T
LIBRARY
Walter E. Fernald
State School
Waverley, Massachusetts
No.
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A COLONY OF MERCY
SOCIAL CHRISTIANITY AT WORK
[All rights reserved]
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A COLONY OF MERCY
OR
SOCIAL CHRISTIANITY AT WORK
BY
JULIE SUTTER
WITH TWENTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS AND PLAN
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD & CO.
5, EAST 19TH STREET
1893
THIS BOOK
THE COUNTRY OF HER ADOPTION
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
♦
A WORD in explanation. About a year ago, the
writer found herself at this Colony of Mercy, this
Bethel. She did not know much about it, she had gone
to take a work there — a work for Africa, too much for
her own hands — and she went to fasten its threads in
that Pastor's study. But having gone for one thing
she brought away another : she brought away a vision
of a Programme of Christianity realised. She had
translated into German the booklet which sets forth the
mission of Christianity, showing it to be a comforting
of all that mourn. Strangely enough, the booklet was
printing just as she got to Bethel, the proof-sheets
actually finding her there, and how could she help
seeing the Programme realised before her eyes — for
Bethel is a comforter of all who mourn, proving her-
self such comforter in her wondrous work. " To bind
up the broken- hearted" says the Programme, " to give
unto them beauty for ashes ; the oil of joy for mournings
and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness."
These words were ringing in her ears as she went about
viii Introductory Note
the Colony, and she knew — for she saw it — the Pro-
gramme is true.
Thus the keynote of the booklet is the keynote of
this story, the true reading of Bethel having come to
her like a harmony set to this key. Bethel appeared
as a working model of the booklet's teaching. A Pro-
gramme deduced from the spirit of Christianity, however
beautiful, might yet remain a vision only, a noble theory ;
but she saw this vision realised, and knew therefore it
speaks true.
J. s.
Hampstead,
April, 1893,
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
PRISONERS OF ZION I
" The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness."
CHAPTER II
THE GROUNDWORK 14
" The righteous is an everlasting foundation "
CHAPTER III
BETHEL 24
" A city set on a hill."
CHAPTER IV
WALKS ABOUT BETHEL 47
" Your bodies a reasonable service."
CHAPTER V
MORE WALKS ABOUT BETHEL 74
" Out of the mouth of babes Thou hast perfected praise."
x Contents
CHAPTER VI
PAGE
THE MINISTRY OF MERCY 90
" Serving the Lord."
CHAPTER VII
BABY CASTLE . . .Ill
"Suffer the little children to come unto Me."
CHAPTER VIII
BETHEL TO THE RESCUE 131
..." saiv much people and was moved with compassion toward
them."
CHAPTER IX
THE LABOUR COLONY I45
" There is room."
CHAPTER X
DARKEST GERMANY TRAMPING 171
" Compel them to come in."
CHAPTER XI
THE SPIRITUALLY EPILEPTIC 1 92
"Am I my brother s keeper ? "
CHAPTER XII
THE CAVE OF ADULLAM 211
"And every one in distress , and every one in debt, and every one
discontented, gathered themselves unto him, and he became
a captain over them."
Contents xi
CHAPTER XIII
PAGE
workman's home 226
" Beauty for ashes."
CHAPTER XIV
THE I5ROCKEN SAMMLUNG 256
" Gather up the fragments ."
CHAPTER XV
THE MESSAGE OF BETHEL TO OURSELVES . . . 275
" Go and do likewise."
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
I. PASTOR von bodelschwingh .... Frontispiece
II. ZION CHURCH Facing page I
III. VIEW OF THE CHURCH HILL FROM THE SPARRENBURG Page II
IV. TENT FOR PATIENTS ,, 21
V. EBEN-EZER ,, 29
VI. BETHEL HOUSE ,,36
VII. THE COLONY AS SEEN FROM THE RISING HILL
COUNTRY BEHIND HEBRON ,, 49
VIII. PATIENTS AT NINEPINS ,, 6l
IX. i; WELL BOWLED ! " ,,62
X. THE "FIELD-MARSHAL" OUT WITH THE BETHEL GIRLS ,, 64
XL CENTRE OF THE~COLONY
XII. THE SISTERS* HOME OF REST .
XIII. A SISTER AND HER CHARGES .
XIV. KINDERHEIM
XV. PASTOR VON BODELSCHWINGH's MANSE
XVI. THE LABOUR COLONY, WILHELMSDORF
XVII. COLONISTS RECLAIMING THE SOIL .
> )
yj
• • • 1J
99
,,
104
,,
117
,,
131
J ,
143
• • • >5
151
List of Illustrations xiii
XVIII. A COLONIST ARRIVING AT WILHELMSDORF . . Page 1 56
XIX. A COLONIST LEAVING ,, 157
XX. COLONISTS PEELING POTATOES ,, 1 62
XXI. "SAREPTA CONVALESCENTS . . . ,, I95
XXII. THE COLONY AS SEEN " FROM WORKMAN'S HOME " . ,, 235
GROUND-PLAN OF THE COLONY .... Appendix
THE PROGRAMME
To bind up the broken-hearted ;
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to them that are bound.
To comfort all that mourn.
To give unto them —
Beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.
m /■'
ZION CHURCH.
A
CHAPTER I
PRISONERS OF ZION
" The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness."
FEW years ago a church was opened, the founda-
tion stone of which had been laid by the late
Emperor Frederick, then Crown Prince of Germany.
It is a beautiful church rising in a beech wood on a hill
in the Teutoburger Forest. It is cruciform, and the
people who meet there in a peculiar sense are bearing
a cross. " Come unto Me, ye heavy laden," says a
marble-wrought figure of Christ, the Healer, over the
main porch ; and as you enter with eyes uplifted, you
read the words over the high-arched chancel : "When
the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion," or, as the
German version, looking to a " restoring " to come, has it,
with fuller meaning, " When the Lord shall release the
bound ones of Zion, we shall be like them that dream."
Fitly, this church has been called Zion Church, for
the hundred and twenty-sixth Psalm in a beautiful
metrical rendering is the favourite song — the song of
longing, of hope, and of promise — of that congregation.
It is a congregation of epileptics. Fourteen hundred of
them are now gathered around that church. The name
of the colony is Bethel.
2 A Colony of Mercy
Bethel is not an asylum, not a charitable institution as
we know them ; it is rather, and in the fullest sense, a
colony of mercy, a commonwealth of sufferers — the care
of epileptics being the central object round which other
needs have gathered, and as they arose, have been met.
Bethel never was planned : it is a growth, a living
thing.
From the main entrance of the church you have a
lovely view into what has popularly come to be called
the " Silly Valley," which name, however, is fast being
replaced by that of " Happy Valley," and the visitor
to the imbeciles and half-imbeciles sheltered there will
not be slow to discover the reason. We shall pay a
visit presently to the several Homes nestling in its
winding length ; we are at this moment content with
the view at our feet. It is a farmhouse to which one
or two newer buildings have been added ; the beech
wood opening out before you, the hills rising behind,
frame this picture, and the whole seems a vision of
peace. You are having a peep into the cradle of the
place. That farmhouse — it was named Eben-Ezer —
saw the seed-planting of all this colony ; there, just
five and twenty years ago, a beginning was made with
four epileptics. If a creation, Bethel is a creation from
above ; but faith was the soil, love was the seed, and
there has been a mighty outcome.
The colony now consists of five distinct branches : —
I. The Homes for Epileptics, these being the Bethel
proper.
II. The Westphalian Mother-house for the Training
of Deaconesses — Sarepta — which in the course of little
Prisoners of Zion 3
more than twenty years has produced a nursing and
working staff of six hundred Sisters.
III. The Westphalian Brotherhood — NAZARETH —
forming the male complement of the Deaconesses' Insti-
tution ; it was started fourteen years ago, and over two
hundred Deacons or Brothers have since been trained.
IV. The Labour Colony — WlLHELMSDORF — to grapple
with social distress.
V. The Association Workman's Home; a scheme for
providing homes of their own for the labouring classes.
These are the main branches of the work done at
Bethel, but there are offshoots of noble effort in every
direction, which are best left to appear as the story is told.
The forlorn condition of epileptics was the need out
of which Bethel has grown. Has the reader any idea
how many of our fellow-creatures are suffering from this
terrible disease ? It is difficult to get at reliable statistics,
for epilepsy is one of the sorrowful afflictions of mankind
which both the sufferers and their friends endeavour to
hide ; but by a simple process, seeking to minister to
a host of out-patients over and above the flock taken in,
and by special researches from parish to parish, the
workers of Bethel have arrived at the conclusion that
one and a half to two per thousand is probably within the
mark. But this means seventy to a hundred thousand
epileptics in Germany. If this estimate may be applied
to England — and why should it not ? the disease is as
old as mankind and known all over the globe — nay,
taking but one per thousand, there would be about forty
thousand epileptics in this country. Are there ? Then
where are they, and what is being done for them ?
4 A Colony of Mercy
Epilepsy is a mysterious and fearful affliction, an
unsolved problem. It is a disorder of the borderland
between body and soul, its seat the nerve-centres and
the brain — this is about all even medical science can tell
us. It was known to the ancients, and was probably as
frequent then as now. Hippocrates treats of it in a
special pamphlet. We learn from the New Testament
and other sources that its terrors abounded in the time
of our Lord. It prevailed in the Roman Empire, and
frightful indeed were the remedies which were then
employed. According to Origen, epilepsy was the thorn
in the flesh for the removal of which St. Paul thrice
besought the Lord, his prayer not being heard, or, rather,
being heard in the answer, " My grace is sufficient for
thee." Some of the greatest intellects the world has
known have gone through life with this " thorn in the
flesh." Julius Caesar was epileptic, and so was Moham-
med ; Peter the Great also and Napoleon I. suffered
from this malady ; Petrarch and Jean Jacques Rousseau
likewise were epileptics. With these sufferers the afflic-
tion must have been of a kind which befell them at rare
'ntervals only, for it certainly never interfered either with
their ambition or with their clearness of mind. Yet its
deteriorating effects on the mental powers are well
known. To popular perception, this disease has always
been the " morbus sacer" the " morbus dwus" the punish-
ment of the gods, a punishment even for special sin —
" Who has sinned, he or his father ? " Hippocrates knew
better — " It appears to me ' divine ' in no other sense
than any illness is divine ! " The Christian knows that
all illness is divine, sent, not always in punishment, but
Prisoners of Zion 5
always in love. Many of the " bound ones " of Bethel
are learning this lesson, as through the shadow of their
affliction they are growing to be children of peace.
Often enough it is the father's sin, drink especially,*
which lays this cross upon his child ; but it cannot be
said that heredity is the most common factor. According
to the experience of Bethel, the falling sickness in very
many cases is due to a shock to the nervous system, to
which attaches no personal blame. Here is a case of
one rendered epileptic through the sudden news of the
death of a relative. Here is another, a boy coming
upon a mutilated corpse in a wood is seized with fright
and falls in a fit. Here is yet another, a little girl
is playing at her mother's feet, a stroke of lightning
kills the mother, and the little girl from that moment
becomes epileptic. However caused, it is a terrible
affliction. Have you ever witnessed a fit ? seen an
apparently healthy person, your fellow-traveller maybe,
fall at your feet with a shriek that goes through you,
the cry of an anguished soul ? The limbs in con-
vulsions, the head jerking to and fro, the features set
with an expression of unspeakable agony, the eyes
rolling wildly and then glazed as in death, the mouth
foaming, — this is the aggravated fit, and no wonder
people shrink from the sight of it. The poor epileptic
* Though drink is not by any means the only predisposing
cause, yet it has been found that the percentage of this terrible
illness keeps pace with the consumption of alcohol ; in certain
districts in Germany where distilleries flourish, the number from
two rises to four and even six per thousand of the population.
It keeps pace with any kind of debauch ; but these are not the
only causes.
6 A Colony of Mercy
is shunned ; his own family in many cases are almost
ashamed of him ; he is hidden away. In the"[poorer
classes of society, where he ought to gain his own liveli-
hood, who will employ him ? The workshop, the office,
is closed to him ; the church even, once he has had a
seizure there, tells him not again to return. He is con-
demned to starvation, mental, moral, spiritual ; no one
will have him anywhere. Now, this is sad enough, even
when there are means for his sustenance ; but think of
the poor !
Here is a stonemason, on the death of his wife left
with four children under ten, one of these epileptic and
alone with her little sisters. Here is an orphan — there
are scores of them at Bethel — for which a poor parish
could do nothing but pay a pittance to the most
wretched cottage in the village for the keep of that
helpless worm. She had fits almost daily. There are
children, tended now and cared for by the hands of love
at Bethel, haunted in their dreams by the memory of
what they have gone through. A poor man is there, an
imbecile and has been so for years, but remembering, as
often is the case, this and that of his early life before
the never-ending night closed in upon him. He will tell
you, amid sobs, the story of his cruel childhood — he will
tell it you at the least sign of tenderness on your part ;
you have but to stroke his hand, you have but to look
at him with an eye of pity, and you touch that chord.
Here is another case, typical of the hundreds appeal-
ing to Bethel for admission : " I am a cripple, twenty-five
years of age, and since my fourteenth year have suffered
from epileptic fits. The first overtook me just after I
Prisoners of Zion 7
had been apprenticed. I was dismissed from the work-
shop, and though I tried and tried again, anxious to learn
a trade, no master would keep me. I tried work at home,
but it was almost impossible because of the constant
attacks. My parents are very poor, and never could pay
any one to look after me ; they are both at work which
takes them from home daily. Thus I have been in
constant danger of life and limb, with the result of
several serious accidents. I had learned to do a little
fretwork, and was rising from that occupation one day
to sweep away the cuttings. There was a heated stove
in the kitchen, and on it a kettle with boiling water. I
ought not to have gone so near, for I had a fit, fell
unconscious, and lay on the stove, the boiling water
pouring over me. In that state, terribly burned, I was
picked up some time after and taken to the infirmary.
Thirteen months I lay there, my right arm had to be
amputated, and I came away a cripple. The parish since
has allowed me half a crown a week ; I am not there-
fore starving, but what I need more than bread is a
friend to watch over me, and I pray you earnestly,
receive me into your homes." — Yet another case : a father?
a busy workman, from morning to nightfall away in the
town, a stepmother absorbed in her own children, a poor
epileptic youth left to himself, wandering about the
village streets, or roaming the country uncared for, in
constant danger of being run over by passing vehicles.
He has hurt himself badly in his fits. He is, moreover, a
half-paralysed cripple, having a club foot and a palsied
hand.
Ill-cared-for epileptics are to be found everywhere,
8 A Colony of Mercy
and as years go on, the disease works havoc not only
in the bodily frame. They grow irritable, distrustful,
quarrelsome ; but worst of alt, the hand of imbecility is
upon them, and the end is idiotcy, the end is insanity.
Such are met with in every country, an army of helpless-
ness.
To Christianity, this very helplessness constitutes a
plea. To Christian charity every stricken one is a
creditor to whom she has a debt to pay — the debt of
service. One of the saints of the ancient church, once
being taunted with the poverty of his community, pro-
duced the cripples, the sick and suffering of that church,
and said, " These are our treasures." The church of our
own time, the true Christian among us, is learning to say
likewise — These are our treasures, our creditors, we owe
them service. But though there is provision among us
for almost every kind of human suffering, nothing was
done till within the memory of this generation to alleviate
the misery of epileptics. Hidden away with their trouble,
no one has sought them out. If they appealed for help,
there was the poorhouse, there was the idiot asylum,
or possibly a hospital. But are these the places for an
epileptic in the intervals of his affliction ? Remember
he can work, and he ought to work ; for occupation alone,
keeping him from brooding over his trouble, will stay in
a measure the inevitable decay. If taken in hand in
time, not more than five per cent, would be given over
to helpless idiotcy ; yet even though taken in hand —
such at least is the experience of Bethel — not more than
seven to eight per cent, are likely ever to be cured, and
these only the very young ; thus there is an intervening
Prisoners of Zion 9
host to be occupied, to be watched, to have their burden
eased till they lay it down in death. These are the
" bound ones " of Bethel.
Hope of bodily cure, then, is almost precluded ; yet the
great need of the epileptic is not a home for incurables,
but a refuge, a place where he can first of all be at rest,
learning the great lesson, " Rest thou thy soul upon the
Lord." What a restless thing that soul of his has been,
how driven between hope and fear ! How he has spent
himself, seeking help and finding none ! Doctors could
not restore him ; then how anxiously did he try the "un-
failing" remedies of quackery and superstition — there
are hundreds claiming mysterious power and promising
the certain cure — remedies often foolish, often disgusting,
and sometimes immoral, worse almost in their degrading
influence than the disease itself. One need not go back
to the Romans for folly and darkness. Think of the
sufferer's inward state, seeking such help and finding
none! Moreover, if he be a sensitive creature, the constant
cry of his agonised soul is, " I am an outcast, I am set
aside, I am shunned." He is far worse off in this respect
than the lunatic, for the insane man knows nothing of
his insanity, while the epileptic in most cases has a
clear enough perception of his condition. He knows
that every attack of his malady is a deadening blow to
his intellect ; he knows that his irascibility, his helpless
fits of anger, his maliciousness — part, these, of the dis-
temper he writhes under — are but the moral outbursts
of a trouble he cannot overcome. He knows there is an
uncanniness about his affliction which makes even friends
say, " 'Twere better he were dead."
io A Colony of Mercy
This is why first of all " Be still," the true medicine
for all our deepest woes, is the one thing he needs, and
those who would help him must help him first of all to
an atmosphere of that stillness. It is something better
than the tending of his stricken frame in a hospital, some-
thing better than mere shelter in the hour of his weakness,
it is the stillness of the children of Zion lifting their eyes
to the hills whence cometh their aid. " Bring him to
Me," said Christ, when not even the disciples could
help the stricken one ! And there is that about the
life at Bethel, healthful, natural and singularly free from
all religious excitement, which constantly reminds these
sufferers of a healing to come. It goes to one's heart to
hear them sing — that great congregation of incurables —
" When the Lord shall release the bound ones, we shall
be like them that dream ; then our mouth shall be filled
with laughter and our tongue with singing, for the Lord
hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad."
And there is a true measure of gladness with them even
now, a great hope ; they are learning to wait and to be
still. Their Pastors say, and one may see for oneself,
that of their very hymnbooks no part is more used and
leaf-worn than the songs of thanksgiving and of praise.
A strange feeling of awe naturally steals over the
visitor when, for the first time, he meets with this people
in their beautiful church. He has been warned there
will be " fits," and even as he enters he sees the pre-
paration for them — a curtained-off partition in the four
entrance lobbies, with couches which have a sad look of
much use about them. But everything is managed so
quietly ; you hear a moan or a cry, you see some
Prisoners of Zion 13
brothers or sisters rising to take away the sufferer, — it
never creates a disturbance. And what though oc-
casionally a bad fit comes on — it often is but a giddiness,
a momentary unconsciousness, passing like a summer
cloud, yet at times you may witness a serious attack.
The beautiful antiphonal service, maybe, has attuned
your own heart, you are forgetting there is trouble, your
soul is away on the pastures green by the still waters ;
there is a sudden and terrible shriek — shriek upon shriek
as of the lunatic when the spirit tare him. A poor
fellow has started from his seat and falls foaming, the
night of unconsciousness quickly overtaking his vexed
spirit. They have carried him away, and he will be
lying on one of those couches, knowing nothing of his
trouble. The billows are passing over his soul ; he may
wake presently, and in through the little window will
stream the voice of the preacher, the song of the people.
It was close upon such a harrowing attack one Sunday
evening, the people rose and their hymn filled the building
— " Sun of my soul, Thou Saviour dear," they sang, " it is
not night if Thou be near " — and then they went home
through the darkening beech wood quietly, though every
one of these singers knew that he or she might be taken
with such a fit the very next moment, and what assurance
have they it is not the night of death upon them, the
last of their many struggles ? They are learning to be
still, with the stillness of Zion.
I
CHAPTER II
THE GROUNDWORK
"The righteous is an everlasting foundation."
F you ask Pastor von Bodelschwingh who is the
true founder and promoter of the work of mercy
going on beneath the shadow of that church, he will
take you to the quiet burial ground on the hill, at the
farther end of the beech wood. There he will show
you, as the last in a long row of sleepers, the resting-
place of an aged pilgrim. You read an inscription : —
WILHELM HEERMANN,
THE FRIEND OF THE RAVENSBERGER PEOPLE,
Born March 31st, 1800; Died January 26th, 1882.
" The Lord shall be Thine Everlasting Light." — Isaiah lx. 20.
This man had been blind for sixty years. A peasant's
son, of the Ravensberger country, he fell, when a young
man, from the hayloft of his father's farm, had concussion
of the brain, and lost his eyesight. But this closing up
of the outward eye opened the windows of his soul for
the light of heaven to stream in. He became a truly
godly man, a bright Christian, and a blessing through a
long lifetime to the whole country side. That Ravens-
14
Typo EteJiin? C.\Sc.
The Groundwork 1 5
berger Land, a province within the province of West-
phalia, no larger than a moderate English county, owns
a people of peculiar sterling worth, a peasantry of the
good old German type, thriving on their own soil, and
owing no man anything. A Godfearing people of old,
the light of the Gospel had grown dim, hid under
the bushel of a lukewarm ministry. Blind Heermann
saw deeper than others, and knew what was wanting.
Year after year he went about the country from village
to village— it was all he could do — and taught the people
to pray, to pray for Christian pastors. He went pleading
with the earthly authorities for true shepherds to the
people, going, upon occasion, as far as Berlin even, at a
time when railroads were not, to intercede with the king ;
and his pleading and his prayer found answer. From
one pulpit and another the gospel-sound was heard ;
faith grew, and love abounded — that love which, being
blessed in her own home, goes out to the highways and
hedges. It is not as a company of saints those peasant
folk would wish to be spoken of ; theirs is a simple and
wholesome Christianity, and it will appear in the course
of these pages what is understood by Christianity in the
Ravensberger Land. But if you would know what a
Missionsfest is, go there. If these people want a holiday
they go for miles in their Sunday clothes to hear a
missionary on leave, or their own pastors, conversant
with missionary matters, proclaim the victory of the
Cross in heathen lands. And they rejoice in the news,
returning the happier to dairy or plough. They come
long distances, and bring their offerings with them ;
those who have much, give much, but not the least noble
1 6 A Colony of Mercy
are the mites of the poor. Think of a farmer's lassie
found fainting as she was starting for her home after
one of these gatherings. Taken back to the place, she
begged the pastor, amid blushes, to let her have again
one halfpenny of a day's wages she had put into the
plate. She did not earn more than her keep, and had
thought she could go without food that day to send her
little all to the heathen. But she had set out in the grey
dawn of the morning, the way had been long, and a
Missionsfest in Germany never is short ; and though she
had feasted her soul, sitting fasting in the church, here
she was faint for want of a morsel. The afternoon sun
was low, and she had some ten miles before her : would
he return her one halfpenny to buy a piece of bread
with, and she hoped it was not robbing the Lord, she
had meant to give all. Needless to say, she did not get
back her halfpenny, but was taken to the manse for a
plentiful meal, and then went home to think of her
Missionsfest till the next came round. At such gather-
ings the wealthier peasant women have been known to
put their amber necklaces into the plate, strings of amber
beads as large as walnuts, ugly enough, but much prized
as heirlooms, part of the national costume, and some of
them worth ten pounds or more, for quantity of amber.
These are incidents of years ago, when the u first love "
was upon the land ; but the good folk in that country
have never departed from their true interest in missions
and in any good work they can aid.
It is, of course, Pastor von Bodelschwingh's own beau-
tiful modesty if he takes the inquirer to that grave ; but
there is a deep truth in the humble assertion behind which
The Groundwo7'k 17
he would hide his own good share. Blind Heermann
for half a century ploughed the field on which a noble
harvest has grown ; and it is lovely to think that
for the last seven or eight years of his life he was an
inmate of Bethel — that is, more correctly speaking, of
" Sarepta " — not because he needed the sisters to nurse
him, being hale to the last, but he was old now, and
Bethel was thus paying back her debt. And the aged
man, awaiting the home-call in their midst, went in and
out among the epileptics, telling them of the Love he
had known ; and when he died the whole country-side
turned out, though it was in the depth of winter, to bear
testimony at his grave of what he had done for them.
If you want to start a Bethel, a true home for the
suffering, the sick, the destitute, the great thing required
is not, in the first place, money. You may collect a
hundred thousand pounds, and spend it too, yet your
hoped-for Bethel is, not thus reached. It is not a founda-
tion of money, it is a foundation of men that is wanted,
of men and women with the love of Christ in their hearts.
It is a great thing to put your money into the plate ; it
is a greater thing to put in your own cherished amber
beads ; it is greatest of all to put in yourself. Now, in
that Ravensberger Land, so long and so faithfully prayed
for, and prayed with, by that blind peasant, there is a
wondrous spirit of giving abroad ; when the harvests are
gathered in you should see the waggons of potatoes,
of wheat, of farm produce generally, arriving at Bethel
— the freewill tithes, largely given and gladly given,
and given simply because they love this giving. But
more than this, that people know how to give
2
1 8 A Colony of Mercy
themselves ; in some parts there is scarcely a family but
one or more of the daughters and sons offer for service
in the Kingdom. Scores of deaconesses are of the
daughters of that land, dozens of ministering brothers
— or if you will go further, of missionaries — are drafted
from that stock. If Bodelschwingh has been able to
train such an army of helpers, it is because he has
such a countryside at his back. Bethel is indeed a
blossom of the Church, but it has grown on a soil of
Christ-stirred humanity ; it is the outcome of a people
with whom the religious life and the everyday life are so
blended that it is as natural to them to watch and pray
over any work of mercy going on in their midst, as to
till and tend their fields.
Bethel recently celebrated her semi-jubilee — a sight not
easily to be forgotten. It was on a splendid Sunday in
July, for on a week-day these work-a-day people could
not so largely attend. Some of them had started at two
in the morning, and by six o'clock they came streaming
up the valley, awakening Bethel — nay, Bethel was up by
that time — but greeting her with their splendid bands.
Posaunen-choirs they call them, from the beautiful word
in the German Bible for the trumpet. By way of military
instruments used for religious purposes, England has
her experience of the Salvation Army ; but let it be
understood, the Posannen-Chdre of the Ravensberger
peasant folk are a thing to be heard. As chorale after
chorale came rolling up the valley that morning you
might have thought yourself in the heavenly Jerusalem.
Indeed, these Posaunen-bldser (trumpet blowers is a
miserable rendering), with their trombones, their cJario-
The Groundwork 1 9
nets and horns, great and small, could any day take
their place in a Handel or Bach choir. How has this
come about? Not by Blind Heermann, surely ? No ; but
among the pastors given to that blessed Ravensberger
country by his prayers, there was one who thought
with Luther that while a man makes music the devil
has little chance with him, and he started a band in his
village. This was the beginning, some twenty or thirty
years ago. These bands are now an institution all over
the country, Pastor Kuhlo, a son of the old Posaunen-
father, and like him a splendid musician, being band-
leader-general. Every village has its own band, but he
has them all under training ; they have their weekly
practice, each band for itself meeting at intervals for
common practice. The instruments are provided out of
a general fund, and the whole is managed with method
and orderliness. That day saw seven or eight thousand
people gathered at Bethel, and several hundreds of
instruments among them. And not only instruments :
the peasant girls and young women are trained by that
same Pastor Kuhlo to a hymn singing which is nothing
short of marvellous. They gave proof of it several times
that day, he, with his little trumpet for a baton, calling
upon them, and these women rising with a simple
dignity — girls mostly, but they looked women in their
national costume with their quaint little caps. There
was a pretty modesty about them, yet an almost queenly
absence of all shyness, and their voices were " soft and
low," sweetly modulated — you never thought of peasant
girls — but full of volume and clearness and musical
wealth. They sang, now the soprano, now the alto in
20 A Colony of Mercy
response ; it almost brought the tears to one's eyes for
the unaffected simplicity of it. It was not art, it was
nature answering the touch of art, these voices all instinct
with the waving instrument which guided them. They
seemed as one voice. The songs of praise and of
thanksgiving were well rendered that day.
Consider for a moment the elevating influence of this !
These people should not be taken for saints, but their
music is the music of saints, an occupation truly to the
glory of God. For one thing is quite certain : these
hundreds of trumpeters, while practising their instruments
together or singly, are far from the public-house. They
meet on two or three evenings a week, they lead the
singing of the congregation on Sundays, they have their
festivals, choral and instrumental, on all sorts of occasions,
of sacred music mostly, for which they practise dili-
gently ; the devil of drink, anyway, has .no chance while
this goes on.
These people, then, came flocking, bands and all, to
greet Bethel on her " Jubilee." There was an early service
at 8 a.m. in the church to welcome the first arrivals —
the other services, morning and afternoon, being in the
beech wood, for the church could not hold such numbers.
Weather permitting, the Bethelites often have service in
the open air. It was a most stirring day — a sight to
witness — the epileptics in the centre, surrounded in very
deed by the Ravensberger Land. That day the hundred
and twenty-sixth Psalm rang mightily, the singing of the
home congregation being taken up by the visitors, and
the hundreds of instruments ; and what though even
amid such service of song the well-known plaintive
The Groundwork*
21
shriek would rise, and a poor patient be carried to the
tent made ready to receive him, yet there was praise
and thanksgiving in every heart.
At the early service, the pastor's text for a short address
had been, " Let us arise and go to Bethel." He acknow-
ledged warmly and simply that in the active Christian
TENT FOR PATIENTS TAKEN ILL DURING OUT-OF-DOOR SERVICE.
love of these gathered peasant folk, the great work done
at Bethel had its mainstay. " You give not only of your
substance," he said, " you give us your sons and daugh-
ters ; and yet there is room ! " Then followed a stirring
appeal for more of these sons and daughters, and, with-
out doubt, yet more will obey the call. Yes, Bethel is
22 A Colony of Mercy
strong in the love of Christian people such as these.
Here is proof: —
That day a new house was opened, having room for
eighty to a hundred epileptic imbecile little girls— it
had long been wanted, and here it was all ready for
occupation. It had been raised at a cost of four
thousand pounds. A fortnight before just about half
that sum was to hand, when the pastor suddenly was
fired with a great longing to present this house free
of debt at this Jubilee. He put out an appeal to the
friends of Bethel round about — Let all parents send one
penny as a thank-offering for every healthy child they have.
And there was a wave of response from far and near :
within one short fortnight four hundred thousand pennies
came in — four hundred thousand thank-offerings for
children hale and sound, and the good pastor had his
desire given him, his Baby Castle was free of debt.
Four hundred thousand pennies in one fortnight sent
by grateful parents, and they came with such pretty
messages — " four children, four pennies, for a child in
heaven two" they paid doubly for the children the
Good Shepherd had taken home ! A happy husband
and father writing : " Five children, all sound and well,
five pennies ; for a splendid wife, five pennies to boot ! "
What a happy house that Baby Castle ! Four hundred
thousand pennies in one fortnight is wonderful enough ;
but to think that four hundred thousand glad thanks
were therewith presented, to think that so many thou-
sand hearts combined in turning their gratitude for their
own children into pitying love for the helpless ones —
that indeed is a strength to rest on ! Bethel need never
The Groundwork 23
fear while she can strike her roots into such soil.
The love and the prayers of humble folk are the main-
stay of that work of mercy.
The peasant congregation gathering that day, how
happy they looked ! What a pride they took in hearing
of the growth of the year's work, aye the twenty-five
years' work, and how they went about in the intervals of
service from place to place, looking at the houses they
had dozens of times seen before ! " It is for love of the
Master," said an old man with weather-beaten face and
work-worn hand — " to further His work, that is the one
thing required of us." And they are satisfied this work
at Bethel is in the best of hands — they all know Pastor
von Bodelschwingh, and have long known him.
Several thousand " thank-offerings " that day were
added as an overflow ; but these people did not therefore*
like the girl we have mentioned, pass the day starving.
Bethel could harbour her guests. By fifties and by
hundreds they were billeted upon the houses, and a
plentiful dinner, for which each recipient paid twopence,
was served them — the twopence being levied with a fine
tact, that an army of such visitors would not wish to feel
a burden.
Having witnessed that day, one understood how it was
possible that such a work had grown up and multiplied
within the short space of five-and-twenty years.
CHAPTER III
BETHEL
" A city set on a hill."
FIVE-AND-TWENTY years ago Germany had
done as little for her epileptics as England has
to this day. In south-western France the cry first was
raised by Pasteur Bost, whose noble institutions at La
Force in Dordogne are known to Christian people of
this country, yet not so largely as they should be. He
has gone to his. rest, but his work is still carried on. It
was he who first pointed out the moral wrong done to
a patient of this kind, even though he be intellectually
weakened, if there is no better provision for him than
the idiot asylum ; the great duty to him being an
upholding of his inner man with a firm kindly grasp,
and not to surround him with scenes to the level of
which he must the more speedily sink. The cry raised
was heard on the Rhine. A conference was called, and
men said the Church of Christ had a duty towards the
epileptics. It was not through medical progress, it was
through Christian sympathy, the perception gained
ground that a great neglect, medical, moral, spiritual,
was waiting to be redressed. Here was a whole class,
and a numerous class, stricken with all but incurable
24
Bethel 25
disease, yet many of them capable of much good work
in the intervals of their disease, utterly neglected.
They were practically outcasts : even the Church had
said, " You are disturbing the rest." They had knocked
at many doors, they had wasted their substance on
many physicians, they were a host of sorrowing ones,
with only the idiot or lunatic asylum at the end of a
long vista of despair. They were told they had " fits,"
yet is there not a sufficiency of love in the world
to stand by a man in the hour of his infirmity that he
may take courage between ? But the world was afraid
of them, the world of usefulness had said, " We cannot
employ you."
What then can the Church of Christ do? can it do
more than show them the heaven where epilepsy is not,
where even their tears are wiped away? No private
undertaking could ever sufficiently grapple with this
terrible need ; not even public charity can, for the public
asylum is not the thing wanted. A fellowship of Christian
service is the only thing which can effectually step into
this breach. The " Comfort ye, comfort ye," surely was
written for this people also. What the epileptic needs
most of all is a strengthening, a steadying of his soul,
and he sadly needs comfort. Give it him. Surround
him with sympathy. Give him nature, give him flowers,
give him the song of birds, give him the blue sky
drawing his eye heavenward, and give him work. Give
him all that will tend to the calming of his troubled soul
— give him love. He has been so fretful, so despairing ;
curtain him with compassion, and help him to be still.
" This kind can come forth by nothing but prayer
26 A Colony of Mercy
and fasting." Prayer ? the inward stillness ; fasting ?
what is it but the great " Thy will be done " ! " I used
to be so dreadfully afraid of these fits," said one, as we
went about Bethel seeking to understand their life, " but
now I am trying to think it is just a falling into the
hands of Christ." That man was beginning to know
the secret of living, the one lesson of life — a falling, in
things great, in things little, into His hands. It is easy
to fall when you are quite sure hands of love are about
you.
The Church of Christ, then, is the family to take in
this troubled one. In that Church all know they are
falling ones but for the Love which upholds them, and
it makes them very merciful, very tender ; they alone
can nurse the epileptic and be his stay.
It was in 1867 that Pastor Balcke of Rheydt, a little
town in the Rhine-land, took up the call, and the
provincial committee of Home Missions convened a
meeting at Bielefeld, a manufacturing town in Westphalia ;
a resolution was passed to make a beginning in that
populous centre. Bethel, with its beech wood and hill
— such a retreat of country quiet and awayness from the
world — is in the very outskirts of busy Bielefeld. It lies
at the foot of an old castle, a stronghold of the Counts
of Lippe in days gone by, when it was thought necessary
to put such bridle upon a town. It is well worth while
on a fine evening to ascend the height on which that
turreted castle stands, the twin hill of what is now called
Zion Hill. You have a splendid outlook over the blue
ranges of the Teutoburger forest, the Weser mountains,
and the fruitful country between, the principality of
Bethel 27
Lippe Detmold and that thrice blessed Ravensberger
Land — a glorious expanse of meadow and field and
woodland stretching away in the mellow distance.
It is the Germany of Tacitus, where Arminius, the
Prince of the Cheruscans, defeated Varus and his
Roman legions. The name of the castle is the Sparren-
burg, and at its foot, in the narrow valley, a mere cutting
between the two hills, stood a farmhouse. It is the
house on which we looked from the main entrance of
the church. A respectable peasant lived there, who had
been a well-to-do man, owning much of the land on
which Bethel now stands, and the hill with its beech
wood. It had been the home of his fathers for genera-
tions. That property was to be sold, and it was bought
by those friends who were seeking to make a home for
epileptics.
Even the little story connected with this property
now acquired by Charity is worth telling. That peasant
— his name is Steinkamp— had to part with the home of
his fathers for no fault of his own ; he understood his
farming and was an honest man, too honest and innocent
perhaps for a ne'er-do-weel brother of his, who dragged
him down in his ruin. The place got mortgaged and
poor Steinkamp was a beggar. He went abroad, seek-
ing to make his way among strangers. Years after
he returned, the love of home being strong. He was
old now and had neither kith nor kin ; and Bethel
did not close her gates against him. The visitor now
going about the colony is sure to fall in with an old man
somewhere about the fields, whitehaired, but as straight
as a pine, and with a look of old Wrangel about him. It
28 A Colony of Mercy
is " Field-marshal " Steinkamp, over eighty now, but up
at four of a summer morning, and about the property
all day long to see that the farming goes well, and the
cattle are tended : the place is the property of his heart
anyway, and having no children of his own, there is
all this family of epileptics in their stead. Himself
one of the adopted ones of Bethel, he also has adopted
Bethel. He does not feel turned out now of house and
home, but rejoices to see what in the good providence
of God has come of it. He in no way is a recipient
of charity, though Charity took him in, for he fills his
place. This aged peasant, once the owner of all he
surveys, living in a little chamber opening out of
the hayloft, is simply the patriarch of this common-
wealth, where no man calls anything his own, where
there is a wealth of service, where every one, pastor or
nursing brother, is rich, having his daily need provided
for and spending his life in ministering to the rest
This farmhouse then was bought, and a beginning was
made with four epileptics. It was named Eben-Ezer.
That was an hour of faith when a venerable pastor — in
position a bishop of the church, only they do not call
them bishops in Germany— took these four " first-fruits "
and, by way of opening the house, knelt down with
them quietly in the farm parlour asking God's blessing
upon the work. It was the planting of a mustard seed,
and what a tree has come of it !
The greatest things have the smallest beginnings ;
Bethel has grown. There was no outward show, no
noise made. Those who put their faith into this work
five-and-twenty years ago were quite satisfied to begin
Bethel
29
humbly. Only that one farmhouse was then acquired ;
the rest of the property passing into other hands, was
bought in gradually as Bethel grew. The little home
EBEN-EZER.
for epileptics had no money. Friends it had, and friends
of the best kind, friends who could pray ; but it had no
patronage. It began with simple faith that it was right
30 A Colony of Mercy
to begin ; for epileptics abounded and no one did any-
thing for them.
Two years later another mustard seed was planted in
that same soil, indeed close by, and this also has grown
into a tree — Sarepta, the Westphalian Mother-house for
Deaconesses. And these two trees, although each is an
independent growth, doing its own work of sheltering,
have their boughs of mercy so intertwined, the one being
handmaiden to the other, that you could not do full
justice to-either without pointing out that in truest sense
they are twins.
Again, a few years later, in 1872, when the seedling
trees had begun ]to^ grow, Friedrich von Bodelschwingh
was called tobe the directing pastor of the work ; and
though not the original author, he has ever since been
the very soul of the colony, an instrument of God's
special preparing. He has of course been told that an
outline account of the work was to be given to English
readers. " Do not say anything in praise," he urged,
" not of any of us : if anything has been done, it is by
the goodness of God, who has used us." And it needs
but a look into the face of the humble man, overflowing
with the love] which fills him, to make one feel it were
almost wronging him • to sing his praises, but they
are reflected in the work which has grown up about
him.
A Freiherr, that is a baron, by birth, of an ancient
Westphalian family, he grew up in surroundings which
by no means indicated the work awaiting him. His
father was minister of finance, and afterwards prime
minister, of Prussia. Young Frederick in those days
Bethel 3 1
was a playfellow and schoolroom companion of his
august namesake, the late Emperor Frederick, who, to
the last, preserved a warm personal regard for him. To
this boyish friendship much of the kindliness is due
with which the three Emperors subsequently have been,
and in the persons of their present Majesties continue to
be, interested in Bethel. It is indeed curious, how, from
the throne to the cottage, Bethel now has friends.
Herr von Bodelschwingh, though quite ignorant of the
ultimate object of it, has had a perfect training, and is
at home in every department of the great machinery of
which he is the guiding hand.
First, his home training.
If anywhere you see a great man, be sure there is a
true woman behind him, be she his wife, or mother,
or sister. Bodelschwingh's mother was the woman who
moulded him : one trait of her character suffices to show
this. Though the wife of a cabinet minister, having
to shine in society and be fashionable, she never, if she
could help it, dealt with fashionable tradespeople, but
ever tried rather to employ the small folk, those who
had difficulty in winning their daily bread. The humble
dressmaker, the shop in the back street, were those she
patronised wherever it was possible. Hers was the
true spirit of charity. Through her he early acquired
a love for the working people round about, and tried
to influence them. His early college training was ap-
parently aimless — arts chiefly, with a leaning to natural
science : yet, considering the grasp he now has of every-
thing pertaining to national economy, a career like his
father's in the public service would seem to have been
6
2 A Colony of Mercy
his ultimate destiny. But his health was not strong, and
after having served his year in the army, he went through
a course of gentleman-farming, acquiring the practical
knowledge so useful to him now. For several years he
managed a large property, being steward of the estate to
a friend of his father. It was then, more even than in
his early home years, that he looked into the lives of
labouring men, endeavouring to be their helper in things
temporal and spiritual.
A little story is told of his distributing tracts to his
humble friends, and how one day conscience spoke : " Do
you read these tracts ? " He kept back one he was just
giving away ; it was a missionary tract, ending with the
home question, " What are you doing to bring the
heathen to Christ?" It was the turning point of his
life. That question haunted him, and did not again
leave him till he had made up his mind to become a
messenger of the Gospel. He went back to college, first
Berlin, then Basle, studying theology, in which he took
the degree of D.D., resolving thereupon to offer himself
as a missionary. This was at Basle ; and the Basle
Missionary College was planning to send him to India ;
but before this was carried into effect, a discerning friend
invited him to Paris, telling him there were heathen
there, and lost sheep among the German ragpickers and
crossing sweepers. Among these he laboured, collecting
them into a little mission church which still does its
work. He lived in a wooden chalet, a contrivance in
portable sections, sent as a specimen of Swedish work-
manship to the great London exhibition of 185 1, and
thence obtained by a friend for use of the mission. A
Bethel 3 3
stone or brick building was beyond their means ; besides,
this missionary loved to live among his people, and they
were of the poorest.
To this humble abode, in the Faubourg La Villette,
he brought his young wife, a namesake and cousin of his
— no small thing for a girl who, like himself, had grown
up in a Berlin mansion. Her father also was in the
cabinet. And there his eldest child was born. It was
the young mother's health which eventually obliged him
to return to Germany. He was called to a pastorate
in 1864, in a village not far from his present sphere.
There three more children were born, and there God
took him through the furnace. His four little ones,
within a fortnight, were taken from him by diphtheria
ensuing upon whooping cough, and the poor parents
were left alone in the desolate manse. It was not long
after this sorrow that Bethel called him to gather about
him a great family of the helpless, and that is why he
is such a father to them, most loving to the most
stricken, most tender to the least ! God's ways often
are sharp and thorny, but the end is peace. And his
house was not left desolate ; God remembered him again,
even as He remembered Job. He had taken four
children from him, He gave him again four children,
and, curiously enough, in the same order — two boys
and a girl and a boy — and the second family so
like the flock in heaven that chance visitors, seeing
on the parsonage walls the photographs of the latter
at a time when the ages corresponded, would take
them for the likenesses of the four then running
about ! Bodelschwingh is a man now turned sixty
3
34 A Colony of Mercy
and his two elder sons are at college preparing for
the ministry.
When Pastor von Bodelschwingh accepted the call,
there were twenty-six epileptics at Eben-Ezer, male
patients only, but three hundred patients of every des-
cription were urgently entreating to be admitted. These
were of all classes of society, rich and poor, educated
and illiterate, and of all ages ; every stage of the trouble
was represented among them, and the ever recurring
cry in these requests for admission was not so much
"Help me to get well again," as "Help me out of
this despair, — I filled a position in life, I lost it ; I had
a home, it has grown afraid of me as of a man stricken
and marked."
" This then is to be our object," said Bodelschwingh ;
" to give them back in a measure what they have lost.
We will look after their health, but we will give them a
sense of home here ; we will give them a sense of useful-
ness— they may work ; we will give them family life and
a sense of community — they shall work for each other ;
we will have a school for the children and church life
for all. This place shall be their place, the church
their church. Above all, they shall know they have a
right to be ill here ; no one shall be afraid of them. Let
their trembling souls be comforted, and lean upon us ;
we will not fail them."
It has been the aim of Bethel for a quarter of a century
to alleviate the infirmity, which has its victims with grim
impartiality in the palace and in the cottage, by giving
to each patient a sphere of usefulness. If he can only
push a wheelbarrow, he shall have that wheelbarrow to
Bethel 35
push ! It is the common sense of the treatment which
so strikes the beholder — attempting the cure from within.
They try to cure the man in him, reaching the body
through the soul. And the patient is surrounded with a
sense of fellowship : all are his friends there ; his poor
little skiff has run into a haven of peace.
A new great house was already rising, which had room
for about two hundred patients. But Bodelschwingh
came with new ideas, giving quite a novel departure to
the place ; and the house — a large three-storied building
of the usual charitable-institution kind — really is out of
keeping now with the general plan of the colony. It
had been begun as an enlarged Eben-Ezer, and was
named Bethel. It soon filled, male patients in the right
wing and women patients in the left — it is the " Bethel "
proper whence the name passed gradually to the whole
colony ; for " Bethel " became the mother of many
children, the central hive whence the whole apiary has
emerged.
For it soon became apparent that it is a mistake to
herd these patients together under one roof, as you might
any number of other sufferers in a great infirmary. The
nature of their illness is against it ; some are far gone in
imbecility, others halfway towards it ; others again are
of a fairly sound mind ; most are irritable, and it is
difficult to keep the peace among them. Now, though
Eben-Ezer was to retain the imbeciles, yet here there
were men and women, children and adults, poor people
and patients of the well-to-do classes, all collected in one
house. It grew more and more difficult to manage such
a conglomerate, there is too great a diversity of outward
36 A Colony of Mercy
requirements and inward needs. Moreover, the question
was not, to receive a number of patients, sooner or later
BETHEL HOUSE
to be replaced by others ; it was not an ever-changing
population, as in a sick ward; but most of these sufferers
came to stay, to be settled there for good; and the
Bethel 3 7
question was, how to fit the unequal elements into a
common homelife, to be carried on day after day, week
after week, with its education, its discipline, its work and
its play. They were to have family life, so they must
be separated into congenial groups ; and this principle
obtaining — a principle growing out of Bethel's daily
experience and daily need — they were parted according
to sex, according to age, according to the stage of their
illness, according to occupation. As these " families "
formed, they emigrated — leaving Bethel for homes of
their own ; and in this way, a process as natural as the
original peopling of the globe, the colony, counting now
over a hundred houses, grew and grew. The Bethel of
larger meaning may be set down at fully a hundred and
fifty houses, including all the outlying offshoots and
settlements gone out from her, not only of epileptics ;
while Bethel, the mother — that three-storied building —
continuing for a time as the first landing-place of all
newcomers, is reserved now for the bulk of female
patients, and sub-divided into fourteen stations.
This decentralising of course requires a much more
complicated nursing staff, and more than nurses — atten-
dants, guardians, teachers, friends — friends ever watchful,
ever remembering their charges are labouring under
grievous sickness, a sickness not always apparent, but
always there ; remembering that even trying " tempers "
must be met with unruffled gentleness and with a pity
greater than the most ungrateful outburst. Yet such
pity with tenderest kindness must combine firmest rule
— a wisdom knowing how to use restraint which shall
not seem a punishing of the patient, but rather a kindly
38 A Colony of Mercy
assistance in the hour of his weakness. Such attendants
are not to be hired for money ; and it was the gift of
God to the growing colony that the twin tree, Sarepta,
had been planted near it, quite independently, it is
true, of its special need, yet likely to meet this special
need most fully. From the house of deaconesses an
ever-willing stream of true helpfulness has flowed for
Bethel, while, at the same time, the training genius of
the first " house-father " of Bethel proper produced a
staff of male nurses — the nucleus whence the " West-
phalian Brother-House," Nazareth, the complement of
Sarepta, presently evolved.
The most striking feature of this colony of sick folk is
its capacity for work ; the place is a hive indeed, and as
busy as a hive. And not merely work for occupation's
sake, such as oakum-picking in a reformatory, but work
of an elevating character, leaving with the patients a
sense of usefulness, of still being wanted ; scope for
ambition even — their own old aim and effort come back
to them. For life brightens, even though the sunny ray
be wanting, and gains in value just in proportion as we
know we are doing something in this world — something
worth doing, something for which somebody beyond
ourselves will be the better. And even that other cause
of content, that a man " pays his way," though it be a
sick man's way, is a wondrous help along that way ! It
is true sympathy which understands and meets this want
in a sick man's life.
Going in and out among the houses you come upon
what is called Workshop Street. You enter the first
house, paying a visit to the carpenters. You find some
Bethel 39
forty men here doing the joiner's work of the place.
Last year alone seven new houses were added to the
colony, the woodwork done by these patients, besides
their meeting a never-ending demand for bedsteads,
chairs, tables ; and how often do they piece together the
little house which even the most homeless wanderer at
the last will have for his own ! Most of these forty are
joiners or carpenters by trade ; but it is a favourite
occupation, and often a gentleman patient, his mental
capacity weakened, by preference chooses the carpenter-
ing. These carpenters form a family living in that
house ; its name is, Little Nazareth * The head of this
family is one of the brotherhood of Nazareth Deacon
House — a trained carpenter, who is also a trained nurse
and a trained evangelist.
These " house-fathers " as a rule are married men ;
a succeeding page will show their making and training.
They form a remarkable institution. The house-father
carpenter has the full management of Little Nazareth,
business and all, his wife managing the household ; and
to these two is committed the daily physical and spiri-
tual welfare of the carpenter family. The pastors and
medical men of the colony of course have their times
of visitation, and know exactly what is going on. Each
house-father has a staff of brother deacons at work
among the patients, acting as foremen and sleeping in
the night-wards.
There is a large dining-room, and a common sitting-
* What fitter name for a Carpenters' Home than Nazareth ?
