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‘You have missed your vocation in life; you ought to have been an actor, or a writer for the Daily Telegraph,’ so I was assured by an eminent professor of phrenology. The professor had expressed a wish to meet all the London police court missionaries, with a view of ascertaining their fitness or unfitness for the position they hold. Mine was the last head he measured. He had passed all my colleagues, and had found no unfitness among them. Not being sure of my fitness, I waited till last; but when all had been declared good men and true, I submitted myself to his tape and measurements with some confidence. I wished afterwards that I had taken the precedence to which my age and length of service entitled me.

Now, I knew very well that as a missionary I had often made a fool of myself. I knew much better than the professor my unfitness for the work, for, gracious me! it has knocked me out of time too often for me not to have realized it. Still, I was a bit nettled when I found that I was the only one in a wrong place. I had not even the comfort of a partner in distress; but I recovered from the shock, and comforted myself with the thought that they must be a splendid lot of men when I was the worst among them.

Yet it gave me pause. What if he were right? Fifteen years I had been blundering among poor humanity, hoping and fearing, racking my brains, never knowing when to give in, though often lifeless from the expenditure of nervous energy. Fifteen years I had been realizing that I could only move others to the extent I felt for them, and that there is no healing without loss of virtue. What if the professor were right? It troubled me, for I thought of the poor, the unfortunate, the downcast, and the heterogeneous mass of humanity one meets with in our London police courts. Some other fellows might have done them so much more good, might have comforted more broken hearts, and might have ‘rescued’ in a wholesale fashion what time I had been peddling and meddling with solitary individuals.

Still, I felt I had done my best, and I knew that there were eyes that brightened when I looked into them; I knew that I had made some little ones happy, that I had strengthened some despairing wretches, and had helped in some degree to lift the great burden of sorrow that presses upon the human heart; and besides, was there not the delicate compliment conveyed that I might have been an Irving or a Toole, or—ecstatic thought!—a writer for the Daily Telegraph? I began to think the professor was right, and though I had never been in a theatre till I had passed my fortieth birthday, I felt I had dramatic instincts and a relish for comedy.

My mind went back forty-five years, and I remembered that from a poor, starved, and small Sunday-school library I had got Defoe’s ‘History of the Plague.’ How it thrilled and absorbed me! ‘Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!’ ever rang in my ears, so with a rattle (lads made them in those days) in a little old Staffordshire town I ran about the streets shouting out: ‘Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!’ I remembered, too, that I emulated the poor half-witted drunken piper in the ‘dead-cart,’ and blew unearthly noises on a tin whistle, innocently asking: ‘I ain’t dead, am I?’

But whatever prospects I may have had of becoming an actor were doomed to early death, and it happened on this wise. A large travelling theatre came often to our town. How well I remember it, with its framework of thin deal painted green, and its patched and torn roof! Every evening on an elevated stage at the front the company in full dress disported themselves, the band played, the whip cracked, and there were pressing invitations to the small crowd to ‘Walk up! Walk up!’ How they responded may be gathered from the fact that one night the master of the ceremonies giving the usual invitation made a slight variation, and it came out as follows: ‘Walk up, walk up, ladies and gentlemen, and see one of Shakespeare’s most beautiful tragedies, entitled——’ Here he became anxious as to the size of the house, and putting his head through the canvas to look, he soon drew it back, and called out to one of the company: ‘Only five in.’

I never got inside this booth, but those who did told fascinating tales. One Shakespearian night ‘Romeo and Juliet’ was to be performed, and as Romeo did not come on, the ‘house’ waited in expectancy the while. The stage manager came to make some explanation, but before he could speak one of the company rushed on to the stage, and called out to him: ‘Romeo’s drunk!’ But the messenger was closely followed by the pot-valiant Romeo, who roared out: ‘’Tis false, you dastard! Romeo is not drunk!’ and promptly knocked the accuser down.

