THE RELIGIOUS WORLD

Evening Star, Issue 9581, 29 December 1894, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE RELIGIOUS WORLD

A LIFE-PICTURE SERMON.

BEHIND THE SCENES,

[Copyright.]

[By the Rev. William Biboh, of Christ-

CHURCH.]

I will weep bitterly because of the spoiling of the daughter of ray people.—lsaiah, xxii., 4. When I "christened" the babe, Mary Gould, her mother was not seventeeu. She had been waitress at a confectioner's, where her fine figure, beautiful face, and engaging ways took the fancy of a well-to-do man, who went daily for afternoon tea. As if by accident, he would meet her going home, and sometimes take her for half an hour to dance at the Assembly Rooms. On her holiday they went in a cab to the Gardens, and would sit in one of the cosy arbors

listening to the band; he with cigar and 5 bottle of champagne, which she refused to drink, being a Band of Hope member, but sipped at each glass "to sweeten it," he holding her hand, praising her beauty and telling his love. She'supposed he intended to marry her ; he may have thought it, but he changed his mind. After some time she left the confectioner's and had apartments in Rusholme road; he began to grow cold, always had business out of town, and one day, having a quarrel with her, said that with the New Year he must turn over a new leaf and not see her any more ; that he would give her £2OO, and she might become a waitress again. She was broken-hearted, and took to drinking brandy for a fortnight. She lent £SO to a lady friend, who returned it later on, but most of the other money vanished—either stolen or lost. When she came to herself she did not know where she had been, and soon removed to a cheap room, where little Mary was born. The child had golden hair, the color and shine of a new sovereign, from which people called her Polly Gold, but I always gpoke to her as little Mary Gold. At five years of age she wa3 a lovely child ; clear white skin, (lark finely drawn eyebrows, with long lasiie.--, and deep blue eyes, ' rather large, lips red as cherries, pearly teeth, and figure tall and plump, looking more like eight than five. Every New Year I gave her a doll, as was my custom to every fatherless girl in that parish. At the teaineoting Mary recited a piece I had written for her, in which she was a mother rocking her baby and telling it a tale. I don't think Miss Ellen Terry could have done it better. Tae people stood up to clap and cheer, waile the other children laughed and cried ; and Mary had to do it three times. When she finished, she brought the " baby" to ask me to "sing little Margaret to sleep," which fairly brought the house down. I got out of it by saying : " My voice might make Margaret cry ; mothers can sing the sweetest." So, sitting again in the little chair, and rocking to and fro, while the people wept at her touching pathos, she sang: "Hush, my babe, lie still and slumber; holy angels guard thy bed." That year I went twice to the United States, and when settled down again had painful news. Mary's mother had tried to see the gentleman who had cast her off, but had been turned away and threatened with the police. Her mind was evidently unhinged ; and one dinner hour when the •clerks were away, and he happened to be alone, she entered his private office. What he said, what she said, no one knows ; but about two o'clock she went to Captain Palin, ■our chief constable, and, holding out her hands, exclaimed : " Please put on the handcuffs ; I have killed him !" She pleaded guilty, refusing Mr Gulley, a barrister, who offered to defend her, exclaiming in quiet despairing tones to Mr Justice Cockburn : " My Lord, I want you to sentence me to be hanged, so that I shall not do wrong anymore." "When he pronounced sentence," the 'Manchester Guardian' said next day, "the judge completely broke down, the Crown Prosecutor, Mr Holker, bnried his face in his hands, the jury and the crowded court were bathed in tears, while the female warder threw her arms around the beautiful prisoner and kissed her as if she had been her own child. It was noticed that after the sentence everyone went out reverently as from a church." Meanwhile little Mary Gold disappeared, and though my friend Mr Detective Shanley made diligent search for her it was seven years afterwards before he and I found the child. She was stolen. The woman lived at the other end of the town, put a lightbrown liquid on Mary's face, and for a while dressing her as a boy, hired her out to professional begging - women. One who had not been married would put on black things as a widow, and go out with a barrel organ on wheels, while Mary would sing, a3 people aftewards said, "like a little augel'come down from heaven." The old woman grew fond of Mary in her feeble way, and when she was dressed as a girl again sent her to the Rev. Mr Stowell's school in Salford, He was son of the great Rev, Hugh Sto well, and was much struck with the beauty of the child. When she Was ten Mary was adopted by Madame Chester, who had a well-known fashionable house, with carriages and horses; she was not a good woman. Manchester people will, no doubt, remember the name. It was a superbly furnished mansion, mirrors and pictures everywhere, in some rooms great mirrorß on the ceilings, and costly carpets and furniture in all. In the -centre of one, called the Velvet Boom, was a round platform about six feet in diameter and fifteen inches high, covered with crimson velvet, on which young ladies would represent ancient and modern statuary, svhile a few favored visitors reclined on the velvet and white and gilt couches around—a vision of surpassing loveliness, such as the pious Moslem dreams will be his daily joy of paradise. A titled gentleman grew fond of Mary, who, though only about ten, was tall and of perfect artistic figure, looking fourteen or fifteen. She used to sing for him, and liKed him as if he were her father, and kissed him as a daughter. One evening he bought her from Madame for sixty guineas, like a Circassian slave, but did not take her home to his own family. She still lived there, and was called Miss Marion Trafford. When he left England for Italy, being ordered away by his physician, he died within the jear, and Mary was sold first to one rich man and then to another. When she went out in the victoria and two horses, with coachman in dark-green livery and gilt buttons, and an older lady by her side, she •drew as much attention as a daughter of the Queen. If she stopped to make a purchase in square a little crowd would wait to sec her drive off. "It was like a vision of glory," some of the people would say. Detective Shanley remarked : " I never saw such a lovely girl; and when I took off my hat and she smiled, 'pon my soul, if I didn't sometimes think she were an angel come to earth to be spoiled." He little knew she was our Mary Gold ! When she was thirteen, Mary had a deadly illness, and, in kindness, was sent to be nursed by good old Mrs Wilder, in Grosvenor street, close to London road. Mrs Wilder had once nursed Shanley, and, meeting him on Saturday afternoon, said she had a dear young lady, Miss Trafford, but understood her real name was Gold ; did he think he could find any relatives, as it was impossible for her to recover? On my arrival a few hours later from London, where I lived two or three days every week, Shanley met me at the station greatly excited, shaking my arm nearly off, and saying: " I have found her! I have found her !" "What do you mean, Shanley? Whom have you found?" "Why, Mary Gold!" We walk up and down the platform while he tells me. He exclaims: "I saw her as a boy with that damned old widow and the barrel organ. My God ! I cannot forgive myself." "Ah, well, Shanley, do not be vexed ; you only knew her from my description." 'We jump into a pab and drive to Grosvenor street, where Shanley leaves me. " No one goes into her room except the doctor and me," remarks Mrs Wilder as.t uiand in the sitting room next the bedroom. " Mr Shanley was here for an hour or more, but he had to keep coming out to get a sip of brandy and coffee. We have strong carbolic, but the smell is very bad if one isn't used to it. Mr Shanley said he would bring you. Of course, please yourself about aoiug in." I enter the room, walk up to the bed, feel