But this was appropriated already by the Deacon House, hence
Little Nazareth.
4-0 A Colony of Mercy
room, furnished with books and games ; here you may
find your joiners when work is done, unless they are
taking recreation out of doors. Their work is not play-
work ; they do their eight or nine hours daily, and true
work is expected of them. Meal-times are the family
gatherings — five times a day. The early cup of coffee
at seven is followed by a more substantial breakfast a
couple of hours later ; there is a wholesome, simple, and
plentiful midday dinner, an afternoon cup of coffee, and
supper at seven. At nine the men go to bed, rising
between five and six. Before breakfast and after supper
the house-father conducts family worship, not forgetting
the reading of a psalm after dinner ; and if you happen
to pass at the moment, you will know that the singing
of a hymn is never omitted. There is a harmonium in
every dining-room.
You enter another house — Peniel, the Tailors' Home —
managed in the same way. The coats and trousers of
the colony are made here, and the needful repairing
done. Over against Peniel is Horeb, the Shoemakers'
Home. If you pay a visit here on a Monday morning,
you find a mountain of invalid boots and shoes to be
turned out hale by Saturday night. The next house is
the Smithy, Gilgal ; the next the Gardeners', Sharon,
with a seedsman's shop, doing a flourishing business
with the outer world by post.
There is bookbinding, there is printing ; a bookselling
establishment also, with a business connection all over
the country. You may order any book you like, of
wholesome literature ; the printing and bookselling
department is called Bethphage, the " house of figs,"
Bethel 41
and books should be wholesome food. Several patients
of the educated class are employed here. In the same
" house of figs " there is a depot for illuminated texts,
large and small, Christmas and birthday cards, photo-
graphs, engravings, etc. The texts and cards are largely
the work of talented patients ; if any have a capability
in any direction it is sure to be cultivated both for his
own happiness and the welfare of his companions. You
rarely enter this place without finding some customers
who have walked out from Bielefeld, or some peasant-
wife from the neighbourhood seeking a pretty acquisi-
tion for her cottage walls. Bethphage, quite apart from
its moral objects, really pays, occupying and housing
some twenty patients, and leaving a yearly surplus of
several hundred pounds.
You continue your round, finding almost every trade
represented ; there are saddlers, there are basketmakers,
and last, not least, there is the bakery. At Bethlehem
(" house of bread ") there is quite a model house-father,
grown up with the place. He came as a baker's lad in
the early years of the colony, and now is bread-master
of Bethel ; ever cheerful, with a cheerful house-mother
who makes no trouble of anything, and a family of
olive branches, too, of his own, growing lustily about his
table — they count the rolling years in the place by these
never-failing babes. Bethlehem produces all the bread,
cakes and buns the colony consumes ; no small under-
taking, for there are nearly three thousand mouths daily
to fill. Over two hundred pounds' worth of flour is
required every month. The hands employed in this
establishment, if patients, of course are picked and
42 A Colony of Mercy
chosen with some regard for those who eat the loaves ;
they are convalescents, not often troubled with fits.
Indeed, that house-father, if you ask him, with not a little
pride, and with a genial smile on his flour-powdered
face, will show you a former patient who "got quite
well here " ; the bakehouse, according to him, being
the finest sanatorium going, "especially for these poor
fellows." So let a man make bread for others when he
is in trouble ; it may tend to his healing unawares.
There is quite a family of such, and in their off-hours
you see them in their white bakers' . clothes on a bench
before the house, the " olive branches " toddling in and
out among them, as happy a family as any in the colony.
The master himself in his off-hours, as likely as not may
be found in the great kitchen garden weeding a bed of
lettuces or planting out cabbages, and if you happen to
pass at the moment with an " Always busy, House-father
Baker ? " he is sure to answer : " It's all in the day's work,
bread or cabbages, and for the common good." In these
two words you have the secret of these men. He makes
nothing for his own pocket, nothing even for the little
pockets he well might think of; he and his children are
fed, housed, clothed, he making his loaves while looking
after his family of patients. It is all one to him, be there
five hundred loaves wanted or five thousand — it is for
the common good. Everything is managed well and
thriftily in the colony at large, so in Bethlehem ; and
even the visitor not initiated in baking mysteries can
understand the economy when he is shown three giant
ovens, one above the other like berths in a ship, and
heated with one fire running through a set of flues.
Bethel 43
Besides bread-making there is brick-making, there is
farming, there is also a grocery store — every house doing
its own shopping, and keeping its own accounts ; and
there is the brom kali (bromide of potassium) office, send-
ing this medicine — the one drug employed at Bethel — free
of charge, and with " advice " to epileptics in ten different
languages all over the globe. Not one applicant in ten
can be received at Bethel ; they take the most needy, and
correspond with thousands besides.* These are the poor,
whose claim is for Christ's sake. The great bulk are
from the home provinces, but patients arrive from the
ends of the earth, sometimes knowing two words only —
Bielefeld and Bodelschwingh. A seven-year-old deaf-and-
dumb epileptic boy once came from Prussian Poland in
this way, having a paper with these two words sewn on
his coat. And Pastor von Bodelschwingh did not fail to
turn this little event to good use. A petition went to
Berlin setting forth that poor people could not afford
to travel long distances with attending friends, yet
surely it was taxing the travelling public to expect
them to look after such wayfarers — if these were taken
with a fit, it was taxing that public sorely. Would
government grant a reduction of fares to all epileptics
going to and from the colony? It was granted, and
Bodelschwingh's growing family ever since has travelled
* The stress on Bethel has been lessening as other refuges
for epileptics opened. Yet there is but one " Bethel," and
hundreds always lying at her doors. A law is now coming into
force in Germany, according to which, for the future, it is laid
upon every province to provide for its own insane, idiots and
epileptics. How this State provision will tell on the aims of
Christian charity is a serious question.
44 A Colony of Mercy
on soldiers' tickets — that is, at one-third of the usual
fare.
That brom kali office just mentioned yields another
glimpse into Bodelschwingh's ways — ever merciful, ever
watchful, ever seizing his opportunity. There was a
chemist at Bielefeld who did not " get on." He knew
all about his drugs, was an upright man, but he had no
conciliating ways, and somehow his business came to
grief. He had a wife and eight children, and went to
Bodelschwingh saying they were starving. " Oh," says
Bodelschwingh, " I happen to want a chemist," — in that
place a man in trouble appealing for help somehow
always happens to be wanted, — " you could take charge
of our brom kali depot." The man was appointed ; he, of
course, settled in the colony, had a house given him, and
his eight children now nowise look starving.
Now, how has this act of kindness repaid itself?
Bromide is largely employed at the colony, the patients
taking it as regularly as their daily bread to keep
the fits under. Other remedies have been tried ; Bethel,
however, has always returned to the bromide as the
one drug which avails. But when an ever-increasing
number of epileptics lay waiting at her doors, and only
the most helpless of even the poorest could be admitted
for want of room, merciful Bethel made an effort to aid
them by post, sending them the medicine with careful
instructions as to their mode of living. For an astonish-
ing number of out-patients the gain of this was twofold :
in the first place they were kept out of the hands of
quacks, and in the second place they received the medi-
cine in a purer form than obtainable at the ordinary
Bethel 45
chemist's — a great thing, considering the quantities a
patient consumes, and the ill effects on some constitu-
tions unless the bromide is of the purest. They are
very careful at Bethel, even with the purified drug,
making a study of every patient for the happy medium,
so that the medicine may lessen the malady without
producing what is known there as the " bromide face "
— skin eruptions, and not only on the face.
It is, however, an expensive process to produce this
bromide pure. It passes muster with the German phar-
macopoeia if it contains not more than \\ per cent, of
other salts. But Bethel sought improvement ; and be-
cause of the enormous quantity required there, a Berlin
company found it worth while to set up more elaborate
chemical works in order to supply the colony with a
preparation which contains only \ per cent, of deleterious
substances. Bethel requires about half a ton of the
drug in one month — three hundredweight for home
consumption, the remainder for the ever-increasing host
of out-patients. Within the last ten years, ninety thou-
sand epileptics have thus been supplied in Germany
alone ! In many an instance, of course, this means the
selfsame patient applying again and again ; but the
books also show that the recipients often are pastors
or other public persons procuring the medicine for a
number of afflicted ones ; and thus, while from these
figures alone the percentage cannot be accurately gauged,
they yet give an idea how widespread the malady is.
They also exhibit the vastness of the charity dispensed.
Bethel, indeed, has out-patients in almost every part of
the world. Even a Sumatra chief once applied, and
46 A Colony of Mercy
through her missionaries the healing hand of Bethel is
busy also among the bound ones of the Dark Continent.
The bromide can be had at cost price from the colony,
but no regular charge is made for the medicine thus
sent, and fully one-half of those out-patients had it quite
free — it only needs a line from some minister, or other
person of trust, to ensure that, and prevent abuse ; others
who can pay, send their shillings ; wealthier folk, grateful
for the service rendered, their half-sovereigns and
sovereigns, with the result that, although a real charity
is being shown to multitudes, yet this charity pays,
leaving even a surplus for the general treasury. And not
only has that chemist presiding over this vast dispensary
thus been provided for, but clerks and bookkeepers are
needed — of what class a future chapter will show, a
rescued class — and several patients are at work there,
preparing the consignments for postal transmission. It,
of course, entails an enormous correspondence, for Bethel
is in individual touch with very many of these out-
patients. What letters are received ! what experience
is gained ! and what a blessing is this establishment !
Was not Bethel repaid, repaid grandly, for lending a
helping hand to a man in trouble? But Bethel has
made it her privilege to be the ever-ready comforter
of "all that mourn."
CHAPTER IV
WALKS ABOUT BETHEL
"Your bodies a living sacrifice."
WHAT a gift of genius to find work for such a
community ! It is possible only because of the
vastness of the undertaking. A smaller colony would be
ten times as expensive, ten times as difficult to manage ;
and it is because of the all-roundness of the charity
that every particular branch is so flourishing. Recipro-
city is the great watchword there.
Far better than the bromide for the patients, indeed,
is a wholesome and steady occupation. Nothing is
more hurtful to them than being left to their thoughts ;
they grow morbid and fretful, whereas work acts as a
tonic, physically even, and morally still more. Even
the poorest of them, joiner or tailor, has the feeling
that he is not, or not altogether, an object of charity,
but a man, though a stricken one, earning his wage.
And if but nominal in some cases, yet for the greater
part it is work, some of these patients actually having a
certain wage allowed them — the poorer ones especially.
They get it in the shape of pocket money, and often
for the sake of helping their own poor relations. When-
ever possible, a patient is employed according to the
47
48 A Colony of Mercy
occupation he followed before the malady overtook him.
Indeed, most of them stubbornly cling to this link with
their past. It has been found almost hopeless to teach
them any new trade, no doubt because of a feeling on
their part they may after all get well again, at least well
enough to return to the world ; and they would like to
return, not as strangers, to the place which knew them.
Out-of-door labour, of course, is the most conducive
to their wellbeing, and a natural occupation with very
many of the men. Farming, therefore, almost from the
first, has been a recognised pursuit at Bethel. As you
pass on through Workshop Street, past the home
farm where the " Field-marshal " Steinkamp has his
little room, over against the hayloft, with some thirty or
forty head of milch cows beneath him, and past the
gardens where Sharon cultivates her kitchen stuff
and flowers and seeds, you follow a winding road lined
with buildings, all belonging to the colony — pretty
little houses, where many of the working-staff live ;
and ascending towards the uplands, fields all about you,
and meadows and woods and the hill-chains beyond,
you reach, about a mile from the centre of the colony,
the farm, Hebron. This farm was acquired in 1879. It
was the property of a drunken peasant whose wife and
children had been taken in at Bethel to be safe from his
ill-usage ; and the poor woman, far gone in consumption,
had died there. It is noteworthy that many of the
houses gradually joined to the colony before passing
into its hands were either public-houses or the neglected
homes of drunkards ; the area now covered by Bethel,
some four hundred acres, being in the precincts of a
Walks About Bethel 51
manufacturing town (Bielefeld) with a reputation for
socialism. Thus Bethel, by extending its borders,
has actually lessened the enemy's camp — the angel of
mercy dislodging the devil of drink, and turning a field
of strife into a garden of peace.
The farm in question formerly went by the name of
" Chicken Farm," because of a tribute of barn fowl levied
of old by the counts of the Sparrenburg, the turreted
castle of which, with the home colony of Bethel at its
foot, offers a fine view as seen from here. It was re-
christened Hebron, and is quite a model farm. There
are nearly a hundred patients employed here ; and since
work is harder than on any of the other farms, much
uncultivated soil being gradually reclaimed, it is always
the strongest among the Bethelites who are drafted
off to this " station " — that is to say, those who are
tolerably well between their attacks, or do not have them
often. The health bill at Hebron is among the best of
the colony, yet here also at times there is trouble, patients
requiring to be isolated, and even put under restraint
in the " cell." Outbursts of temporary insanity are not
rare.
There is a pretty story how Hebron came by a house-
father. He was the son of a rich Westphalian peasant,
and heir to a large property. There is a real aristocracy
among this peasantry, of long descent — high-minded folk,
and of as thorough breeding as any nobility. This man
had a younger brother whom he loved, but who was
epileptic ; and the two youths together one day arrived
at Bethel, the elder coming with the younger to
tend him — to be his brother indeed. Of course he
52 A Colony of Mercy
was allowed to stay. The invalid grew worse, and after
a few years the afflicted soul laid down its worn-out
shell. He was buried in the little cemetery, but the
elder brother did not then shake off the dust of Bethel
from his feet. Hale and strong, and heir to a life of this
world's good things, he had learned at Bethel to choose
the better part. He offered to stay for good, join the
brotherhood, and be ready for any service. He had
gone through the usual training of sick-nursing while
attending on his brother. He was a born farmer and
of the right stuff altogether.
Now Hebron with its eighty acres wanted a house-
father who knew all about farming ; and a house-father
must have a house mother by his side. This young man
had loved a girl, and was betrothed to her, she being the
daughter of another of these peasant lords. At first she
did not approve of her lover's " whims " : it was all very
well that he had been good to his own brother, but to
go and be " brother " to everybody else — any ailing
creature that might need him — was too much for her.
Besides, he must give up his prospects, and she had
intended to be a peasantess in state, governing her dairy
and presiding over her linen chests, with all implied
therein of dignity and housewifely glory. No, she was
going to jilt him rather than say yes to this. So be it :
he was going to throw in his lot with Bethel, for there
was a love passing the love of woman constraining him.
Now she had a true, tender heart, this youthful peasant
princess ; and, as he would not give in, she gave in : love
being strong, it can give in, even at a loss sometimes.
Only it turned all to her gain, and there is not a statelier
Walks About Bethel 53
peasant-dame now, far and wide. Of course they gave
up their earthly claims, as far as entering into possession
was concerned — there was a third brother at the ancient
homestead who could " succeed." This young man and
his maiden true were married by Bodelschwingh on the
" deel " (threshing-floor) of the ancestral farm, according
to Westphalian peasant custom since time immemorial.
And a comely couple they were.
Their own families, though good folk at first, stood
aghast ; but, after all, they failed not to grace the wed-
ding, and even the young man's favourite sister, who had
been most staggered by these " whims " — who ever heard
of a Westphalian so slighting his own good peasant
prospects ? — relented sweetly, and presented Hebron, by
way of a wedding present, with her own primest cow.
It was, indeed, a giving up of " prospects," and a sacri-
fice quite as great, as regards any sense of position
and wealth and dignity, as if an eldest son of English
nobleman or country squire, on coming of age, gave up
his rights.
The pair thus were installed at Hebron, and it is
beautiful to see how they manage this farm with the
same pride as though it were their very own. In her
domain, dairy or kitchen, everything is spick and span ;
and for his part, the fields all about and the thriving
cattle speak for it. It is the farm of their heart, if not of
their pocket. And over and above the farm they have
taken to their hearts the hundred epileptics, teaching
them to be good farm labourers, and doing their best by
them in any way they can. There is the same home-
life at Hebron as there is at the carpenters', or in any of
54 A Colony of Mercy
the houses. Hebron has a beautiful dining-room, low-
ceiled, and with plenty of casements, a farmhouse room
of truest style, and as clean as a young lady's boudoir,
Mrs. Bargholz — why should she not be named here ? —
looking after everybody's comfort, and ruling her women-
folk to the credit of the place. It is, indeed, the farm of
their heart, if not of their pocket.
Concerning that pocket, it may interest, almost startle,
the English reader to hear what these people actually do
get. These Nazareth brothers, house-fathers and all,
never have a penny of salary ; they get pocket-money
according to their need. A married house-father, such
as the one we are speaking of, has out of the general
Nazareth fund about twenty pounds a year to clothe
himself and his wife ; if there are any children, there is
an addition according to the number of children. For
the rest, they do not need any money ; they are fed with
the household they have adopted, and which has adopted
them. If they are ill, why, Bethel has three doctors,
and Sarepta six hundred nursing-sisters ; no one is left
uncared-for. When they get old, Bethel will still pro-
vide for her workers, for Bethel is a commonwealth,
and no man, once having entered that service of love,
need have any care for himself. It is a lovely arrange-
ment, and only a man like Bodelschwingh could have
devised it ; — or, if others could have devised it, it is only
one like him, so possessed of the charisma of service, that
could so inspire every other worker about him with the
perfect beauty of self-surrender. These people — and we
give this just as an instance, there are others like them
in the colony — work for the place with as jealous an eye
Walks About Bethel 55
for its advantage as if it were a hundred times their
own. And, because of this, owners indeed they are
while they live. Who ever would turn out such a house-
father ? His very children will inherit the blessing, for
Bethel is a commonwealth.
In certain respects Mr. and Mrs. Bargholz do differ
from other " house-parents." There is an air of wealth
about them ; their children will come in for the father's
and mother's share of those Westphalian u prospects,"
and their own people are good meantime to Hebron. At
the harvest season waggonsful arrive, as though Hebron
had stepped into the rights the heir to the Bargholz's
gave up on becoming a brother and house-father. So
Hebron is well off.
One afternoon Pastor and Mrs. von Bodelschwingh,
with their family and a number of visitors, had announced
themselves at Hebron, by telephone, for an afternoon
cup of coffee. We sallied out through the fields, and, lo
and behold, Mrs. Bargholz had bethought herself of her
housewifely pride, receiving us with stately dignity, all
smiles and blushes and curtseys, and having set a table
with her own china and silver — her family see to that —
and with cakes and cream abounding. Call her a
farmer's wife and a peasantess ! She has an artless
dignity about her, as to the manner born. It was a
pleasant afternoon, and one came away not only de-
lighted, but having gained a new insight. She has two
little girls of her own, and sees to their being well
educated.
There are considerable brickfields at Hebron, turning
out four millions of bricks a year, for home use partly,
56 A Colony of Mercy
but also for business. These brickfields are a rising
concern, and a paying concern, as anybody can under-
stand. The bricks being made with machinery — the
management of which cannot be entrusted to epileptics
— are the work of men from the " Labour Colony," of
which anon ; but the Hebronites dig the clay and bring
it to the spot by means of little trucks on rails. When
the soil can no longer be worked for clay, it has to be
brought into use for grazing land ; besides, there is a
great deal of neglected forest land and waste heath-
country round about, which these patients by diligent
labour render productive. So life is busy at Hebron.
There is a fine show of milch cows, the farm selling
about five hundred pounds' worth of milk yearly ; there
are fowls and pigs, a number of horses, too, for use in the
brickworks when there is no ploughing ; also for taking
the milk-carts about the colony.
This is how Bethel does much of its work. Hebron,
farm and brickfields, costs the general treasury not a
farthing, for it amply keeps itself, its hundred mouths
and all, even with a surplus. It is a model farm, and
like Bethel itself, a city set on a hill. Everything is so
very ideal about Bethel, yet so very practical. Such a
colony never could be imitated : that is the beauty of it,
and its mark of the divine. Yet you may learn of
Bethel !
To show the dark side of the picture, that very after-
noon we had so pleasant a cup of coffee, the pastor was
called downstairs to speak to a poor fellow who had had
bad fits lately, and had been put under restraint, having
been violent, and threatening to lay hands on himself.
Walks About Bethel 57
A few days afterwards, as the foundation-stone was
being laid for a house to receive temporarily such as he
— a lunatic asylum, with its walls of isolation thought-
fully hidden from the patient's eye by shrubberies — that
same fellow, in his right mind now, stood by the side of
the pastor, who spoke to him. " You didn't mean it,
Peter," says the pastor, with that look of compassion
which is hardly ever out of his eyes. " No," says Peter,
" only I could not help it." " Well," says the pastor,
" here, you see, we are building a house, where you will
never feel shut up, but only taken care of; and when
that evil spirit takes you, you must just always tell us,
and for a while come here."
A sister-farm of Hebron goes by the name of Mamre,
and some of us walked across that evening to have a talk
with the house-mother there. Mamre, related in character
to Hebron, yet altogether on a more modest scale, has
charge of about seventy patients, employed similarly to
those at Hebron. The house-father there had been a
simple farm labourer, a mere ploughman, before offering
for service at Bethel. He has a splendid wife, and the
legend of their loves has it that she disappeared from
their native village when he quitted the plough for
Bethel, thinking she was no wise good enough for him.
It turned out afterwards that he had thought he was not
good enough for her ; and, judging by appearance, you
would have said so too, appearances often leaving you
ignorant of riches and graces unseen. She entered the
service of a Dutch family, with whom she travelled as
lady's maid. But if you want a talk with a lady, go and
see Mrs. Engelmann, though you may find her in her
58 A Colony of Mercy
kitchen with both her arms in a trough mixing salad for
her large family. She evidently has had an education
in her travels, and she has the education which comes
from within. Taking a chair, one watched her pro-
ceedings ; the subject of conversation was handy.
" To think of the mere feeding of these numbers " —
she had been saying they were peeling a hundredweight
and more of potatoes daily — " the peeling is one thing,
but to be sure of your potatoes always is another thing !
It is marvellous."
" No, not marvellous," said she, looking up with her
calm light-blue eyes, her pleasant common-sense face —
" not marvellous ; it is very natural : while we have him
to pray for us (meaning Bodelschwingh) never a screw
will fall out of its place, never a wheel come to a stand-
still in this machinery."
" But it is hard work for you, and with such patients ! "
"Yes, hard work ; we are up at four and busy till night
— yet not hard. You see," she said, " you have got to
put your heart into it. There is one thing, you soon
know your fitness if you come to try your hand here.
There are only two attitudes you can assume towards
this work, — you are either hot to it, or cold to it, and you
know which before a week is out ; and unless you are
hot, right hot with the something burning within you,
you will be running away fast enough ; if need be, with
Holz-schuken."
Whether with * wooden shoes " one runs more quickly,
she left unexplained ; but her meaning was patent — love
only keeps these folk to their post. We had supper
with them, a humble repast, the patients here being of a
Walks About Bethel 59
poorer sort altogether. They came in from the fields in
their working blouses, a brother presiding at each table.
Grace having been said they fell to with a will. The
house-father came in late, for there had been a home
bringing of hay — a simple unassuming man, shorter than
his wife, and certainly no beauty to behold. Yet you
need give but one look in his face, and you see a beauty
unmistakable ; there is that written in his countenance
which lets you know at a glance he is a Christian. It
is strange how one knows that at first sight, with some
people — that chastened look glorifying even the homeliest
features. We shook hands — his were hard and knotty
— and sat down ; he had not much to say. But he
conducted a little evening service like a priest of the
sanctuary.
" How came he to choose this life ? " He was not
quick with an answer, the wife answering for him :
" It was because of his ernsten Sinn" — because of his
unworldly mind — said she quietly, as though it were the
most natural thing for a man to turn his face from the
things of this world for the serving of Christ's poor.
Possibly they never heard of " consecration," for they are
simple folk ; but theirs is the consecrated life, the
" living sacrifice," the " reasonable service " of which
Paul speaks.
They also have some rosy, flaxen-haired children
(there is the true Saxon type among these folk of the
Ravensberger Land), growing up among these poor.
The children of the colony are particularly thriving, as
though to gainsay the apprehensions of those who say
it is " bad " to be about epileptic patients. After supper
60 A Colony of Mercy
the industrious house-mother showed us over her
domain ; and seeing her linen closet, a big room, the
walls all covered with pigeon-holes, one for each man
with his weekly linen all ready, it being Friday evening ;
and being shown the mendings and washings all done
by her and her two or three young servants — think of
the socks only which these men wear into holes — one
wondered again. What paid labour could do this ? But
there is a love which never faileth and before which
mountains yield. We are told that simple house-father
prays with his wife for their epileptics every day, and
for each troubled one individually. This is the unseen
strength.
We went home, the sinking sun casting a glow over
the pretty country, so peaceful despite all the suffering
gathered there. We had had talk with the patients as
they sat or stood in groups about the yard after supper,
and were carrying away an impression that probably
they are happier now than ever they were in their lives
before. They tell you they have got to work, but they
always add, " It is good for us " ; and there is an air of
fellowship about them which is a power in itself. Strange
that longing for fellowship, as though it were easing our
own burden to know there are others like us ! But here
sympathy comes in, saying, I am looking upon thy
burden as though it were mine. There must be a deep
meaning underlying this God-implanted need, else One
would not have spoken of " treading the winepress
alone." And he is truly man who truly shares.
On our way we passed a little homestead belonging to
Mamre, where a number of youths are housed with two
Walks Abotit Bethel
61
brothers — boys of fifteen and sixteen, who, having left
school, are now being initiated into the mysteries rof
farming. They were just singing their evening hymn,
their " Abide with us " ringing over the meadows. But
PATIENTS AT NINEPINS.
as we neared Bethel the hand of evening was opening
doors everywhere. Young men were out playing at
ninepins — you heard the thud and fall the more clearly
as sounds of work were hushed ; and you met them in
groups, the carpenters, the tailors, the shoemakers, each
62
A Colony of Mercy
with a towel slung across his shoulders going out to the
baths for a plunge or douche.
Let us go back to Bethel, the mother-hive, managed
by Sister Louise. There are only women now in that
large building — nearly two hundred, of all ages, from the
i • " - Wh ■ . ' 3
AT NINEPINS. WELL BOWLED !
schoolgirl upward. Only about one-third of the patients
are of the weaker sex, for the simple reason that women
can be more easily managed at home. There are four-
teen " stations " in Bethel House ; for here also, though
under one roof, the family system prevails. Each dozen
or so of girls or women, parted from the rest, form a
Walks About Bethel 6
3
" station," having their own dormitory, their work and
sitting-room ; meals only are in common. Work for
the women patients, of course, is less varied ; it consists
in household work, needlework, gardening. Go into the
sewing classes, and you find some sixty or seventy of
the girls in four rooms busily engaged round a table, at
the head of which is a deaconess ; here garments are
made and clothes mended, not only for their own large
family, they also help their neighbours — Nazareth, for
instance, with its many boy patients and unmarried
brothers. And there is singing and reading aloud
while the work goes on. In another room you find
great baskets full of socks and stockings to be turned
out again for wear. And then Bethel has her own large
kitchen garden, having six hundred mouths to cook for
daily, some of the neighbouring <f families " — such as the
Nazareth boys and men — coming in for their dinner, or
dinners are sent out. Thus Bethel House keeps up her
position of " mother," and many of her inmates are
occupied in this department. Five times a day the men
and boys come streaming in, two or three hundred of
them ; they have a separate entrance into a large dining-
hall on the ground floor, not mixing at all with the
Bethel patients. You can hardly watch a meal when
such numbers meet without being a witness to their
affliction. There is a beautiful stained-glass window in
this hall, the gift of a thoughtful friend. It represents
Peter sinking in the waves but upheld by his Lord ; and
surely there is a silent help passing from that window
into the hearts of some as they sit there at meat, a
strengthening better than of earthly food. This hall,
64
A Colony of Mercy
used at meal times only, registers about three thousand
fits in the course of the year.
The great kitchen of Bethel House, of course, requires a
goodly provision of garden produce ; and the girls and
women, in the intervals of their sewing and cooking, are
taken to the fields ; there is weeding to be done, or hoe-
ing, or the gathering-in of vegetables, and it is a pretty
sight to see them — always with a white-capped deaconess
■"■
>\
THE "FIELD-MARSHAL" OUT WITH THE BETHEL GIRLS.
in their 'midst — doing such work as they can on their
own extensive domain. And possibly you may find
" Field-marshal " Steinkamp out inspecting their work.
Bethel also has large wash-houses, for much weekly
washing has to be done : there also her women and girls
find work. It is a laundry with every appliance, and a
couple of deaconesses always there, fellow-workers with
the patients. This laundry, if a busy place, would seem
Walks About Bethel 65
a happy place ; at least, you hardly ever pass without
hearing hymn or song.
And then Bethel has regular schoolrooms for girls
under fifteen ; you find them in three classes, four hours
daily, taught by deaconesses. The work done, of course,
is not fully equal to the curriculum of the national schools ;
the scholars are too unequal in mental capacity, and also
in previous management ; but it is a pleasant hour you
would spend in any of these class-rooms, especially if you
happen to chance on an " examination," combining, say,-
the story of Noah's ark with a lesson in arithmetic, and
see the little fingers come up so eagerly announcing the
ready answer. The boys are similarly taught — at
Nazareth — religious instruction, history, geography,
ciphering, etc. But in all these class-rooms you see the
familiar couch — it is never wanting in any room, any
workshop you enter, and one of the most beautiful things
to witness is the mutual assistance rendered by these
afflicted ones to each other. They never wait for the
brother or sister to lift the stricken form if they can
do so. When first the question was mooted to collect
epileptic patients in a common home, fears were ex-
pressed that thereby, through fright, the trouble would
be increased — an epileptic, of course, having no idea of
the nature of an attack, unless he sees it in others, and
the shock, it was thought, might induce worse things in
himself. But this fear has turned out to be quite ground-
less : possibly that sense of fellowship is the neutralising
agent. There seems to be something soothing in the very
knowledge that they are surrounded by fellows in grief
and are no longer the shunned exception ; and so far
5
66 A Colony of Mercy
from taking fright at each other's attacks, they run to help
one another. The most common seizure is the mere giddi-
ness, the sudden unconscious slipping to the ground, or
falling back in a chair ; but even in a bad fit, arms are
about such falling one directly — the helpful arms of his
own companions. They know exactly what to do to pre-
vent him biting his tongue or hurting himself otherwise ;
even the little children know, and do it so tenderly,
supporting their sinking comrade till stronger hands are
near.
You get a beautiful glimpse of this fellowship if you
will station yourself outside their church on a Sunday,
say half an hour before service ; and having done so once,
you will not miss it again on any Sunday during your
stay. They arrive in batches, streaming up the hill,
some headed by brother or sister, but many filing up by
themselves, by twos and threes, and in little groups.
And then only you get a full impression what a stricken
company they are. There is scarcely one but the
malady has touched his bodily frame, — you see it in
their faces, you see it in their bodies, afflicted in many
ways. They are cross-bearers ! But how beautifully
they help one another up that hill ! — leading one another,
leaning on one another — it is impossible to witness it
and go away unmoved. " Bear ye one another's burden "
— unconsciously they act upon it. Is not such mutual
helpfulness in very deed the prayer of which the apostle
tells us that by praying for another we shall ourselves
be healed?
On the ground floor of Bethel, till quite lately, sixty
epileptic little girls were housed, perhaps one-fourth of
Walks About Bethel 67
them unable to use their limbs, perhaps one-half unable
to speak, all of them more or less imbecile, some hopelessly
so. These are " the least of them." The rooms they oc-
cupied were scarcely spacious enough for half the number,
but who could refuse admittance to such helpless ones
when they knocked at Bethel's gates ? It is for these that a
new house has been built, opened at the Jubilee and paid
for by thank-offering pennies. The latest acquisition, it is
the most beautiful of all Bethel homes; and rightly so, says
Pastor von Bodelschwingh, for it is destined to receive the
most afflicted of these children of grief. Yet children
of love withal, — it needs only one look into the face of
Sister Mary, who is mothering this flock, to be sure of
this. How proud she is of them, proud because they
need her so ; and to tend imbecile children is no light
thing. Think only of cleanliness ! But Sister Mary
has a large heart, and she and her helpers spend a life
of happiness — she said so — bearing the burden of these
little ones. There are some blind among them, some
deaf and dumb, some who for intelligence never saw one
ray of light. But some can play, and some can sing, and
they sing their little hymns to the Shepherd of even this
flock. The new house is named "Little Bethel" and
within a few months of the opening the number h?s in-
creased from sixty to nearly a hundred. Bethel itself has
rapidly filled up. There are so many always waiting
for leave to come i
Sister Louise of Bethel has a brother, one of those
Ravensberger friends ; he owns a farm not many miles
distant, and he and his wife take a special interest in
BetheL Again and again in summer-time an invitation
68 A Colony of Mercy
is sent to the Bethel girls — " girls " in general meaning
female patients ; they are such children, and com-
paratively few reach over thirty — to come out for an
afternoon feast in his orchards. And he sends waggons
to bring his guests, to whom such outings are a rare
delight — all they can have of such recreation ; they
cannot go holiday-making like the rest of us !
Sister Louise's brother is not the only one who does
this. The good peasant folk round about vie with each
other in showing this love to the epileptics, and some
have been known to add to the invitation the special
request, Send us the most afflicted I They are not afraid
of them ; they think only of the pleasure they would like
to give to this band of misery. Is not this beautiful ?
Who among ourselves, having a large house or a garden,
would open it to such visitors ? Should we not say, we
would like to do so, but there are such sights to be
dreaded ; we pity them, but we cannot risk such visions
of distress in our own houses ? There is such a look too
about these patients — for epilepsy is not a beautifier of
the human face divine, and there is much about them
repulsive — should we not say it would really be too much
for us, we'll send them a contribution ? These peasant
folk then are before us — " Send us the most miserable I '!
And out they go, and there is singing, and there are
games and cherryfeasts and tables set, and hosts in their
Sunday best to honour these guests, and there is happi-
ness. And there is One among them Whom they see
not — " Ye have done it unto the . least of these% ye have
done it unto Me."
As you go up the valley, leaving Bethel and Little
Walks About Bethel 69
Bethel behind you, you nowise leave the colony — there
are some forty Houses in all, that is, homes of epileptics
— nearly a hundred buildings. We cannot enter them
all with our pen, though we have done so with personal
interest, visiting these patients by turn at meals, at
work, at play, whenever one could get near them. At
the far end of the colony in this direction there is a
homestead, Carmel, occupied by Sister Minna, who has
a taste for farming. Her patients — not by any means
bright ones — do washing, knitting, sewing, as women-
folk ought ; but they also work on the farm, the heavier
part, actual field-labour, being done for them by the
male patients of Bethsaida, a station close by. A visit
to these " girls " on a summer afternoon, and taking
in at a glance the pretty little farm, leaves one with
a happy feeling that such a pleasant retreat should be
provided for these troubled ones. It is a " women "
station (for adults, that is) ; but Sister Minna has carried
off to her rustic bower two of the epileptic half-imbecile
little girls — one of them a dumb child, but engaging
enough — to have something to pet, as she tells visitors.
We have not yet been to the " Silly Valley." The
colony is strewn about two valleys, meeting at an angle,
and having the hill with the church between them. The
" Silly Valley " is but a narrow cut, separating the twin
hills. It has been so named, popularly, because so
many of the clouded intellects are housed there ; but it
is " Happy Valley " now, for the Love going in and out at.
Bethel made it her special abode. Eben-Ezer is in this
valley, and Zoar, and other homes of this kind. But
there are one or two houses among them which should
yo A Colony of Mercy
be classified differently, such as the epileptic ladies'
home — Bethany. Here, patients of the upper classes
are received. Bethany consists of two houses with their
own pleasant garden between : the one house for " first-
class " patients, the other for " second-class " ; they pay
£50 or ;£ioo yearly, with this difference, that those of
the first class have a room to themselves, and every two
or three patients a sister between them. Bethany,
especially of the first class, is all a ladies' home should
be — sitting-rooms with cosy corners, pretty tables,
sofas, books, photographs and everything— pianos and
a harmonium, of course. There is a large, airy dining-
room, both classes meeting at meals, no difference in
food being made. The private rooms of the patients
are prettily furnished and decorated with their own little
knick-knacks.
There are some forty patients at Bethany, and the
ruling genius, the head sister, is a character. She is
the widow of a Prussian General, a lady of rank and
wealth, over sixty years of age now, and looking older,
but, as she herself says, " as tough as shoe-leather." Her
history is the school in which she was trained. Her
husband, thrown from his horse, grew imbecile and she
had the nursing of him for seven years, after which she
nursed a relative in similar trouble ; and now, having no
children of her own, she has dedicated the remainder of
her life to Bethel — " Sister Laura " now, but her girls
call her " Grannie." She is the regular General among
her flock, but a loving one, upholding strict discipline
with the funniest airs of command. Grannie is a great
favourite.
Walks About Bethel 71
An English girl from Capetown was recently brought
there, not knowing anything of German. After a week or
so she had picked up a phrase, she had heard it so often.
" I am very happy here," she said, " though it is all so
strange to me in this strange country ; the sisters are
so kind, and I know a German word now — Mein
LieblingX" It says something for a place, does it not,
that " My Darling " should be the first words a stranger
from a far country is sure to begin upon. What a boon
such a house is ! That Cape girl came a long way :
it was the only house of the kind her friends ever
heard of.
Epileptic patients of the wealthier classes, especially
girls, can be treated in their own homes ; they can at least
be kept from harm, and their own people surely would
be kind to them. But it often is a mistaken kindness — a
kindness which lets them have their own way ; the firm
hand is wanting. Such patients are far better in a home
of love like this ; they have a better chance of recovery
there, a chance, at least, of not getting worse, which
sometimes is all they can hope. Among the Bethany
girls quite a number are but in their teens, and they are
receiving such education as their capabilities admit of —
languages, music, drawing, reading. For the sisters in
that house, though nursing sisters, are women of culture,
are ladies. That Cape girl, for instance, has a charming
attendant, one she fell in love with directly, a clergyman's
daughter, herself quite young, of a cultivated mind and,
what is better, evidently of a cultivated heart. It was
she who taught that young stranger her first German
lesson — Mein Liebling. Even the 'ologies can be studied
72 A Colony of Mercy
at Bethany, under these nursing sisters, if any patient
has a turn that way. Needlework, too, is done diligently,
either for the poor or for missions. And if you happen
to drop in of a morning, you may come upon some of
these girls, sitting round their " General " and shelling
peas or something of that sort. The busy wholesome
life is their medicine and discipline ; they, too, if cured
at all, are cured from within. Once a week, in a house
like this, there is Familien-abend, or, as we should say
here, an " At Home." Any visitors about are invited,
one of the pastors and his wife come to preside, there
is a tea-supper and a pleasant evening.
A little further up this valley there is Bethesda, a
similar institution for ladies, not epileptic, but of "weak
nerves " ; ladies old and young, the better for a little
supervision and regular living. They are all of good
position, of rank often, ladies who never had anything
particular to do, and never had their wills trained. It is
bodily treatment and soul strengthening they are here
for : they get it, and seem happy.
The valley ends where these ladies of weak nerves
might end if not taken in hand in time ; Magdala is the
terminus of this valley— a female lunatic asylum. It
was, in the first instance, the needs of the colony
which led to this development, a place of refuge being
required for women epileptics under temporary insanity.
But Pastor von Bodelschwingh has an idea that the
Church, as a Church, has a duty towards the insane,
and since asylums for lunacy are provided by the
municipalities, he will, at least, have this Bethel do
its Christian part, though it be but on a small scale.
Walks About Bethel
73
This house has twenty regular patients, mostly in-
curables, and it is managed by deaconesses fitted
for the work, one of the medical men of the colony being
a specialist in diseases of the mind. A lunatic asylum
for male patients as already mentioned, is in course of
erection ; it is planned for about thirty to forty patients,
and is to be called Moriah.
The companion house to Bethany, for gentlemen, is
Hermon, in the midst of the beech wood on the hill, over
against the church. Pastor Schmidt and his wife are
house-parents here. It is a large house, having patients
of all ages, youths and men. These gentlemen are all
busy according to their capacities, some as clerks in
the offices, some in the library — that is at Bethphage,
with its several departments — some doing postman's
work about the colony, or carpentering; or gardening.
They are tended by brothers, as Bethany is by sisters.
They have their books, they have music, they have
games. You find men there of many nationalities ; for
nowhere on the globe are there homes like these for
men thus stricken.
Bethel, though outwardly a sad gathering of human
misery, is nevertheless a college where sick folk may
graduate. It is beauty for as/ies, even in their grievous
affliction, the hand of love leading them step by step to
the submission which is peace.
CHAPTER V
MORE WALKS ABOUT BETHEL
" Out of the mouths of babes Thou hast perfected praise."
IT is a sight to see Pastor von Bodelschwingh among
his idiots — his children, as he calls them by pre-
ference. How they cling to his love ! Men, women^
boys, girls, in four different houses. Bethel has a large
idiot colony, — nearly one-third of her numbers must be
counted imbecile ; many arrive such, others gradually
become such. If epileptics were taken in hand in time —
that is, if there were enough " Bethels " to take them in,
— this need not be ; not more than five per cent, need
sink away into that outer darkness.
How strange that, with clouded intellects — among
these epileptics, at least — the religious faculty often is
the one thing left ! They know their hymns and their
Bible verses when all else is gone. And it is cultivated.
It seems as if the deteriorating effects of this terrible
malady troubled the mind rather than the soul. The
affections, for instance, are left, when thought and reflec-
tion are almost gone ; gratitude is left — they do know
when you are kind to them ; the spiritual faculty is left,
— enough, at least, to be cultivated. There was the
head-sister's birthday — " Auntie," they call her — at the
74
More Walks About Bethel 75
home for women idiots, so there was coffee and cakes,
and Pastor von Bodelschwingh and his wife were invited.
This house has locked doors, and is walled in, to warn
off curious strangers ; but, by a happy chance, one was of
the company. There are about sixty patients in that house
—poor, helpless things, not an unclouded mind among
them! But Bodelschwingh began talking to them (the
house is called Siloam) : " Children, can you tell me
about Siloam ? " None but foolish answers. " Listen,
children ! " and he read to them and talked to them about
the pool and the blind man ; and they, some of them, at
least, presently understood that Jesus sent the blind man
thither to get eyes. " What sort of eyes, children ? "
And a poor imbecile girl actually cried back, " Herzens-
augen ! " " Yes, Herzens-augen" says Bodelschwingh ;
" and stille Herzen — hearts that give up fretting and
quarrelling." And, somehow, he got them to understand
that " Herzens-augen " (eyes of the heart) to see Jesus
with ; and " stille Herzen," the stillness within, was the
one thing wanted of them ; and, however much or little
they understood, these two words were left with them
like two lights shining on their darkness. No sermon
could have impressed one more — the loving preacher,
the imbecile flock, the power of love making itself
understood.
On another occasion there was a similar gathering at
the same house. Pastor Sturmer had arranged it : he
is Bodelschwingh's coadjutor for Bethel, on whom the
captainship of the epileptic colony long has devolved,
there being two other pastoral appointments besides,
one for Sarepta, and one for Nazareth. Sturmer was
J 6 A Colony of Mercy
Bodelschwingh's friend before either of them came to
this work. He was his curate, and, indeed, an inmate of
his manse when the four little children died ; and there
is nothing which knits men more closely than a great
sorrow gone through together. If we were asked to
characterise Stunner, we should do it with the one
word — self-effacement. He is the very last to make
a " hero " of Bodelschwingh ; but unconsciously he is
setting him forth, and it is a treat at any time to get him
on this topic. But the thing to be noted is, that although
his is an independent position, the several pastors holding
appointment under a committee, and although he most
certainly goes his own way, he yet is the captain he is,
because so fully impregnated with the spirit of his
general — more truly said, of his friend. It is, more or
less, the same with all these workers : once appointed
they go their own way, only — it is Bodelschwingh's way.
He truly is their chief, yet not so much a ruler as an
influence^ and his fellow-workers grow like him ; they
cannot help it. There is an educating spirit pervading
this colony, the spirit of not seeking one's own. The
wondrous thing in this chief is that magnetic power in
him attracting the right workers ; they are never looked
for, never sought ; they come, they are there ; they do
their own part as free agents almost, he so completely
trusting them, yet his spirit is in their every act. It comes
to this, that Christian genius is a spiritual force, ever
begetting, ever imbuing ; and this is the working secret
of this strangely constituted colony, the true characteristic
of which is found in the text, " He that is greatest
among you, let him be as the younger ; and he that is
More Walks About Bethel jj
chief, as he that doth serve." They are all servants
there, from Bodelschwingh to the youngest brother. If
there were a few more colonies like it, there would be no
social question left.
Sturmer, then, is working pastor of the Bethel proper.
The patients never think of going to Bodelschwingh
direct ; but with all their little griefs, with their every
need, bodily or spiritual, real or imaginary, they have
free access to Sturmer any hour of the day ; and though
he be in the midst of his heavy office work — all the
Bethel accounts, the Bethel correspondence going through
his hands — how patiently he listens to their troubles,
how lovingly he enters into their need ! He is the
faithful shepherd of this flock, and if their troubled souls
find peace, it is largely due to this pastor's gentle and
indefatigable ministrations.
So Pastor Sturmer, according to his frequent habit,
was arranging that afternoon gathering at Siloam. He
read them a story — it was a Christmas tale, all about
dying, curiously enough ; but anything about death and
dying has a strange fascination for these epileptics. One
could not tell how much they took in of the reading ;
but the pastor kept their attention wonderfully, stopping
every few lines wanting a text from them or the verse
of some hymn fitting his subject, and they always gave
the right one, he setting the keynote, as it were, with
a leading word, and after they had repeated it once or
twice in chorus, it was sung. Their eyes simply were
riveted on the pastor, whose very voice upon occasion is
an echo of Bodelschwingh's.
The story having told about Christmas and the Babe
78 A Colony of Mercy
in the manger, went on to tell how one Christmas day
a kind mother died, leaving her little ones orphaned.
" This is very sad," says the pastor, " but it would not be
right to go sorrowing always ; the Christian must be joyful
again, knowing it is the Lord, — for why ? And pat came
the answer —
" Why should I go sadly weeping?
If bereft, Christ is left,
He all joy is keeping." *
What better answer could even the wisest of us have
given ? One simply wondered, and went home in silence.
The memory for hymns they have learned seems about
all now left to them. But were they not faithful with that
one talent — shall He not be satisfied with these children ?
Even as that hymn was being said there was a terrible
bang, one of them falling forward, knocking her head
against the table. It created no disturbance : the girls
to the right and left of her lifted her up in their arms —
even the idiots do it so tenderly, stroking the sufferer's
face : not that this is any use in a fit, but yet ! but yet !
They are so responsive to affection, these poor things ;
they crowd round you for barest sign of it ; they under-
stand that universal language of which the " Greatest
Thing" speaks. You have but to press their hand,
stroke their cheeks, and a wonderful gleam of light
passes over their faces, — yes, love is left !
It is not easy to be still at Siloam, and they certainly
do a lot of quarrelling these poor fretful things — it is
part of their infirmity — the sisters have much ado to
* "Warum sollt' ich mich denn gramen." — Paul Gerhard's
hymn.
More Walks About Bethel 79
keep this flock still. But even they learn a little of
that stillness, acquire it by degrees ; it is so deeply im-
bedded in their environment, how can they but learn a
little ? and what a blessed change for some of them from
the homes they knew before Bethel opened her arms to
their distress ! There is much hymn singing at Siloam :
the sister raises the song, and they follow, follow. It is
thus their way Home is made easy — it is not so very
long a way for any of them, and then the night will
vanish, the morning break.
A number of them are quite capable of being set to
work ; they do some knitting, not very beautiful, but still
they do it. To whom little is given, of them little will
be asked.
Some of them go to church, and they do sit still.
Whether they take in much or little of the service,
there is at least the beautiful singing and the voice of
their own Pastor von Bodelschwingh, whom they all
love — such as they can love — and who has such a simple
way of talking to his flock from the pulpit ; or of Pastor
Sturmer or another, it makes little difference to them ;
yet it is a soothing influence, and who shall say it is in
^vain ? They at least recognise the name of Jesus when
they hear it, and who shall say that is vain ? The Great
Shepherd does not forsake these troubled ones in their
hour of darkness. They tell you the story of one who
had brain fever as a child, became epileptic, and lost all
mental powers. For eighteen years they had him, and
for eighteen years he sat shaking his head to and fro ;
and almost the one thing that passed his lips, and this
fifty times a day, was a baby song his mother had taught
80 A Colony of Mercy
him — " Because the Lord's dear lamb I be, He will ever
care for me " — the one thing he remembered ; it clung
to him, and with this he died. Who shall say this is
vain?
The male patients of this class are at Eben-Ezer,
the house where a quarter of a century ago a beginning
was made with four. There are over fifty there now,
hopelessly shattered, physically and mentally. Yet there
are degrees even here. You mostly find them just
wandering in and out of the house and about the yard ;
when you go in, there is a troop about you directly, so
anxious to shake hands. Some tell you they are waiting
for letters. Some are occupied peeling potatoes — they
do it neatly enough — or on cleaning days busy with
broom and bucket. In the rooms they are divided by
tens or so, each room under a brother who has the care
of them, and sleeps in the night ward.
We dropped in one Saturday, and going from room to
room found one poor fellow, he might be about twenty
years of age, cleaning the boots of the " station " — there
was quite a basketful, a good deal of work for him, for he
could use his left hand only, the right being bent double
upon the wrist ; he held the boots between his knees
and seemed quite happy to get them to shine. " This is
your Saturday work, is it not ? " — " Yes, and to-morrow
is Sunday, — I go to communion." — " Can he ? " we said,
looking wonderingly at the brother. — " This one can, he
knows just that much that going to communion is going
to Jesus, don't you, Wilhelm ? " — " Yes," says Wilhelm,
lifting his clouded eyes, — "and He is good to us."
Possibly he mixes up Jesus with the pastor who is good
More Walks About Bethel 81
to them, for he is a half imbecile — well, and if he does,
who shall say he should not go ? Does he not go with
the one thought " Jesus is good to us," and maybe
hungering for his share of that goodness ?
There are several smaller houses with patients of this
kind, all more or less imbecile, affiliated to Eben-Ezer,
the dining hall gathering the whole flock, about a hun-
dred and fifty, at meal times. The good house-father
of Eben-Ezer once was a shepherd ; he is " shepherd "
still, and has been these twenty years, shepherding these
helpless sheep ! His wife had come to Eben-Ezer as a
servant girl five-and-twenty years ago, when the work
first began. They have brought up five children of their
own, five promising boys, being father and mother also to
this helpless family ! Well may Bodelschwingh trust his
workers : these " house-parents " — watch them in any of
these houses, fathers and mothers true, what are they
but just shepherds for the great Shepherd of afflicted
men ! They all differ in character, for the Shepherd
Himself has had the original training of them. They
are simply Christian characters doing the common work
in their own way. And the houses differ just as human
families differ ; it is the inimitable beauty of this colony,
proving the living growth.
