Despairing of ever finding godliness in London, Jack visited church after church. They were full of saints and worthy men—all buried six feet underground with a brass plaque identifying their resting place. But Jack was not seeking human companionship; he preferred an empty pew hidden behind pillars where he could read and pray quietly. Whenever possible, he attended services of Choral Evensong and enjoyed the simple plain-song or chants of the psalmody, the various settings of the Canticles, and the richness of the anthems as the choir and pipe organ filled the ancient buildings to the rafters with full-bodied harmony. He delighted in the collects (set prayers) of the Book of Common Prayer. As the evening approached, remembering the long walk home ahead of him, he particularly liked the prayer for safety:
LIGHTEN our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of thy only Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Jack could have invited Rebecca on his excursions—she would have enjoyed them and he would have enjoyed her company, but he did not. He was not sure of his reasons for this omission, for they were complex. There was a certain freedom in being alone and not having to consult anyone on choice of destination, route, pace, or timing.
His negativity had produced a sense of recklessness that almost scared him. He disregarded his own comfort and even safety, ignoring meal times or distance, but he could not have behaved that way with Rebecca by his side. Anyway, she seemed content with her shrunken horizons within the four walls of 27 Milton Square. At least she had a purpose—helping the nurse, approving the menu, supporting Uncle Hector. What an under-valued blessing a purpose was! In that aspect, Jack felt that Rebecca had lost less than he had. She was still doing what good wives do—organising, supporting, and caring. He, on the other hand, was not doing what good husbands do—working, providing, and leading. The inability to perform his role had knocked his self-esteem—or was it pride? How long would it be before Rebecca’s esteem of him also faltered?
Entering the house late in the evening, Jack found that Rebecca had already retired to bed. Throwing another log on the living room fire, Jack poured himself a sherry and sank into a chair. His mind was still far too busy to contemplate sleep, so he flicked through a novel from the table. The book was entitled, “Oliver Twist, or, The Parish Boy’s Progress” by Charles Dickens.
Jack knew of the book but had never read it. Idly he flicked through the pages. He was interested, for Charles Dickens was not only a novelist but also a vocal social critic who campaigned tirelessly for social reform, children’s rights, and education. He had also funded a home for fallen women. His own father had been incarcerated in a debtor’s prison, forcing Charles to leave school early and earn money by working a ten-hour day in a boot blacking factory. Jack knew Dickens’ fictional narratives were based on the true conditions of the underbelly of society.
Despite the late hour and the dark storyline, Jack was soon gripped. The terrible childhood of Oliver, the orphan, descended from bad to worse, from baby farm to orphanage, and from orphanage to child labour. Jack desperately wanted to lift poor Oliver out of the pages and offer him love, food, and security: things the tragic lad knew little of. Sometime in the small hours, Jack’s eyes became too dry to continue reading, so he went to bed. But, despite the comfort of his London bed, he was unable to sleep. Oliver Twist was a fictional character, but the conditions he faced were not.
Thousands of people, from the countryside and abroad, had flooded into London over the past couple of decades. Jews came to escape persecution, the Irish to escape hunger, and the unemployed to find work. London seemed promising, with its ambitious building projects like the underground railway, Joseph Bazalgette’s amazing sewage system, and numerous new industrial buildings. Big factories were smothering the cottage industry, leaving countless workers unemployed and making many traditional skills and trades obsolete. Agricultural workers were replaced by machinery, driving rural families off the land and into overcrowded towns and cities. Jack had read all about these upheavals, but now he was determined to find out more—but the burning question that kept him awake was “What are churches doing for the poor?”
Despite a bad night, the next morning found Jack leaving the house with a new, budding sense of purpose. What he saw and heard during the next few weeks made his heart bleed for suffering humanity. After extensive searching and enquiring, Jack discovered many small charities were trying to help the destitute, and some churches were running soup kitchens and overnight shelters in deprived areas. Warned not to enter the dangerous slums alone, Jack eagerly accepted the invitation to help in a soup kitchen run by the members of a non-conformist church near Whitechapel who worked alongside London City Mission staff.
