LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
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 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
MODERN CITIES 
 
 AND 
 
 jjftjei* E|gligi0tis fflygfrlerog 
 
 BY 
 
 SAMUEL LANE LOOMIS. 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. JOSIAH STRONG, D.D, 
 
 COa,, 
 
 \ OPT i \mrJg'' 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY, 
 
 9 BOND STREET. 
 
 \ 
 
 \ 
 

 & 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1887, BY 
 THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY. 
 
 Printed by Edward O. Jenkins' Sons, 
 20 North William St.. New York. 
 
PBEFATOKY NOTE. 
 
 The following chapters, with the exception of the 
 sixth, comprise a course of lectures which were pre- 
 pared for the students of Andover Theological Semi- 
 nary, and delivered at Andover in November, 1886. 
 The third chapter had also previously been used as a 
 lecture, in Cincinnati, before the students of Lane 
 Theological Seminary. The greater part of the first, 
 second, fourth, and fifth chapters subsequently appeared 
 in the Andover Review, with whose kind permission 
 they are reprinted here. The whole matter, with con- 
 siderable additions and some changes, is now respect- 
 fully offered to the public in the hope that it may 
 contribute to the general information and deepen the 
 general interest in the great subject with which it 
 deals, and may thus help to prepare the way for the 
 adoption of more earnest and systematic efforts look- 
 ing toward the advancement of the Eedeemer's king- 
 dom among the neglected masses of the great towns. 
 
 Brooklyn, N. Y., July 1, 1887. 
 
 (3) 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The city is the Gibraltar of civilization. It is not 
 because our urban population is nearly or quite one- 
 fourth of the whole that it is being made the object of 
 special study. The writer of this book sees that the 
 city is strategic ; and in directing our attention and 
 effort to the strategic point, we are following a divine 
 example. When God looked down upon this earth to 
 select a native land for Christianity, he laid his finger 
 on that country in which the highways of the nations 
 met. The world's altar was erected at that point — the 
 point where the three great civilizations which were to 
 exert the profoundest influence upon the world, the 
 Jewish, the Greek, and the Roman, came into the com- 
 pletest conjunction. That fact was illustrated by the 
 inscription over the Cross, written in Greek, in Hebrew, 
 and in Latin, that all the motley crowd might read. The 
 place where the Cross of Christ was planted was a 
 strategic point. The Lord Jesus Christ set us this ex- 
 ample when he bade his disciples begin at the metropo- 
 lis. That word was remembered by the Apostles when 
 they went forth to plant churches in Antioch, in Ephe- 
 sus, in Athens, in Corinth, and in Rome. 
 
 The city is the great centre of influence in modern 
 civilization, as it has been in all civilizations. In the 
 city is massed the mighty power of wealth, wdth its f ar- 
 
 (5) 
 
6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 reaching influence. In the city are located the great 
 corporations with their marvelous power over the whole 
 land. In the city live the owners of most of the mining 
 and railway stocks, and from the city these mines and 
 railways, with their armies of employes, are controlled. 
 In the city is the press — that tree of the knowledge of 
 good and evil, whose leaves are not altogether for the 
 " healing of the nations." The city, then, is the great 
 center of influence, both good and bad. It contains 
 that which is fairest and foulest in our civilization. It 
 is the mighty heart of the body politic, which sends its 
 streams of life pulsating to the very finger-tips of the 
 whole land ; and when the blood becomes poisoned, it 
 poisons every fiber of the whole body. Hence the 
 supreme importance of city evangelization. 
 
 But there is special need of evangelizing the city 
 because the city is exposed to special perils. There 
 are great perils threatening our Christian civilization, 
 such as wealth, its worship and its congestion, anar- 
 chism and lawlessness, intemperance and the liquor 
 power, immigration and a superstitious Christianity; 
 all these threaten the land as a whole, and these are all 
 massed in the cities. And not only so, but in the city 
 every one of these perils is enhanced. Take as an 
 illustration, immigration, which is intimately connected 
 with most of the other perils. Our ten larger cities 
 contain only nine per cent, of the entire population, 
 but nearly one-quarter of the foreign. A little less 
 than one-third of the population of the United States 
 is foreign by birth or parentage, but this element 
 rarely constitutes less than two-thirds of our larger 
 cities and often more than three-fourths. That is, 
 whatever strain immigration puts upon our institutions 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 is more than twice as great in the cities as in the 
 country. The fact that foreigners are thus massed 
 seems to some an occasion for congratulation. It cer- 
 tainly affords a great opportunity and lays on us a 
 great obligation, but it increases the peril. When 
 foreigners are scattered among the native population, 
 each being surrounded by Americans, they are forced 
 to learn our language and are soon led to adopt our 
 ideas and habits — in short, are speedily Americanized. 
 But when massed in cities, they gather in quarters 
 occupied often exclusively by their own nationality. 
 Our language is not a necessity; they come but little in 
 contact with our life, and old habits and ideas give way 
 but slowly before American influence. If a thousand 
 anarchists were scattered throughout a State, they 
 would be harmless; but when these firebrands of soci- 
 ety are brought together in the city, they inflame each 
 other. "Whether the massing of the enemy is an advan- 
 tage or disadvantage to us, depends on the relative 
 strength of the two armies. " Stonewall " Jackson, at 
 the head of 3 3,000 troops, defeated four armies with an 
 aggregate force of 64,000 men in about a month. His 
 generalship showed itself in striking his enemy when 
 separated. "Divide and conquer." Had the Union 
 armies in the Shenandoah Valley been massed, Jack- 
 son would have been helpless save to retreat. If our 
 forces are tenfold those of the enemy we may congrat- 
 ulate ourselves that by massing his men he has made 
 their capture easy. But what if his forces are ten- 
 fold greater than ours? In six Assembly Districts 
 of New York the aggregate population is 360,000, for 
 which there are thirty-one Protestant churches and 
 3,018 saloons. For the whole country east of the Mis- 
 
8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 sissippi there are nearly as many churches as saloons, 
 but for this population — larger than Cincinnati — there 
 are nearly one hundred times as many saloons as 
 churches. In the First Assembly District of New York 
 there were, in 1880, 44,030 people, seven Protestant 
 churches, and 1,072 saloons — one hundred and fifty- 
 three saloons for every church. These churches are 
 open, probably, seven or eight hours a week, the saloons 
 sixteen or more hours a day. While the Gospel of 
 cur Lord Jesus Christ is preached from one church 
 seven or eight hours, the gospel of death and hell is 
 preached from each of a hundred or a hundred and 
 fifty of these " synagogues of Satan " a hundred hours I 
 And the saloon is only one of many arms of the 
 devil's service. We do not giye the Gospel the half 
 of a fair chance. What a forlorn hope is a struggle 
 against such odds. To congratulate ourselves before 
 an enemy thus massed is to rejoice in our own defeat, 
 unless we are prepared to order up adequate reinforce- 
 ments. 
 
 It might be shown that each of the perils mentioned 
 above, is much greater in the city than in the country, 
 -^but it is sufficiently manifest thai the city is peculiarly 
 endangered. It is here that we should bring to bear 
 most powerfully the conservative influences of society. 
 The good general strengthens his line opposite those 
 points where the enemy's lines are the strongest. But 
 how is it in the city? Do we find, as a matter of fact, 
 that the two great conserving influences of society — 
 namely, the home and the church —are correspondingly, 
 powerful in the city? as much stronger there than 
 in the country, as these perils are there greater than 
 i where ? In the country, the groat majority live 
 
INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 in homes of their own; in the city, the small mi- 
 nority. 
 
 In 1880 there were two hundred and forty-three 
 thousand families in New York City, and it was esti- 
 mated that only thirteen thousand of them lived in 
 their own homes — a fact, which in its bearing on the 
 morals of the city, contains a whole volume of mean- 
 ing. And as land appreciates in value with the growth 
 of our cities, the relative number of renters will in- 
 crease. Thus in the city the institution of the home is 
 weak and growing weaker. 
 
 As for the church, there are from three to six times 
 as many churches for a given population in the coun- 
 try as in the city; and in our great cities there are 
 large populations nearly or quite destitute. For the 
 twentieth Assembly District in New York, with a pop- 
 ulation of over sixty thousand, there are but three Prot- 
 estant churches. In the whole country, for every sixty 
 thousand people there are one hundred and twenty 
 evangelical churches. For one district in New York of 
 fifty thousand souls there is but one Protestant church; 
 and it is said that in the heart of Chicago there are 
 sixty thousand people without a single church, either 
 Protestant or Catholic. 
 
 In reply to the assertion that the city is not so well 
 supplied with churches as the country, it is said, and 
 truly, that the city churches are much stronger than 
 those in the country. But it is also true, and decisive 
 of the point in question, that the proportion of evan- 
 gelical church members is only from one-half to one- 
 fifth as large in the great cities as in the country. And 
 with rare exceptions, if any, church provision seems to 
 
10 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 be steadily falling behind the growth of urban popula- 
 tion, as indicated by the following table. 
 
 , JERSEY CITY, 
 NEWARK, N. J. N> J< ' 
 
 BROOKLYN. 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 In 1840 
 In 1850 
 In 1880 
 In 1870 
 In 1880 
 In 1887 
 
 1 Prot. Ch. to 
 
 955 souls. 
 1 Prot. Ch. to 
 
 1,215 souls. 
 1 Prot. Ch. to 
 
 1,263 souls. 
 1 Prot. Ch. to 
 
 1,590 souls. 
 1 Prot, Ch. to 
 
 1,684 souls. 
 1 Prot. Ch. to 
 
 1,717 souls. 
 
 1 to 827 souls. 
 1 to 935 souls. 
 
 1 to 1,873 souls 
 
 1 to 1,575 souls 
 1 to 1,760 " 
 1 to 2,035 " 
 1 to 2,085 " 
 1 to 2,673 " 
 
 1 to 2,066 souls 
 1 to 2,446 " 
 1 to 2,775 « 
 1 to 2,479 " 
 1 to 3,046 « 
 1 to 3,750* " 
 
 If the growth of our great cities were suddenly 
 arrested, there would still be a grave responsibility rest- 
 ing on the churches to evangelize neglected districts; 
 and on the other hand, if our cities had no slums, no 
 churchless multitudes, their rapid growth would de- 
 mand a greater Christian activity than now exists, sim- 
 ply to provide for the new-comers. There is a city of 
 I thirty-five thousand added to Chicago, and one of fifty 
 thousand added to New York every year, for which 
 there must be Christian provision. In 1880, as we have 
 seen, there was in New York one Protestant church to 
 every three thousand people (one-sixth of the average 
 for the whole country). Simply to have held our own, 
 without taking one step forward, there should have 
 been added during these six years one hundred Prot- 
 estant churches to the Christian forces of the city. 
 
 * Present population estimated at 1,500,000. But the city directory 
 just issued makes the population 1,600,000, which gives 4,000 souls 
 to every Protestant church. 
 
INTBODUCTION. 11 
 
 Not one-half or quarter or tenth of that number have 
 been organized. To meet the needs of these three 
 hundred thousand souls ouljfour churches have been 
 added. Doubtless there are cities better off than New 
 York, and there are others which are worse. It is true 
 of all the cities whose religious statistics the writer has 
 looked up, that their church provision is falling behind 
 the growth of their population. 
 
 It is evident that the evangelization of our cities is 
 exceptionally important ; that the cities are exception- 
 ally exposed to perils ; that in them the great conserva- 
 tive influences are exceptionally weak. This volume 
 shows, by it3 analysis of the social composition of 
 American cities, that in their evangelization we have ex- 
 ceptional difficulties to overcome. What then ? Do such 
 facts justify discouragement ? A discouraged Christian 
 is a spectacle for angels. Every believer has a right to 
 take Paul's sublime declaration of confidence as a 
 
 formula in which to write his own name, " I, 
 
 , can do all things" required of me, "through 
 
 Jesus Christ, which strengtheneth me." To a mighty 
 faith the heaping up of obstacles is only a stimulus ; 
 the higher they rise, the greater the inspiration. 
 
 This volume not only points out the necessity and 
 magnitude and difficulty of the work to be done in 
 our cities, but abounds in valuable suggestions touch- 
 ing methods of work. Because English civilization i3 
 older than ours, the problem of the city arrested atten- 
 tion and attracted study sooner there than here. In 
 the work of city evangelization we have much to 
 learn from the Christian workers of London and the 
 McAll mission in Paris. This book enables us to profit 
 by their experience and success. Its author, after five 
 
12 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 years' experience in city work, which made him a good 
 student of its problems, spent the greater part of a 
 year in the heart of London, making himself thor- 
 oughly familiar with English methods of city evangel- 
 ization. His presentation of facts is worthy of all the 
 confidence to which careful observation and accuracy 
 of statement are entitled. 
 
 It may be objected that English character and con- 
 ditions so differ from ours that we should not find their 
 methods applicable here. In answer be it said, that 
 Rev. Dr. Rainsford's remarkable work in St. George's 
 Church, New York, affords a practical demonstra- 
 tion to the contrary. His experience shows that Eng- 
 lish methods are quite adapted, or at least adaptable, 
 to American cities ; and the sooner our churches ac- 
 cept the conclusions of this book, and act on its valuable 
 recommendations, the sooner will the "threat of the 
 cities " cease. 
 
 Josiah Strong. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 
 
 This, the age of great cities — Size and growth of London 
 and English cities, of Glasgow and Scottish cities, of 
 Berlin, Paris, and Continental cities — Increase of cities 
 in the United States — Attractive power of cities — Natural 
 limits to their growth — Law of the growth of cities — 
 This illustrated in the history of London— Reasons for 
 their remarkable increase during the nineteenth century : 
 the introduction of the steam-engine and mechanical in- 
 vention resulting in increased wealth, increased popula- 
 tion, improved sanitary conditions, rapid transportation, 
 cheapened food, increased demand for work and work- 
 ers within the towns, the expansion of commerce, and 
 changed methods of agricultural labor — The cities of the 
 future, 17 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE SOCIAL COMPOSITION OP AMERICAN CITIES. 
 
 The proportion and condition of their inhabitants engaged 
 in each of the three kinds of work : production, distri- 
 bution, and (personal and professional) service — Term 
 worMngman explained — Proportion of workingmen to 
 whole population in American cities — Separation between 
 working-class and other classes— This aggravated by con- 
 ditions of modern life and differences of race, language, 
 
 (13) 
 
14 CONTENTS. 
 
 and religion — Proportion of foreign-born inhabitants in 
 our cities — Nationalities of our foreign-born citizens — 
 Distribution of tbe various foreign elements among our 
 cities — Proportion of Roman Catholics to Protestants 
 among foreign-born population — Homogeneousness of 
 London and Continental cities contrasted with our own 
 condition, .......... 54 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE THREAT OP THE CITIES. 
 
 Dependence of Christian civilization upon the Christian 
 religion — Danger attendant upon the corruption or decay 
 of faith in any class of society — Failure of the American 
 Protestant churches to win the workingmen in cities — 
 Abandonment of down-town churches— Strength and 
 weakness of foreign Protestantism — Progress of the Ro- 
 man Catholic Church — Insufficiency of church accom- 
 modations in the poorer parts of our towns — Reflex in- 
 fluence upon the churches of the absence of workingmen 
 from their services — Reasons for alienation of the poorer 
 class from American Protestant churches : foreign birth 
 and training, strife and jealousy between labor and capi- 
 tal — Tokens of disintegration of Christian civilization 
 j in the cities consequent upon the alienation of the masses 
 
 J from the faith of our fathers : corruption of municipal 
 government, drunkenness and the saloons, increase of 
 crime and pauperism, decay of the Christian Sabbath, 
 progress of anarchic social theories, . . . .76 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON— THE CHURCH OP ENGLAND. 
 
 Central position of London in world-struggle between good 
 and evil, and consequent importance of its religious life to 
 the student — Peculiarities of its social and religious prob- 
 lem — Elements possessed in common with our own cities 
 
CONTENTS. 15 
 
 —Number of churches and benevolent enterprises— The 
 Church of England— Cathedrals and their use — Choral 
 music — Services of parish churches — Retreats — Paro- 
 chial missions — Guilds — Number of clergy and others 
 employed by single churches — Lay-helpers' association — 
 District visitors — Mothers' meetings — Girls' Friendly So- 
 ciety — Deaconesses and Sisters of Mercy — Friendly So- 
 cieties — Temperance Societies — White Cross movement 
 — The work and methods of St. Anne's, Limehouse— 
 Of St. Mary's, Whitechapel— Of St. Jude's, Whitechapel 
 — Free Exhibition of Fine Arts — University Extension 
 Society and Toynbee Hall — Oxford House — The East 
 Enderies, 107 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON— DISSENTING CHURCHES- 
 OTHER MOVEMENTS. 
 
 Number and denomination of dissenting churches in Lon- 
 don — Noticeable features in their regular religious serv- 
 ices and evangelistic work — Account of the work and 
 methods of Highbury Quadrant Church and its missions 
 — Tolmer's Square Church, and Tolmer Institute — East 
 London Tabernacle and the work of Rev. Archibald G. 
 Brown with his missionaries among the destitute of East 
 End — Oldenham Institute — London City Mission — Street 
 Preaching— The Salvation Army, 135 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE McALL MISSION. 
 
 The " Man of Macedonia," and the call of the modern apostle 
 — The commencement and expansion of the McAll Mis- 
 sion — Religious condition of France when the work be- 
 gan—Decay of Catholicism — Weakness of Protestantism 
 — "Oblivion "of the Bible — Deadness of conscience — 
 Fantastic notions of religion — Religious condition of 
 working-classes in American cities compared with that 
 
16 CONTENTS. 
 
 of Paris — Peculiar conditions gave rise to peculiar meth- 
 ods — Size and character of salles or mission-halls, and 
 their advantages — Doorkeepers and their duties— Value 
 of Christian songs— Speakers and character of addresses 
 — How the appointments are made — Time and number of 
 religious services — Societes Fraternelles : Results and 
 value of the work — Effect on French Protestantism, . 163 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SUGGESTIONS REGARDING CHRISTIAN WORK FOR OUR CITIES. 
 
 The working-force of the Church must oe increased — Kind of 
 workers needed — Responsibility of more prosperous for 
 the poorer parts of the town— Importance of Christian 
 visitation — Value of the work of Deaconesses and Sisters 
 of Charity. 
 
 As to nature and frequency of services — Non-liturgic churches 
 most successful among the poor — Element of worship, 
 however, too much neglected — Value of congregational 
 singing — Importance of frequent meetings — Many small 
 local meetings more effective than few central ones. 
 
 Value of the Parish System in Christian work — Weakness of 
 the "plan of attraction" — Efficiency of definite, local 
 work — Hindrance and evil of denominationalism. 
 
 Need of cultivating in the Church a better spirit of sympathy 
 
 y with workingmen — The spirit of the brother, not that of 
 the patron, befits the Christian — More points of contact 
 needed between the Church and the daily lives of the 
 people — More sympathetic interest in their social and in- 
 dustrial problems — Pressing importance of giving the 
 Gospel to the poor, . . 182 
 
CHAPTEB I 
 
 THE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 
 
 When men affirm that history repeats itself, they ut- 
 ter only half a truth. The people of all times are so 
 much alike, and similar situations recur so frequently, 
 that nearly every present event may have some sort of 
 parallel in the past ; and yet the current of history is 
 no tide sweeping perpetually up and down the same 
 old channel, but, like some majestic river, it rolls 
 forever onward. No age is a mere repetition of what 
 has gone before it ; the main features of each are new, 
 unforeseen, and unparalleled. Greece was not another 
 Egypt, nor Borne another Greece. The decay of the 
 dominion of the Csesars, the rise of Papacy, the con- 
 quests of the False Prophet, the Crusades, the found- 
 ing of the Frankish empire, the Beformation and Be- 
 naissance, the overthrow of feudalism and growth of 
 constitutional liberty, — each of these great movements, 
 with the events that cluster about it, has furnished in 
 its turn a fresh chapter in the world's history quite un- 
 matched by any which had preceded it. 
 
 So also is it with our own time. The world in which 
 we live is not merely different from that our fathers 
 knew. It is a world the like of which has never been 
 known by any race of men in any age before. Upon 
 the nineteenth century have fallen certain changes in 
 the social and industrial conditions of mankind of so 
 2 (17) 
 
18 THE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 
 
 great moment, that in consequence of them Chris- 
 tendom has been transformed and the whole aspect of 
 its society changed with almost the swiftness of a revo- 
 lution. Accompanied by neither clash of arms nor 
 thunder of cannon, the forces which have thus revolu- 
 tionized society have wrought so silently, that until the 
 last few years they had almost escaped observation. 
 Yet none the less steadily, speedily, and mightily have 
 they done their work, bringing with them results that 
 have filled life with new problems and perils together 
 with fresh opportunities and hopes. These changes are 
 most conspicuously illustrated by the subject with which 
 we deal in this chapter. 
 
 We live in the age of great cities. It began to be so 
 named nearly half a century ago,* and every year since 
 then has added fitness to the title. For size, for num- 
 ber, and for influence, the cities of our time have never 
 been approached. Rome has always stood as supreme 
 example of the vast and mighty city. In Gibbon's day, 
 the most populous of modern capitals had not equalled 
 her. But the present Paris is probably much larger 
 than she ; the present London more than twice as large, 
 ^nd our own metropolis fully her equal, f And Rome 
 stood alone in her greatness ; she did not, like New 
 York, have a Brooklyn close beside her, a Philadelphia 
 two hours away, and sixty other towns of considerable 
 size within a day's journey. The other large and flour- 
 
 * The Age of Great Cities. Robert Vaughan, London, 1843. 
 
 t Sec Gibbon, vol. iv, chap. 31; abo notes in Smith's edition, p. 
 89, London, 1834. Gibbon estimates the population at 1,200,000; 
 Bureau de la Malle, 563,000 ; Zumpt, 2,000,000 ; Hoeek, 2,205,000; 
 Encyclopaedia Britannicx, about 1,000,000. 
 
THE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 19 
 
 ishing cities in the empire were few and widely sepa- 
 rated. 
 
 One of the chief reasons that used formerly to 
 occasion the building of cities has disappeared ; roving 
 bands of robbers and savage beasts are no longer at 
 large ; throughout the civilized world life is as safe in 
 the country as in the town. Security has ceased to be 
 reckoned among the advantages of a city residence. 
 
 Much of the loneliness and isolation that once be- 
 longed to the country home have also been removed. 
 The extension of railway and telegraph lines, the widen- 
 ing circulation of papers and periodicals, the increased 
 facilities of trade, and many other things, have com- 
 bined to lessen the inconveniences of rural life, and 
 make it brighter and more attractive. 
 
 Moreover, as men have grown in wisdom, their ap- 
 preciation of natural beauty and the attractions of 
 mountain, field, and forest, have become keener. 
 Nevertheless, each successive year finds a stronger and 
 more irresistible current sweeping in toward the centres 
 of life ; a larger and larger proportion of the earth's in- 
 habitants crowded together in the great cities, and a 
 rural population always diminishing in relative size and 
 influence. 
 
 The extent of this movement, and the suddenness 
 with which it has sprung upon the nineteenth century, 
 cannot be better illustrated than by a glance at the 
 growth of the world's metropolis. 
 
 London is an ancient as well as a modern town ; it 
 seems to have had at least two thousand years of growth. 
 In Tacitus' day it was already a thriving place, full of 
 merchants and their wares.* 
 
 *Tac. Annul. , lib. 14, chap, 33. 
 
20 THE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 
 
 A writer of the third century calls it " illustrious for 
 the vast number of merchants who resorted to it ; for 
 its extensive commerce and for the abundance of every 
 kind of commodity which it could supply." The Ven- 
 erable Bede, in the eighth century, terms it, " An em- 
 porium of many nations who arrived thither by land 
 and sea." By a writer of the sixteenth century, it was 
 said to be " the largest in extent, the fairest built, the 
 most populous, and the best inhabited of any city in 
 the world." 
 
 As the greatest of marts, and as capital and me- 
 tropolis of one of the most remarkable of nations, it 
 has, for a thousand years, held a high place among the 
 chief cities of Christendom. So far as one can judge 
 by old maps and pictures, and such obscure hints as 
 the ancient annals give us, the growth of London, from 
 Roman times until the close of the last century, although 
 very irregular, was most of the time exceedingly slow.* 
 
 The London of three hundred years ago seems to 
 have been considerably smaller than the present Bos- 
 ton ; that of two hundred years ago, according to a 
 somewhat careful computation, had reached 670,003 in- 
 /liabitants,')* which is less than the population claimed 
 for Chicago. It took the great city another century to 
 climb to a place equal to that of Philadelphia, and half 
 a century more, bringing it down to 1836, did not make 
 
 *The old historians give widely varying estimates, which are ap- 
 parently little more than guesses. An estimate based on the hills of 
 mortality, which first began to be kept at that time, would show a 
 population of something more than 250,000 in the last decade of the 
 16th century. See discussion of the subject in Stow's London, also 
 Eneyclopcedia Britannica, 9th ed., vol. 14, page 820. 
 
 fSir William Petty, Essay on Political Arithmetic. 
 
THE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 21 
 
 it equal to the present New York, if you include with 
 New York, Brooklyn and Jersey City. But in order to 
 make a city equal in size to the London of to-day, you 
 must pile together New York, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, 
 Chicago, Boston, St. Louis, Baltimore, Cincinnati, and 
 San Francisco. 
 
 There are in London — assuming the average annual 
 
 o o 
 
 rate of increase which prevailed between 1860 and 1880 
 to have continued since the last census — not less than 
 5,500,000 souls. By London, we mean, in every case, 
 what is called " Greater London," which consists of the 
 metropolitan and city police districts, and extends 
 twelve miles in all directions from Charing Cross.* 
 
 In the last hundred and twenty years preceding the 
 year 1800, London increased in size only fifty per cent. 
 In the eighty-six years since the year 1800 London has 
 increased five hundred per cent. More people live in 
 London alone than in the whole of Holland; more than 
 in Sweden; more than in Portugal; more than in Ire- 
 land or Canada; more by a million than in Scotland. 
 She could furnish population for two countries like 
 Denmark, and nearly enough for three like Norway. 
 Three cities as large as the greater London would be 
 almost enough to people Spain, with its present popu- 
 lation; six would be more than enough to people Italy; 
 seven, nearly enough to people France; and eleven, to 
 people the United States. 
 
 It is said that Macaulay, in his time, walked through 
 every street of the metropolis. In order to accomplish 
 
 *The exact figures of the census of 1881 are 4,766,661, and the 
 average annual rate of increase between '61 and '81 is 2.89 per cent. 
 Inner, or registration London, contained fewer people by 850,000. See 
 Census of England and Wales for 1881, vol. iv., p. 13, London, 1883. 
 
22 THE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 
 
 that feat now, one would need to take a tramp of 
 twenty-five hundred miles. Three hundred and fifty- 
 more persons may be expected to sleep in London to- 
 night than slept there last night; twenty-five hundred 
 more than a week ago to-night. Every month adds a 
 city of ten thousand inhabitants; every year one of one 
 hundred and twenty-five thousand inhabitants. 
 
 One may be helped to realize the extraordinary ex- 
 pansion which the nineteenth century has witnessed in 
 the city of the Thames, by considering what would be 
 the consequence if the same rate of increase should 
 continue a hundred years longer. Supposing London 
 to keep on growing for the next century as fast as she 
 has grown since 1860, by 1985 a population of over 
 forty millions would be gathered about Charing Cross; 
 which is more than all Great Britain and Ireland con- 
 tain. Such a supposition is, of course, introduced only 
 as an illustration. It does not seem probable that the 
 great city can continue growing at the present rate 
 much longer.* Yet we must remember that a London 
 of forty million people cannot seem more unlikely to 
 us than one of five millions to the men of a few cen- 
 turies ago. The England of Charles I. had fewer 
 inhabitants than the London of Victoria. Not until the 
 days of the Iron Duke had the United Kingdoms gotten 
 to have a population twice as great as that of the pres- 
 ent metropolis. 
 
 * Although the rate of iocrease during the last decade was some- 
 what more rapid than during the period between 1SG0 and 1370, it is 
 believed that since 1380 the rate has declined and that it is likely to 
 continue slowly declining for the next fifty years. See paper en 
 Population of London, by R. Price Williams, read before Statistical 
 Society, June 16, 1385, printed with discussion in the journal of that 
 society, London, 18S5. 
 
THE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 23 
 
 But London is by no means the only English city. 
 Huge as she is, she contains only one-third of the city 
 population of the island. There are in England and 
 "Wales alone, twenty-seven other great cities, the small- 
 est of which contains more than 75,000 inhabitants, 
 whose size and sudden growth are not less astonishing 
 than that of the metropolis itself. 
 
 There are more people by several hundreds of 
 thousands, within fifty miles of the central point of 
 Manchester — which sits in the midst of the great towns 
 of the north — than within the like distance of the cen- 
 tral point of London. 
 
 In 1£81 England and Wales had sixty per cent, of 
 their entire population in towns and cities, and the 
 rate of increase during the last two decades had been 
 two and one-half times greater for the town than for 
 the rural population. 
 
 No more striking illustration of the centralizing 
 tendencies of modern times can be found than that 
 which Scotland presents. The country parts of that 
 land contain absolutely fewer people to-day than ten 
 years ago; especially the Highlands. Timid deer are 
 now the only inhabitants of many a grassy glen that 
 used to furnish at the chieftain's summons its quota of 
 a thousand men; wild forest creatures are sporting in 
 hundreds of deserted cots, amid the brown and purple 
 hills and beside the silver lochs, which were once merry 
 with the shouts of children. Across the Highlands, a 
 broad belt of beauty stretching from sea to sea, extend 
 the hunting-grounds of the American millionaire, Mr. 
 Winans; a modest little place for sport, comprising some 
 eight hundred square miles. When land will bring ten 
 times as great a rent for deer park as for agriculture or 
 
24 THE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 
 
 pasturage,* is it a wonder tliat the crofters have to leave 
 their homes to the foxes? For every acre of mount- 
 ain land employed in deer forest in 1840, there are at 
 least ten in the present year. In this way the strength 
 of nearly 2,000,000 acres, or 3,000 square miles of Scot- 
 tish soil, are consumed to-day. f Meanwhile, Scotland 
 has as many sons and daughters as ever. Her popu- 
 lation has been steadily increasing since the beginning 
 of the century, at the average rate of about eleven per 
 cent, with each decade; but all this increase, and more 
 than all, has poured itself into the cities. The country 
 people are but a remnant. Three Scotchmen out of 
 every four live in some city. The Glasgow among 
 whose masses Chalmers labored with such power and 
 effect contained only about 150,000 inhabitants. To- 
 day, resounding with the roar of wheels and hammers, 
 and dim in the smoke of countless chimneys, Glasgow 
 strides on toward her million at a rate of increase 
 which outstrips that of Chicago itself, t The laddies 
 and lassies of song and fiction may still be tending 
 sheep amid the mountain heather and making love in 
 fields of rustling rye, but the laddies and lassies of fact 
 are toiling in shops, factories, and noisy dock-yards, 
 and when they meet and greet, it is by gaslight among 
 the mighty throngs of Argyle Street and Trongate. 
 
 " While a few Scotchmen have castles and palaces, 
 more than one-third of all Scottish families live in one 
 
 * J. Allanson Picton. The Crofters Cry for More Land. Contem. 
 Rev., Nov., 1885, p. 646. 
 
 t Mr. Cameron, of Lochiel. A Defence of Deer Forests. Nine- 
 teenth Century, Aug., 1885, p. 197. 
 
 % The increase of Glasgow between 1871 and 1881, amounted to 
 4L25 per cent. ; that of Chicago, to 40.73 per cent, 
 
TEE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 25 
 
 room each, and more than two-thirds in not more than 
 two rooms each.* Thousands of acres are kept as a 
 playground for strangers, while the masses have not 
 enough of their native soil to grow a flower ; are shut 
 out even from moor and mountain ; dare not take a 
 trout from a loch or a salmon from a stream." f 
 
 Ireland exhibits the preference of the folk of mod- 
 ern times for city residences in the opposite way. For 
 many years the Emerald Isle has been gradually losing 
 her people, owing chiefly to the drainage of emigra- 
 tion, but it appears that for every two who have left the 
 towns, ninety-eight have left her rural districts. 
 
 Cross the Channel, and in every European state which 
 has felt the breath of the spirit of modern times, the 
 same social tendencies are to be observed. On all 
 sides cities are growing rapidly, while the population 
 of country parts is growing very slowly — is at a stand- 
 still, or is even decreasing. Brussels has gained 
 twenty per cent, and Antwerp thirty per cent., while Bel- 
 gium, as a whole, has gained but eleven per cent. 
 During the last decade, the rate of increase for the 
 towns and cities in Denmark has been nearly twice as 
 great as that for the rural districts. In Sweden it has 
 been four times as great ; in Norway ten times as 
 great. The four chief cities of Bussia have doubled 
 themselves within twenty years. The town population 
 in Germany is growing about twice as rapidly as the 
 whole population of the empire. The last census shows 
 
 * This statement, while literally true in 1870, was not quite true in 
 1880 — the condition of things having in the meantime somewhat 
 improved. 
 
 t Henry George. The Reduction to Iniquity. Nineteenth Century, 
 July, 1884, p. 146. 
 
26 THE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 
 
 that there are actually fewer people in the rural parts 
 of Prussia than ten years ago, but the cities are greater 
 by twenty-five per cent. In 1850 Berlin was a com- 
 paratively insignificant place, with some 400,000 inhab- 
 itants ; she now ranks as third or fourth city in Chris- 
 tendom and boasts a population of 1,316,382. The 
 same tendency is strikingly illustrated in France. For 
 many years her population has been almost stationary, 
 and, much of the time, even declining ; yet, in the 
 meantime, except for a brief period of interruption 
 during the Franco-Prussian war, the French cities 
 have steadily and rapidly increased in size and number. 
 In 1846, out of every hundred Frenchmen, only twenty- 
 four lived in the city ; in 1861, there were twenty-nine; 
 in 1831, thirty-four. Since the war, up to 1881, Paris 
 added to her number fifty thousand souls for every 
 year.* The same movement of the people might be 
 noted in Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and Holland, as well 
 as Canada and Australia. Nowhere is it more remark- 
 ably displayed than in our own country. It is not so 
 surprising that men are crowded into the cities in Ger- 
 many, which has 213 persons for every square mile of 
 territory ; or in England, which has 446 ; or in Bel- 
 gium, which has 508. But cities increase in the same 
 remarkable fashion in the United States, where we have 
 less than 20 persons to the square mile, not including 
 Alaska, and there are still scores of millions of acres 
 to be given away.f 
 
 * Since 1881 her ratio of increase seems to "nave been much slower. 
 The growth of Paris and of all French and Italian cities is hindered 
 by " octroi duties," or taxes on all provisions brought into the town ; 
 an arrangement which renders living much more costly within than 
 outside the walls. 
 
 t In 1S81, it was 17.29, or, including Alaska aud Iud. Territory, 
 14.5 persons to the square mile. 
 
TEE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 27 
 
 The facts concerning the growth of American cities 
 as reported by the census of 1880, have been widely 
 circulated of late, especially in Dr. Strong's invaluable 
 book;* but they will bear repeating. In 1790, one- 
 thirtieth of our population lived in cities of eight 
 thousand inhabitants and over. In 1800, the propor- 
 tion of urban population had become one twenty-fifth ; 
 in 1820, it was one-twentieth ; in 1830, one-sixteenth ; 
 in 1840, one-twelfth ; in 1850, one-eighth ; in 1880, 
 one-sixth ; in 1870, one-fifth ; in 1880, nearly one- 
 fourth, i.e., 22.5 per cent.; from 1790 to 1880 the 
 population of the country increased twelvefold, that 
 of the cities eighty-six fold. In 1800, there were 
 only six cities of over six thousand inhabitants ; in 
 1880, there were two hundred and eighty-six. -J* 
 
 In the older States of the Union, the cities are drain- 
 ing the country in quite the European fashion. Hun- 
 dreds of country towns in New England and New 
 York have a population not half so numerous, and in 
 other respects inferior, to what they had half a century 
 ago. It is a common thing for the old farms to sell 
 for less than the cost of the improvements on them. 
 And yet so enormous is the increase of their great 
 cities, that the Eastern States keep well abreast of the 
 nation in its gigantic growth. Fifty-three out of 
 every hundred inhabitants of Massachusetts reside in 
 towns and cities, and two-thirds of these within twelve 
 miles of the State House. As to the "West, its cities 
 springing up and growing great and splendid as it 
 were in a night, are the marvel of the world. "We be- 
 
 * Josiah Strong, P.D., Our Country, New York, 1886. 
 
 t See Tenth Census of the United States, vol. i., pp. xxviii. to xxx. 
 
28 THE GROWTH OF MODERW CITIES. 
 
 liold with wonder such places as Minneapolis, St. Paul, 
 and Kansas City, towns that had not been heard of 
 twenty years ago, selling their corner lots at Broadway 
 prices. 
 
 A recent writer * has given a most ingenious illustra- 
 tion of the change in the distribution of men which the 
 latter-day life has brought about. He calls attention to 
 the fact that the area of England and Wales is nearly 
 the same as that of New York and New Jersey ; that 
 the population of England and Wales in 1688 was 
 nearly the same as that of New York and New Jersey 
 in 1870. You have, then, two districts of practically 
 the same size, inhabited by the same number of people 
 of the same blood and language. The one belongs to 
 the seventeenth, the other to the nineteenth century. 
 The district of the seventeenth century had for 
 5,500,000 people only five cities with a population 
 greater than 10,000. The district of the nineteenth 
 century has thirty-one such cities. Of the seventeenth 
 century folk, less than one-fourth; of the nineteenth 
 century folk, more than one half, are dwellers in great 
 towns. 
 
 Such illustrations might be multiplied to any extent, 
 but quite enough have been presented to establish the 
 fact that during the present century a wonderful move- 
 ment has passed over the face of the whole civilized 
 world, suddenly shifting great sections of the people 
 from the country to the towns, thereby changing the 
 problems of life in manifold ways, and giving to the 
 cities of the present, and still more promising to those 
 of the future, a prominence in the world's affairs 
 
 * B. C. Magie, Jr. Scribner^s Magazine, vol. xv. 
 
THE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 29 
 
 hitherto unknown. Let us now examine the causes 
 from which this movement has sprung. 
 
 That mysterious force named gravity, which gives to 
 all bodies mutual tendencies toward each other, varying 
 according to their masses, has a parallel in human so- 
 ciety. A man, as a man, has a peculiar attractiveness 
 to every other man. The attractive power of a group 
 of men is greater than that of an individual; and the 
 larger the group, the greater the nmss of human life, 
 the stronger is its influence in drawing outsiders to 
 itself, and in holding those who have come to it. 
 
 As a race, we love not solitude; but there is built 
 into us a fondness and a strong necessity for fellowship 
 with our kind; for, since thought is awakened by 
 thought alone, love by love, and passion by passion, the 
 mind depends upon contact with other minds, not only 
 for its exercise, growth, and enjoyment, but even for 
 life. What food is to the body, that intercourse with 
 other minds is to the mind of man, with the difference 
 that the mental appetite is insatiable, and grows with 
 feeding. There is, therefore, nothing more natural in 
 the craving which drives the wild creature forth to its 
 hunting-ground than in the social instinct which draws 
 men into the currents and centres of life. This uni- 
 versal force of human attraction, like the force of gravi- 
 tation, is, of course, frequently modified, and even 
 nullified in its action by other forces. Eace and family 
 affinities bind one more firmly to his kith and kin than 
 to the rest of men. Peculiarities of taste and tempera- 
 ment lead some to love solitude and hate society, and 
 make certain sides of human nature particularly inter- 
 esting to certain persons, and others distasteful. In 
 some, the manhood is of a fuller, higher type than in 
 
30 THE GROWTH OF MOBEBN CITIES. 
 
 others, and they are correspondingly more attractive ; 
 while, from many, vice, poverty, and oppression have so 
 beaten humanity out that little remains to invite the 
 fellowship of men. Yet all these disturbing influences 
 do not, on the whole, affect the operation of the great 
 law, that man attracts man ; and that the greater the 
 mass of humanity gathered about a centre, the more 
 powerful upon the average outsider is the force of its 
 attraction. 
 
 Every town and city is therefore a magnet constantly 
 drawing the people from without toward itself, and 
 binding together those within its walls with a power 
 directly proportionate to its size. The magnetic in- 
 fluence of a great metropolis becomes so potent that 
 multitudes find it too strong to be resisted. Thousands 
 every year force their way into the midst of London, 
 Paris, and New York, having no reasonable prospect 
 of winning a livelihood, and insist upon staying there 
 in miserable want rather than move out to more com- 
 fortable quarters elsewhere. The very vastness of the 
 manifold life that throbs and thrills about them has a 
 certain subtle fascination so intoxicating that they re- 
 gard the idea of living in any lesser place as quite in- 
 supportable. Juvenal shows that old Some bewitched 
 her populace by the same powerful spell. They used 
 to pay for little, dark, wretched rooms a yearly rent 
 great enough to have purchased a cheerful, comfortable 
 dwelling in one of the lesser towns of Italy, but they 
 could not be prevailed upon to leave the capital.* 
 
 * " If you can tear yourself away from the games in the circus, you 
 can buy a capital house at Sara, or Fabratiria, or Frusiuo for the 
 price at which you are now hiring your dark hole for one year." 
 Juvenal, Satir, 16o, 223, etc. 
 
THE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 31 
 
 In the following passage, Charles Lamb, in his own 
 charming way, gives voice to a sentiment that is far 
 from being peculiar to himself; it is the sentiment of 
 the multitudes : 
 
 " I have passed/' says he, li all my days in London, 
 until I have formed as many and as intense local attach- 
 ments as any of your mountaineers can have done with 
 dead nature. The lighted shops of the Strand and 
 Fleet Street ; the innumerable trades, tradesmen, and 
 customers, coaches, wagons, playhouses; all the bustle 
 and wickedness round about Coveht Garden; the 
 watchmen, drunken scenes, rattles; life awake, if you 
 awake, at all hours of the night, the impossibility of 
 being dull in Fleet Street; the crowds, the very dirt and 
 mud, the sun shining upon houses and pavements; the 
 jewel shops, the old book stalls, parsons cheapening 
 books, coffee-houses, steam of soup from kitchens, the 
 pantomimes; London itself a pantomime and a masquer- 
 ade, — all these things work themselves into my mind 
 without a power of satiating me. The wonder of these 
 sights impels me into night walks about her crowded 
 streets, and I often shed tears in the motley Strand from 
 fullness of joy at so much life." * 
 
 In a great city every man finds in its highest devel- 
 opment the side and sort of life that pleases him best. 
 For the vicious, there are unbounded opportunities for 
 vice; for those who love God and men, extraordinary 
 advantages for philanthropic work and Christian fellow- 
 ship. Many, with special musical, literary, or artistic 
 talents, are quite alone in a small community with 
 neither opportunity nor stimulus for growth in the di- 
 
 * Charles Lamb, Letter to Wordsworth. 
 