Over against Eben-Ezer, facing the same courtyard,
is Zoar, the home of the epileptic boy imbeciles — about
thirty, such little boys some of them, a pitiful sight.
Some attempt is made at teaching them — mere object-
lessons : there cannot be more than the humblest of
attempts and with the humblest results.
A few, the brightest of their number, are gathered in a
6
82 A Colony of Mercy
Scripture class, faithfully and patiently taught till they
repeat a Bible story with baby understanding and sing
a hymn. One boy of seventeen can write his name, and
is very proud of the feat.
With Zoar a story is connected. The last time Pastor
von Bodelschwingh had an audience of the aged Emperor
Wilhelm, His Majesty said, " How was that about Zoar?
tell me again." And the pastor repeated the story. When
the foundation stone of this house was being laid in 1878
a poor day labourer presented himself, confessing with
much contrition that two years previously he had made
a vow and had not kept it. He had been at the annual
meeting, and for the first time had seen with his own
eyes what it is to be an epileptic ; he had witnessed some
cases, children among them, and saw them carried away.
He himself had four little ones at home, all hale and
well, and the thought smote him he had never thanked
God as he ought. He resolved that in future he would
present a yearly thank-offering of a penny each for his
children. He had not done so, but now he was here
with sixteen pennies for two years past and for two
years to come. He did not want to give his name, not
even the name of the village he hailed from ; he was a
poor man, but he would say this : " Might not other folk
be asked to do likewise ? " Even the poorest of the poor,
he thought, if they had healthy children, could well afford
to spare a penny a year as an expression of their
gratitude to God.
Pastor von Bodelschwingh was not slow to act upon
this hint — a poor man's thought, who would fain do some-
thing for this work of mercy. The story was made
More Walks About Bethel $3
known, and people liked it, and the poor farm labourer
had quite a host of grateful imitators. The following
year, when Zoar the Little could be opened free of debt,
it was because the thousand pounds required had all
come in, in pennies mostly. And a book is kept at
Zoar in which not only the names, but many of the
messages sent with these pennies have been entered.
Not only parents had sent thank-offerings for their
children, but little children out of their money boxes had
sent pennies, that God might bless their kind parents.
And others joined, remembering all manner of mercies
to be returned thanks for. Some returned largely, but
most were the offerings of the poor.' An old grannie
sent ten shillings because all her family were safe in
heaven !
The aged Emperor also liked the story, and many a
thank-offering he sent to Bethel ; he never forgot Bodel-
schwingh's family when Christmas came round, or any
special help was required. But that poor man's happy
idea of thank-offerings has been very fruitful at Bethel.
There is an organised penny collection, mostly among
children, all over the country, and the offerings of the
poor on many an occasion are the drops filling the
bucket.
Thus, both Zoar and Little Bethel, the homes for the
little ones of this afflicted flock, have been built by thank-
offering pennies on behalf of children hale and sound.
It was not only Pastor von Bodelschwingh's idea, it
was the main principle laid down by Pasteur Bost who
was the first to gather in epileptics at La Force, in
south-western France — a principle he laid great stress
84 A Colony of Mercy
upon — The epileptic patient must first of all be brought to
Christ. There is little help for such in the body, but
One can heal the soul ; and, while very faithful, as we
have seen, to all that pertains to the body, this soul cure
is the main object at Bethel. Bodelschwingh says he
considers a patient " doing well " when he has learned to
bear his cross meekly ; that he considers him " cured "
when, laying down his poor tabernacle, he can die in
the faith of the Saviour. There is no religious over-
dosing at Bethel ; there is too much of true work, of
practical endeavour, there, to have time for unhealthy
excitement. The patients are simply surrounded by
the influences of the sanctuary, and many of them are
true children of peace. They become so gradually ; the
fruits of the spirit grow. The word of God is ever in
their midst, and the voice of prayer about them ; but
they are not driven — they are loved, they are nurtured.
They are not asked about their inward experiences,
about being " saved," and all that ; but they are every
day taken to Christ, and they know it. They learn it.
There are classes of religious instruction ; there is a
Young Men's Christian Association among them ; there
is their own beautiful choir, too, the singing and the
instruments — means these, surely, helping them to grow.
There is such an environment, so many about them
who can help them on.
There is a house-father of a house not yet mentioned,
Becrsheba, a station for gentlemen patients of a more
troubled kind than at Hermon ; this house-father is a
retired schoolmaster, a man, too, of the Ravensberger
country, and, for the rest, you need but exchange two
More Walks About Bethel 85
words with him, and you will know. Such a look about
him, too ! His name is Budde ; he has long been a
fisher of men in his own way, and folk in the neigh-
bourhood call those " caught " by him BuddJiists. He is
Father Budde at Bethel, anyway ; and one of those who
make one wonder so much — or rather, give up wondering
the more one sees of it — how Bethel has become such
a church of the saints : a church which does not talk
about Social Christianity, but which most truly acts it.
Father Budde tells the following of one of his patients
— a man of good position and education, who had been
making his way in the world. He became epileptic
through the shock on the news of the sudden death of a
beloved one. He had not troubled much about religion ;
but in the years of his affliction was noticed to open
gradually to the Word of God. He began to value his
Bible ; he looked for its promises of comfort, of healing.
He had always been a silent man. One day he surprised
Father Budde with the question, " How was he to
picture to himself the Saviour?" a question Father
Budde met by another question : " Well, how should
you say ? " Says this man, " I have seemed to see
Him lately — the face surrounded with a glory, and the
light seems to go out from Him, and I feel swallowed up
in the light. But I have a better vision still. I see Him
on the Cross, with arms outstretched, and then I can
pray to Him ; and I feel drawn close, and I lay my head
where John, the Beloved, laid his — quite close." Re-
member, the man in his day had not been a Christian,
and was fast going down the hill now ; he had no
memory left, no mental powers for any work to speak of,
86 A Colony of Mercy
yet the things he heard, the teaching he received daily,
— scarce knowing it for teaching — did its work in him.
A few days later — it happened to be Ascension Day —
Father Budde read to them about the world to which
He has gone to prepare a place — a place for them also,
where sorrow has passed away, and earth's crosses are
laid down. This patient listened ; they all listened ; all
such talk is made so plain and attractive to them. They
retired to rest, and this man was telling the two or three
he slept with he was just dying with a sense of Heimweh,
a longing to be home ; and he repeated to them the verses
which had been read to them of the former things which
shall be past. And then he lay down quietly, and he
did go home. He had his last fit that night, and gently
passed away. They found him, with hands folded, and
with a look on his face as though he knew already why
his beloved was taken from him, why he had to pass
through years of growing darkness — that he might wake
up, and know it is light. These patients often die in
a fit, or of the exhaustion ensuing.
On the whole they are happy — their pastors say so,
and one can see it for oneself : there is more contentedness
among them, contentment with the life which is their lot,
than you would find among an equal number of ourselves
perhaps. They have come through such deep waters,
most of them : they are learning to be content, and they
love Bethel. Some years ago another colony was founded
— there are about a dozen epileptic establishments now in
Germany — and it happened to be a Roman Catholic one
claiming her patients. So a number had to be sent
away — two or three waggonsful. A month after a
More Walks About Bethel 87
petition arrived, signed by the whole of them with their
crooked letters and trembling strokes, entreating their
mother Bethel to take back her children. It was not
Bethel's fault the prayer could not be granted ; and at
this moment a number of patients from East Prussia are
under dread of being required to leave, the province of
Brandenburg being about to open an epileptic establish-
ment of a thousand beds. How it will answer will have
to be proved, for it is an undertaking of the public purse.
Still, Bethel cannot take in the hundred thousand
sufferers, and all efforts to mitigate the vast distress
must be welcomed. Would they all were Bethels !
The mortality among these patients is very great ; few
reach over thirty or thirty-five, very few over forty, and
only two or three in all these years of Bethel's expe-
rience have passed the age of fifty. The little mortuary
bell of the colony (including the Sarepta patients) may
be heard five or six times a week, Bodelschwingh
telling his people almost every Sunday, they are a con-
gregation of the dying — eine Gemeinde der Sterbenden
— this too is morituri te salutant I and it is strange
what a fascination their little cemetery has for them. It
is their favourite walk. When there is a funeral, the
coffin, whenever possible, is borne by the companions
of him who is gone ; and some of these patients would
not miss a funeral for anything. To what should one
ascribe this? It is noticeable even among the children
— dying and going to heaven is all one to them, and
like going from one room to another. Everybody there
talks quite freely about dying. We happened to meet
Pastor Sturmer in the burial ground one afternoon, and
88 A Colony of Mercy
we passed a youth sitting on one of the benches. We
forgot to ask was he epileptic, but he certainly was
consumptive. Says the pastor to him, with a nod,
" Well, Charley, you like to sit here and look at your
own little spot, don't you? it is all waiting." And
Charley smiled ; he said nothing, but he looked " yes."
The pastor did not make it an occasion for speaking
of the Beyond. It was just a sympathetic remark, as
he would take it, to a dying youth. Their cemetery
somehow to them is a garden of peace. That youth
was not alone in the little burial ground ; you always
meet patients there, and who can tell what passes in
their souls ?
A pastor once died in their midst — Pastor von
Liibke. He had for years been principal of a missionary
college. He once came to preach at Bethel, and in that
pulpit confessed himself a brother in affliction. " I have
a right to speak to you, for I too am epileptic." He
gave them a sermon which must have gone through and
through them : " We are children of wrath," he said,
" dwelling in bodies on which He has set a mark." But
his text was Genesis ix., and it not only speaks of
judgment but also of the arc of peace. And he led
them on to Him who even in their mortal bodies shall
be glorified, and they changed into His image. This
man remained in their midst for nearly a year, as
house-father of Hermon — a patient sufferer, bearing his
cross meekly, and helping others to bear theirs. And
his death spoke louder than any sermon. His wife had
been away, and he was going to meet her. The trap
stood at the door. It must have been in the premonitory
More Walks About Bethel 89
excitement of a coming fit ; the gentle, quiet man was
suddenly seen dashing from the house, overturning
chair and table and leaping wildly upon the vehicle.
He seized the reins, and remaining standing whipped
and whipped the poor pony. It was little Fanny, a
quiet animal ; but she dashed away down the hill, he
still whipping and whipping. The maddened creature
fortunately took the road to her stable ; the vehicle was
seen careering through Workshop Street, stopping short
at the end. It was a sharp pull-up, and the poor pastor
was thrown ; when they picked him up he lay in a fit.
They could hardly hold him for violence ; but he had
knocked his head and the blood trickled down. It fell
on his hand, and he saw it. And there was a great
calm. " The blood of Jesus Christ," he said, " cleanseth
us — cleanseth us " and his spirit fled.
It was a going Home, even like Elijah's, in a chariot
of fire.
CHAPTER VI
THE MINISTRY OF MERCY
" Serving the Lord."
THE backbone of Bethel is found in the spirit of
her workers — the perfect surrender to a Christian
ideal. These sisters, these brothers, have made that
development possible. There is nothing in this country
corresponding exactly to the German deaconess ; and of
ministering " brothers " we have so far not heard here.
Mildmay and Tottenham, following the example, have
trained deaconesses, we know ; but how many of their
sisters witness to the work by a lifelong devotion ? They
are to be counted by the dozen — by the score, perhaps.
Of German deaconesses there is an army, and a steadfast
army. What has made, what has constituted, it ? What
is the power at work, the spirit moving, what the cause
of this visible effect ? There are two things which stand
out bright in a Bethel sister : her humility, her perfect
obedience. If any doubt this, let them go to Bethel and
see. These sisters, these brothers, have made the sacrifice
of their own will completely ; not for a day, not for a
week, but completely. Yet they take no vow ; theirs
is the liberty of surrender, and the knowledge of this is
the strength of their work. They are not units, they are
90
The Ministry of Mercy 9 1
freewill parts of a whole. We do not question the
humility, the obedience, in workers here ; but this we
say : The British character rather tends to individualise ;
the freeborn Briton survives even in consecration. This
yields splendid results of its own, able workers, but
it yields workers, rather than lifelong fellow-workers ; it
yields devoted lives in their own right. But there is
a limit to this : the strength born of union is wanting ;
nay, more, that is wanting which tells such worker he
or she is but an outpost of something stronger than
personality behind. Personality is a great thing, but a
fellowship of personalities is greater. In one word, the
English deaconess is an embodiment of independent
charity, but the German deaconess is a blossom of the
Church, not of the visible institution, but of the Church
life of the country ; she is a part representing that
whole She is as much of the Church as the pastor is —
both being servants — and she knows that. It is easy to
give up your own will, to surrender personality, when
you know yourself part of a mighty power — the world-
conquering power of Christ. Using the word Church,
we mean the outward expression of this power — the
Church, apart from " Hsms " ; and it seems to us that
this spirit of Church-membership is the thing wanted
to lift the English deaconess to that higher level,
to make her one of a body, the ranks of which will
swell just in proportion to the strength of the living
thing behind that body. Vitality is the outcome of
Life.
If any doubt this, let them go to Bethel and judge for
themselves — only, by a mere visit they will not so easily
92 . A Colony of Mercy
discover this hidden secret of the work. Most emphatically
we would say, We do know that of English workers there
are splendid examples — examples not easily matched
in any country ; but speaking of this German body of
workers we are endeavouring to account for its strength.
It is a fundamental difference, the difference between in-
dependence and union, the difference between a " free
lance " and a soldier at his post.
The English sisterhoods each go their own way,
strangers to one another ; the German deaconesses, the
ten thousand of them, of about fifty houses, form in
reality one sisterhood, though each sister owes allegiance
only to the house of her training, or, as the case may be,
of her adoption. The houses — mother-houses they call
them — each raising its own family of sisters, may differ in
minor respects ; but there is a bond of unity in their
leading principles, in their working aims and efforts, in
their mutual upbearing ; and there is a strong esprit de
corps among them. The cause of one house is the cause
of all the other houses, and that cause is simply the
cause of handmaidens of the Kingdom — of a body of
handmaidens, all pursuing one object, following one
calling, having for "honour" no first and no last. It is
very beautiful, this work, which has nothing left of self-
importance ! These deaconesses are the Protestant
equivalent of the " Sister of Mercy," with all her dis-
cipline, with more than her devotion — a devotion
enhanced by the fact that she does not thereby lay up
for herself any works of righteousness she has done.
They are an army of Christian helpfulness going their
quiet way in the land, but an organised army ! They are
The Ministry of Mercy 93
what Phebe of Cenchrea was, whom St. Paul himself de-
scribes as a servant of the Church and a succourer of many.
The name of Kaisers werth is known to English
readers ; there the first seedling of this organised work
was planted just upon sixty years ago. It has had a
wondrous development. Kaiserswerth has trained over
eight hundred sisters, and has sent workers into many
countries. The Westphalian House in so far is a child
of Kaiserswerth, as its original band of four sisters was
delegated by the elder institution, when a few Westphalian
pastors and Christian friends had resolved themselves
into a committee for the purpose of starting a deaconesses'
establishment in their own province.
Like Bethel itself, Sarepta also was first planned at
Bielefeld, the work beginning humbly in a small house
acquired by the committee. One of the four original
deaconesses, Sister Emily Hauser, has ever since been
the head-sister, or " mother," as she is called at Bethel.
She is over seventy now, and has seen the little band of
four expand into a sisterhood of six hundred, in little
more than twenty years. No other deaconesses' house
has had so rapid a growth, the reason here also being
the fitness of the soil. From that Ravensberger country
alone, over a hundred young men and women offer
yearly for the service of mercy.
The house at Bielefeld, where the work first began, is
now used as a home for aged women— one of the colony's
many out-stations. It soon grew too small, and when the
committee resolved on building, it was almost natural,
yet surely it was by a special guidance, that the site
bought was close to that other site where Bethel was
94 A Colony of Mercy
rising ; for God was even then preparing His servant
who should carry this double work to a common de-
velopment and to a height not dreamt of by the founders.
The mother-house, " Sarepta," as we now see it, is a fine
Gothic building right in the centre of the colony, as
though to be " mother " even to the epileptic homes,
which, strictly speaking, are quite an independent
growth ; and, apart from being a training home for
deaconesses, it is an infirmary with about one hundred
and thirty beds.
It is a mistake to think that the deaconess is a sick
nurse only ; but this is true, that most deaconess
institutions devote themselves to sick-nursing exclu-
sively, and Sarepta, in this respect, materially differs
from the bulk of them. The sisters are all trained
to sick nursing — it is their own vocation ; but they are
also trained to parish work, looking after the poor,
the forsaken, the sinking, and they are trained to
teaching, infants especially. And if one in her own
past history has developed a special fitness in any
direction, that fitness is looked upon as a " talent "
and put to use. Bodelschwingh's six hundred sisters
are a power for good in the land. Is there one of them
in a parish — they never enter a parish unless called
— she is the pastor's right hand of influence. She
is sick nurse, Bible-woman, a messenger for Christ, and,
most important, she gathers in His lambs. They can
put their hand to almost anything ; and this yields a
beautiful arrangement for relieving the tension of over-
work : for instance, a nursing-sister worn with night-
watchings will be sent for a time to do infant-teaching
The Ministry of Mercy 97
by way of a change ; or a Kinder-garten sister tired out
with her lively charges— they often have seventy or eighty
to manage — will be called to rest her voice by some
quiet sick bed. When it can be done, the perfection is
a trio of sisters in a parish — one for the infants, one for
sick-nursing, one for visiting ; such trio is like three
times three for strength, relieving one another, helping
one another — this too is fellowship. Such three make
a little home for themselves, the parish providing the
building, and the " keep " of the sisters — a home large
enough to accommodate the infants and, if need be, oc-
casional cases of nursing ; patients mostly being attended
in their own homes. This latter indeed on principle :
a patient's relatives, his or her neighbours even, should not
be deprived of the blessings inherent on sickness ; they
should be taught rather than relieved, taught how to
attend on a sick one and how to make a sick bed com-
fortable within their means and by their own efforts.
A great deal of help can thus be given, actually training
people to help themselves. This is one of the great
aims a Sarepta deaconess endeavours to keep in view,
mere relief often being but poor charity ; but that is
true charity which seeks to lift folk, friends and neigh-
bours included, to the level of any trouble requiring
relief.
Of course the six hundred could never all be wanted
about the colony itself: some seventy are employed
among the female epileptics, some thirty are stationed
by the sick beds of Sarepta, about twenty-five in the
infant schools of the neighbourhood ; the rest, nearly
five hundred in number, are at work on two hundred
7
98 A Colony of Mercy
different stations, in Germany, in the Netherlands, in
France, in America, in Africa.
Any young women offering for service — and they
come of all ranks, from the peasant maiden to the high-
born lady, but most are of the people — are admitted on
trial ; after six months or a year passed by the sick beds
of the mother-house they become auxiliary sisters. But
it is only after some years of probation they enter the
sisterhood by a solemn act of consecration, generally at
the annual meeting. They do not take upon themselves
any vow, neither of celibacy, nor of any other kind ; it
is, however, expected of them that by that time— none
being " consecrated " under the age of five-and-twenty —
they fully know their own minds, and are honestly
willing to devote their lives to the service, " unless some
plain guidance at any future time should point to
another path, in which case they shall consult the
mother-house with the deference of a child to its
parent, for the mother-house has ' adopted ' them."
There are occasional defections ; some sisters do marry,
some do change their minds, returning to their families ;
but, taken as a whole, they are a steadfast army.
The mother-house is mother indeed to this band of
daughters : it supplies all their wants ; feeds them,
clothes them, nurses them in sickness, sees to their
recreation when worn. They have a beautiful home of
rest, Salem, among the hills, a few miles distant,
where overworked sisters recruit, and a seaside home
on one of the Hallig Isles, in the German Ocean ; and
they are cared for still when old and no longer able to
work. A deaconess has no pay of any kind ; she may
The Ministry of Mercy
99
not receive any pay or presents from patients ; if she is
nursing private cases any freewill gift is sent to the
mother-house— no claim is made ; for she is no pay-
worker, she does labour of love. For sisters sent to
SALEM, THE SISTERS HOME OF REST.
public hospitals — such as those working at Bremen, for
instance, sixty or seventy in number, or those stationed
in Berlin — the municipalities pay Sarepta at the rate of
nine pounds a year per sister ; parishes, too, pay at
this rate, or less, for a parish sister ; but this is simply
refunding the mother-house for clothing and other
fill *
1)D.
ioo A Colony of Mercy
incidental expenses, the mother-house supplying its
absent daughters as it supplies those at home ; supplying
them, not with clothing alone, but with a little pocket
money also of six to nine shillings a month, that she
may have to " give of her substance " to the poor, or to
missions. And there are deaconesses (like the mother of
Sarepta herself) who for a lifetime have thus lived and
worked, have always been cared for, have always spent
themselves, but never have had any money to speak
of to spend. This, too, constitutes a difference between
a deaconess here and a deaconess there. The Mildmay
and Tottenham sister is not paid, but Mildmay and
Tottenham are paid — taking their guinea or two a week
— if they send out sisters. It lowers the character of the
work. Much of the strength of these German sister-
hoods has its hidden root in this unpaid work ; having
no cares for themselves, present or future, they have
no thought for themselves, they can live for others.
It is the ministry of love ; and love begets love. The
funds of Sarepta, like the funds of Bethel, apart from the
provincial grants for poor patients, are largely made up
by the freewill offerings of a multitude of humble friends
— friends knowing the beauty of this work, happy and
proud, therefore, to support it.
If you speak to any of these sisters, you are struck
most with the brightness about them. They know they
are serving Christ. Their service is a living sacrifice — a
sacrifice of everything pertaining to self; but they have
risen beyond the thought of "sacrifice," and they are
truly " cared for." They are a precious band, and those
who have authority over them know that anything worth
The Ministry of Mercy 101
having is worth tending. We once heard Bodelschwingh
say, " If I want to nurse my patients, I must first nurse
my nurses." Then how does he nurse them, and how
does Sarepta ? The mother-house is in constant and
regular communication with its six hundred daughters.
For instance, Bodelschwingh holds a weekly class of
religious and professional instruction — meaning by " pro-
fessional " the moral apprehension of their calling. Now,
of course, only the home sisters can attend in person, but
all the rest of them attend by post. The questions set to
the home circle are sent out to all the absent ones — there is
a special " Sister Scribe " for that work — and the hundreds
of them far and near answer the papers, and send them
home, one of the pastors returning them corrected. And
in several other ways the mother-house is in personal touch
with the ever-growing band, the " Sister Scribe " sending
out a monthly letter, for instance, with all the home
news, and matters of interest concerning the work. And
every absent sister has a birthday letter and Christmas
present sent her of a useful kind. That " Sister Scribe "
is " Sister Sacristan " also, with no end of little duties
thereby involved ; she is a niece of the famous theologian
Hengstenberg, so for antecedents is all a scribe and
sacristan should be. And from time to time the sisters
from distant stations are called home, if not to the
mother-house itself, then at least to the colony, to
renew their sense of oneness with the place on which
they are taught to look as " home."
They have a weekly family gathering. Of a Wed-
nesday evening their large hall is set for a tea-supper,
a little more festively than for ordinary meals. All the
102 A Colony of Mercy
sisters about the place or from the near neighbourhood
who can be spared from their stations, attend — some
eighty to a hundred, perhaps, in all ; the several pastors,
with their families, and other workers about the place are
invited, and any visitors who happen to be at the colony
are sure to be honoured with a seat near Pastor von
Bodelschwingh. He, of course, presides, unless una-
voidably prevented. The meal over, the pastor gives
them a pleasant talk, telling them anything of interest
within the colony, anything of interest happening in the
world at large — a simple and pleasant way of keeping
them in touch with the world about them. Or, if there
is nothing happening, then he has a store of recollections ;
and if one could only be at many of these gatherings,
one could almost catch his biography unknown to him.
He will never tell it otherwise ; but he has a charming
and artless way on such occasions of diving into his own
history — a field rich and varied.
The sisters evidently value these evenings, if contented
faces are a criterion. One can imagine a stranger alighting
at one of these gatherings, stirred to the heart with
HeimweJi — that nameless longing which will be stilled
when wanderers reach home. We all know it at times,
but do not all own to it — that hunger for something we
have not. These sisters have won beyond it, or nearly
so. There is a great strength in such union ; they upbear
one another. No wonder the colony is growing and
spreading which has such workers. If England is ever
to start in right earnest a work for her epileptics — and
surely she should ! — she must first train such nurses.
The deaconesses are drafted off to the various epileptic
The Ministry of Mercy 103
homes round about, simply on the strength of the love
which surTereth long — suffereth long even with loath-
some things ; for there is much that is loathsome about
epilepsy. And their thought is not to win heaven thereby,
but rather to make this poor earth a little more like
heaven than epilepsy has left it for these stricken ones.
But this is not all. Sarepta really is a power in the
land ; she is training others besides her own regular
sisterhood. The Order of St. John, for instance, has
made an agreement with the Westphalian mother-
house to train nurses for its purposes, to be ready for
summons in time of epidemic or of war. Many a
maiden offers for this service, goes through a six
months' term or so, of training at Sarepta, adding to her
experience in other hospitals, if she likes, as a candidate
of this splendid " order." And even private applicants
are received for training, the mother-house being of
opinion it is well for daughters and future wives to
understand something of sick nursing. All such go
through the regular course, and would be ready for any
national calamity. Sarepta herself is ready. Against
time of war, at least of invasion, the colony, in return
for facilities and actual aid granted by the country, has
pledged itself to put up a thousand beds, Sarepta and
Nazareth supplying them with their own deacons and
deaconesses. Everything is so thorough in the Father-
land, everything so methodical, so thought of beforehand,
there would be no bustle ; these good sisters, like the
great army itself, are ready to take the field at a
day's notice, the Kriegs-Schwestern, that is, the amateur
sisters just spoken of, taking their place the while at home.
io4
A Colony of Mercy
Pastor von Bodelschvvingh, as military chaplain, went
through the campaigns of 1866 and of 1870, so he
knows something about it. Some of the sisters get
first-rate surgical experience, the Charite of Berlin, the
great Infirmary of Bremen, and other large hospitals
being supplied with nurses from Sarepta. In lunatic
A SISTER AND HER CHARGES TAKING AN EVENING STROLL.
asylums also Sarepta sisters are found — in fact, there is
no branch of the work to which they are strangers.
Some are in rescue homes for the fallen of their kind.
Some have gone to Africa to do missionary sick-nursing.
Sarepta, in one word, is spreading a net of mercy, and
no place is too distant if she is wanted. She is not
encroaching, does not want to make proselytes for power
or influence ; she is simply a handmaiden of the Gospel
The Ministry of Mercy 105
of Christ, carrying help and healing, and serving for the
sake of serving. Her great work is to the poor, because
they need her.
And the Brothers ! The deacons are of more recent
date than the deaconesses, and there are not many
deacon-houses as yet in Germany ; but they are yielding
firstrate workers. The visitor to Bethel will notice a great
red-brick building, standing at an angle between Sarepta
and Bethel House. It is named Nazareth, bearing the
inscription over its main entrance, " Can there any good
thins come out of Nazareth ? Come and see." And if
you go and " see," this is what you find : It is scarcely
a dozen years since this house was opened, and much
good has come out of it. Out of Bethel's own need this
brotherhood has grown. Male nurses were required for the
epileptic colony, and it was found more and more diffi-
cult to procure an adequate supply from other quarters.
So the brothers at work there already set themselves to
train their own helpers and successors. The calling of
these deacons includes more than sick nursing ; they are
required for general home mission work, and trained,
therefore, as evangelists. Many of them, as they advance
in years and experience, become " house-fathers," such
as those we have spoken of; and if not required at Bethel
itself, house-fathers, and junior brothers too, are wanted
for the labour colonies, and their kindred institutions — of
which anon — or they are sent to the foreign mission field.
The Brotherhood of Nazareth in these ten or twelve
years has grown to about two hundred and thirty members.
Many of the brothers have learnt a regular trade ; the
106 A Colony of Mercy
house-fathers at Bethel, for instance, as we have seen,
act as masters of the various workshops, and the junior
brothers as foremen to the patients over whom they are
set, being their nurses bodily and spiritual at the same
time. Others, again, are thorough farmers ; farming
was their occupation originally, and their knowledge is
turned to use in the brotherhood. In fact, in this
respect, these brothers are something like St. Paul, who
was a tentmaker. They do not renounce their trade
on becoming deacons ; it is put by, as it were, to be
called into service if wanted. It may be wanted ; it
may not be wanted. But sick nursing is the regular
course they all go through ; they are trained in the
Infirmary of Sarepta, and further educated by hospital
work in the great cities — in Berlin, Bremen, etc., — and
they are sent out also for private nursing. While at
Nazareth, they are having religious and other instruction
by the pastors, to fit them for the deeper part of their
calling. They form a body, with rights of corporation,
and are governed by a " Bruder-rath" — a council, con-
sisting of the pastors of the colony and a number of
senior brothers, such as happen to be stationed about the
colony itself. Every brother owes implicit obedience to
this council, by whom the work is appointed.*
Theirs are consecrated lives ; and you will know what
* As we go to press, we learn that Pastor Kuhlo, of trumpet-
fame (p. 19), has accepted a call to Nazareth, as Principal of
the Westphalian Brotherhood. What a start the Posaune7t
Chor of the colony will be taking ! His work, of course, will
be the spiritual training of the brothers, but he will not, there-
fore, lose sight of that other work of his, the musical development
spoken of on a former page.
The Ministry of Mercy 107
this means if you watch the brothers at work among the
imbeciles of Eben-Ezer, and Zoar. These houses are
the test-station ; it is the hardest work, that is, the most
repulsive to the natural man. So the young brothers,
those who have entered the service but lately, are put on
their trial there. If after a month or two in these houses
they still feel they can make sick nursing their calling,
then, indeed, they are fit for it, as far as the moral fitness
is concerned. We have no words to express the admira-
tion one feels — simple admiration — as one watches these
brothers. If a woman, through inborn pity and from the
love that sways her, can render to the suffering service in
itself distasteful, — well, that is largely implanted in her
nature ; she can scarcely help it. Motherhood is strong
in every woman, and naturally goes out to the helpless.
But that men should tend these imbeciles with woman's
tenderness is a marvel. It takes true charity to do what
we saw, and a rare devotion. Think what that " tend-
ing " means : sleeping with some ten of them ; and these
epileptics — partly due to the medicine — have an odour
about them which love only can put up with ; it means
seeing to the cleanliness of human creatures who have
lost all sense of cleanliness. They do it — for what paid
servant would ? And as we watched the young brothers
at Zoar, some under twenty, mere bright-faced boys some
of them, we thought again, What power save that of love
can do this ? Yet whence have these boys such love ?
If men advanced in years, perhaps from life's teachings,
find strength for such service, it is marvellous enough ;
but what words will express one's admiration in seeing
such work done by young men, who have all life before
108 A Colony of Mercy
them, with its promises and shining hopes ! Admira-
tion is not the word, it is simple reverence. We ex-
pressed some of our thoughts to one of these youthful
brothers — he was but nineteen, and looked such a bright
youth — " How can you do it ? " " Well," he replied, " we
know we cannot in our own strength, and we are here
on trial for the life we have chosen. It is a little hard
sometimes, but there is a love which helps." And there
was a light in his eye which said he spoke true. He
was a mere boy, with no down on his lip, and his idiot
flock clung to him, crying, " Brother ! Brother ! " Truly
there is a love which helps ; one saw it, and felt rebuked.
And they do look happy, these brothers, as though they
had a real compensation in their work. It is for them
the Silly Valley will have changed its name. You may
scan their faces as they sit at dinner, some twenty of
them, with the imbeciles of Eben-Ezer and Zoar — they
are of all ages between eighteen and forty — and you will
not see one gloomy face among them ; degrees of bright-
ness you may notice.
It is not only the "brothers" who appear to be under the
spell of pitying love at Zoar. There is always a batch
of young men at Bethel fresh from college, and waiting
for holy orders. They come — some of them sent by the
Berlin Dom Stzft* — to undergo a little training, and
to gather some practical experience at this colony of
mercy as to what Charity is. Of course, they must
themselves be desirous of being fitted by some extra
" course " for the ministry awaiting them. These young
gentlemen, then, for a month or so, very readily are set
* The Divinity Hall in connection with the Berlin Cathedral.
The Ministry of Mercy 109
to make " studies " at Zoar, doing the regular brother's
work for the time being ; and some of these " candidates "
even are caught with the spirit of the place. One, a
young Swiss, stayed three months at Zoar, and went
away saying he had learned more there than in his three
years at college. Of course he had — he had matricu-
lated in that higher college of which the thirteenth of
the first of Corinthians speaks.
The " brothers " are mostly recruited from the so-called
lower classes — why do we call them lower, when they
yield such men ? — yet gentlemen sometimes offer. As
a rule, a " gentleman " who wants to serve Christ has, by
position and education, other roads before him ; but there
is now at Beersheba a brother, not quite a young man,
and lately entered, who was going to be a barrister, had
taken his degree at college, and all that, and, led by
what private life-teaching one would not inquire, came
to enrol himself a deacon at Bethel.
It is the wonderful spirit of service, emanating from
some central influence, and almost infectious, which is
the strength of this colony. Bodelschwingh holds a
Bruder-Stunde on Sundays, the one hour in the week
when he talks to these brothers in training about the
life they have chosen. We can, of course, not speak of
it from personal knowledge, but we heard one of these
young men say that the brothers, after such talk, are
always ready for the lowest place, nay, fired with a long-
ing for it ! He, of whom they all learn, in his simple
heart-stirring way has been talking to them of the
Christ-taught washing of feet, 'till even the meanest
work of Eben-Ezer and Zoar becomes transfigured, and
no A Colony of Mercy
they see Christ Himself going in and out of these houses
lavishing His tenderest love on these helpless sufferers.
Having heard this, we understood the light in the eye of
a Zoar brother saying, " there is a love which helps " ;
we saw the mainspring of that work. This is why this
colony prospers, why it is so successful. Money, though
of course money is needed, is mere dross when you want
to do such work. It is the workers — men and women
consecrating themselves — who are the secret of all this.
It is real consecration. What outward gain is there?
Pocket-money to the extent of one shilling per week,
rising a little as years go on ; and, if they marry and
become house-fathers, then fifteen to twenty pounds or
so a year for clothing themselves, and attiring the house-
mother, of a like mind with themselves.
One cannot speak too strongly of this consecrated
work, this ministry of mercy, for this is the true spring
of all that goes on there. Epileptic homes, on a smaller
scale and of different character, could be managed per-
haps with paid labour ; but if Bethel had to advertise
for nurses, seek them, remunerate them, her work would
collapse. Such a colony requires the workers Bethel
has found. As our story goes on this will become
clearer still. It is only because Pastor von Bodelschwingh
has such workers he can spread like the tree planted by
the rivers of water, extending his branches of mercy in
every direction, and whatsoever he doeth does prosper.
For Bethel, if a working model of the Programme of
Christianity, is a wonderfully complete one.
CHAPTER VIII
BABY CASTLE
" Suffer the little children to come unto Me."
YOU cannot spend a month at Bethel without
witnessing the laying of foundation stones and
the opening of new houses — it is one of the commonest
occurrences there. That colony has a marvellous faculty
of extending its borders, augmenting its work ; and if
growth means life, there is much life at Bethel. We
have already spoken of a Baby Castle, the beautiful
new house paid for by thank-offering pennies, " Little
Bethel," to which Sister Mary on the day of the semi-
Jubilee carried her sixty epileptic and otherwise afflicted
children. But there are two other " castles " for the
little ones, Bethel among her many missions, having a
special one devoted to the lambs of the flock.
The beech wood round about Zion Church on a sum-
mer's day is always an animated scene ; there are patients
about, and Sarepta convalescents, and deaconesses flit-
ting in and out, taking the short cuts through this centre
of the colony. Nor is the place they call their open-air
church hedged in for Sunday use only ; it forms a
week day class-room, in which the pastors on fine days
hold their catechisings and similar gatherings of the
ii2 A Colony of Mercy
stricken congregation. Walking about that wood,
therefore, in itself is an education in Bethel history.
One day we noticed a special commotion : a clearance
had been made in one of the quietest parts ; there was
levelling going on, a number of epileptics being busy
with wheelbarrow and shovel. A fortnight later the
wheelbarrows had disappeared, and one noticed a
foundation wall rising ; and presently the women folk
arrived with garlands, and a flagstaff was raised for the
hoisting of their Zion banner, " Let us arise — ." " What
is it all about ? " " Oh, Pastor Siebold is coming home
to-morrow, and we'll lay the foundation stone of the new
orphanage." And it was laid two or three days before
the Jubilee day.
So they have an orphan work at Bethel ? Yes, they
have. It has grown out of the infant classes of the
sisters. We have spoken in the previous chapter of the
Kinder-garten work in connection with Sarepta, these
sisters having about a dozen infant schools in neighbour-
ing parishes, and one at Bethel itself, which, at the same
time, forms the " academy " where deaconesses train for
this special work. This house — it bears the name of
" The Good Shepherd " — besides its little day -scholars,
the " infants " proper — has grown to be the centre of a
very remarkable orphan work. It gathers the waifs of the
province, but it does not keep them ; it finds parents for
them round about. That Ravensberger country is the
real orphanage. These wonderful peasant folk, when
they have brought up their own children, hand in their
names at Bethel for the receiving of any orphans, for
Christ s sake, Bethel can send them ; and Pastor Siebold
Baby Castle 1 1 3
assured us that he has always more parents ready to take
his waifs to their homes and hearts than he has waifs
needing parents ! The house of " The Good Shepherd "
has collected about five hundred orphans these last ten
years, and most of them are out in these peasant homes.
This seems to us a wonderfully fine way for a province
to bring up its orphans. It is something like Dr.
Barnardo's and Miss Macpherson's plan, yet how alto-
gether different ! These children are not sent to strangers,
however kind, across the sea ; they are not expatriated ;
they are brought up in their own home country, in the
most natural way, by people as like their own parents
as possible, in outward surroundings as like as possible
to those in which they were born. How wholesome, how
natural this seems, does it not? It seems a way after
God's own heart, does it not, that Christian folk, having
brought up their own children, should be ready to bring
up a few more, just for His sake ? If we really believed
what Christ once said, that the angels of these little
ones always behold the face of their Father in heaven,
perhaps we too would deem it a privilege for His sake
to be father and mother to them here. Some of us in
this might learn a great lesson from these humble
Ravensberger Christians. But the fact is, we do our
charity by deputy, we send our subscriptions to an
orphanage ; and sending our sovereigns there, possibly
we send the blessings there, which, with one such little
one, might enter our own house and home. Did not
Christ say very specially, " Whoso shall receive one such
little child, receive th Me ? " Why do we not act as though
we believed this ?
8
ii4 A Colony of Mercy
Well, these Ravensberger peasant folk believe it,
and act upon it ; they take in these children, Bethel
being " guardian " to the whole of them. Pastor Siebold
— Pastor von Bodelschwingh's coadjutor for Sarepta,
as Pastor Stiirmer is for the Bethel proper — is in
regular correspondence with all these parents ; the
children are not lost sight of : however trustworthy these
foster parents in any individual case may be, Bethel
continues the mother of them all, and they are visited.
Father Budde, the house-father of Beersheba, goes his
regular rounds in this great orphanage, not announcing
his visits, but coming in upon these parents and children
on all sorts of unexpected occasions, so that Bethel may
be quite sure that her orphan family is doing well. At
regular times also Pastor Siebold arranges gatherings of
these adoptive parents and adopted children, sometimes
at Bethel, sometimes in neighbouring parishes, to keep
up their feeling of relationship with the colony.
As a Christian work surely this is beyond praise and
commendation — it is done simply for love ; work for
which no money whatever is wanted, work, therefore
wondrously pure and beautiful ! With a sense of shame
one says, It is what cannot be copied. It appears to us
a spark from the fire Divine, and such things needs must
grow from within. Yet might not some of us learn
a lesson of these simple Ravensberger Christians ?
Over and over again one asks oneself the question at
that colony, How is it ? One sees and feels the flowing
streams of Christ-inspired work. Is their main course
from the centre to the outer circle, or from the outer
circle to the centre? Is Bethel the secret source of so
Baby Castle 1 1 5
much blessing, her spirit overspreading the surrounding-
country ? Is the country a land of the chosen, so that
a Bethel there cannot but grow ? We have spoken on
another page of the groundwork, yet it is a question
not easily answered : many things must work together
for such fruit-bearing ; but Bethel, both centre and outer
circle, is true to its name — a house of God among men.
Yet another Baby Castle — the real one, the Kinder-
heim. Our illustration speaks for it, showing the ailing
flock (not epileptic) in their summer haunt in the beech
wood. Sarepta means a refiner's place, and their text is,
" He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver." Well,
just over the way is the " Sarepta " of the little ones, and
the Refiner would seem to have His own chosen place in
this " Children's Home." There is much suffering here,
but the silver grows bright ; there is much dying here,
but Kznderheim, altogether lovely, is one of the happiest
places in the colony.
We got our first impressions there, dropping in one
early afternoon, and happening upon the infants' ward —
a whole row of them, under twelve months, cot after cot.
They were all awake, all smiling, though the hand of
death was on every one of them. " What wonderfully
good babies ! " said we to the sister, not trusting ourselves
with more for the lump rising in one's throat. " They
have just had their midday sleep," says the sister, as if
that most fully accounted for it. But who, knowing
nursery life, ever heard of a dozen infants all going to
sleep together, and all waking up together, smiling?
It seemed as though even these unconscious little souls
had learned the one lesson of the place— self-surrender,
1 1 6 A Colony of Mercy
And if you went near, their little hands stretched out to
you. If you gave them a finger they clasped it almost
gratefully, and their eyes followed you — it was all the
talking they could do. Such white little faces : what
ails them ? " They are all in consumption," says the
sister — all in consumption, paying for father's or mother's
sin, children of drunkards, laying down their innocent
little lives. They in the Refiner's furnace, some of their
parents in prison the while — some in actual prison, all in
the prison of vicious living. Surely the angels of these
little ones behold the face of the All-Merciful in heaven
while this goes on — laying down their little lives for their
sinning parents ! There is much silent redemption going
on we wot not of. Not many months will pass, and
every one of these babies will stand before the Throne,
little lambs of the Shepherd. And what of their parents ?
No brother can redeem a brother, we know; but these
death-marked infants spoke to us more loudly than any
sermon we ever heard of the dying Love paying the
debt for a sinning world.
Let no one say we are idealising, romancing, giving
subjective impressions. We showed a deputation of
magistrates round the place one day ; they had come
from a distant part of the country, wanting to start some
public charity in their own town. It was just before the
Jubilee, when everybody was busy, and we, beginning to
be at home in the colony, could not but take pity on
these forlorn deputies. It was not an infant ward they
were thinking of; but we took them to these dying
babes, that they might hear that sermon also. And
we noticed the awe stealing over their faces, and
. -4
gjr
K1NDERHEIM.
Baby Castle 1 1 9
one turning away to hide something very much like
a tear. Perhaps he had children at home— perhaps
troublesome children. He had been bending over one
of these cots, thinking his ticking watch would please
that dying infant ; and he saw a wasted baby face
turned up at him, a smile passing over it, and eyes
saying they were beyond glittering things, and he
suddenly turned and left the room.
Almost every week or two one of these children goes to
its crown : that Baby Castle also is a "congregation of the
dying," the mortuary bell going very often for Kinderheim.
But death has lost its terrors there. There are children
here up to the age of twelve or thirteen, but their one
talk, when one has gone, is : "Gone to the Hebe Heiland"
—to the children's Saviour in heaven. One wonders and
wonders, but it is simply true. It is Sister Lina who has
this lovely work among this flock ; they call her " Auntie "
— everybody is uncle or auntie to these children — but
she is the Auntie, and her influence is something mar-
vellous. A quiet, unpretending woman is Sister Lina.
What a heart hers must be, for there are fifty or sixty
always appealing to it ! and how jealous she is of laying
bare the inner life of Kinderheim, always drawing close
the veil of holy silence about these little ones, to present
them unspotted to Him who seeth in secret ! We have
watched her with a dying baby, and we shall never
forget it : there are things too sacred for words. When
we called the next day, the passing-bell having told us
the child had gone, she showed us the little conqueror
lying with hands folded, and wearing the victor's crown
— myrtle or laurel, she never omits that ! And presently
1 20 A Colony of Mercy
the Nazareth boys come to carry the little coffin, she
collecting those of the children who are able, and follow-
ing the babe to its resting-place. How many she has
laid to sleep, and what a mother she will be in a Day to
come!
If it were question of biography much could be said
of Kinderheim and its little lives. Truly there is a
refining going on there — a purifying, and the silver
grows bright. It was Christmas once at Kinderheim.
In the summer you may see them as in our illustration,
and hear their voices as of birds in the beech wood,
there being not only happiness, but even mirth at
Kinderheim amid all the suffering. But now it was
winter. The little convalescents, boys and girls, were
singing their hymns, and on Christmas Eve the cots of
the babes stood in a circle about the tree — a girl baby
of the number who would not much longer be among
them, evidently. The white wasted face was getting
more wasted every day, and the little chin more pointed,
and the children called her " Mousie " because of the thin
pointed face. Well, " Mousie ;' too had been taken to the
Christmas tree. She was perhaps a year old ; and her
eyes grew bright, she raised her wasted hands in baby
wonder, a smile flickered over her face — and she was gone.
It was somewhat unexpected, and it saddened all that
flock beneath the tree. But none more sorrowful than
little Laura — a frail child about ten years old, though
you would have taken her for scarcely more than six or
seven. Little Mousie had been her special charge, given
her by " Auntie," who teaches these children they are
one another's care. " I didn't pray for Mousie this
Baby Castle 121
morning," she wailed : " I thought of Christmas only, and
now she is gone ! " But that night, when the children's
ward was hushed, the sisters being at their supper, a
song rose, and following the voices " Auntie " came upon
Laura and five or six others outside the door, behind
which Mousie lay sleeping : here they stood in their
night dresses in the dimly lit hall, singing a children's
hymn of little feet crossing the border — " To live is
Christ" they sang, " and to die is gain" It was Laura's
doing, who had called up the others — herself a dying
child and barely ten years old. We do not know what
the doctor said to this performance of little patients on a
December night ; but there are things by the side of
which " what the doctor says " shrinks into a corner.
Laura had been for some years in the Kinderhehn ;
she was but five when she was brought there by a parish
sister, who had found her utterly neglected. Her early
childhood had been nothing but misery; she was reticent
and shy, as though she had never known a beam of love.
It took some time before that chilled little heart thawed
to the influences of Kinderheim ; but these influences
won her completely, and for six years — she was in a slow
decline, dying eventually of heart disease — she, in her
weakness, was the child-servant of the children. Not
that she did not require purifying. One day some
naughtiness had been committed. " I haven't done it,"
says Laura, and another child was punished. Laura
went to bed that night, but could not sleep. Another
girl, knowing what was wrong, stepped up to her cot.
" Laura, aren't you asleep yet ? " u No," says Laura, " I
cannot sleep." " Do you know that our Auntie is sitting
122 A Colony of Mercy
in the parlour and crying ? " At this Laura, bursting
from her bed into the room adjoining, is on her knees
before Sister Lina. " Oh, Auntie, I have told a story ! "
But she never after this told another, growing in grace
almost visibly ; and to the last, even when she had to be
carried, and could sit on a sister's lap only, she never
missed the children's service in the home chapel, — white,
and frail as a lily, she never lost a word of the teaching
given these children. And quite a number of the dying
nurslings were her " care " ; she would sit by their cots,
spending her love on them, and heaven was the nearer
because so many of her little charges went there before
her. Her own sufferings often were acute, but when
asked, could she still bear the pain, her invariable answer
was, "If the Hebe Heiland has sent it, surely I can ! "
One day — it was not so very long before her own
going — Auntie said, half playfully, " Do you think there
will be room there for us to follow ? " " Oh," cried
Laura, " I can squeeze myself together : look how I can
squeeze ! " And she drew in her thin little figure as
though her one thought were to make room for all the
rest of them. Said another girl, " I am not so sure I
want to go, — I know what Kinder Jieim is, and I don't
know heaven." " Don't you ? " cried Laura ; " you would
then if you'd just believe the Hebe Heiland is there ! "
And she would talk of the many children gone during
the six years of her own illness, right certain she would
meet and know them all again. By-and-by the home-
call came for this child also ; she lay with laboured
breath quite satisfied the time had come. " Look," she
cried, starting suddenly, " a host of angels, and — oh,
Baby Castle 12
6
yes ! — all the children among them ; and — oh, look ! —
little Mousie right on Jesus' lap ! " And thus this little
sufferer died in simplest faith that dying was to be with
Jesus, and with the " other children " in glory. When
they laid her to rest, the pastor gave this testimony
at her grave : " We preach the peace of God — she had
it."
What influences of the sanctuary must be playing
about these children's cots to ripen such fruit !
There was another little sufferer about the same time —
little Jeannie, hopelessly scrofulous, her mother dead, her
father serving his term in prison. She was all swathed
in wadding and bandages, a little Lazarus to look at.
But she, too, heard and saw much at KinderJieim she had
never heard or seen before, and was as willing a learner
as Laura. One day, when Auntie went her morning
rounds, the child showed her a fresh swelling about
her neck. " Oh, Jeannie," says Auntie, " I think I know
where you are going ! " " To church ? " cried Jeannie.
It had been her desire for weeks that she might be
carried once more to church with the others. " No,"
says Auntie ; " I think you are going to a place better
still — don't you know ? " " We know," cried the other
children. " Jeannie will be leaving us to go to heaven."
And Jeannie was content to go ; she only was anxious
to know if there were churches in heaven ; she thought
there must be. And she was making ready to go, for
Auntie had said she should go.
This is how these children have the fear of death taken
from them — love standing by their cots, and telling
them of the " better place," as we talk to children of a
124 A Colony of Mercy
a holiday treat. But Jeannie did not go just yet — there
was a work she yet should do — she, one of the faith-
ful ones also in the children's vineyard. Bethel about
that time had begun a mission-work in Africa, and
since in that commonwealth all bear together and suffer
together and rejoice together, and, as a colony, work to-
gether for the Kingdom, even the babes at Kinderheim
are within this circle of outgoing love. The first batch
of sisters had left for East Africa, and Sister Lina had
told her flock all about it, and of the black children out
there who never had a Christmas tree and never heard
of a Saviour. Little Jeannie was deeply moved, and
looking about in her play-box, gave Sister Lina one
halfpenny ; it was all she had, the gift of some visitor —
was it enough, she wondered, to send some of the good
things they had to that poor Africa ? And He who saw
the widow's mite will have seen Jeannie's halfpenny.
