“I give you this instance, true in nearly every particular,” said the missionary, “in order to show you how incurable is the evil condition of the people here; unless we can get the burning brands apart, they help to consume each other.”
“But how to get them apart? that is the difficult question,” said Mr. Dinneford.
“There are two ways,” was replied—“by forcing the human brands apart, and by interposing incombustible things between them. As we have no authority to apply force, and no means at hand for its exercise if we had the authority, our work has been in the other direction. We have been trying to get in among these burning brands elements that would stand the fire, and, so lessen the ardor of combustion.”
“How are you doing this?”
“By getting better houses for the people to live in. Improve the house, make it more sightly and convenient, and in most cases you will improve the person who lives in it. He will not kindle so easily, though he yet remain close to the burning brands.”
“And are you doing this?”
“A little has been done. Two or three years ago a building association was organized by a few gentlemen of means, with a view to the purchase of property in this district and the erection of small but good houses, to be rented at moderate cost to honest and industrious people. A number of such houses have already been built, and they are now occupied by tenants of a better class, whose influence on their neighbors is becoming more and more apparent every day. Brady street—once the worst place in all this district—has changed wonderfully. There is scarcely a house in the two blocks through which it runs that does not show some improvement since the association pulled down half a dozen of its worst frame tenements and put neat brick dwellings in their places. It is no uncommon thing now to see pavement sweeping and washing in front of some of the smallest and poorest of the houses in Brady street where two years ago the dirt would stick to your feet in passing. A clean muslin half curtain, a paper shade or a pot of growing plants will meet your eyes at a window here and there as you pass along. The thieves who once harbored in this street, and hid their plunder in cellars and garrets until it could be sold or pawned, have abandoned the locality. They could not live side by side with honest industry.”
“And all this change may be traced to the work of our building association, limited as are its means and half-hearted as are its operations. The worst of our population—the common herd of thieves, beggars and vile women who expose themselves shamelessly on the street—are beginning to feel less at home and more in danger of arrest and exposure. The burning brands are no longer in such close contact, and so the fires of evil are raging less fiercely. Let in the light, and the darkness flees. Establish the good, and evil shrinks away, weak and abashed.”