Coppers were scarce in those days; lads, at any rate, did not get many, so we searched the thin boarding for cracks or apertures through which to gain, if not a free pass, at any rate a free look. I had found one, and was with the aid of a pocket-knife improving my opportunity, when something cut short my aspiration for the stage. It was only the butt-end of the horse-whip that had cracked so merrily on the outside stage, but it was quite sufficient to cut short my view of ‘Maria Martin,’ to make me sore for days, and to end my acquaintance with the stage till I saw the ‘Sign of the Cross’ at the new Alexandra Theatre, when, I am sorry to say, I liked Nero best. But I have never been able to command or direct my sympathies, for I well remember when I first read Milton that I had considerable admiration for Satan, and was always anxious to know how he was getting on. My curiosity on that point has been more than satisfied since I have been a police court missionary.

With all respect to the professor of phrenology, it is no fault of mine that I did not figure behind the footlights and ‘tear a passion to tatters.’ I never had the chance. But as to tragedy and comedy—well, I have in London seen plenty of each, though I have never been able yet to tell exactly one from the other. Things are so mixed up in life that sometimes I feel inclined to cry where other people laugh, for I have found that real comedy has too often a sadly pathetic side.

As to my being a writer for the Daily Telegraph, the possibility of it never dawned upon me, and in my most ambitious days I never dreamed of, let alone aspired to, such a giddy height. It is very sad to think how much the public and myself have lost through the proprietors of that paper failing to put me on their brilliant staff. I wish that I had met that professor forty years ago. But I am to make some amends for my mistake, for I find myself writing a book, and I can quite feel with Byron ‘’Tis pleasant sure to see one’s name in print— A book’s a book, although there’s nothing in’t.’

I cannot promise you flowing periods, for of the rules of composition I know nothing; my grammar is uncertain, and as to spelling, why, I often have to turn to my dear wife and ask, ‘Margaret, how do you spell such and such a word?’ and she always knows; she is ever so much better than a dictionary. But, alas! before twelve years of age I was at work fourteen hours a day in an iron foundry in good old Staffordshire. Three farthings per week my father paid for me during the few years I went to school; it was a penny a week school, but they made a reduction on a quantity: two brothers for three halfpence, three for twopence, and so on. There was a large family of boys at our house, so if I could have gone to school a few more years I should have gone almost for nothing, and dad would have saved something. But he evidently thought I could earn something, and littles were useful then, so at the age stated I found myself in the foundry. It is now the fashion, I know, to make light of the schools of those days, and certainly there was much about them to provoke wonder; but I never hear the pedagogues of those times sneered at without feeling a desire to show fight on their behalf. They had their own way of doing things, but personally I doubt if they are done much better now, with all our resources. Perhaps they could not teach much, but they taught it well, and they had a power of instilling into boys a love of knowledge, which is perhaps even better than knowledge itself; for their boys were not in a great hurry to forget what they had learned, but rather sought to add to it after leaving school. What if they did use the cane freely? I never knew a boy get it but what he richly deserved it, and with it all the schoolmaster and his boys were much better friends, and a much better influence was exercised in those days than I am afraid is the case now.

The schoolmaster knew his boys then, and had a comparatively free hand in teaching them. If he found a boy who learned quickly, he advanced him without waiting for the end of the year, regardless of examination, and this produced a spirit of emulation among the boys. Every Friday afternoon those boys who had worked well during the week were allowed ‘recreation’—in the winter by means of chess and draughts, both of which he taught us; in the summer-time he would take an occasional walk with us.

Ours being a Church school, we had to go to Sunday-school and church twice every Sunday, and woe be to the lad on Monday who had not conducted himself well on Sunday! for he got something that he was not able to rub off in a hurry. The Sunday-school was held in the chancel of an old church, the remaining part of which was a picturesque ruin. Here at nine every Sunday morning all the boys from the day-school assembled, and as many others as could be induced to come. Teaching continued till 10.30; after this came a quarter of an hour’s recess, during which time we were allowed to run riot in the old graveyard. We got a lot of play and not a few fights in that quarter of an hour. I have obtained a nice black eye more than once, and have marched into church thus decorated. Our schoolmaster, who was also superintendent of the Sunday-school, had a short way with the black-eye business. To the lad who obtained that distinction on the Sunday he gave a good caning on the Monday, and as I invariably got a decent thrashing at home under such circumstances a black eye meant something to me; but I never remember receiving chastisement for inflicting black eyes on other lads, a feat that I was sometimes able to accomplish.

