68. P. D. came into the mission drunk one night and was converted. Several times previous to this he had been thrown out for disturbing the meeting. According to his own statement he entered the mission one time and was “saved and stayed saved.” He is now general labor foreman for a large construction company.
Of course there are temporary converts who become victims of their old environment. For awhile they go straight, but eventually they yield to “the world, the flesh, and the devil.” Some periodic converts kneel before the altar every year and each time go out with renewed determination to avoid sin, but they often succumb the first time they are subjected to temptation. The mission workers expect this periodicity of conversion with some of these men just as they expect the winter.
“Backsliders” are usually well meaning men but weak. Any convert who remains on the “stem” is likely to become a “backslider.” The emotional nature of many of these men may induce a mood of sincere repentance, but it is difficult to keep the resolution to reform.
69. L. S. is a youth of the city. He is twenty-three. His parents are strict German Lutherans and he spent several years in a Lutheran parochial school. He left home over a month ago (April, 1922) because of some trouble he had with his folks. Shortly after he entered the —— —— Mission on Madison Street where he “got religion” but in a week he “back slid.” He was melted into consenting and was rushed to the front and “saved” before he knew what had happened. After the men on the outside laughed at him he “weakened.” Now he feels that there is “nothing to religion anyway,” though he admits that the mission worker at one time kept him out of jail.
MISSION BREAD LINES
During the winter of 1921-22, twelve of the missions in Chicago, maintained “bread lines,” that is, dispensed food, as coffee and doughnuts, or a bowl of soup and vegetables. The term “bread line,” used figuratively for “free lunch,” originally described the long lines of men during years of want and unemployment waiting outside relief stations for bread and soup.
Missions without “bread lines” claim that the food is given as a bait to get conversions. They hold that “meal ticket” converts lose their religion as soon as they become economically self-sustaining. The unregenerate homeless man looks down upon the regular attendants at the mission, and accuses them of getting converted for “pie card” reasons. He calls them “mission stiffs,” a term as uncomplimentary as for an Indian to be called a “squaw man.”
A FREE LUNCH AT A MISSION