering uncertainly up and down. Mr. James spoke to many of them, as if he knew them, kindly and sorrowfully. "This is a hard way you are going," he said to one. "Ar'n't you most tired of it?" "Well," he said to another poor creature, "when you have gone as far as you can, and come to the end, and nobody will have you, and nobody do anything for you, then come to us, and we'll take you in."

During all this time, and in all these places, the Superintendent, who seemed to have a personal knowledge of many of those among whom he was moving, was busy distributing his tickets of invitation to the supper. He knew where the utterly lost and abandoned ones were most to be found, and to them he gave most regard.

But as yet, though I looked with anxious eyes, I had seen nothing of Maggie. I spoke to Mr. James at last, and he said, "We have not yet visited Mother Moggs's establishment, where she was said to be. We are going there now."

"Mother Moggs is a character in her way," he told us. "She has always treated me with perfect respect and politeness, because I have shown the same to her. She seems at first view like any other decent woman, but she is one that, if she were roused, would be as prompt with knife and pistol as any man in these streets." As he said this, we turned a corner, and entered a dancing-saloon, in its features much like many others we had seen. Mother Moggs stood at a sort of bar at the upper end, where liquors were displayed and sold. She seemed really so respectably dressed, and so quiet and pleasant-looking, that I could scarcely believe my eyes when I saw her.

Mr. James walked up with us to where she was standing, and spoke to her, as he does to every one, gently and respectfully, inquiring after her health, and then, in a lower tone, he said, "And how about the health of your soul?"

She colored, and forced a laugh, and answered with some smartness: "Which soul do you mean? I've got two—one on each foot."

He took no notice of the jest, but went on:

"And how about the souls of these girls? What will become of them?"

"I ain't hurting their souls," she said. "I don't force 'em to stay with me; they come of their own accord, and they can go when they please. I don't keep 'em. If any of my girls can better themselves anywhere else, I don't stand in their way."

The air of virtuous assurance with which she spoke would have given the impression that she was pursuing, under difficult circumstances, some praiseworthy branch of industry at which her girls were apprentices.

Just at this moment, I turned, and saw Maggie standing behind me. She was not with the other girls, but standing a little back, toward the bar. Instantly I crossed over, and, raising my veil, said, "Maggie, poor child! come back to your mother."

Her face changed in a moment; she looked pale, as if she were going to faint, and said only, "Oh! Mrs. Henderson, you here?"

"Yes, I came to look for you, Maggie. Come right away with us," I said. "O Maggie! come," and I burst into tears.

She seemed dreadfully agitated, but said:

"Oh, I can't; it's too late!"

"No, it isn't. Mr. James," I said, "here she is. Her mother has sent for her."

"And you, madam," said Mr. James to the woman, "have just said you wouldn't stand in the way, if any of your girls could better themselves."

The woman was fairly caught in her own trap. She cast an evil look at us all, but said nothing, as we turned to leave, I holding upon Maggie, determined not to let her go.

We took her with us to the Home. She was crying as if her heart would break. The girls who were getting the supper looked at her with sympathy and gathered round her. One of them interested me deeply. She was very pale and thin, but had such a sweet expression of peace and humility in her face! She came and sat down by Maggie and said, "Don't be afraid; this is Christ's home, and he will save you as he has me. I was worse than you are—worse than you ever could be—and He has saved me. I am so happy here!"

And now the miserable wretches who had been invited to the supper came pouring in. Oh, such a sight! Such forlorn wrecks of men, in tattered and torn garments, with such haggard faces, such weary, despairing eyes! They looked dazed at the light and order and quiet they saw as they came in. Mr. James and the superintendent stood at the door, saying, "Come in, boys, come in; you're welcome heartily! Here you are, glad to see you," seating them on benches at the lower part of the room.

While the supper was being brought in, the table was set with an array of bowls of smoking hot soup and a large piece of nice white bread at each place. When all had been arranged, Mr. James saw to seating the whole band at the tables, asked a blessing, standing at the head, and then said, cheerily, "Now, boys, fall to; eat all you want; there is plenty more where this came from, and you shall have as much as you can carry."

