“I have just said it, Mr. Dinneford. But until the churches and the people come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty, he cannot be dislodged. I am standing here, sustained in my work by a small band of earnest Christian men and women, like an almost barren rock in the midst of a down-rushing river on whose turbulent surface thousands are being swept to destruction. The few we are able to rescue are as a drop in the bucket to the number who are lost. In weakness and sorrow, almost in despair sometimes, we stand on our rock, with the cry of lost souls mingling with the cry of fiends in our ears, and wonder at the churches and the people, that they stand aloof—nay, worse, turn from us coldly often—when we press the claims of this worse than heathen people who are perishing at their very doors.
“Sir,” continued the missionary, warming on his theme, “I was in a church last Sunday that cost its congregation over two hundred thousand dollars. It was an anniversary occasion, and the collections for the day were to be given to some foreign mission. How eloquently the preacher pleaded for the heathen! What vivid pictures of their moral and spiritual destitution he drew! How full of pathos he was, even to tears! And the congregation responded in a contribution of over three thousand dollars, to be sent somewhere, and to be disbursed by somebody of whom not one in a hundred of the contributors knew anything or took the trouble to inform themselves. I felt sick and oppressed at such a waste of money and Christian sympathy, when heathen more destitute and degraded than could be found in any foreign land were dying at home in thousands every year, unthought of and uncared for. I gave no amens to his prayers—I could not. They would have stuck in my throat. I said to myself, in bitterness and anger, 'How dare a watchman on the walls of Zion point to an enemy afar off, of whose movements and power and organization he knows but little, while the very gates of the city are being stormed and its walls broken down?' But you must excuse me, Mr. Dinneford. I lose my calmness sometimes when these things crowd my thoughts too strongly. I am human like the rest, and weak, and cannot stand in the midst of this terrible wickedness and suffering year after year without being stirred by it to the very inmost of my being. In my intense absorption I can see nothing else sometimes.”
He paused for a little while, and then said, in a quiet, business way,
“In seeking a remedy for the condition of society found here, we must let common sense and a knowledge of human nature go hand in hand with Christian charity. To ignore any of these is to make failure certain. If the whisky-and policy-shops were all closed, the task would be easy. In a single month the transformation would be marvelous. But we cannot hope for this, at least not for a long time to come—not until politics and whisky are divorced, and not until associations of bad men cease to be strong enough in our courts to set law and justice at defiance. Our work, then, must be in the face of these baleful influences.”
“Is the evil of lottery-policies so great that you class it with the curse of rum?” asked Mr. Dinneford.
“It is more concealed, but as all-pervading and almost as disastrous in its effects. The policy-shops draw from the people, especially the poor and ignorant, hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. There is no more chance of thrift for one who indulges in this sort of gambling than there is for one who indulges in drink. The vice in either case drags its subject down to want, and in most cases to crime. I could point you to women virtuous a year ago, but who now live abandoned lives; and they would tell you, if you would question them, that their way downward was through the policy-shops. To get the means of securing a hoped-for prize—of getting a hundred or two hundred dollars for every single one risked, and so rising above want or meeting some desperate exigency—virtue was sacrificed in an evil moment.”
“The whisky-shops brutalize, benumb and debase or madden with cruel and murderous passions; the policy-shops, more seductive and fascinating in their allurements, lead on to as deep a gulf of moral ruin and hopeless depravity. I have seen the poor garments of a dying child sold at a pawn-shop for a mere trifle by its infatuated mother, and the money thrown away in this kind of gambling. Women sell or pawn their clothing, often sending their little children to dispose of these articles, while they remain half clad at home to await the daily drawings and receive the prize they fondly hope to obtain, but which rarely, if ever, comes.
“Children learn early to indulge this vice, and lie and steal in order to obtain money to gratify it. You would be amazed to see the scores of little boys and girls, white and black, who daily visit the policy-shops in this neighborhood to put down the pennies they have begged or received for stolen articles on some favorite numbers—quick-witted, sharp, eager little wretches, who talk the lottery slang as glibly as older customers. What hope is there in the future for these children? Will their education in the shop of a policy-dealer fit them to become honest, industrious citizens?”
All this was so new and dreadful to Mr. Dinneford that he was stunned and disheartened; and when, after an interview with the missionary that lasted over an hour, he went away, it was with a feeling of utter discouragement. He saw little hope of making head against the flood of evil that was devastating this accursed region.