faint, and go to the open window for a breath of fresh air. Mrs Wilder whispers: "Light your cigar and you will be able to bear it." "No, no; how can I smoke in her presence ?" lam better ; take her hand in mine; we look long into each other's face; she recognises me; how very beautiful she is; seems quite a tall woman in the bed; she puts her other hand over mine; she is evidently waiting for me to speak. "Little Mary, do you remember the big doll—' Margaret,' you know—and you sang at the meeting ' Hush, my babe, lie still and slumber ; holy angels guard thy bed' ?" It comes to her mind. How she weeps. Moiiday.—We have had a long talk. She has told me all. Poor child ! 1 feel I want to pull a house down. I sympathise with Elijah when he made up his mind to slay the prophets of Baal. She calms me, asks me to pray, and says : " When the doctor went out this morning they forgot to shut my door, and I heard him tell Mrs Wilder that it was scarcely worth while coming again, and it would be a mercy to smother me. . . . lam lost, body and soul." I again kneel. " Father, here is Thy little daughter; oh, Saviour, who redeemed the' lost, save this poor lamb !" Wednesday.— "Yes, I am only thirteen, bnt, you know, lam quite grown up. I should like to live a little longer if I could be cured, to feel what it is like to be good. "I am glad the Lord will soon take mo out of this body; you cannot tell how I loathe it. One night before you found me I tried to choke myself with the candle down my throat, but Mrs Wilder, dear old soul, came in, stopped me, and kissed me, saying : ' No, no, honey ; you must not go before the Lord's time.'"