32 THE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 
 
 rections toward winch their tastes incline them; but 
 upon entering a city they find the surroundings so con- 
 genial that they can never again be persuaded to quit 
 them. With its libraries, lectures, public gatherings, 
 book-stores, companionships, and above all, the per- 
 petual stimulus of contact with many minds, the great 
 city is the paradise of literary men. Hume pronounced 
 it the only fit place of residence for a man of letters. 
 Dr. Johnson declared that a man who was tired of 
 London was tired of his own existence. " Sir," said the 
 great man as he sat in Mitre Tavern beside Temple 
 Bar, " the happiness of London is not to be conceived 
 but by those who have been in it. I will venture to 
 say, there is more learning and science within the cir- 
 cumference of ten miles from where we sit than in all 
 the rest of the kingdom." Dr. Chalmers, in comparing 
 the country with the city pastorate, remarks, that while 
 the latter lacks leisure, the former lacks stimulus, and 
 that for the highest achievements stimulus is of far 
 greater importance than leisure. In the same strain 
 are Mr. Emerson's words: " A scholar is a candle which 
 the love and desire of all men will light." 
 
 Great cities have a special fascination for young men. 
 They offer to the successful, high and tempting prizes. 
 There is little in the position of leading merchant, law- 
 yer, or physician in a country town to spur the ambition 
 of the young; but those who hold the like positions in 
 the cities are the princes and mighty men of the times. 
 Ambitious fellows prefer a hard race with high stakes 
 to one on an easier course with fewer competitors and 
 contemptible prizes. Hence, they have flocked to the 
 cities until a new attorney's sign has become a by-word, 
 and a single advertisement for a book-keeper enough 
 
THE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 33 
 
 to bring an army about your door. Besides all these 
 special attractions for special classes, who can measure 
 the fascination for the masses of manhood, of the great 
 city's unequalled facilities for instruction and amuse- 
 ment ? The churches and the schools, the theatres and 
 concerts, the lectures, fairs, exhibitions, and galleries — 
 how widely on every side are the doors of lif e opened ! 
 Even the streets and the shops have an attraction that 
 few can deny ; the bright and costly goods displayed in 
 the windows, the prancing horses and sparkling car- 
 riages, the roar and rumble of drays, wagons, and cars, 
 and the mighty streams of human beings that forever 
 flow up and down the thoroughfares, exhibiting such 
 an infinite variety of face, feature, form, and dress, 
 from exquisite beauty to hideous ugliness, and from 
 the richest silks and furs to the filthiest, faded, flutter- 
 ing rags. But above and beyond all this is that vague 
 delight at being one in the midst of a great multitude 
 of men and women, which, though it may not often be 
 defined or expressed, is the greatest of all the causes 
 which contribute to the cities' growth. 
 
 Such tendencies would draw the whole world into 
 cities, — into one great city, perhaps, — were it not for 
 the existence of certain opposite tendencies — centrifu- 
 gal forces, as one may call them — which counterbalance 
 the centripetal force and preserve the equilibrium of 
 society. While, on the one hand, city life is richer than 
 rural, on the other it is more costly and less healthful. 
 It is more costly because food, fuel, and every needful 
 product of the soil must be produced by others, and 
 brought from afar; because competition for the land is 
 great and rent high; because the cost of living being 
 great, personal service is correspondingly costly. City 
 3 
 
34 TEE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 
 
 life is less healthful than the rural, because of the dif- 
 ficulty in getting a good and sufficient supply of the 
 four things on which life chiefly depends: food, water, 
 air, and light. Many must go with an insufficient quan- 
 tity of food because of its costliness; and that they 
 have, being the cheapest, is often unwholesome. Water 
 is difficult to get, and unless brought from afar at great 
 expense, is almost sure to be tainted with impurity. In 
 closely crowded quarters filth quickly accumulates, and 
 cleanliness can only be secured by eternal vigilance. 
 No art has been discovered by which the air of a great 
 town can be kept free from the disease germs and 
 poisonous gases that reek from noisome places. Where 
 thousands of furnaces are pouring their foul breath out 
 into the sky, and where hundreds of thousands of 
 human beings are always robbing the air of its vitality, 
 a far less wholesome atmosphere necessarily prevails 
 than on the mountain-side or by the sea; sickness comes 
 on more easily and is harder to throw oft\ All these 
 difficulties obviously bear most heavily upon the poorer 
 classes. The tattered fringe which hangs upon the 
 border of the social fabric is broadest in cities. That 
 portion of the people, comprising the poorest, the 
 weakest, and the most helpless, which is being gradually 
 crowded to the wall and crushed amid the strife and 
 struggle of the strong, is found largely — in some coun- 
 tries almost wholly — in the towns. 
 
 Such, then, are the practical checks upon the growth 
 of cities. They can increase no faster than the costli- 
 ness of living and wholesomeness of life within their 
 walls allow. The great cities of antiquity were always 
 so situated that they could obtain a plenty of cheap 
 food. Rome ■ was able to rival the populousness of 
 
THE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 35 
 
 modern capitals because she had peculiar advantages 
 for feeding the multitude. She was rich. The treas- 
 ures of the whole earth flowed into her lap. She could 
 alford to buy the best from all the markets in the world. 
 The great food-producing countries were close at hand, 
 clustered about the Mediterranean, in the midst of 
 which she sat, accessible on every side by land and sea. 
 Bread was cheap in Rome : sometimes, even, it was 
 free to the poor. Nor was the vastness of the popula- 
 tion which she found it possible to sustain, less due 
 to the fact that she was able to make life supportable 
 and even healthful within her walls. The system of 
 aqueducts, sewers, and public baths, by which she 
 secured to her citizens good sanitary conditions, have 
 never since been approached in magnificence, costli- 
 ness, and efficiency.* 
 
 The following may, therefore, be laid down as the 
 law of the growth of cities. The urban population in 
 every country is always as large as its circumstances 
 allow. When a city's increase is not checked by the 
 superior attractiveness of some rival, it will grow until 
 it reaches a point where life within its walls becomes 
 so difficult because of extreme costliness or unwhole- 
 someness, or both, that it is no longer to be preferred 
 to life without. 
 
 If we now turn our attention toward London again, 
 and follow its lines back into the past, we shall see 
 abundant evidence that at every step of its history the 
 population has been as great as could be sustained 
 
 * Kome still enjoys from ancient aqueducts the most abundant 
 water supply of any great city in the world. Until within a few 
 years the saying was literally true that one could not go away from 
 the sound of running water in Eome. 
 
36 THE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 
 
 under existing circumstances, with a continual tendency 
 to overstep the limits of possible crowding, a trans- 
 gression followed by great misery, hunger, and disease, 
 which at frequent intervals broke out into violent forms 
 of plague and famine. 
 
 Famines used to be among the regular features of 
 London life in the olden time. They were often ac- 
 companied by a degree of distress for which we, in 
 our day, have no parallel. We read, for example, of a 
 great famine brought on by a wet season in the year 
 1257, when 20,000 people starved to death in London. 
 Only thirteen years later there came another still more 
 dreadful dearth. "Wheat sold at six pounds eight 
 shillings the quarter (which is more than sixty pounds 
 at present). And the famine was so horrible that 
 parents are reported to have eaten their own children."* 
 The reasons for the latter dearth are thus explained : 
 "By excessive rains, the banks of the Thames over- 
 flowed and broke down in many places, by which acci- 
 dent immense injury was done to houses, lands, and 
 fruits of the earth." It is, at first sight> incredible that 
 a mere wet season should ever have occasioned the 
 starvation of every seventh man in London, or that a 
 freshet of the Thames should have driven the famish- 
 ing poor in the frenzy of hunger to the point of devour- 
 ing their own offspring. Yet it must be remembered 
 that in those days London had almost no food except 
 what grew in the fields immediately about her. When 
 these failed to yield their harvest, starvation was at 
 hand. Four hundred years later it was still true that 
 the hay, straw, peas, beans, and oats used in London 
 
 * Noorthouck's History of London, pp. 50 and 56. London, 1773. 
 
THE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 37 
 
 •were principally raised within a circuit of twenty miles 
 cf the metropolis. The extreme ciimculty of bringing 
 food from the interior, will be seen at once when it is 
 remembered that everything had to be carried on pack- 
 horses oyer roads so narrow that two could not go 
 abreast on one of them, and incredibly rough and 
 difficult.* A curious light is thrown upon the condi- 
 tion of the old English roads by the recorded fact 
 that during the civil war eight hundred horses were 
 captured while sticking in the mud. Only a century 
 ago, the cost of freight between London and Birming- 
 ham was £5 per ton, haying fallen less than £2 per ton 
 in a hundred years. At the same time, the rate between 
 London and Leeds was £13 per ton.-j* 
 
 The history of the great city on the Thames records a 
 long series of efrcris, dating back to the earliest time, 
 aimed at making bread cheap by legislation. We read, 
 for example, that in the year 1314 provisions of all 
 sorts were so excessively dear that Parliament imposed 
 a regular price apon every variety of flesh and fowl. But 
 instead of relieving the cBmculties of the citizens, this 
 measure increased, their distress ; for its immediate 
 effect was to cut off the supply of provisions altogether, 
 so that it was shortly afterward repealed. " Indeed," 
 says the historian, " although it is often wished for in 
 our time, it does not appear possible to limit the price 
 of provisions by any law or magistracy without doing 
 more harm than good." % It is instructive to notice the 
 extreme fluctuation in the cost of provisions in Lon- 
 
 * See Smiles' Lives of the Engineers, vol. L, p. 177. London, 1861. 
 t Affi&forycf Ireland Navigation, p. 73. London, 1769. 
 % Nosrthouck, p. 63. 
 
38 THE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 
 
 don. The price of wheat would frequently be twice 
 as great one winter as the next. In times of famine it 
 would rise to incredible figures. All this meant a hard 
 and doubtful fight for life on the part of the humbler 
 class of citizens. 
 
 But the sufferings of London from pestilence have 
 been even greater than those from famine. It took her 
 centuries to learn the simplest laws of health. Her 
 water supply used to be drawn from wells in the city, 
 which were, of course, defiled by impurities ; and even 
 when she introduced water- works, the water was pumped 
 up from the river by tide-wheels at London Bridge, 
 where it was anything but pure. There was no sewer- 
 age worthy of the name ; the streets were not paved 
 until the seventeenth century, and filth was allowed to 
 accumulate in them until, in many portions, they were 
 higher than the ground floor of the houses, from whose 
 lower rooms the drippings of the roadway were with 
 difficulty excluded.* Under such circumstances, it is 
 no wonder that the death-rate was always fearfully 
 heavy, and that epidemics of disease frequently pre- 
 vailed. 
 
 Small-pox was an inveterate enemy of the London 
 folk. It used to destroy, upon an average, one life out 
 of every seven. f There was also a dreadful sweating 
 sickness, as it was called, which visited London repeat- 
 
 * Erasmus gives a shocking- picture of the ordinary artisan's habi- 
 tation in his time. "They were filthy beyond description. The 
 floors were of loam strewed with rushes, which were constantly put 
 on fresh without the removal of the old, and intermixed with bones, 
 broken victuals, and dirt." Quoted by Loftie, History of London, 
 vol. i., p. 354. London, 1883. 
 
 t Noorthouck, p. 136, note. 
 
THE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 39 
 
 edly in the sixteenth century and destroyed thousands 
 of people. But the worst of all was that loathsome 
 and terrible disease called " the plague," which every 
 fey/ years stole upon the unfortunate city like some 
 savage monster creeping up out of the deep, and 
 snatched away thousands of her children. In the 
 seventeenth century London alone was afflicted by no 
 less than four visitations of this dread pestilence.* On 
 the first occasion, six thousand citizens perished ; on 
 the second, above thirty-five thousand victims were 
 swept away. There were eight deaths to one birth in 
 London that year. Only eleven years later ten thou- 
 sand more were carried off by some foe, and, in the 
 memorable year 1665, the great plague, like the horror 
 of a great darkness, settled down upon London and 
 smote the people until her crowded homes were empty, 
 her bustling streets and busy marts desolate, and the 
 number of the living seemed less than they that were 
 dead. "Most terrible stories of premature burial were 
 circulated. All business was suspended ; grass grew 
 in the streets ; no one went about; the rumbling wheels 
 of the cart and the cry, ' Bring out your dead,' alone 
 broke the stillness of the night. "f Although one-third 
 of the people with the king and court fied from the 
 doomed city, the deaths increased daily until they 
 reached the rate of fifteen hundred a day. Bills of 
 mortality recorded as many as 68,596 deaths from the 
 plague that year, but in the terror and confusion of the 
 darkest days no complete record could be kept, and 
 historians agree that these figures represent only a 
 fraction of the multitude swept away in the carnival of 
 
 * See Loftie, vol. i., p. 353. f Loftie, vol. i., p. 357. 
 
40 TEE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 
 
 death. In the following year came the great fire of 
 London, in whose fierce and fearful flames the town 
 was so purified that it suffered no more from the 
 plague during that century. 
 
 So great was the hindrance to the city's growth 
 caused by want and disease breaking out from time to 
 time in these violent forms, that up to the beginning 
 of the present century, it does not seem to have in- 
 creased, on the average, more than fifty per cent, each 
 century, or, at the exceedingly slow rate of one-half of 
 one per cent, a year. Yet even that rate appeared too 
 rapid. Queen Elizabeth issued two proclamations in 
 which the inhabitants of London were forbidden to 
 erect new buildings where none had existed before 
 within the memory of man. It was said that extension 
 of the metropolis would encourage the increase of the 
 plague ; would create trouble in governing such multi- 
 tudes ; would cause a dearth of victuals, a multiplying 
 of beggars and inability to relieve them, and an in- 
 crease of artisans more than could live together. 
 
 The decree further stated that lack of air and room 
 to walk or shoot arose out of too crowded a city. 
 James I. issued several proclamations to the same in- 
 tent. " We do well perceive," says he, " in Our Princely 
 wisdom and prudence, now that Our Citie of London 
 is become the greatest, or next the greatest Citie of the 
 Christian World, it is more than time that there bee an 
 utter cessation of further rfew Building." One among 
 the stained and yellow documents which bear this 
 monarch's name is of special interest in this connection. 
 It is that in which " On account of the present scarcity 
 and dearth, and of the high prices of corn and grain," 
 he commands all lords (spiritual and temporal), knights, 
 
THE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 41 
 
 and gentlemen of quality who are staying in or near 
 the city of London to return at once to their country 
 seats. He also commands the magistrates to compel 
 all farmers to bring forth what grain they have in store 
 and to sell the same at reasonable prices. Charles I., 
 by repeated proclamations, forbade any building of any 
 sort whatever on new foundations within three miles 
 of any of the gates of London or of the palace at "West- 
 minster. He also prohibited the subdivision of any 
 building into tenements, more than at present or for 
 thirty years past, and the receiving of more families 
 than one into a single tenement. A similar proclama- 
 tion was issued to prevent new building and overcrowd- 
 ing in Edinburgh. Cromwell issued proclamations to 
 the same intent ; and, after the restoration, we find 
 Charles II. repeating, in similar terms, the prohibition 
 of his father and grandfather and. giving the same 
 reasons therefor.* 
 
 Thus it appears that the London of the past has been 
 quite as monstrous, quite as unmanageable, quite as 
 full of the poor, the sickly, and the starving, as the 
 London of the present, and when her actual population 
 was not one-tenth of what it is, she was overcrowded 
 even more than now. Had we time to examine the 
 history of the people of Paris, Vienna, or Edinburgh, 
 or any other of the older important cities of Europe, we 
 should see the same thing. Until recent times, their 
 increase has been continually checked and prevented 
 by the battle with hunger and the ravages of disease as 
 well as by arbitrary enactments. 
 
 * These proclamations are still preserved in tlie Library of the 
 British Museum. 
 
42 TEE OROWTE OF MODERN CITIES. 
 
 During the latter part of the eighteenth century, a 
 new day in the world's history began to dawn, — the era 
 of what has been termed "modern civilization." It 
 was then that men first commenced in any considerable 
 degree to reinforce themselves by "borrowing the 
 might of the elements." The steam-engine had been 
 partially invented for a century or more, but had been 
 used only for pumping and as a scientific toy. James 
 Watt made it of practical value and set it to work. In 
 1788 it was for the first time successfully harnessed to 
 the wheels of a mill.* Close upon this, f oho wed that 
 long series of mechanical inventions which have made 
 steam power serviceable in such an infinite variety of 
 ways, revolutionizing the whole system of human in- 
 dustry. In the discovery of the steam-engine, the ■ 
 mother of machines, may be found the central reason 
 for the growth of our nineteenth-century cities. 
 
 This resulted, in the first place, from the increment 
 that the steam-engine brought to the world's wealth. 
 Work is the source of wealth. All work had hitherto 
 been done and all wealth won by tedious process of 
 manual labor; but here was a contrivance for convert- 
 ing heat into work. There was heat enough to be had; 
 stored up in latent form, the bowels of the earth were 
 black with it. The great invention, therefore, changing 
 in magical fashion the cheap and grimy product of the 
 mines into work and into wealth, was like a veritable 
 philosopher's stone dropped down into the midst of the 
 nations. What the fathers had gained slowly with 
 hard toil and sweat of the face, the sons gained swiftly 
 
 * Albion Mill in London. See Smiles' Lives of Vie Engineers, vol. ii. 
 
THE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 43 
 
 by the aid of steam, fierce furnaces bearing the heat, 
 and sinews of steel, the burden of the day. 
 
 It is difficult to realize how rapidly the world has 
 been growing rich during the present century. Mr. 
 Gladstone estimates that the amount of wealth which 
 could be handed down to posterity, produced during 
 the first eighteen hundred years of the Christian era, 
 was equalled by the production of the first fifty years 
 of this century, and that an equal amount was produced 
 in the twenty-five years from 1850 to 1875.* No doubt 
 as much more has been produced since 1875, if, as he 
 further estimates, the manufacturing power of the 
 world is doubled by the aid of machinery every seven 
 years. Mr. Mulhall, by carefully arranged statistics, 
 has not only shown that the Queen's subjects are worth 
 on the average some $335 apiece more than they were 
 thirty years ago, and, excluding Ireland, nearly twice 
 as much as they were in Queen Anne's time, due allow- 
 ance being made for the difference in the purchasing 
 power of money, — but he has also exhibited the fact, 
 that as England's wealth has increased, its distribution 
 among the people has become more general.^ As for 
 our own country, the last census informs us that be- 
 tween 1860 and 1880, the wealth of the United States 
 increased three times as fast as its population, notwith- 
 standing the waste of the war and the extinguishment 
 of vast property by the liberation of the slaves. 
 
 The immediate result of such increase of wealth has 
 been an extremely rapid growth of the world's £opula- 
 
 * Quoted iD Our Country, p. 115. 
 
 f Paper on The Increase of the National Wealth since the Time of 
 the Stuarts, read at tbe British Association, September 24, 1883. 
 
44 THE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 
 
 tion. Within a lifetime, the inhabitants of the civilized 
 world have doubled in number, and the number of 
 those who speak the English language has quadrupled. 
 
 After the Norman Conquest it took England six hun- 
 dred years to add three millions to her population. She 
 has done more than that within the last ten years. That 
 this great and sudden growth has been caused by the 
 general increase of the world's wealth may be seen 
 from the fact that it is due, not so much to an increase 
 of the birth-rate, as to a decrease of the death-rate 
 among civilised peoples. The average span of a human 
 life in England, Germany, and France is now six years 
 longer than it was when Victoria ascended the throne, 
 and is still increasing.* Men are healthier and live 
 longer, because they are able to afford more and better 
 food; more and better clothing; better homes, and 
 superior sanitary and domestic arrangements. 
 
 A secondary result of the increase in the world's 
 wealth has been an increase in the size of the cities. 
 The greater supply of wealth means not only more 
 people, but more rich people ; people, a greater propor- 
 tion of whom can afford to pay the high rents, and buy 
 the costly provisions of the towns. The increase of 
 wealth caused by machinery thus builds up cities in 
 two ways at once : it increases the whole number of in- 
 habitants in the land, and, at the same time, the pro- 
 portion of those inhabitants who can afford a town 
 residence. 
 
 Increased wealth has increased the safety and salu- 
 briousness of the cities, thus making them more desir- 
 able places of residence. Drains, sewers, water-works, 
 
 * Michael G. Mulhall, Progress of the World, p. 6. London, 1880. 
 
THE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 45 
 
 street-cleaning and other sanitary arrangements, have 
 worked wonders in our towns during the last few dec- 
 ades. The death-rate is continually falling. The plague 
 of the middle ages is known no more; even the cholera, 
 which was so destructive twenty and thirty years ago, 
 does not easily get a foothold of late. But all these 
 sanitary arrangements are exceedingly costly, and are 
 only possible where there is great wealth. 
 
 The charities which the wealth of modern times sus- 
 tains have also an important social influence. Nature 
 provides for the disadvantages that the poor suffer in 
 comparison with the well-to-do, in the struggle for ex- 
 istence, in her wonted way, viz. : by giving to the poor 
 a larger number of children in view of the probability 
 that a greater proportion of those children will succumb 
 to disease and privation before reaching maturity;* 
 but as a city grows in wealth, and its donations for 
 charitable purposes increase, increasing numbers of 
 those who would otherwise perish in early life are 
 rescued from the clutches of want and sickness. The 
 free hospitals, infirmaries, homes for destitute children, 
 etc., with their superior medical service, care and nurs- 
 ing must have vast influence in diminishing the power 
 of poverty and disease to check the natural increase of 
 population. It is estimated that £4,000,G00 is given 
 away in London every year, the greater part of which 
 is expended for benevolent purposes within its limits, 
 and that the charitable work of the hospitals alone in- 
 volves an annua] expenditure of above £500,000. Such 
 
 * Between 1870 and 1880 the birth-rate in the prosperous district 
 of Hampstead, London, was twenty-four per thousand annually, 
 whereas, in the miserable district of White Chapel it was thirty-six 
 per thousand, or fifty per cent, greater. 
 
46 THE GBOWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 
 
 institutions unquestionably save multitudes of lives, and 
 their work goes far toward explaining the fact that 
 eighty-one per cent, of the annual increase of that city 
 is due to the excess of its birth-rate over its death-rate, 
 while the influx from the rural districts, from other 
 towns and from foreign lands, altogether amounts to 
 less than nineteen per cent, of the whole increase. 
 
 By another most important agency has the steam- 
 engine promoted the growth of cities: that is the rail- 
 road. The country lad no longer comes trudging into 
 town dusty and footsore, with a bundle on his back, 
 a few shillings in his pocket, and the alternative be- 
 fore him of finding a place or starving. The farmer's 
 boy who goes into the city seeking a situation at present 
 runs no risk. If he fails to find it, he can easily take 
 the next train for home, and try again some other day. 
 Thus the iron roacl enables the town to make its at- 
 tractiveness far more widely felt than formerly. It also 
 greatly increases the convenience of getting about from 
 suburb to centre, and from one part of town to another. 
 Men can live at greater distances from their business, 
 and the cities can hold more inhabitants with less 
 crowding. But the greatest service that the railways 
 render to the cities is that of facilitating the arrange- 
 ments by which they are fed. Two hundred years ago, 
 London, like a frugal household of the olden time, used 
 to lay up a supply of food in autumn sufficient for the 
 whole winter's needs, the greater part of which came 
 from the immediate neighborhood. Now it is said that 
 she never has more than a week's supply on hand, and 
 that a fortnight's siege would bring her to starvation. 
 Then, the cost of food was great and irregular, the sup- 
 ply uncertain, periods of dearth frequent, and famines 
 
THE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 47 
 
 occasional. Now, the price of provisions is uniform, is 
 much less than then, the supply is regular, and famine 
 impossible. Forty years ago, Mr. Porter, the best 
 economist in England, said: " Great Britain can never 
 obtain the bulk of her food supply from abroad, as all 
 the shipping in the world, say 6,600,000 tons, would be 
 insufficient to carry food for her population." To-day, 
 Great Britain imports more than half her food, and 
 employs in doing so ships whose tonnage exceeds that 
 of the world's shipping when Mr. Porter wrote.* Forty 
 years ago the price of grain in Western Prussia was 
 double that which ruled in Eastern Prussia. Forty 
 years ago the cost of wheat was 150 per cent, higher, in 
 England than in Hungary; the present difference in 
 price is only 23 per cent. In half a century the price 
 of wheat has fallen thirty-five per cent, in England, 
 and the consumption has risen, per inhabitant, thirty- 
 two per cent.f The significance of such changes will 
 be seen when it is remembered that the death-rate, as 
 shown by Doctor Farr, of the Statistical Society, rises 
 and falls in England with the price of bread. In the 
 opinion of experts, railroads have also operated very 
 powerfully in favor of the great towns at the expense 
 of the small ones, especially in the United States, by 
 the discrimination in freight rates against the latter. 
 The charges for shipping goods from a little town have 
 frequently been twice as great as from a city, where 
 two or more lines compete for the traffic. This, of 
 course, makes it difficult for manufacturers and traders 
 to locate in a small community. 
 
 *Mulhall, pp. 133 and 134. 
 
 t Andrew Carnegie states that one dollar -will ship as much freight 
 across the Atlantic to-day as thirty-five dollars twenty years ago. 
 
48 THE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 
 
 The steani-engine and the wealth produced by it and 
 by machinery have contributed to the growth of cities 
 in another way : they have increased the demand for 
 such products as come from the towns, and have, there- 
 fore, multiplied the opportunities of earning a liveli- 
 hood within them. There is a principle well known to 
 economists called " Engel's Law," the essence of which 
 is this : As the income increases, the relative percent- 
 age of outlay for food, the great product of the coun- 
 try, diminishes, while the relative percentage of outlay 
 for sundries, — that is, the various manufactured articles 
 or products of the town, — becomes greater. As men grow 
 richer, a larger part of their wants must be supplied by 
 labor in the factories, and a smaller proportion by labor 
 in the fields; therefore, the richer the world, the greater 
 will naturally be the proportion of its people who work 
 within brick walls and walk on crowded pavements. 
 
 Again; under the new conditions consequent upon 
 the introduction of the steam-engine the volume of the 
 world's trade has marvelously increased. "With vastly 
 more wealth to be expended and invested than formerly, 
 with an infinite quantity and variety of articles to be 
 bought and sold, many of which had never been heard 
 of fifty years ago, with rapid transit and cheap freight 
 so that the remotest parts can send their products to 
 market for exchange, with multitudes of new facilities 
 for the conduct of trade, better methods of banking, 
 telegraphic communication, mails, expresses, etc., the 
 nineteenth century has witnessed a revolution of com- 
 merce second only to that of manufacture, and one that 
 has been almost equally powerful in its tendency to 
 build up the cities. The city has always been the home 
 of trade, the place of shops and shoppers, of markets and 
 
THE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 49 
 
 merchandise, so that under any circumstances the 
 growth of a nation's trade would involve a correspond- 
 ing increase of its towns ; but this has been peculiarly 
 the case in recent years, because the growth of trade 
 has been accompanied by constant improvements in the 
 facilities for intercommunication. The city -shops serve 
 a wider circle of country customers every day. You 
 can live in Texas in these times and do your shopping 
 in New York. 
 
 There is still another cause for the enormous develop- 
 ment of the cities which is of great importance, namely : 
 the change in methods of agricultural work. This 
 reason is not so immediately connected with the steam- 
 engine, although it is the outcome of that series of in- 
 ventions to which the discovery of the steam-engine 
 gave the first impulse. With each successive year, a 
 smaller and smaller proportion of the world's workers 
 are required to produce the world's food. What ten 
 men used to do with difficulty, one man now does with 
 ease through the aid of machinery. "It is a fact, esti- 
 mated by careful men thoroughly conversant with the 
 changes that have taken place, that by the improvement 
 made in agricultural tools the average farmer can, with 
 sufficient horse-power, do with three men the work of 
 fourteen men forty years ago, and do it better." * This 
 fact has a twofold influence in increasing the urban 
 population: it pulls and it pushes at once; it expels men 
 from the country, it attracts them to the towns. 
 
 A farmer buys such improved machines as enable 
 him to dispense with the services, say, of Wo laborers. 
 
 * Report of Special Agent on Agricultural Implements, Tenth Cen- 
 sus U. #., vol. ii., p. 700. 
 
 4 
 
50 THE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 
 
 His farm yields as large crops as ever, but two farm- 
 hands less are required to do the work These two 
 men, being thrust out of employment by the machine, 
 are compelled to seek it elsewhere; and by this number 
 with their families, the region of the farm is depop- 
 ulated. Meanwhile, the amount which the farmer 
 formerly expended for the wages of the dismissed 
 laborers is added to his income, but he does not keep 
 much of this money. A part of it goes in payment for 
 the new machines, and a part of it for the purchase of 
 such luxuries as could not be afforded before, — better 
 clothing, furniture, books, etc., — all of which come from 
 the cities, and consequently involve additional labor for 
 city manufacturers and traders. Thus while the result 
 of the new machine is to diminish the demand for la- 
 bor in the country, it increases the demand for labor in 
 town; and the men thrown out of work on the farm, 
 will naturally find it in shop or factory. The propor- 
 tion of laborers in the United States who are en- 
 gaged in agriculture as compared with the proportion 
 of laborers engaged in manufacture and other occu- 
 pations shows a remarkable diminution between 1870 
 and 1880.* Says Mr. Alfred Simmons, Secretary of the 
 Kent and Sussex Laborer's Union: "lam personally 
 acquainted with many parishes, the land on which for- 
 merly provided regular employment for from two hun- 
 dred to three hundred laborers, but on which there are 
 now employed not one-half the original number, and 
 many of those so employed only casually engaged. In 
 every department of agriculture, the machine has taken 
 the best paid for agricultural work from the laborer, "f 
 
 * Tenth Census U. &, vol. L, p. 703. 
 
 t Pamphlet entitled State Emigration ; a reply to Lord Derby. Pub- 
 
THE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 51 
 
 " One farmer, like Dr. Glyn, of California, or Mr. Dal- 
 rymple, of Dakota, with a field of wheat covering a 
 hundred square miles, can raise as much grain with four 
 hundred farm servants as five thousand peasant proprie- 
 tors in France." * 
 
 " The plowshare may be silver, but the spade is gold," 
 say the Italians. Modern agriculturists have proved 
 the saying false. Not only do the machines do more 
 work than the hand-tools, but they do it better. In the 
 days of Queen Anne, the wheat-fields of England used 
 to yield fifteen bushels to the acre. The little peasant 
 farms of France and Germany yield about the same 
 amount now.f To-day, with large fields and improved 
 agricultural methods, the average yield for the United 
 Kingdoms is thirty-six bushels per acre. J 
 
 With each successive year the production of a barrel 
 of flour, a bushel of corn or potatoes, or a round of 
 beef, requires less labor. 
 
 With each successive year a smaller part of the 
 world's ever-increasing army of workers can be em- 
 ployed in the ordinary pursuits of agriculture. But 
 the law of life, " in the sweat of thy face shalt thou 
 eat bread," has lost none of the rigor of its enforce- 
 ment. Men toil as long and hard for daily bread in 
 
 lished by the National Society for Promoting State-directed Emigra- 
 tion and Colonization. 
 
 * See Mulhall's Progress of the World, pp. 23 and 24. 
 
 + Lady Verney, "Foreign Opinions on Peasant Properties." Nine- 
 teenth Century, Nov., 1885, p. 796. 
 
 % In France and Germany, where the old methods of hand-labor 
 largely prevail, each male person employed produces on an average, 
 respectively, only 220 and 245 bushels of wheat each year. In Eng- 
 land, where the modern methods prevail, the average product of 
 every person is 540 bushels. In the United States it is &20 bushels. 
 
52 THE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 
 
 this year of grace as they did before mowing, reaping, 
 and threshing-machines appeared ; but the bulk of the 
 work has been changed from field to factory and the 
 majority of the workers have followed it. 
 
 Such reasons as these afford abundant explanation 
 for the phenomenal increase of urban populations in 
 modem times. Civilization has promoted the growth 
 of the great towns by augmenting their natural attract- 
 iveness, the facilities for reaching them and the oppor- 
 tunities of earning a livelihood with them, and., at the 
 same time, by decreasing the obstacles and broadening 
 the natural limits to their growth. It has brought to 
 them an unlimited supply of cheap food, greater wealth 
 to meet the costliness of city residence, and to over- 
 come by proper sanitary arrangements the unhealthful- 
 ness of their crowded life. And, finally, it has been 
 continually changing the balance of the demand for 
 work and workers, from the country to the town. 
 
 So long as such causes as these prevail, the cities of 
 Christendom will continue rolling themselves up to ever 
 vaster size ; but these causes as yet show no diminution 
 in their influence ; nor, so far as one may judge, are 
 they likely to do so for generations to come.* The 
 present may be the age of great cities, but the future 
 is the age of greater. This must especially be the case 
 with the United States. The youngest of the nations 
 has already more large cities than any except Great 
 Britain and Germany. Though still in their infancy, 
 
 * If it could be shown that poverty and crime were increasing 
 more rapidly than population in the larger cities, there would be an 
 indication that they were approaching the limit of possible growth 
 under the present conditions of civilization. As a matter of fact, 
 however, official returns for England, Scotland, and Germany show 
 an opposite tendency. 
 
THE GROWTH OF MODERN CITIES. 53 
 
 our principal towns surpass in size and in the tumult 
 of their life, many of the older and nourishing capitals 
 of Europe. "With the country growing in population 
 at a rate unprecedented in the annals of all times and 
 the towns growing twice as fast; with what seems 
 a certainty of having as many inhabitants within one 
 hundred years as all Europe has at present; with every 
 probability that the people of the twentieth century 
 will centralize themselves even more than those of the 
 nineteenth, the United States may fairly expect to pos- 
 sess cities whose greatness cannot be equalled by any- 
 thing that the world has yet seen. 
 
 All efforts to arrest the progress of the cities and to 
 check the population that continually flows into them, 
 must be fruitless. The great social movements of the 
 age cannot be stopped. Each successive year is certain 
 to see a smaller place for the workers of the world in 
 the fields and on the farms and a larger place in shops, 
 counting-rooms, offices, banks, manufactories, and the 
 myriad industries that make their home in the metrop- 
 olis. Let it not be assumed that great cities are of 
 necessity, what Thomas Jefferson called them : " Great 
 sores upon the body ploitic." Nothing is evil that is in 
 the best sense natural, and the formation of great cities is 
 a normal result of a high development of human society. 
 They are found among the purest and most advanced 
 of nations ; they come in the most enlightened times ; 
 the evil of them is not in their size, but in the avarice, 
 luxury, oppression, and vice that haunt them. 
 
 The wisest efforts of philanthropy will not be spent 
 in the vain effort to prevent the incoming of men to 
 them, but in the effort to make them better places for 
 human habitation; not in checking their growth, but 
 in quenching their iniquity. 
 
CHAPTEE n. 
 
 THE SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF AMERICAN CITIES. 
 
 Few thoughtful men can look attentively upon the 
 tumultuous life of a great town, traverse the monot- 
 onous miles of its extensive suburbs, or mingle in the 
 human tides that flow forever up and down its thor- 
 oughfares, without the repeated question: Who are all 
 these people ? whence came they ? how do they live ? 
 
 The inhabitants of cities may be classified by their 
 occupation. Most men have something to do; notwith- 
 standing a prevailing impression to the contrary, the 
 census returns show that the number of able-bodied 
 male adults who have no regular profession, occupa- 
 tion, or calling, is exceedingly small. In all England and 
 "Wales it amounts to but 186,000, and in our own land 
 it must be much less, seeing that we have no profes- 
 sional gentry. 
 
 Cities have three kinds of work : production, distri- 
 bution, service. There are, therefore, three sorts of 
 workers: those employed in making goods, those em- 
 ployed in selling and distributing goods, and those who 
 tender to others their professional or personal services.* 
 
 The work of production is the great business of 
 cities, a business which employs more workers than 
 either distribution or service, and often more than both 
 
 * The data for the following discussion are found in the Tenth 
 Census of the United States, vol. i., pp. 700-900. 
 (54) 
 
SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF AMERICAN CITIES. 55 
 
 combined. This is especially true in the United States. 
 We have risen, within the past twenty years, to the 
 first place among the manufacturing nations of the 
 world and manufacture has been the life of our towns. 
 Our trade, vast as its volume is, has done less to swell 
 the cities than the manufactures that centre in them. 
 "I conceive," says Francis A. Walker, "that no one 
 will hesitate to assent to the proposition that the growth 
 of the cities of the United States since 1850, has been 
 due in far greater measure to their development as 
 manufacturing centres than to their increased business 
 as centres for the distribution of commercial products." * 
 Even in the great trade cities, such as New York, 
 Boston, anel Chicago, there are more persons engaged 
 in making goods than in selling them f In the fifty 
 chief cities the ratio of producers to distributors is that 
 of 13 to 7, a very great proportion, then, — and often 
 the majority of those who people the long lines of 
 houses, who throng the streets, who consume the stores 
 of provisions, who make the money and spend the 
 money, who swell the census tables, and, in a word, 
 constitute the population of the ordinary American 
 city, get their living by some sort of manufacture or 
 mechanical work. 
 
 A few of those thus employed are manufacturers and 
 officials and clerks of manufacturing companies ; a few 
 are master mechanics, contractors, and other employers 
 of labor; but at least nine-tenths are artisans. These 
 artisans are nearly all dependent for work and for 
 
 * Kemarks on the Statistics of Manufacture. Tenth Census of the 
 United States, vol. ii., pp. xv. and xvi. 
 t Kansas City is the only exception noticed. 
 
56 SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF AMERICAN CITIES. 
 
 wages upon employers and belong to what is called 
 "the working-class." The independent mechanic who 
 works by himself at his home or in a small shop with 
 one or two apprentices as assistants, is rarely to be found 
 in our modern towns. " Of the nearly 3,000,000 people 
 employed in the mechanical industries in this country," 
 says Mr. Carroll T>. Wright, the best of authorities, " at 
 least four-fifths are working under the factory system." * 
 Among the rest, most of whom, from the nature of their 
 occupation, cannot be working in factories, such as 
 carpenters, plumbers, painters, paper-hangers, and 
 masons, the majority are working for day wages under 
 the employ of large builders and contractors. 
 
 In production of every sort, two tendencies are note- 
 worthy. The first is, the incessant substitution of un- 
 skilled labor for skilled through the aid of machinery. 
 So ingenious are the contrivances of modem mechanics 
 that children and untaught persons take the places and 
 do the work of those who have learned their craft by 
 long apprenticeship. The quantity of brain- work requi- 
 site in the ordinary mechanic is daily diminishing; so 
 is the quantity of sheer physical strength. Mere deft- 
 ness of hand or nimbleness of fingers is the only quality 
 now necessary for the production of many an article 
 which once cost skill and patience of the highest qual- 
 ity, as well as muscle. This means that the common 
 artisan of the machinery age takes less and less thought- 
 ful interest in his work and requires less and less intel- 
 ligence and strength as improvements in machines and 
 engines continue. 
 
 * Special report on "Factories and the Factory System." Tenth 
 Census of the United States, vol. ii., p. 548. 
 
SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF AMEBICAN CITIES. 57 
 
 Another notable tendency of modern industry is 
 toward the concentration of manufacture in large estab- 
 lishments. A large concern has every advantage over a 
 small one: more capital, more independence, better 
 machines, less waste, better facilities for buying and 
 selling. The two cannot compete on equal terms. The 
 small establishments must either devote themselves to 
 some specialty where they have the field to themselves, 
 must consolidate, or must entirely break up. In Massa- 
 chusetts, for example, the annual industrial products 
 are three and one-half times greater than they were 
 thirty-five years ago, and those employed in their pro- 
 duction twice as many; yet the number of manufacturing 
 establishments has increased only sixty-eight per cent, 
 since 1850. This means larger establishments and less 
 of them, fewer employers and more employes; this means 
 that with every year more men are working for wages 
 and less men are engaged in enterprises of their own. 
 So long as industrial tendencies continue as they are, fac- 
 tory-people and wage-working artisans, in whose work 
 there is so little to stimulate either intellectual or physical 
 development, must compose a large and a somewhat in- 
 creasing proportion of the inhabitants of all cities. 
 
 The second great branch of industry is that of distri- 
 bution. Under this head are included all bankers, brok- 
 ers, insurance agents, merchants, and dealers of every 
 sort, as well as the army of salesmen, clerks, accountants, 
 packers, and porters employed by them; and, at the same 
 time, all those connected with railways, street-cars, ex- 
 press lines, cabs, drays, freight and shipping offices. 
 
 Though not so numerous as those engaged in manu- 
 facture and mechanical industries, this class composes 
 a large and very important portion of urban society. 
 
58 SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF AMERICAN CITIES. 
 
 To it belongs the great bulk of the wealth, and a large 
 share of the power and influence. Merchant princes 
 and railroad kings may be few, but merchants of inde- 
 pendent position and comfortable income are numerous; 
 and still more numerous are the small dealers and the 
 clerks, agents, and salesmen of various sorts who live 
 on respectable salaries. These are the people that 
 swell the ranks of what in England are called the 
 " middle classes," that crowd the shops and fill the bet- 
 ter streets, that attend the churches, concerts, and re- 
 spectable theatres. They are, withal, so much the most 
 conspicuous part of the city's pojDulation that they ap- 
 pear to constitute a larger portion of the whole than 
 they do in reality. Yet the number of worMngmen 
 employed in distribution, especially in connection with 
 railroads and transportation, is at the same time very 
 considerable, so that in this branch of industry as well 
 as that of production, a greater part of those engaged 
 are in humble circumstances. 
 
 The third class of occupations comprises all that 
 make it their business to contribute any kind of pro- 
 fessional or personal service to other men. A very wide 
 range of employments is included under this head. 
 Commencing with the so-called " professional classes," — 
 lawyers, clergymen, physicians, journalists, teachers, 
 and Government officers — the list is extended through 
 hotel-keepers, keepers of stables, laundries, barber- 
 shops, and boarding-houses, and finally, includes do- 
 mestic servants and simple unspecified day-laborers. 
 This class, if not so numerous as either of the other 
 two, is by no means a small one.* It is made up for 
 
 * In order to make a fair comparison, one must compare the males 
 of each class. 
 
SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF AMERICAN CITIES. 59 
 
 the most part, though, perhaps not so largely as the 
 manufacturers, of those who work with the hands for 
 daily wages. Some who hold the highest and most in- 
 fluential positions are, indeed, included here, but such 
 persons compose a very slight numerical portion of the 
 whole.* 
 
 This hasty glance at the occupations of the people 
 makes it evident that in all three branches of industry 
 the workers are divided into two classes, according as 
 the chief element in their work is that of brain or 
 muscle. Workers of the one class are engaged in " bus- 
 iness," those of the other in "labor." The rewards of 
 the first are " profits," " fees," or " salaries." Those of 
 the second are " wages." People of the first class are 
 never, except by blustering anarchists, called "idle 
 men," but those of the second are generally distin- 
 guished by the noble title, " workingmen," a desig- 
 nation which, much as we disapprove of it when so 
 employed, we cannot well avoid the use of. The in- 
 come of the first class is much greater, their style of 
 living better, their homes more comfortable, and their 
 food more wholesome and abundant ; they have better 
 opportunities for the improvement of the mind and the 
 culture of the taste, and are, consequently, as a class, 
 more thoughtful, intelligent, and better informed. The 
 boundary line between workingmen and others is not 
 sharply drawn ; some who work for wages are far 
 
 * Under this head, for instance, the census shows that there are 
 in New York for 800 journalists, 3,700 barbers ; less than S00 
 clergymen, more than 9,000 lauuderers and laundresses; 2,600 phy- 
 sicians and surgeons, more than 12,000 hotel and restaurant em- 
 ployes ; 3,000 lawyers, 35,000 laborers ; less than 5,000 teachers, 
 more than 55,000 domestic servants. 
 