But the child did more — how the thought grew in
her little brain no one knows ; but for two or three
months after, this dying child-pilgrim, about to win
home, put out her bandaged hand to every visitor passing
by her cot, pleading for pennies for the poor black
children. And she collected nearly ten pounds ! Pastor
von Bodelschwingh was away in the colony's home of
rest by the North Sea when that child's home-call came.
She firmly believed he was away in Africa looking after
the black children, and she did not close her weary eyes
without sending him a letter, getting another child to
write it for her. " Dear Uncle," the letter said, " I think
I am going to heaven now ; I would have liked myself
to give you this money for the poor black children, but
Baby Castle 125
I am so weak now, so this for them, with Jeannie's
love."
Will the reader tell us we are idealising a place in
which such fruit grows even among the children ?
Pastor von Bodelschwingh begged us not to say any-
thing in praise of any one, yet what can we do, telling
this story, but just say what we have seen and heard ?
A dying child is there at this moment, little Henry —
Heini, they call him — seven years old, dying of hip
disease. If you ask him, " Heini, how are you ? " ( Wie
geht es dir ?) his invariable answer is, " Gam gtct ! " And
indeed it " is well " with him, though his poor limbs are in
weights and bandages, and he wasted to a skeleton. It
was his one desire to see yet a Christmas here — " I am
going to heaven," he kept saying, " but I would so like
to have Christmas yet with all the children ! " It was
his first Christmas, he being of Jewish parents, and he had
it. He was carried in, the central figure of that flock
beneath the tree. These children had all come in with the
one thought they were coming to the manger, to sing
their hymns to the Holy Child Jesus born that night.
And the prayerfulness, aye the worship shining in their
upturned faces — one must have seen it in order
to believe. Pastor von Bodelschwingh conducted the
children's Christmas service, they repeating the Gospel
story, their verses and hymns one after another. To look
at them it was the one business of life to sing and say
of the goodness of God ; yet they were like other
children, being gathered for the presents human love
had prepared. They were to have their dolls and whips
and whistles, only their little service came first. And it
126 A Colony of Mercy
was real. There was a hush ; Heini was folding his
hands to say what he had to say — a hymn of hosannas
for mercies bestowed ! " What then must heaven be," the
child was saying, " if this poor earth is so full of light ! "
He has never known aught but suffering here, yet with
his simplest conviction — you saw it in his eyes, a light
more shining than of Christmas tree — he spoke of the
shower of mercies making this poor life so bright — " What
then will heaven be ? " He is waiting to go — like a ripened
sheaf to be garnered home. He lingers yet, surely yet
having a mission — for is not such child a living sermon,
nay, one of God's own angel messengers to all that
ailing band ? No wonder there is peace at Kinder Jieim,
and loveliest obedience, yea, holy submission, and happy
little lives !
Even their everyday life is a pleasure to watch. Go
in, say at meal time, and you find the little things, such
as are up and too young to feed themselves, sitting on
low stools in a half circle, here six and there six, mouths
open, for all the world like swallows' nests, the feeding
sisters, black dress and white cap, hovering before them
like mother swallows, now filling this little mouth, now
that — it is the sweetest picture. One would love to
photograph Kinderheim in all its aspects. Little friend-
ships spring up. There is one little dot having taken to
its heart another little dot ; neither can walk for limb
disease, except by pushing a little chair ; but if dot two
cries, dot one is after it to wipe its tears. They are not
three years old.
There is a black child at Kinderheim, not a sick
child, a little girl, Fatuma — Elizabeth Fatuma since
Baby Castle 1 2 7
her baptism — saved from the slavers and sent home by
one of their missionaries. For Bethel has begun a
noble work in Africa, it is her latest development, and
we will just mention it here, little Jeannie being the
link between Baby Castle and the "poor black
children."
So even in the Dark Continent the merciful hand of
Bethel is busy. There are four stations in East Africa,
a fifth just forming, and some of her deacons and
deaconesses at work there, telling the story of Christ the
Healer to the " poor black children " who come to them
for bodily treatment. The leading missionaries, some
of them pastors gone out at their own expense, are
in every instance men who, whatever their college
honours, have gone through their course of training as
simple brothers among Bethel's own afflicted children,
learning to serve Christ humbly among the imbeciles
and epileptics before carrying His Gospel of good-will
to the heathen ; and who, gone out now to their larger
sphere, have taken with them the spirit of Bethel, that
comforting spirit to which every " bound one," black or
white, and bound in whatever fetters of Satan's kingdom,
is a Prisoner of Zion, a captive to be set free. And
these missionaries, these Bethel brothers and sisters, are
armed with a special strength, — ambassadors of Christ
they for that home-congregation, whose love, whose
prayers are ever with them. So this work too is likely
to grow ; you cannot go about Bethel and doubt this, for
her very patients — not only the little ones — are warmed
towards the Dark Continent.
This mission has quite a character of its own, and in
128 A Colony of Mercy
certain respects it is unique : it is unique in its kind of
workers, its pastors, its deacons, its deaconesses ; it is
unique in its manner of finding and preparing workers ; it
is unique in the special blessing to be noted, that it is the
only African mission which after three years of work has
not a single death to record ! Bodelschwingh on taking
over the struggling stations of a Berlin Society — which
society still finds the funds, he finding the men — at once,
from the fever-breeding coast districts made a start for
the hill country, his ever being the practical eye, however
ideal the endeavour. The mission and hospital work at
Tanga and Dar-es-Salaam nevertheless goes on.
As for finding the men, the visitor, right in the centre
of the epileptic colony, in the beech wood, and in the
very shadow of Zion Church, will come upon a house
bearing for inscription Candidaten Convict* the inmates
of which in every instance are university graduates
preparing for holy orders, some of whom, having heard
the call from Bethel, have come to this little college in
obedient surrender, to be fitted there for Christ's missions
to " the least of them," whether at home or abroad.
The one thing asked of them is a willingness to be
workers of the Kingdom in whatever sphere. And as
* " Convict," Latin cojivictus, from convivo, a boarding or living
together. It is a pet thought with Bodelschwingh that in this
Candidaten Convict Bethel has a Divinity Hall of her own,
where university graduates, leaving their college honours and
college wisdom behind them, might have an opportunity of
resting their minds awhile from "higher criticism," girding
themselves for the time being with the towel of practical
theology instead. As shown in the foregoing chapter (p. 108)
many, coming to this little " Hall," return thence to the regular
ministry of the country.
Baby Castle 129
you go about the colony you come upon these young
men everywhere, learning to be servants — Christ's
servants. But the so-called higher knowledge is not
therefore neglected : even Suaheli is being studied at that
" Convict" and Scripture instruction of course is there.
When they are ordained, some are sent to home mission
work, some to Africa, according to their fitness ; and
the lessons learnt at Bethel go with them to whatever
sphere they go. The African mission, however, one
cannot help seeing, is a pet child at Bethel, amid her
manifold work. Even among the clouded ones of her
flock, if you go and tell them there has been happy
news, a nice letter, faces brighten with expectance and a
deafening cry of" Africa " goes through the room. Among
the epileptic boys* at Nazareth, there is one, little Peter,
a nice bright lad, who spends all his spare time in
catching mice, getting a penny or two for every dozen
he traps ; and if you ask him what his efforts are for, it is
always " the black children," he investing his pennies at
Bethphage in illuminated cards and Bible pictures to go
out to Africa, where some sixty or seventy children
saved from the slavers have been gathered into a school
in which the Bethel children are deeply interested.
There are two Washamba boys at Nazareth, lads of
about fourteen or fifteen, doing well ; and it is their one
hope, as also it is little Fatuma's, that one day they may
go back to Africa, taking the message of Bethel with
them to their own people. Walking about the colony
the other day, we came upon two adult negroes— stalwart
young men. Who were they ? They had come to Bethel
of their own accord, one but lately, one some little time
9
130 A Colony of Mercy
ago, bringing their story with them. They had been, the
one with a menagerie, the other with a circus troupe,
acting " wild men " till they were sick of it ; and hearing
of Bethel they came, one of them all the way from
Copenhagen, asking to be " saved " ! To be sure they
were kept— no one coming to Bethel with the prayer to
be helped is sent away — and being muscular fellows
they have been put into the smithy, to prove their
willingness of giving up the " wild man " for honest
labour. They are learning horse-shoeing now, or what-
ever may be going, no one taking any particular notice
of them — everything is done in such wholesome fashion
at Bethel — but they will be watched, they will be taught,
and they will be trained according to their fitness.
There must be something in these fellows worth
training, considering that of their own free will, having
come to the dregs of a miserable life, they yielded to the
power of attraction going out from this colony. They
are both of Jamaica origin, having run away, one of
them from Christian parents, but now safely landed at
Bethel.
Such is the connection of this colony with the Dark
Continent. It is because Bethel does so much at home,
that she has love and time and possibilities left to carry
her message of mercy to poor Africa also, " bleeding to
death through all her pores " with the horrors of slavery.
For Charity, beginning at home, never stops there. And
if there is one thing to be learned at Bethel, it is the
lesson of the love abounding — the love of Christ encom-
passing every human need.
>. . *9Lr£
PASTOR VON BODELSCHWINGH S MANSE.
CHAPTER VIII
BETHEL TO THE RESCUE
"... saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them."
BEHIND Pastor von Bodelschwingh's little manse
you notice a rough retaining-wall against the
slopes of the church hill. The path above leading
straight to the recreation ground of the convalescents
of Sarepta and Kinderhetm, you naturally conclude the
wall to have been erected for their greater privacy,
shutting off, as it does, the beech wood from being too
freely entered by any chance passer-by. So it has ;
but it is a memorable wall. Great things have small
beginnings, and here the modern problem has been
131
132 A Colony of Mercy
solved — how to deal with social distress. That rough
stone wall is a monument !
The question what to do with the unemployed has
been as much to the front over there as it is here.
There is this difference, however, between England and
Germany : that the " submerged " and starving here *
form the helpless sediment of the great cities, whereas
there they swarm over the country, or, rather, they
swarmed, for things are greatly changed. A way out
of Darkest Germany has been found, and not only
found, it has been trodden these ten years by an ever-
increasing crowd of the submerged, many of whom are
being landed in positions of self-help and thrift. That
stone wall was the first lifeboat going out after them
into the surge.
Social distress had reached its height in Germany
with the reaction setting in upon what is known as the
Griinder Jahre f — the years of speculative enterprise,
more sanguine than solid, and best described as
" bubbles " — following upon the national renascence
after the Franco-German war. Money had become
more plentiful, trade and commerce more active ;
speculation grew giddy, and presently there was a
collapse. Thousands were thrown out of work. The
rural population in masses, seized with the fever of the
day, had left the fields for the manufacturing centres,
wishing to better themselves, and dreaming of wealth.
But the years of plenty were followed by the lean years,
* Excepting, indeed, Scotland, as a succeeding page will show.
t From "griinden," to found, to set going: the mercantile
world all agog then for starting " paying concerns."
Bethel to the Rescue 133
leaving a floating population, not so much " submerged "
as caught on a wave of misery heaving to and fro in
the land. Moreover, there were wandernde Handwerks-
burschen — journeymen artisans, on the tramp for work
— a time-honoured institution, but much degenerated.
Beggars abounded.
Says Pastor von Bodelschwingh, " It always was a
habit with us that poor wayfarers knocking at the door
of our colony, now at this house, now at that, obtained
relief ; we never gave them money, but any distressed
individual who asked for a meal had it, sitting down
with his plateful at the doorstep where he was fed. The
good house-father or kindly house-mother, thus pitying
him, believed firmly such feeding of the hungry, if
charity, was not charity abused ; a hungry man must be
fed, be he ever so undeserving ; and if the food was con-
sumed under their own eyes, they were, at any rate, sure
it was not being converted into money for drink. Their
own hands were too full to watch these roving guests ;
no one, for a time, noticed that the same man would
return in a week, perhaps return a third time in a fort-
night, and so on. Nor did they notice that public-houses
in the neighbourhood throve and multiplied ; nor did any
one think of keeping count that two or three dozen of
these vagrants every day thus had their dinner at the
several kitchens of Bethel, the distance between the
houses concealing their numbers ; indeed, if any one had
counted these visitors, you would still not have doubted
it was rightful charity, for who could distinguish between
the deserving poor and the vagabond who will not
work ? And if any of the wretched beggars pointed
134 A Colony of Mercy
to the rags he wore, was it not merciful to give him a pair
of boots that could be spared, or a shirt or coat ? Who
could tell that the selfsame man might appear all ragged
again to-morrow at your neighbour's door to be fed and
clothed, having sold what he had received at your pity-
ing hands yesterday ? When we grew more experienced
in their ways, we discovered that some of these daily
customers repeated that trick half a dozen times over ;
we discovered that some of them went their systematic
round of our kitchens, and having reached the last
returned to begin again at the first. But," says Pastor
von Bodelschwingh, " if a man will not work, he shall not
eat — or rather, if we feed them, let them do some work."
Hammers and trowels were procured, and one hour's
labour for a meal was asked of them. That stone wall
behind the Pastor's house — or, rather, its idea—was full
of possibilities. It proved a test-wall; the daily 'band
of starving pilgrims diminished wonderfully ; instead
of twenty or thirty ,~only half a dozen appeared, some-
times two or three only, willing to do a stroke of honest
labour'for the food one was ready to give them. Among
the few those could plainly be distinguished who had
never handled trowel or spade in their lives. These mostly
were gratefully willing ; they even returned, saying, " We
will gladly do this work we are not used to, if only you
will keep us." Then where should they be housed: —
some of them in rags which had not seen a stitch or soap
and water for weeks and months ? They must be kept
from the public-house. The good house-fathers were
ready to receive them ; " only not in this condition,"
they said. The men must first be new-clothed. How
Bethel to the Rescue 135
was it to be done ? Why, they must give work for
clothes, as they gave work for food. And thus that wall
grew.
But this wall is the beginning of the LABOUR COLONY,
WlLHELMSDORF, based on a principle first laid down in
tJie building of that wall.
The winter of 1881 was a peculiarly hard one, and
band after band arrived starving, in rags, and willing to
work for food, for clothes. They came in such numbers
that Bethel could not keep them all, — the most needy,
the most starving, were those asked to stay. " Would to
God," said a hungry vagrant bitterly, " would to God we
too were epileptic, then you would keep us ! " That
went to the pastor's heart. " I will try and keep you —
find work for you," he said. And he went prospecting.
You follow the bending course of the valley in a south-
eastern direction, and presently it opens out into a
sandy plain,some thirty miles long and ten broad, running
along the western slopes of the Teutoburger Forest, and
known to geologists as the " Gulf of Miinster." The
German Ocean, in bygone ages, rolled its waves here. It
is called the Senne (or Sende), for it is a vast tract of
sand. Nothing indigenous but coarse grass or heather,
and stunted fir trees. If you examine that soil you find
at a depth of from two to four feet, the cause of its
natural unproductiveness— a stratum of ochreous deposit,
a bog iron ore, nowhere more than a few inches thick, but
hard as iron ; no root or sucker of plant can pierce it, and
it lets no moisture through. A farm dotted here and there
struggles against this barren soil. If you dig deep enough
to turn up that layer, leaving it exposed to the air, it
136 A Colony of Mercy
soon disintegrates ; and if you examine it presently,
you find a powdery ferruginous earth, a rich natural
manure, changing your sandy waste into fruitful soil.
This, however, presupposes toilsome labour, and does
not pay the ordinary farmer. But it would " pay "
Bodelschwingh, who could bring a peculiar capital to
bear, called Charity, and who was in search of labour of
a peculiar kind.
Here was a problem : a soil " submerged " ages ago,
but fit to be reclaimed, and a " submerged " humanity
struggling in the waters of social distress, but capable of
being reclaimed, — why not set the one to reclaim the
other? This, too, was reciprocity — a grand inspiration,
a stroke of genius. Bodelschwingh set the two forces at
one another — the latent productiveness of the soil, and
the latent labour capacity of these starving men, and in
the course of ten years that Senne has become a garden :
a stratum is turned up, and a sunk stratum of men,
hundreds of them, are " turned up " in the process — up
to that higher level of thrift and industry whence they
have fallen. This, too, is geology.
Having completed his investigations, Pastor von Bodel-
schwingh called together the magistrates and leading
men of the province and unfolded his plans. He made
a speech which first startled them, and then startled the
country. His speeches are always simple in the extreme,
but to the point. His voice carries conviction, and
there is that in his face and bearing which captivates.
He is so simple, so unpretending, so modest, so humble,
this nobleman born, this Doctor of Divinity, this Knight
of St. John and three or four other orders which he
Bethel to the Rescue 137
never wears ; he has no rhetoric, if thereby you mean fine
language, polished style, clever exposition ; he just talks
to you, but that talk, like a swelling river with a resist-
less undercurrent, carries you along. " Love is the one
motive power," he once said : " the question is, Have you
a sufficiency of it ? " He does not always lay bare that
undercurrent when he addresses such meetings, but the
unpretending pastor, with all his simplicity, on such
occasion gives proof he is a ruler of men and a born
political economist. He knows all about the social
trouble, he knows the laws which exist and the laws
which ought to exist ; he knows, for the simple reason
that he is so interested ! He has the country's trouble
at heart, her resources, her prospects, the whole situation,
therefore, at his fingers' ends. His father was minister
of finance and prime-minister, and if this pastor were
not the humble servant of mercy, he, for administrative
faculty, like the Bodelschwinghs before him, might have
been the right hand of kings.
He gave that meeting a lesson in arithmetic. At the
lowest computation, there were then a hundred thousand
unemployed begging their way through the land ; and
some estimated their numbers at a hundred and fifty,
even two hundred thousand. The country has got
to keep them, though it keep them only by beggar's
pence. These fellows at the least beg their shilling a
day ; some with little trouble make their two shillings,
even three and four shillings, daily, for they are practised
in the trade. But even taking the lowest figures you
have the net result of about two million pounds sterling
a year collected by beggars, for the public-house mostly.
1 38 A Colony of Mercy
" We could keep them all, house and clothe and feed
them, at a tenth the present expense, if we gave them
work, for that is what they want," suggested the pastor.
" We must help them back to a thrifty, useful life.
I propose to start a Labour Colony \ if the province will
back me, and I promise that in the space of a couple of
years the province will be rid of the pest."
Bodelschwingh is a sanguine man, full of optimistic
views, if a great idea has a hold of him. He even
promised the astonished magistrates that the example
would be followed in no time, and that in sheer self-
defence, by the other provinces ; " for, look you," he said,
" how was it with the fox in the fable ? How does he,
when he wants to rid his coat of certain inmates ? He
takes a bunch of hay between his teeth and slowly
backs into the water, tail first : the lodgers he wants to be
rid of, quitting his hind-quarters, seek refuge on his back,
then on his shoulders, his head, and lastly in the hay-
bunch. Then he drowns them all, dropping the hay, and
walks away rejoicing. The moral is plain — we must rid
our own province, the tail ; the neighbouring provinces
for a time will swarm the more : let them do then as we
have done — let each province start a colony of its own.
Yet we are not going to drown all our poor^ fleas ; those
who will work shall work, and shall be helped, but the
rest — every good-for-nothing one — will disappear ; the
country presently will be rid of them." Now, this was
optimism of the purest water ; the magistrates, the friends
said so ; but Bodelschwingh is a man who before then
had shown people he might at least be trusted for an
attempt. And though some laughed and others shook
Bethel to the Rescue 139
their heads, they did trust him. The province gave him
a loan, a couple of thousand pounds free of interest,
following it up with a further loan as the work grew.
The result proved that Pastor von Bodelschwingh was
right. He started a labour colony for the unemployed
of Westphalia and one or two neighbouring provinces ;
and what was begun in a side lane behind his own little
manse, that rough stone wall, has grown and multiplied.
By sheer force of example, Wilhelmsdorf has become
the mother of five-and-twenty similar colonies all over
Germany, and the great mass of starving vagrants,
formerly accosting you at every turn, has practically
disappeared from the country.
Land was bought in the Senne, and the old farm-
house upon it renovated and enlarged. In March 1882 a
band of convalescent epileptics, farm labourers, went out
from Bethel to form the nucleus of the labour colony,
or rather to set about establishing it. But long before
the place was ready for its intended occupants, news had
gone like wildfire along the highways of Germany, and
north, south, east and west, it was known among the
tramping population that tables were being spread,
a refuge opened for every hungry beggar, if he would
work. On the whole, it was the most honest of the sunken
mass who first appeared— a man willing to be saved is
already half saved — and the place soon was as full as
it could hold. On August 17th, 1882, this colony was
opened, a day to be held in remembrance by all who love
the people, a birthday of " good-will unto men." The
aged Emperor stood sponsor — it is after him that the
first labour colony is named — and a few months later
140 A Colony of Mercy
his noble son, the late Emperor Frederick, wrote a letter
to Pastor von Bodelschwingh, accepting the Protectorate,
in these words : —
" It is with the most gracious approval of my august
father, His Majesty the Emperor and King, that I, in
compliance with the desire of your Committee, herewith
accept the Protectorate of the Labour Colony, Wilhelms-
dorf, expressing the glad hope in doing so that this
undertaking, which has set itself to combat a far-spread
evil, will not only continue as successfully as it has
begun, but that it may soon be imitated in other parts
of our country, for the trouble is everywhere. The
colony Wilhelmsdorf, though existing but a few months
as yet, has already proved its efficiency in rescuing from
utter perdition hundreds of the sunken and lost, leading
them back to orderly and industrious lives. It is not too
much, therefore, to say that you have started an institu-
tion deserving the sympathy and support of all among
us who are anxious to further a healthy national de-
velopment. It is not too much to say that this effort,
independent of religious or political differences, should
be the common cause of all who are striving to uphold
the foundations, well aware of the clouds gathering
overhead.
" Frederick William,
" Crown Prince.
"Berlin, December i$tk, 1882."
Wilhelmsdorf, legally, is the property of Bethel, for to
the epileptic colony, Bethel, as trustee of the fund, the
loans in question were made. It is very beautiful that
Bethel to the Rescue 141
the first human loan, the first eighteen settlers, were from
Bethel's own stricken children, — a number of epileptics
capable of work. It is ever those who themselves have
known trouble that are the fit helpers of others. These
eighteen, indeed, themselves were being helped when,
headed by a house-father, they went out into the Senne
to make room there for the starving; for Bethel, at whose
doors every year between two and three hundred fresh
cases stand waiting for admittance,no longer had any room
for them. The convalescents must leave her, and where
should they go ? Sending them back to the outer world
and the less careful life, too often means sending them
back to their own old trouble. So here was a beautiful
arrangement : let them help themselves by helping
others. And when their work was done, when the call
had gone forth from Wilhelmsdorf, " Come hither, ye
homeless and starving, we have made room for you,"
these eighteen again became the nucleus of a settlement.
Back to Bethel they could not go, but the Senne lias
room.
About a mile from the labour colony there was another
broken-down farm. This too was acquired, and the
eighteen settled there. They wanted a name for their
new home, and they found it in the twenty-sixth
chapter of Genesis. The farm - settlements in the
Senne have always followed the chances of water, a
little brook seeking its course through the sandy waste
being the first condition of better things. That new
home also had its brook ; and when it was dedicated to
its new destiny, the pastor gathered the eighteen and
read to them the story of Isaac, and his digging again
142 A Colony of Mercy
the wells of water of his father Abraham, which the
Philistines had stopped. Isaac too was homeless just
then, and only when he got to the third well he might
stay ; and he called it Rehoboth, saying, " For the Lord
hath made room for us." And the eighteen called their
new home Rehoboth^ for now they " had room," and were
able to make room for more of their brothers in affliction.
Rehoboth now has room for about sixty convalescent
epileptics, and as their numbers increase and further
room is needed, further room yet will be made. And
thus Bethel's convalescents, instead of returning to a pre-
carious, unwatched and too often unbefriended existence,
have this beautiful refuge. It is easy to dig wells in the
Senne ; water is bursting up everywhere — plentiful and
clear, if you dig but ten or twelve feet ; and in the
Senne the consolations of Christ's Programme are an
ever-welling fountain ; patients and vagrants alike may
sit down and drink. But the convalescents have ever
since been working hand in hand with the moral " con-
valescents" of Wilhelmsdorf, reclaiming that barren soil;
with this difference only, that whereas of the former,
so far there are about fifty, there have on an average
never been less than a hundred and fifty of the latter.
Wilhelmsdorf " has room " for four hundred of the un-
employed, and in winter time this number has often been
reached.
Thus Love went out, found a desert and turned it into
a garden.
CHAPTER IX
THE LABOUR COLONY
"There is room."
ABOUT a year (strictly speaking fifteen months) after
the labour colony was first opened, a deputy
magistrate paid a visit, and thus reported : " I found
two hundred and twenty-five colonists, mostly occupied
on the fields, and working cheerfully though it was
pouring with rain. They were of all classes — men who
had been in the army, men who had been to college.
It is a mistake to think the out-of-work, the sunken
and submerged, are of the lower ranks only. There
was a former custom-house official among them, there
was a man who had been in the civil service ; there
was another who had been a Landwehr officer, and
one decorated, too, with the iron cross ; there was a
man who had served in Algiers, another who had
been a well-to-do gentleman farmer, and another an in-
spector of a coal-mine ; there was a surgeon, there were
schoolmasters who had lost their pupils, there were
clerks, waiters — in fact, there were all sorts and condi-
tions of men. Here they were ; they had come starving,
they had come ragged. They were decently clothed now
and looked well fed, and the work I found them doing
145 10
146 A Colony of Mercy
was not play-work. A house-father and some brothers
(deacons) are set over them, and you cannot help seeing
how these just live to be an example to them, help
them, comfort them, show them how to work. I mar-
velled how such a number of by no means easy customers,
considering their antecedents, could be managed as one
family. About one-half of their number before coming
here, were " known to the police " ; about one-fifth were
actual convicts ; but they apparently gave no trouble —
the wheels of that queer household seem wonderfully
oiled. I simply marvelled. (This magistrate forgot
there is an oil called brotherly kindness.) There are
strict rules to be observed in the colony, but there is no
punishment. They are spoken to if insubordinate, they are
exhorted, and if that avails not, they are just dismissed ;
yet a man rarely need be dismissed, — they are thank-
ful enough to obey while in the colony. During the
first fourteen months, 1200 in all have been admitted.
Of these, only 42 (3! per cent, that is) ran away from
the colony ; 966 left for regular employment, and of
these 830 have actually been placed by means of the
Labour Committee in connection with the colony. The
place, the houses, everything is a pattern of cleanliness.
The men are well cared for, the food is of the simplest,
but sufficient and wholesome — rather above the pro-
visioning of the army — for these men arrive starving,
and as labour at once is required of them, they must
be fed up."
The figures have not continued quite so favourable as
in this report, and for the simple reason that the earlier
colonists were of the better sort of the unemployed.
The Labour Colony 147
Those who first came to be helped were the most worthy
of help, the most capable of being reclaimed ; the per-
centage of men who had " come down in the world," and
not always criminally, being larger at first than it is now.
These, by means of the colony, have largely found their
way back to an honourable life, and the work, so to
speak, is now amid a lower stratum.
But the figures of ten years are these : There are now
twenty-six of these colonies in Germany — we should
speak of twenty-two only, for the four latest have only
just been started ; and of the twenty-two, one only,
Wilhelmsdorf, is ten years old. About sixty thousand
vagrants and men described as " unemployed " have
passed through them. Of these, no doubt, the lesser pro-
portion only has actually been saved, yet is it not a
great thing that year by year so many thousands — say ten
thousand yearly, now that so many colonies exist — are
within the chances of being saved, are kept, taught, fed
outwardly and inwardly ; so many thousands who other-
wise would rove about the country, starve, and do mis-
chief? Is it not a great thing, if only one-fifth, if only
one-tenth are saved ? It is, of course, difficult to venture
upon figures when you speak of being "saved." The
lives of those leaving the colony cannot be followed up
very far. The results of the whole rescue-work, as will
appear presently, are gauged in a different way.
And, in any case, let the reader not take the word
" saved " in the sense of the Salvation Army ; they do
not use the word in its highest meaning quite so freely
in Germany. The good men at work at Bethel, and
watching over the welfare of Wilhelmsdorf, know that
148 A Colony of Mercy
" saving," in that sense, is of the Holy Ghost : it is not
expected of these vagrants quite so readily as the change
from their rags into clean clothes — this, too, is " saving."
But the spiritual saving is growth, and a very slow
growth sometimes. The influences of salvation are all
about these men at Wilhelmsdorf ; they are beset behind
and before with them ; they are so, because we all are :
it is God's way — a way not always noticed, not always
seen ; and they are so, because of the influences streaming
in from Bethel. But these men are not saved wholesale :
they do not undergo processes of kneeling down a
sinner and rising up a saint. We do not say that such
holy process is not God's way sometimes ; it was God's
way with Paul ; but conversion is not made a condi-
tion at the labour colony. They are not asked much
about their inward experiences — they are fed, cleansed,
loved ; and the rest is left to the Love abounding. They
are taught too ; but those who teach them know that the
teaching of the Spirit is required. They are prayed with
— the day at Wilhelmsdorf begins with prayer and ends
with prayer, as a family ; but there is no overdoing it —
and a great deal more are they prayed for. If the labour
colony has succeeded, it is because of the natural whole-
some spirit pervading it. The thirteenth of the first of
Corinthians is the great text-book in that house. There
are indeed some entering the colony as prodigals who
leave it children of their Father's house ; but these things
are not spoken of, not printed in the reports — those who
manage these know better ; and if the word " saved "
occurs in these pages, what is meant thereby is the
change from the disorderly to the orderly life, a change
The Labour Colony 149
back to industry, and very often to that humility for
sins remembered to which a blessing pertains — a lifting
up, in short, out of the mud.
It was a beautiful day in June when we first drove out
to the Senne. The man who drove us was one of the
original settlers — he had gone out with those eighteen —
now employed as driver and farm servant at Bethel.
He is but a homely, poor-bodied fellow, with a crippled
wife too : they do not earn much money : children they
have none, but these two, for Christ's sake, as he said
simply, have brought up one after another sixteen of
those orphans which Pastor Siebold puts out to those
who, " for Christ's sake," will take them. Some are
with this couple still ; and, as we drove along, he ex-
plained his mode of training. " You have just got to
love them," he said. He showed also how he tried to
foster faith in them : " you must be true to them, for
they have got to believe in you." As for his wife, going
to see her, we found her walking on crutches. More
than twenty years ago she had a leg amputated —
" by God's own love to me," she said. Is not this
being a mother in Israel ? a crippled woman, and in a
humble cottage, having taken, one after another, sixteen
orphan children to her heart — and he but a farm-
labourer ! They keep them at their own expense ; train
them in the fear of God, aye, in the love of God ; they
keep them till they can earn their own living ; some of
them are grown up now and married, looking upon them
as parents still. It is their own doing ; they began
it " for Christ's sake," before Pastor Siebold started that
orphan-work. We have seen this humble little home,
t 50 A Colony of Mercy
and the adopted children there now (three, at this
moment, between the ages of seven and seventeen), and
we can only say, Happy those children ! *
But a simple labourer, that man has managed an
education somehow, if by education you mean insight
and understanding. He is Spirit-taught, and it is won-
derful what that does for a man ; you never think of
" gentleman " or " not-gentleman " if you talk with such
a one. This man would tell you all about the growth of
the Senne — it is an " evolution," he said, an Entwicklung,
actually using the word. We met him again, just before
leaving ; he had discovered meanwhile that there was
an intention of telling English folk something of that
Entwicklung. " May God give you a blessing upon it,"
he said ; " for it is most important. It is like putting
seed into the ground ; if you tell them something about
it, it may grow ! " He is but a farm labourer, knowing
about seed and growth and God's blessing, and he said
it was " evolution."
* We earnestly beg any of our readers who may visit Bethel,
not to tell these humble people they have read of their work.
They do it in all simplicity, that they " may have a family
of children in heaven one day, having none here." They do it
not knowing the rare beauty of it — jewels they of Christ's own
crown. It is a simple fact ; their work is not generally known at
the colony even, or, if known, where so much is done, it is the violet
blossoming unseen. Let friends beware lest the breath of earthli-
ness touch the perfect beauty of this ! But if any reader be moved,
as well he may be, the writer of these lines will gladly receive any
token of sympathy, to be spent, first of all, in a bath-chair for that
crippled woman, who hardly ever on her crutches can manage to
climb the hill now to Zion Church. Her husband's earnings are
half- a- crown a day.
The Labour Colony 153
After about an hour's drive, you saw you were getting
into sand — sand right and left and before you — but a
good firm road led through that sandy waste, a road
made by the colonists. And presently you saw this
waste, heather-grown only, and dotted with stunted firs,
assume signs of cultivation, fields stretching away on
either hand — and such fields ! — and after another half-
hour's drive, Wilhelmsdorf was reached. The colony
owns about a thousand acres now, and some of the
colonists are continually at work in trenches digging up
that stratum, — there is work left for years to come, and
when all is under cultivation, why, they can acquire
more. There is room for growth in the Senne, room to
spread. If you take up some of the subsoil, after it has
been lying on the surface awhile, you find it a lump very
much like chicory for colour and substance, crumbling
to powder, too, at your touch, like a cake of chicory.
The men are interested in showing it to you ; they have
quite a regard for the soil which costs them such honest
sweat of the brow. Last year twenty-six additional
acres of land were brought under cultivation ; they have
mostly required a four-foot digging.
The harvests in 1892 yielded 334 cwt. of rye, 196 of
oats, 1500 of potatoes, 2100 of turnips, 240 of beet, 200
of Indian corn, 1800 of hay, and 1250 of straw. There
is a good deal of irrigation work, and of plantation
making ; roadmaking, too, goes on, and. there is a flour-
ishing live-stock. There being plenty of water, they
are planning to set up a mill to do their own grinding.
This will naturally be followed by their own bakery.
As yet the Bethel bakery provides Wilhelmsdorf.
154 A Colony of Mercy
Six hundred and twenty colonists were received last
year, over six thousand having been registered in this
colony since it first was opened.
Any one presenting himself is admitted, those of the
province having first claim. The clothes he wears, if
worth anything, which hardly ever is the case, are dis-
infected and put away against the time of his leaving ;
for every man, as a preliminary, is put into a new suit
of clothes. This is a wonderful stroke of Christian
genius : a man feels a new creature ; he has put on
respectability. But there is nothing of the uniform
about these clothes ; the men are not treated as
convicts — not even as charity boys. They may choose
what they fancy out of a large stock of clothing always
on hand. And they generally choose in accordance
with their former condition of life ; so by their very
clothes, and by their own doing, there is a sort of
distinction of class in the colony. They have to pay
for their clothes ; money they have none, so the
articles are given them on credit, against which their
labour is set. A man then is no longer a beggar ; he is
beginning to work his way up, and, as a first step, he has
to pay for his own new clothes. These clothes, ser-
viceable and good, are cheap ; they are given them at
manufacturers' prices, the colony not making one penny
upon the transaction. The men know that. At manu-
facturers' prices ; but these clothes are not made in
wholesale factories at sweating labour. Pastor von
Bodelschwingh has a wonderful knack of killing two
birds with one shot. These clothes are made for the
colony by all sorts of poor women in the neighbour-
The Labour Colony 155
hood, widows by preference ; no middle-man is required,
there is no "sweater" or anybody wanting to make
any profit, so the poor seamstresses earn their decent
penny, and yet the clothes are cheap. How full of
little strokes of this kind is the economy of Bethel !
And what a head that man must have ! — but it is
his heart rather than his head which does such
thinking.
The colonist signs a contract on entering the colony,
one clause of which says that the clothes are not his
property till he has fully worked for them ; and that he is
acting feloniously, and will be prosecuted for thieving, if
he runs away with his new clothes unpaid for. And this is
no false threat : it does not happen often ; but if a man thus
robs the colony, the police are forthwith communicated
with. The men know that, and probably honour the
place the more. Indeed, the contract they sign is exceed-
ingly strict in many ways. For instance, by signing it
they agree that they have no claim whatever to any
remuneration beyond their food, though they do eight,
ten, and, in harvest time, twelve hours a day. They
agree that whatever is given them over and above their
food, that even the work provided, is a free gift, and
found for them by the kindness of those who would help
them. Thus the colonists at once are taught that eating
one's own bread, that is, bread one has honestly worked
for, is a possession and a blessing in itself. They are
treated as men capable of appreciating that blessing.
During the first fortnight they receive no wages. Then
they receive twopence-halfpenny a day ; after a month,
if they work well, they get fivepence, but never any
156 A Colony of Mercy
more if they work by the day. For the colony is a
A COLONIST ARRIVING AT WILHELMSDORF.
bridge towards better times, and- not — as, for instance,
the socialists would have it — an institution for supply-
The Labour Colony 157
ing a man with work on public responsibility. The work
A COLONIST LEAVING.
provided for them is the benefit, the gain lying in the
work, not in the pay.
158 A Colony of Mercy
Nor are these wages ever given to the men ; the
money is booked for them, and if there is a surplus, over
and above the clothes to be paid for, such surplus is
not handed over to them even on their leaving, else
public-houses would spring up all around and catch
the men in a body as soon as the colony has dismissed
them. If the men go into a situation on leaving, their little
savings are remitted to the care of their new employer ;
if they go to seek work, the sum is sent by post-office
order to any address they can name at a safe distance.
For provision along the road they are directed to the
" Verpflegungs-station" (of which anon,)* or, as the case
may be, a railway ticket to their destination is given
them at their own expense.
The colony endeavours to encourage piece-work,
especially when the men do more than eight hours a day ;
for thus the diligent man gets more than the loiterer, and
industry is inculcated. Also piece-work, singling out
the laborious man from the idler, enables the former to
repay the colony the sooner for the clothes given. And
once this stage is reached — requiring some months, of
course, even with an industrious man, if he has been
fully clad — the battle towards respectability generally is
won, and the man may be drafted back to the outer
world. For the colony is not only a helper in distress,
it is also a labour agency, assisting the men to regular
employment elsewhere ; and the sooner this can be
effected, the sooner others may be received in their
place.
There is a healthy look about the men, and if you
* Vide p. 174.
The Labour Colony 159
talk to them, they express themselves satisfied. It is
hard work, but it is just as hard as it should be, and it
is what they are told they have come for. Most are
thankful for the well-ordered life — it is luxury con-
sidering the life left behind.
There is of course perfect discipline, although really
there is no one to enforce it. At 5.30 of a summer
morning the men have had their breakfast, and are
standing in rows in the farmyard, awaiting the house-
father's telling them off for the day's work, every troop
going its way with an overseer — not a slave-driver but a
man to keep them to their work by just working with
them : it is a brother of Nazareth, not to talk religion
to them, but to act religion before them, and be their
example. He keeps up the cheerful tone, and shows
them the beauty of work. They may get religion along
with that, but unconsciously. There is a time for every
thing, is the order at Wilhelmsdorf, and there is a time
for saving, even for soul saving — by the sweat of the
brow. Besides the fields surrounding, there is a beauti-
ful garden producing a variety of vegetables, strawberries
and other fruit. Walking about, you would see a fine
nursery of fruit trees bursting with their first blossoms after
being grafted. The colonist who had done that grafting
was watching his work with evident love for the saplings,
and maybe he was learning something of the new life,
and the pruning away of old sins. At any rate he had
it there before him in nature, and he looked like a man
pruned — one would not ask him. Yet this man had
been a ragged tramp, an habitual out-of-work, and had
been in the house of correction for loafing and disorderly
1 60 A Colony of Mercy
doings. He had been nearly a year at Wilhelmsdorf,
when he did that grafting.
Much of course depends on the house-father, and
Wilhelmsdorf has a house-father and house-mother
after Bodelschwingh's own heart. There was a soldier
in the Franco-German war, a peasant's son of the
Ravensberger Land, who, pressed by the enemy one
day, vowed a vow, if he should be spared, to consecrate
his life. On returning to his native village, he found
that on that very day, his father, with an old friend
(none other than blind Heermann !), had been on their
knees for hours, praying for their soldier lad, moved
with a sense of his danger. This man, Meyer by
name, returned to his calling — he was bailiff on a
large property. Several years passed, and he had not
redeemed his vow — he did not " quite know how." One
day a Missionsfest was announced, a special missionary
gathering, at which Pastor von Bodelschwingh was to
speak. Meyer had heard of Bodelschwingh, but he had
never heard or seen him, and was anxious for that
treat. So he took a holiday from his farm labour — he
was away on the Rhine — and went. Bodelschwingh
probably that day, with his usual warmth, pleaded
for labourers in the vineyard. Meyer was conscience-
stricken, and offered himself to Bodelschwingh for one
year's collector's work * at his own expense. This,
some one had told him, might be his thank-offering.
But Bodelschwingh looked at him — " Stay your year by
all means," he said : " perhaps you will stay altogether.
I want a house-father for the unemployed — one who can
* Vide p. 269.
The Labour Colony 161
teach them how to work." And this is how the first
labour colony came by the man to whom most of the
outward success is due.
Meyer is a splendid farmer, and a true-hearted
Christian. And there is a house-mother — he found
her only after he had decided for that work — his true
helpmeet. That simple couple manage these hundreds
of degenerate men ; and everything is in order, every-
thing under authority, everything cared for. One
wonders how — but there it is, one cannot help seeing it.
Everything as it should be. It needs but a look at the
place, and seeing is believing. That quiet house-mother
in her kitchen, with only three young servant-maids
under her, managing such a household ! Everything is
spick and span, the colonists supplying rough labour —
a plain farmhouse kitchen, with saucepans like engine
boilers, clean as a drawing-room, and the little house-
wife explaining to you, as you follow her wonderingly,
how she is ever trying to do well by the men, yet not in-
creasing expenses. There is no law as to expenses, no rule
laid down to guide her — " so you have to satisfy your own
conscience both ways" she said, and surely all is as it should
be. Her contrivances bear examining. That kitchen
would cost double in this country, and not turn out more
satisfactory food. Conscience and heart are two wonderful
possessions in such a house-mother — a wealth in them-
selves ; spending wealth, that is kindness, yet keeping
under expenses. No one who works along with Pastor
von Bodelschwingh is under any law, save that one law,
" Do it as unto God," and this is how the colony works.
Dining with the labour colony of course was a novel
it
162
A Colony of Mercy
experience ; but having walked about all the morning,
one was ready to share labourers' fare. The Crown Prince
COLONISTS PEELING POTATOES.
once had done so, refusing any extra culinary attention,
and Bodelschwingh always sits down with his Wilhelms-
The Labour Colony 16
j
dorfer when he visits the colony. But you might have
been in a Trappist cloister for silence. They had done an
honest morning's work — hard work — and ate with a will.
It was with a strange sensation, even with a lump in
one's throat, one watched these men ; they all looked
alike, some a little more heavy than others, some a little
more wistful than others — not much difference ; and yet
one knew that side by side with the cottage-born out-
cast, here one and there one, were those not born to be
there — men of gentle birth and training, who had come
hither by the way of transgressors, which is hard. As
one scanned their countenances, one could not say there
was bitterness among them, nor did they look cowed,
but rather humbled, and thankful for their food. Who
can tell what goes on in the hearts of these men ? A
Psalm is read after dinner, and then they have an hour
to themselves, the midday rest.
Mrs. Meyer has five little children, rosy and fair,
growing up among these outcasts — a happy family of
their own. The house-father kindly gave up a whole
afternoon to our inquiries, though it was harvest time ;
and one learned much of him. His unostentatious ways,
his real piety, his honest manhood, and affection for his
large family, help one to understand how this rescue
work is done. His eye is everywhere — a simple, guile-
less eye, but nothing seems hidden from it — and obedience
to him seems, not the law, but the natural condition of
the place. The men — remember they are a collection of
vagabonds of all ages between sixteen and sixty — all
call him " House-father." How much there is in that one
word to educate these men !
164 A Colony of Mercy
Wilhelmsdorf has not only its fields to show, but also
a fine live stock. They began ten years ago with two
cows ; there are now about fifty, all bred and reared in
the colony ; horses, also, some of them the house-father's
pride ; and last, but not least, Master Bacon and family —
such a tribe of them. There is a pattern swineherd, too,
one of the colonists, a regular Wamba — Gurth, we ought
to say, but somehow he reminded us of Wamba. The
man is over seventy, but if ever you go to Wilhelmsdorf,
be sure and watch him. " Aren't they darlings ? " he said,
showing his herd — there must have been nearly a
hundred, old and young, boar, sow, and sucking-pigs,
and they did look flourishing. He has a way of cluck-
clucking for them, quite tenderly, like a hen for her
chickens, and they come running after him, rolling and
waddling — there appears to be room for affection even
in a pig. He at least said, " You have got to love
them else they won't thrive ! " He was right, if his
meaning was, " whatsoever thou doest, do it with all thine
heart."
He is quite a character, that man, tall and lean, with a
long white beard, wearing an indigo-coloured blouse with
a leather belt. Call him Wamba ? he is more like that
honest old swineherd of the Odyssey, in whom Homer
delighted. He has been in the colony some six or seven
years, so is quite a fixture, old and useless as the world
goes, yet surely earning his bread. He is a Roman
Catholic, and it so happened when Romish Rhineland
started a labour colony of its own persuasion, poor old
Wamba was induced to report himself there. He went.
But labour colonies are no houses of detention, and
The Labour Colony 165
before long he presented himself again at Wilhelmsdorf,
asking for re-admission, was received and for the rest
was silent. A visiting magistrate after awhile got it out
of him : " Why did you not stop at Maria Veen ? — that's
the place for you ! " — " Didn't like the food," says
Wamba. " Oh no, surely," urged the visitor, " the monks
cook well, besides we don't pamper you here." " No,"
says Wamba, " but the pigs is cared for. . . . You see,"
he broke out, " them monks is always a-praying, and
that church bell never stopped. / could nohow do my
duty by their pigs — and that's why I came back ! " And
so to this day, a queer-looking solitary man, he is doing
" his duty " by the bristly creatures which are kith
and kin to him, he having neither kith nor kin left
elsewhere.
There are several " fixtures " of that sort at Wilhelms-
dorf. A son of a pastor is there, having no one left to
care for him, and who, in consequence of an illness, has
grown deaf and dazed, but who is earning his bread
honestly on the farm — a " faithful soul," said the house-
father. What more can a man be, even at Wilhelms-
dorf, than faithful ?
Wamba's opinion as above given has not been recorded
to disparage the Roman Catholic labour colony, but
rather to show his own affection and loyalty for
Wilhelmsdorf, which had first taken him in. Wilhelms-
dorf, as the original labour colony, fitly stands as a type ;
moreover, it is the only one of which these pages may
speak from personal observation. Maria Veen does good
work, both agriculturally and as a rescue agency, among
the Roman Catholic population which preponderates in
1 66 A Colony of Mercy
the Rhine-land. It was opened three years ago, and has
registered about six hundred inmates.
It were necessary, perhaps, to visit the several colonies
in order to get a comprehensive impression of the com-
pleteness and thoroughness of the undertaking ; certainly
in order to grasp fully the whole machinery in its details.
It so happened that a Frenchman has done so, a M.
Georges Berry, deputed by the Paris Municipal Council.
France had heard of these colonies, and, standing face
to face with her own social question, delegated a com-
mission, headed by M. Berry, to consult her neighbour
across the Rhine. Now, no one will accuse Frenchmen
of a natural leaning to enhance the merits of that neigh-
bour; and going from colony to colony, this commission
in duty bound will have examined things with a critical
eye; but their report, written purely for the Paris
Municipal Council, is a fine feather in their neighbour's
cap. M. Berry prefaces his Bulletin with the admirable
remark : " II y a beaucoup a apprendre chez les Allemands,
mais peu a prendre " — i.e.y " We have much to learn
from these Germans, but we cannot just copy them ! "
His report, however — quite a pamphlet, soberly written —
is brimful of the sincerest approval ; and returning to his
own Paris, he urges his fellow councillors not to " copy,"
but to do likewise.
He describes several of the colonies minutely, especially
the Berlin colony, which is an industrial one, and the one
at Magdeburg which is both industrial and agricultural.
This latter was started only in 1888, and according
to this Frenchman is not only in splendid working order,
but is actually a "paying concern," due to the fact
The Labour Colony 167
that it is situated on ground for which only a nominal
rent, so far, was paid, and which now, at a nominal price,
is about to become the property of the colony. This
colony from the second year of its existence has paid its
way, even with a surplus — the result chiefly of market
gardening.
We inquired of House-father Meyer how Wilhelms-
dorf stood in this respect ; and he told us, if he never had
more than a hundred mouths to feed, Wilhelmsdorf
would in time be self-supporting. Be it remembered
the land in question has first to be reclaimed ; surely
this is no small measure of success, if along with such
soil-reclaiming one can feed a hundred labourers, and yet
see one's way to being self-supporting ! But Wilhelmsdorf
in the winter, when work is slack, has been feeding three
and four hundred men at times, finding occupation for
them purely for their own sake. These numbers, however,
have lessened, as other colonies rose to do their part.
Two hundred to two hundred and fifty inmates is the
normal winter figure now. The whole capital sunk in
the Senne, including Rehoboth and several other
stations, is about fifteen thousand pounds, and
Wilhelmsdorf has a yearly subsidy of fifteen hundred —
at most two thousand pounds. These are modest figures,
considering it means " saving " six hundred men year by
year and reclaiming land which year by year gains in
value ! And the province is not out of pocket by making
these grants, but very much to the contrary. In all
these colonies a certain number of the submerged get
sufficiently reclaimed to be put into positions of trust on
the working-staff ; some in the offices, others supplying
1 68 A Colony of Mercy
the machinery of the household. In fact, these colonies
do answer, and in a very real sense they pay.
A further development of the system is the Heimath
Colonie near Bremerhaven, which purposes to receive
selected cases from all the other colonies — men who by
industry and good behaviour have proved their claim to
further help. These are to be settled at that " Own Home
Colony " on little plots of land, having to work their way
into possession, something after the fashion of "Work-
man's Home " (of which anon) ; except that their own
labour is the purchase money. A certain Pastor Crone-
meyer is the mover of this extension scheme ; but it is
just a development of Pastor von Bodelschwingh's own
grand idea of a " hearth and threshold of his own " for
every deserving man, as the truest means of salvation in
earthly things. It is too soon to judge of this further
project ; but as to its principle — who could question its
wisdom in these days of social democracy ? And, there-
fore, there is little doubt but that it will be worked out
aright, and that its own measure of success presently
will speak for it.
We will conclude this chapter with a Christmas scene
in one of the colonies, reported by a chance visitor.
