Another of the poor refugees helped by Pastor Anet to escape from Brussels came to our house in Liverpool. She appeared to be in pain, and on being questioned she replied that she was suffering from unhealed stripes on her back and shoulders from the lash of this tyrant.
I drew from her, when alone, the story of her martyrdom. The keeper of this house in Brussels, enraged with her because of her persistent refusal to participate in some exceptionally base proceedings among his clients, had her carried to an underground chamber, whence her cries could not be heard. She was here immured and starved, and several times scourged with a thong of leather. But she did not yield. This poor delicate girl had been neglected from childhood. She was a Catholic, but had had little or no religious teaching. She told me, with much simplicity, that in the midst of these tortures she was “all the time strengthened and comforted by the thought that Jesus had Himself been cruelly scourged, and that He could feel for her.”
Before her capture she had one day seen in a shop window in Brussels an engraving of Christ before Pilate, bound and scourged. Some persons, no doubt, may experience a little shock of horror at the idea of any connection in the thoughts of this poor child between the supreme agony of the Son of God and her own torments in the cellar of that house of debauchery. We often sincerely mourn over these victims as “lost” because we cannot reach them with any word of love or the “glad evangel.” But He “descended into hell,” into the abode of the “spirits in prison,” to speak to them; and I believe, and have had many testimonies to the fact, that He visits spiritually these young souls in their earthly prison many a time, He alone, in all His majesty of pity, without any intervention of ours.
Josephine Butler published in May a statement making definite charges of gross ill-treatment of young girls in Brussels, and these charges were substantiated in a deposition on oath, made in response to a formal application from the Belgian authorities, under the Extradition Act. Some months later she sent a copy of her deposition to the editor of Le National in Brussels, intending it merely to be used in connection with evidence, which he had to give before a Commission then sitting on the subject. He however published it in Le National, and it created a great sensation throughout Belgium.
To her sister.
You can imagine that on first hearing of this I felt a little troubled, and as if I had been “given away.” Also persons friendly to us, such as Lambillon, Hendrick and others, who had given us information from a good motive, were angry at seeing their names published as having had any knowledge whatever of these evil things; and I was pained to think of their pain.
I was pondering all this one evening, when I suddenly recollected that on New Year’s Day of this year, and for many days after, I had taken upon me to make a special and definite request to God for light to fall upon these “dark places of the earth, wherein are the inhabitants of cruelty.” Some strong influence seemed to urge me to make this request. I used to kneel and pray, “O God, I beseech Thee, send light upon these evil deeds! Whatever it may cost us and others, flash light into these abodes of darkness. O send us light, for without it there can be no destruction of the evil. We cannot make war against a hidden foe. In the darkness these poor sisters of ours, these creatures of Thine, are daily murdered, and we do not know what to do or where to turn, and we find no way by which to begin to act. Send us light, O our God, even though it may be terrible to bear.” I had made a record of this petition, and then I had forgotten it. But not so our faithful God. His memory is better than mine! He did not forget, and He is now sending the answer to that prayer. Then I thought of the words, “O fools, and slow of heart to believe.” Here is the very thing I had asked for, brought about in a way I had not dreamed of.
One consequence of these revelations was the dismissal of M. Lenaers, the Chief of the Brussels Police des mœurs, followed by the resignation of his principal subordinate. Another consequence was the formation of a strong committee in London for the suppression of the white slave traffic. The proposals of this committee in regard to legislation were ultimately adopted in that portion of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1885, which deals with offences connected with other countries. The matter was still further advanced many years later, largely owing to the efforts of Mr. W. A. Coote, by the Governments of Europe signing the International Convention for the suppression of the white slave traffic, 1904. This Convention has no doubt done something towards the suppression of this traffic, but as Josephine Butler frequently pointed out, and as was emphasised in the discussions at the Conference of the Federation in 1908, there is a grave risk, that in those countries, in which the authorities still license immoral houses, the police will not honestly and thoroughly endeavour to prevent the traffic upon which the profits of those houses so largely depend.
[CHAPTER XII.]
REPEAL.
In the spring of 1882 George Butler resigned the Principalship of Liverpool College, and three months later Mr. Gladstone appointed him to a Canonry at Winchester. This year Josephine Butler published The Life of Jean Frederic Oberlin, the gentle and beloved Pastor of the Ban de la Roche (1740-1826), who not only ministered to his people in things spiritual, but also in things material, teaching them to make roads and to grow potatoes. Like John Grey, he changed the whole aspect of the country side, and in his old age his great services were recognised by the award to him of the gold medal of the Royal Agricultural Society of France, and by the King bestowing on him the dignity of Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. The following passage illustrates the great principle of his life—ora et labora.
In our own busy and exciting times, when competition (even in good works) is apt to distract and disturb the heart and the brain of the followers of Christ, to the detriment of calmness and depth, we all require to be reminded of the one and only source of true life and power. Our young, hard-worked ministers, and many other Christian workers, both old and young, engaged in the multitudinous active duties which they are required in these days to fulfil to the last tittle, and in favour of which they too often postpone even the work of waiting upon God, know by bitter experience the deadening effect on the soul of the enforced whirl of active engagements—benevolent, pious, and laudable as these may be. But by whom are these chains enforced, to the disadvantage of the spiritual life? By the tyrant society—even a Christian society, which can in its turn become tyrannical. It would be better to rebel somewhat against this tyranny, to resist the pressure of over-work, and to determine to be often alone with God, even if our hours with Him appeared to rob earth of a small particle of our poor services.