The night was cold, and the soup was savory and hot, and the bread white and fine, and many of them ate with a famished appetite; the girls meanwhile stood watchful to replenish the bowls or hand more bread. All seemed to be done with such a spirit of bountiful, cheerful good-will as was quite inspiriting.

It was not till hunger was fully satisfied that Mr. James began to talk to them, and when he did, I wondered at his tact.

"This is quite the thing, now, isn't it, boys, of a cold night like this, when a fellow is hungry? See what it is to have friends.

"I suppose, boys, you get better suppers than these from those fellows that you buy your drink of. They make suppers for you sometimes, I suppose?"

"No, indeed," growled some of the men. "Catch 'em doing it!"

"Why, I should think they ought to, when you spend all your money on them. You pay all your money to them, and make yourselves so poor that you haven't a crust, and then they won't even get you a supper?"

"No, that they won't," growled some. "They don't care if we starve."

"Boys," said Mr. James, "aren't you fools? Here these men get rich, and you get poor. You pay all your earnings to them. You can't have anything, and they have everything. They can have plate-glass windows, and they can keep their carriages, and their wives have their silk dresses and jewels, and you pay for it all; and then, when you've spent your last cent over their counters, they kick you into the street. Aren't you fools to be supporting such men? Your wives don't get any silk dresses, I'll bet. O boys, where are your wives?—where are your mothers?—where are your children?"

By this time they were looking pretty sober, and some of them had tears in their eyes.

"Oh, boys, boys! this is a bad way you've been in—a bad way. Haven't you gone long enough? Don't you want to give it up? Look here—now, boys, I'll read you a story." And then he read from his pocket Testament the Parable of the Prodigal Son. He read it beautifully: I thought I had never understood it before. When he had done, he said, "And now, boys, hadn't you better come back to your Father? Do you remember, some of you, how your mother used to teach you to say, 'Our Father, who art in heaven?' Come now, kneel down, every one of you, and let's try it once more."

They all knelt, and I never heard anything like that prayer. It was so loving, so earnest, so pitiful. He prayed for those poor men, as if he were praying for his own soul. They must have felt how he loved them. It almost broke my heart to hear him: it did seem for the time as if the wall were down that separates God's love from us, and that everybody must feel it, even these poor wretched creatures.

There were among them some young men, and some whose heads and features were good, and indicative of former refinement of feeling. I could not help thinking how many histories of sorrow, for just so many families, were written in those faces.

"Is it possible that you can save any of these?" I said to Mr. James, as they were going out.

"We cannot, but God can," he said. "With God, all things are possible. We have seen a great many saved that were as low as these; but it was only by the power of God converting their souls. That is at all times possible."

"But," said Harry, "the craving for drink gets to be a physical disease."

"Yet I have seen that craving all subdued and taken away by the power of the Holy Spirit. They become new creatures in Christ."

"That would be almost miraculous," said Harry.

"We must expect miracles, and we shall have them," replied he.

Meanwhile the girls had gathered around Maggie, and were talking with her, and when we spoke of going, she said:

"Dear Mrs. Henderson, let me stay here awhile; the girls here will help me, and I can do some good here, and by-and-by, perhaps, when I am stronger, I can come back to mother. It's better for me here now."

Mr. James and the matron both agreed that, for the present, this would be best.

There is a current of sympathy, an energy of Christian feeling, a sort of enthusiasm, about this house, that helps one to begin anew.

It was nearly morning before we found ourselves in our home again—but, for me, the night has not been spent in vain. Oh, mother, can it be that in a city full of churches and Christians such dreadful things as I saw are going on every night? Certainly, if all Christians felt about it as those do who have begun this Home, there would be a change. If every Christian would do a little, a great deal would be done; for there are many Christians. But now it seems as if a few were left to do all, while the many do nothing. But Harry and I are resolved henceforth to do our part in helping this work.

Mary is comforted about Maggie and unboundedly grateful to me for going.

I think she herself prefers her staying there awhile; she has felt so keenly what Aunt Maria said about her being a burden and disgrace to us.

We shall watch over her there, and help her forward in life as fast as she is strong enough to go. But I am making this letter too long, so good-by for the present.

Your loving

Eva.