There are good voices among the colonists — why
should there not be ? — and for weeks, encouraged by the
house-father, there is much practising of the carols and
Christmas hymns, which even these outcasts remember
from the days of their childhood when they had mothers
to teach them, or at any rate attended a school. What
silent chords these carols and hymns may touch ! what
memories of brighter, purer days ! And through the long
The Labour Colony 169
December evenings these songs ring out into the wintry
night. And day after day the postman never failing,
brings parcel upon parcel ; friends of the friendless far
and near remembering these strangers. All sorts of useful
things are sent, and even pretty things, little fingers here
and there filling the pockets of the Christkind for the
cheering of the homeless colonists. There is much
poetry in the Fatherland about Christmas time, and the
Christ Child is busy. And they of the colony, life-
hardened, aye sin-hardened though they be, feel some-
thing of the breath blowing about them. Even they
look for Christmas : who does not, though his world
seem all empty of love ?
And on Christmas Eve they are busy from an early
hour in the day ; evergreens and fir branches have been
brought in by the cartload, and the whole house is hung
with garlands. And then the colonists, like children,
are turned out of the room ; the Christmas tree, as tall
as the room will hold, is brought in for the house-father
and house-mother to decorate. And when the doors
open at nightfall upon this family there is a sea of light :
the message of a German Christmas tree is all light —
the Light that came into the world.
They had put up a picture at the foot of that
tree, transparent and illumined from behind — Ludwig
Richter's beautiful picture representing the stable and
the manger and the kneeling shepherds before the
Child. And silence fell on these men, these colonists —
they in the background, and the house-father's little
children in front beneath the tree. And the children's
voices sang the children's hymn of the angels, and
i jo A Colony of Mercy
shepherds, and the flocks by night. The house-father
thereupon, turning to the second chapter of St. Luke,
read the old old story, yet ever new — new to these men
that night. And then they had their presents, each man
what love had provided — a love he knew not, and yet it
remembered him — an earthly friend's love, to tell him of
a Love beyond.
And so, even at a labour colony, there is Christmas
Eve ; the more solemn strain changing into merriment
and laughter and nut-cracking, and rejoicings over the
unexpected gifts.
The visitor present asked that house-father was there a
true blessing ? Foolish question : when eyes grow bright
or shine with the hidden tear, when the touch of love
quivers through the soul, when rough men stand in holy
silence because the hush of Eternity is upon them, will
you want to see the blessing with your earth-bound
eyes ?
CHAPTER X
DARKEST GERMANY TRAMPING
" Compel them to come in."
THE labour colonies throughout Germany, though
each an independent institution, act hand-in-
hand, forming a moral leverage of growing power. It
is by Pastor von Bodelschwingh's indefatigable efforts
that this united action has come about ; he knows that
union is strength, and to him it is mainly due that a
central committee, to which each local committee sends
a representative, is now in full working order, with head-
quarters in Berlin. Count Zieten-Schwerin is President,
and there are regular sessions to consider the weal and
woe of the unemployed, investigating and comparing
the experiences and results of the several colonies
established for their benefit, and being ever on the look-
out for improvement. They issue a monthly magazine
called The Labour Colony (now in its eighth year),
and publish the reports and balance-sheets of all the
colonies. Thus, what by mercy and charity is done
in a corner, is proclaimed on the housetop for the
nation at large to watch and to know. Every penny
is accounted for, and whoever cares may know exactly
what is being done.
These labour colonies are semi-private undertakings,
171
172 A Colony of Mercy
invariably set on foot by private action ; there is always
a grant by the province or country to start them, and
subsidies are continued to them according to the
need they set themselves to combat, but a great deal
is done by voluntary effort and free-will contribution
locally. Each colony is a provincial institution, yet
they render the most public account of themselves
year by year. This is one reason why they prosper ;
they are to all intents and purposes a public organisa-
tion for the good of the people, benefiting not only
the unemployed, but the country itself.
And it is a powerful organisation, quietly spreading
a net over the land — over Darkest Germany at least ;
it has a hold upon the vagabonds. A man's antecedents
are tolerably known at the colonies ; for on first pre-
senting himself, although his own deposition is taken, it
is not implicitly relied on. Wilhelmsdorf, for instance,
employs a special secretary, himself a saved character,
whose business it is to identify any applicant with his
past. This is possible in a country like Germany : you
have but to send a letter of inquiry to that man's
Heimath — his home-parish. A man's " home " in the
eye of the law, firstly, is the place of his birth and
early upbringing, but, secondly, any place where he was
domiciled for two years and upwards. Also any town
or village where he has been at work will have registered
him and his doings for the time being. A man can
be traced in Germany, and the labour colonies generally
surprise their inmates after two or three weeks by
knowing all about them, especially if there are things
a man would prefer to hide, such as having been in
Darkest Germany Tramping 173
prison. This may be a curious revelation to the free-
born Briton, but it is not altogether amiss, for if the
country has a hold of you, you also have a hold of
the country ; and if you are an honest man in trouble,
your home-parish, even of two years' residence only,* has
certain duties towards you ; meanwhile you certainly
are under control. A man here is known to the police
only if he misbehaves himself; in Germany he cannot
be long in any place without being duly registered.
It is the paternal government.
But to return to the colony. A man on leaving is
not altogether allowed to drift. He may leave any
day, even if in no wise a saved character, the duration
of his stay at the colony being quite voluntary, except
for the conditions of the contract he has signed ; but on
leaving he carries with him a W cinder schein (vagrancy
certificate) to which more explicit reference will be made,
further on,f and by means of which, if he chooses to
avail himself of assistance by the way, his intermediate
life can be followed up. Also, if he misbehaves himself
at one colony, or if he leaves feloniously with clothes
unpaid for, this is made known to all the other colonies ;
he is entered in the " black book," as even the vagrants
call it. This black book, a sort of outside conscience,
acts as a wholesome restraint.
* The labour colonies, for instance, never keep a man longer
than one year and eleven months, after which he is sent away
with permission to return. If they kept him over two years
they would be bound to provide for him — he would become
heimaths-berechtigt, entitled to claim his "home" in the
colony ; not that many do stay to that length of time.
t Vide p. 177.
1 74 A Colony of Me7'cy
It is indeed a fact that a net of guardian helpfulness,
quietly but steadily, is spreading over Darkest Germany,
gathering in the vagabonds, of which net the labour
colonies only form a part. The colonies, so to speak,
are the lowest rung of the ladder by which the un-
employed may climb back to the hopeful life ; they
are for men who have sunk, who are submerged. But
what if one could prevent their sinking? what if one
could carry the labour-seeking population along the
high roads, helped and cheered — helping them to food,
keeping them from drink, assisting them to work
thus cheering them ? Then they need not sink. And
is prevention not better than cure ? It is being done.
Natural-verpflegungs-station, even with hyphens, is
a dreadful word, and quite untranslatable ; it means
an open door for the unemployed tramp, where he
will find relief in kind. These stations — we will call
them relief stations for short — form the great network
we have spoken of; they are organised all over
Germany, an essential part of the whole system for
aiding the unemployed. That German name, long as
it is, does not fully describe them, leaving out the im-
portant fact that these stations do not treat the vagrant
as a pauper simply ; he is expected to work for the
relief provided, and, if he is an honest labour-seeker, his
search is assisted. These stations operate in connection
with the labour colonies. The English reader will
scarcely believe it, but there are close upon two thousand
of them in Germany — to be correct, they number at
this moment 1967, being added to continually — open
to any labour-seeking, moneyless individual, and costing
Darkest Germany Tramping 175
the country the nowise heavy sum, considering, of a
million and a half of marks yearly (£75,000).
The relief stations are a creation of the last ten or
twelve years only. They have their origin in a law of
the State, then introduced, which provides that every
German subject in distress may at least claim one
night's lodging and one day's food at the hands of the
parish within whose boundaries he may happen to be.
(Of that " home-parish " above-mentioned he may claim
more under certain conditions.) Says Pastor von.
Bodelschwingh, " Who, then, is in distress, if not the man
driven to beg because there is no one to employ him ? "
Now, these stations, first thought of in Wurtemberg,
South Germany, to combat house-to-house begging,
have passed through various phases : they were ap-
proved and disapproved by public opinion, and they
were not at first in every instance what true charity
would have them be. But there was a power at work
to shape them, to draw them into a system, and though
they are still in some respects in a transition state,
they are fast becoming a high-road along which
" Darkest Germany " is passing with increasing benefit.
It was Pastor von Bodelschwingh who, at a home
mission congress in 1884, moved "the organic unity
of all labour colonies and relief stations throughout
the Empire " ; it was in answer to this appeal that the
Central Committee at Berlin, already spoken of, was
formed, and has ever since been working for that end.
He pleaded : " The labour colonies are the provision
of charity for the sunken, but it is truer charity to prevent
a man from sinking, and the colonies will be simply
176 A Colony of Mercy
swamped if there is not a systematic effort throughout
the country for assisting the honest unemployed in
search of work. A man shall not beg ; he can give
half a day's work for a day's food and a night's
lodging, and he shall be driven to seek the labour
colony only when his clothes are in rags. To be a
true relief station every such station must be a labour
agency. The unemployed will tramp the country ;
hold your hand over them, help them to be honest
tramps, keep them from the public-house, assist their
search for work. Put them under a certain discipline
for the benefit they receive, and the results in time
will be marvellous."
This, then, is the present state of affairs concerning
the unemployed in Germany. Along the great high
roads — north, south, east, and west — there are Natural-
verpflegungs-stationeii) at a distance one from another
of half a day's march. The unemployed scarcely
can help tramping : let them tramp in stages ; they
will fall in with the plan if they know dinner is
awaiting them and a night's rest. The morning is
for tramping, the afternoon for work as a rule, though
the season of the year and other circumstances may
modify the arrangement. The work shall not be
considered dishonouring, and though it be stone-
breaking, a man is not a pauper for that ; but at
most stations they provide the more welcome labour
of wood-chopping. These unemployed largely make
the firewood for the Fatherland. A man arrives by mid-
day, has his dinner — most plain, of course, but whole-
some and sufficient — and then he must do his required
Darkest Germany Tramping 177
amount of work ; then he has supper, a social evening
with brethren in distress ; no drink, and a decent bed
in the dormitory. Next morning he has breakfast,
and go he must ; his dinner is at the next station.
Only over Sunday two nights are allowed, and on
Sunday of course the vagrant is a guest, free of work.
A beautiful arrangement, says the English reader,
but how do you prevent this from becoming a gigantic
system of abuse, pampering the out-of-work instead
of really aiding him, furthering vagrancy instead of
suppressing it ? Well, in this way : a man may not
tramp as he likes ; he must tramp in strict order
from station to station — that is why the stations are
planned to be within an able man's walking distance,
and there is no turning aside, no doubling back
upon your road. A man, setting out, say, from
Cologne to Berlin, under pretence of seeking labour,
is received at the first station — indeed, at any station
— be he an honest labour-seeker or not, for who can
tell ? But on leaving the first station the WanderscJiein
is handed him, the vagrancy certificate : a little book,
paged and ruled into squares, a sort of blank diary.
In the first blank square, the first station which gave
him relief enters its stamped signature and date ;
the second square must be filled by the next station
in the order of the road, and so forth ; and if your
tramp turns aside from his appointed, indeed self-
appointed, way, the next station will not receive him
— this is his discipline : and if he arrives at the last
stage as unhelped as when he started, that is without
having found regular employment (every station being
12
178 A Colony of Mercy
a labour agency) he is likely to be a man who will
not work, and the house of correction may receive him
in the end. For at the stations any employer of the
district makes known his want of hands, and a man
who can and will work need not tramp for ever. The
W under schein^ also, is valid for two or three months
only, after which it has to be renewed ; and it would
not be renewed without inquiring into a prolonged
want of employment. The inveterate out-of-work is
thus brought to book.
These stations partly keep themselves by the men's
labour, the deficiency being borne by the respective
districts, at a great saving to the public purse, always
remembering it is cheaper to aid your beggar than
let him beg. And it is a wondrously merciful arrange-
ment : an unemployed man in Germany positively, by
means of these stations, can travel through the length
and breadth of the empire without having one penny
in his pocket. He is fed and taken in for the night
in return for the work he gives. His clothes are not
replenished ; if he tramps himself into rags, his next
stage is the colony.
These relief stations (nearly two thousand of them,
as we have said) in the course of the year thus
receive for a night's lodging and a day's food
thousands upon thousands of labour-seeking vagrants,
making them work for their absolute necessities, keep-
ing them from the need of begging, and largely from
the public-house, till regular work is found. The night's
lodgings given last year amounted to about three million ;
or, in other words, some eight thousand vagrants, on
Darkest Germany Tramping i 79
an average, are in these refuges daily. And although
such a gigantic system of regulated helpfulness cannot
be free from abuse, yet the use is greater than the
abuse — the men are at least under discipline.
But Pastor von Bodelschwingh and other friends of
the movement are not fully satisfied with the existing
state of things. They want to see these stations lifted to
a higher level, bringing Christian influence to bear as
much as possible ; they want to unite the relief stations
with another organisation for labour-seeking wanderers
— to see them work in connection with the Herbergen
zur Heimath.
What are these ?
Again we fail to translate the designation. A
Herberge is a place for a traveller to put up at — an
inn, if you like, only not just an inn. If you take a
wayfarer to your fireside you are giving him herberge —
" harbouring " him. There is a touch of poetry about
this word, a touch of welcome home ; it is an old-
world German word, before inns were public-houses.
And Heimath means just " home " ; the whole appellation,
therefore, meeting the wanderer's eye on a signboard,
says to him : " Put up here ; we will try and make it
a home." And for whom this home ? For wandernde
Handiverks-burschen, — journeymen artisans travelling
for work. If the stations just spoken of are the second
rung of the ladder, the Herbergen are the third, a step
higher still ; for there a man, though taken in by
Christian helpfulness, is not just taken in by charity.
He pays his honest penny, and can therefore stay at
will, that is, till the employment he seeks is found.
1 8o A Colony of Mercy
Homc-lovcrs as the Germans are, there is a migratory
impulse in the people ; and ever since the Middle Ages
the young artisan, having served his apprenticeship,
took stick and knapsack and went anf die Wanderschaft
— a travelling — on foot of course, now stopping here with
a master of the craft, now there, thus gaining skill and
experience. Indeed, by the guild rules a man could
not himself aspire to be a master, establishing a work-
shop of his own, until he had had at least three years
of this itinerant practice of the craft. He was now a
Geselle, a " fellow." There was much that was beautiful
about this life in the good old times : it was the young
man's first experience of the larger life, the wider
horizon. What though he tore himself away from an
affectionate father, from a loving mother, the world was
bright, he was uncorrupt and could pass along the high-
ways uncorrupted. Not that temptation was wanting ;
temptation might be part of his training, but temptation
did not stalk the highways hand in hand with starvation.
The world was not so crowded as it now is, and if
there was no work to be had in one village, there was
the more chance of finding it in the next, the mediaeval
town and city being the high school where the Geselle
graduated. The Geselle was not, like his modern repre-
sentative, merely the paid workman, who gives his day's
work for the day's wage, no one caring two straws for
his human needs, or having a kindly interest in his
off-hours. The Geselle in those days was an inmate of
the master's family, — the master might have half a
dozen of them sitting at his table and sleeping beneath
his roof, and the master's wife, the Fran Meisterin, was
Darkest Germany Tramping 1 8 1
a good mother to them, mending their clothes too ; and
sometimes the master had a pretty child, a growing
daughter for the Geselle to win. These were the good
old days, the days of poetry and of warmth ; nowadays
we have grown colder, the day's wage is all one expects,
and the journeyman's chances of his share of the home
life are poor.
But though the heart has died out of this old
institution, the habit has survived, and wandernde
Handwerks-burschen — journeying artisans — to any num-
ber are within the memory of the present generation.
A portion of them might be honest and keep honest,
but the century of railroads and of machinery, of over-
stocking and consequent dearth of labour, has sadly
demoralised the Handiverks-burscJi. He, even, in these
days of railroad and steam, departed from the old
appellation, calling himself a Reisender, a traveller ; and
presently he was an " armer" Reisender, a " poor" traveller,
accosting you as such, an awful vision of rags and
unkemptness at every turn. They no longer wandered
for labour, they tramped for beggar's pence, and had
them largely. In such numbers they trod the country,
streaming along the highways, that the word Stromer
came into use for them. They grew desperate, and
people, in villages at least and in lonely country places,
were much afraid of them. The " streamers " were the
pest of the land till within a dozen years ago ; half
the crimes committed of highway robbery, of murder,
of violence, were by the hand of some Stromer. They
were starving, to be sure. At first they got no work,
and then they would not work. They had their own
182 A Colony of Mercy
experience of the battle of life ; fechten (to fight)
was their slang for begging, and thus " fighting" they
throve—- throve sufficiently at least to lead a terrible
life from gin shop to gin shop, the publican in his
turn, like a vampire, thriving on the Stromer. And
if there was an honest Handwerks-bursch among them,
he soon got corrupted in these places of drink, and
worse things, by day and by night. Where were such
to go for a bed? The owners of the low lodging-
houses were their masters in wickedness, and kept
them to it for their own gain. It was there they
obtained a list of all the houses in the neighbour-
hood where a good-natured wife or a careless and
frightened servant might be expected to give — give
money, or food and clothes, the food and clothes being
money too, and saleable for drink. This was the life.
The following pen-and-ink portrait, as graphic as
pitiful, is from the pen of a well-known German writer,
and the Englishman abroad before 1880 will readily
recognise the likeness ; he will have seen similar figures
at every turn in his travels. Says our author : " The
vagabond's face is a study — a mixture of sadness,
of hopelessness, of peevish discontent, with a glare of
hatred sometimes and of bitter sarcasm about his
mouth. Of whom his hatred, — of himself, or his neigh-
bour who has a home? Is it regret eating away at
his heart, repentance? is it good intentions — those never
kept intentions with which he is paving his road to
hell ? Yet I pity the man — he is so wretched, so
forlorn. I would like to say a word to him, comfort
him, whisper a word of advice. I scarcely dare. ' Poor
Darkest Germany Tramping 183
fellow, are you unwell ? ' I venture at last ; ' can I
help you in any way ? ' He fails to comprehend ; he
stares at me ; there is wonder, there is distrust in his
gaze — why should I want to help him ? I meet his
gaze, hoping for a chance of reading this riddle of a
soul, of understanding something of this walking misery.
But no ! the man has sunk too deep even for sympathy !
It is beyond his comprehension that another human
being might want to enter into his feelings, beyond
his comprehension that he might ease his own heart by
unburdening it. One thing he does comprehend. Rising
heavily from the stone seat on which I found him, he
lifts his tattered hat, and his wretched lips mutter
the well-worn sentence : * Sir, have you a copper to
spare ? ' In other words, ' The only relationship between
you and me/ he says, ' is the penny you may give me
for a dram, and I will forget that I am a hungry and
homeless wretch.' "
The late Professor Perthes, of Bonn University, was
the first to direct Charity towards her duty by these
rovers. The first Herberge zur HeimatJi — "journey-
man's home " we may call it — was set up at Bonn in
1854. Of these Herbergeny or "home inns," there are
now about four hundred in Germany, with some thirteen
thousand beds, and always well filled ; so well, indeed,
that it is only to meet the demand, should those interested
in the movement plead for more of these homes. The
journeymen artisans passing through them may be out
of work, but they are not the habitual " out-of-work "
they are not ragged, they are not the demoralised unem-
ployed. The Herberge is to keep the Handwerks-bursch
184 A Colony of Mercy
from becoming a Stromer \ it is for the respectable
journeyman passing from one town to another in search
of work. Such a one pays for his board as you would
pay at an inn, but the charges are the lowest possible
— ninepence to a shilling a day for bed and food,
eighteenpence if a man have a room to himself.
The characteristic difference between the relief
stations and these " homes " is this : the former are a
development of parish relief, the latter an expression
of brotherly love ; the relief stations are merely secular,
and based on a poor-tax which a given district has
agreed to levy within its borders for the suppression of
indiscriminate charity to street beggars (which in Ger-
many includes the beggar's knocking at your own door),
whereas the Herberge is established and kept going by
a committee of home missions. The relief stations in
certain respects may be compared to the casual wards
in this country, while the Herberge has a look of the
Young Men's Christian Association about it, — which,
indeed, often is connected with these homes, these being
of a strictly Christian character. The relief station is
managed by an overseer, the Herberge by a house-
father, a brother (deacon) provided by Nazareth and
similar institutions.
The English traveller can scarcely move through any
German town, even of moderate size, without coming upon
a comfortable-looking, substantial house bearing the in-
scription over the lower row of windows, Herberge zar
Heimath. Let him enter. He will find a spacious guest-
chamber, set with tables and wooden benches, simple and
solid, the red-chequered table-linen, and the geraniums or
Darkest Germany Tramping 185
carnations in the window, lending warmth to the severe
simplicity. Everything is tidy and clean. A few pictures
on the wall, along with an ordnance map of the district
showing the roads, and, more important still, lists giving
the names of local employers in search of hands, complete
the furniture. This apartment joins another, fitted as a
reading-room. Here a man may write his letter, may
rest and read ; here also the house-father gathers any
who will be gathered to morning and evening prayers.
The house is open to any respectable artisan, no matter
of what creed, or no creed ; the house is a Christian
house, meaning this at once in the narrowest and in
the broadest sense ; its doors stand wide, but no man
entering is asked about his religion. He is received ;
the good influence of the place is ready to do its best by
him ; not urging this " best " on him, but making him
feel, " it is good to be here." The truer our Christianity,
the more widehearted its charity. The house-father is
an evangelist, but an unobtrusive one, and the house is
a Christian " public "-house. A man may order his glass
of beer, but not more than his glass ; spirits are forbidden,
and getting drunk elsewhere means dismissal. The
evenings are social : no card-playing, but other amuse-
ments, and story-telling and laughter ; there is singing,
and, of course, the inevitable pipe. A German would
not thank you for any religion precluding that : he will
smoke himself into paradise or stay out — most of them,
at least. But, if plenty of merriment, there is order and
discipline. At 9.30 to 10 p.m. this " family " breaks up,
and the house-father then invites them to prayers. If
he has understood how to make the evening pleasant to
1 86 A Colony of Mercy
them, gaining their confidence by entering into their
joys and sorrows, their hopes and anxieties concerning
earthly things, he will find it the easier to draw them
after him into the room set apart, there to sing a hymn,
have a Bible reading, and join in prayer. And if you
take these men aright, you will find that most of them,
far from " religious " though they may be, have signs
of a hunger somewhere about them — that hunger,
though all unconscious sometimes, which God alone
can still. And when they go their way, the atmosphere
of the house goes with them ; they know the difference
between a Christian Herberge and a public-house, and they
seek the Herberge again when the next need comes
round. What though to many it be the difference to
their purse only and the helpfulness gained, is it
nothing that about two hundred thousand working
men pass through these homes yearly ? Who knows
how many, by their quiet influence, are saved from
drink — saved too from Socialism,* and helped to lead
steady lives? It is the first step in the upward growth.
They may stop there, yet it is a step.
The Herberge homes, then, primarily are open doors
for the respectable unemployed, the journeymen artisans
passing through a town ; but they are open also, where
there is sufficient accommodation at least, to the young
men of the place, the working men in employment.
There is a room set apart for these, a sort of Young
Men's Christian Association room, with books and all
that, well warmed and lighted, so that any young
artisan — joiner, shoemaker, or tailor — his day's work
* Socialism in Germany, for the most part, is simply anarchical.
Darkest Germany Tramping 187
done, may know where to go. It is his public-house
minus his usual temptations. It is often the want
of a cheerful home, of a welcome somewhere, which
drives the young men in our cities into the places
where their feet cannot stand. In the Herberge no
religious expectation of any kind is put forward to
these visitors ; they may come of a Sunday, read their
book, write their letter home ; there is a kindly word
from the house-father, and they feel welcome. By
degrees they are likely to stay for the evening gathering,
and hear a word that may stick.
At Bielefeld there is a beautiful Herberge, to which the
relief station, with its wood-chopping premises, is joined
— that is to say, they are under one roof and managed
by the same house-father — the former a child of the
local home-mission, the latter a provision of the town,
the house-father being the uniting link. The religious
influence is dealt out to all alike, the inmates of the
Herberge and the vagabond strangers otherwise, of
course, not being treated on a par. It is a large house,
with splendid accommodation — with large public rooms,
too, to gather in the working men round about ; and
they are gathered in ! The very air of the house tells
of " Social Christianity " combating Socialism.
All the Herbergen throughout Germany now form an
association known as the Deutsche Herbergs- Verein,
which has its headquarters at Bethel. How numerous
are the threads running together in Pastor von Bodel-
schwingh's little study ! But it is the fourth of his
coadjutors, Pastor Morchen, who, as general secretary
of the Deutsche Herbergs- Verein, has a hold of this
1 88 A Colony of Mercy
special thread by which the labour-seeking artisans are
being led. He is a man wide awake to every improve-
ment on their behalf, and has the welfare of his
" itinerant parishioners," as he calls them, warmly at
heart.
This, then, is the triple alliance — the Labour Colony,
the Relief Station, the Herberge — which is spreading its
net quietly, but surely, over all Germany. As a united
effort, it has been in working order a few years only,
passing from growth to growth, from improvement to
improvement ; but it has gathered in the vagabonds,
aiding the orderly among them, and making the dis-
orderly, if they will tramp, at least tramp decently and
in order. You hardly ever see the Strom er now ; both
his unkemptness and his desperation have disappeared
from the highways. There is method in everything in the
Fatherland ; and the State has not been slow in recog-
nising, even in working hand in hand with, these efforts
of Christian charity. The State has stepped in to say
more sternly, and justly too : " If a man is now found
starving and ragged, begging and loafing, it must be
his own fault, for there is the relief station and there is
the colony " ; any loafer, therefore, now has to answer
for himself to policeman or gendarme, and the in-
veterate vagabond finds himself landed without much
ado in the house of correction, there to consider his
ways. The house of correction thus, to retain Pastor
von Bodelschwingh's fable, is the bunch of hay in which
the incorrigible flea eventually is drowned. Many of
the " incorrigibles," of course, turning up their noses at
the work-providing Fatherland, have simply left the
Darkest Germany Tramping 189
country, seeking their begging fortunes under more
lenient skies. Constantinople and other Eastern haunts
appear to be the present El Dorado of trampdom. We
should not wonder, however, if a fair proportion of the
" inveterates " were walking the streets of London at
this moment, since Britain, too, is a harbour of refuge,
asking no questions ! Thus, in plain language, some of
the " fleas " got rid of by Germany are no doubt feeding
upon England now. Well, let England follow the
example — let her start her own colonies in self-defence.
We have shown how Germany has been rid of the
pest.
Not that there is not much misery left in Germany,
especially in the great cities. Germany is the home of
Socialism ; but Socialism, in one direction at least, is
being taken in hand with a merciful grip. Thus much
seems proved, that out-of-workdom can be grappled with ;
and if you set about it aright you will have something
to show for your effort — enough certainly, greatly to
encourage you to proceed. And the thing to note is,
that all this is being done in Germany at a marked
saving to the public purse, that is, the combined capital
of the country. In the first place, indiscriminate charity
is suppressed ; in the second place, and on principles
of political economy, it is cheaper to address yourself
systematically to the whole lump of misery called social
distress than to let each starving beggar go fishing for
himself in its turbid waters, or to leave him to the
spasmodic efforts of private benevolence. Now, no one
would have believed this before Pastor von Bodelschwinp'h
worked out his figures, and put it all on paper for folk
190 A Colony of Mercy
to consider as a simple lesson in arithmetic, showing
that the rescue of the submerged is not only a duty of
Christian charity, but also a bit of ciphering productive
of actual gain. He did not go to the country saying,
" We must come out handsomely with a hundred thou-
sand pounds for these starving beggars." No ; he said,
" I will show you how to save them mercifully and
kindly, and save our own purses to boot. Charity, of
course, appeals to our purses, but it will cost us much
less to do it thus and thus ! " Now, folk are apt to be
charmed with proposals for the public benefit which go
upon lines of saving, of political economy that is — doing
charity wisely and well.
Another point to note — and this brings us to actual
results — is this : that not only have the vagabonds
largely disappeared, but public crime also has diminished,
some of the reports say by about 30 per cent. ! Even
the houses of correction, working, so to speak, hand
in hand with the colonies, are less needed. There
are about twenty of these about the country. In 1885
they counted twenty-three thousand inmates; in 1890
thirteen thousand. This is progress ! this is saving ! and
in a double sense — men, are saved from despair and con-
sequent crime, and the public purse is saved, for crime is
costly. No wonder, then, that Pastor von Bodelschwingh
is believed in for his lessons in arithmetic. He always
gets the money he wants, for people know it bears good
interest. He is the son of a minister of finance, but he
is something else. He is the simplest and most modest
of Christians ; and if you talk to him about these things
and the secret of success, he will say, with a beautiful
Darkest Germany Tramping 191
light in his eye, " Love is the great propeller ; we only
need enough of it, and to set to work humbly."
Chanty, it will be seen, is thus fast becoming a science
in Germany, if science means system and method and
thoroughness. Mere sentiment is a weak prop to phil-
anthropy : even pitiful action alone is ; but combine
method with both, and you have a system — you have a
science.
CHAPTER XI.
THE SPIRITUALLY EPILEPTIC
" Am I my brother's keeper ? "
DRINK, of course, is the road by which many of the
unemployed eventually find themselves in the
labour colony. Either it was drink which in the first
instance threw them out of work, or, being out of work,
drink was their miserable solace ; and the habitual
drunkard, by the nature of him, continues unemployed.
They come to the colony to be aided, starving as they
are, all other doors being closed to them save the house
of correction ; but one cannot really aid them without
going to the root of their woes. How is it to be done ?
Walking about the colony for three or four months with
the blue ribbon fastened to your coat, figuratively — for,
of course, there is no drink there, save water and your
cup of coffee twice a day — and though you work while
there, or are made to work ever so diligently, this is no
certain cure. What, then, is to be done ?
Speaking of the colonies as a whole, it is perhaps too
early for them to face the question to the full extent of
action ; but Wilhelmsdorf, their pattern from the first,
has taken the lead in this also. Wilhelmsdorf found it
had a very special mission to the unemployed drunkard.
192
The Spiritually Epileptic 193
As we have abundantly seen, things are never directly
planned in that domain of charity. They arise out of
the necessities of the work. It is only that an ever-
watchful eye is present seeing the necessity, and an ever-
ready hand finding a way. But the seeing and the
finding in this instance also has its own story.
At Kinderheimy in Bethel, where the sick babes are
nursed, there is a free bed, the legacy of a poor
drunkard. Many beds are free at Kinderheim — indeed,
the fifty are free, if need be ; but this one is set
apart, and the dying infants passing through it — a
growing family they — will stand in glory one day, and
will they not say to that drunkard, " We were forsaken
orphans ; we were consumptive, rickety, helpless little
things, the children of drunkards ; but thou didst take
us in ?
That drunkard finished his earthly course in his twenty-
seventh year. He had early fallen among thieves, and been
a vagabond on the highway. The public-house and low
lodging-house keepers, and the ill companions gathering
at those places, did their work by him — the work through
which so many, who but for their terrible surroundings
would perhaps not fall so grievously, are ruined body
and soul, and brought to an early grave. The Good
Shepherd went seeking that youth. He was picked up
one night in a quarry into which he had fallen, and with
fractured ribs and broken limbs was taken to Sarepta.
He was drunk when he met with his accident, and as he
lay for three months, nursed by the sisters, he resolved
to drink no more. But before the year was out another
infirmary had the nursing of him for a similar reason.
13
1 94 ^ Colony of Mercy
He had again been drinking, and got into a street brawl at
night ; had again a limb broken. He did think he could
stand now, for twice he had been punished ; but two
years later, from a distant prison, a letter came to Pastor
von Bodelschwingh, written b}' the prison chaplain,
saying they had a poor convict, fast dying of consump-
tion, who was anxiously entreating for leave to die at
Sarepta. It was that youth. Drink had brought him
the criminal's reward, and now he lay dying. Sarepta,
of course, had a bed for him.
Now, what brought him ? He was not a Christian,
but he knew he was dying. What brought him ? He
came to find peace at Bethel. A stranger's grave in the
little cemetery there was given him, and they put these
words for an inscription : " Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners." Before he died he bequeathed
his humble patrimony for the purpose above named.
Often enough in the beech wood behind Sarepta, where
the invalids breathe the strengthening air, would he have
seen the little cots carried out by the sisters. He had
been left fatherless, and he pitied the orphan children of
drunkards. He was just upon seven-and-twenty, and
his little patrimony had not been touched, his mother
having left it to be held in trust for him till he should
have passed his twenty-eighth birthday, hoping, perhaps,
that her prodigal by that time might be " coming home."
And so he' was. And this is how a vagabond, a convict,
and a dying drunkard made his will.
His soul was saved, but for this life he paid the
penalty ; and those who stood by his dying bed learned
from this that a few months of even the truest guardian-
The Spiritually Epileptic
195
ship will not suffice to wean a drunkard from his
temptation without fear of relapse. Such a one requires
to be nursed body and soul, and time only, combined
with wisest care, can hope to effect a cure. For that
young man was not the only slave of intemperance who
has found his grave in the little sleeping-ground where
epileptics rest from their affliction, the labour colony
SAREPTA CONVALESCENTS.
always numbering some dying ones, dying from drink,
among her outcast flock ; and, one by one, such were
coming to the sick wards of Sarepta. Nor was this
all ; for many a one, though coming to die, like that
first one of the number, yet came to find life. The
sadness was rather for those who also might be said to be
dying ones, who stayed awhile at the colony, and had
to be dismissed because they would not submit to the
196 A Colony of Mercy
wholesome restraints put upon them there. Drink is
forbidden, but a man, if he so wills, cannot be kept from
attempts to procure it ; and dismissal is the only punish-
ment for breaking the rules of the place. Such, of
course, only leave to sink the deeper. They might be
good labourers, they might have done well at the colony
in this respect, even finding employment on leaving ;
but they are like him whose chamber was swept and
garnished for a time, and whose last state is worse than
the first. And even with those who stand well at the
colony the danger of relapse is very great when the
temptations of the unguarded life once more beset them.
Nevertheless, it is not wholly right to say : It is their
own fault ; we have tried to help them, we have done our
best ; the colony took them in, but they are irreclaim-
able. Truly they are sinning, but society also — -you and
you — has sinned against them. You met the poor un-
employed in rags and tatters, you pitied his starving
face, you listened to his tales of woe, you gave him
your coppers and walked away. You either should
have done more for him or less, says the " Greatest
Thing " ! The coppers alone may be his ruin. It is
largely through your ill-considered charity that man has
become what he is ! And with the tenth part of the
money given in the streets of our great cities shelters
and work-stations could be erected all over the country
to take in the unemployed before they sink, making
them work fo their keep till regular employment is
found. Prevention is not only better, it is also easier,
than cure ! And the cure need hardly ever be required
if we al knew and did our duty towards preventing.
The Spirihially Epileptic 197
Ask yourself, honest reader, are you quite sure you could
withstand the temptation on a raw November day, in the
streets — no work, no home, but pennies to be had for
the asking? Then for God's and your poor brother's
sake do not give your pennies any longer, but go and do
some preventing, if only by joining pennies together in
the right direction ; they will make a stronger hand
than yours for the upholding of your brother.
There is another class — the crippled or half-crippled
beggars : surely we may 'pity them ! They cannot
do much work. They beg, they drink, they perish.
Even the labour colony is not for such ; for they would
need to be there more permanently, and thus would
keep out others. Yet, is it right to let them perish ?
They are drunkards, they are unemployed : what is
to be done with them ?
It is for these among her flock — for the drunkards,
hale or crippled — that Wilhelmsdorf went further afield,
founding another little colony at a little distance, and
naming it Friedrichs-Hiitte. It is a labour colony
also, for labour here also is the medicine prescribed ;
but it is for inebriates solely. Those who are admitted
are supposed to stay at least one year — two or three
if thought advisable ; indeed, they pledge themselves
on entering this refuge not to leave it again of their
own choice. It is expected that their friends, or the
parish, should pay a yearly sum for their maintenance
over and above their own wages, which, after the manner
of Wilhelmsdorf, are never handed over to them in cash.
They receive wages on the condition only, that such are
forfeited if a man breaks his abstinence pledge.
igS A Colony of Mercy
But whence the name Friedrichs-Hiitte — " Frederick's
Cot " ? We have seen that the late Emperor, then
Crown Prince of the Empire, was Protector of Wil-
helmsdorf. On the occasion of his silver wedding
in 1883 a collection of silver pieces — crowns and half-
crowns and other coin, the gift of the country, had
resulted in a handsome present in cash to their Im-
perial Highnesses ; and they made the noblest use of
it, furthering the scheme then started for rescuing the
unemployed. This Home for Inebriates was opened
in 1888, just after the royal sufferer had laid down
his earthly crown. It will be remembered from an
earlier chapter that in their youth he and Pastor
von Bodelschwingh had been playfellows ; what more
natural than that the Prince in after years followed with
warmest sympathy the pastor's endeavours, and what
more natural than that the pastor in his latest effort
should commemorate the Prince's name ? Friedrich
in German means rich in peace ; and at Friedrichs-Hiitte
the poor drunkards, perhaps for the first time in their
lives, may gain a perception of peace — " liberty to the
captive, the opening of the prison to them that are
bound."
It is such a peaceful spot, a farmhouse to which
another building has been added, shaded by sparsely
planted trees, through which you have a beautiful
view over the spreading fields of the Senne to the
blue hills beyond. It was a lovely summer evening
when we stood there, the golden sunbeams slanting in
and steeping the place in a flood of amber. The
" patients " had returned from work, and were saunter-
The Spiritually Epileptic 199
ing about or sitting in groups here and there ; some
were foddering the cattle. They are doing real hard
work during the day, field labour mostly ; we had
watched them making trenches and digging up the
subsoil. There is a garden, too, well kept by them.
Some few are occupied indoors — the endeavour ever
being to employ a man according to his fitness. For
instance, there was one who had been a cigar manu-
facturer, a spare little man, whose limbs ached all over
on the fields. He implored those in authority to let him
go back to his own trade. Well, and he did go back :
these patients are permitted smoking, and they may
as well smoke home produce. Friedrichs-Hiitte has
some thirty to forty inmates, and a Wilhelms-HUtte, a
second refuge, is already springing up, a couple of
miles distant. If an " Own Home " colony, such as
the one spoken of on a former page, is the extension
of the whole scheme at the upper end, colonies like
Friedrich's and Wilhelm's-Hutte are the much-needed
provision at the lower ; in the former, men really " worth
saving " can be stablished in the worthier life they are
trying for, in the latter, those who have sunk too low for
strength of will of their own, can at least be controlled
and kept from their great temptation, if so be that the
educating hand in the end, after all, may set them free.
Many of these patients are of respectable antecedents
— a son of a clergyman, a son of an officer high in the
army, a man of good family who had been a wine-
grower in Portugal, another whose father is Pasha
Somebody in the Sultan's service, are among the
number. All these have arrived in the labour colony
200 A Colony of Mercy
"submerged" through drink. Sometimes also a good-
for-nothing youngster is sent there by parents in despair
of managing him. There was such a youthful prodigal
newly arrived, and turning up his nose superbly at
the idea of work. He looked sadly helpless, poor
boy, in rather a fine, if dilapidated suit of clothes,
having but just come to the place ; a pickaxe was
lying on one side, a copy of Moliere on the other side
of him, as he stood in one of the trenches, — " As if /
could do such work," he said. " You will soon do it,"
the Pasha's offspring said consolingly — " it's the one
thing here " ; and he certainly set him a good example.
There is a house-father of thorough peasant stock, who
looks after all their needs — their spiritual needs too —
and the pastor (the Senne has its own chaplain set
over this flock by Bodelschwingh) is in personal touch
with each of them. After a year or more, a trial is
given these patients at Bethel itself — and how Bethel
employs these rescued sheep the next chapter will tell.
The Crown Prince one day inspected this sandy
waste fast turning into a garden — salvation colonies
truly, and bearing the royal names. At 5.30 one
summer morning he arrived at Bielefeld, coming straight
from Potsdam, and drove out to the Senne. At a
village halfway two thousand school-children, gathered
from all the neighbourhood, stood awaiting His Im-
perial Highness. He graciously reviewed the youthful
parade, and listened to their singing. For weeks these
children had prepared for the Crown Prince, and as his
eagle eye scanned the bright-faced rows, he spied a
little girl, poorly clad, and with a nosegay of wild-
The Spiritually Epileptic 201
flowers. The little maiden kept in the background,
for she was barefoot ; but he went up to her with
his most winning smile : " I know, those pretty flowers
have been gathered for me," he said ; he took them at
the hands of the blushing child, stroking her upturned
face, and she, the poorest of them all — she who was
last, was first.
As you go about the Senne — a walk around, in
truth, is quite a transformation scene — passing through
a growing plantation, the work of Wilhelmsdorf, you
suddenly come upon what appears a castle in the wood.
You have entered a little oak forest of fine old trees ;
it is the one spot in the neighbourhood where there is a
break in that ferruginous stratum, an oasis of good soil,
of fertile growth therefore in the sandy waste. So
oak-trees grew and spread their branches. They spread
them all around a little glade, and here your castle
rises — a sylvan retreat of perfect charm ; you fall in
love with it at first sight. It is the Eichhof—Ozk
Court.
If you look about, you soon discover this too was
originally a farmhouse, one of the regular Westphalian
peasant glories, for the very entrance hall is but the
former threshing-floor swept and garnished. The hand
which transformed this place into what it now is, was
gifted with the touch of art ; the rooms — drawing-
room, dining-room, the little bedrooms, each with a
look-out into the deep green — having an old-world
style about them which is perfectly enchanting : quaint
furniture, high wainscoting, windows lozenge-paned and
202 A Colony of Mercy '
set deep in the mullions ; you fancy yourself in some
mediaeval forest haunt ; you picture some high-born
dame ruling her thrifty maidens and providing the
home comforts for the absent men. You cannot help
weaving garlands about this homestead swept by the
broad breath of nature ; you would fain build taber-
nacles here, stay here for ever, and let the world roll
on without you. Goodness and purity seem to have
stood sponsors to this Oak Court.
Yet what is it we have come out to see ? It calls
itself, with innocent euphemism, " Pension for gentlemen
in search of temporary quiet." It is a refuge for prodigals
of high degree. You stop a couple of days at the
Eichhofy and as you join the family circle — at meals, for
instance — you feel sure they are perfect gentlemen ; so
they are, of outward graces, in breeding and in manners,
and not, it seems, unhappy in their voluntary or involun-
tary retreat. They, too, have come the road of trans-
gressors— at least the road of selfish enjoyment,- where a
man's will is his paradise, doing as he pleases, working
his own ruin and that of others. Not all were drunkards —
a proportion of them were — there is other intemperance ;
there is gambling, there are the fashionable vices which
the world condones.. Happy they for whom such a place
is waiting to take them in when they have come to the
dregs.
The pensionnaires, so far from being of the submerged,
are of the upper ten — counts and barons and all that
— who when nothing was left but to cut their own
throats, were glad to seize the hand good Pastor von
Bodelschwingh was holding out to them. They have
The Spiritually Epileptic 203
mostly been in the army till even the army could no
longer keep them. They are of all ages between five-
and-twenty and forty or so. They are pensionnaires — that
is, they are kept in every way like gentlemen ; they, or
their friends for them, pay their £%o or £100 a year, but
they must work. There is a large kitchen garden, and
these high-born gardeners do then regular eight hours
a day. There is a tale that they once complained to the
Pastor, — they pay well, why should they work as well.
Said he, " You pay not for your keep only, you pay for
the luxury of work provided for you : you never knew
that luxury before, and it is so good for you ! " And
they own it is good, the health of the place enveloping
them.
The wonder is not so much that they come, but that
they stay. There must be invisible cords, and strong ones,
which hold them ! We happened to witness the first
meeting between Pastor von Bodelschwingh and the latest
comer — a young Freiherr of about eight-and-twenty, a
handsome good-natured sort of fellow, with not the
faintest look of debauchery about him ; he had run
through his fortune, and here he was. He had come
into Bethel on the Jubilee day with two or three others.
Said the pastor to him, " And who are you, mein Lieberl "
The baron's name was given in due form and with a bow.
But the pastor drew him close, putting his arm about
him, and repeating his " mein Lieber " as only Bodel-
schwingh can. " Let love be among you," he said, " and
peace abide." He had laid the young man's cheek
against his own, who blushed violently. English folk
despise men kissing, deeming it unmanly ; but this was
204 A Colony of Mercy
the kiss we read of in Luke xv. 20. And if there were any
salvation for that young man, it was coming to him even
with a father's kiss — it was strong Love putting out her
hand saying, " I am thy keeper." A few days after, this
same young baron was watching his first attempts in the
Eichhof garden — he had sown a row of lobelias, and was
very anxious they should be no discredit to him. There
was promise here : if you are faithful over your lobelias,
there is hope you will be faithful presently over greater
things. A man need not be hopelessly bad for being at
the Eichhof: it is a young man's upbringing often, the
want of a firm hand in time, which lets him slip and fall.
The Eichhof, then, is a blessed place for such.
The rules of the house are strict. No one, having given
himself in charge there, may leave the precincts of this
oasis without permission, and if he gets leave to go to
town (Bielefeld — some seven miles distant), he is under
pledge not to enter any place of refreshment save the
" hospice " at Bethel. They do not seem to suffer from
dulness at the Eichhof : their eight hours done, they have
their smoking-room to enjoy a cigarette after meals, or
a game of chess, or other amusement. They do not
exactly work the flesh off their bones, yet a fair amount
of labour is got through. Meadows have been put under
irrigation, and the natural oak wood has been turned
into a park by these high-born workmen ; they have
made paths intersecting the wood ; they have put up a
pleasant " Rest and be thankful " here, a rustic arbour
there ; they have made ponds and stocked them with
gold-fish. And as you wander through that lovely
greenery you once more are enchanted with the charms
The Spiritually Epileptic 205
of the place ; it is a fairy haunt ; you almost look for the
Sleeping Beauty, for a Prince to wake her — the sleeping
soul of these men. And there is an awaking in some
cases, a breaking through the thorny hedge, an opening
of the prison to them that are bound. Fruit is ever
slow in growth, but fruit there is in some cases at least.
And if most of these men go back to the world and
youk now not for what good they have been with you,
yet surely a blessing goes with them — a memory, a
haunting sense of a goodness they have seen. Who
shall say it is in vain ? They take away a seed with
them, and who shall say it will not grow after many days ?
Will the reader stop and consider the wonderful good-
ness which planned this home? Homes of charity for
the poor we are used to, but here is a home — a charity
in truest sense — for the nobly born " poor," poor because
they have not the riches of grace to stand before the
temptations of the world. And how beautifully it is
done, just meeting their need, their weakness ! There is
nothing of the charity institution about it. But wisdom
knows these men arrive at a point when they look about
them despairingly, like a drowning man for a plank. This
is the moment to say to them, " Come here — rest here — be
here a while at peace ! " They are physically down, meet
them on that level ; take them, Rousseau-fashion, back to
Nature, to the kitchen garden, to the oak wood ; and then,
Christ-fashion, draw them close as Bodelschwingh did ;
for even your man of the world, your prodigal of
manner thrice-guarded, has a hole in the armour for
simple love to creep in. It is by love only, love taking
us at our level, that any of us ever are saved.
206 A Colony of Mercy
The Eichhof is an ideal, a " working model " in itself.
There are hundreds of young men like that Freiherr,
fashionable, good-natured, not just very wicked, but no-
wise " good," scions of noble families, with no particular
object in life — hundreds of them everywhere. Who is
holding out a hand to such in this country ? Who says
to those who are fast slipping down the incline, You are
aweary, come and rest here ? Who provides a resting-
place for such in pleasant England, with her secluded
parks, her highland wilds — a place so original in its
planning, that men would come for the very novelty of
the thing, come to taste the luxury of work so ingeni-
ously rendered inviting, with companions of their kind?
a place of which they would say, despite themselves, It is
good for us to be here, and thus stay ? For at the Eichhof
a man is quite free to come and go — this is the marvel.
Perhaps there is something in this feeling of being
among their kind — their " kind " not only in the " upper-
ten " sense. They have all known the husks. But
the chaplain resident in the house gives his testimony,
that good breeding comes out strongly ; a man's previous
history though known, in part at least, to those who
admit him to that refuge, is never subject of talk among
themselves ; they readily fall in with the tone of the
house, which is that of cultured company. A man is
apt to feel as he is treated, and the wisdom of rescuing
love shows most in little things. These men are treated
as gentlemen. Nor are accomplishments forgotten ; if a
man has a leaning towards literature he may follow his
bent — there are books, there is music ; so dulness is not a
feature of the place.
The Spiritually Epileptic 207
The resident chaplain is pastor of all the Senne flock ;
before God, and in that humble place of worship, there
is no difference. There " all have sinned and come
short." There is a little chapel newly built for the out-
of-work, for the prodigals of high and low degree, for
the convalescent epileptics of Rehoboth, also, to meet
together on a Sunday. There is one point for the eye
to rest on in this chapel, a picture — " The Prodigal's
Return " — at least a Prodigal's return — for the picture
represents Christ Himself receiving the returning one,
and the thought embodied in that picture is rest, is
peace. It is an illustration of —
" Lay down, thou weary one, lay down
Thy head upon My breast."
The original is the work of an artist of no mean skill
for putting truth upon canvas ; the copy in the chapel
has been made by a lady, who, herself tasting a season
of unrest, thought there could be no better use for
it than to give it a place in that chapel, through which
hundreds of prodigals ever are passing, some of them
returning, some of them on their way home.
There is a collection of autobiographical sketches
written by men who have gone through Wilhelmsdorf —
men who came there lost and undone, and who, through
the labour colony, found the upward way ; it was
especially during the earlier years of the colony that
Pastor von Bodelschwingh encouraged the inmates, those
who could, to write down their life-history, showing
the road by which they had come. Some of these
accounts are simply heart-rending, all are touching,
leaving a feeling with the reader, " Who art thou, that
208 A Colony of Mercy
God has kept thee from this ? Who art thou, to throw
a stone at thy brothers ? " These manuscripts, of course,
are not for the public eye. No two of them are alike —
they are such different ways by which these men had
sunk to the level of the unemployed, the vagabond,
the starving outcast. But one keynote runs through
them all — now more veiled, now frankly confessing —
this is the one cry, " I have sinned ! " If a few
only could add, " I will arise and go to my Father,"
yet the depth through which they had passed had
brought them to say, " I have sinned ! " and if truly so,
this depth already is a rising. It is so easy to look at
an unfortunate man with the Pharisee's " Thank God, I
am not like him ! " We may not be like these Senne
folk, never doing a thing men can blame us for ; yet
some of these outcasts of society, prodigals though they
were, may one day be first when some of us are
last. There is nothing more soul-destroying than mere
respectability. It will be true of Wilhelmsdorf, as it must
be true of any collection of men, that many are called
and few chosen. Maybe that but few who pass through
its blessings of seclusion, its saving influences, will really
be saved — saved with their soul's salvation in the end.