At first the mission’s good intentions had been met with skepticism—the slum dwellers suspected them of being undercover police spies, but their regular, compassionate visits gradually had won them trust and admiration. During a cholera epidemic in the 1840s, the London City Mission staff had continued their work among the sick and dying, resulting in two missionaries even sacrificing their own lives in their determination to continue the work. This noble commitment had forged even stronger bonds of respect with the community, and London City Mission staff were able to operate freely in the dangerous alleys and crowded tenements where they served. The small non-conformist church, recognising the mission’s unique standing in the community, now worked with them to provide further relief.
Jack would never forget the first evening he spent in the soup kitchen. Hurrying through narrow streets and filthy alleys, the small team made their way to an unused old workshop that served as their base. Making soup was normally deemed the work of women, but here, the men and women worked together (for the women’s safety), cutting up and boiling mountains of root vegetables, offal, and pearl barley. As the darkness gathered, so did a mass of hungry humanity. At first filling soup bowls kept Jack too busy to notice much else, but once the long queue had finally been served and the last drop of soup distributed, he looked around. Every square inch of the workshop floor was occupied by a motley crowd of diners from whom a stuffy air rose up, reeking of the stench of unwashed bodies and soiled rags. As the rabble sipped their hot soup, the minister climbed onto a table and read a portion of Scripture. Over the hubbub of babies’ cries, clattering bowls, and family arguments, his voice rang out loud and clear. With warmth and simplicity, he explained the good news of salvation through the finished work of Christ, assuring the listeners of God’s forgiveness and love for repentant sinners.
Deeply moved by all he had witnessed that night, Jack began the long journey back to Milton Square. London became dangerous after dark, so he hurried through the shadowy streets, praying as he went. Despite the shocking poverty he had witnessed and his hazardous walk home, Jack felt more energized than he had felt since leaving Capford. At last he had found somewhere to be useful, and he couldn’t wait to tell Rebecca.
CHAPTER 37
REBECCA WAS DOZING IN FRONT of the living room fire when Jack burst in. She awoke with a start and listened agog as Jack recounted his day.
As he described the pitiful state of the half-starved families and babies too weak to even cry, Rebecca was moved to exclaim, “We must help!”
“I am going back tomorrow, and a man from the London City Mission agreed to let me accompany him on his rounds.”
“Is he a clergyman?”
“No, the LCM prefer to employ lay people, preferably ones with a similar background to those they are ministering to. This particular man, Mr. Smith, worked in the docks before his conversion. He speaks their speech and looks as rough and ready as a tough dock man should.”
“You better wear your old gardening clothes.”
“And a cap. You can put moth balls around my clerical garb and bowler hat.”
“Will you go to the soup kitchen?”
“I’d like to, but I’m not sure that it operates every evening. I’ll f
ind out. There’s an awful lot I need to find out.”
“Can I come?”
Jack paused. “Rebecca, I would like to take you, but it takes me two hours to walk there. We could get a carriage some of the way, but not into the slum—it wouldn’t look right. I’m not sure if I want you exposed to all the misery . . . or the danger.”
Rebecca straightened her shoulders. “I’m tough enough.”
“Let me explore the situation more myself, before involving you,” Jack replied cautiously.
Accompanying the wise and experienced Mr. Smith, Jack entered the unexplored world of the grim East End slum area. It was a world of dashed hopes and bleak prospects, a world of filth, destitution, disease, and the struggle for survival. Many of its population had been born into abject poverty, and the mere fact that they had got through childhood alive testified to their toughness. Many babies never reached their first birthday. Others in the overcrowded slums had journeyed to the capital looking for work, employment, or safety from persecution. As their aspirations, hopes, and finances sank lower and lower, they were driven into the crowded tenements in search of cheap accommodation and local work. Greedy landlords packed as many people as possible into one house, even renting out damp, dark cellars to families who were desperate for shelter.
