‘I am sure of that; but why don’t you apply for this?’
‘This’ was an advertisement for a police court missionary at Lambeth Police Court. I laughed, and said I had never been in a police court but once in my life, and that was for thrashing a big lad who had been ill-using a lesser one. He, however, strongly advised me to apply for the post, and to please him I did so. It turned out that the Bishop of Rochester and his Council, not having the guidance of a phrenological professor, selected me out of a dozen candidates. I don’t know why to this day, but I suspect it was owing to my dear old Vicar. And so I became a police court missionary, and came to London.
It was one Monday morning in May that I first saw the inside of a London police court. It is fifteen years ago, but that day is still fresh in my memory; nay, rather, it is burned into my very consciousness. There was I, up from the country, with great hopes of doing good, and not altogether ignorant of the world or the vices and sorrows of our large cities; but a revelation awaited me. I spent that day in a horrible wonderland, and although dazed and afraid to speak to anyone, I noticed everything and everybody, and I have a mental photograph of it all now.
Even as I sit and write, it is all before me and around. I hear again the horrible speech and diverse tongues. I hear the accents of sorrow and the burst of angry sound. I hear the devil-may-care laugh and the contemptuous expression. I hear the sighs and groans and bitter plaints. I see men shorn of all glory. I see womanhood clothed in shame. I see Vice rampant. I see Misery crawling. I see the long procession of the drink- or vice-stricken as they tramped down to the place of wrecked lives and slain souls. I see some going cursing to destruction. I see some going jesting to destruction. I see some going down with open eyes and passive will. I see some that long to be delivered from their body of death. I hear the unuttered cry, ‘The waters have gone over me! The waters have gone over me! Out of the black depths do I cry to be delivered.’ And _I_ was there to deliver them!
But I see and hear more. I see women with bruised and battered faces, I see their cuts and wounds and putrefying sores, I hear stories of devilish cruelty, and I hear the poor bruised women pleading that their husbands may not be punished for their cruelty. ‘Don’t send him to prison! Don’t send him to prison! He is a good husband when he is sober!’ I hear the words again and again. I see more women with poor, thin clothing. I look into their faces, and I see sorrow writ large and rings of care around their eyes, and in their hearts a weight of agony that makes them ready to curse God and die. My God! and _I_ was there to comfort them.