"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 2663, 29 March 1905, Page 67

"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

(Specially written for the Witness Ladies' Page.)

SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

"Whether it was General Booth's mission that roused the spirit of revival or not, the campaign of that energetic spiritual warrior has been followed, fn>t, by a revival in Wales, where a young revivalist named

Jones has had many hundreds of converts, and now in London by Dr Torrey's mission, opened in the Albert Hall.

In Wales the mission was among the poor, though not confined to the rough mining class, and it worked to a high pitch of spiritual enthusiasm, many being baptised during the 'snows and fiost of winter in the icy rivers. Surely faith could not be put to a severer first test ! .But Dr Torrey's mission in the West End is on a larger and more organised plan, its object not so much to appeal to the flotsam and jetsam of humanity cast by the tide ot life on the shore of the great city, bat to—^he respectable middle and upper classes, who, according to Dr Torrey, are in quite as much need af salvation as the denizens of the slums.

The opening night of the mission presented an impressive scene. Quite as many of the 10,000 who gathered at the Albeit •Hall went to be amused as to pray, and before Dr Toi*rey arrived to open the mission the thousands laughed heartily, for Mr Alexander, the Sankey of the revival, was teaching the people to sing. He stcod alone ou the vast platform, where wonderful singers haye s stood — Patti, Melba, Sims .Reeves, and a host of others : a young, clean-shaven man, in orthodox frock coat and grey trousers, not by any means expecting to nwnopolise or entrance his audience, but giving it a singing lesson. It"jras quite a novel experience — upper and lower galleries, the boxes and" the stalls were taken in succession, Mr Alexander calling to the upper galleries under the great roof, "Can you hear me up there? .STow listen, I'll sing you the chorus again — Oh., it is wonderful that He shouldl care for me Enough to die for me! Oh, it is wonderful — Wonderful to me! Tbe ladies in tine two top galleries. Now t" The curious time and quaint air, catchy in both time and tune, as many of Sitnkey and Moody's melodies were, needed some tuition, but as first one portion of the house tried it and then another, and then, ''altogether*" not only did the peojne (of that class who need an introduction) thaw one to another in a oomnion interest, thus preparing the ground for common reception, but the hymn, which is to take a leading part in the revival, was becoming tnowi.

Dr Torrey's appearance was greeted with a storm of ha.nd-elapping. Lord Kinnard 1 , an English country gentleman, opened the meeting with a few simple and direct ■words ; rev. gentlemen ask for blessing ; then came the grand effect of the evening, when the mighty audience united in the old, old prayer, which asks all the world lias ever needed or will need, all that the human soul can grasp — ''Our Father." I cannot do better than describe the effect in the words of a distinguished journalist, BWo'ld Begbie : '

it was like the noise of many waters. Our Father! — a deep murmur of a moving tidte — Which art in Heaven! — a roar of the central eeas — Hallowed be Thy name! — a lifting cry of all the winds mingling with all the seas. Thy Kingdom come — the shout of humanity calling aloud through sea and wind and rain and tears. Thy -will be done! — the hearts of all the living and the souls of all the dead •uttering with the rhythmic spheres of the ■whole universe their patient waiting on the will of Jehovah.

And so, with increasing fervour, to the end of the simple, quiet prayer. The great hall was filled with- the sound* of it, like the sound of a mighty mshmg wird ; and wtien it was over, men and women llfteS their bowed heads as tboug-h they expected to behoM the glory of Gcd.

That was just it. And in the moved, hushed silence that followed, the living multitude were drawn closer by reason, of their universal need, their universal hope. "When Dr Torrey at length mounted the platform., the earlier curiosity of the audience had deepened to interest, to eagerness even. The addresses of clergymen, the singing, had worked imon the " emotions, end that magnetism of a vast crowd all of one mind was electrical in the air. Twenty thousand eyes were bent on the cue man. Again I cannot do better than use Harold Begbie's description in the Daily Mail:

He mounted the tall crimson-covered box —the modern form of Wesley's Stone — and stood liki a statue, with his hands clasped fcehiad his buck. His frock coat was b\\ttonea across his broad on-est. He looked a small and dizzy figure on the top of the crimson, box. A little grey man, against a steel-coloured background of lofty organ-pipes reaching up to tbe- very roof. On his right hand and his left, like two outspread wings, were the close-packed men and women of the choir, .a dazed mist of faces, rising upward on either side like an open fan. In front of him was a vast eenii-circle of humanity gazing towards- him with 20,000 eyes. Under the. seven-ringed gas chandelier, drooping from the centre of the vast *lorr>e with its bellying canvas. was gathered together in the splendid 1 hall as strr.nge and eager a, congregation as ever oaroe to a man with a message. People of all classes. A sea of humanity. One looked into that vast gathering and eair the smiling faces of converted men and the wistful faces of their women ; the rebellious and hajf -scornful faces of the men of the world, and the nervous, flushed faces of ladies of quality. Face after face, ffee above face, from the floor to tha topmost gallery, till one's eyes wearied of thd human countenance and longed for trees, and mountains, and moving waters. «sot a seai was vacant eaoapt iv the cases.

of a few darkened boxes, whose owners, objecting to the mission, refused to lend l them. To right and to left, up from the floor to the roof, a dense, multitudinous mass of men and women. The coughing died down. A a^reafc hu«h retried over the hall. It was like the dawn.