60 SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF AMEBICAN CITIES. 
 
 superior in intelligence and social standing to the aver- 
 age of those who work for salaries. Nevertheless, the 
 term " workingman " conveys a distinct notion of that 
 great portion of society that bears the physical burdens 
 and performs the bone-and-muscle labor, that carries 
 the heaviest loads and receives the smallest rewards. 
 
 It is also evident that the great bulk of the popu- 
 lation in ordinary cities must be composed of the 
 working-class, since they comprise not less than four- 
 fifths of those engaged in productive industries, one- 
 third of those engaged in distribution and three-fourths 
 of those engaged in service. The proportion of work- 
 ingmen to others in a given town, would, of course, 
 depend greatly upon the character of its leading in- 
 dustries. You would expect to find a much larger per- 
 centage of wage- workers in a city of great mills, like 
 Paterson, N. J., or Lowell, Mass., than in a city of trade 
 like Kansas City, Mo., or of State institutions, like 
 Columbus, Ohio. The ratio of workingmen to the whole 
 population has been variously estimated. Some think 
 that only about one-third of the people in ordinary 
 j cities belong to that class. Others have estimated the 
 proportion to be as great as four-fifths. It is my own 
 impression that in the larger cities, at least, working- 
 people rarely, if ever, compose less than one-half or 
 more than three-fourths of the entire population. A 
 fair average for American towns would perhaps be 
 sixty per cent.* 
 
 It has always been difficult for well-to-do people of 
 the upper and middle classes to sympathize with and 
 
 * See discussion of the subject iu the work of Mr. John Rae, on 
 Contemporary Socialism, pp. 348 and 349, London, 1884. 
 
SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF AMERICAN CITIES. 61 
 
 to understand the needs of their poorer neighbors. It 
 has been equally difficult for the workingnien to ap- 
 preciate the position of those above them. Each class 
 is painfully conscious of the other's faults. Both are 
 blind to their own. The changes that modern times 
 have brought, do not lessen the difficulty. The devel- 
 opment of mechanical invention has cheapened muscle- 
 work in comparison with brain-work. The income of 
 those engaged in the professions and in commercial 
 life has consequently increased much more rapidly than 
 that of the wage-workers. The contrast between the 
 condition of the two classes i3 every day becoming 
 greater and harder for the workingman to bear. Of 
 all the vast increase of wealth that the latter-day civil- 
 ization has brought, he thinks that his share has been 
 pitifully small. He has a feeling that he has been used 
 unfairly, has been cheated out of hard earnings — a 
 vague impression that the upper ranks of society have 
 joined in some conspiracy against him and his toiling 
 brotherhood. The city's beautiful homes, splendid 
 with costly furniture ; the prancing horses and spark- 
 ling carriages ; the silks and seal-skins and the bright 
 and dainty dresses of rich children, seem to him to 
 have been niched from his own poor fireside and from 
 his shabby little ones. It is hard to approach a man 
 when he has a feeling that you and your class have 
 wronged him. 
 
 Civilization, in its onward march, has broadened the 
 breach between rich and poor in another way, and that 
 is by removing their homes from one another. The 
 price of bread may fall, the price of clothing may fall, 
 even the cost of meat may not increase so greatly ; 
 wages too may fall, but house-rent, never. Its course 
 
62 SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF AMEBIC AN CITIES. 
 
 is onward and upward. Mr. J. E. Tliorold Bogers, a 
 high authority, makes the statement that the value of 
 land in England during the last four centuries has in- 
 creased more than a thousand-fold on ground rents.* 
 This rapid rise in rent has affected the poor and the 
 well-to-do quite differently. The business man of 
 moderate income finds the cost of the town house too 
 great for him ; but a few miles out from the centre of 
 the city is another house, just as comfortable, and in 
 some respects more so, which is within his means. So 
 he lives outside the town and works within it, con- 
 venient trains carrying him to and fro every day. But 
 it is not so with the workingman. When city rents 
 become high he cannot follow his more fortunate 
 neighbor to the suburbs. The expense of the daily 
 railway ride would be a severe tax on his slender 
 income, for one thing ; experiments in England have 
 also shown that the jar of the cars is peculiarly irying 
 to those who are wearied by physical toil ; but the 
 main reason is that the length of his day's work makes 
 it inconvenient to reside far away from his place of 
 employment. In winter, a workingman who lives in 
 the suburbs, must start for the town long before 
 light in the morning and must take breakfast before 
 that. He does not return to home and supper until 
 long after dark at night. A hot dinner at some public 
 house is a luxury that few can afford, and the cold din- 
 ner from the lunch-basket is hardly enough to sustain 
 one through the long and toilsome hours from the 
 hasty meal of early morning until the supper late at 
 night. It is, moreover, undoubtedly true that the subtle 
 
 * Contemporary Socialism, Contemporary Beview, Jan., 1885, p. 57. 
 
SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF AMERICAN CITIES. 63 
 
 attraction of the town's stirring life is peculiarly fas- 
 cinating to working-people. Who does not know the 
 difficulty of persuading domestic servants to take sit- 
 uations even a few miles out from the city? Many 
 efforts have been made to induce the working-classes 
 to exchange their crowded quarters in the towns for 
 the more spacious suburbs ; but they have been usually 
 attended with small success, the men preferring to put 
 up with great inconvenience rather than move far away 
 from their work. If, then, the rent of a house is more 
 than one can afford, half a house must content him ; 
 or if half a house is too dear, a quarter must suffice ; 
 or if a quarter is still beyond his means, it must 
 be a sixth or an eighth. Out of 114,759 families 
 in Glasgow, 40,820 are living in one room each and 
 47,029 in two rooms each ; that is, seventy-eight fam- 
 ilies out of every hundred have only one or two rooms 
 for their home. Less than one family in ten enjoys so 
 many as four rooms.* There are, on the average, six- 
 teen souls to every dwelling-house in New York City.f 
 It is said that there are only about forty thousand old- 
 fashioned "householders," that is, heads of families, 
 who occupy a whole house by themselves in New 
 York City. Most of the people live in " apartments." 
 
 Thus while the cities, spurred on by the spirit of the 
 nineteenth century, grow and wax mightily, extending 
 their borders on every side, the various elements of 
 their society become with every year more widely 
 separated from one another. The rich live beside the 
 beautiful parks and along the broad and handsome 
 
 * Census of Scotland, 1881, vol. i., p. 313. 
 t Tenth Census IT. S., vol. i., p. 670. 
 
64 SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF AMERICAN CITIES. 
 
 avenues of " West End," or in some fashionable suburb 
 amid velvet lawns and stately trees, from -\vliich they 
 are at great pains to exclude omnibus and street-car 
 lines, that none may come to live along with them save 
 members of the select circle of carriage-keeping folk. 
 Such of the middle class as live in town have their 
 special quarters — long lines of street where the houses 
 are smaller, rents lower, and the atmosphere less fash- 
 ionable ; but the more distant suburbs, with a railway 
 ride between them and the town, are getting to be the 
 characteristic residences of the middle class. All about 
 our chief cities, within distances of from five to fifteen 
 miles, you will see sprightly little villages springing up, 
 the houses new and neat, each in the centre of its 
 patch of green, from which ranks of well-dressed men, 
 armed with newspapers, go out at a comfortable hour 
 in the morning to return at a comfortable hour at 
 night. Such places have no troops of laborers march- 
 ing forth at daybreak with their dinner-pails, no fac- 
 tory-girls, no drinking-saloons, no disorderly people 
 about the streets by night, no paupers. All is peaceful 
 and quiet and charming. The schools are of the best ; 
 the children may attend them safely, they need not 
 mingle there with the rough and uncouth offspring of 
 the poor. The churches flourish greatly ; every pew is 
 rented. 
 
 As for the workingmen and the poor, they are hud- 
 dled together in ugly, dingy, ill-built dwellings about 
 the docks and factories; they crowd some of the near- 
 est suburbs, dreary and disagreeable to pass through, 
 and they fill to overflowing the cramped tenements of 
 certain unsightly and unsavory regions in some " North 
 End " or " East End," where no one ever goes except 
 
SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF AMERICAN CITIES. 65 
 
 landlords' agents, priests, and police. Between these 
 poor districts and those where the richer class reside, 
 there frequently lies the business portion of the city, a 
 quarter overflowing with life and tumult by day, but 
 silent and empty by night. The working-people are 
 closely confined by their employment all day long and 
 in the evening do not go far from home; so that the 
 richer classes, especially in the larger cities, where the 
 homes of the two are widely separated, see very little 
 of them. It is "out of sight, out of mind." By the 
 great majority of the upper class they are forgotten; 
 their need and their just claims upon society are never 
 thought of; their very existence is ignored until, in the 
 shocking, lurid light of some violent strike or bloody 
 riot, they are brought suddenly to notice. " Circum- 
 stances," says one of the most thoughtful workers 
 among the masses of East London (a man who is also 
 at home in the richest drawing-rooms of "West End), 
 "circumstances are daily giving to rich and poor the 
 characteristics of two nations." 
 
 A keen critic of ourselves and our institutions re- 
 marks, that " society in America means all the honest, 
 kindly-mannered, pleasant-voiced women, and all the 
 good, brave, unassuming men, between the Atlantic 
 and Pacific. Each of these has a free pass in every 
 city and village, good for this generation only, and it 
 depends on each to make use of this pass or not as it 
 may suit his or her fancy." 
 
 We have reason for profound gratitude that so little 
 of the spirit of caste has taken root upon our soil; that 
 the best social circles are so accessible to all who de- 
 serve their privileges, without distinctions of rank or 
 birth, and that even plutocracy does not reign supreme 
 5 
 
66 SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF AMERICAN CITIES. 
 
 ■within our borders. Yet to say that there are no social 
 classes in the United States, especially in the cities of 
 the United States, is to speak wide of the truth. We 
 have, indeed, no titled nobility and little aristocracy. 
 The distinction between upper and middle classes, 
 if there be one at all, is vague and fanciful, and any 
 barrier that may be raised between the two is thin, 
 frail, and easy to break through. But with the work- 
 ing-class, the so-called " lowest class," it is quite other- 
 wise. Here are found the same distinctions which 
 characterize the cities of England, Scotland, and the 
 continent of Europe. They spring from the same 
 causes. They are aggravated by the same tendencies. 
 They express themselves in the same class-prejudices. 
 The workingmen are the first to recognize these dis- 
 tinctions, for their terms, " labor " and " capital," incor- 
 rectly as they use them, refer to divisions of society, 
 the existence of which cannot be denied. A great and 
 growing gulf lies between the working-class and those 
 above them, — a gulf that is already as broad and deep 
 — nay, in some respects, broader, deeper, and more 
 difficult of passage in the cities of the United States 
 than in those of Europe. Our own working-people are 
 even more widely separated from the rest of society 
 than those in England, France, and Germany, because 
 the differences in occupation and wealth, which are 
 becoming nearly as great here as there, are emphasized 
 here as they are not there, by still greater differences 
 in race, language, and religion. 
 
 This leads to a series of inquiries respecting the birth 
 and nationality of our urban population. 
 
 " The world contains only two nations now," says a 
 witty American, " those who speak English and those 
 
SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF AMERICAN CITIES. 67 
 
 who don't." Mr. Mulhall shows that while the whole 
 population of the world has doubled within a lifetime, 
 the Anglo-Saxon race has quadrupled. The wonderful 
 rapidity of this increase has been chiefly due to the 
 growth of the United States, and the growth of the 
 United States, as we all know, has been greatly accel- 
 erated by the flow of large streams from foreign sources 
 into the Anglo-Saxon channel of the national life. We 
 speak the language of Shakespeare as purely as it is 
 spoken anywhere in the world; we claim the peerless 
 literature of England as equally our own; we count 
 ourselves the children and the heirs of that long succes- 
 sion of men and women who, by their mighty words 
 and noble deeds, have made her history glorious. 
 We hold to all that is best in her free institutions by a 
 thousand bonds besides that of the common mother 
 tongue; we find ourselves so closely knitted to the folk 
 of old England that we can never think of them as 
 foreigners. Yet we are not Englishmen or Anglo- 
 Saxons, take us as a whole. The blood of many nations 
 courses in hot and mingled currents through our veins. 
 In Massachusetts the people are more than half of 
 foreign birth or children of foreign-born parents. The 
 same thing is true of New York and Rhode Island and 
 several of the Western States. This mingling of peo- 
 ples is the marked and special characteristic of the 
 towns. Few of us realize how far from being Anglo- 
 Saxon either in race, tradition, or religion are the cities 
 of the United States. Those who come from foreign 
 lands seem to be peculiarly attracted thither. They 
 come as laborers, and the cities with their great indus- 
 tries are the labor-markets where they can best ex- 
 change for food that physical strength which is their 
 
68 SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF AMERICAN CITIES. 
 
 only stock in trade. The proportion of foreign-born 
 inhabitants is more than twice as great in the cities as 
 in the whole country. We have two hundred and 
 eighty-six considerable cities. The forty-four largest 
 of these contain 34.2 per cent, of our total foreign pop- 
 ulation. These forty-four chief cities contain 38.7 per 
 cent, of all the Germans in the land, 38.7 per cent, of 
 the Bohemians, 45.26 per cent, of the Irish, 52.4 per 
 cent, of the Poles, and sixty per cent, of the Italians.* 
 If one could add to these amounts the number of 
 foreign-born inhabitants in all the other two hundred 
 and forty-two cities, we should doubtless find that fully 
 three-fourths of our foreign-born citizens are city 
 residents. 
 
 Because a man first saw the light in Europe it by no 
 means follows that he is a foreigner. Thousands upon 
 thousands of truest and most patriotic citizens have 
 come hither from beyond the sea; neither does it fol- 
 low because one is born on our soil that he is an Ameri- 
 can. More than one generation is required, under the 
 ordinary conditions of urban life, to make the children 
 of Irish and German peasants fit persons for citizen- 
 ship in the great republic. Between the fathers who 
 have come from the old country and the children born 
 and bred in the new, there is always a marked differ- 
 ence; but frequently the change does not appear to be 
 for the better. It is easy to learn the unfettered inde- 
 pendence, the exemption from restraint that character- 
 izes our institutions; but to know the law of liberty and 
 to accept the responsibility which is wedded to freedom, 
 is a more difficult matter. Thus it sometimes happens 
 
 * Tenth Census of the United States, vol. i., p. 470. 
 
SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF AMERICAN CITIES 69 
 
 that the children of foreigners, being more used to the 
 liberties, but quite as ignorant of the duties of citizen- 
 ship, give greater perplexity to the preservers of order 
 and purity than ever their fathers have done. A just 
 and comprehensive view of the proportions of native 
 and foreign blood, must therefore take into account not 
 only the foreign-born, but also their children of the 
 first generation. Regarding this matter, the census 
 agents have brought to light as the result of a series of 
 elaborate investigations extended to twenty-eight States, 
 seven Territories, and the District of Columbia, certain 
 facts from which the following general law may be 
 gathered : that to every 100 persons of foreign birth, 
 there belong, on the average, 115 children, parents and 
 children together amounting to 215 ;* that is, in order 
 to find out how many foreigners with their children 
 reside in a given place, one must multiply the number 
 of foreign-born as reported in the census tables, by 
 2.15. In this way we are made to realize to how great 
 an extent American cities are European in population^ 
 
 * The parts examined with this object in view, contained 26,354,124 
 inhabitants, of whom 2,673,217 were found to be of foreign birth, 
 while 5,758,811 were of foreign parentage. See Tenth Census V. S., 
 vol. i., p. 674. 
 
 + Thus it appears that out of one hundred persons in 
 
 New York 
 
 80 are 
 
 foreign-born or children of foreign-bora parents, 
 
 Philadelphia 
 
 51 
 
 i< 
 
 it 
 
 (t 
 
 if 
 
 Brooklyn 
 
 67 
 
 « 
 
 Li 
 
 ii 
 
 ff 
 
 Chicago 
 
 87 
 
 it 
 
 u 
 
 if 
 
 ft 
 
 ♦Boston 
 
 63 
 
 it 
 
 u 
 
 ii 
 
 ff 
 
 *St. Louis 
 
 78 
 
 it 
 
 u 
 
 ii 
 
 if 
 
 Baltimore 
 
 35 
 
 u 
 
 44 
 
 if 
 
 ff« 
 
 Cincinnati 
 
 60 
 
 ti 
 
 it 
 
 it 
 
 44 
 
 *San Francisco 78 
 
 it 
 
 it 
 
 if 
 
 44 
 
 *New Orleans 
 
 51 
 
 tt 
 
 44 
 
 it 
 
 it 
 
70 SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF AMERICAN CITIES. 
 
 The proportion of foreigners in a town depends 
 largely upon its location and its prevailing industries. 
 In the South, domestic service and all the simpler forms 
 of labor are performed by the negroes. The propor- 
 tion of foreigners in Southern cities is consequently 
 small. New Orleans has, indeed, a large French ele- 
 ment, which gives it fifty-one per cent, of foreigners 
 with their children; but in Nashville, Term., they com- 
 pose only eight per cent, of the population; in Charles- 
 ton, S. C, only fourteen per cent., and in Richmond, 
 Va., only eight per cent. In the national capital, where 
 there are few manufactories and many colored people 
 for domestic service, the proportion of foreigners is 
 also small, — only twenty-five in a hundred. As a rule, 
 manufacturing cities have more foreign-born than cities 
 of trade. In Milwaukee and Detroit the foreign ele- 
 ment comprises eighty-four persons out of one hun- 
 dred. In Columbus, Ohio, and Kansas City, Missouri, 
 the proportions are only thirty-six and forty-four out 
 of a hundred. A few words as to the nationality of 
 
 Cleveland 80 are foreign-born or children of foreign-born parents. 
 
 Pittsburg 61 " " " 
 
 Buffalo 71 " " 
 
 ♦Washington 25 " " " 
 
 Newark 63 " " 
 
 ♦Louisville 53 " " " 
 
 Jersey City 70 »■ » " " 
 
 Detroit 84 
 
 ♦Milwaukee 84 
 
 ♦Providence 52 *\ " " 
 
 The census gives the actual figures for New York (vol. i., p. 675) ; 
 those for the other cities were determined by the use of the above 
 ratio, except in the cases marked by asterisks, where the census gives 
 the ratio for the State in which they are situated, and that has ac- 
 cordingly been adopted. 
 
SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF AMERICAN CITIES. 71 
 
 our foreign population. It is composed of two great 
 elements and a score and more of lesser ones. Twenty- 
 nine and seven-tenths per cent, of our entire foreign 
 population have come from various parts of the Ger- 
 man Empire, and twenty-seven and four-tenths per 
 cent, have come from Ireland.* Counting parents and 
 children of the first generation, there were in 1880 four- 
 fifths as many Irish in the United States as in all Ire- 
 land. New York is the first Irish city in the world, 
 Philadelphia the third, Brooklyn the fifth, and Boston 
 the sixth. Berlin and Hamburg are the only German 
 cities that contain so many Germans as New York. 
 
 The Irish form the chief foreign element in the East- 
 ern States. In Boston and most New England towns 
 they outnumber all other foreigners put together. In 
 New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, and all the other 
 Eastern cities, except Baltimore, they are by far the 
 largest class. They also head the list of foreigners in 
 San Francisco, being more numerous by half than the 
 Chinese. In the great cities of the interior the Irish 
 are also strongly represented, and in none of the more 
 important places are they rivaled in number by any 
 other class of foreigners except the Germans. 
 
 Immigrants from the German Empire have never to 
 any great extent made their home in New England. 
 In New York, Brooklyn, Jersey City, and Philadelphia 
 they are very numerous, and in Baltimore they even 
 outnumber the Irish. In all the great cities of the in- 
 
 * It is probable that the Germans and Irish form a smaller propor- 
 tion of the foreign population now than in 1880, when these figures 
 were gathered, and that their relative numerical importance will con- 
 tinue to decrease, while that of Italians, Scandinavians, and others 
 will grow. 
 
f2 SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF AMERICAN CITIES. 
 
 terior, from Buffalo to Denver, the Germans lead, often 
 outnumbering the Irish two to one ; and in such places 
 as St. Louis, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and Buffalo, com- 
 posing, as the Irish do in so many Eastern towns, more 
 than half the total foreign population. 
 
 The next most numerous element in our foreign pop- 
 ulation is that which comes from Canada and the Brit- 
 ish Provinces. This element is composed of three 
 classes : there are, in the first place, considerable num- 
 bers of the regular English-speaking people of British 
 America who are led by various motives to take up a 
 residence in the United States. These are widely scat- 
 tered throughout the country, but are most numerous 
 in Boston, Buffalo, and Detroit. Then there has been, 
 of late years, a large influx of French Canadians es- 
 pecially into the manufacturing towns of New England 
 and the East, such as Lowell, Lawrence, and Fall Kiver. 
 In some of these places they are nearly as numerous as 
 the Lish. A third class of immigrants from British 
 America is composed of those who, having originally 
 come to Canada from across the water, after a short 
 residence there, have moved to the United States. 
 
 Our immigrants from England, Scotland, and Wales 
 are not so fond of the city as the Germans and Irish. 
 They are pretty evenly scattered over the whole of the 
 North and "West. Other nationalities are largely local- 
 ized. New York City has the most of the Italians, 
 although they are numerous in all the cities. The Swiss 
 are found chiefly in New York, Chicago, and St. Louis; 
 the Russians in New York and Chicago ; the Poles 
 in New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Milwaukee ; the 
 Swedes and Norwegians in Chicago, New York, Minne- 
 aj^olis, and St. Paul ; the Hollanders in Paterson, N. J., 
 
SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF AMERICAN CITIES. 73 
 
 Chicago, and New York ; the Portuguese in Boston and 
 San Francisco ; the Danes in Chicago, New York, and 
 San Francisco ; the Bohemians in Chicago, New York, 
 Cleveland, and St. Louis ; the Spaniards in New York, 
 and the Chinamen in San Francisco and the towns of 
 the Pacific Slope. 
 
 While it is very common to find men of foreign blood 
 at the head of great mercantile enterprises and holding 
 other important positions in society, and while multi- 
 tudes of such persons are engaged in the professions 
 and in trade, yet those thus employed form, on the 
 whole, an inconsiderable portion of our entire foreign 
 population. The great bulk of them with their chil- 
 dren are engaged in the manual labor of the land. 
 They are the hewers of wood and drawers of water, 
 day-laborers, domestic servants, factory hands, and un- 
 skilled mechanics. Not every foreigner is a working- 
 man ; but in the cities, at least, it may almost be said 
 that every workingman is a foreigner. The wage- 
 working class, especially that part of it engaged in 
 the simpler forms of labor, is almost entirely made up 
 of foreigners. How rare a thing it is, in these days, 
 to find a domestic servant who is of native parentage 
 or to meet a day-laborer who speaks without a brogue. 
 In the manufacturing and mechanical industries there 
 would, of course, be a much larger percentage of 
 Americans of native stock than among day-laborers. 
 Yet even among those thus engaged, in the fifty chief 
 cities, the census informs us that forty-one out of every 
 hundred were born in foreign lands, and it is probable 
 that quite as many more are children of foreign-born 
 parents. 
 
 We see, then, that of the two great classes which 
 
74 SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF AMERICAN CITIES. 
 
 divide the society of American cities between them, 
 the smaller one, comprising those engaged in profes- 
 sions and trades, is principally composed of native 
 Americans, while the larger class, the workingmen, are 
 nearly all of foreign extraction. 
 
 Compare our position in this respect with that of the 
 European cities and it will be seen that in none of 
 them is the problem of the relation between the social 
 classes complicated by such race differences as with us. 
 London is one of the most cosmopolitan of the trans- 
 atlantic cities. Strangers from all parts may hear their 
 mother-tongue on its streets ; yet out of every one 
 hundred Londoners in 1880, sixty-three were natives 
 of London, ninety-four of England and Wales, and 
 ninety-eight of Great Britain and Ireland. The Emer- 
 ald Isle furnished but two and one-tenth per cent, of 
 London's population ; and all foreign countries put to- 
 gether, only one and six-tenths per cent.* The same 
 characteristics may be observed in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, 
 and other foreign capitals. 
 
 But the race difference carries along with it another 
 difference, which offers an even more serious obstacle 
 to the safe solution of the social problem. The one great 
 bond which alone can bind rich and poor together is 
 that of religion. The one institution that can bridge 
 the gulf between the classes is the church, and the only 
 power that can hope to cope with cruel interference 
 and grasping greed of the one party and the reckless- 
 ness, drunkenness, and violence of the other, is that of 
 the Gospel of Jesus Christ; but here the normal influ- 
 ences of religion are weakened and well-nigh destroyed 
 by radical differences in faith and doctrine. 
 
 * Census of England and Wales, 1881, vol. iv., p. 59. 
 
SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF AMERICAN CITIES. 75 
 
 Ours is a Protestant land in name, institution, and 
 tradition. Among Americans of native stock the pro- 
 portion of Romanists is insignificant. It may, there- 
 fore, be said that the people engaged in the professional 
 and mercantile occupations in cities are mostly Protest- 
 ants.* The religion of the working-class, they being 
 largely composed of foreigners and their children, as 
 we have seen, may be determined by a glance at the 
 religious condition of the countries from which they 
 have come; for we may take it for granted that the 
 children of the first generation, as a rule, continue to 
 keep the faith of their fathers. 
 
 In the case of the Germans, our largest class of 
 foreigners, we have made a somewhat careful investi- 
 gation. Reckoning all who have come from Protestant 
 parts as Protestants, and all from Catholic parts as 
 Catholics, and supposing those who have come from 
 parts where the population is divided between the two 
 faiths to be divided in the same ratio, it appears that 
 for every one hundred emigrants from the German 
 Empire, thirty-eight are Roman Catholics and sixty-two 
 Protestants. 
 
 As to the Irish, although one-fifth of the inhabitants 
 of the Emerald Isle are said to be Protestants, those 
 who have emigrated are nearly all Catholics. 
 
 The English, Scotch, and Welsh, on the other hand, 
 are of the Protestant faith. So are the Scandinavians 
 and a part of the Canadians; but the Italians, French 
 Canadians, French, Mexicans, Poles, Austrians, Bohe- 
 
 " * This is a very general statement. Jews and Roman Catholics 
 are very numerous among the merchants, especially in some places, 
 yet when compared with the whole number, they would form an 
 inconsiderable proportion. 
 
76 SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF AMERICAN CITIES. 
 
 mians, and Belgians, for the most part, pay allegiance 
 to the Pope. Adding together in one column the 
 foreign born who, from their place of nativity, may be 
 supposed to be Protestants, and in another, those who 
 may be supposed to be Koman Catholics, the Catholics 
 are found to be somewhat more numerous, the propor- 
 tion being about that of 17 to 15. These figures give 
 only an approximate idea of the proportionate strength 
 of the two great branches of the Christian religion among 
 our workingmen, yet they make it evident that at least 
 one-half of them in ordinary American cities are Eoman 
 Catholics. 
 
 In the case of any particular town, the proportion 
 would obviously vary with the prevailing element 
 among the foreign-born population: the French and 
 Irish cities being more strongly Catholic, the German 
 and Scandinavian more strongly Protestant. 
 
 There is also a considerable difference between the 
 Protestantism of the two social classes. English, Scotch, 
 and Welsh find our American churches congenial, but 
 it is otherwise with most of the Lutherans. Our creeds 
 may not seriously disagree with theirs, but our ways 
 and traditions are strange to them. Many have little 
 sympathy with the stricter observance of the Lord's 
 day and the inculcation of total abstinence as a Chris- 
 tian duty, with our more profound belief in the doc- 
 trine of regeneration and the religious methods and 
 movements that result from it. Yfe seem to them 
 pietists and enthusiasts. Of all things, men are most 
 conservative respecting their religious belief. It is hard^ 
 for those who belong to religious bodies of one kind to 
 influence those of another. The mother-tongue, long 
 after it has vanished from commercial life and even 
 
SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF AMERICAN CITIES. ?7 
 
 from the family circle, still firmly holds its place in the 
 pulpit. It is common to find among our Protestant 
 Germans and Welsh that the families attend church 
 where services are conducted in a language that the 
 children cannot speak and can hardly understand. The 
 common faith, therefore, forms a much weaker bond 
 than one might wish between the Protestants of the 
 working-class and those in other conditions of life. 
 
 And here again one cannot help contrasting our sit- 
 uation with that of the European cities. Most of them 
 contain both Protestants and Eomanists, although one 
 element is usually strongly predominant; but in no case 
 is there a division of religions corresponding with that 
 of classes. The faith of the rich is ever the faith of the 
 poor and the common bond between them. In the most 
 splendid Koman churches you will see the titled lady in 
 silk, the humble contadina with the basket by her side 
 and the beggar, filthy and tattered, kneeling together on 
 the marble floor. The richest and the most wretched are 
 equally at home within the consecrated walls. From 
 the mansions of West End, noblemen go down to 
 the slums of East London and mingle freely with the 
 people. Countesses conduct meetings for poor mothers 
 and organize clubs for corking-girls. In an English 
 Christian home the servants are present at family 
 prayers and attend the same church as their masters. 
 But with us, especially in the cities, the church of the 
 laborer is one, and the church of the well-to-do — or, as 
 it is beginning to be called, " the capitalists' church " 
 — is another. 
 
 I have thus endeavored to show that from one-half 
 to three-fourths of the inhabitants of the cities are 
 workingmen; that the natural separation between them 
 
YS SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF AMERICAN CITIES. 
 
 and the rest of society has been broadened by the 
 progress of mechanical invention which has cheapened 
 the value of muscle-work in comparison with that of 
 brain-work, and has thus increased the difference in 
 wealth between the two classes, and by the rise of rents 
 which has removed their dwellings from one another. 
 And we have seen that the difficulty is greatly aggra- 
 vated in the United States, because to the class-differ- 
 ence is added a race-difference, and to the race- 
 difference, a difference in religious faith. 
 
 Ameiican cities, then, have two classes of people: 
 the smaller, engaged in the professions and commercial 
 life, is in comfortable circumstances, well-housed, well- 
 clothed, and well-fed, is mainly of native stock and 
 Protestant faith; the larger class toils with the hands, is 
 less comfortable, worse housed, more coarsely and 
 scantily clothed, and more poorly fed, is of foreign race 
 and is largely Roman Catholic in religion. 
 
 ) 
 
CHAPTER m. 
 
 THE THREAT OF THE CITIES. 
 
 "Is our civilization perishable?" To this startling 
 question, which a recent writer* answers in the affirma- 
 tive, one's first impulse prompts the reply : " By no 
 means. "With Christian faith for the soul of it, the free 
 school for its breastplate, and the printing-press for its 
 weapon, the modern civilization can never perish." But 
 careful attention to the perils of the times must modify 
 the answer. If our civilization stands, thi3 will not be 
 because it is incapable of destruction, but because its 
 sons and daughters, roused by its dangers, rally to its 
 defence. 
 
 There can be no doubt that a state of society like the 
 one in which we are living would be impossible except 
 for the Christian religion. So vast and complex a 
 structure as that of modern civilization could only stand 
 on the solid foundation of public integrity. Unless the 
 majority of the people were honest you could not have 
 confidence and credit sufficient for the conduct of com- 
 mercial transactions; unless a spirit of order and justice 
 were abroad, property would not find secure protection 
 and enterprise would be discouraged. Domestic purity 
 is the corner-stone of civil liberty. Popular intelli- 
 gence forms the chariot-wheels of progress. Thrift 
 
 Judge J. A. Jameson, North American Review, March, 1884. 
 
 (79) 
 
80 TEE TEBEAT OF TEE CITIES. 
 
 and prosperity ever follow industry, economy, and tem- 
 perance. The degree of advancement in any state de- 
 pends chiefly upon the prevalence of such qualities as 
 these among its citizens. But these qualities are dis- 
 tinctive marks of Christian character. They are the 
 fruitage of the tree of faith, and never have been 
 known as popular traits except in nations whose God is 
 Jehovah. 
 
 Moreover, the degree of the nation's civilization de- 
 pends upon the purity of its faith. The better the 
 religion, the better will be the public integrity resulting 
 from it; and the stronger its basis in public integrity, 
 the higher will become the development and the more 
 complex the organism of society. There is no need of 
 showing that those countries in which degraded forms 
 of Christianity prevail have lower standards of morals, 
 and consequently lower degrees of civilization, than 
 they enjoy who cherish a purer faith. Nor is there 
 need of pointing out the truth that the evils which per- 
 vade our own land and sadly mar the beauty of its 
 freedom, arise from the corruptness and incompleteness 
 of our Christianity, our far-off following of our Master 
 and our failure to accept His teachings and put His 
 principles to practice. Many earnest men, indeed, are 
 thinking that civilization in the most enlightened 
 nations of the earth has reached a point where it fal- 
 ters, and can be urged no higher until men eschew the 
 selfish plan of competition, which is now omnipotent in 
 trade and industry, and substitute for it the essentially 
 Christian principle of co-operation. 
 
 Now, if a community whose social system has been 
 organized amid Christian influences and upon the Chris- 
 tian plan should at any time lose its religious faith, 
 
THE THREAT OF THE CITIES. 81 
 
 such loss would inevitably be followed by the slow 
 decay of its morality, and the subsequent collapse of its 
 civilization. The higher and more complex that civil- 
 ization had become, the greater would be the ruin of its 
 overthrow; for the body of Christian civilization can- 
 not live without the soul. Let faith leave society and 
 the lapse back toward barbarism will commence at 
 once. Or if a purer and higher form of faith should 
 give place to a lower and more corrupt form, such a 
 civilization as had naturally grown up under the influ- 
 ence of the purer faith could not be sustained, but 
 must certainly give place to civilization of a lower type. 
 
 Again, if from any portion of the society of modern 
 times Christian life and power should be cut off through- 
 out that portion the process of integration would 
 speedily ensue. If from certain strata of the people 
 the preserving strength of the " salt of the earth " be 
 taken away, those strata, whether high or low, would 
 forthwith commence sinking toward the normal plane 
 of heathen living; and in their decay would bring dis- 
 tress, if not ruin, upon the whole of society. The por- 
 tents of such perils as these are, as we believe, plainly 
 to be seen in the present religious condition of Ameri- 
 can cities. 
 
 We have already observed that a gulf broad and 
 deep divides the people of our towns into an upper and 
 a lower class; and that by no means the smallest ele- 
 ment in the difference between these two sections of 
 society is a difference of religious belief. The pure 
 high faith of our fathers, the faith that promoted at 
 once free-thinking and right-thinking, power and purity, 
 personal liberty and personal responsibility, — the faith 
 on which the nation was founded, and through whose 
 
82 THE TRUE AT OF THE CITIES. 
 
 strength she has endured the shock of battles and stress 
 of stormy times,— this faith has almost no place among 
 the working-class. But the working-class holds a pre- 
 ponderance of power in the cities ; and the cities, 
 already mighty, in their fearful growth, promise at no 
 distant day to have a preponderance of power in the 
 nation. 
 
 It will not be difficult to convince those who are 
 acquainted with the life of our cities, that the Protest- 
 ant churches, as a rule, have no following among the 
 workingmen. Everybody knows it. Go into an ordi- 
 nary church on Sunday morning, and you see lawyers, 
 physicians, merchants, and business men with their 
 families : — you see teachers, salesmen, and clerks, and 
 a certain proportion of educated mechanics : but the 
 workingman and his household are not there. It is 
 doubtful if one in twenty of the average congregation 
 in English-speaking, Protestant, city churches fairly be- 
 longs to this class; but granting the proportion to be so 
 great as one in ten or one in five, even then you would 
 have two-thirds of the people furnishing only one-tenth 
 or one-fifth of the congregation. The recent experi- 
 ment of an enterprising newspaper reporter in a certain 
 American city which has the reputation of being the 
 model Christian city of the world will not be forgotten. 
 He donned the garb of a decent laborer, and presented 
 himself for admission, at each in turn of the principal 
 churches in the city. At some he was treated with 
 positive rudeness, at others with cold politeness. Only 
 one or two gave him a cordial, and even then a some- 
 what surprised welcome. The incident shows that in 
 that city, at least, the appearance of a workingman at 
 church on Sunday morning is not common. 
 
THE TEBEAT OF THE CITIES. 83 
 
 The same thing is illustrated by the experience of 
 those churches which have been so located that their 
 former congregations have moved away from them, and 
 in the course of the city's growth their neighborhood 
 has been filled up by the working-classes. How few 
 have succeeded in holding their own, not merely in 
 financial strength, but even in the size of the congrega- 
 tion, under such trying circumstances. Are not the 
 down-town portions of the larger cities well supplied 
 with old churches, that used on every Lord's day to be 
 filled with worshippers? But now, deserted by their 
 congregations, they stand idle and empty, or serve the 
 purposes of trade, while the population about them 
 grows ever denser. In a certain city whose case has 
 been examined with some care, one denomination, and 
 that the leading one, has but eight churches left in 
 parts of the town more densely populated than ever, 
 where it formerly had eighteen. Other denominations 
 in the same city have not fared much better. Some 
 marked exceptions are gladly noted, and there is a 
 goodly number of G-od's people in every considerable 
 town who are doing efficient work among the poor 
 through missions, Sunday-schools, and a multitude of 
 religious agencies ; nevertheless, it must be allowed 
 that the American Protestant Church, as a whole, has 
 failed to win to itself the working- classes of the towns. 
 
 It is not claimed that religion consists in going to 
 church, any more than eating consists in sitting down 
 at a dinner-table; but as it maybe presumed that who- 
 ever sits down at a table spread with food does so for 
 the purpose of eating, so also we may presume that 
 those who attend the services of God's house do so for 
 the purpose of worshipping Him and hearing His 
 
84 THE THREAT OF THE CITIES. 
 
 word; and those who care for the word and the wor- 
 ship will not be more likely to neglect the sanctuary 
 than a hungry man to neglect his dinner-table. 
 
 A word should be said regarding those Protestant 
 churches which conduct their services in foreign lan- 
 guages. Some of these, notably the "Welsh, and the 
 German Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Congrega- 
 tionalisms, and others, are doing a work of great value; 
 but they are still quite weak, and their influence cor- 
 respondingly limited. The national churches of Ger- 
 many, Norway, and Sweden have been transplanted to 
 our soil to some extent, and are chiefly composed of 
 workingmen. But, unhappily, they have not, in most 
 cases, a strong, positive spiritual power over their ad- 
 herents — a fact which none see more clearly and lament 
 more bitterly than the more spiritual of their own 
 members. There is said to be as much religious activ- 
 ity among the Christians of Berlin as in any of the 
 larger German towns. Yet we find in that great city 
 of one and one-third millions, only twenty-eight 
 churches and thirteen chapels belonging to the estab- 
 lished faith; and several of these are but thinly attended. 
 Counting the establishments of the flourishing Young- 
 Men's Christian Association, the Catholic churches, the 
 Jewish synagogues, the chapeb of foreigners, and e\eij 
 place for religious gatherings of every sort, there are, in 
 all, about sixty places of public worship in Berlin, or 
 about one-tenth as many in proportion to the population 
 as in New York. Nevertheless, eighty-five out of every 
 hundred children born in Berlin are christened accord-, 
 ing to the rites of the established church, and the greater 
 part of the people are confirmed at the proper age, and 
 make it a point of duty to partake of the sacrament at 
 
THE THREAT OF THE CITIES. 85 
 
 stated periods. You accordingly find churches in Ber- 
 lin whose membership numbers scores of thousands, 
 while their seating capacity is sufficient for only a few 
 hundred, and is even then rarely used to the full. The 
 German churches, in being transplanted to our soil, 
 have not changed their character materially, and are 
 doing far less than might be desired in the way of es- 
 tablishing a living faith and an active righteousness 
 among their followers. In many cases their grasp upon 
 the people is very feeble. Not only do they reckon as 
 members multitudes who do not attend their services 
 for years together, but there are thousands more who, 
 leaving their religion behind them in the Fatherland, 
 never take pains to connect themselves with the churches 
 on this side of the water. It is a significant fact that 
 while nearly all our Scandinavians, and the majority of 
 our Germans, are nominally Lutherans, the Lutheran 
 Church, in all its branches, together with the United 
 Evangelical Church, and the United Brethren, had less 
 than one million members in the United States at the 
 time of the last census.* 
 
 In striking contrast with this is the condition of the 
 Boman Catholic Church. It may be true that she holds 
 her people with a looser grasp here than in Europe, 
 and that she has altogether lost her influence over very 
 considerable numbers of them; yet it must be acknowl- 
 edged, on the other hand, that there have been surpris- 
 
 * In saying this we do not wish to speak unkindly of our German 
 brethren, multitudes of whom are of distinguished piety, while their 
 Christian scholarship has made all the world their debtors; nor would 
 we ignore the powerful evangelical movement which the last few 
 years have witnessed in the Fatherland, whose influence has been 
 felt on this side of the water, and from which great things are to be 
 hoped. 
 
86 THE THREAT OF THE CITIES. 
 
 ingly few conversions from Rornanism io Protestantism. 
 Considering the fact that she has been compelled to 
 push her system amid the full blaze of the light of 
 modern times, in an atmosphere permeated with that 
 spirit of freedom whose pure breath is her poison, the 
 success of Eome in the United States appears amazing. 
 There are, at the present time, about 7,000,000 of Ro- 
 man Catholics (communicants) in the land.* In 1800 
 there were but one hundred thousand. It is less than 
 one hundred years since the first bishop came to the 
 United States. There were, in 1880, twelve archbishops, 
 55 bishops, 5,989 priests; there were 1,136 students in 
 seminaries; there were 2,246 parochial schools, and 
 405,234 pupils.f The rate of increase for the Roman 
 Catholic Church since 1850 has been more than twice as 
 great as that of evangelical Protestant churches. J 
 
 The Catholic Church is emphatically the working- 
 man's church. She rears her great edifices in the 
 midst of the densest populations, provides them with 
 many seats and has the seats well filled. They are the 
 places in which you never fail to find large congrega- 
 tions at the appointed times of public worship, the vast 
 majority of whom are obviously workingmen and 
 workingwomen. Here may be seen in great numbers, 
 what many an earnest preacher of the reformed faith 
 eagerly and vainly longs to behold in the pews before 
 him, sons and daughters of toil clad in coarse garments 
 with hard hands and plain, care-worn faces. The Cath- 
 
 *The official statistics for 1884 were, 6,628,176. This is the esti- 
 mate of the Independent, May 19, 1887. 
 + Sadlier's Cath. Directory, 1880. 
 \ For further treatment of this subject see Our Country, pp. 56 and 
 
THE THREAT OF THE CITIES. 87 
 
 olics make double the use of their houses of worship 
 that we do of ours. Three or four times on every Sun- 
 day great congregations pour forth from their doors, 
 whereas we are contented with but one or two meet- 
 ings. Throughout the entire week their churches are 
 open, and one is rarely entered where a number of 
 people are not to be found kneeling in silent devotion. 
 Ours stand most of the time idle and empty, with 
 closely-locked doors. In this way a given number of 
 Catholic churches of a given size accommodate many 
 more people than Protestant churches of the same size 
 and number. 
 