But of some it may be said — it can be seen in these
biographies, and House-father Meyer bears witness,
having their grateful letters — that they take with them
one of the greatest blessings to be won in the valley
of humiliation, the meek and chastened spirit, the
Prodigal's crown.
A drive through the Senne on a summer evening
leaves with you one feeling only — beauty for ashes!
The Spiritually Epileptic 209
How wretched were their lives : they had sinned, they
had strayed, they were unsuccessful, and ashes only
were left. Nothing left to make life worth having, not
even work. They came here. The Senne itself is
rising out of nature's ashes, being fast clothed in the
fair garments of beauty honestly won. The hand of
industry guided by brotherly love has done it. The
ripening fields, the verdant meadows, the hills and the
brooks, the plantations and the heather of the yet un-
claimed wastes, the little church rising in the midst —
what a picture of peace ! And as the sun goes down,
and the purple shadows creep over the hills, you know,
for you have seen it that day, that the gospel of Christ
is not for them that never knew hunger ; it is for the
suffering, the sinning, for them that are bound, opening
their prison and proclaiming to them the acceptable year
of the Lord. A man must have known something of
ashes to be ready for Christ's beauty, and the true oil
of joy is for the mourners first of all. Do we not know
that Christ never had many messages for the rich, the
well-behaved orderly folk of society ; but that His tender-
ness was for the poor, the sinning, the outcast — the
" submerged," in fact, of those days ! Why is this ? Is it
because each of us is a brother's, a sister's keeper, but
we keep them not ? we know their temptations, yet we
do not even outwardly " keep " them — helping them to
purer surroundings ; we have our two coats, our
abundance of the easier life, and we say we are thankful
we have ! Is it because we have so very little to spare
for these brothers, not even the steadying hand — that
therefore Christ, the merciful, has to make up to these
14
210 A Colony of Mercy
poor ones for our coldness ? and He does ! Jesus of
Nazareth, first of all, is the friend of the poor ! Pastor
von Bodelschwingh says there is not more distress in the
world than is good for us— for us who are not distressed
— that there is only just enough to keep love going.
For every hungry one there is another who has enough
and to spare, for every one in tatters there is one with
two coats — is not Christ's meaning obvious ? Thus even
squalid poverty becomes transfigured : it is Christ's
training ground not only for the poor, but for the not-
poor to learn a great lesson ! Am I my brother's
keeper ?
What if there were not more distress in England,
not more drunkenness born of ill-housed poverty, not
more unemployed, ill-fed misery, than is good to bring
wealthy England to Christ ? Why should there not be
a Senne in this country also ?
CHAPTER XII
THE CAVE OF ADULLAM
" And every one in distress, and every one in debt, and every one
discontented, gathered themselves unto him, and he became a captain
over them."
THIS is literally true! Pastor von Bodelschwingh
has a way of his own of proclaiming liberty to
the captives, of opening the prison of them that are
bound. He trusts a man ; even if a man has been
to prison, he finds ways and means of trusting him
yet. He saves him by trusting him! And it pays !
One of the wonderful things about Bethel is the art
it has developed of " making room." It is a favourite
expression there " Enlarge the tent ! " and with singular
ease they pull out the pegs of even the fully-stretched
tent, enlarging it yet again. It is so elastic, this tent of
theirs — so adaptable, too ! It has gathered the poor
and the maimed and the blind, and yet there is
room.
Has a man lost his footing in the world, from what-
ever cause ? is he in trouble ? is he in despair of any kind
— honest despair that would be helped? let him go to
Bethel. A hand is sure to be wanted about the offices
that very day : most fortunate you have come ; these
212 A Colony of Mercy
books want revising ; that clerk is overburdened ; some
important copying work has got to be done ; just stay
and help us ! And the man stays ; and he feels wanted
— one of the finest moral pulleys in this world of sink-
ing folk. He picks up courage directly, he picks up
self-respect, he looks an inch taller before the week is
out. A noble pride has risen to repay such trust.
The observant eye marvels at this unwritten page of
Bethel's history. Even here we must not do more than
just touch upon it. One is at a loss what more to admire,
the trust given or the trust repaid. For it answers — in
a wonderful way it answers ; it stands proved and tried.
A great staff of subalterns, of course, is required about
such a colony — men outside the actual circle of labour
of love, men who work for a living : clerks, book-
keepers, cashiers, secretaries, copyists — nearly all these
at Bethel are shipwrecked mariners ; and Bethel not
only is the lifeboat to carry them ashore, it also is
the terra firma on which they eventually may stand.
Or, more properly speaking, in many an instance Bethel
is lifeboat and nothing more — taking a man in for a
time and piloting him back to the world whence he
has slipped ; but in many another instance the ship-
wrecked stranger remains and develops into a useful
worker. He was helped — he stays to help.
This has come about quite naturally, as things are
apt to come about at Bethel. Among the " submerged "
passing through Wilhelmsdorf, among the victims of
intemperance finding refuge at Friedrichs-Htitte, there
are many concerning whom true charity says, " Give
that man another chance." They are of the educated
The Cave of Adullam 2 1
j
classes. They have had a fall. Their friends have
disowned them ; or, if friends would condone, they
cannot easily find the employment they are fit for.
They stand discredited. Yet the man may be worth
saving, worth trusting. We might have fallen, in his
environment. We are our brother's keeper, says Bodel-
schwingh ; we must put out the hand of love to steady
him, and he may stand.
There is a curious house at Bethel, called " Ephratah."
You may spend weeks about the place and take no
notice whatever of this house ; it is not talked about.
If you do take note of it, you are told a retired mis-
sionary required a post of usefulness, and he found it
in that house, there being an ever increasing number
of clerks and others employed at Bethel, and it is
kind to gather them into a family. This missionary
is their house-father. He is answerable for some five-
and-twenty of these mariners. They do not now look
shipwrecked, but they still need piloting, and they
know they do.
A typical case : The son of respectable parents was
articled as a clerk, and got an appointment in Berlin.
He had a good salary ; but, after the ways of young
men in the great capital, the day's earnings barely
sufficed for the evening's dissipation. He got into
difficulties. A friend advising him " change of air," to
go and see something of the world, he came to London ;
but his Berlin experiences had ill fitted him for the
greater struggle in the English metropolis. He fell a
prey, all too easily, to companions worse than himself ;
and, waking one morning to the fact that he was
214 A Colony of Mercy
hopelessly ruined, he procured a revolver, and that
night in Hyde Park attempted his life. He was
picked up insensible by a fellow-countryman, who took
him to a hospital, and who, when the hospital dis-
charged him, paid for his ticket back to the Fatherland.
He arrived on German soil, but only to begin the
vagabond's life ; for who now would employ him — trust
him ? Tramping the country hopeless and penniless,
yet with a spark of promise somewhere in his soul, he
one day heard of the labour colony, Wilhelmsdorf,
and " I will arise " quivered through him, fanning that
spark to a flame. He arose and went.
But men at the labour colony are not all treated
alike. The helpful hand held out there to each and
all alike is ruled by singular judgment ; it discrimin-
ates ; it watches a man ; it says, " This man, though
he has fallen among thieves, is yet not altogether a
thief, and it singles him out for different treatment.
That man is now at Ephratah, has been there for
eighteen months. He is in one of the offices, a useful
hand in the bookkeeping department, filling his post
faithfully and endeavouring to work his way back to
the level whence he has fallen. When he shall have
served his two years, Bethel will stand surety for him
to any situation he may apply for ; the past will be
forgotten, and he may once more begin his way in
life with an experience which perhaps with all its
humiliating recollections is none too dearly bought.
Is he a " Christian " ? He at any rate has learned two
things — to distrust himself, and to be faithful. For the
present he is never missed from his place in Zion Church.
The Cave of Adullam 215
Church- going is not exactly compulsory for these
gathered-in sheep ; they know, however, that it is
expected of them. But some have been through all the
teachings of Socialism, and their ideas about religion are
much awry. Some years ago a little band of them would
absent themselves. They were not driven, but they were
watched; possibly they were all the more earnestly prayed
for. One Saturday evening, in the gloaming, one of
them, as spokesman for the rest, appeared in the pastor's
study — it was one of Bodelschwingh's coadjutors — as he
was preparing his sermon, and with much confusion
confessed his utter inability to believe this and that the
Church would have him believe, and " his companions
were of one mind with him." They did not wish to be
humbugs — they did not " feel good." But they were
willing to come to the pastor of an evening once or
twice a week. Would he try to explain things to them ?
Only they would rather not let it bs known. The pastor
willingly agreed to this Nicodemus request, and the
secret disciples, who could not believe, and who would
not be " humbugs," but who did ask to be taught, had a
little service all to themselves, as they had begged for.
The results are with Him who weighs men in His balance,
and who judges them with a judgment all His own.
Most of these men are a credit to the trust placed
in them. Some continue black sheep — black in heart,
though outwardly submitting to restraint ; but for most
it can be said that Wilhelmsdorf, and after that Ephratah,
has been the turning-point.
For all the restraint put upon them — they may not
leave the precincts of the colony without the house-
2 1 6 A Colony of Mercy
father's permission, and they have signed an agreement
that if they visit any public-house or other place of
low company they forfeit every right to return to their
haven of refuge — for all their past history, which is more
or less minutely known, they are not treated as men
lost to honour. On the contrary, they are put on their
honour, and it generally answers. They are among the
officials of the place. They are paid for their work at
the rate of sixpence to ninepence a day, besides their
full keep. This money is not given them — at least, not at
first. The house-father keeps it for them, and by degrees
only, beginning with small sums, they are entrusted with
money. They know they are under treatment for the
breaking of fetters which bound them, under treatment
to give them strength for weakness ; and, like a sick man,
they submit to a physician wiser than themselves. Two
years is considered a full course of treatment, and after
that they are helped back into situations corresponding
to their capacities. On the whole, they are a credit to
the treatment undergone ; and their grateful letters show
they have learned a lesson.
Ephratah is the first stage. Some get beyond its
leading-strings, taking up their life for good at the place
which has saved them. These are on the regular staff of
officials. Indeed, there is hardly a man employed in the
offices who has not come to Bethel with a more or less
troubled history ; yet not every shipwrecked man has
been wrecked criminally.
The great Rothschild, it is said, once was asked con-
cerning the secret of his success. " I never employ a
man who has been unfortunate." Well, it depends upon
The Cave of Adullam 217
what is meant by success ; but Pastor von Bodelschwingh,
though by preference he employs " unfortunates," does so
with singular success. He has surrounded himself with
a staff of workers who have all come to him out of
troubled waters, and who are now "his friends." He
always addresses them as " Lieber Freund" his spiritual
co-workers, of course, being " Lieber Bruder." It is some-
thing to be called friend by such a man, and these men
have earned it.
It is with reluctance one singles out a few of the most
remarkable cases : one feels it a breach of confidence
almost, a treading on sacred ground ; yet this is written
for English readers, as a working model, as a bright
example ; and if a German eye, even if the eye of those
concerned, should meet this, they will know it is to the
glory of true charity, it is to the honour of the Pastor
who has been the good Samaritan — yea, a friend to them,
it is to their own honour and encouragement these lines
are written.
Pace any man of Rothschild's way of thinking, will
the English reader deem it very strange that two of the
staff, in places of exceptional responsibility, who have
thousands passing through their hands, are men who
once barely escaped the arm of the law for dishonourable
bankruptcy? They have been for a number of years
in their present position of trust, and fill it honourably.
They have had a house of their own given them.
Bodelschwingh has a great idea of people having houses
of their own, he is always making homes and building
houses. One of the confidential clerks actually is an
ex-convict. He had appropriated trust money, not with
2 1 8 A Colony of Mercy
evil intent, but meaning to replace it. He served his
term. He then came to Bodelschwingh, was put on trial,
and found worthy of trust. He has been for some
years now at Bethel, and is doing well.
There is quite a number of such men who have come
to Bethel, utterly discredited by their darkened past, who
have been tried and trusted, and who have stood the
test. These things are barely known at the colony ;
they are known only to those who needs must know, and
are not talked about. There is a beautiful freemasonry
of trust and of humility, which says, " We all have
sinned, and come short of the glory." You go about
Bethel trying, perhaps, to read the inner history ; you
may want to know as much as possible about things
there, desirous perchance of telling the story, as a
working model, as a bright and shining example. You
talk to one of the staff- workers ; he has given you much
valuable information ; you find him especially interested
in the labour colony and kindred institutions for saving
the submerged — in fact, he is doing much useful work on
their behalf; you express your admiration to him of
much you have seen and heard, and you actually tell
him something like this : That one of the loveliest things
about this colony of mercy is this rescue work among
its very officials, this putting of ex-convicts even into
positions of trust. Like a thoughtless innocent, you have
rushed in where angels would fear to tread. You arc
aware of it suddenly, noticing a slight blush overspread-
ing the man's features. He is a man of middle age and of
most sober appearance ; but here he is blushing, and you
feel your own cheeks mantling at the sudden revelation.
The Cave of Adullam 219
Well, he too is an " unfortunate " ; a faithful worker now
for the very men who might all end their days in prison
but for the helping hands stretched out to them. All
honour to that man !
Pastor von Bodelschwingh's own private secretary,
his right hand, and trusted with all his correspondence,
with much private knowledge too, is a young man saved
from " prison " also ; not in this instance the prison of
stone and mortar, but a worse prison, an unprincipled
relation of his, a doctor, having taught him the abuse of
morphia. He was a slave to it, his prospects in life were
ruined when he landed at Wilhelmsdorf ; but his fetters
have been broken. He is one of the most capable and
faithful men now about Bethel. He won the affections of
a Bielefeld girl last winter, and Bodelschwingh himself
went surety for him to the girl's parents.
Is this prudent of the Pastor ? Let the question be
answered by an example to hand. They tell you at
Wilhelmsdorf how one of their flock, who had done well
at the labour colony, found his way back to the world
of blameless living. He was a gentleman, and a man
need not be a reprobate for having been to Wilhelmsdorf.
He was fortunate in getting a good situation, and for a
while nothing but good was heard of him. He was
making friends, and presently he too was engaged to a
young lady — her people knowing nothing of his unfor-
tunate antecedents. One day, out walking with the girl
and her parents, an ordinary workman accosted him with
an offhand, " How d'ye do, Charley ?— got back to the top
I see ! " A natural inquiry followed. How did he come
to be chum with a mere working man ? "I knew him
220 A Colony of Mercy
at Wilhelmsdorf," was the simple confession. That was
enough for these respectable people : the match was broken
off — little blame to them perhaps, and yet ! The poor
fellow in utter despair left the neighbourhood which now
looked askance at him, and a despairing man is not likely
to be fortunate ; he took to drink, and the second stage
of that man was worse than the first ; yet this second
stage need never have been ! It is the difference between
Rothschild's wisdom and Bodelschwingh's charity : the
former may drive a man back to the mire, the latter may
be his staff to uphold him. It is by being believed in
that a man often is saved !
Several of these rescued ones thus are settled at
Bethel, having their own fireside. It is beautiful, this
setting up of houses, clusters of home-life about the
colony. Says one : " But this is an expensive way of
doing it ! Secretaries can be had by the score at
secretaries' pay, and here you pay a man and give him
a house besides, with something very like a tacit promise
even, to have a care for his family." Well, there are
two ways of looking at this, and Bodelschwingh may
be quite sure that his way is winning him helpers
who will go through fire and water for him. This is
worth paying for : there is something in faithful service
coming from the heart of gratitude. But Bodelschwingh
never considers money when he has men to consider.
" I care not one jot what it costs," you may hear him say ;
" I care about the human beings in question."
Is not this a Christlike way of doing things ? Christ's
companion who went with him into Paradise had been a
thief! Some of Bodelschwingh's "companions" in his
The Cave of Adullam 2 2 1
great work of mercy, his staff of helpers, and now his
" friends," have, some of them, been thieves, some of
them convicts, all of them men who were " unfortunate,"
men whom the successful Rothschild would not have
employed. It might not answer with a great banker ;
it does answer at Bethel, it answers admirably, even
as a matter of worldly wisdom ! For although Bodel-
schwingh might sometimes get a secretary, a cashier,
" cheaper " than he does, he yet gets much extra work
done by means of this general rescue agency. It is
charity repaid.
There are other " unfortunates " gathering about this
captain. The first evening we spent with Pastor
Sturmer we found him reading a letter just received. It
was from a prison chaplain, telling a strange story of a
girl in trouble. A fortnight later that girl quietly arrived
at Bethel, and was placed as " help " in one of the houses,
no one asking where she had come from, no one being
told. It is one of the silent streams of healing flowing
at Bethel that such girls are taken in. No one knows
what has become of them, save a friend or two ; they
have disappeared from their former surroundings, and
Bethel is their home for a while. " You would scarcely
think it," said Pastor Sturmer, " but we have girls here at
times, quiet and helpful, coming to us from the strangest
antecedents. Where should they go ? " Such are not
always best placed in a penitentiary, for the stain of that
would cling to them. Bethel is not a penitentiary, yet
it is a haven of refuge, a bridge to many, leading to a
better, purer future, One may well ask what form of
human trouble is not taken in at Bethel ? But then the
222 A Colony of Mercy
great text of Bethel is, " to comfort all that mourn " — all !
Is a man, is a woman in trouble ? have they appealed to
us? that suffices — we can but try and comfort them.
Yes, it is Christlike.
Even minor troubles find a hearing there. At the
epileptic carpenters', below the general workshop in the
engine room, there is a noisy steam-saw, — surely an epi-
leptic patient is not entrusted with it ? " Oh no, and you
see it is so noisy, quite a trial to ordinary mortals ; but
we have picked up a deaf-and-dumb artisan, he manages
this part of the engine room."* Several deaf-and-dumb
in fact, are employed about Bethel. Of two men applying
for a post at the colony, both equally fitted for the work
they would do, and equally trustworthy, he who can
plead he is in trouble is sure to have the preference.
They have an office boy with a painfully disfigured face ;
he was born with this affliction, and though otherwise
hale and capable no one would employ him. He found
his niche at Bethel ; he is but a youth, he may live to
prove a grateful worker.
It is curious also how many pastors you meet at
Bethel ; you come upon them at every turn, — men
* This machinery, primarily for joinery purposes, is utilised also
for the production of electric light, at present for the joiners'
benefit only ; but there is talk of introducing it into some of the
other houses. This little world in many ways is quite up to date.
The pastor's study, for instance, is connected by telephone not
only with the more important Homes about Bethel, but with the
labour colony at Wilhelmsdorf (and with the Eichhof) seven
miles distant ; the telephone connecting the colony also with the
telephone and telegraph of Bielefeld. As a matter of fact, there-
fore, Bethel is in speaking connection with all the civilised
world.
The Cave of Adullam 223
overworked, men broken down, men maybe in spiritual
trouble, who formerly would have fled to the cloister ;
they gather to this captain, to the wholesome Christian
life of this colony, — this, too, is Cave of Adullam.
They throw themselves into the work, and presently
they return to the harvest-fields of the world taking a
new life with them. Let any man, let any woman, go
to Bethel who, for whatever reason, may feel worsted in
the battle to be fought ; no one will set up to teach
them, but they will learn a lesson there — they will be
shown how to buckle on the armour afresh, and be
different men, different women, thereafter.
It has happened sometimes that the good comfort
dealt out so freely at Bethel is wasted on a man un-
worthy ; there are those on whom salvation's trust is
lost. It does happen occasionally that a man runs
away with a few hundred marks — there have been no
more serious defalcations — but this leaves Bodelschwingh
quite unconcerned. " The money is nothing," he says,
" when we are trying for men," and he will just go on
with his trust policy. He has one painful recollection.
A nobly born "unfortunate" once presented himself
in his study, imploring to be saved. Well, what could he
put his hand to ? Nothing much : he had frittered away
his youth ; he knew about postage stamps — the mania
for stamp-collecting then being at its height. Well, then,
he should start a stamp collection. It would occupy
him, if it did not pay. But things are always done
with a will at Bethel, —that is, thoroughly. The colony
is in communication with missionaries and consuls all
the world over, and before long everybody was sending
224 A Colony of Mercy
used postage stamps — it was the beginning of a Postage
Stamp Bazaar^ which now requires a house of its own,
occupying a score of patients, and carrying on a
vigorous sale by post. You can order rare and valuable
stamps from Bethel, and more still are they pleased if
you send them any ; for it is business now, though it
began in an act of charity/''
But this unfortunate nobleman did not prove himself
trustworthy. With rare patience the Pastor tried for
that man's soul, and tried again, he all the while cheat-
ing his benefactor and selling the more valuable stamps
for his own purposes, going his own evil ways eventually
and dying in prison. He had been for a couple of years
at Bethel, an amiable good-for-nothing. They knew it,
* Stamps may be sent to " Markenhaus, Bethel, Bielefeld,
Germany," and English collectors of these valuables may find it
worth while to write there for stamp assortments, little books all
ready for postal transmission, each stamp marked and priced.
Hundreds of letters go and come daily, and while we were in the
office the other day an eager stamp-lover even ordered by tele-
gram one of these coveted bits of paper — some ancient twopenny
stamp, fancy value five pounds. Bethel, of course, does not fix
the five-pound price ; the Stamp Exchange does. Some of our
readers may feel inclined to send their duplicates to Bethel ; if
they want to sell them, Bethel gives fair value and no cheating ;
but sending them as a present might leave a happier feeling, for
it is helping a great work. The " Markenhaus," though in its
enlarged form it is but a few months old, turns a monthly capital
of ^150 to ^"200, gaining perhaps ^50, the primary object and
gain in this instance also being the employment procured for
epileptic patients. The "Markenhaus" is worth a visit, even
if you have no hankerings after used postage stamps ; it is under
the efficient management of a man who for years has been in the
merchant service of the Basle Missionary Society, who is a pro-
ficient in stamp-lore, and knows a forgery at half a glance.
The Cave of Adullam 225
and yet they tried. He lived at their expense, but his
soul was worth more to the pastor than the money
wasted on him and by him. Nevertheless, Bethel has
not in the end been out of pocket by even this act of
charity. That stamp bazaar, which had so curious a
beginning, now is a paying concern on a firm business
footing. And the solicitude bestowed on this stray
sheep, though wasted on him, was yet not wasted, but
rather bore fruit in showing a way for the gathering in
of other sheep ; the house " Ephratah," spoken of at
the beginning of this chapter, has developed out of this
first endeavour. Bodelschwingh sees a man much need-
ing to be rescued, — he tries, he fails ; but he remembers
there are others like him, and this is how a work begins.
One day a man, overcome with admiration at this
wealth of Christian charity, this power of comforting
all that mourn, came to Bodelschwingh. " I just want
to see your face," he said. " Nay," said the pastor,
" there is One Face to look into, even that of the Man
of Sorrows, and you will not be able then to let any
sorrow pass your door unhelped."
15
CHAPTER XIII
WORKMAN'S HOME
"Beauty for Ashes."
THOSE only who never had a home of their own
can appreciate the full force, even the kindness of
our Lord's promise to His troubled disciples — " In My
Father's house are many mansions — / go to prepare a
place for you!' They were about to be homeless ; for
home does not mean chairs and tables, it does not
mean hearth-room only, it means heart-room, and He
was the friend to whom their love had gathered even
in an earthly sense. " Many mansions " is not the
happiest rendering, for we are not to understand heaven
to be all palaces : there will be degrees even there ; if
palaces, no doubt then cottages also, whatever they be,
with this difference only, that one and all quite equally
will be dwelling-places of content, for the former things,
the sorrow, the pain, the strugglings and longings
wilL have passed away. " In My Father's house
are many dwelling-places, I go to prepare your place,
and yours, and yours " — an abiding-place for each
homeless, home-coming wanderer — this rather is the
meaning, taking into account each personal need to
be met there in His own way. Human friends often
226
Workman s Home 227
are very dense, but the One Friend understands, and
at this solemn time of His going to the death for them,
Sin-bearer for them all, He did not say, I go to
mediate for you at the right hand of Glory ; no, He
left them with the far simpler promise of dwelling-places,
a place for them. " Heaven will be the warmer to those
who had but little covering here," says David Elginbrod ;
and Christ's promises are fullest of meaning to those
who have not — to them that hunger. How can they
who have " many mansions " here, long with an equal
longing for Christ's mansions with those who have not ?
Yes, they can, by His first cutting the strings which tie
them to the " mansions " below — often a painful process.
And even a poor man may be tied to his wheelbarrow.
But to these others, His homeless ones, to them is the
promise. " I had not where to lay My head," He says ;
" I know your want."
But there is a state of homelessness in modern life
which should not be — homes which are no homes,
human dwelling-places in which it is next to impossible
for a man to grow fit for heaven ; in which want of
cleanliness is the soil for impurity, where men and
women grow drunkards in despair. A German judge
the other day summed up his experience in the curious
sentence : " Social crimes are in exact proportion to
the surface of friction in our dwellings " — in plain
English : want of elbow-room is the mother of half our
wickedness. It is concerning this want of elbow-room
among the working-classes we now have a word to say,
for Bethel, that large-hearted comforter, has set herself
to combat this also, seeking redress for this glaring want.
228 A Colony of Mercy
Bielefeld, in the outskirts of which our colony is
situated, a manufacturing place of some importance,
enjoys the reputation of being an advance-guard of
Socialism ; there are large sewing-machine works in that
city, and linen manufactories employing their thousands
of hands. The year 1885 brought troubled times to
Bielefeld, culminating in a general strike, quiet being
eventually restored only by military interference.
Peaceful Bethel was involved in an unexpected way.
Some travelling locksmiths and other iron-workers
happened to be at the Herberge when the strike broke out,
and this gave rise to the altogether unfounded assertion
that Wilhelmsdorf was coming to the rescue of the
forsaken manufacturers. The strikers sought revenge,
and took the nearest at hand. Twice that spring the red
flames shot up in the dead of night in the midst of
the colony — the work of incendiaries. The most cruel of
these deeds of wickedness was the setting fire to Eben-
Ezer, the home of the male imbeciles. No lives were
lost, for Bethel has her own brigade, her deacons training
for this also, and the brothers more than once have
proved themselves efficient firemen. The scene never-
theless was terrible ; the poor imbecile epileptics, not
understanding why in the night time they were dragged
by main force out of their beds, but seeing flames, set up
their shrieks and yells, fighting against their rescuers
as for very life. But more terrible than this, and more
heartrending, was the fact that scores of men stood by
watching the ghastly scene, never lifting a finger; and
not strong-armed men only, but women lost to all
tenderness, gloated over the disaster. " Serve you
Workman s Home 229
right," they cried, " you pious sinners, for having turned
honest folk out of house and home to make room for
these wretches ! " And mutterings went round, " See if
we don't set fire to the lot of you."
Now, there was a grain of truth in this accusation.
Farms had been bought up, but only when they were in
the market, and in most cases the owners actually had
come to Bodelschwingh offering to sell. But these de-
caying farm properties sometimes comprised sublet-
tings, and these tenants could not be consulted when
the property changed hands. "It is true," said Pastor
von Bodelschwingh, " some twenty or thirty families of
dependent folk in the course of these twenty years have
thus lost their little cots. It was not their property,
yet they looked upon it as such, having rented it for
years. Against their will they were driven to seek
quarters in the overcrowded city, where a plot of garden
was an impossible luxury for such as they. There is
therefore some truth in the charge, and it becometh us in
this also to fulfil all righteousness" And from that day
the good pastor, over and above the many efforts up-
borne by his strong shoulders, made it his business to
see to the housing of the poor. An association was
formed, called " Workman's Home," the roots of which
are struck in Bethel, where all the planning is done and
furthering aid given to this work of mercy also.
But Pastor von Bodelschwingh is a man who goes to
the bottom of things ; — mere chance charity, mere senti-
mentalism at any vision of distress, though it may yield
momentary aid, is not what satisfies him. He went to
the bottom of this also, and there found that much of
230 A Colony of Mercy
the Socialism, so rampant in Germany, and threatening
to sap the very foundations of society, has its root in
the ill-housing of the working population. He made
himself the champion of this grievance.
In a public lecture, delivered before the Social Con-
gress in Berlin, he recounted how, as a young boy, fifty
years ago, he already had opportunity of studying the
social problem, having his own childish thoughts then
how it might be met. His sisters and their companions
had a sewing class for the poor, but they were not them-
selves allowed to enter the homes of misery, the boy's
tutor — a future pastor — being delegated to inquire into
the people's needs, and he would take young Frederick
with him. Here the boy had his first vivid impressions
of the hunger, the cold, the cruel sufferings of the poor,
and especially was he moved with what seemed to him the
unjust portioning out of earthly goods between rich and
poor : the rich might do with somewhat less, the poor
need not be so very poor, the boy thought. One day
there had been a state dinner in the Minister's palace,
the boy watching the great preparations, and noticing
the splendour. Simple as his parents were, his mother
especially, on such a day they suited their station. A
day or two after, being allowed to accompany his father
out walking, he poured out his heart ; and the father
explained to him how that these things must be, and
that, bad as they seemed, they were not without a re-
deeming point, since by the very luxuries of the rich
many of the poor find a living. The boy was old
enough to understand this, but still he insisted that
the rich and great need not feast and dress quite so
Workman s Home 231
sumptuously, while so many went starving, and scarcely
had a sufficiency of rags to keep out the cold. Especially
would he grieve at the long suite of state rooms, stand-
ing empty and with blinds down, for the most part ; and
he would compare their gorgeous emptiness with the
miserable garrets in which whole families were huddled
together. He remembered having been taken by his
tutor to see a poor widow, who, with seven children,
lived in such a garret ; there was not even a fireplace,
and only one bed in the room, which was somewhat
enlarged at night by the only other piece of furniture
excepting a table, a wooden bench pushed alongside.
On this bench the mother slept, leaving the bed proper
to the seven children ; there was not room for a second
bed in the garret, even if the poor woman had had
another. And the boy went to his own bed that night
stung with shame at the comfort provided for him,
his own spacious chamber where three or four other
beds could have stood ; his boyish charity would have
taken in that widow and her seven children if only
he could have done so. But these childish impressions
were not lost ; and the child is father of the man.
The man is fast finding homes now for the struggling
poor.
Bodelschwingh's idea is this : settle the working
classes, each family in their own little house, with their
own garden — their own acquired plot of land — and
you nip all Socialism, all Nihilism, in the bud. This
may sound Utopian in English ears ; for where in this
country of landlords are " own plots " for the people so
easily to be had — their real own ? We are, however,
232 A Colony of Mercy
describing a working model, and it will be for thoughtful
readers to draw their own inferences.
It is chiefly from the ranks of the embittered working
classes of great cities that social democracy draws its
recruits — draws them in ever-increasing numbers. And
why are they embittered ? For one reason, might not
there be here also some want of elbow-room ? Have you
ever considered, you, who shut up your town house
when the hot summer makes it unpleasant to you, what
thoughts must rise in the mind of some factory-worker
slaving away in the same hot city ? What is he likely to
think, and feel, on passing these empty houses, visions to
him of comfort and coolness, on his way from the stifling
factory to the scarce less stifling tenement he calls his
home ? But Home is too beautiful a word. Is it wonder
if his heart fills with envy at these empty palaces?
Is it wonder if he thinks : Why are we so much worse off
than they ? That man would be satisfied with the tenth
part of the house you calmly leave with blinds down for
weeks and months. Bodelschwingh says he is ashamed
to look such a man in the face ; yet his is a modest little
manse, and he leaves it but for the scantiest holiday.
But then his sympathy enters into such a man's feelings ;
he does not approve of his levelling ideas, but he under-
stands them : he understands how easy a prey such a
man's mind is to the teachings of Socialism. Put that
man in ever so humble a home, a real home, away from
the stifling city ; give him air, give him sunlight, give him
a garden to move in, and his Socialism will be blown to
the winds. There is no solving of the social problem
except by putting ourselves alongside of such a man's
Workman s Home 233
feelings — then we shall understand him. Perhaps we
ourselves would turn Socialists in that man's place.
The thing to try for, is : to lead that man to a sense
of content ; and it is astonishing how easily, according to
Bodelschwingh, this is done. It is possible to give that
man beauty for ashes — contentment for bitterness — a
home to satisfy his humble need, even a beautiful and
healthful home, for the fever-breeding, sin-and-misery-
waking hole in which he now sits, cursing you and his
own cheerless fate. And, mind you, for that hole, in
proportion, he pays treble the rent you pay for your
palace ! Is it to be wondered at, if he is embittered ?
He is more than embittered, he is hopeless, for he sees
no way out ; and there is another hopeless one beside
him — the poor wife, working, perchance, in a factory too,
or charing, or straw-plaiting, or anything ; yet they scarce
can keep body and soul together. Partly their own
fault this, to be sure, since the public-house is their great
comforter — what good to save your pennies when you
see no way out ? Without an aim, without some bright
and shining star beckoning us onward, none of us would
do much. But even fair Hope for these people sits in
ashes, averting her face ; they see no star, nothing to work
for ; they spend their little in drink, or, at best, in sheer
improvidence ; and their children grow up to this misery,
continuing the same weary round.
But help that man, or rather show him how to help
himself; for this recipe "beauty for ashes,". this little
home of his own, in his own garden, his own plot of
land, is not a charity to be given him ; he is to buy it,
to acquire it honestly ; and he can. The principle laid
234 A Colony of Mercy
down is this : Help the working classes by making them
help themselves.
Now for the working model :
They have an architect and a house-building office at
Bethel, needing both for their own ever-enlarging tent.
And among the epileptic patients there is an increasing
number of men fit for office work, book-keepers, draughts-
men, men of this and that kind of technical proficiency
for whom occupation is wanted. Here was a new opening
for them ; these all were brought into requisition. They
set to work examining what had been done in any
country for the housing of the poor, they made calcula-
tions, drew plans, worked out proposals what might be
done for their own neighbourhood, the working classes of
Bielefeld. And presently the pastor from his own study
window spied some plots of land on the hillside over
against the colony. They were for sale. " I should like
to buy that land," he said, " and settle some of these
discontented workmen there with their families. I have
an idea it would answer admirably, and no doubt they
would pay me back in good time." He did buy that
land. And then more of the epileptics, men who
could only push wheelbarrows or work with the spade,
some twenty or thirty of them, might be seen day after
day busy on that hillside, digging and levelling. And
away at Hebron the bricks were made for this vision to
be realised : Workman's own little home on its own plot
of land. "And so," says Bodelschwingh, "our poor epi-
leptics at the very outset made up for the accusation
brought against them ; their own hands actually raising
che groundwork on which these new homes should stand."
Workman s Home 237
Thus once more from this colony of stricken ones
streams of healing began to flow, and Bethel, the mother
of Wilhelmsdorf, becomes the mother of Workman's
Home. Where anywhere on the face of the earth is there
a colony of human misery so prolific of helpfulness, so
successful in alleviating misery ? " Our own sick ones
have turned the first clod of earth for this and this new
effort," says the pastor with a noble pride, for he loves
these sick ones. They do not cumber the ground, they
are the Master's helpers even in their trouble, and instru-
ments of His mercy.
But the plan evolving was this : The great obstacle in
the poor man's way is want of capital ; if you can find the
needful capital for him at a reasonable rate of interest,
and if you turn that capital into a sinking fund he can
pay it back by yearly payments ; and it will not take
more of his earnings, but considerably less, than he now
pays in mere rent. He now rents a wretched tenement ;
put him into a new, clean house, built specially for him,
and tell him, if he sets to work thriftily, he may, in ten
years or so, be owner of that house, soil and all. He may
do this in even less than ten years, for it has been proved
— a man entering into rights of ownership on the Bethel
plan after one-third of the capital is paid up. Tell him,
show him, how to set about it, and see if he will not !
Why, you at once lift that man half a dozen pegs above
his present level, even supposing he has all along been
an honest working man ! He feels he has attained the
position of an honourable man of business, to whom
capital is lent because he enjoys credit. What cannot
be made of a man if he feels trusted and believed
238 A Colony of Mercy
in ? Above all, you have filled that man's heart with
hope.
But here is the difficulty : who is going to believe in
him — even the most honest, the most thrifty working
man — if it is a question of lending him capital at 3J
per cent. ? He undertakes to pay you back, but where
is your security ? Says Bethel, I will be security ; I
will be trustee for him, and the legal owner of the
house until he has paid back one-third of the loan ; I
reserve to myself the right to buy him out if at any
time he fail in his yearly payments, and I reserve pre-
emption at the original price, if at any time he should
propose to sell — this in kindness to him, to protect him
from speculators.
Bethel is a corporation which enjoys credit ; and people
are willing enough to invest sums in any undertaking
for which Bethel goes bail, for Bethel is as safe as the
Bank of England, and has security to offer in her own
landed property. So Bethel, as a first step, borrowed
capital at 3 \ per cent., for which the "acquirers" of the
little houses she undertook to build were to pay interest
{i.e. house rent), 3 \ per cent., besides paying back the
capital in easy stages. A working man usually pays 10
and 12 per cent, in rent, so there is room for paying
back capital over and above the 3 J per cent, on the
capital raised on his behalf.
For instance, the cost of one of these " Workmen's
Homes" at Bielefeld averages £325, including the
plot of land, and road expenses. The annual rent
on this capital, at 3 \ per cent, comes to £11 ys. 6d. ;
the top story is sub-let to another family at £y ys. 6d.,
Workman s Home 239
leaving to the " acquirer " the bottom story at £4 — each
story having, as a rule, three good-sized cheerful rooms
and a kitchen ; the cellar, containing washhouse and
storing-places, the garden, accommodation for a pig or
goat, etc., being shared. The " acquirer," over and above
the interest or rent, is pledged to pay back the capital at
the rate of 2 per cent., burdening his yearly budget with
another £6 10s. ; he may do more, if able — this is the
minimum ; and this " paying back," of course, is simply
paying his way into ownership. Altogether, the reader
will see, here are two families worthily housed — a gain
in every direction on tenements. What speculative
owner would let to a working man three rooms and
a kitchen and his share of the garden at seven guineas
a year — three shillings a week ? It can be done : will
any one try in this country — even if, on account of higher
wages, the seven guineas must be called ten ?
Another plan worked out by that pastor of epileptics
is this : " Of course, even our credit is limited ; we
could not raise capital ad infinitum, but a loan of
,£5000 can be obtained to-morrow if a hundred people
join my building association with a subscription of
$s. a year — this being the difference of interest between
3^ and 4 per cent. Now any savings-bank or other
public fund will lend capital at 4 per cent, and if you
hundred friends can mulct yourselves each to the
amount of $s. a year, you enable us to loan out the
capital thus obtained at 3J per cent, to our honest
working men who are trying for a house of their own ;
if you subscribe \os. a year, we can let them have
it at 3 per cent. : will you do this ? " And a hundred
240 A Colony of Mercy
people thus ready to help are actually found, for it
is a beautiful plan ; and, as we have seen, the ^5000
thus raised — as they build, not seeking their own in-
terest— provides about thirty families with house and
garden, one house, as a rule, for two families, top and
bottom story ; and, lo and behold ! you have turned
an embittered, struggling lot into hopeful men and
women. Is not this worth working for ?
So they have a building-fund at Bethel, to which is
added a building savings fund, into which any workman
wishing to begin saving up towards a house of his own
puts his sixpences and shillings as he can spare them ;
he being advised to have some few savings before offer-
ing for a house. Land is never bought till a number of
married working men of good character, say a dozen or
more, are ready to join the association, expressing their
willingness to become house owners under the conditions
provided for them. Then only the houses are built ; and
by a beautiful thoughtfulness, they not only get a house,
but they get one as they would have it. For this dozen
or score of houses are not built as building societies run
up houses in London, one as like the other as a dozen
matchboxes set on end ; no, these houses are built to be
a pleasure to the man ; more still, a pleasure to the wife
who is to keep this home tidy, for one would have them
love these little houses, and be happy in them. Only
the perfect love that would do the very best for these
people could hit on this plan. It means, of course, untold
extra work for that architect at Bethel — happily a man
truly interested himself, an architect, in this, for Christ's
sake — he is brother to one of the pastors ; but this extra
Workman s Home 241
work is gladly given, and though they have built nearly
seventy houses, not two of them are alike.
When it is a question of drawing the plans, every
intending owner and his wife come to the office and say
what they would like ; and according to their needs,
according to their wishes, even according to their
fancies, if possible, the plans are drawn, and the little
house is built. Also they may name the workmen
they would wish employed, for they may have uncles,
or cousins, or friends, who are masons, or carpenters,
or plumbers, and at their desire, these will have the
benefit. What a wondrous thing true charity is !
" Liebe macht erfinderisch" — love is the cleverest of in-
ventors— says the German proverb, and truly so, for
love only, perfect brotherly love, can think of all these
things. Again, what wisdom in this love ! Does it
not make these people believe in you? do they not
see how truly you consult their welfare ? Have you
not won them by the simplest of means, prevailing on
them to make an effort themselves for the moral gains
you have in view for them ? Love, truly, is wise as a
serpent.
Then, here is another wise thing : The dozen or score
of intending owners, combining to be housed on a
certain plot of land, form a sort of community among
themselves : they actually engage to be eacJi others
keeper in certain things. For instance, they have all
undertaken to keep the public-house banished from
their midst. If any of their number should ever turn
his house into a public-house — no one could hinder him
from obtaining a licence for the sale of liquor — but if
16
242 A Colony of Mercy
he does, he forfeits three hundred pounds to that com-
munity. He has entered into possession under this
condition, and the rest of the house-owners, with Bethel
at the head of them, have power to enforce this clause.
So these little homes, indeed, are " beauty for ashes,"
kept pure from the devastating influences of drink. A
man dwelling there has some distance to go before he
finds a public-house ; and the chances are he stays at
home, if the home is made pleasant.
One of the great attractions, making these homes
pleasant, is the principle laid down, and defended by
Bodelschwingh with all his warmth, that a working man's
house shall stand in its own garden — a garden large
enough to provide the two families living in that house
with potatoes and vegetables ; the working man — he
should be home from his work at half-past six or seven —
spending his spring and summer evenings in that garden.
They even strive to inculcate the principle that a man in
that garden shall plant his own apple and pear-tree, there
being a wonderful power, says Bodelschwingh, in the
trees he has planted for making a man heart-owner of
his house. He will much less be tempted ever to sell
that house, if he has stocked its garden with trees of
his own rearing ; it will be his home, and the home of his
children after him. There is provision in each house,
also, for keeping a couple of pigs or goats, which will
cost the people next to nothing, and bring in a clear
gain. Bodelschwingh estimates the garden produce of half
an acre to be worth about five pounds to these people, if
it is their own property, which is a great deal more than
ordinary farming yields. And then there is the moral
Workman s Home 243
gain already mentioned, which is greater still. " Where
does your husband spend his evenings ? " asked an in-
quiring friend of a housewife established in one of these
little houses. " He used to go to the ' public,' when we
lived in the town yonder, but since we came here the
garden keeps him at home." That man was being saved
by his apple and pear trees, by the produce of the soil,
the work of his hands. And social democracy will die
out in such places, for these people have little left to
grumble at. The idea of two families in one house is
just this : that, as children grow up, married son or
daughter may live under the same roof with their
parents, or a young couple may take in the old people
as tenants ; also, that the little children in any house
should never be left uncared for, if the mother has to
absent herself. And lastly, they can help one another
in sickness.
It is about six years since the first house was built, and
the plan has fully answered. The best proof is this : that
many of these people are paying up at double the rate
they are pledged to by contract. The figures are : that
on forty houses built with a capital of fourteen thousand
pounds, about four thousand pounds have already been
paid back, so that quite a number of these thrifty " ac-
quirers," in the course of a few years, have entered into
the rights of ownership. What will not even a working
man do, if you help him to his own little house — his own
plot of land ? These men have saved and saved, keeping
every penny from the drink-shop, for the pride of this
ownership. And are they not likely to continue respect-
able and thrifty, having proved to themselves, and to
244 A Colony of Mercy
others, what may be done with their ordinary wages in
half a dozen years? Help a man to be respectable,
to respect himself, will he not thank you, and try and
be so ? For there is manhood sufficient, even in your
working man. Much will depend, of course, how you
help him, and what star of hope you kindle in his heaven.
At any rate these people are not objects of charity, though
you have assisted them with a wondrous charity : you
have made independent men of them. It must of course
be said, it is the better-class working men who apply for
the privilege. You have got to begin with those most
worthy, hoping for the blessing to spread gradually by
the forces of example and rivalry.
And are these people really grateful for the great
thing done for them ? Well, this pastor says, with
Gordon : " Do good to people as if they were chairs and
tables " ; that is, not looking for gratitude, lest you be
disappointed ; but experience shows you find some
gratitude — at any rate, you see these people in an
improved condition, and that is what you were mainly
seeking.
There are now three such colonies of " Workman's
Home" round about Bielefeld, numbering seventy houses.
About a dozen new houses are at present planned for,
i.e., so many intending " acquirers " are ready to begin
working their way towards ownership, while over a hun-
dred are paying into the building savings fund, with
the hope of making a start before long. All this shows
how the privilege is appreciated in Socialistic Bielefeld.
But more, the man who has set this great work going
Workman s Home 245
is no provincialist ; his horizon is wide, and his chanty
large-hearted. The Building Association, started under
the auspices of Bethel, has subdivided its functions ; it
is now, firstly, a local society, working as shown above ;
it is, secondly, a centre for spreading just principles all
over Germany.
Something had already been done in Germany by
great factory owners, men of charitable instincts ; and
the State also had provided dwellings for the miners
in its direct employ. But the principle emanating from
Bethel goes further : it says, Help the working classes
by making them help themselves. Be their patrons in
thrift, go surety for them in the raising of capital,
lend them your intellectual capital, planning for them,
arranging matters for them ; but let the main thing,
the object-gaining industry, and above all, its reward,
be theirs. Let them have all the advantage, all the
profit of the building schemes you are interested in, let
them see it is purely and simply for their benefit ; and
you may educate them to almost anything. Unselfish
love is the greatest power on earth : it will even help
you to get rid of a nest of social democrats, and people
the land with peaceful citizens.
Bethel is setting the example : she is doing a noble
work, lending her own great machinery, her willing
hands, her name, her credit, without burdening the
undertaking with working expenses ; she is steward
of its aims, laying out the capital, collecting the re-
turns and laying them out again — that is all. And
the example is being copied ; the association Arbeiter-
Jieim (Workman's Home) is spreading ; and what
246 A Colony of Mercy
though it take fifty years or more to realise these great
hopes for the country at large, yet surely such a be-
ginning is a hopeful thing.
Pastor von Bodelschwingh is indefatigable in proving
to the nation the economic advantages in the interest
of the nation itself, not only as a negative blessing in
stamping out or at least in materially lessening, Socialistic
tendencies, but in very reality a gain. For one thing,
a more healthy generation than can possibly be looked
for in overcrowded city dwellings will be the outcome ;
crime will decrease and the standard of morality be
raised. The authorities know well enough what they
owe to these efforts ; the three Emperors have given their
fullest approval, and shown it by yearly gifts. And thus
protected, the Association "Workman's Home," planted
as a mustard seed at Bethel, has every prospect of
developing into a spreading tree under the branches
of which a contented working class may dwell.
But in order to aid these endeavours on a larger scale,
turning the effort into a national enterprise, the wise-
headed pastor has hit on a plan worthy of a statesman.
The English reader — some, at least, for it is strange
how much indifference and consequent ignorance is to
be met with in either country concerning each other's
home affairs, even of vital importance — will be aware
that public provision has been made in Germany by a
beneficent law which came into force two years ago for
the insurance of every working man and working woman
towards sickness and old age. It is an admirable
law certainly, as regards the kindliness of its intentions
How it will work has yet to be proved, for it is on its first
Workman s Home 247
trial; but it has resulted already in securing five million
pounds sterling, the sum total of all these insurance
pennies ; * it will result in twenty years in five-and-
twenty millions, in eighty years in fifty millions sterling.
Now, all this money is collected on behalf of the
working man, and his own pocket has furnished one-
half; it is all intended for his good, but he does not as
yet see this, — he may not see it for years to come. He
looks upon it as an extra tax, though it is levied but in
pennies ; and though wise men are strong in approval of
the enforced provision, yet among the working classes
for whom these benefits are intended there is a good
deal of grumbling. But whatever the intention and
ultimate benefit, here are great sums collected, requir-
ing to be put out to use. How best to do this for
some time past has occupied the attention of financiers ;
but the pastor of Bethel has planned and submitted the
following scheme to the authorities for consideration.
His plan in short is this : this capital collected in part
out of the working man's savings and altogether for his
eventual benefit, should also in the meantime be em-
ployed for his benefit and flow back to him in loans —
in other words, it should be invested in Workmen's Homes
all over the country. On the strength of the trial made
at Bielefeld, Bodelschwingh shows in a memorial that
this capital would be a sort of revolving fund which every
ten years or so would replenish itself, to be used again
and again for a purpose than which no truer remedy
could be found for pacifying the great discontent among
the working population. Moreover they would thus
* Vide Appendix.
248 A Colony of Mercy
see that this money is indeed intended to benefit them ;
they would have the advantage of insurance in case
of sickness and in old age over and above the
benefit of a house of his own for every thrifty man.
The pastor pleads that this money should be ob-
tainable for this purpose in loans at 3J per cent.,
submitting that the working man from a public savings
bank only gets 2\ per cent, for his deposits, and the
difference between his getting and giving should not be
too great * The capital would be quite safe if managed
on the Bielefeld plan by " Workman's Home " committees
to be formed throughout the country. These committees
would act as the working man's patron, even as Bethel
does, not " patronising " him, but managing for him,
and going surety for him. Men are to be found, says
Bodelschwingh, who will be proud to give such honorary
service for so great and beneficent an object ; and three
men only are required — an experienced land steward, a
capable architect, and a revenue official. " As for the
architect," says the Pastor, " it is a great deal more
difficult, and altogether a truer art, to build well in the
interest of poor folk, than to build palaces." \
* As we go to press we learn that one province after another,
there being Home Rule in Germany in such matters, is acquiescing
in the proposal. So capital will be forthcoming for many a
Workman's Home. Why should not the funds of the Post Office
Savings Bank in this country be available for such purpose ?
These funds also are largely out .of the poor man's pocket, the
Post Office giving interest 2\ per cent. ; so the Post Office might
still do business if Workman's Home loans could be forthcoming
at 3 or 3J per cent !
t The "Workman's Home" at Bielefeld should be inspected
both for costs and pleasing results.
Workman s Home 249
A further proposal is that young folk about to marry,
might apply as intending house acquirers, if, between
them, they have saved up say twenty-five pounds, the
man not to be younger than six-and-twenty, the woman
at least to be out of her teens, and the latter, more-
over, should be required to give satisfactory proof of
understanding something about housekeeping — thus to
counteract thriftless marriages. The house in any case
should be an incitement to, and a reward of, thrift,
diligence, and respectable living.