— Dr Torrey's Method-. —

Dr Torrey appeared to be> tired. His voice was hoarse and husky. He spoke like a man afe the end rather than at the beginning of a great undertaking One was not conscious of any magnetism in the man, felt no powerful outpouring of perse liality. People, it seemed to me, wre disappointed. They had expected a sensation, or at lea^t originality. Somebody coughed in the arena ; there was an answer from the boxes.

The address was on the triumphant note sounded by St. Paul from a prison cell : '■Rejoice in the Lord— always '" Dr Tor rev • declared ihat what struck hno in London was its joyiessne«s. The East End is joyless; so is the Wc<t. The poor are joyless; so are the rich. You cannoc nave joy if you are "outside Chribt." He quoted a larue translation of Sr. Augu=tine"o rnagniCccnfc words : ''Lord. Thou hast made ua for Thyself, aad we inr.sl neec T s be weary till we rest in Thee." 'Hie matter of his address was irreproachable, hi» delivery telling. The sentences were short, with pauses between the words. "My friends. The world. Is empty. GOD," drawing out the word. "Is full !" Now and then a few people triad to break into hymns, but they were instantly "hushed" down. Subdued "Amens" ran round the house. One© when ha mentioned Ingersoll's name there were opposing "Hear, hears" from lhe gallery. There was no instant lesnonse frum the

audience. Coughing broke out again. He has a strong American accent, making "gloery"' of glory and "Amurrika" of America. He- -works himself up -every now and then, raising both axms above his head! and lifting his face upward. Occasionally lie shouts his message. But on the whole he is quiet and repressed. He made what I think is the mistake of most missioners. He insisted on the ease with which sin ami trouble can be removed from weary hearts. "All you have to do," he pleaded, "is to be in Christ." He did not tell the people who try and fail how they are to attain that victory. He was not constraining men and women to draw near, he was expressing amazement that they remained so far away.

One came out from -the crowded and heated hall with a splitting headache, listening to whispered disappointments from the coughing crowd thronging one on every side. Atheistic pamphlets were thrust into people's hands at the doors. Policemen were abusing cabmen. Whistles were blowing. Men rail hither and thither in the lamplight.

As I drove away, with white lamps coming towards me in an endless stream, and with little red lamps at the back of tinkling cabs going on ceaselessly in front of me, I thought of all the goodness and charity there is in London, all the kindness ard self-sacrifice, all the intellectual and Christian activity. I thought of the hospital, of the Plaistow Nurses, of Dr Barnardo, who had sat unnoticed on the platform, and of all the nameless priests and deacons who are toiling without encouragement and without advertisement in all the parishes of London. I thought of the honesty of our municipal life and the tone of our newspapers. I rebelled against the idea that iLondon is a wiefcod city. I compared it with Cl;icas:o, and loved it the more. I compared it with the cities of the world, and saw It the bravest, and the strongest, and the kindest.

— A Warning. —

A quickening of the spiritual life is essential, and it is coming-. It is coming from science as well as from religion. I do not _ think that American revivals are likely to succeed in the- same measure in England sB the spontaneous religious movement has succeeded in Wales. They may do good, they will certainly help many people ; but can they ever appeal to the national character? "Lead, kindly Light." must always be more to Shakespeare's En^l&nd thaai Mr A lexandor's "Tell mother I'll be tilers." It is the heroic sweetness cf Christ Himself and the sternness of His warnings that will move England, not the catchy tunee of the mission hymn-book. To bring American methods^ to Christianity is not the one thing necessary ; to bring Christianity to American methods would more abundantly serve the destined 1 ends of righteousness. lam sure that the Welsh revival will do more for London than the American, however much the American may accomplish.

To turn from spiritual revival to the renewal of Nature, it is -with longing and'/ impatience that one strains eye and ear j for heralds of spring. Although February i is but just begun, the birds know it, and have, the bravest and most adventurous among them, already begun "to woo, to woe."' In Kew Gardens the other day the sun had broken through the cloud pall. I was looking at some stunted, forlorn-look- ! ing plants labelled "New Zealand," which I away "down under," nobody would notice on the trust heap, when from a grove of magnificent (English) leafless trees a thrush called "Joey, Joey: be quick, be quick." And Joey answered! from the leafless forest, ''Mary, Mary." In the country, somewhat in advance of tbeir time, the chorus of the skylarks is heard above the heads of thebarley sowers, and the caged birds of the house are getting restless on their perches, twittering expectantly, and looking towards the sky. There are no buds visible on Ihe trees as yet, but the branches are a fuller, deeper " brown. Of all seasons of the J'ear, this is the most difficult, "between the dark and the daylight," as ifc were, of the seasons, with the winter's zest and interest stale, the amusements stale, and the dawn of the year not yet broken into daylight. Physically, too. people are in fit — the enforced; inactivity, the "keeping out the cold," with heavy food and big fires, has clogged the blood and depressed the nervous system; there is a longing for movement, light, air, and already, a coxuit-

ing of the weeks to Easter — the spiirjg resurrection.