 The religion of Kome is far better than none, and 
 we may well believe that many humble souls under the 
 leadings of the Spirit have found their way through 
 tangled meshes of falsehood with which she has cov- 
 ered it, down to the eternal truths on which her vener- 
 able faith is based. The influence of the Catholic 
 Church, on the whole, is doubtless conservative, and 
 will, probably, become more and more so. The Bo- 
 man ism of America is likely to be better than that of 
 Europe. Yet Komanism is not the religion we wish for 
 our fellow-citizens. It conceals the fatherhood of God 
 behind the motherhood of the Church, and the brother- 
 hood of Christ behind the motherhood of the Virgin. 
 It degrades the atonement by making its benefits a 
 matter of barter ; it leads to idolatry and image-wor- 
 ship ; it snatches from the believer the great gift 
 bought with the blood of Christ, by thrusting in a 
 priest between him and his heavenly Father. It has 
 kept the people from the Word of God and compelled 
 them to accept forced and unscholarly interpretations 
 of it. It has lowered the tone of morality. It has 
 
88 THE THREAT OF THE CITIES. 
 
 quenced free thought, stifled free speech, and threatens 
 to throttle free government. It has limited the ad- 
 vancement of every country on which its hand has been 
 laid. If the religion of Kome becomes ours, then a 
 civilization like that of Italy will be ours too. 
 
 There is no more striking illustration of the aliena- 
 tion of the masses in the cities from the Protestant 
 churches than the meagreness of their accommodations. 
 If the laboring class should contribute its due propor- 
 tion to the congregations, the churches, many of which 
 are now half empty, would not begin to hold the people. 
 In 1880 there was in the United States one evangelical 
 church organization to every five hundred and sixteen of 
 the population; in Boston, counting churches of all kinds, 
 there was but one to every 1,600 of the population ; in 
 Chicago, one to every 2,081; in New York, one to every 
 2,468; in St. Louis, one to every 2,800.* In New York 
 below Fourteenth Street, where the people are princi- 
 pally laborers, there are only half as many Protestant 
 places of worship in proportion to the number of 
 people as above Fourteenth Street in the well-to-do 
 parts. 
 
 The worst of it is, that instead of improving, the con- 
 dition of things has been growing worse every year. 
 While the prosperous classes are moving away to the 
 suburbs and the laborers are being more densely 
 massed together in the heart of the city, the church 
 accommodations even if fully used are becoming more 
 inadequate to the needs of the community. Look at 
 the case of New York. Including religious organiza- - 
 tions of all sorts, that city had in 1830 one place of 
 
 * It is true that the city churches are very much larger, but 
 hardly four times as large. 
 
THE THREAT OF THE CITIES. 89 
 
 worship for every 1,853 of its people; in 1840, one for 
 1,840; in 1850, one for 2,095; in 1860, one for 2,344; 
 in 1870, one for 2,004; in 1880, one for 2,468. The 
 religious history of Chicago is even more noteworthy 
 in this respect. Chicago had in 1840 one church for 
 every 747 of its population; in 1851 there was one for 
 every 1,009; in 1862, one for 1,301; in 1870, one for 
 1,593; in 1880, one for 2,081; in 1885, one for 2,254. 
 All the large cities have districts which are destitute of 
 church accommodations, and have not seats in Sunday- 
 school for more than one-tenth of their children. 
 
 The startling difference between the ratio of com- 
 municants in city and country furnishes another illus- 
 tration of the fact that the workingmen who so largely 
 people the cities are almost entirely cut off from the 
 American Protestant churches. While in the country 
 at large one person in five is a member of some 
 evangelical church, in the city of New York it is only 
 one in thirteen, and in Chicago one in nineteen. In the 
 whole State of Ohio, cities included, more than one- 
 fifth of the people belong to evangelical churches, but 
 in Cincinnati only one in twenty-three. The alarming 
 feature of the case, and that which we wish to empha- 
 size, is that this small number of Christians in the com- 
 munity comes entirely from the upper class ; this one 
 in twenty-three is almost never a workingman. The 
 trouble is not merely that the cities have so little Chris- 
 tianity, but that the Christianity which they do have is 
 confined to certain limited sections of society, leaving 
 other sections, and those which comprise the great 
 mass of the people, quite destitute of it, and practically 
 heathen. Says Dr. A. J. Gordon, of Boston: "We talk 
 about dangerous classes. The danger lies in the sepa- 
 
90 THE THREAT OF THE CITIES. 
 
 ration of classes, — those who are the ' salt of the earth ' 
 keeping by themselves instead of coming in contact 
 with that which tends to corruption. If the great mass 
 of Christians would come in heart-to-heart contact with 
 this so-called dangerous class much might be done to 
 change their character. But here is the failure. We 
 talk too much about family churches, and too little 
 about missionary churches." 
 
 One of the most serious evils consequent upon the 
 limitation of the church's operations to the well-to-do 
 classes is the reflex influence of such limitations upon 
 the church itself. The moment it cease3 to be really 
 catholic, extending its blessings to all sorts and condi- 
 tions of men, and becomes the organ of any class, 
 section or party, that moment it commences an unnat- 
 ural and unhealthful life. The rich need the poor no 
 less than the poor need the rich. That church which, 
 although situated in the midst of poverty and misfor- 
 tune, is for any reason restrained from stretching out 
 its hands to the needy, will itself suffer more seriously 
 because of such neglect than those from whom its suc- 
 cor is withheld. Avarice, self-indulgence, formalism, 
 arrogance, and hypocrisy are weeds of rank and ready 
 growth in a soil whose energy is not consumed in fruit- 
 bearing. Spiritual power decays ; the tremendous facts 
 of our faith appear dim and distant, .and that which 
 should be a corps in the host of the living God, is de- 
 graded to the position of a musico-religious club, or a 
 mutual improvement society. 
 
 The reasons for the alienation of the working-classes 
 of the city from the faith of our fathers are hot difficult 
 to find. The chief of them have already been sug- 
 gested. These peoj)le are foreigners, or the children of 
 
TEE THREAT OF TEE CITIES. 91 
 
 foreign-born parents, almost to a man. The majority 
 of them are of Koman Catholic training. The Cath- 
 olics make it a point of great importance to give the 
 Protestants a wide berth in all matters of religion. 
 We Protestants seem to have consented to their plan. 
 Whether we think that they have a religion good 
 enough for their needs, or why it is we will not venture 
 to say, but it is a fact that although our land is full of 
 Romanists we make but few efforts to meet the pe- 
 culiar difficulties that stand in the way of their con- 
 version to the truth as it is in Christ. How many 
 Christian families employ Catholic servants for years 
 without paying any attention whatever to their spirit- 
 ual welfare. Men are willing enough to supply their 
 physical needs, but do nothing for the interest of their 
 souls. We send missionaries abroad to Catholic Mexico, 
 Spain, and Austria, but when a fellow-countryman is a 
 Catholic, we accept it as a foregone conclusion that 
 nothing can be done for him. They verily make 
 greater efforts for our conversion than we do for theirs. 
 With some important exceptions those who come 
 from foreign lands, both Catholics and Protestants, 
 bring with them most crude and imperfect notions of 
 religious truth. No Christian culture lies behind them. 
 They have never breathed a Christian atmosphere. 
 Ideas with which all the Americans, whether of pious 
 parentage or not, have been familiar from childhood, 
 are strange to them. For at least one generation their 
 language shuts them out from the influence of our 
 churches. The whole method of our services, adapted 
 to the cultured, Christianized elements of society, is so 
 far above them that it fails to secure their interest and 
 attention. When one of them strays into a church, the 
 chances are that he finds nothing there for him. 
 
92 THE THREAT OF THE CITIES. 
 
 Much of the preservative power of the Christian re- 
 ligion comes from what may be called its indirect radi- 
 ance. Christianity not only makes its followers virtuous, 
 but it increases the virtue and intelligence of the whole 
 community. When emigrants from the lowest classes 
 of Ireland or Germany become so located in this coun- 
 try that they feel the influences of an intelligent, Chris- 
 tian community, they immediately respond to such in- 
 fluences, even though they still cling to the old faith, 
 and their children helped forward by the public schools 
 catch the spirit of our institutions and in due time be- 
 come genuine patriots and valuable citizens. But un- 
 fortunately this is much less likely to be the case with 
 those of foreign blood who live in large cities. Where 
 from sixty to ninety people out of every hundred are of 
 foreign parentage, and the residences of the natives 
 are so separated from those of the foreigners that con- 
 tact between them is neither close nor frequent, it is a 
 slow process raising the ignorant, degraded peasants 
 of Europe to a place of fitness for citizenship in our 
 democratic republic. 
 
 One of the most hopeful features of the times is the 
 appreciation of education and the desire to give their 
 children a schooling which is manifest among our work- 
 ingmen. But the public schools do not give a moral 
 and religious training of great value. Moreover, ex- 
 treme poverty and the needs of growing families make 
 it necessary for most working-people to take their chil- 
 dren from school and put them to work as soon as they 
 are old enough to contribute to the family budget; 
 The " three R's," with a smattering of geography, is all 
 that the schools usually give them. This is a good deal 
 better than nothing, ho^vever, and most of them at odd 
 
THE THREAT OF THE CITIES. 93 
 
 times manage to gather a considerable fund of infor- 
 mation from books and newspapers. We are confident 
 that our workingmen do much more reading than those 
 of the old world, and are correspondingly more intelli- 
 gent ; but on the other hand, there is reason for fearing 
 that much of their reading is not particularly profitable. 
 The circulation of sensational " family " story papers and 
 second-rate sporting papers in this country is prodigious, 
 and is rapidly increasing. Thousands of the well-known 
 advertisement copies commencing and not finishing 
 the trash stories of such publications are given away 
 every week in all the towns. They are handed out in 
 unlimited quantities to shop-girls and laborers as they 
 return from their work, most frequently on Saturday 
 night, and they are not usually refused or thrown away, 
 but are carefully folded and placed in the lunch-basket; 
 a thing the like of which is to be seen in no foreign city. 
 Such reading answers about as well for mental food as 
 rankly-flavored confections would for honest bread. 
 And there is little doubt that much of the reading done 
 in the workingman's home is of this class. 
 
 Theoretically, their participation as sovereign voters 
 in our free Christian government ought to do much for 
 the development of intelligence and self-reliance among 
 the workingmen. And so it would were our Govern- 
 ment conducted on the original plan of the New Eng- 
 land country town, where every item of administration 
 is freely discussed in the presence of all the voters at 
 the annual town meeting; but no one is wild enough to 
 claim that such contact with average ward politicians 
 as constitutes the political education of the ordinary 
 city laborer can contribute greatly either to his mental 
 or moral advancement. 
 
94 THE THREAT OF THE CITIES. 
 
 The other great reason for the feeble influence of 
 Protestant Christianity over the working-class springs 
 from the so-called conflict between labor and capital. 
 As we have already seen, the wealth of all Christendom, 
 and that of the United States in particular, has enor- 
 mously increased during the past twenty-five years. 
 The census of 1880 estimated the wealth of the nation 
 at $43,642,000,000, which makes us the richest nation 
 in the world. If our wealth had been equally distrib- 
 uted in 1860, each person's share would have been $514; 
 in 1870 it would have been $624; in 1880 it would have 
 been $314, for every man, woman, and child in the land. 
 During those twenty years the population increased 59 
 per cent., the wealth more than 151 per cent. A very 
 small share of this increase has gone to the working- 
 man, fin certain important respects he is poorer to-day 
 than twenty-five years ago J S Wages are indeed higher 
 in comparison with the cost of living, and many com- 
 forts and luxuries have been so cheapened as to come 
 within his reach. Science and invention have also 
 made certain valuable additions to his home; but his 
 progress has been slow at best, and his neighbor, the 
 business man, has far outstripped him in the race for 
 wealth. 
 
 "Wealth and poverty are, after all, only relative terms. 
 As Mr. Emerson has said : " The poor are only those 
 who feel poor, and poverty consists in feeling poor." 
 In this sense of the word the American workingman 
 was never before so poor as to-day. If his income has 
 increased, so have his wants, and far more rapidly. 
 What boots it to tell a man whose coat is worn and 
 shabby, and whose shoes are breaking through, that 
 people of his class a hundred years ago wore coarser 
 
THE THREAT OF THE CITIES. 95 
 
 clothes and had never a shoe to the foot? Is that a 
 reason why he should go tattered and barefooted while 
 multitudes about him revel in luxury? Because a 
 man's father in Ireland or Germany never knew the 
 taste of meat, and lived on black bread and potatoes, 
 does it follow that he ought to suffer the like priva- 
 tions? By no means is the workingman ignorant of 
 the enormous increase of these latter days. Instead of 
 under-estimating them, he holds exaggerated notions 
 of the riches of the rich, while he fails to note such 
 improvements as time has brought in his own condi- 
 tion. Becent labor statistics show that the workingman 
 is better off now than twenty years ago. But the men 
 themselves affirm, on the contrary, that things are grow- 
 ing worse from year to year, — the wages lower, the 
 work harder and more uncertain, and the prospect of 
 promotion more and more hopeless.* 
 
 Now the workingmen, as a class, are coming to be- 
 lieve that the bulk of the wealth of modern times be- 
 longs to them, all wealth being, as is claimed, the fruit 
 of toil. It has sprung from the brawn of their arm 
 and the sweat of their brow. Capital has but furnished 
 tools, they have done the work and won the rewards; 
 to them, therefore, those rewards belong. But instead 
 of receiving what is their own, they have been cheated 
 out of nine-tenths of it by grasping capitalists, who are 
 protected in their plundering by unjust laws and a 
 tyrannical social system. There is a bitterness about 
 
 / 
 
 the discontent of these men. They feel that they are 
 being robbed every day and cannot help it. The de- 
 
 * The writer has conversed on this subject with a number of work- 
 ingmen engaged in various occupations both here and in England, 
 and finds but one opinion among them. 
 
96 THE THREAT OF 1HE CITIES, 
 
 mand for work is so great that however hard the job 
 and low the wages, a dozen men stand ready to take a 
 place as soon as it is left vacant. 
 
 A street-car driver in a certain American city gave 
 the following account of his work, which was afterward 
 confirmed: He is occupied seventeen hours a day seven 
 days in a week. He has, out of this, ten minutes for 
 dinner, and nine for supper. He can get but five or 
 six hours for sleep. All the work connected with that 
 car he does himself. Even the hostler's pay comes out 
 of his wages. The car, at a reasonable estimate, earns 
 $108.50 each week, after deducting the cost of feeding 
 the horses that draw it, of which sum $97.50 goes to 
 the company, and $11 to him; but he finds that from 
 sheer want of sleep he must usually " lay oft " one day 
 in the week; $1.57 is, therefore, taken to pay for a sub- 
 stitute. The care of the horses costs him seventy cents 
 more. Therefore, out of the entire receipts of the es- 
 tablishment, he who bears the burden, braving the win- 
 ter's bitter breath, and the fiercest heat of summer; the 
 wind, the storm, and the weather, every day from dawn 
 until midnight — this man receives but $8.73 while cap- 
 ital's share is $97.50. This poor driver thinks that he 
 is cheated; that the company is robbing him, in a sys- 
 tematic and legalized fashion, every day. They have 
 the advantage over him; he cannot help himself; he 
 must work on their terms or starve; but he hates them, 
 grinds his teeth at them, and haply would not count it 
 stealing if be could get some of their dimes into his 
 own pocket.* 
 
 * This case is introduced to show that there is never a lack of men 
 who are williug to take the most trying and miserably-paid-for kinds 
 of work. The writer is glad to believe that few street railway com- 
 
THE THREAT OF THE CITIES. 97 
 
 The ill-will of the laborer toward the capitalist is 
 greatly increased by periods of business depression. 
 When so many mills are closed, and factories stand 
 idle, it is hard for the worker to understand that his 
 employers are no more to be blamed for such occasions 
 than he himself; and that employers frequently, if not 
 usually, do the very best they can for their hands, both 
 in the matter of high wages and that of regular work. 
 Most wage-workers live from hand to mouth. They 
 must necessarily do so if, as economists say, the price 
 of labor is measured by the lowest cost of living. In 
 Massachusetts, the average expense of the laborer's 
 household, in 1884, was greater by $196 than the earn- 
 ings of the head of the family. This extra expenditure 
 had to come from the earnings of the wife and children. 
 No wonder only one in a hundred of them owned his 
 own house ! When the mill stops, the supply of daily 
 bread is cut off. The grocer gives credit for a while; 
 after thai, if there is still no work to be had, pauper- 
 ism. Work is hard to get at such times. Hard enough 
 at any time. You will find idle laborers gathered in 
 drinking-saloons and on street corners always talking 
 on one inexhaustible theme — the oppression of labor 
 by capital. 
 
 In some cases the closing of mills has been justly and 
 extremely provoking to employes. Those engaged in 
 a certain line of manufacture, finding that more is being 
 produced than can profitably be sold, meet together 
 and form a pool, — that is, an agreement is made in ac- 
 cordance with which some of the mills are closed, and 
 
 panies abuse their men in this fashiou. In Boston, they are employed 
 from twelve to twelve and one- half hours a day, out of which an 
 hour is allowed for meals. 
 
 7 
 
98 TEE TREE AT OF THE CITIES. 
 
 suffered to stand idle until the " over-production " of 
 such goods is checked and their price raised, and the 
 owners of the idle mills are meanwhile paid out of the 
 common purse for the losses incurred in closing them. 
 Thus the owner's income continues as regularly as ever, 
 although the factory doors are closed and its chimneys 
 smokeless. But the working-people who were wont to 
 depend on that mill for support — no one pays them for 
 the silence of its looms and spindles. They must con- 
 sume the little laid up for old age; they must com- 
 mence the weary search for work elsewhere, and 
 perhaps be reduced to destitution before they find it. 
 
 The reader need not be reminded of the extent to 
 which trades-unions and labor-unions and the strikes 
 and disorders that have been promoted by them have 
 broadened the breach between the workingmen and 
 their employers. "Whether they have done anything to 
 help the cause of labor may be doubtful. This much, 
 however, is certain, that they have done very much to 
 rouse and spread abroad among the working people a 
 hatred for those classes whom they have been taught 
 to call " oppressors." 
 
 Listen to the workingman himself. We quote from 
 the Iron Moulder's Journal for January and February, 
 1885. It is not a socialist's paper, but a sober, conserva- 
 tive labor organ ; neither are these articles selected 
 carefully, but are taken from such numbers as were at 
 hand, and fairly represent the spirit in which these 
 matters are usually discussed in such circles : 
 
 " One hundred workers, of as many occupations, will 
 produce, working as they now work, treble the amount 
 of all the necessities and comforts that one family will 
 consume. How in God's name is it that they cannot 
 
THE THREAT OF THE CITIES. 99 
 
 get enough to eat and wear ? What is it, and who is it 
 that takes it all from them and grudgingly doles back 
 to them just sufficient to keep body and soul together 
 for not the allotted life of man, but for the time neces- 
 sary to work and starve them into the grave ? " 
 
 Again we read: "The working-classes, without dis- 
 tinction of trades, have never, in the history of this 
 country, suffered as they are now suffering. The year 
 opens with labor, as a rule, almost completely at the 
 mercy of capital, and capital gloating over its power to 
 inflict the most cruel pangs upon labor, and exercising 
 that power with a venom which will work inevitable 
 retribution." 
 
 These people are saturated with hatred for the whole 
 class whom they term " the capitalists," a hatred that is 
 often unreasoning and unreasonable, that is usually 
 sweeping and intense. 
 
 Now, city churches of the Protestant order are 
 usually attended and sustained by persons of means 
 and intelligence. It makes a man prosperous to be a 
 Christian. The Protestant city churches are, therefore, 
 to the laborer, the churches of the capitalist. He will 
 have nothing to do with them. Their cushions and car- 
 pets, their polished pews, stained windows, and pealing 
 organs, as well as the rich garments of their prosperous 
 congregations, were purchased, as he thinks, with money 
 wrested from his toil-worn fingers. "What wonder that 
 the invitations of the church ring in his ears like tones 
 of hollow mockery, from which he turns away with a 
 bitter heart ! This, after all, is the chief of the reasons 
 why workingmen so rarely enter the door of a Protest- 
 ant city church. They identify the churches with the 
 capitalists, and the capitalists they count their enemies. 
 
100 THE THREAT OF THE CITIES. 
 
 We have thus endeavored to show that the working- 
 men of American cities are almost wholly shut out 
 from the direct, and largely from the indirect influences 
 of Protestant Cluistianity, by their foreign birth, train- 
 ing, and religious traditions, and also by the peculiar 
 nature of the relations between the laborer and the 
 capitalist. If, now, the propositions with which the 
 chapter opened are true; namely — that the body of 
 Christian society cannot exist without the soul, and that 
 so soon as Christian influence is withdrawn from even" 
 a portion of society, that portion must forthwith lapse 
 toward barbarism at the peril of the whole — if these 
 are true, we should expect to see tokens of such a 
 catastrophe in the American cities to-day, and such 
 tokens are not lacking. 
 
 Consider, for example, the matter of municipal gov- 
 ernment. There is no need of enlarging upon the 
 well-known fact that the governments of most of our 
 important cities have for a long time been more or less 
 rotten, and in some cases little more than gigantic sys- 
 tems of fraud. It has been frequently observed that 
 if it were not for the control of State legislation life and 
 property would hardly be safe within them. And now 
 that State legislatures are more and more coming 
 under the control of the gangs from the cities it is 
 time that sober men were awakening to the seriousness 
 of the situation. But let us ask, what is the significance 
 of such a state of things? What does it mean when 
 New York aldermen are convicted of receiving bribes 
 by the wholesale ; when Chicago mayors laugh at the 
 laws of the land and snap their fingers in the face of 
 those who urge their execution; when Cincinnati juries 
 refuse to bring verdicts against criminals of undoubted 
 
THE THREAT OF THE CITIES. 101 
 
 guilt ? Does it not mean that the people by whose suf- 
 frages such officials have obtained their positions are 
 either too ignorant or too immoral for self-govern- 
 ment? 
 
 Or consider, again, the drunkenness of the cities. 
 The fearful statistics of the vice need no repetition. 
 But it should not be forgotten that, unlike the churches, 
 the drinking-saloons find the majority of their patrons 
 among the worldngmen. A machine moulder recently 
 said to the writer that he did not know a person in his 
 trade who is not a drinking man. Drinking-saloons 
 are both causes and effects of a city's degradation. 
 They are effects; they come where poverty makes the 
 home dingy, squalid, and unattractive. Day and night 
 their doors are open, offering to the weary laborer 
 retreats that, with their polished brass and stained 
 glass, their light and warmth and cheery company, are 
 immeasurably more attractive than his home. Apart 
 from the drinking, the drinking-places have a strong 
 fascination for their patrons; but the drink too is made 
 the more enticing by the misery of the drinker. Ex- 
 hausted by long hours of monotonous labor, or by a 
 still more trying search for labor when " out of a job," 
 the man has an irresistible craving for some stimulus 
 which will lighten his heart and banish his sorrows for 
 an hour. The relief is close at hand ; it is cheap and 
 easy to take. That " at last it biteth like a serpent and 
 stingeth like an adder," no one knows better than they 
 who are most familiar with the ruin of it. But those 
 that have the least are the most reckless. For the sake 
 of relieving present discomfort they are willing to run 
 the risk of future misery. You find the saloons thick- 
 est in the poorest quarters. 
 
102 THE THREAT OF THE CITIES. 
 
 Drinking- places are also causes of an inestimable deal 
 of ruin. Besides actual drunkenness and the ghastly 
 train of disease and crime that follows it, there is a 
 moral poison about the grog-shops whose deadly power, 
 though less frequently recognized, is scarcely less per- 
 nicious. A hellish atmosphere pervades these places. 
 They are full of profanity, indecency, and infidelity, 
 the headquarters of political corruption and the hot- 
 beds of crime. It would be very unjust to put them 
 all on a level. Some are certainly much more respect- 
 able than others ; but none of them are too good, and 
 the tendency of ail is downward. These are the places 
 where many of the workingmen most frequently meet 
 and spend the greater part of their leisure. In halls 
 connected with them labor unions and even building 
 societies usually hold their sessions. 
 
 According to the census of 1880 the city of Boston 
 had one saloon for every 329 persons ; Cleveland, one 
 for 192; New York, one for 179; Chicago, one for 171; 
 and Cincinnati, one for 124, or one for every twenty-five 
 families. This calculation does not include groceries or 
 clrug-store3 where liquor is sold. The amount of drink- 
 ing has been increasing from year to year. Do not 
 these facts betoken a serious decline from the high 
 plane of Christian civilization? 
 
 Other evidence in the same direction appears in the 
 increase of crime that the past thirty years have wit- 
 nessed. In IS 50 Massachusetts had one prisoner to 
 804 of the population. In 1880 she had one to 487. 
 The criminal population in proportion to the whole 
 population had nearly doubled in thirty years. The 
 report of the prison commissioners for Massachusetts 
 for 1884, shows that the entire number of arrests for 
 
THE THREAT OF THE CITIES. 103 
 
 the year ending September 30, 1883, was 65,000, or 
 one arrest for every twenty-nine of the population. 
 Who these offenders were becomes evident when you 
 read that Suffolk County, the county of Boston, had in 
 proportion to its population more than twice the num- 
 ber of prisoners of any other county, and five or six 
 times as many as those counties that do not include 
 large towns. 
 
 The census makes an even worse showing than this 
 for the whole country. Between 1870 and 1880, the 
 population of the United States increased 30 per cent. 
 Meantime crime in the United States increased 83.32. 
 The superintendent of the police reports that in Chi- 
 cago, in the year 1883, there were 37,187 arrests in that 
 city, or one for every sixteen of the population. Of 
 these, 159 were for murder, manslaughter, and intent 
 to kill. The same sad story comes from every great 
 city of the land, and one of its saddest features is the 
 increase of what may be called seed crimes — those of 
 the women and boys. Have we not here, too, ominous 
 indications that the foundations of Christian civiliz- 
 ation are rotting away beneath us ? 
 
 The increase of poverty and pauperism is another 
 token of the same thing. This was one of the heaviest 
 chains that dragged old Borne down to the dust. The 
 public statement was recently made that from one in 
 twelve to one in fifteen of the inhabitants of Ohio re- 
 ceived charitable aid in the course of a single winter. 
 
 The Massachusetts State Board of Charities reports 
 that in 1855 16 persons out of every 1,000 received aid; 
 in 1860 the number was 28 ; in 1865, 36 ; in 1870, 45 ; in 
 1 875, 121 ; in 1880 the number was not reported, but 
 the expenditure was greater by 6 per cent, than in 1875. 
 
104: THE THREAT OF THE CITIES. 
 
 In a paper read before the Congregational Club of 
 New York City, Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell showed 
 from the records of the City Charity Organization So- 
 ciety that during three years two hundred and twenty 
 thousand nine hundred and sixty-seven different per- 
 sons, or about one-fifth of the entire population of that 
 city, had asked for outside charity in one form or 
 another. 
 
 "The bitter cry of outcast London," which hag 
 reached us across the sea, telling of hundreds of thou- 
 sands in that most Christian of cities living in such 
 filth, misery, ignorance, nameless vice, and unspeakabla 
 degradation that all heathendom has not the like of it, 
 shows the condition toward which our own poor folks 
 are daily sinking. 
 
 Another token of the same thing is seen in the dese- 
 cration of the Christian Sabbath. Can we have Chris- 
 tian civilization without a Sabbath day ? Granting that 
 the Puritanic Sabbath is not adapted to the needs of 
 our time, no one will deny that we need some sort of a 
 Sabbath day, — a day, too, which in all essential ele- 
 ments shall not be one whit inferior to that which our 
 fathers handed down to U3. ^Where is the city in which 
 the Sabbath day is not losing ground ? To the mass 
 of the workingmen Sunday is no more than a holiday. 
 The conception of it that they have brought with them 
 from Europe has not been improved. It is a day for 
 labor meetings, for excursions, for saloons, beer-gar- 
 dens, base-ball games, and carousals. 
 
 As a final token of the threatening dissolution of the 
 fabric of Christian society, notice the nature of the 
 new gospel for workingmen which many of the social- 
 ists are preaching. Thi3 is not the place for the dis- 
 
THE THREAT OF THE CITIES. 105 
 
 cussion of socialism. "We have no time to speak here 
 of its wide and rapid spread in our own country and 
 all over Europe, nor to consider how much of what is 
 true and valuable may be mixed up with its teachings ; 
 nor can we notice the extent to which it has influenced 
 the thinking of multitudes who have not accepted its 
 doctrines as a whole — an influence clearly seen in recent 
 labor troubles, in the late elections, in the formation of 
 the Anti-Poverty Society, etc. But the thing to be ob- 
 served is the tendency of the doctrines that are at 
 present advocated by its leaders. The International 
 "Workingmen's Association, which is the principal social- 
 istic society in this country and the world, makes it its 
 direct purpose to promote the very thing which, as we 
 have tried to show, is now threatening us, namely: the 
 overthrow of the present system of society. These 
 anarchists have most vague and varied notions of what 
 should take the place of that which they wish to de- 
 stroy. "Whenever they attempt to tell how the new 
 society should be organized, they become involved in 
 hopeless confusion. The one plan upon which they all 
 agree is that of destruction. Many of the leaders go 
 so far as to advocate the abolition with private property 
 of religion, the State, the Church, and even the family. 
 Give such men their way, not that they are likely to 
 get it, and they would dash the proud temple of civil- 
 ization with a single blow to the ground, and leave the 
 world in as dense a darkness of barbarism as ever en- 
 veloped our fathers of the Northland. It is hoped that 
 these will not be regarded as the extravagant words of 
 an alarmist. So surely as God is faithful, that Gospel 
 which Jesus Christ brought to the poor must reach the 
 poor, or else they, perishing in their blindness, will in- 
 
106 THE THREAT OF THE CITIES. 
 
 volve all Christendom in common ruin. Are not these 
 things already rolling in upon us like a mighty storm- 
 cloud, — this increasing drunkenness and crime, this 
 Sabbath desecration, this pauperism, this lawlessness 
 and strife between rich and poor, this worse than 
 heathen poverty and degradation? Do you answer, 
 "Oh, well, but the cities have always been full of 
 drunkenness, poverty, and disorder ; they are the fever- 
 sores of the land " ? True : but do not forget that 
 while the " fever-sores " grow redder and more angry, 
 they are growing larger every day. It was a compara- 
 tively small thing that the cities were vicious when they 
 contained one-thirtieth of the people, but now they 
 contain nearly one-fourth ; soon it will be one-third, 
 one-half ; such fever-sores must not be ignored. 
 
 That soil where weeds grow rankest is ever a fertile 
 soil, capable also of yielding rich harvests of grain. If 
 the towns of modern times furnish extraordinary facili- 
 ties for the deadly work of the destroyer, at the same 
 time they give no less advantage to the armies of sal- 
 vation; they afford unrivalled fields for the triumphs of 
 the Redeemer. God has rarely given His servants 
 greater opportunities for doing good, and bringing 
 forth much fruit unto His praise, than one can find in 
 the troubled hearts of the great cities to-day: for the 
 " sword of the Spirit " is never so mighty as when 
 wielded amid the multitudes. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON — THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 The whole world centres in London : thither all paths 
 lead, and all lines of life converge. As it is the focus 
 of the earth's population, the headquarters of polite 
 society and political power, the emporium of trade and 
 a chief seat of art, science, and literature — even so, Lon- 
 don stands at the very thickest point of the great world- 
 battle between good and evil. There the strongest 
 concentration of Christian power is pitted against the 
 most formidable foes to the faith and the life that are 
 in Christ. There the most urgent problems of the age 
 are pressing hardest, and there, as in no other place, 
 are time and treasure devoted to their solution. A study 
 of the methods of work adopted by the churches of the 
 world's metropolis should, therefore, be helpful to those 
 whom the same service employs in other parts of the 
 field. 
 
 Keligious work in London deals with a society which 
 differs from that of our own cities widely and in many 
 respects. The social gamut is broader than here, and 
 the class distinctions more marked and more generally 
 accepted. It is the city at once of the greatest wealth 
 and the greatest poverty; in few places is living so 
 costly, yet millions there have but a few shillings a week 
 on which to live. Yv r e of America know of no such 
 
 (107) 
 
108 CHRISTIAN WORE IN LONDON. 
 
 •wide contrast — almost like that between men and beasts 
 — as the one which separates the aristocratic top of 
 English society, with its exquisite culture, vast wealth, 
 and sumptuous luxury, from the miserable bottom. 
 The city of the Thames appears like some strange 
 woman whose haughty head flashes with diamonds, 
 and whose upper garments are of silks and gems, while 
 her worn and faded skirts drag tattered fringes through 
 the mire and nlth of squalid streets. 
 
 The fierceness of the straggle for existence is not yet 
 so keenly felt in the new world. Want and over-crowd- 
 ing have thu3 far forced comparatively few of our poor- 
 est families to the degradation of the one-room life that 
 so largely prevails in the lowest parts of London. 
 There is much more alms-giving to be done there than 
 here. They have more of the hungry, naked, and home- 
 less needing their ministry; more need of asylums, 
 hospitals, refuges, and houses of mercy. The dullness, 
 drudgery, and hardships of their lives have stamped 
 themselves in woful lines upon the sallow faces of the 
 poor. During large portions of the year the murky 
 ktmosphere admits but little sunshine, and the lot of 
 the working-people is correspondingly sunless and 
 leaden-hued; the church is, therefore, loudly called 
 upon to pour whatever of brightness she is able into 
 their cheerless homes and over their joyless lives. 
 
 The vastness of the need of London is paralyzing to 
 benevolence; the effort to relieve it seems hopeless. It 
 is like trying to nil a bottomless pit, or casting handf uls 
 of earth into the sea. The ocean of human misery 
 swallows up everything it receives, and shows no 
 change. Pauperism and the pauper-spirit greatly en- 
 hance the difficulty of Christian work. There are mui- 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON 109 
 
 titudes of poor wretches with whom religion is only a 
 means of getting bread and butter. Nothing is more 
 difficult than to win such people to Christian manliness. 
 
 On the other hand, they do not share some of our 
 greatest difficulties. As we have already seen, the 
 foreign population is small in comparison with our own, 
 and the Roman Catholic Church has not a strong foot- 
 hold, and almost none among the lower classes of Eng- 
 lish blood.* 
 
 Other elements of the religious problem, and those 
 the most important, our cities possess in common with 
 those of Great Britain. In both countries the towns 
 are growing with great rapidity, making the utmost 
 diligence necessary that the appointments of religion 
 keep pace with the increasing population. In both this 
 growth is broadening the gulf between rich and poor, 
 so that those parts which have the greatest need of 
 churches are least able to build and sustain them. In 
 both there are the same evil influences of factory life 
 and bondage to machinery. Both have the same in- 
 dustrial questions; the same struggle and jealousy be- 
 tween labor and capital, and the same alienation of the 
 working-people from the church, on the ground that it 
 is an aristocratic institution conducted in the interest 
 of the wealthy classes, and bent upon keeping them in 
 subjection to the capitalists; and in both there is the 
 same determination on the part of thousands of God's 
 people to establish juster and more intimate relations 
 between rich and poor, and to distribute the benefits 
 
 * There are forty-seven Roman Catholic churches in London, 
 against about sixteen hundred Protestant churches; hut the former 
 are, on the average, of greater size. 
 
110 CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON. 
 
 of Christian civilization more uniformly throughout 
 society. 
 
 Seeing that there are not less than sixteen hundred 
 Protestant churches in London, and so many charitable 
 institutions that an account of them, in which each is 
 briefly described, nils a volume of a thousand pages,* 
 any complete and careful description of the religious 
 and benevolent work in that city is, of course, out of 
 the question here. "We shall confine ourselves to a 
 mere outline of general methods pursued by our Eng- 
 lish brethren in church work, especially that intended 
 for the benefit of working-people, and shall illustrate 
 this by more extended notice of two or three such 
 movements as have come under our own observation. 
 
 We naturally begin with the Established Church. This 
 body had in the metropolis, at last accounts, besides St. 
 Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, nine hundred 
 and twenty churches, and a large number of mission 
 halls and schools. 
 
 The cathedral and the abbey differ from the churches 
 in being unconnected with a parish, and in being con- 
 trolled by a Dean and Chapter of Canons instead of a 
 single clergyman, as well as in their vaster size. It 
 used to be the case that these stately piles had very 
 little to do with the practical religious work of the 
 church, and the ecclesiastical offices connected with 
 them " were considered little less than dignified sine- 
 cures"; but the church of to-day aims to make them 
 centres of spiritual life and power.f The chief ofiice 
 
 * Charities Register and Digest, with an introduction by C. S. Loch, 
 Secretary to the Counsel of the Charity Organization Society, London, 
 1884. 
 
 t See Work of the Church of England during the Present Century, 
 by Rev. Canon Gregory. National Review, vol. ii. 
 
CHRISTIAN WOBK IN LONDON HI 
 
 which they perform is that of supplying regular and 
 very frequent religious services with the most eloquent 
 of preachers and sweetest-voiced choirs. 
 
 In St. Paul's there are six regular services on every 
 day in the week except Sunday. One of these is a 
 celebration of the holy communion, and two are choral 
 services held in the body of the cathedral. The others 
 are held in chapels and the crypt. On Sundays there 
 are only four regular services with two celebrations of 
 the holy communion. These services are varied on 
 holy-days by additional sermons and special music. 
 During Lent, for example, there are nine additional ser- 
 mons weekly. The services in Westminster Abbey are 
 somewhat less frequent, and the early morning celebra- 
 tion of the communion occurs only on Sundays and 
 holy- days. It is the custom during Lent and the Ad- 
 vent to perform some great musical work in connection 
 with the cathedral services, such as Bach's Passion 
 Music, Handel's Messiah, or Spohr's Last Judgment. 
 This custom is also followed in some of the parish 
 churches. The singing in the cathedrals and larger 
 parish churches is led by trained choirs of boys whose 
 clear voices have a peculiar quality of exquisite, pas- 
 sionless sweetness scarcely human and more like nute- 
 notes, or the songs one would expect from the cherubs 
 that hover in the mist of glory about Raphael's ma- 
 donnas. The more difficult portions of the music are, 
 of course, rendered by the choir alone, but the congre- 
 gations heartily join in most of the singing. "We have 
 no more important lesson to learn from our English 
 cousins than that of congregational singing. 
 
 Besides the regular and frequent services already 
 mentioned, the cathedrals are used for great occasional 
 
112 CHRISTIAN WOBK IN LONDON 
 
 gatherings such as Sunday-school festivals and anni- 
 versaries of religious societies. 
 
 The parish churches seldom hold less than three 
 regular services on Sunday, one of which is usually 
 designed for children, and nearly all of them have 
 regular and frequent week-day services. Canon Greg- 
 ory reports that of the nine hundred and twenty 
 churches of the Establishment in London, two hundred 
 and eighty-six have a daily service, five hundred and 
 twenty-five celebrate the holy communion every week, 
 and forty-seven every day, while only one hundred and 
 twenty-two have no week-day services. 
 
 Various means are used, apart from the regular ser- 
 vices, to quicken and foster spiritual life among the 
 churches. For the clergy there are quiet days, or retreats, 
 as they are called. These are devotional meetings for 
 spiritual refreshment extended through one or two 
 days and conducted by men whom age and experience, 
 as well a3 natural endowment, have given peculiar fit- 
 ness for the service. 
 
 Parochial missions, like that held in the winter of 
 1885-6 in Trinity Church, New York, are becoming 
 a marked feature in the life of the Church of England. 
 In purpose and methods they closely resemble our own 
 revival-meeting and protracted services. They aim "to 
 rouse the careless and indifferent and to excite in- 
 creased earnestness and devotion on the part of those 
 who make a profession of religion." Several neighbor- 
 ing churches usually unite in such a mission and spe- 
 cial preparation is made for months before its services^ 
 begin. Those most interested meet daily to pray for 
 its success; the neighborhood is thoroughly canvassed, 
 invitations to the extra meetings are widely scattered, 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON. 113 
 
 the factories are visited and brief addresses given to 
 the employes at the noon hour, and the meetings within 
 the church are frequently preceded by brief open-air 
 services without. 
 
 Bible Glasses and Communicants' Classes are conducted 
 by the majority of the churches, and most of them have 
 annual confirmations, for which catechumens are pre- 
 pared by a regular course of instruction lasting several 
 weeks or even months. 
 
 Societies or Guilds for the promotion of spiritual life 
 are frequent both in the congregations of the Estab- 
 lished Church and among nonconformists. One of 
 these, which may be taken as an example, states that 
 its object is " to promote the glory of God by individ- 
 ual holiness and some useful service undertaken in His 
 name." " Its members are bound together by the keep- 
 ing of a simple, practical rule of life, by daily use of 
 the guild prayer and by the meeting together twice 
 every month, once at early celebration of the holy 
 communion, and once for a devotional meeting." 
 Many of the guilds have printed cards specifying a 
 series of daily Bible-readings which all the members 
 agree to follow. There are also guilds for boys, whose 
 members agree to say their prayers kneeling every 
 night and morning, to attend church at least once every 
 Sunday, and when confirmed to " communicate " once 
 a month. It is the practice to have " guardians " ap- 
 pointed over sections of the boys' guilds, whose office it 
 is to act as friends to the lads placed under their care. 
 These men find large opportunities for useful service 
 as counsellors in their young wards' affairs, both those 
 of business and of pleasure; they attend the regular 
 meetings of the guild, look up absentees, visit the sick 
 8 
 
114: GHBISTIAN WOBK IN LONDON, 
 
 and assist those who are in trouble. Similar guilds 
 have been formed for women and girls. 
 
 Most of the larger churches employ more than one 
 clergyman, and some of them as many as three or four. 
 Besides these, there are usually several missionaries, 
 Bible-women, deaconesses, and trained nurses working 
 in the parish under the superintendence of the rector. 
 
 A strong movement has been made during the past 
 few years in the direction of extending ecclesiastical 
 work to the laity. London has an organization entitled 
 The Lay-Helpers' Association, with an enrolled member- 
 ship of above five thousand. These "]ay helpers," or 
 tl lay readers," are employed as teachers of Bible-classes, 
 superintendents of Sunday-schools, to hold services 
 and preach in halls and unconsecrated buildings, and 
 to engage in mission work of every sort. Many of the 
 churches have also organized bands of visitors, among 
 whom the poorer portion of their parishes is so dis- 
 tributed that every family is allotted to some one of 
 them. Visitors of this kind are often willing to accept 
 fields of labor in other parishes than that of their own 
 residence and in poor and distant portions of the 
 town. 
 
