HOW MANY POOR WOULD BE HELPED?
By G. Campbell Morgan
YOU say, "Can't we improve the dwellings of the poor?" Yes; God help us to do it. But one of the best ways to do it is to improve the man that lives in that dwelling. I remember some years ago conducting a mission, and one of the office-bearers of the church where I was, said to me: "Mr. Morgan, I want you to come and see some people. A girl was married out of our Sunday-school three years ago, to a man who is a slave to drink and impurity and gambling. I would like you to come along and see her." I went—it was in '85—on a cold February day, to see that girl. O, I can not picture the home to you! It was one of those awful houses in the midlands of England, reached by passing thru an entry between other houses into a back court. When I got to the entry with my friend, some children who were hovering and shivering there, hearing our steps approaching, rushed away. We followed them and went into the house. I see that room now. There was a broken table standing there, a chair with the back broken off standing by it, no fire in the grate; upon the mantelpiece a cup and saucer, broken; and not another article of11furniture that my eye rested on in that room. And there stood a woman in unwomanly rags, with the mark of a brutal fist upon her face, and three ill-clad children clinging to her gown. She said: "Excuse the children running from you, but they thought that it was father." When I got to the rostrum that night to preach, my friend came to me and said, "He is here." "That woman's husband; he is sitting right in front of you." Now, I don't often preach at one man, but I did that night. I put aside what I was going to talk about, and read the story of the prodigal, and I asked God to help me talk about it, and for about a solid hour I preached at that man. Do you think I hammered at him and scolded him?—Not I. I told him God loved him there and then; and when we got to our after-meeting, I asked, "What man is coming home tonight?" And he was the very first to rise. He came forward, and as I went down from the rostrum and gave that meeting into some one else's hands, and got my arm around him and prayed and wept with him, he entered into the kingdom of God. My friend said to me, one day about twelve months later, "I want you to go and see some people." He said, "Do you remember going to see a woman last year whose husband was converted? I want you to come and see those people." I went. We hadn't gone far—it was February of the next year—before I said to him, "Friend, where are you taking me?" "O, we are going to see those people." "But," I said, "we are not going the same way." "No," he said, "they have moved." Moved! Why did they move?—Why, the man was converted, and he soon changed his dwelling-place. The man was converted and he remade his environment; and he had gone, not into a palace, but into a cottage in the main street. If I could paint pictures, I would paint those two. I can see that home now. It was on Sunday after the afternoon service, and he sat by the fire with his three little ones, who had run away from him a year ago. One was on his knees, another on his shoulder, and another stood by him; and I never heard a sweeter solo in my life than the solo the kettle sang on the hob that day. The woman that last year was dressed in unwomanly rags, was clothed, and the sunlight of love was on her face. That is how you must deal with the problem of environment. Begin at its middle. Touch the man who makes the beastly environment, and remake him, and he will soon move out of the tenement house and out of the slums. He will soon find his way on to higher levels. That is the way to gather men and women. Unless you are with Jesus Christ, you can try education and culture, but they come short of life, and without life there is no remaking of men.—G. Campbell Morgan.