Sanitation seemed an unknown concept, and sewage ran freely down the gutters where filthy children played. Wet, grey washing hung on lines across dark alleys, damp corridors, or mouldy one-room dwellings in the vain hope of drying. Communal wells were pumped dry as women tried to provide enough water for their family’s needs. Children collected anything that could burn to keep the stoves smouldering. Skeletal women, who knew the importance of keeping the working men and boys fed, eked out meals, using foodstuffs normally considered fit only for animals.
As well as seeing to the daily grind of housekeeping with inadequate resources, many women also worked themselves. With children in tow, they took in washing or sewing, or ran market stalls. Others made matches or manufactured products that the local factories outsourced as piecework.
Men and boys worked or sought work. Joining the heaving crowd by the dockyard gates, men, hopeful of a day’s work and wage, jostled together until the huge doors were opened. The mass of men swept through the gates, sometimes crushing someone on the way to the area where foremen would pick their teams for the day. Only the strongest were chosen, for it was strength alone the bosses were after.
During long hours at the docks or in the many warehouses around, men would act as beasts of burden, carrying cargo and commodities for owners who disregarded safety and thought only of profit. The small wages scarcely secured money for the day and rent for the night, meaning that life was a relentless grind of hard labour and aching, prematurely aging bodies. Any dreams of betterment or aspirations for the future were smothered by the unremitting slog of daily life. Upright, honest men were ground down by poverty until a life of crime seemed an inescapable, even legitimate option. It was an area of utter physical, moral, and spiritual corruption. Fear of illness and injury dogged the existence of every adult and child. No employer would give work to a person incapable of fulfilling the task, and if there was no work, there would be no pay. Illness in the crowded, filthy slums was common, and so were work-place injuries. Infant deaths were sad but meant there was one less mouth to feed. Jack was shocked at the stoic, matter-of-fact attitude of families to such bereavements. But the death or serious injury of the breadwinner could, within days, lead to homelessness and starvation.
One step down from living in damp, dark cellars were the Common Lodging Houses, locally known as doss houses. For a small fee, one could sleep in a coffin size bed for the night. Some doss houses were run by charities and provided food, but others were run by unscrupulous businessmen and were vile. If the fee for a bed was still too much, a bench against a wall was provided. A string ran in front of the wooden bench to flop one’s arms over, making it possible to sleep sitting up. Jack was horrified to see the swollen feet of men who had been forced to sleep in such a position all night. Others avoided these grim places by sleeping rough, thus exposing themselves to theft, attacks, and the harsh elements.
Down even lower on the ladder of existence were the dreaded debtors’ prisons and work houses. Their grim high walls threw a dark metaphoric shadow over the slum dwellers’ lives. Here families were torn apart, probably forever, and the inmates were treated harshly, as if criminals, with poverty as their only crime. Stripped of their own clothes and shaved of their hair, anyone entering a workhouse was stripped of their identity too and treated as an inconvenience. Men were put to hard labour, while the women and children were put to mindless, repetitive tasks, all of which numbed the brain and extinguished hope. Without warning, children could be removed from their mothers and sent to orphanages or to work, never to be seen again. To avoid admission to the workhouse or debtor’s prison, many, in desperation and despair, took their own lives in the murky waters of the River Thames.
It was in this hard-pressed and diverse community that Mr. Smith and his brethren worked, bringing the good news of the Lord Jesus. Jack was almost overwhelmed by the suffering he witnessed. These desperate people needed hope for this life and for the life to come. Jack was pleased he had found faithful believers who gave out food for both body and soul, bread and the Bible, soup and Scripture, earthly sustenance and heavenly promises. Both were needed, and one seemed futile without the other. Day after day he laboured with Mr. Smith, visiting the needy and dying, serving food at the soup kitchen, and speaking of Christ. Soon he began to recognise individuals in the crowd of diners and to remember their life stories. Gradually he built up friendships, winning over trust and confidence. Within a week, he was also asked to join the rota for giving the evangelistic address at the soup kitchen.