Saturday night.— " For three years," she says, "my life has been one continued wrong, but I only partly knew; I tried to be glad and make everyone else glad; I thought it had to be, and I must make the best of it; but should not men be more thoughtful and more merciful? Do you think they will know all about me in Heaven?"

" No, little one, there will be no thought of it in Heaven ; you will be as sweet and clean as Mary, the mother of our Lord." "Oh, lovely! Come, good dear Lord, who died for me! come for your little lamb !"

Sunday. —l take tea with her in the afternoon, Mrs Wilder waiting on us. Plants and flowers are about the room. When I finish preaching in the Freetrade Hall, Shanley meets me at the door, and we drive together to Mrs Wilder's. We are to have a bit of supper at the Queen's Hotel before I leave by the midnight train. Shanley smokes his cigar in Mrs Wilder's sitting room, waiting for me. "While you have been preaching," she says, " I have been praying for you. I wish I could be there for once to hear the orphans sing. And you are going away to London to-night. I hope you will return before—before the Lord takes me, you know. Mrs Wilder says it will not be long; any day ! You will be here on Tuesday morning sbout five o'clock? I am glad; but if not—if Ido not see you any more I will meet you there. It will be too utterly lovely, won't it ? " " I have been wondering," she remarks, "what our Lord will say to me when! kneel before Him. What do you think He will say ?" "Well, I think He will come from the Throne to met you as you pass through the gate of death; He will fold you to his breast, and, while His tears fall on your uplifted face as He kisses you, He will say: "Mary, my belovejl little daughter, from this moment I blot out the sad past from your memory ; you are to learn to be a ministering angel to bless my other lambs, who suffer as you have done." " Oh, how beautiful!" she cries. "To be saved is grand, but to blot out the awful past and to become an angel to comfort other girls ! My heart is not big enough to hold the joy !" Just before I go she remarks : " Madame has sent to remind me of my jewellery; please, say I do not wish to think of them any more ; she was always kind to me, but, oh ! what a life. Do you know that there is another girl there, only twelve years of age ? Cannot she be saved ?" " In the name of God, Shanley and I will fetch her out to-night before I go to London."

" I felt sure you would save her, if you only knew. Mrs Wilder has a ' revolver'; it is as well to have it, you know." Tuesday morniwj, five o'clock, London road Station. —There is no one about; no message for me ; as Mrs Wilder's is not far I walk, carrying the roses I bought in Covent Garden last night. The blinds are down; I listen ; someone is moving about; I ring the bell gently ; the maid lets me in ; Mrs Wilder comes ; I know without being told

" Miss Trafford didn't know she was going. She was in prayer; she said : ' Your own little daughter, sweet and clean !' and while she was looking over there, and I watching the light in her beautiful eyes, she must have gone—she did not even sigh ; I only knew because she was not breathing—about au hour and a-half before you came." , , . I lift her head and place the roses under for a pillow ; the face is angelic, but looks as if she were nineteen.

Wednesday afternoon. —Only Greenwood's plain hearse and two broughams drive up. In the first are four orphan girls, each about fourteen years of age; in the second, Mrs Wilder, Detective Shanley, myself, and "the other girl only twelve years of age," her hand in mine.

After reading the service as well as I can I seem to see Mary Gold waving her hand to me from the Throne, with thei hand of the Lord on her head, and I say : " Let us thank God! Praise God from whom all blessings flow." Shanley runs behind a monument close by, and, as we are unable to sing, I send the rest except "the other girl" to the coaches, and wait for the detective ; she gives me my hat, which she has been holding. When Shanley comes, still weeping, he takes my arm, looks up into the sky, and exclaims in a broken voice : " Almighty Lord, we will save the other girls, so help me God !" I add : " Our Father, and their Father, help us to do this for Thee ! like this little one on Sunday night." God answered Shanley':. sacred oath and my believing prayer.