When I was called to assist in the Gospel Mission, I was not a novice in rescue work, having been among the workers of the Sunday Breakfast Association in Philadelphia, Pa., for twelve years under the direction of Mr. Lewis Bean, probably one of the ablest mission workers of this or any other country. The Sunday Breakfast is, so far as I know, the largest Rescue Mission of this country.
HOW GOD CALLED ME
When I moved from Washington to Philadelphia, I found myself very lonely. I had been President of a Collegiate Institute at Atchison, Kan., from 1870 to 1885, when, because of failure of health, I came East, and took up literary work. At Washington, where I lived from 1885 to 1888, I soon came in contact with literary people, and belonged to both literary and scientific clubs, some of whose members are to this day strong personal friends. But in the twelve years in Philadelphia I never became much acquainted with university people, authors' clubs, Browning or Shakespeare clubs, although I knew they were all there. God had to break me loose from too great devotion to that side of life in order to use me for more spiritual work.
One evening, in the summer of 1888, I came along Arch Street where, in a basement room at Broad and Arch, some women were holding a prayer service. I entered and joined with them. Three poor, ragged, soiled men were converted. I saw the women were even more inexperienced with the phenomena of sudden conversions than I was. So I stepped forward and pledged the converts to a Christian life. Then I appealed to the good men present to see that the converts had a good meal that night, and asked for work for them. Good men at once promised both.
When the meeting was dismissed a gentleman came to me and said, “We need you at the Sunday Breakfast Association to speak next Sunday night. We shall have over 1000 men present, all needing to find God. You are one of the women who can speak without any of the Little Johnny death-bed scenes, and we need you.” I replied, “If you asked me to talk on Dickens, Shakespeare, or any literary character, I could easily do it, but to win souls to Christ, I am not at all sure I could do it.” He did not argue, he simply said, “I give you your opportunity.” That startled me, and I said, “I will try.”
So the next Sunday evening at the Breakfast Association I made my first talk before an audience largely of the submerged tenth. The galleries and the platform were filled with well-dressed people, and, instead of trying to save some soul, I tried to make a fine speech. My rhetoric was perfect, my periods nicely rounded, my illustrations pertinent, and I sat down pretty well satisfied with my fine self. Mr. Bean saw what I had done, so he shook a few grains out of all the chaff I had given them, made the application, and let me down as easily as he could.
But while I sat there God's Spirit dealt with me. “What if a mother of one of these lost men had had your opportunity,” said God's Spirit, “would she have talked platitudes to the galleries and the platform? Would she? Would she?” I saw my sin. As I fled from the house I nearly cried aloud in my shamefaced grief. When I got to my room I went to my knees and I cried to God my deep shame, “Dear Father, I have sinned. I know now that is not my work. My business is to instruct the intellect. I will leave the winning of souls to preachers and mothers. Help me to bear the testimony of a well-ordered Christian life, speaking for you in my own social set, but I am not equal to facing those who have looked long into the eyes of sin and suffering and sorrow, and are uncomforted with a knowledge of Thy grace.”
So I felt I had disposed of that, and determined to keep to literature forevermore. The next day the card of a woman whom I had met in the highest social circles of Washington was sent to my room. As I came down through the hall I saw in front of the house her carriage with footman and driver and team of Kentucky-bred horses. When I entered she broke out in a sort of wail, “I hear you spoke at the Breakfast Association last night.” “Yes, and made a great guy of myself. I do not expect to ever go there again, except as a spectator. I fear I am more literary than religious.”
I wish I could describe the next few minutes. Her face blazed. “You, you!” she said; “why you had a father a minister, your mother a praying woman, and you not to go there to speak to lost men, if you have the opportunity! You have had everything which training can give, and you refuse to reach a hand to lost men.”
“Well, what does that concern you?”