as an example. One very cold morning in January, 1912, Mr. Kline received a telephone message like this, “There is a drunken man with a wife and four children set out on the street at so and so. Bring coffee and food at once.” Just as quickly as they could get the food, Mr. and Mrs. Kline hastened to the relief of that family. The wind was blowing snow and sleet, though it seemed too cold for either. The family, including the drunken father, were brought immediately to the Mission, though their household stuff was left standing on the street, where it remained four days. It was such a miserable collection that even the colored people did not steal any of it. Then it was brought to the Mission and stored in the cellar.
One child was in the hospital from a blow from the father. They were physically comforted and put in the “Shelter,” a place reserved for stranded women and children. By night the father was fairly sober and they were all taken to the religious services in the chapel, where Mr. Connaught heard man after man rise and testify that God had saved him and taken away the appetite for drink. At first there was a sneer on his face, but gradually, as one well dressed man after another bore the same testimony, he cried out, “I have been an infidel, not believing in God or immortality, but if the God you worship can cure me of this awful appetite, I want Him.” He kneeled at one of the front benches, and an awful spectacle of rags and dirt and bloated flesh he was.
I remember thinking, “Surely this case is beyond help,” but God is better than we even dare hope. Several prayers were offered in his behalf, then he prayed for himself, and lo! he prayed with the tongue of the learned. He said, “O God, if there be a God, hear the prayer of the very lowest of Thy children. I need Thee, I am totally undone, I put myself in Thy hands for forgiveness and for discipline. O Lord, save me!”
He kneeled a moment longer, then rose to his feet with a clear brain, and, looking about like one dazed, said, “What has happened, you all look different?” Mr. Kline laid his arm lovingly over the man's shoulders as he said, “Brother Connaught, you have received your sight. The Lord Jesus has come into your soul.”
The next morning the Associated Charities had him arrested for non-support of his family. Judge DeLacy, a good man, was on the bench. One of our workers said to the judge, “This man was converted last night, and if you will give him a chance he will now support his family.” “Oh, yes, most anyone would be converted rather than go to Occoquan” (name of the workhouse). “But, judge, this is no fake case; try him.”
The bloated face, the soiled clothing were against him, and the judge sent him up for eleven weeks. The little woman and her children were sent to her relatives in North Carolina by the Board of Charities and Children's Guardians. Some of our workers kept at his side, reminding him that he had put himself in God's hands for discipline, and assuring him that if he could stand true, God had a useful life in store for him. A marked New Testament was given him when he left for down the river. There his head was shaved in the very cold weather, his clothing changed, so that he took a severe cold which came near carrying him off with pneumonia. It took about two weeks to bring political and social influence to bear to have him paroled and sent back to the Mission.
January and February of 1912 were very cold months, it was hard to get any kind of work for men to do, and the only thing we could secure for Connaught was passing circulars at sixty cents a day. That amounts to $3.60 per week; of this he was obliged to pay to the judge $3, to be sent to his wife. In two or three days Mrs. Kline phoned me, “Connaught is trying to live on the rolls and coffee given in the bread line at six o'clock in the morning.” I replied, “Connaught must have oatmeal with cream—real cream, for his diseased stomach; he must have eggs and meat and strong coffee, or he will lose his religion.” “Well, who is going to provide all that?” “The Lord has money enough for that.” “Well, suppose you bring some of it right along,” which of course I did.
About the tenth day after he began circulating papers, the work gave out. We really prayed night and day, for we feared he would be rearrested and we had no money to support him. In a few days he secured work at digging on the streets at $1.25 per day. He had never been accustomed to manual labor, so when I sympathized with him on his poor blistered hands, he said, “I am so glad to get the work that the hurt is nothing.” Think of that for a man who had not done a lick of work, physically or mentally, for months and months.
Long before this we had found that he was a graduate of an English university, had lived in good style, keeping servants, he had possessed a nice home when he was first married, but when he found the habit of drink had fastened itself upon him, he came to this country hoping to break away from old companions and surroundings, and thus get away from the sin which bound him.
He tried all the cures; in fact, all his property not spent in drink went to the cures, but nothing cured him. We found he had been a first-class bookkeeper for one of the great railroads centering at Washington, so we applied to them. I am glad to say they took an immediate interest in the case.