The quarter of an hour being up, the master would appear at the chancel-door, and the cry ‘All in! all in!’ would be raised, fights and other sports would be cut short, and away we would all scamper to our different classes, ready for the march to the church, a newer building on the other side of the main road.

Sometimes, I remember, the fights were adjourned. My Sunday-school teacher was for a considerable time a publican. I am afraid he was a sinner, too, for he arranged the adjournment of a fight in which I was one of the principals, and on the following Monday night I sat on his knee between the rounds, and on that occasion, at least, my opponent got the black eye and the caning. Nothing succeeded like success with a pugilistic boy, and the master invariably acted on the principle ‘To him that hath shall be given.’

In church a steep gallery in one corner on the left-hand side of the door downstairs was reserved for us, there being the usual gallery for the congregation upstairs. Here in front of us, a little oak desk before him, and a white rod about 12 feet long and 1 inch in diameter beside him, sat the master for two mortal hours. I fancy I can see him now—a tall man, with spectacles, collar and stock, sitting bolt upright, grasping with one hand his white pole and with the other his Prayer-Book. Always intent on his devotions, he nevertheless seemed to have half a dozen eyes; for though we were rude enough to call him ‘Four eyes’ (behind his back), we really had reason to believe him possessed of a much larger number. For with his white pole he could reach every boy on the gallery, and though he never struck us with it, he did worse, for he prodded us. When he saw any boy inattentive, sleeping, or in mischief, he would put down his books, make a rest of his left hand, and prod with his right. It was not pleasant—in fact, it hurt very much—when one received in quick succession several prods on the chest or in the ribs, where they generally got home. I used to get into mischief on that gallery on which I sat four hours every Sunday for many years. But I got afraid of the long pole, with the cane to follow on the Monday. So I determined to be a good boy.

If boys did not buy their Bibles, Prayer-Books, and hymn-books, they had to go without them excepting in school. There were no penny ones in those days, and I wish there were none now. A Prayer-Book cost sixpence at the lowest, and we used to pay the master a halfpenny a time, which he duly placed to our credit. When a boy had paid his last halfpenny, he became the proud owner of a new black and shining Prayer-Book, and he thought something of it. Proudly and promptly his name was written in it, coupled with a warning to thieves; neatly was it covered in brown paper or calico; jealously was it guarded and treasured, for it had cost something: it had been worked for, hoped for, and waited for. Things had for nothing are lightly esteemed; the value of anything equals its cost. Nothing is more sad—I think I ought to say disgusting—than to see the way in which at all Sunday-schools (church or chapel) the hymn-books, Prayer-Books, and Bibles are used. Cheap and nasty in their printing and paper, shoddy altogether in the putting together, which cannot be called binding, they cost nothing, they are worth nothing, they are valued at nothing, and the dust-heap becomes the receptacle of the bulk of them.

But we thought something of ours, and I, who had never seen any book in my father’s house but the old family Bible with the Apocrypha and family register in, learned my Prayer-Book off by heart as I sat for four hours a Sunday on the gallery. It kept me out of mischief, and it strengthened or trained my memory, but it also—and this was the chief glory—allowed me more time to play during the week. Sunday by Sunday, year in and year out, in the old chancel for Sunday-school, we had to repeat aloud individually the Collect, Gospel, and the Epistle for the day. They were supposed to be learned during the week. On the gallery, white pole in front of me, during those interminable sermons mornings and afternoons, I committed to memory the whole of them, and so had nothing to learn during the week—and the master thought I was a devout boy.

When I became possessed of a Bible of my own, I went for the poetry of Isaiah and the Psalms. At the Sunday-school, morning and afternoon, they gave us tickets, which were saved up and counted at the end of the year. They were little bits of cardboard, marked ‘A.’ for attendance, ‘L.’ for lessons, ‘C.’ for conduct. In addition, if boys committed to memory and recited on Sunday extra chapters, they were credited with the number of verses repeated. I used to get all possible tickets, and a large credit of extra verses.

