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Unknown - "The Bible, Douay Rheims, Book 63: Titus"

Nellie M. Leonard - "The Graymouse Family"

Unknown - "The Bible, Douay Rheims, Book 59: 1 Thessalonians"

Frederich Schiller - "The Thirty Years War, Book III."

Cast Adrift

T >> T. S. Arthur >> Cast Adrift




All things considered, it was safest, he felt, to lock the door.
There was nothing in the room that could bring harm to the child--no
fire or matches, no stairs to climb or windows out of which he could
fall.

"I guess I'd better lock the door, hadn't I, so that nobody can
carry off my little boy?" he asked of Andy.

Andy made no objections. He was ready for anything his kind friend
might propose.

"And you mustn't cry or make a noise. The police might break in if
you did."

"All right," said Andy, with the self-assertion of a boy of ten.

The man stroked the child's head and ran his fingers through his
hair in a fond way; then, as one who tore himself from an object of
attraction, went hastily out and locked the door.

And now was to begin a new life. Friendless, debased, repulsive in
appearance, everything about him denoting the abandoned drunkard,
this man started forth to get honest bread. Where should he go? What
could he do? Who would give employment to an object like him? The
odds were fearfully against him--no, not that, either. In outward
respects, fearful enough were the odds, but on the other side
agencies invisible to mortal sight were organizing for his safety.
In to his purpose to lead a new life and help a poor homeless child
God's strength was flowing. Angels were drawing near to a miserable
wreck of humanity with hands outstretched to save. All heaven was
coming to the rescue.

He was shuffling along in the direction of a market-house, hoping to
earn a little by carrying home baskets, when he came face to face
with an old friend of his better days, a man with whom he had once
held close business relations.

"Mr. Hall!" exclaimed this man in a tone of sorrowful surprise,
stopping and looking at him with an expression of deepest pity on
his countenance. "This is dreadful!"

"You may well say that, Mr. Graham. It dreadful enough. No one knows
that better than I do," was answered, with a bitterness that his old
friend felt to be genuine.

"Why, then, lead this terrible life a day longer?" asked the friend.

"I shall not lead it a day longer if God will help me," was replied,
with a genuineness of purpose that was felt by Mr. Graham.

"Give me your hand on that, Andrew Hall," he exclaimed. Two hands
closed in a tight grip.

"Where are you going now?" inquired the friend.

"I'm in search of something to do--something that will give me
honest bread. Look at my hand."

He held it up.

"It shakes, you see. I have not tasted liquor this morning. I could
have bought it, but I did not."

"Why?"

"I said, 'God being my helper, I will be a man again,' and I am
trying."

"Andrew Hall," said his old friend, solemnly, as he laid his hand on
his shoulder, "if you are really in earnest--if you do mean, in the
help of God, to try--all will be well. But in his help alone is
there any hope. Have you seen Mr. Paulding?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"He has no faith in me. I have deceived him too often."

"What ground of faith is there now?" asked Mr. Graham.

"This," was the firm but hastily spoken answer. "Last night as I sat
in the gloom of my dreary hovel, feeling so wretched that I wished I
could die, a little child came in--a poor, motherless, homeless
wanderer, almost a baby--and crept down to my heart, and he is lying
there still, Mr. Graham, soft, and warm and precious, a sweet burden
to bear. I bought him a supper and a breakfast of bread and milk
with the money, I had saved for drink, and now, both for his sake
and mine, I am out seeking for work. I have locked him in, so that
no one can harm or carry him away while I earn enough to buy him his
dinner, and maybe something better to wear, poor little homeless
thing!"

There was a genuine earnestness and pathos about the man that could
not be mistaken.

"I think," said Mr. Graham, his voice not quite steady, "that God
brought us together this morning. I know Mr. Paulding. Let us go
first to the mission, and have some talk with him. You must have a
bath and better, and cleaner clothes before you are in a condition
to get employment."

The bath and a suit of partly-worn but good clean clothes were
supplied at the mission house.

"Now come with me, and I will find you something to do," said the
old friend.

But Andrew Hall stood hesitating.

"The little child--I told him I'd come back soon. He's locked up all
alone, poor baby!"

