T. S. Arthur

“ I am sometimes almost in despair, standing so nearly alone as I do with my feet on the very brink of this devastating flood of evil, and getting back only faint echoes to my calls for help. But when year after year I see some sheaves coming in as the reward of my efforts and of the few noble hearts that work with me, I thank God and take courage, and I lift my voice and call more loudly for help, trusting that I may be heard by some who, if they would only come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty, would scatter his foes like chaff on the threshing-floor. ”

“ Oh, father, my innocent baby cast out like a dog to perish—nay, worse, like a lamb among wolves to be torn by their cruel teeth—and no one to put forth a hand to save! If I only knew that he was dead! If I could find his little grave and comfort my heart over it!”
Weak, naturally good men, like Mr. Dinneford, often permit great wrongs to be done in shrinking from conflict and evading the sterner duties of life. They are often the faithless guardians of immortal trusts.
There was a tone of accusation and rebuke in Edith's voice that smote painfully on her father's heart. ”

“ There was a woman in one of these yards, and she looked up toward the window where Andy stood, curiously.
“You imp of Satan!” were the terrible words that fell upon his ears at this juncture, and he felt himself caught up as by a vulture. He knew the cruel voice and the grip of the cruel hands that had already left their marks in his tender flesh. Mother Peter, her face red with passion and her eyes slowing like coals of fire, held him high in the air, and shook him with savage violence. She did not strike, but continued shaking him until the sudden heat of her passion had a little cooled. ”

“ A poor washerwoman who in a moment of weakness has pawned the garments entrusted to her care, that she might venture upon a “row” of which she had dreamed, comes shrinking down with a pale, frightened face, and the bitterness of despair in her heart. She has lost. What then? She has no friend from whom she can borrow enough money to redeem the clothing, and if it is not taken home she may be arrested as a thief and sent to prison. She goes away, and temptation lies close at her feet. It is her extremity and the evil one's opportunity. ”

“ Who hunts down and punishes the human wolves in our midst whose mouths are red with the blood of innocence? Their deeds of cruelty outnumber every year a hundred—nay, a thousand—fold the deeds of our red savages. Their haunts are known, and their work is known. They lie in wait for the unwary, they gather in the price of human souls, none hindering, at our very church doors. Is no one responsible for all this? Is there no help? Is evil stronger than good, hell stronger than heaven? ”

“ It is pitiful, it is heart-aching, to see the vain but wild and earnest efforts made by the slaves of intemperance to get free from their cruel bondage. Thousands rend their fetters every year after some desperate struggle, and escape. But, alas! how many are captured and taken back into slavery! Appetite springs upon them in some unguarded moment, and in their weakness there is none to succor. They do not go to the Strong for strength, but trust in themselves, and are cast down. Few are ever redeemed from the slavery of intemperance but those who pray to God and humbly seek his aid. ”

“ Dinneford had no sympathy with her husband in this direction. A dirty, vicious child was an offence to her, not an object of pity, and she felt more like, spurning it with her foot than touching it with her hand. But it was not so with Edith; she listened to her father, and became deeply interested in the poor, suffering, neglected little ones whose sad condition he could so vividly portray, for the public duties of charity to which he was giving a large part of his time made him familiar with much that was sad and terrible in human suffering and degradation. ”

“ The people are sleeping or indifferent, the churches are sleeping or indifferent, while the enemy goes on sowing tares for the harvest of death.”
“Well may you say the harvest of death,” returned Mr. Dinneford, gloomily.
“And hell,” added the missionary, with a stern emphasis. “Yes, sir, it is the harvest of death and hell that is gathered here, and such a full harvest! There is little joy in heaven over the sheaves that are garnered in this accursed region. What hope is there in fire, or any other purifying process, if the enemy be permitted to go on sowing his evil seed at will?” ”

“ Of what followed we cannot write, and we shiver as we draw a veil over scenes that should make the heart of all Christendom ache—scenes that are repeated in thousands of instances year by year in our large cities, and no hand is stretched forth to succor and no arm to save. Under the very eyes of the courts and the churches things worse than we have described—worse than the reader can imagine—are done every day. The foul dens into which crime goes freely, and into which innocence is betrayed, are known to the police, and the evil work that is done is ever before them. ”

“ Dinneford felt the young man's arm begin to tremble violently.
“We want you, George,” he pursued. “Edith's heart is calling out for you, that she may lean it upon your heart, so that it break not in this great trial and suspense. Your lost baby is calling for you out of some garret or cellar or hovel where it lies concealed. Come, my son. The gulf that lies between the dreadful past and the blessed future can be leaped at a single bound if you choose to make it. We want you—Edith and I and your baby want you.” ”