 One of the most important agencies employed both 
 by the Church of England people and the Nonconform- 
 ists in their work among the poor — the one which is 
 usually first to take definite shape in commencing a 
 mission of any kind — is a weekly gathering of poor 
 women, called the mothers' meeting. It is conducted by 
 some lady of superior ability, often assisted by other^ 
 ladies and by a " Bible-woman." The latter belongs to 
 the humbler class of society, and is, therefore, a more 
 useful and welcome visitor to the homes of the poor 
 
CHRISTIAN WOBK IN LONDON 115 
 
 than those of higher rank In their meetings the poor 
 ■women are taught to make and mend garments proper- 
 ly; they have practical talks on cooking and nursing, 
 and other domestic matters; suitable selections from 
 books and periodicals are read to them; music is em- 
 ployed to win and interest them, and religious instruc- 
 tion is not neglected. Clothing-clubs are nearly always 
 connected with the mothers' meetings; that is, ar- 
 rangements by which flannel, prints, and garments 
 may be bought in small quantities at wholesale prices. 
 Sometimes coal and grocery clubs, conducted on the 
 same principle, as well as penny banks, are added. 
 Members are encouraged to deposit a few pence each 
 week until they have accumulated enough to pay for 
 some coveted garment or article of furniture. Poor 
 mothers are very fond of these meetings, which often 
 form a single bright spot in lives that are otherwise 
 dark and dreary enough. Some of them are very large. 
 The writer visited one which had about nine hundred 
 members, and was obliged to hold its meetings in two 
 sections. They are extremely useful in opening the 
 hearts and homes of the poor to religious influences, 
 and afford opportunities for certain sorts of instruction 
 and help that the regular services of the Church could 
 never supply. 
 
 Another agency employed by the Church of England 
 among the poor is The Girls' Friendly Society * This is 
 one of the most useful and important branches of 
 benevolent work in England, and aims to meet the needs 
 of a class whose claims on the help and sympathy of 
 the well-disposed are not surpassed by those of any 
 
 * See account of this society by the Countess of Shrewsbury, enti- 
 tled Freveutiou. Nineteenth Century, Dec., 1885. 
 
116 CHRISTIAN- WORK IN LONDON. 
 
 other. The movement was commenced about ten years 
 ago, under the auspices of the late Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury and Mrs. Tait. It enjoys the patronage of Her 
 Majesty the Queen, the Princess of Wales, and other 
 members of the royal family, as well as the Archbishops 
 of York and Canterbury. Although of national extent, 
 it aims to work in each parish in connection with the 
 parish church. Its membership numbers nearly one 
 hundred and twenty-five thousand women and girls of 
 every rank in England alone, and its operations are ex- 
 tended to Scotland, Ireland, and the colonies. Its aims, 
 as stated in the Constitution, are : 
 
 " 1st. To bind together in one society, ladies as associ- 
 ates, and working - girls as members for mutual help 
 (both religious and secular), for sympathy and for 
 prayer. 
 
 "2d. To encourage purity of life, dutifulness to 
 parents, faithfulness to employers, and thrift. 
 
 " 3d. To provide the privileges of the society for its 
 members wherever they may be by giving them an in- 
 troduction from one branch to another." 
 / The following are the central rules : 
 
 "1st. Associates to be members of the Church of 
 England (there is no such restriction as to members), 
 and the organization to follow as much as possible that 
 of the Church, being diocesan, ruridecanal, and parochial. 
 
 " 2d. Associates and members to contribute annually 
 to the funds : the former not less than 2s. 6d. a year, 
 the latter not less than 6d., the members' payment to go 
 to the central fund. 
 
 " 3d. No girl that has not borne a virtuous character 
 to be admitted as a member." 
 
 "The third role," says Lady Shrewsbury, "is the 
 
CHRISTIAN WORE IN LONDON. 117 
 
 hinge on which the whole society hangs. The advan- 
 tages and privileges afforded to the members are to 
 make virtue easier and to act as a fence between them 
 and the pitfalls of vice. That numberless and strong 
 fences are necessary is certain. And that these fences 
 must surround our girls from an early age is, without 
 doubt, a necessity of the age. The Girls' Friendly Soci- 
 ety recognizes this, and endeavors within the limited 
 powers of its comparatively few workers to supply this 
 want. At eight years old little girls are received as 
 candidates and trained to be dutiful to their parents, 
 and modest in conduct; and at twelve they are passed 
 into the society as members, in which condition they re- 
 main until marriage gives them a husband's protection." 
 
 The privileges of the society are these : 
 
 "1st. Every girl has a right to go to the associate as a 
 friend for sympathy, advice, and help." 
 
 In case of emigration, she is watched over until she 
 reaches her destination, being safely placed upon her 
 vessel when leaving England, and received at the docks 
 by special agents when she lands in America or the 
 colonies. Emigration is not, however, encouraged by 
 the society. 
 
 2d. There are " lodges " for these girls in the metrop- 
 olis, and most of the large towns whither they flock for 
 employment. "These lodges take the place of home, 
 and are under the supervision of a lady superintend- 
 ent or matron who * mothers ' the inmates." Charges 
 for board are made proportionate to the earnings of 
 the inmates. Games and amusements are provided, 
 instruction is given, friendships are formed, and a 
 home-life cultivated whose attractions are strong enough 
 to keep them from the temptations without. 
 
118 CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON. 
 
 No element in the society's life and work is found to 
 be more useful and is more highly appreciated than 
 that of the attachments that grow up between the girls 
 and the ladies who care for them. And another feature 
 scarcely less valuable is that of the deep and lasting 
 friendships that are formed among the members. 
 
 The society extends its influence into the various oc- 
 cupations where girls are employed, and manages the 
 different branches of its work by means of eight sepa- 
 rate departments. There is a department for members 
 in professions and business, which includes work among 
 school-mistresses, students, pupil-teachers, shop-girls, 
 and dress-makers; a department for members in mills 
 and factories; for candidates from workhouses and 
 orphanages; for members in service (domestic servants 
 cannot, however, belong to the society or attend its 
 meetings without the permission of their mistresses) ; a 
 department for lodges and lodgings; a department for 
 literature (which publishes a journal for associates, and 
 two magazines for members, besides books and pam- 
 phlets) ; a department for sick members, and homes of 
 rest; and a department for domestic economy and in- 
 dustrial training, which trains children for domestic 
 service, and instructs members by lecture and other- 
 wise to earn their own living. 
 
 The Church of England performs many grateful 
 services for the poor by the hands of deaconesses and 
 sisters of mercy. The sisters live in communities, take 
 vows of celibacy, and usually make the devotional life 
 the chief object of their seclusion from the world. 
 They usually belong to the extreme high-church party. 
 A deaconess, on the other hand, is a person set aj^art 
 by a bisho]3 for religious work. The bearers of this 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON. H9 
 
 office take no vows, may be married or single, and 
 need not necessarily live in a religious community. 
 Many, if not most, of them are of the low-church party. 
 
 Both classes are largely engaged in Christian and 
 benevolent work, and are frequently employed in con- 
 nection with the parish church under the direction of 
 its incumbent. These women, protected by a distinct- 
 ive dress, visit the low parts of the city without danger, 
 penetrate the dark and loathsome dwellings of the very 
 poorest people, and search out the destitute sick, to 
 whom their ministries bring the greatest comfort. 
 Mothers are taught to take proper care of their children; 
 hints and instruction as to nursing are given to the 
 friends and relatives of invalids, and free nurses are 
 supplied in cases of extreme need. The sisters and 
 deaconesses, being trained nurses, are able, by their 
 constant presence in the sick-chamber, to do more for 
 the sufferer, especially when he is in destitute circum- 
 stances, than any physician could do through occasional 
 visits. 
 
 In England, as in our own land, it is not easy to se- 
 cure Sunday-school teachers who are really efficient 
 and competent to instruct the children placed under 
 their charge. Here, too, the services of women of this 
 order are extremely valuable and effective. They also 
 conduct week-day schools, ragged-schools, and indus- 
 trial schools. Orphanages have been established and 
 maintained by them, as well as temporary homes for 
 missionaries, houses of mercy for penitents, day nurser- 
 ies,- refuges, homes for incurables and for convalescents. 
 There is a party of sisters which appears every day at 
 noon among the rough laborers, at the docks of East 
 London, bringing trucks loaded with food and hot 
 
120 CHRISTIAN WORE IN LONDON. 
 
 coUee, which is sold at nominal prices. Thus they hope 
 to win away patronage from the diinking-places that 
 cluster thickly about the dock-gates, They are also 
 largely engaged in hospital and infirmary work. Sev- 
 eral hospitals for women and children have been es- 
 tablished by them, and the nursing at other hospitals 
 is entirely under their charge. 
 
 There is a notable tendency among earnest people of 
 every name and order in England to establish as many 
 points of contact as possible between the church and 
 the daily life of the people. This tendency is illustrated 
 by the extent to which friendly societies and worhingmen's 
 dabs are encouraged. It had formerly been the case, 
 and is still, to some extent, that such institutions held 
 their meetings in halls connected with public-houses, 
 which the publicans were glad to provide, rent free, for 
 the sake of their presence and incidental patronage. 
 This practice is common in the United States also. 
 Such institutions have, in many cases, been provided 
 with quarters of their own largely through the dona- 
 tions of benevolent men, and under the auspices of the 
 -^churches. Mission-halls, chapels, school-rooms, and 
 other buildings of the sort have also been thrown open 
 to their use. It is a common thing for gentlemen of high 
 standing to belong to them, and to attend their meet- 
 ings. And they frequently elect prominent clergymen 
 and others to the office of president. 
 
 One of the great national sins of England is that of 
 intemperance. In this respect there is a marked con- 
 trast between the British and continental cities. The 
 diinking-places in London are more numerous, are 
 usually of a lower class, and deal in liquors that are 
 more injurious than those most commonly drank at 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON. 121 
 
 Paris and Berlin;* drunkenness is more frequent. In 
 the dingy, foul, crowded, poverty-stricken parts, where 
 human existence is fullest of misery, the gin-palaces 
 stand in tawdry splendor on every corner, like shining 
 parasites fattened on the life-blood of the poor. Per- 
 haps there is no more drunkenness among men than 
 some of our own cities exhibit, and there is certainly 
 more excuse for it, if miserable homes, costly food, and 
 cheap drink can constitute an excuse. But the drunk- 
 enness of women, that may be seen in the poorer 
 parts of London, is peculiarly shocking to a stranger. 
 Women of the lower classes appear to be almost as fre- 
 quent patrons of the gin-shops as their husbands. f As 
 one passes the open doors of the public-houses any 
 summer night in East London, he can see large num- 
 bers of them drinking at public bars, with babies in 
 their arms, and small children hanging about their 
 skirts. Since drunkenness is even more demoralizing 
 in the case of the woman and mother than in that of 
 the father of the household, its ill-effects among the 
 London poor are simply incalculable. Corresponding 
 with the extent and virulence of the disease have been 
 the strength of the remedies put forth to meet it. The 
 temperance movement is remarkably powerful through- 
 out all England; so much so that official statistics show 
 an encouraging diminution of drunkenness during the 
 last few years, as well as a decrease of government 
 revenues from taxes upon intoxicants. Among the 
 
 * We do not mean to imply that either of those cities is a model in 
 this respect. 
 
 + This may be, to some extent, due to the custom of employing 
 bar-maids. The presence of a woman in a drinking-place makes it 
 a shade more respectable for other women to visit. 
 
122 CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON 
 
 working-classes, with whom the movement has taken 
 its firmest hold, multitudes of temperance societies 
 have sprung up. Many of these combine with their 
 temperance work a scheme of insurance against sick- 
 ness and death, and are known as temperance friendly 
 societies. 
 
 AH. religious work among the lower classes is shot 
 through and through with temperance. In the case of 
 many, sin of every sort has become so interwoven and 
 identified with the drink passion that this is the sin of 
 sins to them, and they talk about the Christian life as 
 though they considered it to be chiefly a deliverance 
 by the grace of God from the power of strong drink, 
 combined with a commission to work for the salva- 
 tion of others from the same bondage. Many of the 
 churches, both those of the Establishment and of Non- 
 conformists, employ reformed men as special temper- 
 ance missionaries to devote themselves exclusively to 
 this line of work. 
 
 The Church of England Temperance Society has its 
 branches in almost every parish of the English cities. 
 It includes a Woman's Union and a Juvenile Union. 
 It publishes several papers and conducts special depart- 
 ments for police-court work, for railway work, for army 
 work, for work among cabmen, 'busmen, and others; in 
 connection with this and kindred movements among 
 the Nonconformists multitudes of cocoa and coffee 
 taverns have been established throughout the whole 
 country, twelve hundred and forty-four of which are 
 now known to be in operation. 
 
 Brave work has been and is being done in England, 
 in battling with the fury of the social evil. The life- 
 struggle of a crowded city like London greatly aggra- 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON 123 
 
 vates and inflames the temptations consequent upon 
 such passions as flesh is heir to. For a young man to 
 get foothold in any line of business requires a long, 
 hard struggle. Marriage is late and uncertain. The 
 horrors of the one-room life blot out all sense of mod- 
 esty in early childhood from thousands of daughters of 
 the poor, and want continually tempting them to pros- 
 titution and finding the defences against such tempta- 
 tion weakened or destroyed, fills the street with fallen 
 women. The work of the White Gross movement is well 
 known in the United States, and many branches of that 
 organization have already been planted upon our shores. 
 It is not a denominational movement, but includes 
 in its ranks men of all sects and parties. There is a 
 Church of England Purity Society, which works in the 
 same line and % is practically the same thing. These 
 societies aim to promote purity among men, a chival- 
 rous respect for womanhood, prevention of the young 
 from contamination, rescue work, and a higher tone of 
 public opinion. Their membership is confined to men 
 above eighteen years of age and their meetings are for 
 men only. 
 
 In order to show how these and other branches of 
 Christian activity are woven together in the life of the 
 most energetic London churches, a brief account will 
 be given of the work of two or three who are directly 
 dealing with the problem of reaching the working- 
 classes. 
 
 Our first example is St. Anne's, Limehouse. This 
 church is situated far down in the East End, a part of 
 London which visitors and the more prosperous portion 
 of the Londoners themselves never see unless, perhaps, 
 from the windows of a railway carriage as their train 
 
124 CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON. 
 
 hurries them over a long viaduct that crosses that 
 region. 
 
 The parish, no part of which is more than ten min- 
 utes' walk from the church, embraces a population of 
 something more than ten thousand. It is composed 
 chiefly of artisans, lodging-house keepers, sailors and 
 dock laborers, many of the latter being very poor. 
 There are about twenty manufacturers and tradesfolk 
 of the wealthier sort, but with these exceptions persons 
 so engaged in that neighborhood reside far away from 
 their place of business. There are also two streets of 
 small shop-keepers of the lower-middle class. The 
 church has on its parochial staff four resident clergy- 
 men, one Scripture-reader, ninety-two Sunday-school 
 teachers, fourteen day-school teachers, choir-master, 
 organist, twenty choir-men, forty choir-boys, two trained 
 nurses, two mission women, twelve district visitors, and 
 one temperance missionary. The choir-boys are paid 
 one penny for each week-day attendance. 
 
 The church has a seating capacity of thirteen hun- 
 dred. There are three mission-rooms, the first of which 
 seats four hundred, the second eighty, the third forty. 
 Four services are held in the church on every Sunday : 
 holy communion at eight a.m., morning service at 
 eleven a.m., followed twice in the month by a second 
 celebration of the holy communion. At three o'clock 
 a congregational Bible-class is held, there are baptisms 
 at four, and evening prayer at seven. Two services, 
 morning and evening prayer, are held in the church on 
 every day in the week and twice daring the week — the 
 evening service includes a sermon ; besides which there 
 are many extra services on feast days and other special 
 occasions. 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON. 125 
 
 Mission-room No. 1 has a Sunday-school on Sunday 
 morning, another in the afternoon, and a ragged Sun- 
 day-school in the evening, besides Bible-classes for 
 young men and for young women. During the four 
 Monday evenings of the month the room is used for 
 the successive meetings of three communicants' guilds : 
 one for adults, one for young men, and one for young 
 ■women, and a branch of the Church of England Purity 
 Society. Tuesday afternoon there is a mothers' meet- 
 ing in this place ; Tuesday evening, a sewing- class for 
 girls ; Wednesday, a second mothers' meeting, and 
 Wednesday evening a ragged-school Band of Hope. 
 Thursday evening there is a Sunday-school Band of 
 Hope, followed by an adult temperance meeting, and Fri- 
 day evening the room is occupied by a friendly society. 
 
 Mission-room No. 2 has a Bible-class for men on 
 every Sunday, with an enrolled membership numbering 
 one hundred and sixteen, and an average attendance of 
 fifty-five, and a class about half as large for girls. At 
 the same place there are held, in the course of the week, 
 a mothers' meeting, a men's night-school, a lady's Bible- 
 reading, a children's service, a Gospel service, a woman's 
 Bible-class, a social evening for boys, a social evening 
 for girls, including a working-party, library, penny 
 bank, etc., and a general prayer-meeting. All these 
 meetings are conducted by deaconesses from Mildmay 
 Park Institute. 
 
 In connection with mission-room No. 3 there are 
 out-of-door services on every Sunday evening from 
 June to October, followed by mission services within. 
 There is also a special meeting for boys on Sunday 
 afternoon, and in the course of the week there are two 
 social evenings for men, and one for girls. 
 
126 CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON. 
 
 At the same time the National School * buildings are 
 utilized by this most active church for the following 
 meetings : — Sunday morning a Sunday-school for boys, 
 Sunday afternoon a Sunday-school for girls; also four 
 Bible-classes, one for men, one for young men, one for 
 lads, and one for girls. There is in this building a 
 weekly teachers' meeting, a penny savings bank, and a 
 library for all the Sunday-schools. In addition to all 
 these, there are regular weekly services held three times 
 every week in neighboring factories during the dinner 
 hour. 
 
 Every year this church has confirmations, for which 
 preparatory instruction is given to catechumens in nine 
 weekly classes during three months preceding that ser- 
 vice. In the way of guilds and societies, there are 
 reported a missionary society, a communicants' society, 
 a maternity society, a Church of England temperance 
 society, three Bands of Hope, a Sunday-school and mis- 
 sionary-box society. In the line of recreations, etc., 
 the church provides weekly social evenings for factory- 
 hands, a sewing-class for the ragged-school, temper- 
 ance entertainments, meetings for boys and young men, 
 quarterly teas for young men's and young women's 
 Bible-classes, cricket, football, and swimming clubs, 
 country walking-parties, annual excursions for the choir 
 and Sunday-school, and confirmation anniversaries. 
 
 Another large East London church, St. Mary's, White- 
 chapel, has on its parochial staff a rector and three 
 assistant curates, one Scripture -reader, and three city 
 missionaries, one of whom works exclusively among the 
 
 * The "National Schools" are church schools. The "Board 
 Schools" are those supported by the State. 
 
CHRISTIAN WORE IN LONDON 127 
 
 Jews; a mission-woman, a nurse for sick poor, and five 
 licensed lay readers, besides church - wardens, choir, 
 Sunday-school teachers, etc. Open-air meetings are 
 held five evenings during the week throughout six 
 months of the year. It has a stone pulpit built into 
 the exterior wall of the church, from which wayside 
 hearers may be addressed. The list of clubs, societies, 
 entertainments, and enterprises of various sorts that it 
 sustains is even more extensive than that already 
 quoted. It includes a clothing- club in five branches, 
 with a membership of eight hundred and thirty-nine; 
 a sick and burial society, cricket-club, swimming- club, 
 lawn-tennis-club, young men's association, branches 
 of the Church of England Temperance Society, both 
 for adults and children, with weekly meetings and 
 entertainments ; a girls' friendly society, a children's 
 country-holiday fund, a destitute children's dinner so- 
 ciety, an emigration fund, an oriental coffee-house, an 
 industrial home, a registry for domestic servants, a 
 tonic sol-fa class, a chess class, a parish magazine with 
 a circulation of seven hundred, Christmas treats, sum- 
 mer excursions, concerts, magic - lantern exhibitions, 
 soup-kitchen, and branches of the White Cross Army. 
 There is another East London church, whose work 
 being somewhat exceptional in character, is worthy of 
 special attention and study. This is St. Jude's, White- 
 chapel. Its parish is occupied by workingmen, small 
 shop-keepers, and clerks, and, although the region may 
 not be quite so miserable as that which surrounds St. 
 Anne's, the fact of its proximity to "Bag Fair " and the 
 famous " Petticoat Lane," that once was, is evidence 
 enough that it is none too respectable. The church is 
 not a large one, and except for the character of its 
 
128 CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON. 
 
 vicar, would not be of special importance. The latter, 
 the Rev. Samuel A. Bametfc, is one of the most radical 
 members of the broad-church party, and a well-known 
 writer on social and industrial questions. He is a man 
 of great personal attractions, of commanding influence, 
 is bold in his thinking, positive in his convictions, and 
 extremely radical in many of his positions. No one 
 can doubt the depth and genuineness of his sympathy 
 with the poor, for whose relief he spends his life in 
 plans and labors along somewhat original lines. 
 
 In the regular work of St. Jude's church some of the 
 more common and generaEy approved methods of re- 
 ligious effort are discarded. They declined, for ex- 
 ample, to join in the mission which was conducted by 
 other churches in the vicinity on the ground that such 
 movements are of doubtful value, often productive of 
 incidental evil so great as to more than counterbalance 
 the good that results from them, and also on the ground 
 that they foster a type of religion in which the people 
 are already well instructed, namely, a religion of senti- 
 ments and fears, while they fail to develop what the 
 poor stand in greatest need of, — a religion of manliness 
 and culture. The common plan of visiting the poor 
 in their homes is not extensively practiced by the peo- 
 ple of St. Jude's, for it is held that such visits tend to 
 rob them of their self-respect. 
 
 Among the special features of the work in this place 
 the following are noted : 
 
 1st. The church is open every day, from 11 a.m. until 
 5 p.m., " for those who would pray, read, and think in 
 quietness." 
 
 2d. The regular Sunday morning service is broken 
 into three short services by slight pauses between the 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON. 129 
 
 morning prayer, sermon, and litany, because " after a 
 week's work many cannot rise until late in the day and 
 to few is it given to be able to restrain their thoughts 
 for more than half an hour at a time." 
 
 3d. The church is made attractive at all times by the 
 presence of flowers and appropriate works of art. A 
 bright Venetian mosaic and a beautiful drinking foun- 
 tain with suitable inscriptions adorn its exterior front. 
 
 4th. There is a so-called " worship hour " after Sun- 
 day-evening service which seems to be mainly devoted 
 to music, meditation, and silent prayer. 
 
 5th. Unusual attention is given to matters of secular 
 instruction. Night-schools are held throughout the 
 week ; there are special classes in such subjects as 
 French, science, and violin; a popular-ballad class meets 
 once a week. During the summer, various classes take 
 the form of rambling clubs and devote their excursions 
 to the study of geology, botany, and architecture. 
 
 6th. There is a lending-library with about a thousand 
 volumes which are kept in constant circulation. 
 
 7th. But the feature in the work at St. Jude's which 
 is most unique of all is the institution of an annual free 
 exhibition of fine art for the benefit of the working-peo- 
 ple of East London. It is held in the rooms of the 
 school-building which stands closely beside the church, 
 is open every year at Easter and continues open day 
 and evening seven days in the week for about one 
 month. The pictures and other objects displayed are 
 of a very high class and loaned from the best houses 
 in London. This is held to be a matter of extreme im- 
 portance and indeed essential to the purpose for which 
 the exhibition was inaugurated, its object being to ele- 
 vate the taste, and through the taste, the whole nature 
 9 
 
130 CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON. 
 
 of the people by constantly placing before them what 
 is really excellent until familiarity has taught them to 
 know it so well that they can instantly choose between 
 the good and vicious. This year the exhibition con- 
 tained some five hundred paintings, several of which 
 had been leading pictures at different times in the 
 Ro}- al Academy. It was pronounced the finest exhibi- 
 tion of modern paintings that could be seen at the time 
 in the whole metropolis. An elaborate catalogue, con- 
 taining not only the titles of the pictures, but simple, 
 well-worded comments and explanations, with extracts 
 from Mr. Buskin and the poets, was sold for a penny. 
 There was also a number of ladies and gentlemen in 
 constant attendance to act, not only as custodians of 
 the valuable property, but also as guides and inter- 
 preters to the poorer and more inexperienced visitors. 
 The exhibition was first opened in the spring of 1880, 
 and the number of visitors that year was about twelve 
 thousand. With each successive season it has become 
 more popular, until last year, when it was visited by 
 fifty-six thousand people, three-fourths of whom were 
 mechanics, artisans, and laborers. Regarding this en- 
 terprise Mr. Barnett writes : 
 
 "The inability of those who constitute the majority 
 of the nation to understand even the language of some 
 of the best modern teachers, reveals the condition to 
 which society has been brought in the pursuit of wealth. 
 It also suggests means of reform. The people must be 
 made familiar with pictures and books. They must 
 learn the language of thought, as language is always 
 learned by familiarity. Galleries and libraries should 
 thus be conveniently placed and opened at fitting times. 
 Sunday cannot be an unfit day on which to become 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON. 131 
 
 familiar with the language of pictures and books, — the 
 language through which God has often come to men." * 
 
 Another institution deserves our notice in this con- 
 nection, which, although quite distinct from St. Jude's 
 church, stands beside it, and is undoubtedly an out- 
 growth of the life and thinking of its vicar. This is 
 styled The University Extension Society. It is composed 
 of a dozen or twenty young men, including churchmen, 
 nonconformists, and even unbelievers, all of them uni- 
 versity graduates, who, feeling the grievousness of the 
 evils springing from the growing gulf between rich and 
 poor, are bent upon doing something, all that is within 
 their power, toward bridging it over. They have ac- 
 cordingly come down to live among the people of the 
 East End, have joined workingmen's clubs, and have 
 endeavored in every possible way to identify themselves 
 with the life of that portion of the town which is almost 
 exclusively occupied by the children of toil. 
 
 Their house of residence, called the "Settlement," 
 closely resembles an ordinary college building in its 
 internal arrangements. There is a comfortable dining- 
 room, a spacious and attractive drawing-room, there 
 are several convenient class-rooms, and there are small 
 parlors and tiny bedrooms for about twenty men. In 
 connection with the settlement there is a good-sized 
 audience-room, called Toynbee Hall, where courses of 
 free lectures for workingmen are given by eminent men 
 of science and letters every winter. The members of 
 the society are most of them engaged in the law-courts 
 and in other parts of the city during the day. In the 
 
 * For other examples of parochial work see Official Year-Book of 
 tlie Church of England, London, 1886, pp. 46-55. 
 
132 CHRISTIAN WORE IN LONDON. 
 
 evening, besides taking a part in their various clubs, 
 they teach selected classes of young men in their own 
 rooms or the class-rooms at the settlement. The mem- 
 bers of these classes are brought together in weekly 
 social evenings in the great drawing-room. Lady 
 friends from the West End are generally present upon 
 these occasions, and contribute music and selected read- 
 ings as well as their society to the entertainment; and 
 there has been an effort to secure also the presence of 
 the wives and sisters of the workingmen. But this, it 
 is said, has not yet been successfully accomplished, 
 much to the annoyance and perplexity of the young 
 reformers. The movement, while not distinctively re- 
 ligious, is far from being irreligious. Its primary aim 
 seems to be to extend to those whose hard, laborious 
 life-struggle has entirely cut them off from it, some of 
 the fruits of Christianity which take the shape of in- 
 tellectual and aesthetic culture. 
 
 The organization is but a new one, and the methods 
 thus far necessarily tentative arid experimental. There 
 i is a growing conviction among its members, as we are in- 
 y formed, that little can be done to help the workingmen 
 without the powerful alliance of religion. Sects and 
 sectarianism stand in their way, being there and every- 
 where the greatest practical hindrance to effective 
 Christian work. Some of them at least are, therefore, 
 driven for relief to the extreme position of those who 
 with Mr. Bamett would make the Church "truly na- 
 tional" — "the nation organized for worship," and every 
 Englishman — be he Churchman, Nonconformist, Turk 
 or infidel — a member of it, with a voice in the control 
 of its affairs. 
 
 A style of work in some, though not in all respects, 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON. 133 
 
 similar to that of the " University Extension Society," 
 is "being done "by a colony of Oxford graduates, whose 
 headquarters are known as the Oxford House, St. An- 
 drew Parish, Bethnal Green. These men are usually 
 students of divinity who, having taken their degree, 
 spend a year in Christian work in London before ordi- 
 nation, as a sort of post-graduate course of prepara- 
 tion for their life-service. The region is one of the 
 most miserable in the whole city. Besides engaging in 
 house-to-house visitation and general mission work, 
 these Oxford men have organized a number of clubs 
 for workingmen and for boys, which differ from the 
 ordinary workingmen's clubs in being strictly temper- 
 ance organizations. They have also conducted a lecture 
 bureau, designed to furnish free lectures of instructive 
 character for workingmen's clubs. In prosecuting this 
 enterprise they have been able to secure the services of 
 about twenty lecturers during the past winter, mostly 
 Oxford men and specialists, and they have sent each of 
 them out to address audiences of workingmen three or 
 four times in the course of the last winter. 
 
 The neighborhood of Bethnal Green is occupied by 
 multitudes of poor artisans that are engaged in various 
 kinds of handicraft. The competition of machines and 
 factories has of late years made their slow and labo- 
 rious methods of work extremely unremunerative ; in 
 consequence of which many are reduced to penury. 
 Yet most of the productions of these people have the 
 peculiar beauty, strength, and excellence of hand-made 
 goods. Hundreds of the original Huguenot family 
 which live there are, for example, still engaged in weav- 
 ing with hand-looms in their homes, the heavy, old- 
 fashioned, costly silks of former times. The Oxford 
 
134 CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON. 
 
 men, feeling that if the character of this work were 
 more generally known, and its excellence understood 
 and appreciated, there would be a ready market for it, 
 have set on foot arrangements for the great industrial 
 exhibition of the manufactures of East London, the 
 so-called " East Enderies," which was recently opened 
 by Lady Eosebery, assisted by Lord Lome, under most 
 favorable auspices and with every promise of success. 
 In this way they hope to provide a ready sale for the 
 manufactures of their poor neighbors, and thus to pro- 
 mote greater prospeiity among them. 
 
CHAPTEK V. 
 
 CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON — DISSENTING CHURCHES — OTHER 
 MOVEMENTS. 
 
 In discussing the work of the dissenting churches in 
 London we shall find that many of the methods em- 
 ployed by them are so similar to those already men- 
 tioned that they need no further description. It should 
 not, however, on that account be inferred that they are 
 practiced with less earnestness and success by the non- 
 conformists than by churchmen. 
 
 The dissenting churches have about seven hundred 
 places of worship, of all sorts, in London. Three hun- 
 dred and thirty of these, most of which are quite small, 
 belong to various bodies of Wesleyans and Methodists; 
 one hundred and twelve to Independents or Congrega- 
 tionalists; ninety-nine to Baptists; sixty-seven to Pres- 
 byterians; and eighty or ninety to a variety of smaller 
 sects and to undenominational missions. 
 
 The ordinary services of these churches are arranged 
 and conducted in all essential respects like those of our 
 own country. There are, however, some slight differ- 
 ences between their ways and ours, which are perhaps 
 worth noticing. The religious services are, if we are 
 not mistaken, considerably more frequent than is usual 
 among us. It is common to have two prayer-meetings 
 on Sunday, besides two regular church services and 
 Sunday-school. Not a few of the churches have two 
 
 (135) 
 
136 CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON-. 
 
 sessions of the Sunday-school, the first coming before 
 church in the morning, the second in the afternoon, 
 and even have the same officers, pupils, and teachers at 
 both sessions. Their Sunday-schools, as a rule, have 
 more the character of mission schools than ours, and 
 are usually not attended by the children of the best 
 families in the church. Yet some schools are conducted 
 on the American plan. Many churches have a separate 
 service for children going on at the same time with the 
 regular morning service. It is a common plan to hold 
 two prayer-meetings on week-days ; one, perhaps, on 
 Monday and one on Saturday evening; and a more 
 formal service with preaching on Wednesday or Thurs- 
 day evening. 
 
 The order of worship varies considerably in different 
 churches, but most of them agree in certain particulars : 
 there are usually two Scripture lessons, one from the 
 Old Testament and one from the New; there is almost 
 always more singing than is common with us; morning 
 service in many of the churches includes, at least, four 
 hymns and a chant, or three hymns, an anthem, and a 
 chant. It was noticed in two prominent Congrega- 
 tional churches in London that, during a morning ser- 
 vice followed by a brief communion service, there were 
 sung, always by choir and congregation together, an 
 anthem, two chants, and five hymns. A brief prayer 
 often immediately precedes the sermon. It is a uni- 
 versal custom among the English people upon taking 
 their seat in church or any religious meeting to bow 
 the head or kneel in silent prayer, and also to remain 
 for a moment in the attitude of devotion after the clos- 
 ing benediction. The pews are supplied with Bibles as 
 well as hymn-books, and the majority of the congrega- 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON 137 
 
 tion follow the preacher in his reading with open Bible, 
 and look up the text. 
 
 The celebration of the Lord's Supper is rather more 
 frequent in most of the churches than is common with 
 us, the event occurring as often as once and even twice 
 each month. In the latter case there is usually one 
 celebration after a morning, and one after an evening 
 service, in order that it may suit the convenience of all 
 to be present at least once every month. They have a 
 pleasant custom of seating the deacons upon the plat- 
 form about the pastor during the celebration of the 
 feast. There is also a system of tickets by which the 
 members of the church indicate their presence at the 
 sacramental service. Each member present deposits a 
 dated and numbered ticket in the collection-box with 
 the offering for the poor. This does not mean that no 
 member can commune without a ticket ; the ticket is 
 simply an indication of his presence, and enables the 
 church clerk to keep a roll of attendance — a very useful 
 thing, especially where the congregation includes a 
 large number of poor and obscure persons.* Strangers 
 are most cordially welcomed to the Lord's table in all 
 the churches, the Baptist as well as others, and are even 
 invited to assist in the sacramental service. 
 
 Most of the methods of evangelistic work carried on 
 by the dissenting churches closely resemble our own. 
 They have prayer-meetings, inquiry-rooms, Gospel ser- 
 vices, and protracted meetings precisely like ours. Al- 
 though the music used for regular church services is 
 
 * We cannot say that this is a universal custom, but only that it is a 
 common one. We trust our readers will not forget that we claim in 
 none of these matters to speak with authority except within the range 
 of a very limited experience. 
 
138 CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON. 
 
 somewhat unfamiliar, in evangelistic meetings of all 
 kinds one invariably hears the well-known songs intro- 
 duced by Mr. Bliss and Mr. Sankey; and, much as 
 these simple melodies may be despised on artistic 
 grounds, they certainly have a remarkable adaptation 
 to the work for which they were designed, that of 
 evangelistic services among common people. They are 
 used in such meetings not only in London and all over 
 England and Scotland, but at the McAll mission in 
 Paris and the Young Men's Christian Association in 
 Berlin. 
 
 Having premised thus much in general, brief descrip- 
 tion will be given of the work of two or three dissent- 
 ing churches which deal directly with the problem of 
 evangelizing the masses. 
 
 The first example is that of the Highbury Quadrant 
 Congregational Church, of which Dr. Llewellyn D. Bevan, 
 formerly of New York and lately removed to Melbourne, 
 Australia, was pastor at the time it was visited by the 
 writer. This church stands in the midst of a rather 
 prosperous district in one of the newer parts of Lon- 
 don. The comfortable-looking houses about it are oc- 
 cupied by people of the middle and upper-middle 
 classes. There are poorer neighborhoods, however, 
 within a few minutes' walk, inhabited by working-peo- 
 ple. The church is but eight years old, and its com- 
 modious house of worship has been completed only 
 about five years. Yet, although so young, it already 
 has two thriving missions. The relation of one of these 
 missions to the parent church gives an extremely valu- 
 able hint at the way religious work may be successfully 
 sustained and vigorously pushed in the poorest neigh- 
 borhoods. 
 
CEBI8TIAN WOBE IN LONDON. 139 
 
 The mission church of Britannia Kow is nearly a mile 
 and a half away from the parent church. It stands 
 in a narrow lane off from a portion of a great North 
 London thoroughfare, to which its abandoned character 
 has given the title, " The Devil's Mile." The population 
 thereabout is of the poorest class, — day-laborers, wash- 
 women, and costermongers. The mission has all the 
 appointments of a regular church. Its house of wor- 
 ship is large and comfortable. It has a spacious Sun- 
 day-school room and class-rooms below the main au- 
 ditorium, a pipe organ, and the usual church furnish- 
 ings. A regular pastor, whom nature and experience 
 have combined to give peculiar fitness for such work, 
 devotes his whole time and strength to its service. It 
 has its own treasurer, deacons, and committees, and is 
 in all respects like an ordinary church except that it 
 leans upon a stronger sister for support. 
 
 No church in such a community with such a mem- 
 bership could live a vigorously independent life, if it 
 could live independently at all. There would be two 
 great difficulties, and these the chief difficulties that 
 disturb independent religious enterprises everywhere 
 in poor neighborhoods : First, lack of money to sup- 
 port an efficient pastor and to conduct the affairs of 
 the church in a proper way ; second, lack of workers 
 competent to take helpful part in prayer-meetings, to 
 organize and lead the various religious, literary, and 
 benevolent societies that are needed to lift along the 
 work, and to teach in the Sunday-school. In this case 
 the difficulty is overcome by uniting the weak church 
 with a strong one. The latter, out of its abundance, 
 supplies the needs of the former and both are benefited 
 by the transaction,— one with the blessing of giving, 
 
140 CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON. 
 
 the other with that of receiving. The Highbury Quad- 
 rant people pay the entire pastor's salary for their 
 brethren at Britannia How, and in hard times when 
 the weather is bitter and work short, so that many are 
 in destitution, they come generously to their aid with 
 gifts of food, clothing, and fuel. The stronger church 
 sends also a corps of its very best workers to assist in 
 the Sunday-school and prayer-meetings, to lead moth- 
 ers' meetings, and even to take the office of deacon in 
 the church. It would be strange if this outlay of its 
 strength in support of a feeble sister did not, as it 
 does, react powerfully upon the sustaining church, giv- 
 ing it more means for home expenditure and more 
 workers for home work. It would be strange if going 
 down to play the part of brother and sister in deed 
 and in truth, by working shoulder to shoulder with 
 these sons of toil and daughters of sorrow, did not, as 
 it does, give to the well-to-do people of the Quadrant 
 church such an understanding of the needs of the poor, 
 and such sympathy with their troubles, as no end of 
 reading and speculation could afford. It would be 
 strange if these gifts of money, of strength, and of fel- 
 lowship did not soften the bitterness of the poor 
 toward the rich, as indeed it does, convince them of 
 the reality of Christian brotherhood and open their 
 hearts to all the uplifting influences of the Christian 
 religion. Within the past ten years the neighborhood 
 of Britannia Bow has been surprisingly transformed. 
 Neat and comfortable dwellings are rapidly taking the 
 place of the wretched rookeries that once abounded in 
 those parts. Where once the people were almost with- 
 out exception ragged, drunken, and miserable, they 
 now appear in a great majority of cases to be neatly 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON. Ml 
 
 clothed and comfortably situated. This remarkable 
 change is doubtless chiefly due to the influence of the 
 mission church. 
 
 The other mission connected with the Highbury Quad- 
 rant church is smaller and more of the usual type. The 
 feature of it that appeared to the writer most interest- 
 ing was a workingman's club and benefit society, com- 
 prising some seven hundred members, of which Dr. 
 Bevan was president, for whose meetings the mission 
 buildings are used. A similar club meets also in the 
 lecture-room of the main church. The church, with 
 both of its missions, sustains a very great number of 
 societies, clubs, classes, meetings, penny banks, unions, 
 mothers' meetings, fathers' meetings, etc. The church 
 report states that " irrespective of meetings for worship, 
 there are in all, not less than 56 such institutions, all of 
 which, with the exception of five, meet at least once a 
 week, that honor the pastor with the title of president. 
 The Sunday-school scholars in all these institutions 
 number more than 1,300. The members of the various 
 mothers' meetings nearly 1,000. Their annual contribu- 
 tions for the purchase of coal and clothing exceed 
 £600 ; penny banks have 926 depositors and their total 
 deposits last year amounted to £579. The various 
 temperance organizations have a membership of 700. 
 The mutual benefit societies under various names, a 
 membership of over 1,100, with an income for mutual 
 help of more than £1,350. Once a week during six 
 months of the year about 350 poor children receive a 
 meat dinner, and 700 poor families or 3,500 individuals 
 receive on Christmas eve sufficient material to provide 
 substantial dinners for two days." 
 
 Not far away from the church are the stables of one 
 
142 CHRISTIAN WORE IN LONDON. 
 
 of the great street railway companies. In these build- 
 ings, and on the cars that run out from them, are em- 
 ployed, day and night, seven days in the week, a large 
 number of men of a class as much neglected by teach- 
 ers of religion as any in civilized countries. A mission- 
 ary is employed for their special benefit; a man of their 
 own rank, who, before his conversion, was well known 
 to them as a famous quack, gamester, and drunken 
 horse-doctor. He is now a thoroughly changed man, 
 full of zeal, and a rough sort of power, and an ardent 
 advocate of temperance. His history, experience, and 
 natural gifts, sanctified by the grace of God, secure for 
 him great influence over the men. He has won scores 
 and hundreds of them to total abstinence, and many to 
 the service of Christ. 
 
 It is estimated that through these various channels, 
 the church, whose membership is only 517, comes in 
 contact with at least 10,000 lives. 
 
 The Tolmer's Square Congregational Church adapts 
 its work to the needs of the poorer classes by a very in- 
 teresting movement of a somewhat different character. 
 This church stands in the northwest quarter of London, 
 not far from the junction of Euston and Tottenham 
 Court Roads. The neighborhood is one which was 
 long since abandoned by the wealthy, and from which 
 well-to-do householders have gradually been moving 
 away, leaving the better streets to business and board- 
 ing-houses, while the poorer ones swarm with an ever 
 denser population of artisans and laborers. Few 
 churches have been called upon to look more squarely 
 in the face the sternest, most difficult problems of city 
 evangelization. As an effort toward the solution of 
 those problems, some ten years ago, under the pastor- 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON. 143 
 
 ate of the Kev. Henry Simon, now of Westminster 
 chapel, there was projected by this church an institute 
 for workingmen; that is, a place for the meetings and 
 the headquarters of their friendly and temperance so- 
 cieties, and a place where they could always gather for 
 a social evening. The Eev. Arthur Hall, of Bristol, 
 brother of Dr. Newman Hall, succeeded Mr. Simon, 
 and pushed forward with great energy the plans of his 
 predecessor. During his pastorate that noble building 
 was completed which bears the name of Tolmer Insti- 
 tute. At a distance of about three minutes' walk from 
 the church, it rises loftily in the midst of a multitude of 
 small shops, gleaming gin-palaces, and dingy tenement- 
 houses. Four shops occupy the ground floor, one of 
 which is a temperance cafe belonging to the institute. 
 The rest of the building is occupied by rooms of vari- 
 ous shapes and sizes, carefully adapted to its needs. 
 Among these are a gymnasium and three good-sized 
 audience-rooms, the largest of which has seats for 800 
 people. The cost of the whole establishment, together 
 with the land on which it stands, was not far from 
 £14,000. Not more than five years have elapsed since 
 its completion, and about three since the coming of the 
 present pastor, the Eev. Frederic Hastings. Yet under 
 his skillful management it has become a potent centre 
 of Christian influence in that community, and its 
 spacious accommodations are already taxed to their 
 utmost capacity. 
 