The friendly, weathered faces of a few widows became familiar as they welcomed him with toothless grins and ready wit. Despite their poverty and homelessness, they always managed a wheezy laugh and a cheeky wink. Some young mothers secretly sneaked their children into the soup kitchen while their husbands drank their day’s wages in the nearby public house. Other families came only on days when the father could not find any work, or when the rent was due and money was tight. Many people disappeared, and it was hard to know if their situation had improved or dramatically worsened. Mr. Smith made it his job to peruse all lines of enquiry and keep track of his contacts.
One family Jack got to know well was the Roberts family. Mr. Benjamin Roberts had been a skilled tailor in Yorkshire, but his business failed due to the increase of large, mechanised factories producing standardised, cheaper garments. With his wife and young daughter, he left the north to travel south and seek work. While still looking for employment with a tailor, he accepted work at a brick making kiln, working long hours in scorching conditions to provide for his family. Too exhausted after each shift, he was unable to better himself in the way he had hoped or to search for more skilled work. Things took a further turn for the worse when his now-pregnant wife became ill and required expensive medical attention. Impoverished and barely making ends meet, the Roberts became regular attendees of the soup kitchen. On hearing about the gospel and love of Christ for the first time, they gladly turned to Him and through grace found peace and safety. Exploring every contact they knew, Jack and Mr. Smith finally helped Mr. Roberts secure a position with a Christian tailor who attended Mr. Spurgeon’s Metropolitan Tabernacle in the Elephant and Castle district.
Not every encounter was so rewarding. Some regulars showed signs of promise, but as soon as money came their way, they reverted to old habits of gambling, drinking, or immorality. Jack had to learn to be sympathetic but not gullible, cautious but not cold-hearted.
One responsibility led to another, and Jack soon found himself with a regular preaching engagement. Mr. Smith had tried unsuccessfully to gain access to the Whitechapel and Spitalfields Union Workhouse to conduct Sunday services. The warden was not averse to the idea,
but the powerful board of guardians decreed that only ordained ministers should be granted entry. Jack’s Sunday morning congregation now comprised of a depressed crowd of hollow-eyed humanity who were forced to attend his meetings. Sitting on rows of hard, backless benches in the dingy dining hall, they gazed vacantly at him before falling asleep on each other’s scrawny shoulders. They seemed like the living dead, having given up hope and faith in anyone or anything. Without an opportunity to show practical Christian charity, Jack’s words seemed as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. Jack felt desperate for them and prayed to the God of Ezekiel to breathe on the congregation of near corpses and make the dry bones live.
On entering the workhouse, having successfully proved the severity of one’s plight to the relieving officer and the board of guardians, one was stripped of clothing, shaved, and de-loused. From then on everything was standardized, from the coarse, ill-fitting uniform, the rough blankets on the bed, to the daily labour. The day was ruled by bells and strict time-tables, and behaviour was controlled by rules, which, much to Jack’s discomfort, were read aloud at the commencement of every service for the benefit of the illiterate and forgetful. There was no place in the system for the colourful, warm shawls or knitted blankets that Rebecca and the Capford women had been busy knitting for the soup-kitchen attendees.
CHAPTER 38
VIOLET ENJOYED EVERY MOMENT OF that summer. After the upheaval of the awful spring, it was reassuring to find that life could be wonderful again. Mrs. Hayworth had urged her to take up Mrs. Thorpe’s job offer, and Violet was pleased she had complied, for working with the team at Biggenden Manor was most agreeable. Mrs. Thorpe was good to work for—she was stunningly pretty, and it was a pleasure to style her beautiful hair. She was gentle and witty, easy-going, yet firm and fair in maintaining high standards. Violet enjoyed being responsible for her extensive wardrobe of exquisite dresses and finery. With the experience gained from working for Mrs. Hayworth, the advice she received during staff meals, and from fashion magazines, she learned how to mend, clean, and store each delicate material, maintaining its pristine condition.
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