Page:The bitter cry of outcast London.djvu/20

 he spoke, was able to say, "I was as bad as any of you, but the Lord Jesus had mercy upon me, and has made me better and so happy." This man had been a "coal-whipper" of notoriously evil life, and was rescued through his casually going into a room in one of the courts of which we have spoken, where a missionary was holding a meeting. Such results should rebuke our faithlessness. Even in these dark and noisome places the lamp of Life may be kindled; even from these miry spots bright gems may be snatched, worth all the labour and all the cost.

It is little creditable to us that all our wealth and effort should be devoted to providing for the spiritual needs of those who are comfortably conditioned, and none of it expended upon the abject poor. It is true that we have not half done our duty to any class, but this fact is no justification of our having wholly neglected this rescue work. To shut up our compassion against those who need it most, because we have not yet done our duty to those who need it less, is a course that we should find it hard to justify to our Master and Lord. His tones were ever those of pitying love even to the most sinful outcast, but would they not gather sternness as He met us with the rebuke: "This ought ye to have done, and not to have left the other undone"? An "exceeding bitter cry" is this which goes up to heaven from the misery of London against the apathy of the Church. It is time that Christians opened their ears to it and let it sink down into their hearts. Many pressing needs are taxing the resources of the London Congregational Union, but the Committee feel that this work amongst the poor must no longer be neglected, and that they must do all they can to arouse the Churches of their order to undertake their share of reponsibility [sic]. They have determined to take immediate action. Having selected three of the very worst districts in London, from which many of the foregoing facts have been gathered, they have resolved at once to begin operations in the very heart of them. No denominational purpose will sway them, except that they will try to awaken their own denomination to a sense of its duty; there will be no attempt to make Congregationalists or to present Congregationalism. Deeper, broader and simpler must this work be than any which can be carried on upon denominational lines. In such a forlorn hope there is no room for sectarianism. The Gospel of the love of Christ must be presented in its simplest form, and the one aim in