* * *
Down in the crypt of St. Martin's Church, the church whose doors never close, I saw a remarkable sight. Broad, white arches spanned a dim gloom. Certain benches were set facing the east, as in the church above, and others were placed round the crypt. Lying, sitting upright, and huddled in every position of which the human body is capable, were men and women, homeless wanderers over the hard face of the earth.
There was no sound in the white crypt but variously keyed snores and the small scratch of a policewoman's pen as she kept a record of Christ's guests, for such they are; and as I looked at them these words sang in my heart: "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
Sanctuary. That was it. They had the hunted air of having run hard to find this place, and, having found it, had abandoned themselves to safety. There was something else. They reminded me of a picture that used to thrill me when I was a child: troops, rolled in their cloaks beside dead fires, sleeping before a battle. Their battle was To-morrow.
* * *
There was a young girl who could not sleep. She was wrapped tightly in a blue mackintosh. She sat with her eyes wide open, gazing before her. There was a grey-haired woman sleeping upright in a pew, a poor, rakish hat on a pile of prayer-books beside her. Three or four other women slept near together, leaning against each other, as if for warmth.
Most of the men slept. Some had no overcoats, and lay huddled with their tousled heads on hassocks. Others had placed their coats over their heads. One or two wore spats, and appeared from their clothes to be prosperous. Then you looked at their boots, and read a story of tramp, tramp, tramp. One elderly man, awakened suddenly, shot out an arm to look at his wrist-watch. But there was no watch there, and he drew his hand swiftly under his coat again as though it hurt.
* * *
"Some extraordinary dramas have been acted on the steps outside in the small hours," said a young man officially connected with the church. "Once a girl was saved from white-slavers; once I brought in a boy so blue with cold that I had to open the furnace doors without delay, and thaw him. Most of the 'down-and-outs' know this church. Many of them we manage to set up again, some sink back or just disappear. Yet we never lose faith in human nature. A homeless person is allowed to shelter here only three nights in succession. After that we try to find some other abode, so you see our visitors are always changing."
He opened a door, and I found myself in a cellar full of old clothes. Boxes of collars lay on the floor. A knowing looking silk hat crowned a pile of old hats. Women's skirts and men's trousers hung from pegs. Boots and shoes stood neatly dressed by the right.