Also, it would be a marked gain, tending to the
general well-being of the country, thus to stem the
ever-growing influx of the working classes into the
great cities, drafting them back into such colonies
of " Workman's Home," their own property, at a
wholesome distance from the centres of industry, the
railways running special workmen's trains, at a moderate
rate, morning and night. And the chiefest gain, one
not to be overestimated, would be this, that the country
gradually would be pacified, and Socialism would have
to seek a soil elsewhere.
The pastor urges that the answer to his memorial
should not be " Paul, thou art mad " ; he says, he be-
lieves, on the contrary — for he has already proved it —
that he is proposing reasonable things. Yet there is time
to save the country, to elevate the masses, by giving
them what we simply owe them : more light, more air —
aye " elbow-room " to live decent lives.
Is this pastor too sanguine, too much of an enthusiast,
too Utopian ? It would not seem so, to judge by what
already has been done ; yet even if his hopes were too
250 A Colony of Mercy
great, too ideal, to realise — it being indeed a mighty
scheme — it is something surely at least to have tried ; to
be trying at this moment. Hope is strong, and he knows
there is a strength unconquerable called faith — the faith
of which One has said it removes mountains. Assuredly
it is well to try for the removal of this mountain of
hopelessness oppressing the ill-housed poor. But a
certain measure of success seems guaranteed, inasmuch
as the idea has caught in Germany, if one may judge by
the fact that, from all parts, those interested in the
question apply at Bethel (i.e., at the office Arbeiterheim
established there), for estimates, for building plans, for
the experience collected at that office ; and this office,
having constituted itself central office for a national
endeavour, only too gladly meets the demand — indeed,
they have undertaken to furnish complete building
plans gratis to any one applying for " Workman's Home "
purposes. That architect at Bethel is an overworked,
at any rate a well-worked, individual, but then no one
at Bethel considers time his own ; and it is curious to
note that the active secretary of this great scheme is
that same young man, saved from the morphia " prison,"
in whom Pastor von Bodelschwingh believed sufficiently
to go bail for him for a wife and a house. These men from
the Cave of Adullam, at any rate some of them, train
into fit workers. He is private secretary for the pastor
in the morning, and " Workman's Home " secretary in the
afternoon — no sinecure, surely, even with a helper or
two.
The eye of the German Emperor is on these efforts.
His Majesty has repeatedly expressed his warm ap-
Workman s Home 251
proval, and all well-disposed thoughtful men in the
country — of course there are enemies, too — all who
truly wish well by the people, have long learned to
apply to any effort emanating from Bethel, the Psalmist's
words : " Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." Thus, as
far as promising circumstances go, the great scheme seems
not too great to realise. It is on a sound business basis
— nothing Utopian in this respect ; Bodelschwingh's
schemes, with all their idealism, always bear that test !
The yearly balance sheets of " Workman's Home " may
be inspected, and will be found models of economy and
thrift.
One wonders, could such a scheme ever be thought
of in England ? All deference to the noble efforts of
Miss Octavia Hill, to other friends of the poor who strive
to introduce wholesomeness into the overcrowded tene-
ments ; all honour to the Peabody model lodging-houses ;
but that is not " beauty for ashes " in fullest sense ! It
is not Workman's Own. The garden is wanting, the
apple and pear tree of his own planting ; the poetry is
wanting ; the strong moral force residing in the little
word " own " is wanting !
Could there ever be any such poor man's " own "
in this country, apple trees and all ? Yes, possibly,
when the slowly moving wheel of progress will have
somewhat altered the meaning of the land question !
Then the time may dawn when a British workman
too will be considered worthy of an " own." He too
may then rise six pegs above his present level, and the
many public-houses diminish. What incitement has he
252 A Colony of Mercy
now to be thrifty, to lay by, to be his own helper ? He
does not as a rule lay by even for the rainy day, and
when illness overtakes him, or cold weather, he is a
hopeless out-of-work. But the root of the mischief of
all social distress, as Bodelschwingh rightly says, is the
want of a home, a home inalienable, a home worthy to
be improved by the sweat of your brow, the labour of
your hands — the want, in fact, of something to live for,
something to attain by diligent work. The bright and
shining star called Hope is wanting. Could it not be
kindled for the working classes in this country also?
Is not there land enough and to spare? One feels
inclined to say, with Boy Bodelschwingh, " Could not
the rich do with a little less, and the poor not be quite
so poor? "
Think of the hopelessness, the homelessness, cooped
up in East London ! What star of hope ever rises on that
sky? It is a mean thing, says that pastor, our com-
forting the poor with hopes of a better Beyond : could
we not first do something for a better Here ? Give them
something to live for, give them a more decent home,
a home worthy that name, and half your preaching will
not be wanted. This is a strong saying for a pastor, and
such a pastor ; but it is true. We are so ready with
our tracts, with our city missionaries, our lady visitors ;
and then we go home to our comfortable drawing-room
and think we have done the kind thing by the " lower
classes." It has become the fashion for beneficent people
who have money to spare to buy up poor people's houses
— more properly, the abodes of poverty, for they never
were theirs — whitewash and clean them, and keep a sort
Workman s Home 253
of an eye on the tenants by collecting their weekly rents.
This is doing it after the example set by Miss Octavia
Hill — not by any means a bad example ; nor yet a bad
investment, rows of houses which let in tenements paying
better than gentlefolks' residences. It even is a kind
thing, but it is not the kindest thing — for one thing it is
too patronising. Why should the working man's family
have their house broken into once a week by the in-
specting lady visitor ? All well and good, if your tenants
can only be got to walk in leading-strings ; but what if you
aimed higher, made free men and women of them with
a wholesome ambition of their own, by giving them a
home to be truly theirs ? Could not the same beneficent
people do the still nobler thing, devoting such money
they now invest in buying up rows of tenements, to
the formation of a building fund, be satisfied with a
return of 3, or 3J per cent., and let the capital create
a true workman's home after the fashion of Bodel-
schwingh? Is the English working man less worthy
of this trust, this being lifted to a higher level, than a
German working man ? Do not believe it. Try, and
you will soon raise a generation of freeborn Britons
indeed, even among your working men. That little
word " own " possesses a wondrous charm : it will lock up
public-houses, it will educate the people far more quickly
than any mere patronage of yours ever could hope for.
It is curious that folk are mostly what we make them.
Children are what we make them, and the common
people are exactly what we make them. Now, the
English working classes for generations have been called
poor people — an unbearable expression — and consequently
254 A Colony of Mercy
they are " poor " — poor of spirit even. Why should you
call a man " poor " who works for an honest wage,
however true the epithet "struggling" may be? Let
him rather know you see he is struggling, and help
him to struggle — to struggle out of the mire, beyond
the drink and the filth into the breathing spaces even
a working man should reach. This is the meaning of
" beauty for ashes," and the meaning of workman's
own.
One other aspect. See how the Workman's Home
dovetails with all other social efforts, the labour colony, and
the whole chain of provision for the unemployed. These
will presently not be wanted. For these homes must
needs stand in an inverse ratio to the need of labour
colonies ; a generation will rise which will not so readily
sink to unemployed-dom. The memories of a happy
home go a long way, even in a working man's life. One
main idea of Bodelschwingh's " garden " is, that the
mothers should no longer have cause to go to factory-
work, but stay at home, attending to that garden,
attending to house and home, with a chance of bringing
up the children in a more wholesome way. This would
be the simple result of your true charity ; these people
would save presently all they now spend in rent. And
mothers are mothers the world over ; even the mother
in humble life, with a home she can take some pride in,
will be a better mother to her children than if she
wears out her strength behind some spinning-wheel, or
passing sheets of paper through a printing press, turning
into a machine herself. It is this terrible humdrum of
factory-work, killing the body and killing the heart,
Workman s Home 255
which Bodelschwingh, for the women at least, would
replace by that garden, that home of their own. For
turn about this little word " own," and it reads won.
Home-life won ; family-life won ; home-blessings won —
"Beauty for Ashes."
CHAPTER XIV
THE BROCKEN SAMMLUNG
" Gather up the fragments."
SOME little children we knew, growing up in a
widowed home where things were scanty, had
contracted a habit, almost as soon as they could speak,
of meeting any new thing entering that home with their
cautious misgivings. " Whatever will it cost ? " and
" Whoever is to pay for it ? " these mites would ask. It
was a true question with these children, for they had
often seen their mother's tears. Yet one was sorry for
them, for it is childhood's privilege never to wonder at
" What will it cost ? " Bethel, too, is " child " in this ;
she does her work not influenced by " what it will cost."
But if the reader of these chapters ask this question,
that is another matter ; he even has a right to ask, and
we must endeavour to answer.
The observant reader will have formed some idea
already, from the hints strewn about these pages ; but
we will try and sum up the main points concerning the
Bethel treasury. We will begin with the latest develop-
ment, for visitors almost invariably begin there, feeding
their wonder on the astonishing " fragment collection,"
the realm of the ingenious Brocken-king. Some time
256
The Brocken Samnilung 257
before General Booth propounded his plan of a " Salvage
Brigade," the " gathering up of fragments " was thought
of at Bethel. " Sammelt die iibrigen Brocken" is the
German text, hence the name of Brocken-satnnihing.
But, first, this also has grown, and grown out of Bethel's
invariable habit of being the ready comforter of " all who
mourn " — of all in trouble, coming to her for advice, for
aid, for comfort.
We have shown how she trains her officials, first help-
ing them, and then being helped in her work by them
— the most perfect, the most Christian, example of reci-
procity we ever heard of. Some years ago, a gentleman
sought refuge at Bethel. He was not an " unfortunate "
in the sense that he had committed any wrong, or even
in being wanting in those capacities which we name
collectively self-help ; but he was sorely tired of the
world. His was a life on which the Great Refiner had
laid a shadow — no matter of what kind — but the silver
had grown bright, and the Brocken-konig is one of those
whose " life is hid," even as Paul's was. He came to
Bethel seeking rest, seeking Christian fellowship, seek-
ing a corner where he might do some work for the
Master. He had been in business, and at first he simply
was put on the staff — he was accountant for the Sarepta
treasury. But his trouble returned ; he was laid aside,
unable to devote himself to any work for months, and
his place got filled up. When he was well again, the
pastor was planning another niche for him — he knew by
that time the simple fidelity of the man, and, what was
nobler still, his rare humility. There are many walking
in shadows in this life who will be stars of the kingdom
17
258 A Colony of Mercy
to come. So the pastor was planning a niche ; but
the man himself had hit upon a corner — a plan of work
unique. He was, by this time, at home in the colony,
feeling himself part and parcel of the place ; he had
entered the commonwealth. Now, in a commonwealth
— at least, in such a one where the spirit of Christianity
rules — folk discover their capacities, because they look
for them, anxious to turn them to use for one another.
This is how in such a colony so many strokes of genius
abound — it is the power of invention pertaining to out-
going love. We have not heard that this man did rare
business while he was in business, but he does rare
business now. He had set his heart on making money
for the colony — for money touched by Love and used
by Charity is no longer dross. He started a " salvage
brigade," but in this way : printed slips went forth from
the Bethel press, inviting their friends all over the
country to send them anything they "didn't want,"
about their premises, any cast-off articles, any rubbish
littering their houses. And they were invited to send
these things, if possible, in ten-pound parcels because
the Imperial Post carries ten pounds in weight at
threepence under fifty miles, or sixpence over that dis-
tance, and no one minds a sixpence by way of getting
rid of a ten-pound lot of rubbish, the Brocken-sammlung
thus collecting its stock-in-trade free of expense. The
Imperial Post, however, has had to start a special branch-
office in the precincts of the colony, overwhelmed with
the parcels and letters marked " Bethel." The idea
appears to have appealed to the thriftiness of the nation,
and it is simply marvellous to behold what is sent ;
The Brocken Sammlung 259
garments, from the valuable gold-embroidered Court
dress-coat of cabinet ministers, down to the most ridi-
culous kind of articles from anybody's private wardrobe
— just anything people do not any longer require, but
which Bethel, somehow, can turn to use again. Just
think of gentlemen, or of their female representatives,
sending their broken braces ! you see them hang up by the
hundred. What for ? Well, the leather mostly is good,
new straps are fitted to the button-hole slips — it gives
employment to some of the patients — and thus, not only
the male portion of the colony is kept in braces at
nominal cost, but any poor man in the neighbourhood
can come and buy a pair for twopence or threepence ;
for Bethel always thinks of others beside herself. This
is just an example ; you could write a book on the
Brocken-sam mlung.
WTe have said the Brocken-man himself hit upon this
stroke of genius ; but things in the kingdom of God
often are the property of several inventors, — possibly by
some genius divine, lest any man vaunt himself. And
thus it has to be recorded that a poor widow away on
the Rhine also took her share of the invention. Never
having heard of Brocken or salvage brigades or anything
of the sort, this poor widow, with the love of God in her
heart, and longing to do something for Bethel, having
not even any halfpennies to spare, bethought herself of
widow's mites in kind. She wrote to the pastor that for a
long time she had collected all the cork stoppers she could
get hold of in her neighbourhood, and that she had quite
a garretful of them now. Could they possibly be of any
use ? In fact, this poor woman's letter coincided with the
260 A Colony of Mercy
Brocken-maris early thoughts of the scheme. Her heap
of old corks was the first instalment of " rubbish " sent ;
and it is quite true to say that out of her innocent, yet
love-inspired collection of wine and beer bottle-stoppers
has grown, what now fills several houses, and yields
employment for some forty patients and men of the Cave
of Adullam, and brings in about £2000 clear annual
gain. At least, this figure has been nearly reached for
the year just closed. But the Brocken-sammlung^ though
it fills three houses, is but a baby as yet, a few years
old : give it time and see what that Brocken-king will
make of it ! Not in mere flattery has he been called
— not fragment-gatherer, but fragment-king He is a
king of inventiveness. He, too, enjoined us not to say
anything in praise of the colony ; but how can one help
just telling what one has seen ? He has lately gathered
his men, such as are not epileptic patients, into a house-
hold, of which, worn and weary as he is, he has begged to
be " house-father," that he might seek to serve them, help
them on the upward way.
If a " king," he is a humble one ; and certainly not in
his own estimation, but in his own way he is a genius.
Here is an example.
Many of these incoming fragments are large consign-
ments ; so presently deal-boxes upon deal-boxes began
to litter the establishment. At first they were used for
firewood, but the Brocken-king after a while declared :
This is expensive firewood. And he set his business
brain to work ; he offered his empties to various whole-
sale houses, and one, a soap manufacturer, closed with him.
But the latter would not pay in cash, he pays in soap,
The Brocken Samnilung 261
with the result that the Brocken-sammlung has started
a soap depot ; while quantities of empty little bottles
coming in — people do send such funny things : fancy
sending your empty hair-oil flasks ! — put them up to the
idea of filling them again, which can be done cheaply
enough, for these sort of things at hairdressers' and
perfumers' sell at the 250 per cent, profit, and the
Brocken-sammlung, not being nearly so rapacious, yet
drives a thriving trade with the neighbourhood. We
ought to have mentioned above that the cork stoppers
are sold to a manufacturer who turns them out again as
linoleum.
And as for rags leaving the Brocken-sammlung —
woollen stockings, old clothes fit for the unravelling of
texture only — you should see the towering waggons
leaving the place, sackfuls by the score, returning
presently as bales of new goods.
What do you think your photograph album-covers are
made of, your handsome leather blotting books, your
little dress-combs ? Old boots and shoes are sent to
the Brocken-sammlung in alarming numbers ; what can
be mended up again is mended up and sold. But many
are beyond patching ; they are picked to pieces, the
" uppers " are sent to a manufactory in Alsace, which
works them down and turns them out as pressed-leather
articles, the soles by-and-by seeing the light again as
galvanite combs and things. And did you know that
half the " Japanese " lacquered wares we buy so cheap
are made in Alsace of old book-covers and the like?
The Brocken-sammlung knows all that, turning its " frag-
ments " to good account.
262 A Colony of Mercy
This is very instructive ; it shows there really is nothing
new under the sun— except what is fresh, of God's own
making, and even He has made nature a great refuse-
gatherer, the autumn's decay being the seed-bed of the
spring's new bloom. It is instructive, though of course in
itself nothing new ; else wholesale rag-pickers would not
have been known to become millionaires. But he who
runs may read : it has seemed to us that Bethel herself
is a refuse-gatherer, collecting the fragments of sin-worn
humanity : has not Christ Himself said "gather them up,
that nothing perish"? meaning the five-loaf fragments
when He said so, but is it not His holy meaning for each
and all of the "least of them"? Gather them up — "it is not
the will of your Father in heaven, that one of these little
ones should perish ! " Gather them up ! Yes, this book
will have shown that Bethel in truth is a great Brocken-
sammlung herself, taking in the " fragments " under the
purifying hand of the affliction upon them ; taking in the
" fragments," the sinking, the undone ; gathering them
in simple obedience to the Master's behest " that nothing
perish." And who shall say how many by her instru-
mentality are being clothed with the new garment, are
entering the new life, leaving old things behind them,
and becoming new creatures ? A future day only will
reveal this, when all things are new.
But to return to the Brocken-sammlung — it not only
tells of business, it tells of charity. There are quantities
of old clothes in tolerable condition sent in. Everything
on arriving is disinfected. Then some of the women
patients are set to work, to sort the things, to mend
them, to make them fit for wear again ; and if you enter
The Brocken S ammlung 263
the Brocken shop, you see for what use. They are
sold, quite cheap, to the working population of the
neighbourhood — quite cheap, for Bethel has a motherly
heart for the poor, that is, the struggling folk round
about. She could put double the prices on the things,
but she does not ; though living by charity herself, she
is ever ready with her own charity, and she thinks
it gain sufficient, if over these Brocken some of her
patients are occupied, the things themselves going at
nominal prices, to make the meeting of ends a little
more easy in working men's homes round about. The
Brocken-king is thoroughly imbued with Bodelschwingh's
spirit, which is a giving rather than a taking.
The Fatherland is noted for its smoking propensities,
and little boys and girls upon a hint from the Brocken-
king have set themselves to watch for the little conical
clippings of their father's or elder brother's cigars — you
see these contributions from smokeland collecting in
many a German family, and in the B roc kens ammlung
you may vent your surprise over a giant boxful of them.
They go back to the cigar manufactory, undergo pre-
paration, and start afresh as " blend," — quite valuable
they are, collected in such quantity. Little boys and
girls, too, collect used postage stamps for Bethel, and
they have been told to send the envelopes bodily, these
envelopes yielding a threefold gain : firstly, work for the
imbecile epileptic children, who can manage to cut out
the stamps ; secondly, the paper, which goes to the
paper mills ; thirdly, the stamps themselves, which are
handed over to the postage stamp bazaar spoken of
on a former page, and which, originally a branch of the
264 A Colony of Mercy
Brocken-sammlung, now does business independently, as
we have seen, requiring a house of its own.
Old books too — what is not sent to that wonderful
place ? A second-hand bookshop is the outcome ; the
Brocken-king, however, has an eye on this stray litera-
ture, much of which is simply burned, for books should
be wholesome food. But the population round about
can buy good books, and instructive books, of every
kind, very cheap at the Brocken bookshop. The
books even are catalogued and business done by post.
Epileptic patients, educated men, are at work here. It
was with a queer feeling we found some of our own
" adopted children," The Greatest Tiring in the World,
and the rest of them, in German edition, the white-
robed, gilt-edged things, sold at twopence, alas —
"Das ist das Los des Schonen auf der Erde ! "
Well, if at twopence they carry their message a second
time, bless them and let them go.
So this is the Brocken-sammlung ; and it illustrates
the management of the place — frugal, farseeing, thrifty,
successful ; a growth like everything else there, and
grown from a seed of brotherly kindness — a man in
trouble helped, he growing into an army of helpfulness.
It is the way of the Kingdom. What a wonderful thing
such a colony is, which, never seeking them, finds such
workers ! But it is simply a gathering of like to like —
it is the powerful attraction of spirit-taught things.
The yearly expenditure of Bethel is about .£60,000
to £70,000, apart from the labour colony, spoken of
separately, but including everything else we have
mentioned ; it means about £20 a year per head of
The B roc ken Sammlnng 265
the colony — there being over three thousand souls
counting the out-stations. Surely this is reasonable
considering what is done ! Exceptional land invest-
ments of course are extra, but these figures, besides
all current expenses, include the ordinary building
going on, the constant enlarging of the tent, the mani-
fold charity dispensed, even in far-away Africa. It is
because of the vastness of the undertaking, and the
mutual helpfulness, that this is possible. They cannot
of course keep their patients, or indeed any one,
on ,£20 a year — this figure too means "reciprocity."
Union is strength, even as regards the lessening of
expenses ; everybody there works for everybody else,
and that is why they can do it at such moderate cost.
It has to be borne in mind that the great wealth of
Bethel lies in her unpaid workers ; this is her real
treasury, without which not the tenth part of that
work were possible. As for the patients, for the bulk
of them but nominal sums are paid — no one is refused
because he cannot pay, if his claim appeal otherwise ;
and if he does not pay, money is forthcoming from
some other source. The first-class patients, those
kept as ladies and gentlemen, pay the usual boarding-
house prices, ,£50 to ,£80, in some cases even ,£100,
according to requirements. The charge for poorer
patients is £20 to ,£25 per annum ; but in many cases
not half of this is really received, the claims of poverty,
even of poor parishes, being readily taken into
account. Altogether about ,£20,000 is coming in for
the 1400 patients, rich and poor, paying and non-
paying — in other words, about £14 per head. This is
266 A Colony of Mercy
barely one-third of all current expenses ; the remain-
ing two-thirds, and everything else that is wanted, year
by year, being found in their own beautiful ways.
The harvest contributions in kind of those Ravens-
berger Christians, for instance, are never forgotten —
these being included in the yearly budget above-
mentioned ; and since it is a coal-mining country, even
pit-owners of the neighbourhood remember Bethel, send-
ing their waggon loads of coal, not expecting to be
paid. True, not first-class coal generally is sent, but
Bethel has splendid stove arrangements, and burning
the "small stuff" keeps everybody well warmed. Could
not English pit-owners find room for their " small stuff"
in the Kingdom of Mercy ?
Then there is the penny collection (p. 83), mostly
among school-children, which never fails with its annual
^1500 or so. Bethel, in fact, is sure of her friends and
is never in a position of alarming the country with
agonised cries of empty coffers. True, Bodelschwingh
is a rare beggar, but even his begging is ideal : done
so calmly — so nobly we had almost said, and with such
certainty of response. Germany has not by any means
the wealth of England ; nor — though she has some
noble givers on her lists — is it the contributions of the
wealthy by which Bethel is chiefly supported ; but, as
we have seen, by the self-imposed tithes of a people
whose riches are of the wealth unseen.
We have shown how, twice over, thankoffering
pennies came to the rescue of special effort. A little
more than a year ago Bethel found her supply of
water run short. They looked for a spring up in the
The B roc ken Sammlung 267
hills, to be brought down by means of an aqueduct,
the " bringing down " to be done by her own patients ;
they had found one, but it necessitated the buying of
a farm through which that water rill took its course,
£2500 were required, — that is 50,000 shillings. Bodel-
schwingh's appeal went forth for 50,000 " quarts of water "
— simply enough, just "water for our patients, they
need it " — and in the course of three months or so,
not 50,000 but 60,000 " quarts " had come in — Bodel-
schwingh somehow always gets the overflowing measure.
They came from all sorts of people, rich and poor ;
folk liked the idea, for surely it was the "cup of
cold water " ; and, as usual, many a pretty message
graced this giving, many a story of the kind which is
chronicled by some angel. One evening last winter, as
we were sitting by the pastor's side at one of the
weekly gatherings of the sisters, he read them a letter
just come with a " quart of water " — fourteen sous —
sent by a German crossing-sweeper or rag-picker in
Paris, one of the Pastor's own old flock, who years
ago had been in his Sunday-school, He had done
extra work for these sous carrying earth loads for
a gardener for a fortnight. Surely this shows the
power of attraction of the spirit at work at Bethel !
It is because this man and his labour of love are so
thoroughly believed in, he can put out his appeals ; and
the response is as certain as the incomings of the Bank
of England.
But more ; these 50,000 shillings after all are not
sunk as a dead investment, bringing that water to
the colony and nothing more. Some would be satisfied
268 A Colony of Mercy
with this, for the water was greatly needed. But money
doubles and trebles directly in that man's hand, doing
double and treble work. We have said a farm had to
be bought because of the water. Not many weeks passed
before a house-father sallied forth with a band of patients
to turn that farm into one of their out-stations. So the
water is got, and the farm is got, and a work is set on
foot ; and that farm has entered the circle of reciprocity,
keeping itself going, and helping to keep the colony
going, looking after some of its patients. If this is not
financial genius, it is something very much like it.
Here is another example : Behind Hebron, nestling
on the hill slope, is a beautiful homestead, with its own
fields and plantations. It was for sale some six or seven
years ago, and some one having just mooted the question
of a "home of rest," where the brothers might recruit
when worn and in need of a change, it was bought there
and then, — they never consider long at Bethel, for things
are sure to " pay." This station, named Pella, is fast re-
funding itself; it is a lovely retreat for any rest- needing
brother, and they — that is, the house-father and his staff,
not the rest-needing brothers — have charge of about a
dozen pensionnaires, paying patients, pastors and pro-
fessors and suchlike, who have overdone their brains. It
is just the place for them ; it does its work for the colony
as the Pella of the brothers, and it does not cost any-
thing.
Telling our story, we have mentioned the home pro-
ducts of the colony, the work done by the patients ; this,
of course, also stands for " funds," and is balanced against
the expenditure. The work of the patients yields about
The Brocken Sammlung 269
£4000 a year ; it has, however, to be borne in mind that,
for the larger part, their work can scarcely be counted in
cash, yielding its own substantial evidence in buildings,
improvements of property, etc. The whole value of the
Bethel property is put down at £2 50,000, against which
stands a debt of £75,000 ; this debt including her bor-
rowings for great schemes, such as, for instance, the
starting of the Labour Colony, for which a loan of
£15,000 was obtained. But some of these borrowings,
be it noted, are free of interest ; given because the work
is so thoroughly believed in.
Then the home provinces make yearly grants, about
£3000 — apart from Wilhelmsdorf — having in return the
right of sending poor patients both to Sarepta and to
Bethel. Besides this, Bethel has permission from the
authorities to go house-to-house collecting in these
provinces — this instead of sending out letters for sub-
scriptions, as is done here. £10,000 or so is thus
collected yearly. It is not begging, it is an authorised
calling for free-will contributions on behalf of the
afflicted within such province, their being no poor-rate
in Germany.
And Bethel's way of setting about this is very charm-
ing. Some sixty collectors are employed. Who are
they? We had almost said, they are the blind and halt
and maimed of the country round about. But, indeed,
they are something very much like it. It is, like every-
thing else, a charity within a charity. Those are made
collectors who for some reason or other, generally reasons
of health, are more or less unfit for their real work — an
asthmatic tailor, for instance, or a consumptive stone-
270 A Colony of Mercy
mason ; it will do them good to be sent for change of air
about the country. They get about four or five shillings
a day while collecting, for they are on their own keep,
besides railway expenses, but they only get it while they
collect, which is three or four times a year, a few weeks
at a time, returning to their own employment between.
(At least in most cases ; some few are permanently en-
gaged and settled in the outskirts of the colony.) Now,
this is not only a wondrous charity to these men, it is an
actual saving to the colony, for they do not need to pay the
bulk of their collectors the whole year round, nor engage
them at a salary. Is not this financial genius, and yet
charity of purest kind, even beneficence, for the rare kind-
liness of the thought? These men carry the colony's
authorised books, in which everything is entered by the
subscribers ; the plan is quite safe from abuse. Some of
these collectors have been in Bethel's service for years.
As one discovers these things, one no longer wonders
that the colony works successfully, for kindness must
repay itself. And you cannot inquire into anything at
Bethel, but you come upon some such kindness at the
bottom. Charity vaunt eth not itself ] is not puffed upy but
Charity is kind I is kind ! They hardly know the beauty
of their own work at Bethel — it is plain they do not, for
their humility is genuine ; they do their work, and there
is an end of it, as far as they are concerned, but the kind-
ness running through everything, the simple kindness —
what is it, if not just Christlike ? When we asked the
pastor why at such a place they do not keep a chronicler,
so that an unfortunate story-seeker like ourselves could
draw information from him, he gave us a smile. We felt
The Brocken Sammlung 271
almost ashamed of the question. " Oh no," he said,
" these things are best forgotten." Yet it is for example
they should be written, engraven on stone even ; and for
example we have written them. It was not easy to get
at them, but we felt armed with the key of sympathy ;
and what we have written, however inadequate, is
true.
We would warn our readers. We are afraid our writ-
ing will let loose a swarm of visitors upon the colony ; we
would beg them to refrain, lest they be disappointed,
for no one has any time there for mere sightseers.
When those magistrates had been — they came at an
unfortunate moment, else they, of course, being a depu-
tation and on business, would not have needed to have
recourse to our marshalling — some one said to the
pastor in our hearing, there really was need for a regular
appointment — a person knowing all about everything,
and fit to take charge of visitors. " Oh no," said he
with that smile of his ; " we are not a bear show."
Bethel, at the same time, never is without visitors ;
there is a special " hospice " set apart for them, with an
amiable hostess at the head of it. Friends of the
patients are welcome there, and so is any one who has
any business, any true call for troubling the colony.
Bielefeld of course has hotels, and people putting up
there can walk about the colony unhindered. And
what would they see — a lot of buildings, most of them
unpretending enough, outward show not being one of
Bethel's characteristics ; they might even enter some of
them and see the patients, and they might see some
brothers and sisters, and they might come away — we
272 A Colony of Mercy
promise them — disappointed. For the story of Bethel
is of the hidden things, and they are not a bear
show.
But any one into whose heart the seed-sowing of this
story has fallen, and fallen on good ground, any one
anxious to "go and do likewise," will be heartily
welcome there : even in that case no one will have much
time to devote to him ; but let him go and see for him-
self and bring away a great impulse, and do something
in his own country to prove he has not been in vain.
True friends, in short, are welcome there — friends of the
afflicted, the hungry, the homeless — and to such the
story of Bethel will be an open book.
We have said the good folk there had asked us not to
" say anything in praise " ; and they did beg of us, since
we were bent on telling their story, to be sure and " look
for the Schatten-seiten as well " — the imperfections, the
shadows ! But now that we have written the book,
given the picture, we fear we have not put in any
Schatten-seiten at all ; but, indeed, we honestly have
looked for them, and we only remember one. Anxious
to be truthful, we will give it. Some of these houses
might with advantage be turned out for a thorough
airing — the ventilation is not up to modern requirement.
But be it remembered the colony has grown, and grown
out of farmhouses largely. Moreover, simple charity,
rather than sanitation, has had the planning. There is
no denying this is a Schatten-seite, but it is the only
one we have noticed, and it is being improved.
But, seriously, no common-sense reader, no one of any
Christian insight, will think for one moment that at this
The B roc ken Sammlung 273
place, though it be a Bethel, and however lovely its work,
there are no Schatten-seiten — no imperfections. A colony
of three thousand human beings, however noble its scope,
will have its shortcomings. But they will be of a kind
not seen by an outside critic in their just proportion,
and they will be most keenly felt by the workers them-
selves. A stay in their midst of a few weeks, even of
a few months, will scarcely reveal such imperfections ;
nor was it our business to look for them : it would even
be unjust to do so ; for the " perfections " are the reality
outshining them. We have not idealised the story of
Bethel, though we have set it forth as an ideal, for such
it is, if by an ' ideal ' you mean a thing great in its own
high aims, a thing greater in its humility, a thing greatest
of all in the full measure of success given to such
humility, a thing, therefore, pure and noble despite what
of imperfection may cling to it, and fit to stand as
an example. And Bethel is this. Her imperfections
will be the human shortcomings of all Christian en-
deavour, cleaving even to Spirit-born beauty while yet
in this mortal coil ; the true soul within ever striving
to overcome these, and overcoming them step by step.
If Bethel speaks of her Schatten-seiten this is but
another proof that she is a living growth, that hers is
the spirit of true Christianity, ever ready to take the
lowest place, and when she has done her noblest work
to say, " We are unprofitable servants." We most em-
phatically say it was not our business to look for any
Schatten-seiten ; but, having seen her ideal beauty, it was
our business to set forth in fullest light both the work
and the working secret of Bethel, that any who run
18
274 ^ Colony of Mercy
may read, and go and do likewise. This, we take it,
is the meaning of an ideal.
Bethel has a noble motto ; we will give it in conclu-
sion : —
" Pray, and work."
Not that they write it up anywhere ; but enter any of
their houses and you see it — the busy life, the simple
Christianity — the very patients growing up to its whole-
some meaning.
In minor respects, the English visitor will notice some
few things strange to the English eye : for one thing, the
utter absence of what we should think mere becoming-
ness, say, in dress, in appearances ; they are homely
folk, and such adornments as they have are of the
hidden man. We do not say that the " English eye "
is all wrong in this, but Bethel is of a different stamp.
Bethel could never " dress."
Bethel does not need any dress, any show, she is the
handmaiden of Him who was meek and lowly in heart,
who has said, " I am among you as one that serveth."
Bethel has many missions, but they are all summed up
in her mission of service. We have heard her pastor
say, when some one expressed anxiety lest he be over-
borne by the mighty load resting on his shoulders — his
one regret was this, we heard him say, he could no longer
serve, personally serve, some dying babe at Kinderheim.
What a crown this man will have when the servants
are where the Master is ! — a crown which yet is within
the reach of every one of us, if we but thought of it !
if we but lived for it !
CHAPTER XV.
THE MESSAGE OF BETHEL TO OURSELVES.
" Go and do likewise."
A COUPLE of months ago, when this book was first
thought of, the idea was, to dedicate it as a working
model to the readers of the booklet whence the present
writer drew her first inspiration — a vision of the " Pro-
gramme of Christianity " not on paper only, but translated
into life ; not an ideal only, but an ideal clothed with
reality ; a doing, not a thinking only, nor yet an admiring
only. But now that the story is told — a true story,
though it read like a fairy-tale of charity — it seems to
require a larger audience ; and one ventures to address
all English readers, into whose hands this book may fall ;
for a serious question has to be answered. This work-
ing model is a message.
Why should England, bountiful England, have such a
working model held up to her from another country?
For large-hearted endeavour, for splendid results, the
charities of England indeed rank nobly — no country
more ready to respond to any tale of woe than this
country. And yet ! the reader will have asked him-
self, over and over again, on perusing these pages, why is
there nothing like this, not anything at all like this,
275
276 A Colony of Mercy
among ourselves ? Why, indeed ! It is not to sing the
praises of Germany that this is said — Germany is behind
England in many things. It is said, that English people
themselves may look for an answer to the question,
" Why are we so seriously behind, when we are so ready
to help ? "
One answer to the question may be : The perfect
humility which alone can do great things, the perfect
charisma of service which serves, scarce knowing it is
serving, the love unbounded which admits of no limit
anywhere, the faith which removes mountains, nay which
sees no mountain in its soaring flight, are qualities not
so easily found united in any one man, and such a man is
the'gift of God. Bodelschwingh, though he would look
at you with the smile of childhood and the largest eyes of
surprise if you told him so, is a man of centuries. Now to
such a one forces naturally gravitate. The forces are here
in England, plentiful enough ; the charity is here, the
educated purse is here — English folk are in advance of
Germany in general open-handedness — true Christianity
is here : the one thing wanted, it would seem, is such a
centre of gravity round which forces may gather, like to
like, for an equal result. True, there is a difference of
soil, and that particular soil on which Bethel stands
strong-rooted and firm — a " Ravensberger Land," with
a people of the humblest, a peasantry whom no one ever
called " poor people," though they live by the sweat of
the brow, a people rich with unseen riches, independent,
self-respecting, God-fearing, strong-handed because
strong-hearted, this particular soil — well, we have not
seen it here. The land laws are against it. But there
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 277
is other soil in this England, equally rich though dif-
ferent, with a productive power of its own ; and a harvest
no less beautiful for completeness might grow on it.
Completeness — why is English charity lacking in this
respect, when it is so bountiful, so ready to give ? Might
it not be because it is too patronising! Everything
more or less, is done by patronage here ; but Charity, the
beautiful, the free, should not stoop to that — no, nor seek
it ! But the same feeling which makes English folk
say " poor people," seeks to patronise them in their very
deeds of charity. Is it love of power ? Givers here like
to have something in return for their sovereigns — some
influence, something to witness to their having sovereigns.
Is it not so ? Or why is it that one has to move heaven
and earth, canvassing for votes, writing hundreds and
thousands of begging letters to subscribers, taking
months, in order to put one little cripple, one helpless
incurable into some of these institutions ? Institutions
therefore they are, and never anything else — no living
growths. How should they, dependent as they are on
" Life Governors," on charity mixed with love of power,
ever grow to be working models, comforters of all that
mourn? It is not likely. THE KINGDOM OF MERCY,
LIKE THE KINGDOM OF GRACE, SHOULD BE FREE.
Say you, we have then some charities thus " free " ?
Granted. They may be free of Life Governors and
votes, they are not therefore free of patronage. What
is it but stooping to patronage, if you must stand up in
Exeter Hall, with a platform of the great and fashionable,
before you can carry your objects ? The Salvation Army
is about the only thing free of that — no, not even they,
278 A Colony of Mercy
for they took their semi-Jubilee to Exeter Hall for a
demonstration, a show. It was with a curious im-
pression one watched Bethel at her Jubilee the other
day : excepting a few pastors and the like, there were
scarcely any gentlefolk present. Bethel, though she found
the friendship of Emperors, has her roots struck in
humble soil. That Ravensberger country had turned
out by the thousand, those peasants — true givers they —
who know how to give themselves and their prayers
more even than their pennies, and never heard of votes.
That was their Exeter Hall ; and one could not help
thinking, this is the difference between charity here and
charity there.
And then the outward expression of charity here is a
" society " — Christian England is choke-full of societies ;
Bethel is a " colony," a personal human fellowship of
sufferers and helpers. What constitutes a " society " ?
Take up any charity reports and you will see ; the most
staring thing about them invariably is the list of sub-
scribers. This is the strength a society rests on, else,
why give it this prominence ? But the strength of a
" Colony of Mercy " is the personal surrender to a
Christian ideal of personal service. The one is a money-
giving, lavish if you like ; the other is a self-giving, a
personal washing of feet. This is a fundamental dif-
ference. True, there is only one Bethel in Germany :
Christianity is in the minority in the Fatherland, sadly so.
For quantity you have it here — churches and societies
abounding ; for quality go to Bethel. It takes some-
thing to be a Christian in Germany — even to attend a
church regularly — some of the " reproach of Christ " !
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 279
Maybe this is another reason, keeping the quality
pure.
But comparisons are unsatisfactory. We did not mean
to make any, only we are sure the reader himself has
asked the question, Why are we behindhand? It is
in perfect faith we say the charities of England, for
splendid endeavour and far-reaching result, rank nobly.
But yet !
Bethel, speaking to us through her silent work, has a
message to this country, and it subdivides itself readily
under three heads :
The Epileptics,
The Unemployed,
The Ill-housed.
It will not be of much use to turn to statistics or
census-papers for information, as to how many epileptics
there might be in this country. Germany never knew
anything like correct figures till Bethel began her work.
Doctors did not know, no one knew ; but there are one
and a half to two per thousand of the population.
This at an equal rate would mean sixty to eighty
thousand epileptics in this country. But to be quite
sure we are not overstepping the mark, let us say
one per thousand —forty thousand of our English fel-
low creatures stricken with this affliction. Where are
they? Could — should not there be a Bethel for them
also?
It is curious that England, having homes even for
stray dogs, homes for almost every form of human
280 A Colony of Mercy
distress, so far has had no home proper * to take in
these afflicted ones. But it is a pleasure to record
that in some hearts the need has found an echo, and
some hands at this moment are striving to fill the
gap. Even while this book has been in preparation,
we have heard of two efforts, independent of each other,
but both inspired by Bethel.
Two years ago Lord and Lady Meath, carrying their
own good work to Germany, the ministering children's
band, heard of that Colony of Mercy, and naturally
visited it. They spent a week there ; and the writer
may be forgiven if, without asking permission, she
quotes his Lordship's impression of what he then saw, as
summed-up in this — one of the sayings he left behind
him. He now understood, he said, and for the first
time truly felt, what is meant by " Take off thy shoes,
for this is holy ground ! " So he would have " taken off
his shoes " as an expression of the simple feelings we
have endeavoured to put down in these pages. But
Lord and Lady Meath did not merely express a
sentiment — people often admire and stop there — they
went and did something.
The daily papers have reported that in August
last a home was opened at Godalming — " The Meath
Home of Comfort for Epileptics." It was opened with
the usual show, Royalty and all — things somehow don't
do in this country without show, and one cannot help
contrasting the quiet way in which Bethel began. But
* Excepting a little home at Maghull, near Liverpool, opened
about three years ago by a parish doctor, who in workhouses had
come across the terrible need, and who had seen Bethel.
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 281
the beginning nevertheless is admirable ; here is a fine
old country house and grounds of about ten acres bought
by the Countess and presented free, with the hope the
home may be supported by voluntary gifts. It is for
females only, with six cots for children, and can take
about a hundred patients. But before the house was
opened there were already four hundred applications.
There will be hundreds upon hundreds before long —
there will be no difference in this respect from Bethel's
experience. The new home is put in charge of a
committee, with the vicar of Godalming at its head.
We simply quote from the newspapers, struck with
the coincidence of this opening with the message of
this book. Would to God this new home might grow
into a Bethel ! — its name has hit the right thing, " Home
of Comfort for Epileptics " ; and it is to go on Bethel's
plan — find work for the patients, give them back some-
thing of what they have lost. One is very glad of this
beginning, but the question rises, Where are the fit
nurses — the ministry of mercy to develop this seedling ?
If this Home of Comfort has to advertise for them, to
seek them, to remunerate them, it will, we fear, collapse :
at any rate, it will never be a Bethel. The reader who
has followed us through Bethel's history will perhaps
even join us, if we ask, Could not a twin seedling
be planted, at Godalming or elsewhere — for mutual
development it would be best side by side — a seedling
for raising the true sisters to nurture up that home?
And if such seedling were to grow into a tree and
spread branches of healing, like Sarepta with her band
of six hundred, what a power in the land ! " Homes
282 A Colony of Mercy
of Comfort " could take heart then, and do their work.
These pages have been written in vain if they have
not shown the strength there is in fellowship, in recipro-
city, to develop a commonwealth of illimitable growth,
even a working model of Christ's Programme for the
comforting of all that mourn. One cannot help looking
at that Godalming seedling, knowing its origin, without
asking, What manner of child shall this be ? Will the
mantle of Elijah fall upon it, even the spirit of him
whose touch is upon the thought that conceived it ?
Lady Meath in her opening address referred to
another effort, — "seeking to make provision for male
patients chiefly on the lines of this German work."
A printed appeal of this "other effort" has reached
us, its present endeavour being to raise £10,000
with the intention of buying a farm and starting a
colony like the one from which it has taken the idea-
Some benevolent folk of this country visited Bethel,
coming away with the thought that England must no
longer be behind Germany in this respect. Surely she
should not ; but this is not the way in which Bethels are
raised, and the raising of £10,000 alone will never
give you a Bethel. One is very thankful for any
such efforts, but it is important they should not miss
the one right track ; very thankful, for it proves
that thoughts are moving, and the country perchance is
coming awake to the epileptics' need. The good people
supporting this scheme have resolved themselves into a
committee, calling a meeting at the Mansion House the
other day to inaugurate their endeavour. The newly-
born charitable enterprise in due form was christened, to
The Message of Bethel to Otir selves 28
j
be known henceforth as The National Society for the
Employment of Epileptics. This is a grand name, pledg-
ing England to the work. The Lord Mayor was in
the chair, some one even calling him the godfather of
this babe struggling into life. It was a well-supported
meeting : the Church, the law, the medical profession
were represented, the latter predominating ; but we were
struck with one thing — the only word spoken that after-
noon which witnessed to this meeting not being a
collection of " Jews, Turks, and Infidels " was spoken
by the Lord Mayor — he being a Roman Catholic. One
of the speakers, referring to the epileptics' need of em-
ployment, made much of Carlyle's " Gospel of Work " —
calling it the gospel of the nineteenth century, the
gospel also of the Mansion House. His Lordship dis-
claimed this, saying the gospel of the Mansion House
was Love thy neighbour as thyself. This was a brave word.
Not Carlyle, then, in the first place, for the epileptic,
but Christ. Another thing which struck us was that not
one of the speakers — several of them referred to Bethel,
having been there — not one of them touched upon the
moving spring of that Colony of Mercy. They called it
a " brilliant success," but not one of them with one word
went to the root of that success, nor faintly hinted at it —
the service of mercy, the self-surrender, the Christ-taught
love, on which that commonwealth is based— a "brilliant
success " because of this.
England, we have said, is pledged to this new and
much-needed endeavour, for it is to be a National
Society. But among the letters read in apology for
absence was one from the Chief Rabbi, who was
284 A Colony of Mercy
" unavoidably prevented from attending." He had been
asked along with the Lord Chancellor and other great folk.
Now it is to be a National Society ; and here is Christian
England, we thought, coming to the rescue of her forty
thousand epileptics. " Bring him to Me" said Christ !
It is not that we preach exclusiveness. Bethel takes
in Jewish patients, and the Bielefeld rabbi may visit
them ; Bethel took in the Roman Catholic epileptics of
the province, till the Romish Church claimed her own
patients. No, not exclusiveness ; but even " Social
Christianity," which is but a newly discovered name for
the philanthropy we long have known, even Social
Christianity, if it is to be true, if it is to be a living force,
can only grow on a Christ-stirred soil.
Speaking subsequently to a friend much interested in
the object of this meeting, who also had been to Bethel,
we asked him, " Where are the nurses — the sisters, the
brothers ? " " Well," he said, " that is a great want here
— the ' deaconess ' somehow never grew in this country ;
we must work with what we have got." And he
thought, something after all could be done with paid
nurses — he even spoke of paid " house-fathers." But
our thoughts went back to Bethel, to the Colony of
Mercy, to the commonwealth for Christ's sake, and a
hopeless feeling stole over us. This new society, we
thought, though it call itself " National " will be an institu-
tion like the rest of them — sending out its yearly cries
of empty coffers, going to Exeter Hall, very likely, each
returning May, presenting its yearly reports like the
rest of them. But there will be no inspiring story
to tell five-and -twenty years hence — no one would read
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 285
it if any one wrote it — unless the life yet be infused
into this effort which alone can result in true growth.
Who is to be the guiding hand, the Bodelschwingh
of this National Society, whether a doctor or layman,
we could not learn. " We have not got to the length
of that," said one, of whom we inquired ; " but it won't be
a parson ! "
These few words set us thinking. This " National "
Society is going to be undenominational, so undenomina-
tional that even the Chief Rabbi has to be included. If
anything in Christian England wants to be " National,"
it must not show its colours. " It won't be a parson " —
for if we take a Churchman the chapel people stand
aloof, and if we take a Nonconformist the Church of
England folk leave us unbefriended ; and we want
subscriptions all round. It is this desperate need of
subscriptions. One of the speakers at the Mansion
House actually said : " We will start this much-needed
work if you make it possible by giving us the funds ! "
in other words : this work is going to be done in the
strength of your sovereigns — and sovereigns to be sure
are all of one colour. Love is not, faith is not, but
money is— this desperate need of subscriptions. So we
invite the Chief Rabbi, we are undenominational, and
our Bodelschwingh is not to be a parson.
It is not the " parson " we plead for : we plead for a
right spirit of this new society. Its promoters have been
to Bethel ; they did not stay long enough, maybe, to
read the full story they may now read in these pages, but
surely they caught some glimpse of the working secret ?
Ten thousand pounds are nothing if you want a Bethel.
286 A Colony of Mercy
The resolution passed at the Mansion House said this
work should be " as much as possible on the lines of the
Bielefeld colony." So you do want a Bethel ! Ten
thousand pounds, then, are nothing — it is a foundation
of men and of women which is wanted ; you want
the upholding power of ten thousand hearts. We too
would be " National " in our pleading for England's
epileptics : let the Church of Christ arise here also and
spread her arms about these " falling ones," that church
of which every one is a member who can do a thing
for Christ's sake. It is not church or chapel which
is wanted, but faith and love, and the Christ-spirit of
service. We have set forth our working model, and
even that Mansion House meeting declared, England
should not be behind Germany any longer. In simple
earnest, then, Is Christian England, having read this
story, not going to rise for the seeking out of the
epileptics of this country — the forty thousand, or how
many of them ? * — that they also may sing the song of
the bound ones of Zion, the song of a healing whereof
they may be glad ? Think of them, such as are not
imbeciles already, hidden away in their silent despair, —
they may not go to your churches, your chapels ; and
every object in life is denied them, — will you not gather
them in a Colony of Mercy, of true helpfulness, round
about a church of their own where no one shall be
afraid of them, and where they may learn to be still?
* It was said at the Mansion House meeting that England
had eighty thousand epileptics — that is two per thousand of the
population. We had thought one per thousand terrible enough,
considering that nothing to speak of has yet been done for
them.
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 287
" Comfort ye, comfort ye this people," saith He who has
thus afflicted them, thus bound them, not for their sakes
only, with cords of mercy wherewith to draw them, but
for your sake — yours and yours — that you may learn
the better your own lesson in charity. It is because we
have seen what is done at Bethel that we put out this
appeal to Christian England.
As for the ministry of mercy, is it so hopeless to try
for it here — for sisters, for brothers ? If that new society
indeed could start in the right spirit, should it not be
able to train its own workers ? Hundreds and thousands
in this country are standing idle in the market-place ;
what seems wanted is a centre of influence to attract
them. Only a few days ago we heard of the mistress of a
large household, who, worn to death by servant worries,
advertised for ladies to be cook and housemaids in her
establishment. She was overwhelmed with applications,
and is now trying the experiment of ladies below stairs
— one of them a clergyman's daughter. Is it not, then,
that hundreds and thousands stand idle in the market-
place? True, these ladies will have applied because
everything else had failed, and it won't do to be a
deaconess because everything else is failing ! Still, we
plead, if the right centre of attraction could be formed,
the workers might be found, and if the right spirit were
at work, the right training would follow. "England
should not be behind Germany in this ! " We endorse this
resolution passed at the Mansion House on behalf of a
" National " Society. It is because we have seen what is
done at Bethel, that we do appeal to Christian England.
