The residents do whatever work is entrusted to them by the Head, in the daytime working at the Charity Organisation offices, Children's Country Holiday Fund, Sanitary Aid Committee; in the evening running boys' clubs and men's clubs and Church Lads' Brigades, visiting in the London Hospital on Mondays, visiting the sick and others in the parish of St. Matthew's, now specially connected with the House, and doing innumerable odd jobs for the parish clergy round, with whom they are all on the most friendly footing.
And that brings me lastly to the definitely religious work of East London. It is here that the result of leaving for so long one million people to themselves shows itself in the most disastrous form. The habit of church-going or chapel-going has been almost entirely lost, and it is only after the most patient efforts on the part of the clergy and others that it can be brought again into the district. After sampling on several occasions eighty men (invited to the garden parties spoken of above) out of different streets taken in turn, I discovered that only about one in eighty went either to church or chapel, and out of a thousand boys of the age of fourteen or fifteen who were questioned on entering one of our large boys' clubs, nine hundred were found to have "g.n." written after their names, which means "goes nowhere." Now, to the readers of The Quiver I know that this will seem a very appalling thing, and will show that we have what is practically, from a religious point of view, a pagan population at our very doors.
On whom, then, does the great stress and strain of converting this pagan population fall? Let us give all credit to the good work done by Nonconformists in the district, with whom we are on excellent terms: let us acknowledge the wonderful gatherings in Mr. Charrington's Hall: and in the Pavilion, under the preaching of Mr. George Nokes; the good work by Dr. Stephenson in his Children's Homes; and by Dr. Barnardo in his boys' work at Stepney Causeway; and by other workers scattered up and down the district; but I think all would admit that the great strain and stress of the work falls upon those who actually live in the very midst of the people, each of them with their seven thousand to ten thousand, and sometimes twenty thousand, souls to look after.
It is they whose door-bell rings continuously; it is they to whom everyone comes in the hour of distress, whether they attend the church or not; and it is they and the band of workers they have gathered round them who are laying deep the foundations of the future City of God, and who are working, with a few exceptions, day and night to bring wanderers into the fold.
The people are not irreligious, only non-religious, and all they need is patient and loving work in their midst. To attend a parish gathering is like going to a happy family party, on such excellent terms are the clergy and their workers with the people, and when in some churches you find five hundred East-End communicants in the early morning on Easter Day, no one can question the self-sacrifice and earnestness of those who have once been thoroughly converted.
The great need, of course, is more workers and it is to supply more workers that the East London Church Fund exists. It is spent wholly on workers, not on buildings at all; and it is my earnest desire, with the help of the Bishop of Islington, who is an experienced East-End worker himself, and who has now taken over the North London district, to raise that fund to £20,000 this year to meet the urgent appeals for more workers which come to us from the poorer parts of East and North London. The Fund covers an area of 1,800,000 people, most of whom are poor.
(Photo: C. E. Fry and Son, Gloucester Terrace, S.W.)
CANON BARNETT.
(Warden of Toynbee Hall.)