What an event the prize-giving day was in that old chancel! The boys all there, scrupulously clean, nearly all clad alike, for choice of clothing was limited; corduroy trousers, a Holland tunic with leathern belt, home-made linen collars, and Scotch caps made out of a sound piece of some disused garment was the general rule. The vicar and his curate, the master in his collar and stock, the clergy from neighbouring villages, and various ladies and gentlemen were gathered there. Then the prizes—what a heap of them, to be sure! I wonder what the boys of to-day would think of them—few or no books, no toys, no cricket-bats or footballs, but yards of calico, flannel, or cotton goods! Many a time I have staggered home with a big parcel of such ‘prizes’; but how well I remember that mothers were very glad of them! Very few books were given, and those were of the old-fashioned ‘goody’ sort, in which a bad boy came to a bad end, and a good boy died young, and which made it appear that there was a very bad look-out for lads either way.

There was one particular Sunday in the year in which the boys had to uphold their superiority over girls, and the next Sunday girls tried their best to prove themselves better than boys. Both boys and girls became excited about it, so much so that I have seen them fight over the matter. This was Catechism Sunday, for which boys and girls would train and practise for weeks beforehand, both at school and at home. If the boys did well, a half-day’s holiday at the Sunday-school was given them, with full marks and tickets. But if the girls did best, they got the tickets and the half-holiday.

On the Sunday afternoon appointed the boys, with clean collars and tunics, would be arranged by the master along the aisles of the church—a double row—facing each other. The clergyman in the three-decker pulpit would be interrogator, and put the question of the Catechism, and each boy in his turn would answer the question put to him. The schoolmaster would arrange the boys, and from their lessons in the day-school would know how to place them so that the longer and harder answers would fall to boys who were good at repetition. Every mistake was noted down by the clergyman and schoolmaster, and by the girls, who were eager listeners. The girls had their turn the following Sunday, with the boys for listeners. The side that made the fewest mistakes were champions for the year. If any boy or girl made a comical mistake, or mispronounced a word, he or she would be known by the mispronounced word for many a day. We got a lot of fun and many quarrels out of the Catechism, and though it generally fell to me to tell the clergyman what was the duty I owed to my neighbour, and though my knowledge was perfect, I am much afraid that I never attained to its performance. So Sunday and week-day boys were under the watchful eye of the schoolmaster, and though in trying to get the better of him we sometimes dropped in for the worst (for he was a big man with a strong arm), we loved him, and he loved us, rascals though we were.

In those days boys went to work at a very early age; many lads that I knew went to work in the pits before they were ten years old, and started from home before five o’clock in the morning in order to be at the pit’s mouth before six, that they might descend to earn sixpence by twelve hours’ labour plus a two-mile walk. Holidays were never heard of unless there was some accident to the engine or machinery. Times were hard and wages were low; food was very dear. Bread was a shilling per loaf, and bad at that, sugar sixpence per pound, dirty and adulterated. Tea was about six shillings per pound, and in those days much of it was not tea. So before I was twelve I found myself in the iron foundry, working fourteen hours a day, getting three shillings per week, and thinking I was a man.

But before I left this school, a dark, bronzed, and severe-looking man came in one day, and I was called out of class to work a problem on the blackboard for him. I suppose it was done fairly, for I went back to the class thrilling with the touch of Dr. Livingstone. He had said something to me, and placed his hand on my head. I never knew what he said, but I felt his hand, and my heart and pulses beat the faster. Now, if I had been a good boy, I should have been inspired by that touch, and have decided then and there to become a missionary, but truth compels me to say that I was not a good boy, and did not feel called to the missionary field; but I did feel inspired—I felt certain that I could kill lions. But after all, you see, I am in the direct line of succession. A great missionary’s hand has been laid upon my head, and not ‘all the water in the rough, rude sea can wash away the balm.’

But that was not the reason why I became a missionary; in fact, there was no particular reason why I should, but there was a long chain of circumstances, a series of events looking small enough in themselves at the time, but, seen in the light of experience, to me large and important events. But who shall say what is great or small in our lives’ history? It was a small thing that led me to a night-school, and to teach there for years after a hard, long day’s work, but I did it. Temperance societies, literary societies, mutual improvement societies are small things, but I worked hard for them all; and if I did not do a lot of good to others, I did some good to myself; if I could not teach much, I could learn a lot. It was a small thing that led me to take a men’s Bible class in a purely Welsh-speaking district on Sunday afternoons, but it altered the course of my life, made a missionary of me against my will, and brought me to London to write this book.