He spoke with a quiver in his voice.

"Oh, true, true!" answered Mr. Graham; "the baby must be looked
after;" and he explained to the missionary.

"I will go round with you and get the child," said Mr. Paulding. "My
wife will take care of him while you are away with Mr. Graham."

They found little Andy sitting patiently on the floor. He did not
know the friend who had given him a home and food and loving words,
and looked at him half scared and doubting. But his voice made the
child spring to his feet with a bound, and flushed his thin-face
with the joy of a glad recognition.

Mrs. Paulding received him with a true motherly kindness, and soon a
bath and clean clothing wrought as great a change in the child as
they had done in the man.

"I want your help in saving him," said Mr. Graham, aside, to the
missionary. "He was once among our most respectable citizens, a good
church-member, a good husband and father, a man of ability and large
influence. Society lost much when it lost him. He is well worth
saving, and we must do it if possible. God sent him this little
child to touch his heart and flood it with old memories, and then he
led me to come down here that I might meet and help him just when
his good purposes made help needful and salvation possible. It is
all of his loving care and wise providence of his tender mercy,
which is over the poorest and weakest and most degraded of his
children. Will you give him your special care?"

"It is the work I am here to do," answered the missionary. "The
Master came to seek and to save that which was lost, and I am his
humble follower."

"The child will have to be provided for," said Mr. Graham. "It
cannot, of course, be left with him. It needs a woman's care."

"It will not do to separate them," returned the missionary. "As you
remarked just now, God sent him this little child to touch his heart
and lead him back from the wilderness in which he has strayed. His
safety depends on the touch of that hand. So long as he feels its
clasp and its pull, he will walk in the new way wherein God is
setting his feet. No, no; the child must be left with him--at least
for the present. We will take care of it while he is at work during
the day, and at night it can sleep in his arms, a protecting angel."

"What kind of a place does he live in?" asked Mr. Graham.

"A dog might dwell there in comfort, but not a man," replied the
missionary.

Mr. Graham gave him money: "Provide a decent room. If more is
required, let me know."

He then went away, taking Mr. Hall with him.

"You will find the little one here when you come back," said Mr.
Paulding as he saw the anxious, questioning look that was cast
toward Andy.

Clothed and in his right mind, but in no condition for work, was
Andrew Hall. Mr. Graham soon noticed, as he walked by his side, that
he was in a very nervous condition.

"What had you for breakfast this morning" he asked, the right
thought coming into his mind.

"Not much. Some bread and a dried sausage."

"Oh dear! that will never do! You must have something more
nutritious--a good beefsteak and a cup of coffee to steady your
nerves. Come."

And in a few minutes they were in an eating-house. When they came
out, Hall was a different man. Mr. Graham then took him to his store
and set him to work to arrange and file a number of letters and
papers, which occupied him for several hours. He saw that he had a
good dinner and at five o'clock gave him a couple of dollars for his
day's work, aid after many kind words of advice and assurance told
him to come back in the morning, and he would find something else
for him to do.

Swiftly as his feet would carry him, Andrew Hall made his way to the
Briar street mission. He did not at first know the clean, handsome
child that lifted his large brown eyes to his face as he came in,
nor did the child know him until he spoke. Then a cry of pleasure
broke from the baby's lips, and he ran to the arms reached out to
clasp him.

"We'll go home now," he said, as if anxious to regain possession of
the child.

"Not back to Grubb's court," was answered by Mr. Paulding. "If you
are going to be a new man, you must have a new and better home, and
I've found one for you just a little way from here. It's a nice
clean room, and I'll take you there. The rent is six dollars a
month, but you can easily pay that when you get fairly to work."

The room was in the second story of a small house, better kept than
most of its neighbors, and contained a comfortable bed, with other
needed furniture, scanty, but clean and good. It was to Mr. Hall
like the chamber of a prince compared with what he had known for a
long time; and as he looked around him and comprehended something of
the blessed change that was coming over his life, tears filled his
eyes.

"Bring Andy around in the morning," said the missionary as he turned
to go. "Mrs. Paulding will take good care of him."