That this ay inter is almost past thousands rejoice, for it has bjen of exceptional suffering among not only the chronic poor, but among the working elates. There is a loud cerrA r of resentment that the alien should be privileged to sw.irm the overcrowded labour markets; tho British workman sits by his fireless grate, hungry for the food which the foreigner has snatched from him. And through all classes the scarciety of money is felt ; for every post there are a hundred applicants ; the rich were neA*pr so extravagant and luxurious as I'Oav, and the poor ne\*er so poor ; for, Avhat-eA-cr the cause, wealth is less equally divided and competition is greater.

The "improvements" still go on in London, and among them the widening of th& Moll in St. James's Park. On the south side of the Mall, since the days of James I, theie lias bi'en a site, a grant of tbtit King, dedicated to the uses of the ''milkmaids of the Mall," where for hundreds of years a milk fuii has been presided over by the women descendants of the same family. The stalls have been, not only a jncmresque, but a characteii'-iic bit of old London. The cows «tood jnder the trees near lhe stall, as other cows otaod hundreds of ye.ict ago, which supplied fresh milk to pulsing customers. LTntil yesierdtiy two aired sisters were the lawful milkmaids of the fair, their stalls enclosed by tall iron railings, of Avhich they held the lock i>n<l key. One sister was 70 and the other 73 years of age, and here, ps their mother did before them, they ka\*e spent all their Ija*cs day after day in the pursuit of their simple business In the olden days many men and Avomen known to history have stopped and refreshed themselves Avith the milk and fruit, etc., procurable at Ihe^ stall, and the latest oAvners were as Avell informed concerning any notable customer as were the Avornen of their family who held the stall before them. But a few days ago the Office of Works informed the two old ladies that they muse vacate tbeir stands and remove their property within a few days, a-s their stalls Avere considered unsightly to the new road. The sisters, believing that possession was "nine points of the laAv," aiid that the other strong point Avas in. the grant to their family, not only refnsed to go, but, after a A*ain appeal to the Office of Works, Avrote the folloAving letter to the King: —

'■Milk Fair, St. James's Park,

February 6. ''Your Majestj-, — In our trouble we are appealing to you. Our family have held the stands in St. James's Park for nearly three hundred years. The grant was given by James I to our family, and handed down all these generations since. Now, through the Park improvements, we have received notice to remove to-day. "Knowing your Majesty's usual kindness, we beg you to say that Aye may have another site Avhich will not interfere with the Park improvements. All we have to trust to is your ancestor's Avord and your Majesty's goodness. I am 70 years of age, and my sister Caroline is 73. We have no other means of li\-elihocd. We know that for certain our mother, grandmother, and great grandmother have passed their lives here. "'We are. your humble, faithful servants, '"Emma Ivitchex and CiROUXE BrjltAY."

Determined to hold their own and prevent the demo'ition which was threatened for 6 o'clock the next morning, the two old ladies sent for rugs, and, making fires in buckets with holes knocked in tbem, each kept vigil through the night at her separate stall. It was a cold, dark right, with coming rain, and as the long hours dragged on two pathetic old figures, wrapped in their rugs, Avere seen to crouch lower and lower oyeo. 1 their fires. But Law, inexorable as Fate, visited them in tbe grey dawn in the .«hape of workmen and an overseer from the Works Office. The foreman ccurteously asked for deliverance of the keys of tbeir gates, ruxl ton being refused, orders were given to the men to break through with pickaxes. But still the ild ladies stood their ground, while their property was demolished around them, and were only induced to move before the roof fell -in upon them.

— It is amusing, and ofttimes comforting (writes the Edinburgh lady reporter of the Glasgow Weekly Citizen), for us women to read the different opinions as to the periods of our lives when our charms are supposed to have faded. But things have advanced so that every age seems, in the eye of critics, to have a charm of its own. Now, we need not despaii because we have passed even our third decade. We ore told that the ordinary woman of that age may still be fascinating, and prove a formidable rival to her younger sister, who may be glorying in her youth For the older woman has the t-ict of calling out and making the most of the good qualities of the person whose favour &he seeks, instead of expecting the other to tiy to please her. That is the way of youth, but added years bring the greater power of understanding and trying to please others. There is r-o doubt that men admire clever women, but a sympathetic manner, a happyknack of discoveiing what a man is interested in, and the art of being a good

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listener are often more fascinating tlian j mne cleverness or beauty. The lvorian \ between thiuy and forty has, liOAvever, j to guard against things Avhich need not J disturb ;i younger ViO.ua'). Tt lias beer* j s.del that a woman is only as old as she •

looks, *o she must tAe care of Lei look?, avoid d-nrdmess. and ahvays piesent a dainty and fresh apnearance. And. if sbo b? well read an>l bright, she avill find tii't sh-i has not quite lost all hci attiacliveliest.