 Among the various institutions for working-people 
 that meet in this place the following are noted : A Sun- 
 day-school, a Band of Hope, two lodges of Good Tem- 
 plars, and one of Sons of Temperance, a Woman's 
 Temperance Society, a Thrift Society, three Building 
 
144 CHRISTIAN WOMK IN LONDON 
 
 Societies, a Mutual Improvement Society, a " Help My- 
 self " Society, two Phoenix (that is, temperance friendly) 
 Societies, a Penny Bank, and a number of evening 
 classes. There are also frequent " smoking concerts '* 
 for workingmen, and popular penny concerts, which 
 draw audiences of seven or eight hundred every Satur- 
 day night, and pay their way handsomely. Here the 
 pastor's wife holds mothers' meetings, where from 
 seventy-five to one hundred poor women gather weekly, 
 bringing their babies and their sewing, to hear reading, 
 music, and gentle words of encouragement and helpful- 
 ness. Here, too, are held frequent mission prayer- 
 meetings. The writer attended one of them on a 
 Sunday evening after church. The room, which was 
 not a small one, was completely filled with people of 
 the humbler sort, and a depth of feeling and spiritual 
 power was manifest in the assembly such as one rarely 
 meets. The leader that night chanced to be a woman. 
 She filled her office with such grace and dignity, and 
 spoke so fittingly, that we afterward learned with sur- 
 prise that she was only a cook in a noble lady's f amity. 
 That cook has gathered about herself a band of young 
 women who meet every week for prayer and Bible 
 study. She also gives her services most wisely and 
 efficiently to other branches of Christian work, and is 
 thus exerting an influence for good which is probably 
 equalled by that of few noble ladies in England or in 
 any other country. The best thing about it is, that all 
 these various institutions move on of themselves, and 
 are not a great and crushing weight upon the shoulders 
 of the pastor. The friendly and temperance societies 
 pay rent for their privileges. The cafe is a means of 
 income, and these, together with the rents of the shops 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON. 145 
 
 and other revenues, render the institute very nearly 
 self-supporting. All the meetings are intrusted to the 
 management of certain committees, which appoint their 
 leaders, and are responsible for their conduct. The 
 minister attends only so many of the score and more 
 of weekly meetings as he finds time for. All is so skill- 
 fully arranged that he can be absent from the parish 
 for months at a time without the occurrence of any 
 confusion in its internal workings. 
 
 It is worthy of notice that the chief political power 
 in that district, low and vicious as the neighborhood 
 appears, is in the hands of no brewer nor liquor- dealer. 
 The member of Parliament for the west division of St. 
 Pancreas publicly acknowledged at the last election 
 that he owed his seat to the personal influence of Mr. 
 Hastings. This influence is doubtless largely due to 
 the quick wit and fiery eloquence of the man. But it 
 is not improbable that his relation to Tolmer Institute 
 is his weightiest argument in winning to the cause he 
 advocated the votes and confidence of the people. 
 
 Before leaving this part of the subject, the reader 
 will be introduced to one other church, engaged in 
 work of still another type among the poor — work 
 which, in its way, is as remarkable as any that the world 
 has to show. This is the East London Tabernacle. Its 
 pastor, the Be v. Archibald G. Brown, is a Baptist of the 
 broad, English type. He is a man of rather striking 
 appearance, somewhat above middle height, rather 
 slender, with soldierly bearing and laic dress, is prema- 
 turely gray, with a fresh, animated face, clear tenor 
 voice, and eyes that are full of leadership. He is gifted 
 with remarkable executive capacity, and is at the same 
 time a ready and effective speaker, filled with a passion- 
 10 
 
146 CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON 
 
 ate love for souls.* His audiences surpass in size any 
 that we saw in London, with the exception of Mr. 
 Spurgeon's and those of the cathedrals. The church is 
 a plain square building, with scarcely the appearance 
 of an ecclesiastical structure. It has seats for thirty- 
 two hundred people, and remarkably good acoustic 
 properties. It stands on Burdett Eoad, a few rods from 
 Mile End Eoad, in the centre of East London. There 
 is probably nowhere else in the world so extensive and 
 so homogeneous a population of working-people as that 
 in whose midst it is located. Many of these people are 
 exceedingly poor and degraded. Within nve minutes' 
 walk of the church, in several directions, one may come 
 upon the lowest types of human habitation. It was in 
 this neighborhood, and by the assistance of Mr. Brown 
 and his missionaries, that many of the investigations 
 were made, the account of which, under the title " The 
 Bitter Cry of Outcast London," so startled England and 
 all the world four years ago. In many of these streets 
 there are not, on the average, two rooms to each family 
 of inhabitants. In some houses there are as many 
 families as rooms; and such rooms, small, dark, foul, 
 and miserable beyond desertion ! 
 
 A correspondent of The Daily Telegraph has written a 
 graphic account of an interview with Mr. Brown and 
 a visit to certain parts of his parish, from which we 
 quote at length in order to give a better conception of 
 the nature of the work in which he is engaged: 
 
 " If you want statistics of the one-room horror you 
 shall have them out of my very district," said the 
 
 * This is chosen as an example of a stj'le of Christian work such as 
 that of Mr. Spurgeon, Dr. Bernado, and others, in which the person- 
 ality of the leader is a most important element. 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON 14.7 
 
 minister, turning to a carefully prepared tabulated 
 sheet, which comprised every house to which his mis- 
 sionaries had access; "what do you say to this? three 
 hundred and forty rooms yield nearly two hundred and 
 sixty families ; or in square figures, twelve hundred 
 and forty-four human beings. Cast your eye, sir, over 
 the list. Number — Cable Street, there are six fam- 
 ilies in twelve rooms, and twenty-nine persons living 
 in the twelve-roomed house. Next door there are 
 twenty-eight human beings in the house, exactly the 
 
 same size. Number — B Street appears to head 
 
 the list. No less than forty-seven human beings, the 
 total of six families, are thrust every night into six 
 rooms, and you shall presently see what rooms they 
 are, for which sums varying from 2s. 6d. to 3s. 6d. are 
 charged — rooms with ceilings breaking away from the 
 rafters; smoky and grimy rooms; rooms where chim- 
 neys smoke and windows won't unfasten; rooms smoth- 
 ered in vermin, or overrun with mice; rooms approached 
 by breakneck staircases as black as pitch, garrets of 
 rooms with sloping rafters ; cellars of rooms under- 
 neath the pavement; rooms overlooking low, miserable 
 streets or foul mud-yards ; hopeless, cheerless, despair- 
 ing rooms where wives strip their children piecemeal 
 for the pawn-shop ; where the furniture seldom con- 
 sists of more than a broken table or backless chair; 
 where the children, when a stranger knocks at the door, 
 come across to him with starving eyes, and ask, ' Have 
 you brought mother some bread?' and where the 
 blind, neglected, lonely widow sits upon an empty floor 
 in a tireless room, during the dull November day, and 
 mumbles hopeless assent when asked by the good- 
 hearted missionary to join him in prayer to God that 
 
148 CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON. 
 
 some miracle may be worked in order to lighten this 
 unspeakable darkness " * 
 
 The reporter thus describes some of the places as he 
 himself saw them in company with the missionary: 
 
 " We go from bad to worse. Elizabeth Court is 
 infinitely more foul than James Place, and the poverty 
 more heart-rending. A widow has just managed to 
 screw together one pennyworth of coals, and she ex- 
 presses her thankfulness enthusiastically, for at last she 
 has got one shirt to wash and perhaps this may mean 
 a beginning of work again. But what a room in which 
 to wash a shirt ! The furniture broken, the walls 
 grimy, the floor filthy, the bedding of that indescrib- 
 able color between brown and black. 
 
 " We ascend to a garret. An Irish woman is here 
 in despair. She has pawned almost the whole of her 
 available property already. At home with her are an 
 idiot son, a daughter of thirteen, and several younger 
 children. There is not a chair within the tumble-down 
 apartment; the bedstead has a foul rug on it and no 
 more clothing; in a corner under the sloping roof 
 rustles some straw where the idiot boy lies. The old 
 story — no work or prospect of it; no bread or prospect 
 of it. The fire is almost out, and with it all light, all 
 hope. 
 
 " We now arrive at a house where the staircase is so 
 pitch dark that I have to grope my way up on my 
 hands and knees. This is one of the cheerful abodes 
 where forty-seven human beings are packed into six 
 rooms. It is the strangest experience I have ever en- 
 countered. Here, in this hovel, children are about to 
 
 * Daily Telegraph, London, November 21, 1883. 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON 149 
 
 be born ; here men and women are dying ; here new- 
 born infants are yelling for food, guarded by baby 
 nurses, whilst the expectant mother is off on some 
 errand; here children of all ages and sizes swarm about 
 the filthy floor with matted hair, and rags on their poor 
 little bodies. 
 
 " We mount to the top of the house. "We tap at the 
 door, and it is opened. A j>icture-frame maker lives 
 here, but he is out of work, as he needs must be since, 
 in the first place, he has pawned his tools to get bread; 
 and in the second, he has scarcely sufficient clothing to 
 go out and search for employment. The wife is in bed, 
 or rather she is rolled up on the floor in a filthy rug, 
 for there is no bed, suffering from acute rheumatism. 
 The fire is almost out, and one of the children, without 
 any shoes or stockings, is hugging the cat that is kept 
 to insure an absence of mice and rats for the sake of 
 the wretched people compelled to lie on the floor. We 
 hear no grumbling, no complaint, no execration, no 
 despairing cry. Even these poor people with their 
 empty stomachs and their fireless grates listen to a 
 prayer when it is offered up though it sounds strangely 
 under such circumstances. Talk to these people of 
 the workhouse and they will refuse to discuss the 
 question farther. The workhouse means separation 
 from husband and child. They would rather starve or 
 die here than that." 
 
 Such was the region in the midst of which an earn- 
 est man of God found himself stationed as a preacher 
 of the Gospel. The ordinary means of grace were 
 found to be here, as they are everywhere when faith- 
 fully and prayerfully used, efficient. Mr. Brown proved 
 to be a popular preacher. Multitudes came to hear 
 
150 CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON. 
 
 him, and scores and hundreds, through his words and 
 the Spirit's power, were borne into the kingdom of God. 
 But in a place like London, or indeed in any great 
 city, large congregations may represent but small and 
 limited sections of the people. So it was here : this 
 great and flourishing church in all its religious work 
 did not touch nor approach a very large portion of the 
 community. Not one of the very poorest class, — of the 
 people who stood most in need of the consolations of 
 the Gospel, — would ever think of attending any of its 
 regular or irregular services ; and those who did at- 
 tend were a sifted and selected class composed of the 
 most intelligent and well-to-do people of the com- 
 munity. 
 
 In the winter of 1S79, when the length and severity 
 of the season occasioned an unusual amount of distress, 
 considerable sums of money were placed in the hands 
 of Mr. Brown for the relief of the needy. The first 
 plan adopted by him was that of distributing alms 
 from his own home, but this soon proved impracti- 
 cable. His door was continually besieged by throngs of 
 applicants for aid, many of whom were quite unworthy 
 of it, while the most deserving cases were the last to 
 make their needs known. He accordingly employed 
 two missionaries, both of them excellent men, and well 
 fitted for their work, who went from house to house, 
 through the most destitute streets, searching out the 
 needy and supplying their wants in their own rooms. 
 In this way he and his missionaries secured a welcome 
 to about a thousand homes that had before been closed 
 to Christ and Christian teachers. They thereupon re- 
 solved that " so open a door of usefulness should not 
 be allowed to close." The matter was presented to the 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON. 151 
 
 congregation and friends. They responded with liberal 
 donations. The work which had been commenced as a 
 temporary measure, to meet the exigencies of a severe 
 winter, was accordingly established on a permanent 
 .basis and has been constantly expanding from that 
 time to this. 
 
 It is assumed that when people are suffering the bit- 
 terness of extreme poverty their most pressing physical 
 necessities must be relieved before their spiritual des- 
 titution can be successfully dealt with. It is also as- 
 sumed that any system of relief work which aims at 
 anything less or lower than the conversion of those for 
 whom it labors to the Lord Jesus Christ, can give only 
 a temporary and superficial sort of help. The plan is 
 therefore adopted of first ministering to the immediate 
 wants of the poor, feeding those who are found to be 
 hungry and without food, clothing the tattered and 
 half -naked, furnishing coal to the shivering and fire- 
 less, redeeming from pawn artisan's tools, garments 
 and other necessities of life which famine has torn 
 from them, providing medicines for the sick and help- 
 ing the unemployed to find work. Secondly and simul- 
 taneously with their work for the relief of these phys- 
 ical necessities it is the custom of the missionaries then 
 and there to preach the Gospel to the neglected people. 
 Into the midst of the want, squalor, and sunless sad- 
 ness of their wretched homes is brought the story of 
 Christ's redeeming love ; the claims of God are person- 
 ally urged ; salvation by the only Saviour is freely and 
 affectionately offered; and these heathen in the heart of 
 Christendom are taught to commit themselves with 
 their wants to the fatherhood of God. " Our work," 
 says Mr. Brown, "is seeking to save. This is carried 
 
152 CHBISTIAN WOBK IN LONDON. 
 
 on amid the clean and squalid alike. There is no pick- 
 ing and choosing. Bespectable or disreputable, they 
 need God's salvation. From room to room the mission- 
 aries make their way, sometimes discouraged, some- 
 times sickened, often saddened, but ever seeking by all 
 means to save some." 
 
 Nine missionaries, who give their whole time to such 
 work, were at last accounts employed by this church. 
 Not merely from house to house, but from room to 
 room they go, relieving the needy, visiting the sick, 
 consoling the afflicted, and preaching the Gospel every- 
 where. Their energetic leader declares that a mission- 
 ary of experience never stops to talk in the entries, 
 never visits the lower rooms first, but goes to the very 
 top of a house to begin his work with its inmates and 
 " prays his way down," leaving no apartment unvisited, 
 where it is possible to gain admission. During the 
 year 1885, 26,340 visits were made by these mission- 
 aries. Those only are reckoned as visits where there 
 has been actual intercourse inside the people's rooms. 
 Relief in the shape of food was given in 8,428 in- 
 stances. The sick have been cared for to the number 
 of 3,938. During the year there were distributed up- 
 wards of 35,000 loaves of bread, 80 cwt. of rice, 35,000 
 lbs. of potatoes, and 1,000 lbs. of tea, besides 5,600 
 garments. 
 
 The missionaries, after spending most of the day in 
 visitation, hold evening meetings for the benefit of the 
 people among whom they have been working, in four 
 mission halls provided for the purpose. Each mission- 
 ary has a regular personal and private interview with 
 the pastor once a week; and each sends in a weekly re- 
 port, stating the kind and amount of relief given, the 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON. 153 
 
 number and locality of calls made, and the meetings 
 held. Money is never given away except in very special 
 cases. All relief is supplied by tickets, which are orders 
 on the grocers and shop-keepers, or on a central office 
 where tea and clothing are given out. As the tickets 
 are given gradually in connection with the calls, there 
 is never a rush upon the central office. All garments 
 given away are stamped with Mr. Brown's name, and, 
 therefore, cannot be accepted at the pawn-shops. The 
 church and its friends also sustain an orphans' home 
 and a seaside home for the exhausted and for conva- 
 lescents, besides a great number of clubs, societies, 
 meetings, and classes, such as have already been de- 
 scribed. 
 
 The vigor and activity of the life enjoyed by the 
 church is remarkable. No communion season passes — 
 none has passed during the twenty years of the present 
 pastorate — without accessions to its membership. On 
 the occasion of our last visit, in July, 1886, we were in- 
 formed that sixty persons were then waiting to be bap- 
 tized within three weeks, which was said to be no 
 extraordinary number. Most of these are not the fruits, 
 or, at least, not the immediate fruits, of the mission 
 work. It deals with persons so degraded that ordinary 
 church services cannot affect them. They are lifted by 
 degrees. They are first touched by the words of the 
 missionary in their home, are then persuaded to visit 
 the mission chapels, and are there lifted a step higher. 
 They next learn to enjoy the prayer-meetings of the 
 church, and are finally brought into the regular services 
 of the Lord's house. 
 
 " Any week evening service," says the pastor, " there 
 may be found at our tabernacle prayer-meeting those 
 
154 CHRISTIAN WOBK IN LONDON. 
 
 who used to lead drunken, abandoned, and, in some 
 cases, indescribably vicious lives. "We do not say that 
 all these are truly converted, but to say the least, it is a 
 glorious change from street- walking and public-house 
 fighting. There is no hopeless class. Christ wins them 
 all." 
 
 One naturally asks how any church, and especially 
 one so largely composed of poor people, can possibly 
 raise money enough to support such extensive mission- 
 ary operations. In reply to this question, we quote 
 again the correspondent of The Daily Telegraph : 
 
 "You ask me where the money comes from with 
 which I am able to relieve these sorrows of Shadwell ? 
 "Well, I am old-fashioned enough to believe in prayer. 
 I pray for these wretched people night and day, and as 
 yet I have never prayed in vain. Look here," and he 
 led me to his study-table, where ever opened lies an 
 ordinary ledger. "Glance at that last entry, if you 
 please. ' A thank-offering for blessings given and many 
 mercies vouchsafed, £75.' That is a donation; but I 
 am to have the same sum every year, so long as my 
 good friend lives. Please God, the ink-marks on that 
 ledger will never long be dry." 
 
 The work is not advertised. No one but the Lord is 
 ever asked for money or for help. Once a year the 
 church appoints a day for receiving special thank-offer- 
 ings, to be devoted to the mission work. A week-day 
 is set apart as thank-offering day. Due notice having 
 been given, the church is open from early morning, 
 when men are going to their work, until late at night, 
 and all day long the pastor is present to receive in per- 
 son each gift from the hand of the giver. The offerings 
 are of all sizes — poor workingmen bring a shilling or 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON 155 
 
 two ; children contribute a few pence ; widows offer 
 their mite, and the few that are rich bring much. Each 
 donor, whether his gifts be small or great, is properly 
 credited with it in the books. As most of the people 
 are poor, the greater proportion of the money raised 
 comes in small sums of a few shillings each ; but taken 
 all together the thank-offerings usually amount to sev- 
 eral hundred pounds. Besides this, donations for the 
 mission work pour in from all over England. Not a 
 farthing of debt is ever incurred ; yet means have never 
 been lacking for the continuance and expansion of the 
 work. 
 
 Christian workers in London have experienced the 
 same difficulty in retaining their influence over the 
 older boys of the Sunday-school that has perplexed so 
 many of us here. Our attention was directed to one 
 very interesting and successful effort to overcome this 
 difficulty, which is well worthy of study. 
 
 The Regent Square Presbyterian Church, of which 
 Dr. Oswald Dykes is pastor, had a nourishing mission, 
 since then become a church, in Somerstown, a poor 
 neighborhood in Northwest London. Connected with 
 this mission was a large Sunday-school, composed al- 
 most entirely of artisans' children. Great numbers of 
 small children and of larger girls attended the school ; 
 but the boys, after reaching the age of fourteen or fif- 
 teen, became possessed of the notion that they were too 
 big for Sunday-school, and so left it, and were soon 
 estranged from religious influences of all kinds, so that 
 the work done for the boys' classes seemed like water 
 poured on the ground. For the sake of saving these 
 lads, after much thought and prayer, an institute for 
 working lads was planned and organized. It commenced 
 
156 CHRISTIAN WOBK IN LONDON 
 
 very modestly, with a small membership, and provided 
 at firsc only a small room for reading and club room, 
 a Bible-class, and one or two evening classes. But it 
 grew and extended its operations rapidly. Commodious 
 quarters in an old chapel were secured ; a gymnasium, 
 a library and reading-room, and evening classes were 
 successively added ; games were provided, a regular 
 ground for cricket and football was hired ; meetings 
 and entertainments of all sorts were held, and now the 
 " top story of the Sunday-school," as the Oldenham In- 
 stitute is sometimes called, is wonderfully popular. It 
 has a membership of over four hundred, and the aver- 
 age small boy of that Sunday-school has no higher am- 
 bition than to become a member of it, a thing not 
 allowed until he has reached the age of fifteen. 
 
 There are three Bible-classes in the week. A guild 
 with daily Bible-readings and monthly meetings com- 
 prises a large portion of its members. They have a 
 course of " ambulance instruction " on first aid to the 
 injured, art classes, classes in English literature and 
 composition, in English grammar and elocution, in 
 political economy, singing, writing, arithmetic, book- 
 keeping, French, German, and nine different science 
 classes, besides technical instruction in carpentry, 
 plumbers' work, printing, and lithography. 
 
 As most of the members are young, and all of them 
 engaged in tedious toil during the day, the Institute 
 performs no slight service in providing them with 
 healthy play. It has a chess and draughts (checkers) 
 club, a cricket club, a football club, a swimming club, 
 and a club of " harriers," for the old-fashioned English 
 game of hare-and-hounds. 
 
 The Institute has, in many ways, been of almost 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON. 157 
 
 priceless value to its members. By taking up the even- 
 ings and holidays which most boys of that class simply 
 idle away on the streets or in worse places, and filling 
 them with helpful instruction and healthful amusement, 
 it has lifted its members quite "out of the old degraded 
 life to which they were born and seemed to be doomed. 
 When the president, a warm-hearted British merchant, 
 had conducted the writer through two or three rooms 
 full of the young fellows engaged in their usual em- 
 ployments, the latter exclaimed: "Why, these are not 
 working lads ! " " No," was the reply, " it is true that 
 they are nearly all clerks; but working lads they all 
 have been, and working lads they still would be were 
 it not for this Institute." 
 
 In speaking within so limited a space upon so great 
 a theme as that of Christian work in London, it has 
 been necessary to select a very few characteristic items 
 for presentation out of the vast amount of material at 
 hand, and it has seemed wisest to dwell on those forms 
 of work that are more or less directly connected with 
 local churches. But it should not be forgotten that a 
 very large proportion of the religious effort in that city, 
 especially that which deals with the needs of the poor, 
 has no connection with any local church. There are 
 multitudes of independent missions of all sorts, many 
 of them well worth studying, of which we can make no 
 mention. It will not do, however, to pass by without a 
 word of notice the most remarkable of them all, name- 
 ly: The London City Mission* This great organization 
 has, for fifty years, been carrying the Gospel silently, 
 but with exceeding power, into the dark and cruel 
 
 * See These Fifty Years, John Matthias Weyland. London, 1884. 
 
158 CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON. 
 
 places of the great town. It works in the interest of 
 no denomination — is supported by collections made 
 from all the churches and by donations from Christians 
 of every name and order. Its missionaries, of whom 
 there are now about five hundred, are chiefly occupied 
 in carrying the Gospel from house to house in the 
 neglected parts of the city, in distributing tracts and 
 portions of the Scriptures, and in ministering to the 
 sick and dying. Upwards of three millions of such 
 calls were reported last year, of which two hundred and 
 seventy thousand were calls upon the sick. Besides 
 this general work the society has appointed a large 
 number of special missionaries for the benefit of cer- 
 tain classes whose peculiar circumstances have shut 
 them out from the regular means of grace. Mission- 
 aries are employed by the society who give their whole 
 time to work for policemen, for bakers, for night and 
 day cabmen, for drovers, for omnibus and tram-carmen, 
 for soldiers and sailors, for fire brigades, for theatre 
 employes, for hotel servants, for canalboat men, for 
 coachmen and grooms, for letter-carriers and telegraph 
 boys, for railway-men and navvies, for gypsies, for fall- 
 en women, and for thieves. A score or so of missionaries 
 are exclusively engaged in visiting public-houses, gin- 
 palaces, and coffee-shops. The missionaries also con- 
 duct a great number of Bible-readings and evangelistic 
 meetings, some of which are held in workhouses, peni- 
 tentiaries, hospitals, and factories, and many in the 
 open air. 
 
 Street meetings are very common in London. You 
 will hear the voice of prayer, Gospel melodies, and 
 earnest preaching by the wayside in scores of places 
 all over the great city on any pleasant Sunday afternoon 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON 159 
 
 or during the long twilight of the summer evenings. 
 The parks are the favorite places, however, for open- 
 air services. On every Sunday afternoon several such 
 meetings are carried on at the same time and side by 
 side both in Regent's Park and Hyde Park. Besides 
 half a dozen meetings for preaching the Gospel, one of 
 which is always conducted in the German language, 
 there are usually two or three for the proclamation of 
 Socialism, and others in which the credibility of the 
 Christian religion is discussed in alternate attacks 
 made by some representative of infidelity and de- 
 fences by some Christian. London has a Society of 
 Christian Evidences, which gives particular atten- 
 tion to training young men for work of this sort. 
 Many churches in poorer neighborhoods preface their 
 evening services by brief open-air meetings. The value 
 of such preaching may be questioned. It shocks one's 
 sensibilities, at first, to hear sacred things cried out 
 amid the shifting, laughing, trifling crowd out for a 
 holiday. Yet the careful observer will rarely fail to find 
 one or two real listeners at every such meeting. We 
 know of one large and flourishing church situated in a 
 neighborhood of great poverty and vice which sprang 
 out of an open-air movement combined with a mission 
 Sunday-school in the first place, and, having continued 
 its out-of-door services until the present time, has act- 
 ually gathered a large portion of its members from the 
 streets. 
 
 A discussion of Christian work among the masses of 
 London would be incomplete without some reference 
 to that singular religious movement called The Salva- 
 tion Army. The nature and methods of this organiza- 
 tion are too well known to require description ; but in 
 
160 CHRISTIAN WOBK IN LONDON. 
 
 order to be intelligently understood they should be 
 studied on their native soil. About twenty years ago, 
 when there was far less religious and philanthropic 
 work for the poor than now, a certain unknown Wes- 
 leyan minister, William Booth by name, touched by the 
 misery and godlessness of the place, commenced 
 preaching the Gospel to the poor on a waste piece of 
 land near Mile End Eoad, East London. Out of that 
 humble beginning sprang the Salvation Army at whose 
 head Mr. Booth continues to stand, the " General " of 
 a host whose officers are now numbered by thousands 
 and the soldiers by hundreds of thousands, and whose 
 operations are extended around the globe. 
 
 This is a mission from the lower classes, by the lower 
 classes, and for the lower classes. It speaks to the 
 common people in their own manner and their native 
 language. The vernacular of the slums of London is 
 practically a different language from that of the 
 prayer-book and the pulpit. Religion, as the Church 
 ordinarily teaches it, is presented in a tongue half 
 unknown to the day laborer. The missionaries to the 
 Indians have best succeeded in converting them, not 
 by teaching them English first and then presenting the 
 Gospel in English, but by translating the truth into 
 their own rough speech and bringing its messages 
 home to their heart on the wings of the mother-tongue; 
 so it is the plan of the Salvation Army to translate the 
 messages of salvation into the rude lingo of the dock- 
 yard and the gin-palace in order that it may reach 
 those who know no other language. For the same rea- 
 son its music and its religious meetings resemble the 
 entertainments given in cheap theatres and low concert 
 halls. 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK IN LONDON. 161 
 
 It has many excellent features. The earnestness and 
 courage of its leaders and their enthusiasm for the 
 salvation of the very lowest cannot be too highly 
 praised. The plainness of its speech and the faithful- 
 ness and power with which it bears its testimony are 
 to be commended. Much of the criticism urged against 
 it is unjust. Utterances of its members that seem 
 shockingly irreverent and actions that seem rude, take 
 that appearance because the observer judges from his 
 own point of view and is unable to appreciate the sin- 
 cerity from which they spring. It is, however, un- 
 doubtedly the case that the Salvation Army furnishes 
 a striking illustration of the truth that the religion of 
 a class, whether the class be high or low, must always 
 be a narrow and one-sided religion. This movement, 
 being exclusively one of the lower classes, lacks just those 
 elements that the presence of cultured members would 
 give it. It needs ballast. It is enthusiastic, couragous, 
 and hearty; but it is neither jwise, nor_ thorough, juor 
 profound^ There is an excessive amount of evangelis- 
 tic appeal ; there is a grievous lack of religious and 
 Biblical instruction. As to the value of its work on the 
 whole, it is not easy to speak with certainty. We have \ 
 found a great variety of opinions regarding it. Of its j 
 value in one direction, however, there is but one opinion. 
 It has had a great influence in stirring up the churches 
 to an appreciation of the needs of the poor and their 
 duty toward the outcast. 
 
 It is encouraging to believe that the religious work 
 of London is not without effect. There has been prog- 
 ress in the condition of the working-classes within 
 twenty-five years. Slowly, but surely, headway is mak- 
 ing against the awful current of sin and misery. There 
 
162 CHBISTIAN WORK IN LONDON. 
 
 is less drunkenness, less pauperism, and less crime in 
 the great metropolis to-day than ten years ago. The 
 missionary spirit is abroad in the churches and in- 
 creases from year to year. " With God all things are 
 possible," — and it is one of the modern miracles to see 
 a city growing better while she daily adds to her im- 
 mensity. 
 
CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 THE McALL MISSION. 
 
 In our day God has raised up one man and sent him 
 with signs and wonders to be an apostle to the perish- 
 ing masses of a great and godless city. 
 
 Rev. Kobert W. McAll, the pastor of an English 
 Congregational church, crossed the Channel with Mrs. 
 McAll for the first time in the summer of 1871 to spend 
 a short vacation on the Continent. Four days of this 
 visit were allotted to Paris. That city had just been 
 passing through the dreadful experience with which 
 the Franco-Prussian war came to its close. The smoke 
 of the besieging cannon had scarcely cleared away, 
 fresh wounds were still bleeding, the horrors of famine 
 had but just subsided, and the wretched poor in their 
 want and misery were utterly destitute of the conso- 
 lations of religion. Prompted by a yearning of heart 
 over the unfortunate people, Mr. and Mrs. McAll 
 resolved to spend their last evening at Paris in distrib- 
 uting tracts and Scripture portions. Notwithstanding 
 the protests of friends, they went alone to that miser- 
 able quarter named Belleville, whose gloomy houses in 
 days of trouble know how to pour out troops of gaunt, 
 hungry men and furious women to swell the Commune. 
 They took their stand under the gas that blazes in front 
 of a great wine-vault on the corner of Rue de Belleville 
 
 (168) 
 
164 THE McALL MISSION. 
 
 and the Boulevard, and they commenced to offer tracts 
 to the thronging passers-by. 
 
 A crowd of poor people gathered about them in no 
 time, eager to receive the little gifts; and at length one 
 in a workingman's blouse stood forth from among his 
 fellows and said in English : " Sir, are you not an Eng- 
 lish minister ? If so, I have something of importance 
 to say to you. You are at this moment in the very 
 midst of a district inhabited by thousands and tens of 
 thousands of us, workingmen. To a man we have done 
 with an imposed religion, a religion of superstition and 
 oppression. But if any one would come to teach us 
 religion of another kind — a religion of freedom and 
 earnestness — many of us are ready to listen." * 
 
 In that pleading face, seen for but one brief moment, 
 yet never to be forgotten, McAll beheld his " Man of 
 Macedonia." 
 
 He had already passed the " dead-line " of fifty. He 
 was wholly ignorant of the French language. He had 
 never even visited Paris before, and was utterly unac- 
 quainted with its people and its ways. His kindred 
 and friends and all his interests were in England. As 
 pastor of an important church at Hadley which had 
 two missions of its own, his sphere of usefulness at 
 home was by no means insignificant. If any one could 
 be excused from a foreign mission he was that man — ■ 
 so urged his friends. But he saw the matter differ- 
 ently. There were men enough ready to fill his place 
 at Hadley. He had sufficient income for a modest sup- 
 port without a salary. The fields of France were 
 
 * A Cry from the Land of Calvin and Voltaire. Records of the 
 McAll Mission, p. 9, London, 1887. 
 
TEE McALL MISSION. 165 
 
 " white already to harvest," and there were no reapers. 
 He felt that he must go. 
 
 Five months later Mr. and Mrs. McAll again walked 
 together amid the crowds of Rue de Belleville. This 
 time they were not distributing tracts, but invitations 
 to their first meeting, which was held in a small shop 
 fitted up as a mission hall. They had chosen a home 
 in the neighborhood and were resolved to give the rest 
 of their lives to the work of the Gospel among the 
 common people of Paris. McAll had only two sen- 
 tences of French with which to begin the great crusade, 
 — " God loves you," and " I love you." But when men 
 saw that those two were messages which came from a 
 sincere and fervent heart, they believed them and re- 
 ceived them gladly. Twenty-eight persons attended 
 the first meeting. Within the fifteen years that have 
 elapsed since then, the single mission hall has become 
 one hundred, thirty-four of them situated in Paris and 
 environs, in which nearly seventeen thousand meetings 
 have been held and more than a million persons gath- 
 ered for religious instruction in the course of the past 
 year. 
 
 The city to which this modern apostle was sent with 
 his message of life was one of peculiar spiritual desti- 
 tution. The grasp of the Roman Church upon the 
 French, especially upon Parisians, became feebler with 
 every year. She had lost the respect and confidence 
 of the common people, and had consequently, to a great 
 extent, forfeited her influence over them. They sus- 
 pected her of hostility to free institutions and popular 
 education. They resented her assumption of the right 
 to interpose her authority in secular affairs. Her 
 priests were esteemed to be lovers of money rathe* 
 
166 THE McALL MISSION. 
 
 than lovers of men, and flatterers of the rich instead of 
 friends to the poor. The inconsistency of many of her 
 teachings and claims with reason and sound common 
 sense was keenly felt. She had in large measure ceased 
 to bear the water of life to the thirsting people; her 
 fountain was dried up and full of dust ; her cup was 
 empty. Multitudes turned away from her in disgust 
 to rationalism, — to animalism, — to thoughtless, hopeless 
 unbelief. 
 
 The Protestants of France, meanwhile, were able to 
 do, or at all events were doing little to save those whom 
 the emptiness of Rome had driven into irreligion. 
 Although the churches of the Huguenots had never 
 been quite extinguished, and had been tolerated and 
 even supported by the State since the time of the first 
 Napoleon, they had lived as it were in a strait- jacket. 
 They had been hampered by numerous restrictions and 
 petty persecutions urged on under legal sanction by 
 their enemies. Until within a few years Protestants 
 had no legal right to burial in ground set apart for the 
 sacred rest of the dead, but found a place there only 
 on sufferance. " They might not hold the stated ser- 
 vices of their religion except with government permis- 
 sion and under government surveillance, which not 
 only fixed days and hours and place of meeting, but 
 had a right to intervene in the matter of the doctrine 
 taught. All special or irregular meetings, as for prayer 
 or conference, were prohibited, except under special 
 sanction ; and failing that, could only be safely con- 
 vened by means of formal invitations to a private 
 house, issued as for a private social gathering. To 
 distribute religious notices, handbills, tracts, or other 
 printed matter, without a colporteur's license, was 
 
THE McALL MISSION. 167 
 
 equally illegal. The printed invitations to the McAU 
 meetings were all thus illegally distributed up to 1878 
 and during the earlier years, before the work had come 
 to be thoroughly appreciated, never without a certain 
 degree of risk. Two of the young ladies of the Mis- 
 sion were, indeed, arrested in 1873 for distributing 
 printed announcements of a meeting, although that 
 very meeting had been authorized by the Prefect of the 
 Police. The young ladies were released without diffi- 
 culty. At that time, and for several years later, it was 
 contrary to law to make proselytes or to give Protest- 
 ant instruction to the children of non-Protestants. All 
 the missionary and evangelizing agencies of the Prot- 
 estant churches were carried on under laws which 
 permitted merely the instructing anew, and confirming 
 in the faith of nominal Protestants — those who were 
 such by baptism or inheritance." * 
 
 " It was not so very long before this time that a mis- 
 sionary of the London Bible Society had been tried in 
 the French courts for offering a room in his house for 
 religious meetings and for swindling ; that is, for taking 
 up voluntary contributions for religious purposes. On 
 the first count he was condemned, fined, and impris- 
 oned for two months, and though not condemned on 
 the second count, he was severely reprimanded by the 
 judge, who said that such a proceeding was virtually 
 swindling under the law, and would so be treated if it 
 occurred again." f 
 
 Such repression of evangelistic effort was unfavor- 
 
 * French Protestantism in the Nineteenth Century. By Louise Sey- 
 mour Haughtorj, pp. 4 and 5. Published by the American McAll 
 Association. Philadelphia, 1886. 
 
 t Ibid., p. 6. 
 
168 THE McALL MISSION. 
 
 able to the spiritual health of the Protestant churches. 
 Rationalism became wide- spread among them, and did 
 its part in quenching religious zeal. Thus, hampered 
 without and weakened within, being, moreover, few in 
 number, poor and uninnuential, the Eef ormed churches 
 of fifteen years ago were doing little more than to care 
 for those of their own household. The common peo- 
 ple of Paris, and other cities as well, repelled in vast 
 numbers from the Roman Catholic Church, and not 
 won by the Protestants, were therefore left in woful 
 ignorance of all religious truth. 
 
 The great preachers and revivalists of England and 
 America have usually addressed themselves and adapted 
 their measures to the needs of a people who were al- 
 ready somewhat familiar with the fundamental facts of 
 our faith. Such methods of conducting evangelistic 
 meetings and doing Christian work as commonly pre- 
 vail among us, therefore assume that those with whom 
 they deal accept the Bible as the word of God, and 
 know something of its cardinal doctrines. But for the 
 masses of Paris, — for a people to whom no other light 
 had come than such distorted and discolored rays as 
 could penetrate the deep-stained windows of Catholi- 
 cism, — the ordinary religious methods of England and 
 America were found to be in many resjDects inadequate 
 and unsuitable. 
 
 Mr. McAll declares that there are "hundreds of 
 thousands in Paris itself who, up to this day, have 
 literally never had a Bible in their hands, nor have 
 come once within the sound of the preaching of justi- 
 fication by faith." * The following account of the ex- 
 
 * A Cry from the Land of Calvin and Voltaire, p. 23. 
 
THE McALL MISSION. 109 
 
 perience of an intelligent man, a landed proprietor who 
 was in the habit of spending six months of every year 
 in Paris, is scarcely credible, and vividly illustrates 
 what McAll has termed " the prevailing obli vion of the 
 Book in France." This man having been persuaded to 
 attend one of the meetings, said to the leader at its 
 close, "What book is that you read from, sir?" "The 
 Bible! or what we call < La Parole de Dieu.'" "The 
 Bible ! Could you lend it me for a week ? I will bring 
 it back. I never heard these words before ! " " Oh," 
 replied the preacher, "I will give you a Gospel," and 
 handed him the Gospel of John. He thanked him, 
 gave his card, and went away. Next Tuesday he re- 
 turned the Gospel, saying, " That is not the book you 
 read from ; cannot you lend me the book ? " " Cer- 
 tainly," was the answer ; so I gave him a copy. It was 
 small, and he found out where to buy one, and went 
 and bought a large Bible for himself. " Strange," he 
 said, " I never saw this book before, and since hearing 
 you read it I went to three booksellers in Batignolles, 
 intending to buy it ; but they could neither supply it 
 nor tell me where to procure one. Then I sent my wife, 
 hoping she might succeed, and she came back with this 
 statement, ' It was a bad book, a forbidden book, and 
 only used by priests and pastors.' So I was afraid 
 I could not get it. Now I shall read it, measure and 
 weigh every word." * 
 
 Another characteristic of the people whom the McAll 
 Mission seeks to save, is an astonishing ignorance of 
 the fact and nature of sin. Speaking of this matter, 
 Mr. McAll remarks: ''"We would not conceal the im- 
 
 * A Cry from the Land of Calvin and Voltaire, p. 46. 
 
170 THE McALL MISSION. 
 
 mense obstacles to Gospel-prevalence which the actual 
 state of the masses of the French people interposes. 
 We dare not say that conscience is tender; far other- 
 wise, alas ! A vast work remains to be effected in the 
 awakening of the inward monitor. The entire tendency 
 of Romish practices and teachings through a succes- 
 sion of centuries has been to lull conscience into a deep 
 sleep. True insight of sin, as heart-rebellion against 
 our heavenly Father, is rare indeed Through- 
 out fifteen years' history of our work we have been 
 constantly meeting with surprising examples of the 
 prevailing inaction, the deadness of conscience." * A 
 young man said to a missionary, " I admire and delight 
 in the meetings, but you are always talking to sinners. 
 For my part, I am no sinner. I have nothing with 
 which to reproach myself. I have never wronged any 
 one." " No, I have never sinned," said a woman indig- 
 nantly. "To be sure," she added, "I have sometimes 
 said my fish was fresh when it wasn't ; but then God 
 knew that was for my interest, and He will not blame 
 me." 
 
 Furthermore, such notions of religious matters as do 
 prevail are distorted and even fantastic. This is well il- 
 lustrated by a story from one of the children's meetings: 
 
 " The lesson for the day chanced to be on prayer and 
 the gift of the Holy Spirit. The speaker .... pro- 
 ceeded to explain to the children what was meant by 
 praying for spiritual graces, using language and illus- 
 trations so thoroughly level with their intellectual 
 capacities, that the greatest quiet reigned in the saMe, 
 and intelligence seemed to beam on every face. The 
 
 * A Cry from the Land of Calvin and Voltaire, pp. &± and 25. 
 
THE McALL MISSION. 171 
 
 teacher, greatly encouraged, finished by saying, 'Now, 
 how many of you have already prayed for spiritual 
 graces ? ' Up went several hands, but on investigation 
 most of these morning devotions resolved themselves 
 into repetitions, more or less exact, of the Lord's 
 Prayer. One boy, however, the model boy of the 
 school, persisted in his assertion that to the 'Notre 
 Pere ' he had added something which answered to his 
 teacher's description of a prayer for spiritual graces." 
 After some persuasion he repeated, in all soberness and 
 good faith, as an example of a prayer for spiritual 
 grace, a few verses, of which the following is a literal 
 translation. It is said that they may be found in many 
 Catholic books of devotion : 
 
 " As the Holy Virgin was walking through the fields, 
 on her way she met St. John. 
 
 " 'St. John, whence come you?' 
 
 " ' I have just been saying my prayers/ 
 
 " l Have you seen my Child Jesus ? ' 
 
 " ' Yes, dear lady, I saw Him on the Cross, with nails 
 in His hands, His side pierced, and on His head a 
 crown of white thorns.' 
 
 " Those who repeat this prayer morning and night 
 will never see the flames of hell." * 
 
 In seeking to meet the needs of such a people Mr. 
 McAll was led to the discovery and adoption of a sys- 
 tem of city evangelization which is in certain important 
 respects peculiar to himself — a system whose phenom- 
 enal success proves its value. Now the religious con- 
 dition of the working-class, who compose so large a 
 proportion of the population of modern American 
 
 * A Cry from the Land of Calvin and Voltaire, pp. 169 and 170. 
 
172 TEE McALL MISSION. 
 
 cities, does not differ so widely as one may suppose 
 from that of the same class in Paris. Most of them 
 have come, they or their parents, from the Continent of 
 Europe, or from Catholic Ireland, and sixty per cent, 
 of these are of Koman Catholic stock As we have 
 observed, the American Protestant churches have thus 
 far succeeded in getting hold of but a very small pro- 
 portion of them. The Roman Church has probably 
 succeeded better in maintaining its influence among its 
 followers here than in France; yet it is certain that vast 
 numbers of its people, and perhaps even greater num- 
 bers of nominal Protestants, have been slipping away 
 from the churches of their fathers into irreligion and 
 unbelief. It will hardly be questioned that the work- 
 ingmen of our towns and cities, in their religious con- 
 dition, far more closely resemble the multitudes who 
 are gathered into the salles of the McAll Mission than 
 those who have composed the audiences of such men 
 as Wesley, Whitfield, Nettleton, Kirk, Finney, or even 
 Spurgeon and Moody. A study of the methods em- 
 ployed in this remarkable movement ought therefore 
 to be of value to all who are interested in that problem 
 which stands among the foremost of our age, the relig- 
 ious problem of American cities. 
 
