406                   CHURCH REVIEW.

   Every one who has worked among the poorest in our large
cities, even in this new country, knows that the picture is not
overdrawn.
  One-tenth of the population, the writer says, is submerged;
and what do the nine-tenths care about these 3,000,000 of paupers
or criminals?  In graphic language they are described as home-
less. At night they huddle together for warmth, wherever a nook
can be found from the Temple to Blackfriars. There are the
"out-of-work " people who, for days and weeks, walk the street,
looking, begging for something to do, and can find nothing.
Forced at last to steal, they soon find that better provision (bad
as it is) is made for the thief than for the honest man.
   There are those who are just "on the verge of the abyss."
To them life is but a mad, desperate struggle to keep themselves
alive. These are the people to whom the clergyman, penniless,
is often sent to preach the Gospel.  Such conduct is as sensible
as it would be to "give a tract to a shipwrecked sailor who is
battling with the surf which has drowned his comrades and
threatens to drown him."  " The first thing to do is to get him
at least a footing on firm ground, and to give him room to live."
  The writer sees the vicious classes. The difficulty in dealing
with them is almost insurmountable. There is heredity to con-
tend with. Viciousness is in the blood. Bishop South said of
such, "Not so much born into the world as damned into it." Yet
they are men. "A spark of God " is still in them. It must be
admitted that mere lectures against such evils are of no use.
The 14,000 drink-shops of London are directly accountable for
much of the poverty, degradation and misery of its citizens.
Where drink flourishes, every kind of lust and crime will be born
and will thrive.
  Then there are the children, lost, as it were, from birth. What
can be done for them? Are they to be allowed to grow up and
recruit the pauper and criminal classes? But when fathers have
to work for sixteen hours, and mothers must toil in factories,
what hope is there for home life or home training ?
  Is there no help for this state of things ? It is an acknowledged
fact that these large cities are becoming worse every year.
  The second part of Mr. Booth's book deals with that question.
He calls it "Deliverance."
   His scheme is the establishment of three colonies:
  (1) The City Colony.
  (2) The Farm Colony.
  (3) The Over-Sea Colony.
  Rightly he begins with the City Colony. There, by means of
various institutions he will attempt to look after all who have
been shipwrecked in life, character, or circumstances.  There
character will be tested. From thence the Farm and Over-Sea
Colony could be supplied. The details of the plan cannot be
mentioned here. The point is to have well-organized institutions




			

African Methodist Episcopal Church Review, Vol. 07, Num. 4

General Booth's Darkest England and the Way Out of It

L.

Volume:  07
Issue Number:  04
Page Number:  405
Date:  04/1891