That night, after undressing the child and putting on him the clean
night-gown which good Mrs. Paulding had not forgotten, he said,

"And now Andy will say his prayers."

Andy looked at him with wide-open, questioning eyes. Mr. Hall saw
that he was not understood.

"You know, 'Now I lay me'?" he said.

"No, don't know it," replied Andy.

"'Our Father,' then?"

The child knit his brow. It was plain that he did not understand
what his good friend meant.

"You've said your prayers?"

Andy shook his head in a bewildered way.

"Never said your prayers!" exclaimed Mr. Hall, in a voice so full of
surprise and pain that Andy grew half frightened.

"Poor baby!" was said, pityingly, a moment after. Then the question,
"Wouldn't you like to say your prayers?" brought the quick answer,
"Yes."

"Kneel down, then, right here." Andy knelt, looking up almost
wonderingly into the face that bent over him.

"We have a good Father in heaven," said Mr. Hall, with tender
reverence in his tone, pointing upward as he spoke, "He loves us and
takes care of us. He brought you to me, and told me to love you and
take care of you for him, and I'm going to do it. Now, I want you to
say a little prayer to this good and kind Father before you go to
bed. Will you?"

"Yes, I will," came the ready answer.

"Say it over after me. 'Now I lay me down to sleep.'"

Andy repeated the words, his little hands clasped together, and
followed through the verse which thousands of little children in
thousands of Christian homes were saying at the very same hour.

There was a subdued expression on the child's face as he rose from
his knees; and when Mr. Hall lifted him from the floor to lay him in
bed, he drew his arms about his neck and hugged him tightly.

How beautiful the child looked as he lay with shut eyes, the long
brown lashes fringing his flushed cheeks, that seemed already to
have gained a healthy roundness! The soft breath came through his
parted lips, about which still lingered the smile of peace that
rested there after his first prayer was said; his little hands lay
upon his breast.

As Mr. Hall sat gazing at this picture there came a rap on his door.
Then the missionary entered. Neither of the men spoke for some
moments. Mr. Paulding comprehended the scene, and felt its sweet and
holy influence.

"Blessed childhood!" he said, breaking the silence. "Innocent
childhood! The nearer we come to it, the nearer we get to heaven."
Then, after a pause, he added, "And heaven is our only hope, Mr.
Hall."

"I have no hope but in God's strength," was answered, in a tone of
solemn earnestness.

"God is our refuge, our rock of defence, our hiding-place, our sure
protector. If we trust in him, we shall dwell in safety," said the
mission. "I am glad to hear you speak of hoping in God. He will give
you strength if you lean upon him, and there is not power enough in
all hell to drag you down if you put forth this God-given strength.
But remember, my friend, that you must use it as if it were your
own. You must resist. God's strength outside of our will and effort
is of no use to any of us in temptation. But looking to our Lord and
Saviour in humble yet earnest prayer for help in the hour of trial
and need if we put forth our strength in resistance of evil, small
though it be, then into our weak efforts will come an influx of
divine power that shall surely give us the victory. Have you a
Bible?"

Mr. Hall shook his head.

"I have brought you one;" and the missionary drew a small Bible from
his pocket. "No man is safe without a Bible."

"Oh, I am glad! I was just wishing for a Bible," said Hall as he
reached out his hand to receive the precious book.

"If you read it every night and morning--if you treasure its holy
precepts in your memory, and call them up in times of trial, or when
evil enticements are in your way--God can come near to your soul to
succor and to save, for the words of the holy book are his words,
and he is present in them. If we take them into our thoughts,
reverently seeking to obey them, we make a dwelling-place for the
Lord, so that he can abide with us; and in his presence there is
safety."

"And nowhere else," responded Hall, speaking from a deep sense of
personal helplessness.

"Nowhere else," echoed the missionary. "And herein lies the hope or
the despair of men. 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. And so long as they depend on him, they are safe. He will
be as a wall of fire about them."

As the missionary talked, the face of Mr. Hall underwent a
remarkable change. It grew solemn and very thoughtful. His hands
drew together and the fingers clasped. At the last words of Mr.
Paulding a deep groan came from his heart; and lifting his gaze
upward, he cried out,

"Lord, save me, or I perish!"