 The first to be noted and the most remarkable among 
 the peculiarities of method adopted by the McAll Mis- 
 sion, regards the character of the Salles, or Mission Halls, 
 in which the meetings are held. Ordinary shops front- 
 ing on frequented streets are usually rented and fitted up 
 for this purpose. The halk are thus always compara- 
 tively small. The largest in Paris has sittings for only 
 450 persons; four or five others accommodate as many 
 as 300 each; the rest seat from 80 to 260 each. Great 
 
THE McALL MISSION. 1?3 
 
 advantages are claimed for this system. In the first place, 
 such rooms are always easily secured in any part of the 
 city where they are needed. Large halls, intended for 
 auditoriums, are not easy to find — are not likely to be 
 located where the Mission wants them, and are hard to 
 get the entire control of ; but there are always and 
 everywhere shops to be had at a reasonable rent. The 
 ground floors of most of the buildings in Paris are ar- 
 ranged for shops. This system also has the advantage 
 of being much less expensive than the ordinary plan. 
 Large halls cannot be leased so as to be used exclu- 
 sively for mission purposes, without considerable ex- 
 pense; it is still more costly to secure property and 
 erect chapels or other buildings in the crowded dis- 
 tricts where missions are most needed, but the rent of 
 ordinary shops is much more easily managed. This is 
 an important matter. One of the greatest difficulties 
 in all benevolent and mission work arises from lack of 
 funds. The field is always opening faster than it can 
 be supplied with men and money. Owing to the high 
 rents and expensive living, mission work in great cities 
 is especially costly. It is one of the marvels of the 
 McAH. Mission that so much has been accomplished at 
 so small an expense. The whole cost of maintaining 
 the ninety-nine mission halls, thirty-four of them in 
 and about the costly city of Paris, during the year 
 1886, including rents, salaries, new furniture, taxes, 
 cost of administration, and every expense of every sort, 
 was less than $80,000. There are single institutions in 
 England and America whose annual expenditure is 
 much greater. 
 
 It is furthermore claimed in favor of the small meet- 
 ings that they are much more easily equipped with 
 
174: THE McALL MISSION. 
 
 speakers than great ones. A large audience can only 
 be effectively addressed by a man of extraordinary 
 power. Such men are rare and their services always 
 difficult to secure. But a man of smaller calibre can do 
 equally good work in a smaller meeting. Other things 
 being equal, many little meetings are more useful than 
 a few large ones. In the former the speaker is brought 
 into closer contact with the hearer, his influence is 
 more forcible, his message more personal, and each 
 auditor involuntarily takes a larger share of it to him- 
 self. In a small meeting it is also possible, as it never 
 is in the case of a great assembly, to extend a cordial 
 welcome to every one who enters, to observe the effect 
 of the discourse upon all, and to follow up the preaching 
 by personal effort. 
 
 Shops have still another advantage over chapels and 
 large halls for mission purposes : they are much more 
 accessible to the throngs of the street. Made so as to 
 be easily entered, but a single step from the sidewalk, 
 they open their inviting doors to those who, fatigued 
 with walking, desire a few moments' rest; to those who 
 are prompted by curiosity to enter, and to all who for 
 any reason care to go in. An illumination, suspended 
 over the sidewalk before the door, announces, in blaz- 
 ing letters, the name and character of the hall and the 
 time of the meetings, and extends to all a cordial in- 
 vitation to attend them. 
 
 Another peculiarity of the McAll system is seen in 
 the careful appointment of an outer and an inner door- 
 keeper for every meeting. The former service is per- 
 formed by a gentleman who stands on the sidewalk in 
 front of the entrance and distributes printed invitations 
 to the passers-by, enforcing their message as often as 
 
THE McALL MISSION. 175 
 
 possible by a kind word of welcome. Those who enter 
 are received by the inner doorkeeper, a lady, who 
 politely welcomes each one as a guest, shows him a 
 seat and provides him with a hymn-book. This lady— 
 in the larger halls there are two of them — " is charged 
 with the multifarious offices of inner gatekeeper, dep- 
 uty hostess, hall policeman and superior, tract and New 
 Testament distributer, general informant, and, later on, 
 friend and visitor to those who accept the invitation 
 handed them at the door and enter." Great pains are 
 taken in filling these two appointments. Neither place 
 is ever allowed to be vacant for a single meeting, and 
 they are never occupied by servants or paid employes 
 of the Mission, nor by people of the working-class, 
 but by ladies and gentlemen who love the cause of 
 Christ. It is held that the invitation of a gentleman is 
 much more likely to be favorably received by the aver- 
 age Parisian than that of a commoner, and that the 
 gracious welcome of a lady is peculiarly pleasing. The 
 lady doorkeepers are, moreover, found to be remark- 
 ably successful in maintaining order in the meetings. 
 Whenever some rough fellow shows symptoms of be- 
 coming turbulent, a simple request from a lady is 
 usually enough to subdue him. It touches the hearts 
 of the poor to have those who are so greatly their 
 superiors in wealth and station come to them as friends 
 and helpers. The English and American residents of 
 Paris have served largely in this capacity. 
 
 The halls within are neatly but plainly furnished, so 
 that the humblest auditors, while attracted by their cheer- 
 fulness, may not be oppressed by unfamiliar elegance. 
 
 A service of song, conducted by a lady who presides 
 at the cabinet organ, invariably opens the meeting. 
 
176 THE McALL MISSION. 
 
 The music of the Gospel has had marvellous power — ■ 
 has given wings to the truth in Paris. France is said 
 to be poor in song. She has the heavy, classic music 
 of the cathedral, she has the opera, but there are few 
 pure, simple songs for the people, either religious or 
 secular. One of the most important services rendered 
 by the McAU Mission to the French people has, there- 
 fore, been the collection, translation, and introduction 
 of Christian hymns. Mrs. McAll has done most of this 
 work. The three hundred and more hymns that are 
 now in use in the Mission include both popular " Gos- 
 pel Songs," such as, " Hold the Fort " and " I love to 
 tell the Story," and at the same time many of the choic- 
 est lyrics of the church. 
 
 After the song-service, which is greatly enjoyed, a 
 passage of Scripture is read, and the meeting is then 
 addressed in turn by two speakers. The addresses are 
 short, not exceeding fifteen minutes each, and a hynin 
 comes between them. All polemics are, by an inflex- 
 ible rule, forbidden. Not one word derogatory to the 
 Roman Catholic Church, or even to rationalism, must 
 be spoken. The addresses are not to be learned, 
 rhetorical, or philosophical; their single aim must be 
 to present simply, clearly, vividly, and positively the 
 great facts of our faith. The single, brief prayer of 
 the evening follows the second address, and then, after 
 the concluding hymn, the audience is dismissed, not 
 with a benediction, but with a simple " Good-night," 
 and a cordial invitation to come again. As the people 
 go out, the workers have an opportunity to speak with 
 any who seem especially interested, to hand them tracts 
 or portions of the Scriptures, and to get their addresses 
 in order to call upon them on the following day. 
 
THE McALL MISSION. 177 
 
 The appointments for all the meetings are made with 
 consummate skill from the central office. At least five 
 persons must serve at every meeting that is held — the 
 gentleman outside the door, the lady within, the organ- 
 ist, and the two speakers. Each of these persons must 
 accept his appointment, and a card from him must be 
 received on which he agrees to be present at the speci- 
 fied time and place. As over eighty meetings of this 
 kind for adults, besides half as many more Sunday- 
 schools, mothers' meetings, etc., must be provided for 
 regularly every week, in Paris and its suburbs alone, it 
 will readily be seen that the task of administration is 
 no simple one; yet so skillfully is it performed that the 
 whole system moves on with perfect smoothness, and 
 it rarely happens that a single position is left unfilled. 
 
 Nearly all the speakers are volunteers. They place 
 themselves at the disposal of the Mission for a certain 
 number of evenings each week or month, as the case 
 may be, and are sent out wherever they are required. 
 It is a labor of love, and they receive no pay beyond 
 their carriage fare. About fifty pastors and one hun- 
 dred and fifty laymen have given more or less of their 
 time to such work in Paris during the past year. Great 
 pains are taken to select for each field the speakers best 
 adapted to its need. It is usually so arranged that one 
 of the two speakers appointed for a place is decidedly 
 stronger than the other. The second of the two ad- 
 dresses is assigned to him, and he is given charge of 
 the meeting. The doorkeepers usually remain at the 
 same hall night after night, but the speakers are 
 changed about from place to place. 
 
 In several of the more important halls meetings are 
 held every evening of the week at 8 or 8:15 o'clock. 
 12 
 
178 THE McALL MISSION. 
 
 Most of tlie others have two, three, or four meetings in 
 the course of the week. A Sunday-school is held in 
 nearly all of them on Sunday afternoon, and a chil- 
 dren's meeting in the middle of the week. During 
 eight months of the year working-meetings for women, 
 similar to the mothers' meetings of England, are held 
 every week in fifteen of the different halls. Besides 
 these there are numerous prayer - meetings, Bible- 
 classes, young men's and young women's meetings, 
 Bible union meetings, fraternal society meeting, etc., 
 etc. 
 
 The converts of the mission are, so far as possible, 
 persuaded to join the regular Protestant churches of 
 the city, of which there are forty, " where the Gospel 
 is preached in simplicity and in sincerity." * There 
 are, however, many in whom the prejudice against the 
 name " Protestant," and against everything churchly is 
 so deeply rooted that they cannot be prevailed upon to 
 take this step. Such persons are banded together in 
 what are termed Societes Fraternelles. The following 
 are the rules of one of these societies : 
 
 1. " Every member must believe on the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 2. " Every member engages to read every day a por- 
 tion of Scripture. 
 
 3. " Every member engages to pray for his associates, 
 and to visit them in time of sickness. 
 
 4. " Every member engages to pay a monthly contri- 
 bution of at least one penny on behalf of the poor." 
 
 " It meets every fortnight for prayer, edification, and 
 
 * See Yesterday and To-day ; or, The Activities of French Protestants. 
 A pamphlet by Westphal Castelman, with Introduction by Kev. A. 
 F. Beard, D.D. Paris, 1885. 
 
THE McALL MISSION. 179 
 
 testimony. New members are admitted after two 
 months' probation as candidates ; absence unaccounted 
 for during three months, or conduct contrary to the 
 morals of the Gospel, are causes of erasure." It is in- 
 tended by means of these organizations, not only to 
 keep together, to instruct, and to train young believers, 
 but to give them more intelligent notions of the nature 
 of the Christian Church and their obligation to become 
 its members. 
 
 Contributions have never been asked for at the regu- 
 lar evangelistic meetings. The conduct of the Church 
 of Rome in France has been such as to give currency 
 to the opinion that religion is simply a money-making 
 matter. The freedom of the Gospel presented by the 
 McAll Mission has been one of its strongest attractions. 
 " How much to pay ? " is often a stranger's first ques- 
 tion as he enters a hall. When offered a seat, he asks 
 again, " What does it cost ? " And when a hymn-book 
 is handed to him, he still expects to be charged for it. 
 The idea that pure, disinterested love has invited him 
 to come in and seeks his benefit, is one that he grasps 
 slowly and with astonishment, but when he has grasped 
 it, it moves him powerfully. 
 
 From the nature of the case, and from the character 
 of the methods employed, it is impossible to give in 
 figures any approximate notion of the results accom- 
 plished by the McAll Mission. We only know that the 
 GosxDel is being preached in purity and fervor to audi- 
 ences whose aggregate number is more than a million 
 a year, and that multitudes of these are converted to 
 the truth. How many, we have no means of telling. 
 The converts are not counted, nor are they kept to- 
 gether as members of any one organization. As fast 
 
180 THE McALL MISSION. 
 
 as men are led to Christ they are handed over to the 
 regular Protestant churches. The mission aims to be 
 the ally, the feeder of the churches. It lives not for 
 itself, but for them. The value of its services to French 
 Protestantism and to the French people has been finely 
 stated by one who speaks from an intimate acquaint- 
 ance with the whole subject, the Rev. A. F. Beard, D.D., 
 former pastor of the American Church in Paris. In 
 his words we shall close this chapter : 
 
 " It is to the credit of the Mission McAll that it forms 
 no churches. It could perhaps introduce one more sect 
 in France, and perhaps plant a little ' ism.' But it does 
 not need to do this, and the broad-minded and clear- 
 eyed man who gave this Mission its stamp belongs to 
 Christianity. 
 
 " It is hoped that the existing Protestant churches 
 will reap rich harvests from this Mission. They have 
 already the first-fruits. But aside from this, there is a 
 relation of the McAll Mission to the churches which is 
 very important. It has brought to the churches of 
 France the inspiration of Christian aggressiveness, and 
 the examples and illustrations of simple and successful 
 methods. It is not speaking unkindly of the French 
 churches to say that from the very necessities of past 
 condition they had much to learn, both as to the spirit 
 of aggressive Christian work and the methods of it. 
 They had lived a repressed life. They had been for- 
 bidden by law to evangelize. They had come, in the 
 nature of the case, to a dignified and somewhat formal 
 style of worship. The services were ' churchly.' 
 
 " The McAll Mission has been a constant ' object- 
 lesson,' illustrating how the Gospel may be earnestly 
 preached in a popular way. It has given examples of 
 
THE McALL MISSION. 181 
 
 Christian work in its various phases; it has shown even 
 in the most difficult quarters that the people can be 
 reached. That which Protestant pastors thought could 
 not be done, has been done, and this has been a great 
 awakening power of Christian aggression, both as to 
 spirit and method. The conservative instincts of many 
 good men have yielded to the influence. 
 
 " Barriers between the unchurched and the churched 
 have been taken down, and those who knew nothing of 
 church life, except to distrust it, and who had an un- 
 truthful idea of Christianity, have been made to feel 
 that pastors are not unsympathetic persons who preach 
 from a high pulpit of propriety to those who can 
 pay for it, but are indeed their friends, true, earnest 
 hearts who love them as souls; and that their words are 
 not official commonplaces expected to be uttered, but 
 utterances revealing hearts full of sympathy for man as 
 man. If the McAll Mission had done no more than to 
 come close to the people, and to those most needy, as an 
 object-lesson to churches which have been the subject 
 of repression and persecution, it would have justified 
 its life. It becomes incidentally also a grand training- 
 school for the future evangelism of France in its 
 direct, simple, and sincere presentation of the Gospel. 
 It meets the questions of the Papacy and of Infidelity 
 not controversially, but by constant insistance of Gos- 
 pel truths, so that thousands listen with sympathy 
 whom controversy could never reach." * 
 
 * Yesterday and To-day, Introduction, pp. 11-13. 
 
CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 SUGGESTIONS REGARDING CHRISTIAN WORK FOR OUR CITIES. 
 
 In our first three chapters attention has been called 
 to the fact that the population of the United States 
 has, for the past hundred years, been shifting with 
 great rapidity from the rural parts into the towns. 
 We have seen that the causes to which this change is 
 due are still operative, and seem likely to remain so for 
 many years; so that the cities of to-day, great as they 
 appear, are small in comparison with what they will 
 probably become. We have seen that their increase in 
 size is accompanied by growing class distinctions; that 
 the so-called " working-people," who compose the ma- 
 jority of the population of modern towns, are separated 
 from others, not only by many such differences in birth, 
 education, occupation, and estate as divide the social 
 classes of Europe, but by additional barriers of differ- 
 ence in race, language, and religion. We have seen 
 that in consequence of these differences, the American 
 Protestant churches, upon whose high faith and its 
 outcome in pure morality our civilization stands, have 
 largely failed to reach the working- classes in the towns 
 and have become too much the churches of the well-to- 
 do, while the poor have been left to Catholicism, to 
 irreligion, and to infidelity; and we have seen that the 
 irreligion of these masses who chiefly people the cities 
 has been naturally followed by a decay of morality in 
 (182) 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK FOR OUR CITIES. 183 
 
 the cities, and by such alarming symptoms of the disin- 
 tegration of Christian civilization as a rapid increase of 
 crime, of pauperism, of intemperance, and Sabbath 
 desecration, and a growing spirit of anarchy among 
 worldngmen. In the fourth and fifth chapters we ex- 
 amined, as far as possible in so brief a space, the 
 methods of religious work which prevail in London, 
 and in the sixth those of the McAll Mission in Paris, 
 hoping to receive from beyond the Atlantic some hints 
 that may be helpful in the solution of our own difficult 
 problems. The closing chapter will be devoted to a 
 few suggestions concerning Christian work for our 
 cities which are made in view of the gravity of the sit- 
 uation here, and in the light of such wisdom as we 
 have culled from abroad. 
 
 "We remark, in the first place, that it seems tolerably 
 certain, if the churches hope to reach the people, that 
 they must greatly enlarge their working force in the 
 towns and cities. The greatest of our troubles is, that 
 far too little whole-hearted, thorough-going, thought- 
 ful endeavor is put forth for the salvation of the poorer 
 classes. " The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labor- 
 ers are few." No more striking difference appears 
 between the ways of our English brethren and our 
 own, than the difference in the number of regular paid 
 workers employed by an ordinary church in the two 
 countries. Over against their corps of clergymen, mis- 
 sionaries, Bible-readers, deaconesses, and trained nurses, 
 stands our pastor, single - handed, or, in exceptional 
 cases, with one or two assistants. Is it a wonder that 
 they accomplish a vast deal more than we ? 
 
 Most American ministers are obliged to depend for 
 assistance entirely upon the voluntary aid of laymen. 
 
184 CHRISTIAN WORK FOR OUR CITIES. 
 
 Now, although, such aid is of great importance, and 
 can never be dispensed with, it is too fitful and ir- 
 regular to be reliable except when well organized and 
 closely superintended. The pastor has no more dif- 
 ficult task than that of keeping his people engaged 
 in efficient, systematic Christian work. If the increase 
 of the regular force of the church were likely, by tak- 
 ing the responsibility off from the shoulders of private 
 members, to diminish the amount of voluntary service, 
 it would not be an unmixed good; but we are confident 
 that the opposite result would follow such an increase. 
 As a general can get more fighting out of his soldiers 
 when assisted by a staff of subordinate officers than if 
 he attempted the command alone, so a pastor can best 
 succeed in supplying work for every willing heart in 
 the congregation when assisted in carrying out his 
 plans by suitable helpers. Becent observation in Eng- 
 land confirms this belief. Notwithstanding the number 
 of paid workers, the rank and file of the people appear, 
 to say the least, quite as deeply engaged in Christian 
 service there as here. 
 
 But there are certain branches of parochial work 
 that cannot well be delegated to volunteers. In a large 
 parish, duties of this kind are often enough, of them- 
 selves alone, when done as well as they should be, to 
 absorb more than the entire strength of one, or even 
 two pastors. The larger the proportion of poor and 
 humble people in the parish, the greater is its heed of 
 thorough and laborious parish work. With all classes, 
 personal, hand-to-hand presentation of the truth is 
 doubtless worthy of far stronger emphasis than it has 
 usually received; but this is especially the case with the 
 lowly. The best results cannot be secrued among such 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK FOR OUR CITIES. 185 
 
 people unless pulpit instruction is both prepared for 
 and supplemented by abundant personal work. It is, 
 therefore, frequently the case that the pastor of a 
 church in a large parish has three or four times as much 
 depending upon him alone as he can possibly perform. 
 He is obliged to do what he can and let the rest go. 
 This is a wasteful method. On the one hand, there is 
 not enough parish work done to make the preaching 
 properly effective, and, on the other hand, too much 
 parish work is done to leave sufficient time for the 
 preparation of sermons. It is not businesslike; it is 
 not the way careful men proceed in other matters. 
 Look at the Roman Catholics. How thoroughly well 
 they man every point they take. Small indeed is the 
 church of that communion which employs a single, un- 
 assisted priest. Their great city churches where thou- 
 sands of working-people resort on every Sabbath, are 
 often served by half a score of priests. Does not their 
 remarkable success in winning the poor and retaining 
 their influence over the lowly, both here and in all other 
 lands, suggest that there may be something in their 
 methods worth our study ? 
 
 A minister's assistants need not, however, be fully 
 educated and equipped clergymen. One man, if he 
 has his time, can do preaching enough for a whole 
 church however large. In a poor parish, an uneducated 
 person, full of the Holy Ghost, may be a much more 
 efficient helper than a college graduate. It is a fact 
 which experience has demonstrated over and over 
 again, both here, in England, and in heathen lands, that 
 the best workers among any class are those who have 
 come up from among that class. If you wish to reach 
 the patrons of the saloons, send them one whom the 
 
186 CHRISTIAN WORK FOB OUR CITIES. 
 
 grace of God has saved from drunkenness, and how- 
 ever much his uncouth language and his apparent 
 irreverence may shock the wise and prudent, he will 
 win men that the polished clergyman could not touch 
 with the tip of his fingers. 
 
 A London pastor who keeps a large number of mis- 
 sionaries at work in his parish, remarked that one year 
 he employed several theological students in this way. 
 " How did it work ? " asked a friend. ' ' "Well," he replied 
 hesitatingly, " it was good for the students." 
 
 However much we may regret the existence of social 
 classes in the United States, it is not wise to ignore the 
 fact of their existence in our work. For regular pas- 
 tors and preachers we want the best trained and most 
 polished gentlemen that the schools can supply; but 
 such men are not of the sort to get into the homes and 
 hearts of the working-people. If they are to reach 
 workingmen, they must be assisted by workingmen. 
 This principle is especially important in dealing with 
 our foreign population. It is not held that services for 
 these people should always be conducted in their mo- 
 ther tongue. Most of them understand English, and 
 English is the language of their children; but they 
 should be approached by men who are able to look at 
 things from their stand-point. 
 
 In Berlin the writer had the pleasure of repeated in- 
 terviews with Count Piickler, an associate of Von 
 Schliimbach, one of the most active and efficient work- 
 ers in all Germany. He said that during a recent visit 
 in the United States, he addressed, upon religious 
 matters, large audiences of his countrymen in most of 
 our principal cities, and that in connection with those 
 addresses, young Germans were constantly coming to 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK FOR OUR CITIES. 187 
 
 him with the remark : "If you will organize a Chris- 
 tian association among us, we will support it gladly, 
 "but we can't work with the Americans; they are too 
 good for us. They regard us as the greatest sinners if we 
 drink a glass of beer or have a fete on Sunday after- 
 noon. They don't understand our ways, nor we theirs." 
 Men who have been brought up to think that beer is 
 as much a " staff of life " as bread itself, will not, of 
 course, accept total abstinence as a Christian duty at 
 the outset. After a prayer-meeting in the rooms of the 
 Berlin Young Men's Christian Association, the young 
 men commonly retire to a little restaurant connected 
 with the establishment and there discuss a glass of beer 
 together; and they have no notion whatever of any 
 incongruity between the praying and the drinking. 
 One reason why we have won to our churches and to 
 our Saviour so few of the strangers within our gates, is 
 because we have made so few rational efforts to win 
 them. When a down-town church finds its old sup- 
 porters moving away to the suburbs, instead of picking 
 up its hymn-books and hastening after them; instead 
 of selling its old building for a warehouse or a skating 
 rink and abandoning the neighborhood with its increas- 
 ing multitude of dying men, except so far as the Cath- 
 olics may save them, to the saloons and to the devil, 
 why should it not recognize the changed condition of 
 affairs and equip itself for doing the new kind of work 
 and reaping the new harvests that grow up rich and 
 rank on every side, by employing workers whom nature 
 and experience have fitted for that style of labor? 
 Why should it not manfully stand its ground and ex- 
 pect the truth to triumph ? The answer would be, the 
 plan is impracticable, because a church so situated can 
 
138 CHRISTIAN WORK FOR OUR CITIES. 
 
 scarcely pay its pastor, and cannot meet the expense of 
 employing additional laborers. True enough! but is 
 that a reason why the field should be abandoned? 
 Does the burden of the work for such quarters belong- 
 to none but the few religious people left in them ? Is 
 the duty of all others limited to the wards in which 
 they happen to live ? Let the whole Church in city 
 and suburb rally around the old enterprises and fur- 
 nish the means by endowment or otherwise with which 
 they may vigorously push their pressing work. 
 
 When men move from the crowded city to a pleasant 
 suburb, or from a poorer to a more prosperous part of 
 town, they do not leave behind them all responsibility 
 for the moral and spiritual welfare of the region they 
 forsake. Those who carry on their business and make 
 their money in any city are under peculiar obligations 
 to provide for the needs of that city; obligations from 
 which they can never escape by choosing residences 
 out of sight of its misery and beyond the sound of its 
 sin. Business may often so crowd out population that 
 old churches are wisely changed to new localities; but 
 to abandon an old church when the neighborhood is as 
 populous as ever, simply because the character of the 
 people has changed, is a shame : it is false to the spirit 
 of Christianity, for it is acting as though the Gospel 
 were for the classes and not for the masses, and the mis- 
 sion of the Church were special instead of universal. 
 
 The men to be blamed, however, in such a case, are 
 not those who cling to the old enterprise to the last 
 and abandon it only when forced by necessity to do so. 
 The ones most blameworthy are rather those who leave 
 the old church in the days of its comparative prosperity 
 and feel no more concerned for it thereafter. If we 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK FOR OUR CTTIES. 189 
 
 are to save our cities, we must mend our ways. We 
 must cease withdrawing our forces from the thickest 
 and most important points in the battle with evil. * We 
 must stop deserting every post of difficulty and danger. 
 "He hath sounded forth a trumpet that shall never 
 call retreat." The members of the great, rich churches 
 that surround every city, must learn that they too have 
 been bidden to deny themselves and take up their cross 
 daily if they would be His disciples. Let this lesson 
 be constantly impressed upon them until, in the light 
 of the knowledge of it, continuous streams of conse- 
 crated wealth and consecrated workers are poured from 
 the fine avenues and fair suburbs into the haunts of 
 vice and godlessness. 
 
 We deem it a matter of greatest importance, especi- 
 ally in regions chiefly pupulated by workingmen, that 
 there should be a large amount of Christian visitation. 
 The mere social or charitable call is not enough. Godly 
 men and women anointed for service by the Holy 
 Spirit should go and preach Christ Jesus in the homes 
 of carelessness and irreligion. When the Word is thus 
 wisely, affectionately, and earnestly presented, it does 
 not fail to bring forth much fruit. Many Christian 
 visitors make the mistake of giving simply an invitation 
 to attend church and letting the matter rest there. 
 Now this invitation, " Come to church," is not the great 
 burden of our message to dying men. The Bible has 
 not much to say about it ; it does not take hold on 
 heart and conscience, especially where the person 
 addressed has never known a religious training. It is 
 easily fended off. Men will say that they are too tired 
 to attend church on Sundays, that they have no suit- 
 able clothing, that some one in the church has injured 
 
190 CHRISTIAN WORK FOR OUR CITIES. 
 
 them, that they do not like the minister, that they can- 
 not afford to pay for a seat, that family duties keep 
 them at home. A dozen reasons are at hand to excuse 
 them. But the great invitation, " Come to Christ/' is 
 one against which no valid excuse can ever, under any 
 circumstances, be urged, and an excuse that even seems 
 plausible is hard to find. This invitation goes directly 
 to the root of the matter ; it presents at once, clearly, 
 forcibly, and in a way that cannot be avoided, the great 
 issue between right and wrong, between the service of 
 God and the service of this world and its ruler. We 
 do not, of course, mean to decry the practice of urging 
 men to come to church, but this is after all a secondary 
 matter and should have a secondary place. Those who 
 rely mainly on it in their Christian work to the neglect 
 of the direct invitation of the Gospel are like men who 
 lay aside the keen sword and go to battle armed only 
 with blunt sticks. Non- church-goers rarely stay away 
 from the house of God for lack of an invitation to 
 attend. The doors of the sanctuary, the lips of God's 
 people, cards, dodgers, newspapers, all repeat a thou- 
 sand times the invitation, " Come." But the earnest 
 personal call to Jesus Christ is one they rarely hear. 
 Persuade men to come to Christ first and afterward 
 there will be no difficulty in persuading them to come 
 to church. 
 
 American Christians may learn a valuable lesson from 
 the work of the Sisters of Mercy and Deaconesses of 
 England. "We have the best of authority for closely 
 connecting the cure of the diseased body with that of 
 the sin -sick soul. "Son, thy sins are forgiven thee; 
 take up thy bed and walk." Gifts of healing came 
 along with those of preaching in the days of the 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK FOR OUR CITIES. 191 
 
 apostles. The chief business of the church is, beyond 
 a doubt, that of saving souls; but has she not gone too 
 far in making that her only calling? When sickness 
 breaks in upon a workingman's narrow home, it is a 
 heavy affliction: helpers are few; accommodations are 
 poor and scanty; there is little knowledge of disease 
 and its treatment; the invalid fights for life at fearful 
 disadvantage. "Where one dies for want of medicine, 
 ten perish for lack of care and nursing. 
 
 If the church had a corps of saintly women trained 
 to nursing, so that she could send one of them like a 
 ministering angel into every afflicted household, by 
 what cords of love she might bind its members to her- 
 self ! When men are in trouble their hearts are soft; 
 the love you show them then, and the help you offer, 
 are not soon forgotten. Cold victuals and old clothes 
 may be acceptable when people are hard pressed 
 and the wolf is at the door; but how rarely have such 
 presents brought the receiver by a single step nearer to 
 the Saviour. Even the giving of money is a danger- 
 ous experiment: while affording to the needy tempo- 
 rary relief, it is apt to do so at the heavy cost of self- 
 respect, and to push them on toward pauperism. But 
 when one offers himself or some loved member of his 
 family to the service of the poor, there is a gift which 
 can neither degrade nor pauperize, but can only enno- 
 ble and bless those that give and those that take. 
 
 Speaking of sisterhoods, Bishop Ireland, of Minne- 
 sota, says : " We claim peculiar advantages from the 
 system of Catholic charities. It secures in the service 
 of charity what is most valuable and most difficult to 
 be obtained, — the sweetness and tenderness of love. It 
 is not bread or medicine that is most prized by the in- 
 
192 CHRISTIAN WORK FOR OUR CITIES. 
 
 digent and the sick : it is the smile and the soft caress, 
 the kind, hopeful word. The heart rather than the 
 mouth must be fed : the soul rather than the body 
 must be warmed. All this is done Yvithout effort, and 
 is done with exquisite delicacy, when the heart of the 
 laborer is in his work. The Catholic brother and sis- 
 ter are inspired by love. They could not endure the 
 religious lif e unless the heart were all on fire with love : 
 love streams from the heart and ignites all other hearts 
 coming within the circle of its influence/' 
 
 Shall the advantages of such a system be monopo- 
 lized by those who have so little else to offer ? "Where 
 can the churches find a better way of winning to them- 
 selves and their Lord, the hearts of His poor? Were 
 it needful, they would do well to fill their windows with 
 plain glass and let their floors go bare, rather than pass 
 heedlessly by such open doors of opportunity. 
 
 II. A few words as to the nature and frequency of re- 
 ligious services which should be provided for the 
 masses. A religion for working-people must be vital. 
 It must present in their simplest, most direct form the 
 great verities of our faith. The less they realize it, the 
 more true it is that they hunger for the bread of life. 
 That service is, therefore, best adapted to their needs 
 which provides the fullest supply, not of literature, 
 philosophy, theology, art or music, but plain Gospel 
 truth. Now the truth never comes to men so power- 
 fully as from the lips of a fellow-man in whom it lives 
 and who lives in it : no set form of words can so lif t up 
 the soul of the congregation into fellowship with God, 
 as the spontaneous prayer of one whose petitions spring 
 from the suggestion of God's indwelling Spirit. Tak- 
 ing both at their best, the non-liturgical churches, there- 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK FOR OUR CITIES. 193 
 
 fore, seem to us better adapted to the needs of the 
 common people than those which lean on the staff of a 
 ritual; and it is our impression, although this would 
 hardly be acknowledged by a " churchman," that the 
 religious history and life of England verifies this posi- 
 tion. Notwithstanding the great advantages that the 
 Established Church has had in dealing with the com- 
 mon people because of its endowments and prestige, 
 the fact that it need not appeal to its adherents for 
 financial support, and that it has much more money to 
 spend for charity, — it will hardly be denied that the 
 nonconformists of various sects have been more suc- 
 cessful in engaging the hearts of the humbler classes 
 than the Establishment. 
 
 On the other hand, a cripple can walk better with a 
 staff than without it. If there be no spiritual life in 
 the church or its minister, the service is far more ac- 
 ceptable when it takes the form of a majestic ritual 
 which the coldest of readers cannot altogether rob of 
 truth and strength, than when it depends for insiDira- 
 tion and helpfulness upon the utterances of one whose 
 prayers have no uplifting power. Heat will not come 
 out of one who is cold, nor can a dead man give life to 
 others. The church without the liturgy, if it be dead, 
 is the deadest of all dead churches. The first great 
 requisite for success with the people, the lack of which 
 cannot be supplied by any kind of attraction or con- 
 trivance, is, therefore, life. 
 
 There can be no doubt, however, that the methods of 
 service which are wisest, vary with the varying condi- 
 tions of those for whom they are designed. What 
 suited the keen logicians of the New England farms a 
 century ago would hardly be the thing for a popular 
 13 
 
194 CHRISTIAN WORE FOR OUR CITIES. 
 
 audience in a modern factory town. We may well ask 
 ourselves whether the elements of instruction and per- 
 suasion have not, even now, places of too great relative 
 prominence in the Sabbath service of most churches in 
 comparison with that which is given to worship. There 
 is something deeply impressive in the fondness of the 
 Englishman for his church. He is, if we are not mis- 
 taken, a much more faithful and punctual attendant at 
 the house of God than the American. He does not go 
 for the sake of fashion and vanity, for he dresses plain- 
 ly, nor for the sake of hearing the sermon, for he makes 
 it a matter of secondary importance ; but for the 
 service. Into this he enters with all his heart. People 
 love a service in which they feel that they have a per- 
 sonal part. Is not the minister's part too great with 
 us, and that of the people too small? Have we not 
 made a mistake, for instance, in giving up the response 
 to prayer and hymn, the audible " amen," whereby each 
 worshipper endorses and adopts for himself the peti- 
 tion of the leader ? 
 
 Singing is the one way in which a whole congrega- 
 tion may most freely and naturally unite in the worship 
 of God. It exalts the feelings, warms the affections, 
 and flings open to the truth the chambers of the soul. 
 In thousands of cases a song has been the first thing 
 to touch a man's heart. It is said that Wesleyanism, 
 the religion of common people, " sang its way around 
 the world." In order to reach the masses, there must 
 be plenty of good music in which all can engage. 
 Many London churches do not think five congrega- 
 tional hymns too many for an ordinary morning service. 
 "What could be more quenching to the spirit of praise 
 than the custom of sitting in one's seat and listening to 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK FOR OUR CITIES. 195 
 
 the artistic trills and quavers of mercenary musicians, 
 instead of standing up to " praise the living God with 
 heart and soul and voice " ? 
 
 Our English brethren do well in having more fre- 
 quent religious services than we. In order that people 
 may feel deeply, think strongly, and act rightly in mat- 
 ters of religion, its great truths should be kept con- 
 stantly before them. As the protracted meeting 
 nourishes the revival spirit, so continuous meetings give 
 to religion a perennial life. Frequent services are of 
 special importance among humble people. John "Wes- 
 ley used to say that the idea of holding meetings less 
 often than every day originated with the devil. A 
 large part of the success with which the Salvation Army 
 retains its influence over those that join it, is due to the 
 frequency of its services. The evenings of working- 
 men are largely on their hands; their homes are not 
 attractive; they have little taste for reading; after the 
 monotonous toil and confinement of the day they natu- 
 rally spend the evening abroad. The cheap places of 
 public amusement whose open doors invite them, are 
 likely to be most unwholesome. When a church stands 
 in the midst of such a populace, it ought never to be 
 closed of an evening. Not that the people should be 
 urged to attend church every day in the week, but that 
 there should always be some sort of a bright, short, in- 
 teresting service that they can attend if they choose. 
 Here is one of the points in which we see the pressing 
 need of increasing the working force of the city 
 churches. 
 
 The character of such daily services could wisely be 
 diversified so as to suit the various elements in the con- 
 gregation. There are some who enjoy simple melodies 
 
196 CHRISTIAN WORK FOR OUR CITIES. 
 
 like those introduced by Mr. Sankey, brief prayers, 
 stirring testimonies, and short, pointed appeals. An- 
 other element is better helped by services in which 
 there is more of refinement and less of enthusiasm. No 
 one style will suit all sorts and conditions of men 
 equally well. Why, then, should the church conduct 
 every meeting on the same plan ? Let some of them 
 take the popular complexion and use the Gospel songs. 
 Let others be of more conservative type, and make use 
 of the classical hymns of the church. A mid-week 
 service, with preaching or lecture, would doubtless be 
 as useful here as it has proven in England. The young 
 people with their special prayer-meeting, or their " So- 
 ciety of Christian Endeavor," could make good use of 
 one evening in the week, and a Gospel temperance 
 meeting may well be planted in the midst of the drunk- 
 enness of every Saturday night. 
 
 But not only should religious meetings be more fre- 
 quent than has usually been the case, they should also, 
 for the best effect, be somewhat scattered throughout 
 the community which it is desired to reach. It is an 
 opinion which we believe to be daily growing upon the 
 convictions of those most interested in such matters, 
 that a given amount of religious energy is better and 
 more economically expended in many small meetings 
 than in few large ones.* "While concentration is the 
 watchword of modern life in other things, that of re- 
 ligion seems to be dispersion. The more thoroughly 
 the leaven is mixed with the meal, the sooner the whole 
 
 * Sec Report of Special Committee on City Evangelization, made 
 to the American Home Missionary Society at their annual meeting at 
 Saratoga, June 8, 1887, printed iu full in the Christian Unim, 
 June 10. 
 
CHRISTIAN WORE FOR OUR CITIES. 197 
 
 will be leavened; the more widely scattered the seed, 
 the more abundant the harvest; many little nets catch 
 more than few great ones. Those who could never be 
 persuaded to attend church will readily consent to go 
 into the little meeting in the neighbor's parlor. But 
 such little meetings are the very places where the per- 
 sonal claims of Jesus Christ may be most closely, pow- 
 erfully, and effectively presented. They afford the 
 church an unsurpassed opportunity for setting its most 
 consecrated members at work. Heart comes closer to 
 heart in the little room. Hand grasps hand; kind and 
 helpful words are easily spoken. It is a good place for 
 the young convert's first confession of Christ. There 
 is little opportunity for unhealthful excitement. The 
 minimum of effort brings the maximum of result. The 
 days of monster evangelistic meetings we believe to be 
 numbered; the simpler, quieter, and more continuous 
 methods have proven more effective. The new evan- 
 gelism does not build gigantic tabernacles to be crowded 
 for a month and then forsaken, but it plants permanent 
 churches in needy districts, which stretch out their 
 hands on all sides through multitudes of little meetings 
 held in halls, shops, school-buildings, homes, and tene- 
 ment-houses, to gather to themselves multitudes of such 
 as shall be saved. 
 
 It is a question worth considering whether we could 
 not make more frequent an4 effective use than we do 
 of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Although 
 this sacred ordinance is by no means a mass, is not a 
 sacrifice, and has in itself no purifying power for the 
 sake of which we sinners have frequent need of it, — it 
 is a visible memorial of the great sacrifice whereby we 
 live. Seeing that it speaks of the one central event of 
 
198 CHRISTIAN WORK FOR OUR CITIES. 
 
 history and religion with a power and eloquence which 
 no human lips can rival, is there any reason why its 
 symbolic voice should not be heard oftener and more 
 openly ? 
 
 III. The work of the English churches suggests, as a 
 third topic for remark, the efficiency of the parish 
 system. 
 
 There are two distinct systems on which the religious 
 life of a town may proceed : either the town may be 
 divided into a number of distinct districts or parishes, 
 a church planted in each and that church made solely 
 responsible for the religious instruction of every house- 
 hold in its own parish — or, the churches may be located 
 without special reference to the needs of their imme- 
 diate neighborhood, in such spots as appear desirable, 
 and may make it their aim to attract to themselves as 
 many as possible from all parts of the town, each church 
 counting as parishioners those and those only who 
 accept its invitations and attend its services. The 
 former is the system practiced, in theory at least, by 
 the Established Church of England. The latter is that 
 which generally prevails among the Nonconformists 
 and in the United States. The immense advantages of 
 the parish system in conducting the religious work of 
 large towns are obvious. This system places a distinct 
 and definite work before every church and thus gives 
 to all religious effort the vast advantage of having a 
 specific rather than a general aim. It has been well 
 said that "-every general arrangement with reference 
 to a whole is impotent in comparison with a special 
 arrangement adapted to the needs of a special part." 
 It makes somebody directly responsible for every fam- 
 ily in the city, and the whole field may thus be thor- 
 
CHRISTIAN WORE FOR OUR CITIES. 199 
 
 oughly overlooked by the cliurclies ; the moral and 
 religious condition of every household in it known; the 
 exact number of irreligious persons discovered, and 
 prayer and effort put forth for the conversion of each. 
 The inroads of vice maybe watched; temptation nipped 
 in the bud; evil prevented from massing itself and thus 
 increasing its power — and the whole body of society 
 may be thoroughly permeated with the salt of Christian 
 influence. Above all, the parish system of church work 
 surpasses the other because it leaves little or no room 
 for those rivalries and jealousies between competing 
 churches which are the shame of Protestantism. Its 
 value has been powerfully set forth by Dr. Chalmers 
 and was strikingly illustrated by him both in Glasgow 
 and Edinburgh. Scarcely a man since the days of the 
 Apostles could have spoken with greater weight of 
 authority upon such a theme than he. 
 
 The other system, the one that prevails almost exclu- 
 sively in our own cities, builds up, indeed, large and 
 flourishing churches which worship in beautiful build- 
 ings, listen to eloquent sermons, and make generous 
 contributions to missions ; but the trouble with them 
 is, that their work is superficial and partial; they deal 
 with only a small, selected portion of the population 
 and leave the rest uncared for. Such churches minis- 
 ter to none except those who choose to attend them, 
 but they who stand in greatest need of their ministra- 
 tions are the last to make such a choice. 
 
 "In proportion to our want of food is our desire for 
 food; but it is not so with our want of knowledge or 
 virtue or religion. The more destitute we are of these 
 last, the more dead we are to any inclination for them. 
 In moving through the lanes and recesses of a long- 
 
200 CHRISTIAN WORK FOR OUR CITIES. 
 
 neglected population, it would be found of the fearful 
 multitude that not only is their acquaintance with the 
 Gospel extinguished, but their desire to obtain an ac- 
 quaintance with it is also extinguished." * 
 
 Such people will never come to church of their own 
 accord, and consequently can never be reached by a 
 church that counts as belonging to its parish and under 
 its charge, those families and those only whose mem- 
 bers are attracted to its services. There are tens of 
 thousands in every great city in the land whom no 
 possible degree of attractiveness could persuade to at- 
 tend church. Make your seats as free, your invitations 
 as cordial, your house as beautiful, your music as fine, 
 and your preaching as eloquent as you please — they 
 will not think of coming. Could a saloon-keeper, by 
 refurnishing his place and improving the quality of his 
 liquors, persuade the Christian public to become his 
 patrons ? 
 