“ Dinneford didn't see.
“I don't mean,” said Freeling, “that we are to use the money. Let the shawl, or the diamond, or the what-not, be bought and paid for. We get the discounts for your use, not ours.”
“All very well,” answered Mrs. Dinneford; “but how is that going to help you?”
“Leave that to me. You get the notes,” said Freeling.
“Never walk blindfold, Mr. Freeling,” replied the lady, drawing herself up, with a dignified air. “We ought to understand each other by this time. I must see beyond the mere use of these notes.” ”

“ Edith had a place near the reading-desk where she could see the countenances of all those children who were sitting side by side in row after row and filling every seat in the room, a restless, eager, expectant crowd, half disciplined and only held quiet by the order and authority they had learned to respect. Such faces as she looked into! In scarcely a single one could she find anything of true childhood, and they were so marred by suffering and evil! ”

“ Dinneford?” she added, after a pause, and with intense bitterness and rejection in her voice. “The die is cast! Never again, if I can prevent it, shall that scoundrel cross our threshold. Let the law have its course. It is a crime to conceal crime.”
“It will kill our poor child!” answered Mr. Dinneford in a broken voice.
“Death is better than the degradation of living with a criminal,” replied his wife. “I say it solemnly, and I mean it; the die is cast! ”

“ What is past cannot be changed. It is with the now of this unhappy business that we have to do.”
Edith came back and sat down again, her father taking a seat beside her.
“That is just it,” she answered, with a steadiness of tone and manner that showed how great was the self-control she was able to exert. “It is with the now of this unhappy affair that we have to do. If I spoke strongly of the past, it was that a higher and intenser life might be given to present duty.”
“Let there be no distance between us. Let no wall of separation grow up,” said Mr. Dinneford, tenderly. ”

“ Her steps too made haste to the dram-shop.
Such houses for men and women to live in as now stretched before his eyes in long dreary rows Mr. Dinneford had never seen, except in isolated cases of vice and squalor. To say that he was shocked would but faintly express his feelings. Hurrying along, he soon came in sight of the mission. At this moment a jar broke the quiet of the scene. Just beyond the mission-house two women suddenly made their appearance, one of them pushing the other out upon the street. Their angry cries rent the air, filling it with profane and obscene oaths. ”

“ Dinneford had the tenderest regard. The well-springs of love, choked up so soon after his marriage, were opened freely toward his daughter, and he lived in her a new, sweet and satisfying life. The mother was often jealous of her husband's demonstrative tenderness for Edith. A yearning instinct of womanhood, long repressed by worldliness and a mean social ambition, made her crave at times the love she had cast away, and then her cup of life was very bitter. But fear of Mr. Dinneford's influence over Edith was stronger than any jealousy of his love. ”

“ A few minutes later, and the miserable crowd of depraved human beings had been absorbed again into cellar and garret, hovel and rookery, to take up the thread of their evil and sensual lives, and to plot wickedness, and to prey upon and deprave each other—to dwell as to their inner and real lives among infernals, to be in hell as to their spirits, while their bodies yet remained upon the earth. ”

“ Often she would become so wild in her suspense as to be on the verge of openly accusing her mother with having knowledge of her baby's existence and demanding of her its restoration. But she was held back by the fear that such an accusation would only shut the door of hope for ever. She had come to believe her mother capable of almost any wickedness. Pressed to the wall she would never be if there was any way of escape, and to prevent such at thing there was nothing so desperate that she would not do it; and so Edith hesitated and feared to take the doubtful issue. ”

“ Bray!” exclaimed Mrs. Dinneford, suspicion blazing from her eyes. “Mrs. Bray!”—and she turned upon her and caught her by the arms with a fierce grip—“as I live, you are deceiving me. There is no woman but yourself. You are the vampire!”
She held the unresisting little woman in her vigorous grasp for some moments, gazing at her in stern and angry accusation.
Mrs. Bray stood very quit and with scarcely a change of countenance until this outburst of passion had subsided. She was still holding the money she had taken from Mrs. Dinneford. ”

“ Growling like a savage dog, this wretch, in whom every instinct of humanity had long since died—this human beast, who looked on innocence and helplessness as a wolf looks upon a lamb—strode across the yard and entered the den. Lying in one of the stalls upon the foul, damp straw he found Flora Bond. Cruel beast that he was, even he felt himself held back as by an invisible hand, as he looked at the pure face of the insensible girl. Rarely had his eyes rested on a countenance so full of innocence. But the wolf has no pity for the lamb, nor the hawk for the dove. ”

