Evangelism for the Outcast
No discussion of present-day evangelism would be complete without reference is made to the work which is being carried on in the special interests of those who are called the outcasts of society. Too much praise and honor cannot be given to the Salvation Army, the Volunteeers, and the Rescue Mission workers. This is not the place even to give a brief history of this work and the workers, but there is one mission which is in every way unique and should therefore be mentioned. It is unique in its beginning, in the character of men it wins to Christ; unique in its present leadership. Mr. S. H. Hadley, its superintendent, is a man of God and walks the streets of the city of New York much I believe as Jesus would do if he were here. It is known as the Jerry McAuley Water Street Mission and is situated at 316 Water Street, New York City.
First of all then, its beginning was unique.
“John Allen, the wickedest man in New
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York,” kept a saloon and dance-house in Water Street, two doors from the site of this mission. In a dare-devil spirit he asked some missionaries, as they passed along one Sunday afternoon in 1868, to come in and hold a prayer-meeting in his saloon. They consented, if he would shut up his bar, which he did, and in this strange place for a gospel service, praise and prayer and testimony for a little time displaced drunkenness, profanity, and lust. Allen’s drunken fun led to serious business, for the invitation was soberly repeated, and the saloon was packed the next Sunday, and many could not get inside. New Yorkers will not forget the wild excitement which is forever linked with John Allen’s name, from this remarkable invasion of his premises by the gospel of grace. Up to this time the Water Street neighborhood was a gateway of hell, nay, one long row of “dives” and “dance-halls,” where almost every door led down to the devil’s headquarters. Kit Burns’ rat -pit was but a block away, where “Jack, the rat,” bit off rats’ heads for the entertainment of sightseers!
This open door at Allen’s saloon led to further attempts to enter this highway to perdition. A missionary, Mr. Little by name, while mounting
a stairway found a gigantic amazon disputing his advance. “Madam,” said he, offering a tract, do you know Jesus? ““Faith, and who is he?” was the answer. A few feet away, and within a door that stood ajar lay Jerry McAuley — drunk. He had been converted at Sing Sing Prison by hearing “Awful” (Orville) Gardner, the famous prize-fighter, give his testimony in the prison chapel. Jerry had known him well before the grace of God touched him, and he could not resist such witness to the power of God. It resulted in such a change of life in himself that Governor Dix pardoned him and set him free. But the ex-convict found even divine pardon was not social restoration, and for lack of a helping hand, he fell back into evil ways. The mention of that magic name, “Jesus,” even in a drunkard’s ear, proved mighty to recover the backslider, whom it had saved as the outcast sinner. Jerry leaped to his feet, and his whole attire and appearance helping to render him frightful, he ran after the fleeing missionary, asking: “What name was that you mentioned to that woman?” The missionary thought he was confronting another belligerent fellow worse than the amazon, but Jerry continued, “I used to love that name in prison long ago but I lost him. I wish I knew where to find him again!”
Mr. Little got him to sign the pledge, but he soon broke it, and was again on the road to crime when again he met the missionary. “Jerry, where are you going?” “I can’t starve,” was the sullen answer. “I will pawn my coat for you, Jerry, before I will see you steal.” A glance at the coat, which would not have brought a half dollar at a pawn shop, gave Jerry McAuley a glimpse into the unselfishness of love, and he said, “If you love me that way, I’ll die before I steal.” Mr. Little gave him that promise of God to live by and live on, which has sustained many a sinking soul: “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” He said, “I’ll take it,” and that very night he parted from his companion in thievery. Even yet, his backsliding was only in part arrested, until he sacrificed his last idol, tobacco, and after that he never fell again. Four years later, he began the Water Street work.
There are three principles which hold in Rescue Mission work which must also be observed in every form of evangelistic effort.
First: These missionaries have a passion for souls. I have never seen such devotion to any class of people as they show to the down-trodden and the outcasts of society. It would seem as if the more a man had sinned, the farther away he had wandered from God, the more disgusting he was in his appearance, the more they loved him, and I have never seen such joy on a human countenance as I have again and again seen upon the faces of these mission workers when they have had the joy of knowing that the lost have been found and the soul had been saved. In proportion as we enter into this spirit in the Church God will bless us in our work.
Second: They have a real love for men. It is no ordinary personal invitation which is given from a platform of a Rescue Mission station, it is such an invitation as a father would give to his son or a mother to her child. No evangelistic effort has ever been successful yet without there has been at least a measure of this deep affection. Mere stereotyped services or professional entreaties will not do, they are like the sounding brass and the tinkling cymbal.
Third: These Rescue missionaries never give a man up. It may be that he may fall a dozen timeSy but somehow the more he falls the more they seek him. There is a text in Isaiah, the thirty-eighth chapter and the seventeenth verse, which reads, “Thou hast in mercy delivered my soul from the pit,” and literally it is, “Thou hast in mercy loved up my soul ftx)m the pit.”
Some years ago a poor fallen girl found her way into a Salvation Army meeting. She listened indifferently, if indeed she listened at all, to the pleadings of the missionary; the singing did not move her, the preaching and praying she evidently cared nothing for. At last the woman who was speaking came down through the crowd, and stooping down she took the face of the poor fallen girl in her hands, bent over and kissed her, first upon one cheek and then upon the other, saying as she did so, “My poor child, I would to God I could love you into the Kingdom.” What the sermon could not do and what the hymn had failed to accomplish, the touch of af!ection made possible. She rose to her feet and staggered to the penitent form, rose up saved and is a Salvation Army officer to-day.