The Divinity that shapes our ends shaped mine in a painful manner. Let me tell you how. It was a beautiful Sunday morning in early June, and I had gone with my boy and my Bible into the grounds of an old Welsh castle for the purpose of quietly preparing my afternoon lesson. It was a beautiful spot; the old ivy-covered castle behind me, a lovely valley in front, beyond which rose the Welsh mountains, while the sheen of the sea was visible some miles to the right. As I lay prone with my Bible before me, I forgot in the enjoyment of the morning all about the afternoon, for I had to learn another lesson. I knew the poetry of Isaiah, and I called out: ‘ “He weighs the hills in a balance, He measures the water in the hollow of His hand”; “He spreadeth out the heavens as a curtain.” ’ I was full of oxygen and ecstasy. Immediately below me was a plain famous in Welsh history, for great battles had been fought there. So by one of those tricks of the mind—my mind, at any rate—I found myself at home, not with Isaiah, but Ingoldsby. ‘And I thought upon Wales and her glories, and all I’d been told of her heroes of old.’ I was just reeling it off when——‘See me roll, papa!’ I looked at my boy as he rolled about, and instead of laughing, I began to feel pathetic, with a sort of lump in my throat. I don’t know whether other folk are the same, but the sight of a happy child brings to me thoughts too deep for tears. Alone on a mountain-top, in the solitude of woods, or alone by the sea-shore, I experience the same feelings. I could not talk to my boy, so he spoke to me. ‘You roll, papa!’ and he pushed at me. I rolled. I heard his merry laugh. I rolled again, and then—chaos. Some time after I heard a little voice say, ‘Have you woke up, papa?’ I stared stupidly. I could see the sky above, and that was all; at length I realized that I was in the castle moat, and I remembered rolling. ‘I am only sick and giddy,’ I said to myself. But the feeling did not pass off, so I managed to crawl home, for I lived close by. I did not leave my bed for some months, for I had broken blood vessels, and streams of blood ran from my mouth. Thus I became a missionary, though suffering and pain and poverty for dark days and anxious years followed that Sunday morning—years in which I was learning my lesson. Slow years they were, not of sorrow, nay, nay, but years of grinding anxiety. I could not dig, to beg I was ashamed, and no man gave unto us. Several times I tried the iron foundry again, but I was weak and ill, hæmorrhage still threatened me, and having made up my mind not to die, I had to find some way to live.

Thank God, my wife never went out to work or took in washing, nor yet plain sewing—hand in hand we faced it. I look back into those years, and see our little home in a colliery district of Shropshire. I see that little home every evening turned into a night-school. I see my gentle wife leaning over big-fisted colliers and teaching them to write: I see myself leaning over one and teaching him cube root, over another and teaching him simple addition. I see those colliers paying their sixpences. I see the rent put ready for Monday, and I remember how little there was left for Saturday night marketing. Those old days come back to me, and not for one moment do I wish them blotted out; nay, nay, I feel some pride in them. But I take another backward look, and we are in Staffordshire again, and my boys are going to the same old school that I went to. But times have altered at that school, for I see my boys winning scholarships and going to a grammar school, and started on an educational course that led one at least to a distinguished University career; but still hard times, hard times, for wife and me. We lived at an institute—library, reading-room, billiard-rooms, refreshment-rooms, skittle alleys, dispensary, club-rooms, gymnasium, all combined, and all to look after and keep clean. Wife and I had no finger-nails in those days; we wore them away scrubbing floors, for there was no one to help in any department. But here, also, was a night-school, which I had to teach; a literary society, that I had to conduct; and a mutual improvement society, also for me to fill up my spare time with. Hard work and poor pay was the rule in those days.

But one day a saint of God and king of men came in, as indeed he often did, for it was my privilege and joy to know and love him, my proudest boast to call him friend. Only a country parson, who laid down his life for his flock; but it was an inspiration to know him, with his strength and meekness, brave and fearless as any hero that ever trod this earth, gentle, loving, and sympathetic as any woman. How often have I wished him back with us!

‘Thomas, you are not doing very well here.’

‘No, Vicar, I am not.’

‘This place is not good enough for you.’

‘I don’t know about that, but it is not good enough for my wife.’

‘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.