 It is true that the more you increase your attractions 
 the larger your audiences will become and the more 
 flourishing your church will appear, but none of this 
 increase will come from the class which needs the Gos- 
 pel most. How close is the application to our cities, of 
 words which Chalmers uttered more than half a century 
 ago: 
 
 "There is room enough for apparent Christianity 
 and real corruption to be gaining ground together, 
 each in their respective territories ; and the delu- 
 sion is that while many are rejoicing in the s} 7 mptoms 
 of our country's reformation, the country itself may 
 
 * The Christian and Civic Economy of Large Towns. Thomas 
 Chalmers, Glasgow, p. 62. 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK FOR OUR CITIES. 201 
 
 be ripening for some awful crisis by which to mark 
 in characters of vengeance the consummation of its 
 guilt." * 
 
 It is high time to cease depending upon the attract- 
 iveness of songs and sermons in cushioned and carpeted 
 sanctuaries: if we are to save the lost we must go out j 
 and seek them, for they will not come back of them- 
 selves. Many have reached this conclusion and have 
 attempted going out into the highways and compelling 
 men to come in, but they have met an almost insuperable 
 difficulty at the outset. Being resolved to go, the first 
 question is, where ? The city has tens and hundreds 
 of thousands of non church-goers living everywhere. 
 The individual church is but a little company of a f ew 
 hundred and contains no more than a score or two of 
 active and willing workers who are widely scattered. 
 These workers usually proceed without much method in 
 their attempt to bring non- church-goers to the sanctu- 
 ary; their efforts are consequently scattered and largely 
 wasted. The very vastness of the work that presses in 
 upon every side paralyzes many and many a city church 
 into a state of languor and inactivity. The sense of 
 their utter inability to lift the whole awful burden of 
 the great towns' sin and sorrow is so overpowering, that 
 they grow discouraged, attempt none of it, and are fain 
 to be contented with waging the inglorious warfare of 
 self-preservation. 
 
 Now this difficulty could surely be overcome if each 
 church would make its work strictly local. Instead of 
 vainly striving to shoulder the whole community at 
 
 * Ibid, p. 66. 
 
/ 
 
 202 CHRISTIAN WORK FOR OUR CITIES. 
 
 once, or standing idle and despondent at its inability to 
 do so, let every church take charge of a fixed and defi- 
 nite portion of the town, of a size proportionate to its 
 strength, and then let it, in direct and systematic 
 fashion, concentrate its efforts upon that corner of the 
 vineyard. " Thus a church of moderate ability, with- 
 out members of special talent or great wealth, and 
 without peculiarly favorable circumstances, can, as has 
 been proved repeatedly by experience, sensibly elevate 
 the moral, intellectual, and physical condition of any 
 community to which it puts its hand." 
 
 It may seem strange that a method of work so obvi- 
 ously wise and effective should so rarely be put into 
 practice by our American churches; but the reason for 
 this is, alas ! equally obvious. The forces of the king- 
 dom of heaven are scattered and divided between a 
 score and more of rival sects, no one of which will al- 
 low to another exclusive right to any portion of terri- 
 tory, no matter how little it may be doing there itself. 
 One cannot start a mission Sunday-school in a destitute 
 neighborhood without being suspected of trying to 
 seize the ground, not for Christ's sake, but for some 
 denomination. The few Christian people living in such 
 a community who would naturally be expected to sup- 
 port the new movement, cannot do so, because they be- 
 long to churches of half a dozen different orders. They 
 will not heartily enter into any enterprise except one 
 that is called by their own name. If you attempt to 
 call upon the families of some neglected and godless 
 quarter of the town, and to press upon its ignorant and 
 reckless people the claims of God and the invitations 
 of His church, you must be very careful to ascertain, 
 before visiting a household, that none of its children 
 
CHRISTIAN WORE FOR OUR CITIES. 203 
 
 attend any Sunday-school except your own; for, if so, 
 alas ! you are a proselyter. 
 
 In their influence upon the common people, especially 
 those of foreign birth, the schisms of our churches are 
 productive of incalculable mischief. In contrast with 
 our division, the Roman Catholic Church points tri- 
 umphantly to her unity. Her point is well taken by 
 them, for they do not see and cannot realize that her 
 unity is that of death, all agreeing because one thinks 
 for all; while underneath our seeming diversity there 
 thrills and throbs the mightier unity of life. Amid the 
 various calls and invitations of the different churches 
 they do not detect one spirit and a single aim. The 
 voice of the bride is so broken, confused, and bewilder- 
 ing, that they fail to hear her, and over her sectaries 
 and schisms, myriads go stumbling headlong into hell. 
 
 If the authority of every Christian in the city — nay, 
 of the church universal — could be concentrated for a 
 man into the single voice of his own parish church, how 
 mightily would her summons appeal to his heart ! Has 
 not the time fully come, brethren, when every man who 
 loves the kingdom of God should set his face like a 
 flint against the present disastrous system — a system 
 based upon the untenable and long since abandoned 
 position that discipleship and fellowship depend upon 
 agreement in doctrinal opinion rather than upon common 
 participation in the life of Christ ? "Who is so foolish in 
 our day as to suppose that living, thinking men can all 
 be made to think alike ? As to the great facts of our 
 faith, we are already one. As to minor points of polity 
 and doctrine, there is neither hope nor need that we 
 should agree. "Why not agree to disagree ? The times 
 demand no new sest which shall attempt to swallow 
 
204 CHRISTIAN WORK FOR OUR CITIES. 
 
 up all others; no national church or interference of 
 civil authority in ecclesiastical matters, but a federation 
 of all churches that believe Jesus Christ is the Son of 
 God, of all that love His name and daily pray " Thy 
 kingdom come." It is not enough that the denomina- 
 tions have friendly feelings toward one another, and 
 exchange compliments in occasional union meetings; 
 the exigencies of these days call aloud for nothing less 
 than a unity of plan on the part of the entire working 
 force of Christ's Church. Let us cease our rivalry and 
 wrangling, put away our absurd pretensions to a mo- 
 nopoly of wisdom and truth, divide the territory among 
 us, and put our shoulder to the work; for the day is 
 far spent, the night is at hand, and the world, still 
 cursed by sin and darkened by death, groaneth and 
 travaileth, weary with long waiting for the day of her 
 redemption. 
 
 IY. Our final suggestion shall be the importance of 
 cultivating in the churches a spirit of sympathy with 
 workingmen which is broader, truer, and more pro- 
 foundly Christian than that now prevalent. Christi- 
 anity, in its onward march, has obliterated invidious 
 distinctions between Jew and Greek, male and female, 
 bond and free; still more, would one expect to find in 
 the body of the church, at least, an equal footing for 
 rich and poor. Yet such is not the case. 
 
 "When one remembers to what condition of life the 
 great Head of the Church chose to be born, how that a 
 stable was the scene of His nativity, Hi3 kindred and 
 friends were but peasants, and He himself a common 
 carpenter, it appears incredible that people of lowly 
 birth should ever have been disdained by His followers; 
 yet many professing Christians do thoroughly ignore 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK FOR OUR CITIES. 205 
 
 the bonds of human brotherhood which unite them 
 with the working-people; they give themselves no con- 
 cern for their physical, intellectual, or spiritual welfare; 
 they take all pains to exclude themselves from their 
 society, both at home and in the house of God; they 
 avoid all contact with them, except that which must 
 exist between master and servant, and they behave as 
 though they esteemed them an inferior sort of creature 
 scarcely to be mentioned in the same breath with 
 themselves and those of their rank. Of such persons, 
 we scarcely need observe that they have not the spirit 
 of Christ, for Christian love is universal; it overleaps 
 every fence of class distinction, and receives all sorts 
 and conditions of men into its broad embrace. But a 
 very large proportion of the efforts of those who do 
 spend their time and money for the poorer classes, are 
 painfully barren of permanent and substantial benefit, 
 because the spirit from which such efforts spring, and 
 with which- they are thoroughly permeated, is some- 
 thing less and lower than the true Christian spirit. 
 
 What with their missions, ragged-schools, refuges, 
 tract distributers, hospitals, and charitable institutions 
 of all sorts, the number of enterprises supported by 
 Christian philanthropy in London is well-nigh count- 
 less; yet it cannot be said that the Christian religion — 
 not, at any rate, that the Christian Church — has a very 
 strong hold upon the working-people in that city; they 
 are poorly represented in the churches, compared with 
 the middle and upper classes. 
 
 The writer had a long talk on the subject with Mr. 
 J. J. Dent, General Secretary for England of the 
 "Workingmen's Club and Institute Union. He is a 
 keen, clearly-speaking, thoughtful man, is thoroughly 
 
206 CHRISTIAN WORK FOR OUR CITIES. 
 
 conversant with the ways and opinions of the working- 
 classes, and as good an authority on such matters 
 as could be found. He said that among Protestants 
 in London and in all English towns, the work- 
 ing-people are largely alienated from the churches, 
 especially from the Established Church, but also from 
 those of the Nonconformists. He gave it as his opinion 
 that the chief reason for such alienation was no lack of 
 attention paid by the churches to the workingman, no 
 lack of missions and charities, but it was rather owing 
 to the aristocratic spirit in which the men conceive 
 themselves to be approached by the churches. 
 
 "The workingmen," said he, "do not want to be 
 treated as proteges or paupers ; they cannot bear to 
 be patronized ; all they ask of religious people is to be 
 treated on the basis of humanity and justice." 
 
 The spirit of the patron is not that of the brother; 
 it does not spring from love, but from some mixed 
 motive: partly sense of duty, partly mean arrogance 
 and base conceit. It implies an inherent superiority on 
 the part of one man over another, an implication false 
 to a cardinal doctrine of Christianity — the glorious truth 
 that the human soul is in and of itself precious, and, 
 like the diamond, takes its value not from setting, cut, 
 or polish, but from intrinsic worth. Who can blame 
 an honest, self-respecting man if he fails to appreciate 
 favors that are bound up with implied insults, if he 
 receives religion coldly when she presents herself in 
 the hateful garb of patronage ? 
 
 It is hard to see how one can present the truths of 
 the Gospel in the patronizing spirit without incurring 
 the gravest suspicions of insincerity. Can you offer to 
 share with a man on equal terms that which you really 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK FOR OUR CITIES. 207 
 
 believe to be your best possession and your highest 
 dignity, and at the same time look down upon him as 
 an inferior ? Whoever hopes to lead any man to Christ 
 must approach him in the affectionate and respectful 
 spirit of a brother. Y^hen we offer him our greatest 
 and best things, let us not withhold small ones. If he 
 be permitted to share with us the paternal love of God, 
 the sacrifice of Christ, and the power of the Holy 
 Ghost — shall we count our cushions, carpets, organs, 
 and comfortable pews too good for him ? Shall we 
 banish him to cheerless chapels with bare floor and 
 hard seats? If we are sincere in inviting him to 
 be a brother in Christ, we must treat him and his chil- 
 dren as members of the family when he accepts the 
 invitation. 
 
 Our interest in the working-classes must be more 
 comprehensive. A true Christian love does not confine 
 itself to one's spiritual and eternal interests, but ex- 
 tends to the whole man. Too often has the Church 
 behaved toward the masses as though there were noth- 
 ing about them worth considering except their immor- 
 tal souls. Efforts are put forth for their conversion, 
 tracts distributed, special meetings held, they are urged 
 to come to Christ and to join His church, but interest 
 in them ends here. 
 
 " You promise us plenty of heaven hereafter, but you 
 rob us of all but a pittance here," cries the socialist 
 bitterly. " Keep your heaven to yourself and give us 
 a fair share of the good things of this life." 
 
 Has he not some slender thread of truth on which 
 to hang this scathing charge ? It is quite impossible 
 to make one believe that you love his soul when you 
 seem indifferent to his body; that you are anxious to 
 
208 CHRISTIAN WORK FOR OUR CITIES. 
 
 liave him secure a heavenly home when you give your- 
 self no concern regarding his earthly dwelling. Men 
 know that a real love confines itself to no part or por- 
 tion of the one beloved, but includes his whole lif e and 
 being. Now the workingman, beholding this apparently 
 one-sided sort of interest in him, casts about for an ex- 
 planation, and it is hot hard to find a plausible one. 
 There are many rival churches in a community, every 
 one of which is ambitious to become the largest and 
 most prosperous. All are eager to add as many as pos- 
 sible to their roll of membership. They would like to 
 count him as a convert. Is this why they are so 
 anxious for the salvation of his soul ? 
 
 The English are wiser than we, in that they have 
 established more points of contact between the church 
 and the common people. If we are brothers in religion, 
 we are brothers in all things. Why should not the 
 brotherhood of the church assist the poor woman in 
 buying tea or coal, the unemployed laborer in find- 
 ing a situation, or provide the easily-tempted lad with 
 some healthful recreation for his evenings? "Why 
 should it not encourage thrift by. starting penny banks 
 and friendly societies where they are needed ? Why 
 not evening-schools, cheap concerts, exhibitions of art 
 and popular lectures, as well as prayer-meetings and 
 Gospel services? 
 
 Those who work most wisely among the poor are 
 sparing with their alms and lavish with their friend- 
 ship. To help a man by the gift of money, food, or 
 clothing, is almost certain to degrade him; to help him 
 by the gift of time, thought, and brotherly love, up- 
 lifts him. The people should always be taught and 
 expected to bear a share in the expense of any enter- 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK FOR OUR CITIES. 209 
 
 prise undertaken for their benefit. Whatever is free is 
 lightly valued. 
 
 The working-classes are doubtless better situated in 
 the United States than in any other country on earth, 
 and they are perhaps as prosperous, on the whole, to- 
 day, as they have been in former years; yet how widely 
 removed is their condition from what one would choose 
 for himself or a loved member of his family ! Those 
 who practice the golden rule are not satisfied with their 
 situation : — the degrading machine toil, not too hard, 
 perhaps, but tediously dull ; the close, disagreeable 
 homes; the sharp, continuous struggle with poverty; 
 the dreadful anxiety, like that of a man who walks in 
 the dark on a precipice's edge, caused by the knowl- 
 edge that some business depression, strike, or accident 
 may any day rob him of work, and bring him to desti- 
 tution ; the hopelessness of life that begins to come 
 upon us, reaching the poorest first : as the nation grows 
 older, its lines harden into fixedness, and the doors of 
 opportunity that once made every young man's path so 
 full of hope, close one by one, leaving it more and 
 more difficult for him to rise out of the station to which 
 he was born; above all, the inevitable blindness and 
 deafness to those things that give us so much of our 
 best enjoyment : art, music, and letters, — the world of 
 beauty and the world of thought. "When men so 
 situated, in dim, half instinctive consciousness of a 
 royal birthright which hard necessity has forced 
 them to barter for the mess of pottage, try to rise 
 and regain their priceless inheritance, shall the Church 
 turn toward them the cold shoulder? God forbid! 
 Though their methods be not those of wisdom ; 
 though they blindly follow worthless leaders, and vio- 
 14 
 
210 CHRISTIAN WORE FOR OUR CITIES. 
 
 lently blame the guiltless for their misfortunes, let us 
 never scorn them nor their cause, but hear them re- 
 spectfully and cordially, giving our best wisdom to the 
 solution of their difficulties. As soon as these people 
 know that we love them, so soon shall we begin to win 
 them. 
 
 No words can tell, brethren, no words can commence 
 to tell how tremendous is the importance of giving to 
 our working-people the knowledge of God through 
 Jesus Christ. As water cannot be boiled by applying 
 heat at the top, so society cannot be saved by a relig- 
 ion of the upper classes. The present religious condi- 
 tion of the cities is of necessity a temporary one : the 
 fire must burn down to the bottom or the fire must go 
 out. Christianity, from the nature of it, cannot remain 
 the religion of a class : it must be the religion of the 
 whole people or that of none. There have been Chris- 
 tian nations before now from whom the light of the 
 knowledge of God has faded quite away. 
 
 The men that rule, in our country at least, usually 
 spring from the ranks of the lowly. They are not deli- 
 cately brought up nor clothed in soft raiment. They 
 are men who inherit iron constitutions from fathers 
 used to toil and sweat ; men whom early hardships 
 have taught patience and endurance ; who amid the 
 difficulties of poverty have grown strong with strug- 
 gling. The humble homes which have hitherto sent 
 out such men have oftenest been homes of piety, famil- 
 iar with God's word and the voice of prayer. But 
 these humble homes, both in the country and in town, 
 have now for many years been fast passing into the 
 hands of strangers. What if our future leaders are 
 being reared in Roman Catholic households, and cradled 
 
CHRISTIAN WORK FOR OUR CITIES. 211 
 
 by the firesides of unbelief ? "Woe to the nation whose 
 cottages have no Bibles ! 
 
 The poor and the stranger must be taught to know 
 the God of our fathers : it is our only hope. This only 
 hope is a large hope. The Gospel was made for the 
 poor — they need it, they hunger for it, they will receive 
 it when it is faithfully preached. The Church is bidden 
 to go with her messages of life. There is a promise 
 that the Word will not be fruitless. Wherever Christ 
 goes, Christ wins. He has done greater things than 
 these. The chief danger lies in the unbelief of His 
 people; in the shameful assumption that because the 
 poor are foreigners and Catholics they cannot be 
 brought to Jesus. Those who have tried it know better. 
 " All things are possible with God." 
 
 Have you no vision, dear reader, of a man who 
 stands amid the bustling multitudes of some great 
 town, rough -coated and begrimed by the touch of toil, 
 but with a j>leading face and a beckoning hand ? And 
 does there never reach your ears above all the noises of 
 the city's uproar, a cry, " Come and help us ! " The cry 
 of humanity is the call of God. " He that hath an ear 
 to hear, let him hear." 
 
INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Age of groat cities 18 
 
 Agriculture, its changed 
 
 methods 49 
 
 American cities, future 
 
 growth of 53 
 
 Anglo-Saxon race, growth of 67 
 
 Antwerp, growth of 25 
 
 Aqueducts of Rome 35 
 
 Artisan's habitation in Eras- 
 mus' day 38 
 
 Bar-maids 121 
 
 Bnrnett, Rev. Samuel A.. 128, 130 
 
 Beard, Rev. A. F 180 
 
 Bede : his reference to Lon- 
 don 20 
 
 Beer among the Germans 187 
 
 B.lgium, increase of cities in 25 
 
 Density of population. 26 
 
 Berlin, size and growth.. 26 
 
 Churches of. 84 
 
 Bible-Classes 113 
 
 Birth-rate among rich and 
 poor, contrasted 45 
 
 Excess over death-rate in 
 
 London 46 
 
 Booth, William 160 
 
 Boston : compared with Lon- 
 don in 16th century 20 
 
 Britannia Row Mission 139 
 
 Brown, Archibald G. 145, 147, 154 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Brussels, growth of 25 
 
 Business depression, periods 
 of, their influence upon 
 workingmen 97 
 
 Cameron of Lochiel 24 
 
 Carnegie, Andrew 47 
 
 Cathedrals, their office 110 
 
 Catholic charities 191 
 
 Catholic Church, growth and 
 
 influence of 85-87 
 
 Catholic Church in France 165 
 Catholics, Roman, ratio of, to 
 Protestants among Ger- 
 man Americans 75 
 
 Among foreign-born 76 
 
 Census of England and Wales 21 
 
 Census of Scotland 63 
 
 Census of U. S. See Tenth 
 Census. 
 
 Centrifugal social forces 33 
 
 Chalmers, Thomas.... 32, 199, 200 
 Charities, their social influ- 
 ence 45 
 
 Chicago : compared with Lon- 
 don in the 17th century.. 20 
 Its rate of increase compar- 
 ed with that of Glasgow 24 
 Church accommodations in 89 
 Choral services of Cathedrals 111 
 (213) 
 
214 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Christianity the support of 
 modern civilization — 79-81 
 
 Christian visitation 189 
 
 Church accommodations, 
 
 meagreness of, in cities 88, S9 
 Church, Catholic, size and 
 
 growth of..... 85-87 
 
 Character and influence — 87 
 Church of England Purity 
 
 Society 123 
 
 Church of England Temper- 
 ance Society 122 
 
 Church of England, work of 110 
 Churches, Protestant, their 
 failure to win working- 
 men 82 
 
 Abandoned in crowded 
 
 parts of cities 83 
 
 Foreign 84, 85 
 
 Reflex influence of failure 
 to reach workinginen .... 90 
 
 Cities : age of great 18 
 
 Rapid and continuous 
 
 growth of 19 
 
 English 23 
 
 Scottish 24 
 
 Irish 25 
 
 Continental 25, 26 
 
 American 27 
 
 Eastern and Western States 27 
 
 Their attractive power 30 
 
 The paradise of literary 
 
 men 32 
 
 Their fascination for young 
 
 men 32 
 
 For the masses 33 
 
 Their centrifugal forces 33 
 
 Their costliness 33 
 
 Their unhealthfulness 34 
 
 Law of their growth 35 
 
 Effect of increasing wealth 
 upou 44 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Cities : of charities 45 
 
 Of railways 46-48 
 
 Of commerce 48 
 
 Of changed agricultural 
 
 methods 49-51 
 
 The probable future 52 
 
 Folly of attempting to 
 
 check their growth 53 
 
 Occupations of 54 
 
 Proportion of workingmen 
 
 in 60 
 
 Foreign -born in those of 
 
 U. S 6S-71 
 
 Religious condition of 
 American contrasted with 
 
 that of European 77 
 
 Church accommodations in 88 
 Church membership in, 
 contrasted with country 89 
 
 Government of 100 
 
 Drunkenness in 101 
 
 Crime in 103 
 
 Poverty in 104 
 
 Socialism in 105 
 
 Civilization, modern, its de- 
 pendence upon relig- 
 ion 79-81 
 
 Classes, social, in the United 
 
 States 66 
 
 Clergymen, number employed 
 
 in English churches 114 
 
 Clothing-clubs 115 
 
 Clubs, workingmen's 120 
 
 Commercial progress of the 
 
 cities 48 
 
 Communicants' classes 113 
 
 Communicants in city con- 
 trasted with country 89 
 
 Costliness of urbau life 33 
 
 Cottage meeting 197 
 
 Countess of Shrewsbury 116 
 
 Crime, increase of 102 
 
INDEX. 
 
 215 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Cromwell forbids new build- 
 ing in London 41 
 
 " Cry from the Land of Calvin 
 and Voltaire.".. 1C8, 169, 
 
 170, 171 
 
 Daily Telegraph 146 
 
 Deaconesses 190 
 
 Death-rate, decrease of, in 
 
 England, etc 44 
 
 In cities 45 
 
 Among children 45 
 
 Affe cte d by price of bread . . 47 
 Denmark, growth of cities in 25 
 
 Dent, J.J 205 
 
 Dissenting churches, in Lon- 
 don 135 
 
 Services of 135 
 
 Distribution, number and sort 
 
 of people engaged in 57 
 
 Down-town churches, how 
 
 sustained 187 
 
 Drunkenness of cities, its sig- 
 nificance 101 
 
 Dureau de la Malle : estimate 
 of Rome 18 
 
 East Enderies 134 
 
 East London Tabernacle 145 
 
 Edinburgh, new building for- 
 bidden in 41 
 
 Elizabeth forbids new build- 
 ing 40 
 
 Encyclopaedia Britannica. ..18, 20 
 
 Engel's Law 48 
 
 England, density of popula- 
 tion 26 
 
 Population of, in 17th cen- 
 tury compared with that 
 of New York in 19th .... 28 
 
 Increase of population 44 
 
 Her importations of food . . 47 
 
 PAGE 
 
 England : number of unoccu- 
 pied persons in 54 
 
 English cities, their size and 
 growth 23 
 
 Famines, their frequency in 
 
 London 36 
 
 Earr, Dr., of Statistical So- 
 ciety 47 
 
 Fine Art, free exhibition of. . 129 
 Fire, the great, of London.. 40 
 
 Food supply in cities 46, 47 
 
 Foreign-born, proportion of, 
 
 in United States 67 
 
 Distribution of 70-73 
 
 Ratio of Catholics to Prot- 
 estants among 75 
 
 Influence of our civilization 
 
 upon 92 
 
 Foreign parentage, proportion 
 
 of, in cities in U. S 69, 70 
 
 France, growth of cities in.. 26 
 
 Freight, former cost of 37 
 
 French people, religious con- 
 dition of 168 
 
 "Oblivion* of Bible " among. 169 
 
 Deadness of conscience 170 
 
 Superstition 171 
 
 French Protestantism 166, 167 
 
 Friendly societies 120 
 
 George, Henry 25 
 
 Germans, proportion of, in 
 
 our chief cities 68 
 
 How located in U. S 71 
 
 Ratio of Catholics to Prot- 
 estants among 75 
 
 Germany, growth of cities in. 25 
 
 Density of population 26 
 
 Gibbon, estimate of Rome. . . 18 
 
 Girls' Friendly Society 115 
 
 Gladstone, his estimate of the 
 
 world's wealth 43 
 
216 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Glasgow : its growth com- 
 pared with Chicago 24 
 
 Crowded homes of 63 
 
 Gordon, Dr. A. J 89 
 
 Gospel Hymns, use abroad . . 138 
 
 Gregory, Rev. Canon 110, 112 
 
 Guilds 113 
 
 Hastings, Rev. Frederic 
 
 143, 145 
 Highbury Quadrant Congre- 
 gational Church 138 
 
 Highlands of Scotland 23, 24 
 
 History, progress of 17 
 
 Hoeck, estimate of Rome.... 18 
 Homes of various elements 
 
 of city population 63, 64 
 
 Houghton, Louise Se3 r mour. . 167 
 Human attraction, force of.. 29, 30 
 
 Industrial revolution of the 
 nineteenth century 17, 18 
 
 Ireland, Bishop 191 
 
 Ireland, changes of popula- 
 tion in cities and rural 
 parts 25 
 
 Irish, proportion of, in our 
 
 chief cities 68 
 
 How located in U. S 71 
 
 Iron Moulder's Journal 98 
 
 James I. prohibits new build- 
 ing 40 
 
 Johnson, Dr. Samuel, his 
 fondness for London .... 32 
 
 Juvenal 30 
 
 Labor and capital, conflict 
 between 94 
 
 Labor-unions 98 
 
 Lamb, Charles, his fondness 
 for London 31 
 
 Lay Helpers' Association 114 
 
 page 
 
 Liturgies 192 
 
 Loftie, History of London.. 38, 39 
 
 London City Mission 157 
 
 London : size of, compared 
 
 with Rome 18 
 
 Growth from ancient times. 
 
 19,20 
 
 Present size 21 
 
 Population of, compared 
 with that of Holland, etc. 21 
 
 Streets of, their extent 22 
 
 Present rate of increase .... 22 
 
 Attractive power of 30 
 
 Fondness of Lamb for 31 
 
 Of Dr. Johnson 32 
 
 Famines of 86 
 
 Sufferings from pestilence. 38 
 
 The great plague 39 
 
 Great fire of 40 
 
 Charities of, and their in- 
 fluence 45 
 
 Excess of birth-rate over 
 
 death-rate 46 
 
 Food supply 46, 47 
 
 Nativity of population 74 
 
 Position of, in religious 
 
 world 107 
 
 Its social condition 107 
 
 Misery of its poor 108 
 
 Religious problems con- 
 trasted with ours 109 
 
 Drunkenness 120 
 
 Social evil in .. 122 
 
 Religious and social prog- 
 ress in 161 
 
 Lord's Supper, in English 
 churches 137 
 
 Macaulat : said to have 
 walked through every 
 street of London 21 
 
 Macedonia, Man of 164 
 
INDEX. 
 
 217 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Machines, agricultural, their 
 
 value 49-51 
 
 Magie, B. C, Jr 28 
 
 Massachusetts : size and 
 
 growth of cities in 27 
 
 Masses, their fondness for 
 
 city life 33 
 
 Manufacture, its extent in 
 
 United States 55,56 
 
 Tendencies of modern 56, 57 
 
 McAll Mission, commence- 
 ment of 165 
 
 Present condition of. 165 
 
 Methods of 172 
 
 Salles 172 
 
 Their advantages 173, 174 
 
 Doorkeepers 174, 175 
 
 Music 176 
 
 Speakers 176 
 
 Appointments 177 
 
 Converts 178 
 
 Results 179 
 
 Influence over French Prot- 
 estant churches 180 
 
 McAll, Mrs 163, 176 
 
 McAll, Rev. Robert W.. 163, 
 
 164, 168, 169 
 
 Mildmay Institute 125 
 
 Minister's assistants, kind 
 
 needed 185 
 
 Mothers' meetings 114 
 
 Mulb.aH, Michael G 43 
 
 "Progress of the World" 
 
 44, 47, 51 
 Municipal government, cor- 
 ruption of, its significance. 100 
 Music in France 176 
 
 New building in London and 
 Edinburgh forbidden . .40, 41 
 
 New England : decay of coun- 
 try towns in 27 
 
 PAGE 
 
 New Fork City : compared 
 
 with Rome 18 
 
 With London 50 years ago. 20 
 
 Attractive power of 30 
 
 Crowded dwellings of 63 
 
 Church accommodations in. 88 
 New York State, population 
 of, in nineteenth century 
 compared with that of 
 England in seventeenth . . 28 
 Nineteenth century, social 
 and industrial revolution 
 
 of 17,18 
 
 Noorthouck, History of Lon- 
 don 36, 37,38 
 
 Norway, growth of cities in. . 25 
 
 "Oblivion of the Bible" in 
 
 France 169 
 
 Octroi duties 26 
 
 Oldenham Institute 156 
 
 One-room life 147 
 
 " Our Country " 27, 43, 86 
 
 Oxford House 133 
 
 Parish system 198 
 
 Paris : size in comparison 
 
 with Rome 18 
 
 Growth 26 
 
 Attractive power of 30 
 
 Condition in 1871 163 
 
 Religious state of 168 
 
 Bible in 169 
 
 Parochial Missions 112 
 
 Pauperism, growth of 103 
 
 Pestilence in London 38 
 
 Petty, Sir William 20 
 
 Philadelphia : compared with 
 London in 18th century.. 20 
 
 Picton, J. Allanson 24 
 
 Plague, the great 39 
 
 I Poverty, increase of 103 
 
218 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Proclamations against new 
 building 40, 41 
 
 Production, number and sort 
 of people engaged in 55 
 
 Professional and personal 
 service 58 
 
 " Progress of tbe World".44, 47, 51 
 
 Protestant city churcbes iden- 
 tified witb capital 99 
 
 Protestantism of tbe two so- 
 cial classes, its difference 76 
 Its failure to win working- 
 men 82 
 
 Protestants, ratio of, to Cath- 
 olics among German- 
 Americans 75 
 
 Among foreign-born 76 
 
 Provisions, efforts to fix tbe 
 price of. 37 
 
 Prussia, growtb of cities in. . 26 
 
 Puclder, Count 186 
 
 Rae, John 60 
 
 Railways and cities' growtb .46, 47 
 
 Reading, babits of working- 
 men 93 
 
 Regent Square Presbyterian 
 
 Church 155 
 
 Religious services, nature and 
 
 frequency of 192 
 
 Rents, their advance, and its 
 
 effect 62 
 
 Roads, the old English 37 
 
 Rogers, J. E. Tborold 62 
 
 Rome, size of ancient 18 
 
 Attractive power of 30 
 
 How she could sustain her 
 
 population 35 
 
 Aqueducts of 35 
 
 Rural life : its increasing at- 
 tractiveness 19 
 
 Russia, growtb of cities in. . . 25 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sabbath, decay of 104 
 
 Salles 172 
 
 Saloons, causes of 101 
 
 Effects of 102 
 
 Number of. 102 
 
 Salvation Army 159 
 
 Sanitary arrangements im- 
 proved, and their influ- 
 ence 45 
 
 Schisms 202 
 
 Schools, public, their influ- 
 ence over the working- 
 men 92 
 
 Scotland *. changes of its pop- 
 ulation 23 
 
 Cities of, their growth 24 
 
 Census of. 63 
 
 Sectarianism 202 
 
 Separation between rich and 
 poor, resulting from sep- 
 aration of dwellings . . . 63-65 
 Service, professional and per- 
 sonal, number and sort 
 of people engaged in . . 58, 59 
 
 Singing 194 
 
 Singing, in London churches 136 
 
 Sisters of Mercy 118, 190 
 
 Sisterhoods 191 
 
 Small-pox, its former deadli- 
 
 ness.. 38 
 
 Smiles, Saml., "Lives of the 
 
 Engineers" 42 
 
 Socialism, growth and tend- 
 encies of 105 
 
 Social revolution of the nine- 
 teenth century 17, 18 
 
 Soci^tes Fraternelles " . 178 
 
 Society of Christian Evi- 
 dences 159 
 
 St. Anne's, Limehouse 123 
 
 Steam-engine, its invention 
 and application 42 
 
INDEX. 
 
 219 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Steam-engine : increases the 
 
 world's wealth 42, 43 
 
 St. Jude's, Whitechapel 127 
 
 St. Mary's, Whitechapel 126 
 
 Story-papers, their circula- 
 tion in U. S 93 
 
 Stow's History of London.. . 20 
 
 St. Paul's, services in Ill 
 
 Street-car driver, account of. 96 
 
 Street meetings 158 
 
 Strikes, influence of 98 
 
 Strong, Josiah 27, 43, 86 
 
 Suburbs, responsible for city 188 
 
 Sunday-schools, English 136 
 
 Sweden, growth of cities in. . 25 
 Sympathy with workingmen 204 
 
 Tacitus : his reference to 
 
 London 19 
 
 Temperance Friendly Socie- 
 ties 122 
 
 Tenement-houses of London 148 
 Tenth Census U. S. 27, 49, 50, 
 
 54, 55, 63, 68, 69, 70 
 
 Tolmer Institute 143 
 
 Tolmer's Square Congrega- 
 tional Church 142 
 
 Tools, improved agricultural, 
 
 their influence 49, 50 
 
 ToynbeeHall 131 
 
 Trade, growth of 48 
 
 Trades-unions 98 
 
 United States: density of 
 
 population 26 
 
 Growth of cities in 27 
 
 Census of. See Tenth Cen- 
 sus^ 
 
 Future of cities in 53 
 
 Social classes in. 66 
 
 University Extension So- 
 ciety 131 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Unwholesomeness of urban 
 
 life 34 
 
 Vatjghan, Robert 18 
 
 Walker, Francis A 55 
 
 Wealth of the world, its in- 
 crease 43 
 
 United States 43, 94 
 
 Its influence over growth 
 
 of cities 44 
 
 Wesley, John 195 
 
 Westminster Abbey, services 
 
 in Ill 
 
 Wheat-fields : their compara- 
 tive yield in various coun- 
 tries 51 
 
 Wheat,- former fluctuations in 
 
 price 38 
 
 Present prices contrasted 
 with former 47 
 
 Yield in various countries.. 51 
 
 White Cross movement 123 
 
 Williams, R. Price : Paper on 
 
 Population of London ... 22 
 Winans, Mr., his Scottish 
 
 hunting-ground 23 
 
 Women, work of 191 
 
 Working force in churches . . 183 
 
 Workingmen's clubs 120 
 
 Workingmen, use of term. . 59 
 Proportion of, in cities .... 60 
 
 Condition of 61 
 
 Homes of 62, 63 
 
 How affected by increase 
 
 of the world's wealth.. 94, 95 
 Need of sympathy with.. . . 204 
 
 Worship 194 
 
 Wright, Carroll D 56 
 
 "Yesterday and To-day" 
 
 178, 181 
 Young men fascinated by 
 great cities 32 
 
 Zumpt : estimate of Rome.. . 18 
 
A Book for all who love God and Country. 
 hoist 3&3s J a.rr5rT 
 
 The §5tfo TIion§ancl of " that Wonderful Boob, 9 ' 
 
 OUR COUNTRY: 
 
 ITS POSSIBLE FUTURE AND ITS PRESENT 
 CRISIS. 
 
 By Rev. JOSIAH STRONG, D.D. 
 
 With an Introduction by Prof. AUSTIN PHELPS, D.D. 
 
 229 PAGES. 12mo, PAPER, 25 CENTS. CLOTH, 50 CENTS. 
 
 This is probably the most powerful work that has come from the 
 American press during the present century. With a brilliantly 
 marshalled array of unimpeachable facts, it portrays America's 
 material, social and religious condition and probable trend, points 
 out the perils which threaten her future, and, with wonderful clear- 
 ness and tremendous force, both shows the means of averting 
 danger and inspires enthusiasm for the task. The wide circulation 
 of this book has given an extraordinary impulse to the work of 
 holding America for the highest, political, social and religious, 
 national life. The following notices show what the press and the 
 pulpit think of it : 
 
 "Strong, careful, thoughtful." — Boston Journal. 
 
 "Stirring, startling, convincing." — The Guardian. 
 
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A Great Book on a Great Subject. 
 
 THE CRISIS OF MISSIONS 
 
 Or, the Voice out of the Cloud. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REY. ARTHUR T. PIERSOK, D. D. 
 
 !6mo, • $1.25. 
 
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 earth to Christ's many crowns !" — Homiletical Review. 
 
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 "A closely compacted array of facts, arranged under distinct heads 
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A WORK OF PROFOUND INTEREST TO THE 
 CHRISTIAN WORLD J 
 
 SOCIALISM AND 
 
 CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 By A. J. F. BEHRENDS, D.D. 
 12rvio t Paper, 50 Cents. Cloth, $1.00. 
 
 This book treats from a new point of view the problems raised by the most 
 frequently advanced social theories of the day ; their relations to the reciprocal 
 duties of Labor and Capital, and the position of the Christian Church with 
 reference to the social and industrial movements that are taking place about it. 
 
 CONTENTS: 
 
 I. Social Theories. II. Historical Sketch. III. The Assumptions of 
 Modern Socialism. IV. The Economic Fallacies of Modern Socialism. 
 V. The Rights of Labor. VI. The Responsibilities of Wealth. VII. The 
 Personal and Social Causes of Pauperism. VIII. The Historical Causes 
 of Pauperism and its Cure. IX. The Treatment of the Criminal Classes. 
 X. Modern Socialism, Religion, and the Family. 
 
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 second time this summer, and hope to lay some extracts before our readers." — New 
 York Observer. 
 
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 the destructive socialism of the day. The questions which it discusses are now so 
 prominent, and their social bearing is so vital, that ministers should deal with them. 
 We commend this volume to them, especially to all who desire to get an intelligent 
 view of one of the burning questions of the day." —Presbyterian Jotirnal. 
 
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i5JNT im^Oa&TiLUT 3B003ECT 
 
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 ELOCUTION. 
 
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 A thorough, practical, and progressive work on the Art of 
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TODD'S 
 
 Index Rerum. 
 
 By JOHN TODD, D.D. 
 
 Revised and Improved by Rev. J. M. Hubbard. 
 Quarto. Half leather, $2.50. 
 
 The Index is intended to supply to those who are careful enough readers to 
 make notes of what they may wish to use again, a book especially adapted to, 
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 preservation in the course of the widest reading. 
 
 Says the author : " When you read anything which you may hereafter need, 
 place the principal word in the margin under the first letter in the word, and 
 the first vowel in it. I will here give some examples as they stand in my own 
 Index. Suppose I wish to note something relating to America. I turn to A 
 and the vowel e, because A is the first letter and e is the first vowel, thus : — 
 
 supposed to be known in the time of Homer : Thomas's 
 History Print, volume i, page 20. 
 
 of France, Picture of : Schlegel's Lecture: volume 2, 
 page 199. 
 
 morbid imagination of : Stewart on the mind : volume 
 1, page 277. 
 
 character as a speaker : Port. Rhet. Reader : page 250." 
 
 On page A-e. America 
 " " Atheism 
 
 " R-o. Rousseau 
 W-i. Wilberforce 
 
 OPINIONS OP THE PRESS. 
 
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THE FAC-SIMILE REPRINTS. 
 
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 HERBERT'S TEMPLE. Sacred Poems and Private 
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 cation in 1633, of which only one copy is known to exist. 
 
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 Antique Binding, with Renaissance Design, Gilt Top. . . , 1 25 
 
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 " The facsimile reprints are charmingly printed, and bound 
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 [' The purchaser (of the Pilgrim's Progress) will see the 
 famous allegory in the form in which Bunyan sent it forth to 
 the World." — The Congregationalism - i 
 
 "The printing and binding are so skillfully done in imita- 
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 THE BAKER & TAYLOR CO., 
 
 9 Bond Street, New York, 
 
THE 
 
 Student's Manual 
 
 By JOHN TODD, D.D. 
 
 12 mo, Cloth, - - ~ $1.50. 
 
 A work of real worth for students and those who 
 desire to become such in the best sense of the word. It 
 is written with force and that convincing quality 
 which creates an inclination on the part of the reader to 
 adopt as his own that fine body of rules and principles 
 which it directly inculcates. As a formative book for 
 the College period oi life, it is unequalled in our litera- 
 ture. It has received the universal approbation of those 
 who are interested in the best education. 
 
 "We have no hesitation in saying that this book should be diligently read by every 
 student. It is an eminently sensible and stimulating book, and its advice is such as 
 students would do well to heed." — Chicago Interior. 
 
 M The book has done an immense amount of good in its day, and is destined to 
 accomplish still more in its reissued form. It is the most sensible and attractive work 
 of the kind in existence." — Utica Herald. 
 
 ik In our opinion Dr. Todd has thrown together some of the best practical lessons 
 for Students that we have ever seen embodied in a single work, just suited to the ex- 
 perience of students as they are in our colleges. 
 
 "Every student has felt the need of a friend, willing and able to instruct him on 
 the thousand questions which arise in relation to his course of studies, time of labor 
 and exercise, his health, diet, discipline of mind, etc. Detached hints on all these sub- 
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 us, by Dr. Todd, is in this point of view invaluable."— From Philadelphia U. S. 
 Gazette. 
 
 " This book is still, perhaps, the best uninspired guide-book to put into the trunk 
 of a boy just starting for college."— Sunday-School Times. 
 
 " Baker & Taylor, of New York, publish a new edition of one of the best volumes 
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 Student's Manual,' by Dr. John Todd/'— Zion's Herald. 
 
 Mailed on receipt of price by the publishers. 
 
 THE BMER & TAYLOR CO., 
 
 © Band Street, Slew York* 
 
EVANGELISTIC W0RK, 
 
 New York, October I, 1887. 
 
 THE BAKER & TAYLOR CO. take pleasure in an- 
 nouncing the immediate publication of an important book, 
 entitled : 
 
 Eyaii^elistic Work in PrinciDle and Practice. 
 
 BY 
 
 Rev. ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D. 
 
 ISmo, Clotii, - - - - $1.95. 
 
 It is probable that no subject at the present time more 
 ^deservedly engages the best thought of Christian workers in 
 America — that battlefield of the world's races and religions— 
 than that of general evangelization ; and it may be doubted 
 if any hand could better set forth the nature of the work, and 
 the best means of accomplishing it, than that of Dr. Pierson, 
 whose experience in the work itself, and trenchant, incisive 
 style of writing, especially fit him to illustrate this subject. 
 Sent post-paid, on receipt of price, by 
 
 THE BAKES & TAYLOR CO., Publishers, 
 
 9 BOND ST., NEW YORK. 
 

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