“ Who is this dressed in rusty black garments and closely veiled, who comes up from the restaurant, one of the convenient and unsuspected entrances to this robber's den?—for a “policy-shop” is simply a robbery shop, and is so regarded by the law, which sets a penalty upon the “writer” and the “backer” as upon other criminals. But who is this veiled woman in faded mourning garments who comes gliding as noiselessly as a ghost out from one of the rooms of the restaurant, and along the narrow entry leading to the stairway, now so thronged with visitors? ”

“ To get out from these comfortable homes and from the midst of tenderly cared-for little ones, and stand face to face with squalor and hunger, with suffering, debasement and crime, to look upon the starved faces of children and hear their helpless cries, is what scarcely one in a thousand will do. It is too much for our sensibilities. And so we stand aloof, and the sorrow, and suffering, the debasement, the wrong and the crime, go on, and because we heed it not we vainly imagine that no responsibility lies at our door ”

“ Edith started forward, Mrs. Morton at her side.
“Here he is,” said the latter, pausing at a bed on which child with fair face, blue eyes and golden hair was lying. A single glance sent the blood back to Edith's heart. A faintness came over her; everything grew dark. She sat down to keep from falling.
As quickly as possible and by another strong effort of will she rallied herself.
“Yes,” she said, in a faint undertone in which was no apparent interest, “he is a dear little fellow.” ”

“ Pinky stood still for a moment, shivering, as we have said. She knew what the blows and the curses and the cries of pain meant; she had heard them before. A depraved and drunken woman and a child ten years old, who might or might not be her daughter, lived there. The child was sent out every day to beg or steal, and if she failed to bring home a certain sum of money, was cruelly beaten by the woman. Almost every day the poor child was cut with lashes, often on the bare flesh; almost every day her shrieks rang out from the miserable hovel. ”

“ There is hardly a viler wretch in all our city than this man, who draws hundreds—I might say, without exaggeration, thousands—of dollars from weak and tender-hearted people every year to be spent as I have said; and he is not the only one. Out of this district go hundreds of thieves and beggars every day, spreading themselves over the city and gathering in their harvests from our people. I see them at the street corners, coming out of yards and alley-gates, skulking near unguarded premises and studying shop-windows. They are all impostors or thieves. ”

“ It is no place for such as you.”
“There's a poor little baby there,” said Edith, her voice trembling and tears filling her eyes. Then, after a brief struggle with her feelings, she threw herself upon her father, sobbing out, “And oh, father, it may be my baby!”
“My poor child,” said Mr. Dinneford, not able to keep his voice firm—“my poor, poor child! It is all a wild dream, the suggestion of evil spirits who delight in torment.” ”

“ If all of these were engaged in useful employments, serving, as every true citizen is bound to do, the common good, do you think we should have so sad and sickening a record? No, sir! We must go back to the causes of things. Nothing but radical work will do.”
“You think, then,” said Mr. Dinneford, “that the true remedy for all these dreadful social evils lies in restrictive legislation?”
“Restrictive only on the principles of eternal right,” answered the missionary. “Man's freedom over himself must not be touched. Only his freedom to hurt his neighbor must be abridged. ”

“ Dinneford soon saw that if Edith's consent to a divorce from her husband was to be obtained, it must come through her father's influence; for if she but hinted at the subject, it was met with a flash of almost indignant rejection. So her first work was to bring her husband over to her side. This was not difficult, for Mr. Dinneford felt the disgrace of having for a son-in-law a condemned criminal, who was only saved from the State's prison by insanity. An insane criminal was not worthy to hold the relation of husband to his pure and lovely child. ”

“ As the little crowd gathered by this ripple of excitement melted away, a single figure remained lurking in a corner of the yard and out of sight in its dark shadow. It was that of a man. The moment he was alone with the unconscious woman he glided toward her with the alert movements of an animal, and with a quickness that made his work seem instant, rifled her pockets. His gains were ten cents and the policy-slip she had just received at Sam McFaddon's. ”

“ God has no pleasure in punishments and retributions. The evil comes not from him. It enters through the door we have left open, just as a thief enters our dwellings, invited through our neglect to make the fastenings sure. It comes under the operations of a law as unvarying as any law in physics. And so long as we have this epidemic-breeding district in the very heart of our city, we must expect to reap our periodical harvests of disease and death. ”