"Let us pray," said the missionary, and the two men knelt together,
one with bowed head and crouching body, the other with face
uplifted, tenderly talking to Him who had come down to the lowliest
and the vilest that he might make them pure as the angels, about the
poor prodigal now coming back to his Father's house.

After the prayer, Mr. paulding read a chapter from the Bible aloud,
and then, after words of hope and comfort, went away.






CHAPTER XXI.





"_I TAKE_ reproof to myself," said Mr. Dinneford. "As one of your
board of managers, I ought to have regarded my position as more than
a nominal one. I understand better now what you said about the ten
or twenty of our rich and influential men who, if they could be
induced to look away for a brief period from their great
enterprises, and concentrate thought and effort upon the social
evils, abuse of justice, violations of law, poverty and suffering
that exist here and in other parts of our city, would inaugurate
reforms and set beneficent agencies at work that would soon produce
marvelous changes for good."

"Ah, yes," sighed Mr. Paulding. "If we had for just a little while
the help of our strong men--the men of brains and will and money,
the men who are used to commanding success, whose business it is to
organize forces and set impediments at defiance, the men whose word
is a kind of law to the people--how quickly, and as if by magic,
would all this change!

"But we cannot now hope to get this great diversion in our favor.
Until we do we must stand in the breach, small in numbers and weak
though we are--must go on doing our best and helping when we may.
Help is help and good is good, be it ever so small. If I am able to
rescue but a single life where many are drowning, I make just so
much head against death and destruction. Shall I stand off and
refuse to put forth my hand because I cannot save a score?

"Take heart, Mr. Dinneford. Our work is not in vain. Its fruits may
be seen all around. Bad as you find everything, it is not so bad as
it was. When our day-school was opened, the stench from the filthy
children who were gathered in was so great that the teachers were
nauseated. They were dirty in person as well as dirty in their
clothing. This would not do. There was no hope of moral purity while
such physical impurity existed. So the mission set up baths, and
made every child go in and thoroughly wash his body. Then they got
children's clothing--new and old--from all possible sources, and put
clean garments on their little scholars. From the moment they were
washed and cleanly clad, a new and better spirit came upon them.
They were more orderly and obedient, and more teachable. There was,
or seemed to be, a tenderer quality in their voices as they sang
their hymns of praise."

Just then there came a sudden outcry and a confusion of voices from
the street. Mr. Dinneford arose quickly and went to the window. A
man, apparently drunk and in a rage, was holding a boy tightly
gripped by the collar with one hand and cuffing him about the head
and face with the other.

"It's that miserable Blind Jake!" said Mr. Paulding.

In great excitement, Mr. Dinneford threw up the window and called
for the police. At this the man stopped beating the boy, but swore
at him terribly, his sightless eyes rolling and his face distorted
in a frightful way. A policeman who was not far off came now upon
the scene.

"What's all this about?" he asked, sternly.

"Jake's drunk again, that's the row," answered a voice.

"Lock him up, lock him up!" cried two or three from the crowd.

An expression of savage defiance came into the face of the blind
man, and he moved his arms and clenched his fist like one who was
bent on desperate resistance. He was large and muscular, and, now
that he was excited by drink and bad passions, had a look that was
dangerous.

"Go home and behave yourself," said the policeman, not caring to
have a single-handed tussle with the human savage, whose strength
and desperate character he well knew.

Blind Jake, as he was called, stood for a few moments half defiant,
growling and distorting his face until it looked more like a wild
animal's than a man's, then jerked out the words,

"Where's that Pete?" with a sound like the crack of a whip.

The boy he had been beating in his drunken fury, and who did not
seem to be much hurt, came forward from the crowd, and taking him by
the hand, led him away.

"Who is this blind man? I have seen him before," said Mr. Dinneford.

"You may see him any day standing at the street corners, begging, a
miserable-looking object, exciting the pity of the humane, and
gathering in money to spend in drunken debauchery at night. He has
been known to bring in some days as high as ten and some fifteen
dollars, all of which is wasted in riot before the next morning. He
lives just over the way, and night after night I can hear his howls
and curses and laughter mingled with those of the vile women with
whom he herds."

"Surely this cannot be?" said Mr. Dinneford.

"Surely it is," was replied. "I know of what I speak. 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. Not one of them is deserving of charity. He who gives to
them wastes his money and encourages thieving and vagrancy. One half
of the successful burglaries committed on dwelling-houses are in
consequence of information gained by beggars. Servant-girls are
lured away by old women who come in the guise of alms-seekers, and
by well-feigned poverty and a seeming spirit of humble
thankfulness--often of pious trust in God--win upon their sympathy
and confidence. Many a poor weak girl has thus been led to visit one
of these poor women in the hope of doing her some good, and many a
one has thus been drawn into evil ways. If the people only
understood this matter as I understand it, they would shut hearts
and hands against all beggars. I add beggary as a vice to drinking
and policy-buying as the next most active agency in the work of
making paupers and criminals."

"But there are deserving poor," said Dinneford. "We cannot shut our
hearts against all who seek for help."

"The deserving poor," replied Mr. Paulding, "are never common
beggars--never those who solicit in the street or importune from
house to house. They try always to help themselves, and ask for aid
only when in great extremity. They rarely force themselves on your
attention; they suffer and die often in dumb despair. We find them
in these dreary and desolate cellars and garrets, sick and starving
and silent, often dying, and minister to them as best we can. If the
money given daily to idle and vicious beggars could be gathered into
a fund and dispensed with a wise Christian charity, it would do a
vast amount of good; now it does only evil."

"You are doubtless right in this," returned Mr. Dinneford. "Some one
has said that to help the evil is to hurt the good, and I guess his
saying is near the truth."

"If you help the vicious and the idle," was answered, "you simply
encourage vice and idleness, and these never exist without doing a
hurt to society. Withhold aid, and they will be forced to work, and
so not only do something for the common good, but be kept out of the
evil ways into which idleness always leads.

"So you see, sir, how wrong it is to give alms to the vast crew of
beggars that infest our cities, and especially to the children who
are sent out daily to beg or steal as opportunity offers.

"But there is another view of the case, continued Mr. Paulding,
"that few consider, and which would, I am sure, arouse the people to
immediate action if they understood it as I do. We compare the
nation to a great man. We call it a 'body politic.' We speak of its
head, its brain, its hands, its feet, its arteries and vital forces.
We know that no part of the nation can be hurt without all the other
parts feeling in some degree the shock and sharing the loss or
suffering. What is true of the great man of the nation is true of
our smaller communities, our States and cities and towns. Each is an
aggregate man, and the health and well-being of this man depend on
the individual men and the groups and societies of men by which it
is constituted. There cannot be an unhealthy organ in the human
system without a communication of disease to the whole body. A
diseased liver or heart or lung, a useless hand or foot, an ulcer or
local obstruction, cannot exist without injury and impediment to the
whole. In the case of a malignant ulcer, how soon the blood gets
poisoned!

"Now, here is a malignant ulcer in the body politic of our city. Is
it possible, do you think, for it to exist, and in the virulent
condition we find it, and not poison the blood of our whole
community? Moral and spiritual laws are as unvarying in their
action, out of natural sight though they be, as physical laws. Evil
and good are as positive entities as fire, and destroy or consume as
surely. As certainly as an ulcer poisons with its malignant ichor
this blood that visits every part of the body, so surely is this
ulcer poisoning every part of our community. Any one who reflects
for a moment will see that it cannot be otherwise. From this moral
ulcer there flows out daily and nightly an ichor as destructive as
that from a cancer. Here theft and robbery and murder have birth,
nurture and growth until full formed and organized, and then go
forth to plunder and destroy. The life and property of no citizen is
safe so long as this community exists. It has its schools of
instruction for thieves and housebreakers, where even little
children are educated to the business of stealing and robbery. Out
from it go daily hundreds of men and women, boys and girls, on their
business of beggary, theft and the enticement of the weak and unwary
into crime. In it congregate human vultures and harpies who absorb
most of the plunder that is gained outside, and render more brutal
and desperate the wretches they rob in comparative safety.

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