288 A Colony of Mercy
Again, no one can have read certain chapters in
this book without thinking of certain " other efforts " for
the unemployed. Let us begin by adducing the im-
partial witness of an American. Professor Peabody of
Harvard University, in the Forum* speaks of the
German Labour Colonies, notably of Wilhelmsdorf — he
has visited Bethel — and he says : " When General
Booth and his advisers first proposed his series of
' Colonies ' the scheme seemed to most persons quite
without precedent. How much as a matter of fact it
was suggested by the German experiment is not even
now known by the German administrators ; but it is
certainly most interesting to see the ' Darkest England '
plan actually at work, and to learn the lessons which
these years of experience have to teach," the Professor
then proceeding to describe Wilhelmsdorf and its kind-
red institutions.
Readers will remember how the country two years
ago resounded with the " Darkest England " scheme, as
with a novel and original proposal, the General's big
book, if we remember right, selling a hundred and fifty
thousand copies within a few months on the strength of
this novelty — for the country is anxious to be shown a
true remedy for its cankerworm, the social distress. It is
to the honour of the country that the " Darkest England "
book was so eagerly bought ; and much of the displeasure
recently vented on the Salvation Army is due to a sense
of this eagerness : people do not like to remember their
own enthusiasm when results after a while prove it to
have been a steed leaving its cart far behind. Only, the
* February 1892.
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 289
"cart" is of the General, and not of the country, and
this is the great mistake. Yet it is to the honour of
General Booth that he put forth this scheme. Will he
and " his advisers " forgive us, if in the interest of their
own good effort we venture a question or two ?
Plagiarism in charity is not only venial, it is even
enjoined, for we are told to go and do likewise. It is
even a virtue. So General Booth, in writing his " Darkest
England," cannot have been guided by any desire of
coming forward with a novel and original proposal. Yet
why did he not say, and say emphatically, the startling
proposal has already stood the test ? Why, to strengthen
his own hands, did he not refer to Darkest Germany and
its way out, trodden these ten years ? Why did he not
thus silence at the outset any opposition that might arise ?
Would he not, for his own good scheme, have been ten
times as strong if in the largest print obtainable, he had
made it plain to the country that so far from being any
unprecedented Utopianism, the ideal of Darkest England
already stood realised — that he had not one, but a score
of working models, nay, shining beacon-lights beckoning
him on ? For his effort is good. Why did he not thus
strengthen his hands ? It cannot have been an over-
sight ; and it was not ignorance, for one of his officers
was at Bethel, inspecting Wilhelmsdorf, before the
British public was informed of " Darkest England and
the Way Out." We repeat, we ask these questions
for the sake of his own good scheme ; we do not doubt
that folk may have original ideas though others may
already have had them, since there is really " nothing
new under the sun " ; but we persist in asking why did
19
290 A Colony of Mercy
he not fortify his own position by bringing into the field
his score of models ? Did he forget there is strength in
union, even though it be a union of spirit ? And does he
not know, that in order to convince the masses there is
nothing like the gospel of success, and could he not have
written a whole book about the successful way out of
Darkest Germany ? *
His scheme in itself is so honourable and true, and it
is so important it should not end in failure, that we may
be forgiven our questions. We are loth to tread on
dangerous ground ; but since this book may tend to aid
his effort, prepare the English public more fully than yet
has been the case for the way out of social distress by
means of labour colonies, it is best not to beat about
the bush ; and General Booth and his advisers, for the
sake of the submerged they would succour, will perhaps
review their position, and themselves look for any
weak point. For Charity seeketh not its own but the
good it would do — Charity therefore never is offended.
There has been much writing lately about the " Social
Scheme." Friends and foes have spent themselves in the
daily press, attacking and defending. A " Committee of
Inquiry " had to be called to exonerate the Salvation
* To show how unostentatiously this great German work has been
carried on, we again quote from the Forum : " In 1887 two agents
of the British Government visited Wilhelmsdorf and reported
briefly on its condition in a 'blue-book ' of March 1888. (German
Workmen's Colonies.) In October, 1890, the Earl of Meath in-
spected the colony, and describes his visit in the Nineteenth
Century for January 1891. An officer of the Salvation Army
was there in 1890. Beyond these, Wilhelmsdorf could recall
no foreign visitors."
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 291
Army, and find for Hadleigh a " certificate of success.''
But surely Hadleigh should be its own certificate by its
own two years' work ! Surely all attacks on the arith-
metic and wisdom of the colony should slink into a
corner before the visible fact called Hadleigh !
We do not for a moment question the high character
of the Committee of Inquiry ; but proving the expendi-
ture to have been correct does not test the working of
the scheme : it does not prove true results, not even a
true direction. Nor was this included within the " scope
of the inquiry." Might not, as the simplest of all tests,
the homely proverb be laid down here as a measure,
that the proof of the pudding is in the eating? Should
not the Darkest England work appeal to the public
conscience simply by its own true tangible results?
When Wilhelmsdorf had been at work a little over
a year, a visiting magistrate could report* that 1200
unemployed had been admitted, of whom only 42 had
run away, and 966 found regular employment ; that
830 of these had actually been placed by means of
the Labour Committee in connection with the colony.
In other words, here are nearly one thousand of the
submerged ' saved ' after one year's work. Such figures
go a long way to convince a country, convince it even
of ,£100,000 if need be; and Wilhelmsdorf, moreover,
was fast proving its claim on the nation's faith by the
procreative power inherent in life — her children, other
colonies in other parts of the country, were already
rising to call her blessed. This, as a " certificate," is
worth a hundred committees !
* Vide p. 145.
292 A Colony of Mercy
As for General Booth's much-talked-of £100,000, and
his deficit of £70,000— well, some folk have a knack of
spending money. But Wilhelmsdorf and her five-and-
twenty children together have scarcely exceeded these
figures. Some folk have a knack of spending money
well. This is not hinting at misappropriation : we trust
the General and his advisers in this respect. But spend-
ing is one thing, and spending effectively is another ; and
for the sake of the General's own effort, nay, for the sake
of poor Darkest England itself, ought there not to be
something more than spending great sums, though it be
in accordance with the plan laid down? Ought there
not to be an equivalent — even something like a fair
prospect of a hundred thousand pounds' worth of good
results ? It is not surprising if the original supporters of
the scheme withhold further subsidies till this prospect
appear on the horizon to do its own pleading ; and it is
not unfair to measure Hadleigh by its models.
In Germany they set about their colonies with a
modest grant — and what is better, in a modest spirit : in
most cases not the tenth, not the fifteenth part of the
sum asked for here is required ; every penny, so to speak,
is accounted for by the work done ; there is success —
results which make even a Frenchman say, " Let us
learn of these Germans." Wilhelmsdorf alone, as one
of the largest colonies, if not the largest, has required
in all about one-sixth of the General's original sum,
£15,000 being sunk in land investment and in buildings,
etc. ; but much is being done in that Senne. General
Booth has informed the country he will require a yearly
subsidy of £30,000, once he is fairly afloat ; Wilhelmsdorf
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 293
is subsidized with as many ' marks ' {i.e., shillings) ;
£2,000 a year has been the highest figure reached for
provincial yearly aid to Wilhelmsdorf, even when six
hundred outcasts passed through its gates. £30,000 a
year, indeed, subsidizes the whole of the German colonies,
the twenty-six of them, for they are all in good working
order, more or less earning their own. True, General
Booth's aims from the first have claimed grander scope
than any of these German colonies, but aim and achieve-
ment do not always hit it off together. It would seem a
patent lesson, to be learned from these German colonies,
that beginning humbly, walking surely, and leaving
room for growth is a wise thing. And Wilhelmsdorf,
after one year's work, was an achievement beyond any-
thing Hadleigh has yet reached, or we fear on present
lines is likely to reach. Should those interested in
Hadleigh, nay, should the General and his advisers
themselves, for the sake of their own good effort, not
endeavour to get at the true bottom of this discrepancy
between aim and achievement ?
For one thing — has Hadleigh any such person to guide
its plough as that house-father Meyer? Wilhelmsdorf
perhaps would not be what it is but for its splendid
house-father, that humble Christian, that thorough
farmer ; nay, we must say, but for him and his wonderful
little house-mother, as humble as he, as thorough as he.
The Committee of Inquiry has suggested that Hadleigh
farm for the future be put under the sole management
of some thoroughly competent man — the best available,
whether of the Salvation Army or not ; apparently ex-
pressing an opinion thereby that hitherto there has been
294 ^ Colony of Mercy
no such competent management. But the thorough
farmer alone won't do ! Remember, education is wanted
for these submerged ; an education, moreover, they will
submit to, scarce knowing it for education ! It is a
lovely stroke of Christian genius which at Wilhelmsdorf
has set, not a competent manager over these men, but
which gave them a house-father, a house-mother ! The
child soul, at bottom, is the truest thing in man ; even
in the prodigal it vibrates. These men arrive, fallen,
submerged, hopeless — depraved, perhaps — but hungry ;
and what do they find ? Not " officers " to command them,
not "competent men" to set against their own wretched-
ness, but a house-father, a house-mother. How much in
this one word to educate these men ! It is taking them at
the one point where there is hope left they will succumb.
A tide of love has set in upon their neglected natures —
the purest, the most natural of all loves — father ! mother !
This book repeatedly has spoken of the strength there is
in the brothers, the house-parents Bethel has trained :
it has stood its finest test at Wilhelmsdorf. Yet in
many an instance it is not Bethel, but a Higher Hand,
that had the preliminary training. The wondrous thing
ever again is the magnetic power in Bodelschwingh,
attracting the right forces. They come, obeying the
Voice calling them. They do his work — not slavishly,
but as free agents almost, with a liberty all their own,
only that his spirit is moving in that liberty. It is
the magnetism of inborn rulership blended with noblest
humility on his side, it is the response of purest
devotion on theirs — a yielding, in the first instance, not
to him, but to the mighty calling of brotherly love.
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 295
For Bethel is a Christian commonwealth. Will any one
go to Wilhelmsdorf, have a talk with these house-parents,
— nay, just watch them, reading their faces a little.
Perhaps he will then agree with us, that this is what is
wanted for the hungry " millions " * here — some one to
be father to them, to be mother to them, to bring them
home.
The Salvation Army at present seems the only agency,
on a large scale, willing to grapple with the social
distress. All honour to them for this willingness ! — for it
is a noble effort. And they have, for power at any rate,
an almost perfect machinery ; as far as discipline and
union among themselves are concerned, they stand as
one man. What could they not achieve ! Then, in the
name of the many-headed hydra they have set themselves
to combat, will they not examine their own two years'
work by the simple figures to be had from any of the
six-and-twenty German colonies ; or examine it even by
that Frenchman's report, and see what may be amiss
with their one colony here? Even if because of
differences of national character, because of differences
of circumstance, social, legislative or any other kind
they must say with that Frenchman, "// y a beaucoup
a apprendre chez les Allemands, mais pen a prendre" will
they nevertheless examine their efforts by the light
afforded by these working models, and see if they cannot,
though not " copy," yet learn something to further their
own good scheme? They owe it to the country, for
they have money collected in the country; they owe it to
* This is the estimate of " Darkest England" — the submerged
tenth— wo figure of speech presumably.
296 A Colony of Mercy
themselves, for they have been attacked and accused, and
committee reports alone are not a sufficient voucher ; and
most of all, they owe it to the submerged, to the ragged
and starving millions in sore need of being " saved."
We ask these questions in the name of these starving
ones, because we have seen Wilhelmsdorf at work, and
have seen what can be done. Surely the General is of
Bodelschwingh's mind, that love is the great propeller ?
It is a fine thing to man the lifeboats going out into the
surge, but love means many things ; it means, for one
thing, losing ourselves entirely in the work we would do.
The Salvation Army should be a means, and never an
object, when the hungry millions of England stand
crying to be saved.
Another salient point which cannot fail to strike the
thoughtful reader is this : General Booth is the Pope of
the Salvation Army ; he is responsible to no one. Now
such a position is unwholesome for any one short of
the Archangel Gabriel — mortal man grappling with such
schemes, and investing such sums, should for his own
peace of mind be most fully responsible. Having his
accounts audited does not affect the question. Does
not the Darkest England Trust vest in the General an
" absolute discretion " in applying the funds as he may
" think fit " (applying them for the scheme, of course),
provided that he publish a duly audited yearly balance-
sheet ? Is " auditing " anything more than attesting
correctly rendered figures ? Who framed that trust
deed ? No other agency of the Kingdom, doing large
business for the Master, leaves its funds to the " absolute
discretion " of any one trustee ; not that this one trustee
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 297
might not be the most angelic steward, but it is unad-
visable and apt to raise needless controversy. Nor is
it good to be a pope in mere dictatorship ; it is good for
a man, even for the most guileless general, to have a
power over him. He wants people to believe in him for
the good of the masses he has at heart ; would they not
believe in him tenfold if they saw him the perfect
servant, not in any way seeking his own ? Might not
there be some love of power here also ?
Are we too hard upon the General? Has not the
Committee of Inquiry itself suggested, by one of its four
" conclusions," that the General should join " adequate
safeguards " to his own sole trusteeship ? and has not the
General in his subsequent letter to his friends, inviting
them to subscribe the further £70,000, forthwith dis-
claimed any such safeguards, confessing frankly they
might " interfere " with his " discretion " ? What is this,
if not pope and autocrat combined ? It is unwise ; it
is unwholesome
Pastor von Bodelschwingh is nowise a pope, nor is he
Autocrat of all the Russias ; truly he is chief of all
that colony, but only because Christ has said, he who
serveth best is greatest. It is not by any false humility
that he calls himself the " first " servant of the colony, he
is so in very deed, and at a touchingly modest salary too,*
* So modest, the reader would not believe it. Pastor von
Bodelschwingh has long divested himself, for the Master's sake,
of all he inherited from his aristocratic parentage — money, coronet,
and all. He never stands on his "von," though he is a baron
born ; kand, what is more, people talking to him forget giving
him his " honours." His wife has some means left, enough to
298 A Colony of Mercy
and his committee could depose him to-morrow. He is
responsible; and he renders account of himself most
fully. Not that we would suppress the half plaintive,
half proudly-approving, and altogether amusing way, in
which some of this pastor's committee tell you : "We are
just nobodies to that man, he soars in front of any of us,
and generally asks our leave and permission to things
when they are done." That committee know their
pastor, and trust him. All the same, this chief is a
responsible man ; the yearly reports of his governorship,
figures and all, are published ; any one can examine
into his stewardship, and his committee, however fully
they trust him, " audit " his administration. Is not this
a wise way of doing things, likely to further and not
hinder a great work ?
And then Pastor von Bodelschwingh, though he starts
the schemes, and most truly is owner of the great
thoughts he launches, never keeps things in his own
hands. The guiding threads may meet in his closet of
moral chieftainship — how can he help being the guiding
influence ? But the moment any work is started, he
puts others at the helm. It is so in all little things,
in every house of the colony, every smallest post of
trust; and it is so completely in the important schemes.
The Labour Colony, though the child of his brain and
heart, from the very first was put under a provincial
committee ; it is not his colony, it is the colony of the
educate their sons. All her jewellery and such things he long
ago found " better" use for. Friends, knowing all this, sometimes
send cheques for " personal use "; but Bodelschwingh invariably
endorses these cheques to the Bethel treasury.
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 299
province. The magistrates can inspect it any day,
and some of them are on the committee. And it is so
with all the labour colonies, the twenty-six of them ;
although they have their own private union among them-
selves, with their own head-quarters in Berlin. This is
German thoroughness ; this is method, and also what
is known historically as Deutsche Treue, that com-
plete loyalty with which knight of old served his
country — with which worker true at any time loses
himself entirely in the work of his heart and hand. It
is the surrender of service which seeketh not its own.
And this decentralising may be a reason why Bethel
is so wondrous a growth ; it may be a reason why these
labour colonies work successfully ; a reason also why
they are believed in.
In conclusion, though one wishes every possible suc-
cess to this one English labour colony, why should there
be but one ? A member of the Committee of Inquiry
is reported to have said, "It would be a national
disaster if the Darkest England scheme must collapse
for want of prompt and adequate support." Is not this
rather tying the nation to General Booth's apron-string ?
Bodelschwingh did not start the twenty-five other
colonies, nor did Wilhelmsdorf, except by force of ex-
ample. The country, beholding that sure and certain
beginning, the country rose to the need, every province
standing to its post. Has not England a duty towards
her unemployed, her starving millions ? Could not, on
the example shown in these pages, a more complete
endeavour be set on foot ? Could it not be done
" scientifically," with thoroughness and method ? Could
300 A Colony of Mercy
not a net be spread, as they have done in Germany, a
hand-in-hand endeavour for the gathering in of Darkest
England ? Will they not come, if you spread it aright ?
Should you not even " compel them to come in " ? Let
the country consider these questions. Let the country
decide whether Darkest England should not somehow
follow in the wake of Darkest Germany. A growing
number of smaller colonies, independent of each other
and yet united, would work better and have a better
chance of success than General Booth's one giant
undertaking. This, at least, seems one of the lessons
taught by the twenty-six models. Some of these are
on quite a modest scale (beginning humbly, with room
for growth, being one of the rules there), but they do
the work required of themy and are parts of the whole.
Let Hadleigh take the lead by all means — the lead of
setting a good example. But more than ever the social
distress appeals to the conscience of England, and
having shown our working model, we can but invite this
country — not to " copy " (for England is not Germany)
— but to go and do likewise?
* Should the English reader resent being so persistently
referred to German example, we give the remark of an English
coroner — but first its cause : The daily papers of the closing
year published an East End story of " starving at Christmas,"
telling of a woman, in the pains of childbirth, so poor that
she was lying on a heap of straw with nothing to cover
her. There was no food, no furniture, in the house. Little
wonder that the newborn infant died when only five hours old.
" There must be something terribly awry with our system of poor
relief (says the Daily Chronicle) when such things are possible
in wealthy, Christian England." But this is what the coroner
said : " According to our floor- law, a man must tumble into
The Message of Bethel to O terse Ives 301
We cannot help giving expression here to a thought
which has struck us : these labour colonies seek the
saving of men only. What if one thought of women
to be saved ! Would not a female labour colony in
God's pure nature be a fine substitute for the washtub
penitentiary ? We even know of a working model : it
has been working these ten years — silent, unknown.
It is not known to this day except to the two or three
connected with it. It was opened, curiously enough,
the same month Wilhelmsdorf was opened, but quite
independently — independent of the thought even.. Nor
does it call itself a labour colony ; it is one, though !
It is of the selfsame inspiration. This to console
General Booth, showing that inspirations can spring
up in duplicate as it were, and yet be original thought.
They have the selfsame root. The great thoughts of the
Kingdom never are meant to be the property of any
one servant : they are of the commonwealth of Christ,
and crop up here, there and everywhere, when wanted.
But this is the working model : A certain wealthy
manufacturer in Germany never somehow made a lucky
hit investing in landed property. Among other unfor-
tunate ventures he found himself possessed, through
mortgage and otherwise, of a certain " Hof," a gentleman
farmer's property, away in the hills, and labouring under
all sorts of difficulties. A good deal of money was sunk
the gutter before he can be picked up. In Germany they try
to prevent a man tumbling into the gutter. It is a question
whether this is not the cheapest in the end ; it certainly is more
humane." Thus the coroner, registering the case with the long
roll of " starved to death," in the foremost city of the world.
302 A Colony of Mercy
in it with hopes of improvement ; but the undertaking
remained obstinately hopeless — so hopeless that the
owner could not even throw it upon the market. . So he
made a present of that " Hof " to the kingdom of Mercy.
Would he have done so if it had not been a dead loss on
his hands ? Well, anyway, he did so now ; and, curiously,
Charity among other things is a great refuse gatherer,
turning all things, even non-paying investments — if only
they are given her — to her own good use. This manu-
facturer has a wife, and she hit upon the idea.
This lady — we will call her Frau Elisabeth, for her
little labour colony was christened Elisabetlien-Hof- —
was always interested in penitentiary work. She had a
" Magdalene " institute near Frankfort, and the difficulty
often was what to do with these Magdalenes. Now,
here was this " Hof" of her husband's, of no good to any
one ; so the thought struck her to devote it to this work.
A house-father was got, one of those evangelist brothers.
He, of course, had to be a farmer, with a wife equal to
the endeavour ; and the fallen ones were taken there
for wholesome work. They could not do the heavier
labour — the ploughing and the like — and this was the
great difficulty ; for these women labourers could not
be shut up as prisoners, nor always work in gangs. But
the difficulty has been solved without ill consequence.
The few men employed on the " Hof " in every instance
are steady ploughmen, over fifty, married, and of good
report. Anyway the venture has worked. There is
much, even of field labour, these women can do ; and
there is all the dairy work besides. The results, in
short, are very satisfactory. The "Hof" yields no gain
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 303
to the owner, but it keeps itself, and it keeps this work
— surely a great measure of success, considering. As
for the true " returns," the saving of these women — these
workers are satisfied to do the beautiful thing, leaving
the results to be known in the great harvest day. These
women at any rate are in " saving " surroundings for a
considerable time, and then places are found for them,
and some of them are brands plucked from the burning.
Now, the suggestion which has struck us is this : it is
almost a cruelty to shut up a penitent street girl in these
washtub homes ; they are used to the roving life, the
open air, the freedom of limb. How should they thrive,
soul and body, cooped up ? But if you could take them
into the country, right away from all cities, and give
them nature's freedom ! The chivalrous Briton will not
have women do field labour ; but might not some of the
billions of eggs now imported, enriching the foreigner,
be raised on British soil ? It would be a bit of national
economy. Why should not there be a penitent female
labour colony and poultry farm combined ? We almost
fancy it might pay ! We suggest this thought to some
of the landed proprietors who now groan with farms on
their hands ; and we suggest it to the Ellice Hopkins',
the Mrs. Butlers, and others interested in rescue work.
It appears to us a fruitful idea. We will give the
address of that ElisabetJien-Hof to any of these ladies
who might wish to move for such a labour colony ; for
Frau Elisabeth is a cousin of ours — we have not asked
her leave to publish her quiet work.
Labour colonies will come to be less and less needed
304 A Colony of Mercy
when the working classes are worthily housed, when
they find " beauty for ashes " in their own little homes,
given them not as a charity but as their simple due.
We all know the state of the London poor. Travel
into London by almost any of its railway lines : what
awful visions as you enter upon the brick-covered area i
" Is this London ? " asks the wondering stranger. It is
only the suburbs where the poor live, you tell him,
trying to explain. And this goes on for miles, only the
merciful railway whisks you through it quickly. You
have looked into back yards a few feet square, and into
windows — the darkness within hiding the squalor ; you
can only think of ashpits — no beauty for ashes here at
any rate. It is here the British workman lives, paying
a pretty penny for rent too, considering. And going
farther into London, you may visit that chamber of
horrors, St. Giles's — some of us have been through it,
though the policeman says a lady shouldn't — and there
is the East End, where the "bitter cry of outcast London,"
despite everything that has been written, goes up to
heaven day and night.
You say the poor themselves are greatly to blame,
they are so improvident, — so they are ; they find begging
and lounging about the streets cheaper than work, — so
they do ; and the misery continues, and children are
born to that misery ; and though spasmodic efforts are
made to wage war on that misery, you look on again
after a while, hopeless to cope with it. It is the over-
crowded state, you say : London has grown too big : — so
it has.
We have begun to take the poor into the country once
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 305
or twice a year, to give them a whiff of fresh air and show
them the clean things of God ; but this is almost a
cruelty, — it is almost telling them, " Look, how nice the
world is, but not for you ! " for we take them back at
night to the big city. A little pale-faced London child
taken into the country once, to stay awhile and get
strong, sent the message to those she had left behind,
" Tell father, in the country the sun always shines ! "
And there is another story of a little City child who, in
the slum which was her world, loved and tended one
blade of grass, and how bitterly she cried when rude
boys, discovering her heart's delight, tore out that one
blade ! Now, in the name of God and our own common
sense, ought this to be, when the world is full of green
grass, and the country sky full of sunshine, room enough
and to spare for all the thousands of pale-faced mites ?
The working population of London must be con-
siderably above one million : why should they continue
cooped up in that Babylon ? Would it not be possible
for some of those who have long pitied the condition
of the poor to put their heads and hands together — no,
their hearts — and work for an exodus after the pattern
set down in a former chapter ? It is not charity in the
sense of almsgiving which is wanted, but that truer
charity which, feeling with the feelings of the poor, will
begin to say they are men and women like ourselves,
and have the same right to God's fair earth as we have.
There is land enough and to spare within railway access
of London to house all the poor and give them a garden
— beauty for ashes — if only the owners of that land could
see this. Owners after all cannot carry the land with
20
306 A Colony of Mercy
them to heaven, but they could carry with them the
blessing of many a struggling man and woman, if they
could sit a little less hard-and-fast by the land they own.
There is the English Litany praying every Sunday,
" From hardness of heart, good Lord, deliver us." What
if once in a while this were paraphrased : " From hearts
bound up with our lands, good Lord, deliver us?" If
you went far enough out of London — it should be in
pretty country — the land would not be so very valuable
in these days of depreciated farming-land ; possibly it
might even pay the owner to sell some plots of land for
a Workmen's Home ; possibly it does not at present yield
as much as 3 \ per cent, for everybody says farming is
down nowadays.
They won't go out of London, say you? Well, try
them. Try them with the prospect of this little house
and garden of their own — their real own — and see if they
will not go ! Tell them, ten years of the money they
now spend in rent will give them this " own," and even if
it be fifteen years, see if they will not ! If the English
working population all gravitates towards London, is it
not because you have made the country almost impossible
for them ? If a true peasant stock could thrive in this
country with land of its own, London would not be the
one centre of attraction for all English poverty, as it is
pretty nearly of all English wealth ! The working
classes are not beyond being educated, if only you take
them in hand aright, not patronisingly, but helpfully.
They soon see whether, setting up a building society for
improved dwellings, you seek your own dividends or
their well-being. And you could have your dividends,
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 307
— 3 2 Per cent. fully secured, which is more than the
national debt pays, if you invest in English consols.
And surely it is altogether a more satisfactory investment
than putting into Argentines, getting your 6 per cent,
for awhile and then losing capital and dividends together.
And it is an investment in the bank of Jesus Christ,
which pays a dividend known to yourself only.
This to beneficent people who have some money to
spare.
Such working men's villages within fair distance of
London, on principles of guardian helpfulness like that
Arbeiterheim, what a boon they might be! How they
would lessen that " surface of friction " which is the
mother of half the London crimes ! Would not that be
a gain to the country, a downright gain in pounds,
shillings and pence ? Would it not be worth while for
Government to aid this process ; even if some laws must
be made for cutting some of the strings now tying hearts
to lands ? Another generation would grow up, if this
question of housing the London working classes really
could be faced along the lines indicated — a generation
which could only add to the wealth of the country,
certainly to the happiness, to the content of the country !
In the name of common sense, then, is it not worth
while trying ?
London is not the only Babylon. Take Edinburgh.
Could not the Cowgate, the Canongate, be turned out into
the country ? Would not the poor folk go if you tried
them ? Edinburgh is one of the most drunken cities in
the kingdom — perhaps some of us would drink, if we
lived in the Cowgate. Supposing you try the remedy of
30& A Colony of Mercy
blue ' sky by way of blue ribbon : it may answer better
than you think.
The traveller approaching " Caledonia stern and wild "
will, after crossing the border, be rudely shaken in his
dreams of beauty as he is carried through certain
districts where the iron smelting goes on. Here you
have workmen's village, if you please, right beneath the
smoke-belching chimneys. No matter who has run up
these workmen's homes — possibly the owner of the
chimneys, anyway a man who did not think of beauty
for ashes. It is country, but scarcely a tree will grow
for the heaps of cinder and ore refuse lying about ; the
sun does shine overhead, but its beams are ever strug-
gling with a cloud of smoke particles, fixed over these
hapless dwellings. How do you expect a housewife
there even to attempt keeping a tidy room, when every
chair and table in her possession must be covered with
a constant layer, as with the ashes of Gomorrah ?
The wonder will be if these people ever think of wash-
ing ; for they will be all black and smutty again directly.
This is not written to hurt any one's feelings, not
knowing who is owner ; but this is the state of
things as seen from the travelling carriage. These
working-men's homes — and there is quite a number
of them in that region of furnaces — are a pitiful sight.
Little use to think of workmen's gardens there, for
scarce a flower could grow in that atmosphere, certainly
not grow in purity ; and yet you expect fairer flowers,
even the little children of God's planting, to grow up
in such environment ! How can they grow up to
physical health, not to say to moral well-being, in such
The Message of Bethel to Otwselves 309
surroundings ? for cleanliness is next to godliness, is very
largely the road to it.
Are the coal-mining and smelting districts of England
any better? One can but speak of what one has
chanced to see. But if they had beauty for ashes, no
doubt one would have heard of it.
It has been said of Glasgow, the overcrowded state
of its working classes " is immoral." What is this but
in other words the opinion of that German judge that
half the social crimes are due to the too much " surface
of friction" in our dwellings? If this is so, who
then will give elbow-room to the working population
of Glasgow, just in self-defence and for the prevention
of crime ? Little wonder if the Glasgow poor chafe
under the want of elbow-room ; for they, or their fathers
before them, are very largely of the children of the soil
turned out from the Highlands for the sake of deer and
deerstalkers. Say you, the Highlands are poor and
could not keep them — well, that is a question ! But
another and more pertinent question is this — who,
knowing the state of things to be " immoral," will raise
the cry to have it altered ? A great deal may be done
in this world if you make enough noise. Is there not
room enough and to spare round about Glasgow?
People rave about the beauties of the Clyde and districts
adjoining ; are they too beautiful to give some corners of
them to be " beauty for ashes " to the Glasgow workman ?
Who are the owners of that land ? Will they consider
this question ? Will they consider that One gone to the
right hand of Glory will say, " Ye took Me in " ?
Would it spoil your scenery, interfere with tourists'
3io A Colony of Mercy
delight, to find some room there for Workman's
" Own " ? We happened on the Callander coach last
summer, going through the Trosachs with a batch of
tourists. It was a perfect day for the glories of nature.
A fine group of larches was passed. " Oh, what lovely
trees ! " Dropped the response from the lips of one of
these tourists — " I suppose these are the Scotch firs one
hears about." Such tourist surely could take his know-
ledge of nature, and consequent enjoyment thereof, as
well to some other part of the globe. Another of these
lovers of nature apparently got drowsy, for no sooner
were we afloat on Katrine than he fell asleep, waking in
time for a stretch as the boat landed at Stronachlachar.
No doubt he went home to say he had been on Ellen's
Loch. Abroad, in Switzerland for instance, the natives
indulge in a good deal of quiet fun over the average
British tourist : " they rush through our loveliest scenery
with eyes buried in their guide-books, as if they didn't
know what to think of our Rigi till they have seen
it in print."
Of course there are tourists and tourists ; but for a
number of them it can be said that even the most
struggling working man will prove as good a lover of
nature as they. Then why should not some of the
Glasgow poor be housed in its regions of beauty ? Is
there no one in Glasgow of the spirit of Bodelschwingh
who would at least try ? *
* We understand that a commission appointed by the Glasgow
Presbytery has been busy lately inquiring into the conditions of
ill-housed Glasgow, working earnestly to improve matters. May
we invite this committee to consider the Bielefeld plan of
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 3 1 1
The " Programme of Christianity," the booklet, page 40,
says much of the power of " beautiful things in haunting
the mind with higher thoughts and begetting the mood
which leads to God." It speaks of " the moral effect
even in a clean table-cloth." What, then, might not be
the " moral effect " of the beauties of nature ? Do you
think, really, the working man has no eye for such?
Beauty of nature alone will not help him, else every High-
lander were a saint ; but other things given, beauty of
nature is a " spiritual force."
Even a tinsel angel, a mere Christmas card, the
booklet says, once had power to " arrest a drunkard," to
do something towards transforming his squalid room —
no, transforming him. We believe this. But the question
comes up, Perhaps the poor fellow would not have been
a drunkard, if the room had not been squalid ! Would
you not at least give that man a chance ? If such be
the power of a mere Christmas card, should we not
raise a voice that room for such poor fellow be found
in the fair realms about Glasgow, right away from the
city and the drink shop ? What would not a clean house
and clean surroundings do for such soul, seeing what
even a Christmas card did ? Always understood a clean
house marked " own " !
Is there a " Programme of Christianity " ? Have we
admired it ? Should we stop there ? Christ's " beauty for
ashes," we know, is yet another and different thing —
''Workman's Own" — made possible in the way above delineated ?
A whole measure, a radical change, might do far more towards
raising morality, than working, however earnestly, for the im-
provement of existing conditions.
312 A Colony of Mercy
a thing all of us are in need of — but there is an earthly
beauty on the way to it, and should not a beginning be
made, knowing the " squalid room," to let the healing
streams of such beauty play about the lives of these
thousands of now hopeless poor ? Surely then the ques-
tion may be asked, and should it not be answered ? — are
the regions of the Clyde, some corners of them, not so
very much would be wanted — are they too beautiful for
" Workman's Home " — little homes of their own for the
Glasgow poor? If not, then the next question is, cannot
an effort be made to give it them ? Glasgow is the
second largest city of the kingdom, and " the over-
crowded state of its working classes is immoral!'
We happen to write this in a Highland cottage. That
is how our eyes have roamed to Scotch cities ; but the
Highlands are no less a witness to the ill-housing of
the poor — nay, we must here say, of the people. You
cannot go a couple of miles anywhere in these High-
lands without coming upon ruins — actual ruins ; it might
be the plain of Nineveh instead of Christian Scotland —
a few staring walls left of what once, and not so long ago
either, were cottages, as though the Turks with murder
and rapine had been scouring the land. It is the one
altogether miserable sight in this beautiful country. In
the whole of civilised Europe there is not another such
spectacle. No wonder the hills look at one with a
wistful beauty, lonely and desolate, as though they had a
story to tell. Where are the people who once lived here ?
Gone. They or their children, if they have not gone
right abroad, are toiling away in those cities where the
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves
3^3
over-crowding is " immoral," where a poor fellow has
to be saved by a tinsel Christmas angel when all nature
here could minister to his want. You go up a glen, miles
long, no human trace anywhere except these tell-tale
ruins till you get to the top ; and there, in perfect sur-
roundings of mountain and river and heath-covered brae
you come upon a house. They call it a shooting-box ;
very beautiful of course, wild, solitary, enchanting.
Saith the prophet of old : Woe unto those who join field
to field till there be no place, that they may be alone in
the earth ! In plainer English — who join mountain and
glen till there be no place for the children of the soil,
that they may shoot the grouse. V/oe unto them, said
the prophet ! This, in half a dozen words, is the story
of ruined cottages which send up their silent cry to
heaven in almost every glen of these wilds.
Seeing these remnants of a bygone civilisation, one
naturally endeavours to get at the bottom. One over-
hauls one's knowledge of Scotch history. The folk who
build these lovely shooting-boxes must have some kind
of a right to be there. How did they get that right ?
Now, the Scotch have a history of their own, different
from every other nation in Europe. Till within a hun-
dred and fifty years ago they lived a patriarchal life,
frugal, blissful, marauding. The clan went to the death
for the chief, and the chief was loyal to the core to the
humblest clansman. Every shepherd of Clan Tartan —
not to mention names — had a right, a veriest birthright,
to look to TJie Tartan for protection, for assistance, nay,
almost for keep. The country of that clan, with some
sense then, belonged to The Tartan, he being owner for
314 A Colony of Mercy
all the rest, the clansmen being as proud of and jealous
for his ownership as he was himself; nay, more so, for he
was their darling. Lawless, cattle-lifting, fray-seeking
though they were, there was beauty in this, a charm
which has not died out of the country, for their great
poet has fixed it.
But beautiful things in this rolling planet do not last
for ever, and Old-Scotland could not last. The Sassenach
introduced modern life ; and the clan-system, struggling
nobly to a man almost, bled to death.
Now, whose was the land by right after that struggle
when English civilisation, stretching north, had cut the
strings between chief and clansman. Was it the chiefs
and chiefs heir by right, the sole property of T/ie
Tartan by right, to the exclusion of every humbler
Tartan that might be left ? Is this " for the right " ? Is
this historic Justice ? It is by right only in the sense
that possession is right, and that possession is nine-
tenths of the law. We do know that white-robed Justice
is trodden underfoot easily in troublous times. Years
roll on, and possession turns into ownership : this is how
the demarcation between right and wrong, a borderland
not at any time easily guarded, gets effaced ; and who in
after time shall right it ? And this is how, standing by
these ruined cottages, we read the growth of the landlord
power in this country.
And more. The Tartan and his heir often could not
hold their own ; some chiefs got impoverished, some
morally impoverished, for families decay ; those lands,
those old clanlands presently were in the market for any
moneyed man to buy. And this is how deer-forests
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 3 1 5
have been made, and shooting-grounds, and the children
of the soil went to the wall, crowded out by capital.
The Celt everywhere has gone to the wall. The wheel of
nations is cruel to those who cannot hold their own ; and
we are only trying to unravel present ownerships, show-
ing there is actually a hopeless, miserable sort of right in
the possessors of these shooting-boxes having "joined
mountain and glen "— actually a show of right ! For a
man may do as he pleases with the land he has paid for.
And yet the prophet says, Woe unto tJiem !
The moneyed man having bought a Highland property
is lord- of it, people and all. The small farmers are his
tenants ; they never had a chance of buying that bit of
land ; they have no chance now. We know there is the
" Crofters' Act," passed a few years ago, for regulating
the rents of non-leaseholders under thirty acres ; and
there is the " Small Holdings Act " come into force
lately. Whether this is more than an Act on paper
remains to be seen ; we trust it is, for it is not com-
pulsory. An " Act " is one thing ; the people being in
the position of availing themselves of it is another.
But one hails these efforts as promise of better times.
Rome was not built in a day, and the real Act to help
these people has yet to be framed. Hitherto the land,
leaseholdings and all, was the landlord's irredeemably,
and we fear it is so still.
We need go back forty to sixty years only, if we
want to hear about evictions.* Scotland is a poorly
* See "Highland Clearances," by Alexander Mackenzie, F.S. A.
Scot., a pamphlet which should never be out of print while
there is a Scotchman left to blush for his country.
3 1 6 A Colony of Mercy
populated country because Highlanders by the shipload
have been carried to Canada, " carriage-paid " by their
landlords, after their cottages had been pulled down over
their heads — actual cold-blooded eviction. The evicting
landlords, in most cases were descendants of the old
chiefs — " morally impoverished " chiefs, alias landlords,
who evicted for avarice ; turning into sheepwalks the
land which historically was not exclusively theirs. But
ill-gotten gains never prosper, and these sheepwalks on
an Australian scale before long were bankrupt. Then
capital came in, with the deer-forest and the shooting-
lodge, as we now see them. The landlord of this genera-
tion is more civilised ; the estate may have come to him
empty, swept and garnished ; if not — if he chooses to
turn more of the property into forest or shooting-cover,
he does not evict his tenants, his own conscience and
popular public policy forbidding, but he does so little
for them that it is next to impossible to make a subsist-
ence. This is the process of squeezing out; the poor
folk presently go " of their own accord," leaving the
cottage of their fathers, weeping, behind them. For the
Celt loves the clod on which he was born. This too is
" joining field to field," and a good deal of what within
the memory of man was grazing-land is now grouse
cover or plantation. Ministers and others assure us
that twenty years ago these tell-tale ruins were more
plentiful still, — they do away with them gradually,
ashamed of the tale.
You may see empty cottages in this country, not yet
fallen to pieces, in which remnants of furniture are left,
even a bedstead now and then, the people having gone
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 3 1
/
away, probably just in the clothes they wore, when their
measure of starvation was full. Any one looking about
him can see such forsaken cottages — mute witnesses of a
rotten system ; for a country should hold its people.
If a Royal Commission would follow us, we could
show them strange things in cottages not yet forsaken.
Let the reader take his mental view of some such
cottage here or there about the Highlands. It might
be situated in one of the more favoured parts even — on
a tolerable farm, too, something over thirty acres — but
the cottage is a disgrace to the country. The tenants
of this model dwelling, overtaken by sickness — when they
are well they stand it — take refuge under an umbrella
in their own cottage when the Highland ' mist ' turns
into a ' pour.' Then why do they not mend their
roof? If you have to pay a pound an acre for a
thirty-acre arable farm at an altitude of about eight
hundred feet above sea level under these northern
skies, there is little left to hold body and soul together,
after the demands of the landlord are satisfied, not to
say to repair cottages ; even allowing for what extra you
gain by acting as the Sassenach's gillie. These people,
after paying their rent, just make enough to find their
own porridge, literally ; the landlord requiring his pound
an acre — we had almost said his pound of flesh — through
fair weather and foul, as though these hard-yielding
uplands were Ayrshire or the Lothians. A pound an
acre in these parts in itself is a cruelty ; but our theme
is the cottage.
The tenant has put up a piece of zinc roof on the
tumble-down affair to do away with the umbrella in the
3 1 B A Colony of Mercy
little sitting-room at least— the ben en\ in Scotch parlance.
The real family chamber is the kitchen, and that con-
tinues a place for landlords to weep over. Indeed, the
tenant has not yet been able to find the money for this
bit of repairs, so how should he have covered the whole
roof? And he a man who does his hardworking best
with a thirty-acre farm !
Why don't they throw up the farm ? Why indeed !
What if, apart from the fact that the place to them is
hallowed by the manes of their forbears — the present
tenant's great-grandfather was born there — this misera-
ble abode were the one plank between them and the
great Unknown ! The man now, however struggling,
is yet a respected farmer ; if he goes he is a beggar, and
there may be that of true manhood in a man which
clings to this shred of a link between him and an
honoured past. That man is fighting his battle, de-
fending the soldier's post. For the past was more
prosperous ; but, one bit after another, the grazing-land
within these last twenty years has been taken from
them for plantation and grouse cover ; they cannot keep
the sheep now they once kept, and but half the cattle.
Paying rent was comparatively easy then ; now it is
drawing the blood. Says the landlord, They may leave ;
I am only keeping them on because my family never
have evicted, and we will plant the whole then. Does he
say so ? Then let him be answered : This farm of four
generations is the home of their hearts ; they cling to
this shred of their past, having nothing besides ; they
are suffering for the Highlander's home love, and it is
draiving the blood !
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 3 1 9
Those who speak up for landlords, say the tenant
could compel his landlord by means of the county
council. Could he? Perhaps he is too disheartened
with tenant's hardship to risk that plan ; and should a
landlord require compelling ? Is he not bound, of his
" own accord," to give the tenant weather-tight buildings ?
Such a cottage is a standing offence to the Public
Health Act. But it could possibly be matched by
another cottage, not quite a hundred miles distant, in
which the parish doctor one recent winter is said to
have waded ankle-deep through water to the bedside
of a dying patient, — if this were not too much for the
reader to believe. Yet we could take him to these
pitiful abodes, in which even an umbrella landlord
would shrink from leaving his horses or pointers. Then
why does the sanitary inspector not interfere? We
know not ; but while the real sufferer submits, there is
a good deal of condoning on the part of those who
should cry out on his behalf. Maybe, landlords are of
the powers that be : one is afraid of them.
So this tenant has been sitting with an umbrella
inside his own cottage and by his own fireside. But,
umbrella and fireside apart, on a drenching day, and
they are not rare in these parts, you will have difficulty
in finding a dry spot in that cottage, except where that
bit of zinc roof now covers : the kitchen floor any rainy
week is a lake, and the umbrella in requisition with the
waterworks overhead, the people taking their share of
the running wet even in their beds ; and the whole
cottage, every stone and stick of it, is a blot on civilisa-
tion. Yet these people deserve the cottagers' prize for
J
20 A Colony of M\ frercy
neatness ; that bit of a roomie, th^e ben en', is kept as
clean and tidy as a doll's house, e lfit for tne Queen to
step in. The blot upon civilisation, w nes not at tJleir dcor-
A farmer of any decency elsewl fiiere would not thus
house his cattle. But then cattle he' are capital, and the
asthma and rheumatics of these jes people cost the land-
lord nothing. The cattle ha^itatio ns adjoining threaten
the lives of poor beasts every ni^e^ht- There is other
proof of tenants' hardships ; but at tne housing of the
people is our plea for these page;ir s*
We would gladly presume this toboibe a solitary instance,
at least one of the worst example frs of landlord rule in
Scotland. But what though there :ouDe scores of landlords
of angelic goodness, and quite asgrf patriarchal to their
tenants as chief of yore ever was, tnr doing for them all in
their power, short of letting themk buy their holdings-
landlords kind, helpful, considerate; \ \ we yet maintain the
system is wrong \ A people shoiP0ila1 not depend on the
goodness or badness of a landlord for their well-being,
but there should be laws in a la^ -id under which every
man may dwell as under his fig-treeo--
We have, however, seen other ap cottages, in another
part of the country, which we did y ^ot enter, for we were
driving and unable to stop ; cotta£id>es which an innocent
stranger never took for cottages tilW* coming close, a film
of smoke was seen rising, not through a chimney even,
for such badge of civilisation did r!erlot crown these efforts
at housing the people. Perhaps,-ir earth-hovels as they
were, they were at least dry. Yer ft these cottages, too,
will belong to some landlord. If's ° us they appeared
mere heaps of turf, fit for a resp actable beaver, or at
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 3 2 1
best for an Esquimaux in heathen Greenland. " But is
not this Christian and civilised Scotland ? " said we,
opening our eyes in wonder.
It is not that we are railing against landlords. It is a
wise adage which says, " live and let live " ; and even
a landlord must live. We are roused only at these
specimens of landlords' rule ; and from what we have
seen with our own eyes we draw the simple conclusion :
A system which has no better results to show as regards
the well-being of the people must be a rotten system,
and it is time to replace it by another. By the very
look of the cottages, the system in force hitherto has
been weighed and is found wanting. In fairness, then,
let the wheel of progress move a turn forward ; let another
system be tried.
Indeed, it would appear that some of the landlords
themselves are sufferers, hard as some of them are upon
the tenant ! In that favoured region, at least, where
half the property and more is covered with plantation,
a landlord, though he let his shooting, by some strange
law of circumstance barely makes 2\ per cent. Why,
he would have done better lending his capital at 3 |
per cent, for " Workmen's Homes," reaping a people's
blessing instead of — but we will not speak of curses.
Do not his own poor returns speak of retribution ?
Is not this proof sufficient that an unrighteous system
brings about its own condemnation ?
It is not Home Rule as Home Rule which has prompted
these pages, but the condition of the people, pleading
for a legislation at the hands of either party which shall
ensure weather-tight cottages. It is not even " beauty
21
322 A Colony of Mercy
for ashes " now, but dry for wet. Possibly English mem-
bers have enough to do south, and some of them, maybe,
never have explored these regions ; they cannot be
expected to be very active, then, about anti-umbrella
laws. It may take a Scotchman, one who has a heart
for the people (and a Parliament sitting in Edinburgh in
that case certainly would be the thing to hope for) in
order to see in these parts, regarding the land, anything
like a state of affairs that shall not be a disgrace to
civilised Europe. We wish no ill to any landlord ; but for
the sake of a long-suffering people we plead that a Royal
Commission look into these dwellings ; and if a look
convince them not, will any representative of the nation
spend one week in that umbrella cottage? — the people
gladly would turn out, leaving him lord of the wet he
surveys for a week. A week ? no ; one drenching day and
night would suffice, for we would not have him catch his
death of ague, he not being inured to such measure of
miserable discomfort. Indeed, would not the landlord him-
self be a fit commissioner ? What if he were instructed
by Government to report on that cottage ! He would
need being shut up in it for twenty-four hours with a
sufficiency of porridge in order to reflect upon the proper
use of umbrellas on the one hand, and upon a certain
old saying of doing unto others as one would be done
by on the other. We should have some hope of his
report then ! Let no one say we are unreasonable ;
he being my lord Somebody, and his tenant only a
poor Highlander — when it comes to umbrellas ', men are
equal. It is not, then, that we are a Radical wanting to
dispossess the landlord ; but if such cottages are the
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 323
upshot, it is plain landlords' rule has failed of its
mission, and anti-umbrella laws, whatever they be, will
be required to set that right. We would not do such
an unkind thing as to publish this umbrella story
outside the British Isles ; but the truth is we should
not be believed, for Britain enjoys the reputation of
being a God-fearing country.
Once upon a time the Lord Jehovah made a land law.
He knew that for all sorts of reasons, even by the
people's own fault sometimes, the propertyships get
wrong ; so He provided that every fiftieth year the land,
no matter what might have happened to it in passing
hands through Chieftain to Sassenach, should return to
its true owner — the " children of the soil " of those days
— every family to its land. For the land was of the
clan — they called them tribes in those days. Says the
nineteenth-century landlord, " We aren't Jews, and we
can't go back to the time of Moses." No, we cannot.
But this does not do away with the fact, that the only
land law, of which we know that God in heaven had the
making, was to this effect. In other words, according to
His thoughts of right, the land is of the people — some
may have more of it, some less — but the land shall hold
its own people. The Highlands, then — at least some parts
of them — for the Highlanders.
Now, it is very curious that in Britain this ancient law
has obtained, with a twist in its application. The
Jubilee law of course could not be allowed nowadays
as a guiding measure to benefit the people, but the great
landlords, in the south anyway, have a hold of it ! It
appears to us that this Jehovah statute is at the bottom
324 A Colony of Mercy
of what we often have been tempted to call an ante-
diluvian institution, that curious arrangement by which
soil in London is leased out for ninety-nine years,
and then returns, house and all, to the owner of the
soil. But what is sauce for the goose ought to be sauce
for the gander ; and by that same right then the soil up
here after ninety-nine years might return to Clan Tartan
— even with the shooting-boxes upon it !
We are no lawyer ; we do not pretend really to pene-
trate the deep mysteries of these abstruse questions con-
cerning British soil. We are prepared to listen meekly
if we shall be chidden for impracticable moonshine.
Yet we know one thing concerning this British nation :
we believe in its fairness — a fairness sometimes clouded
but always shining forth again ; and we are right certain
it was British equity which made this same proverb
declare " Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander."
We humbly submit our sole crime after all consists in
putting in a plea for this poor gander. We cannot help
it, standing by these deserted cottages and hearing the
soughing night-winds sing a song of the desolate hills.
It is with British equity, then, we are pleading — be it
Jubilee law, be it any other law, it is for this we plead :
that Equity look into the hard lives of these people, and
if great wrongs go unrighted, for her own fair sake to try
and right them.
We have heard it said, these glens are mere heather-
grown wastes ; no farm-holdings could pay their way in
them ; they may as well be used for the sportsman's
delight. Not pay their way ? That is it ; for it means
paying their way to the landlord ! Caledonia's soil at
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 325
best is hard-yielding ; it never was meant by nature to
pay two owners, both landlord and tenant ! But if some
of these glens could ever be the property of these hard-
working people, their real property with that little word
" own " attached to it, they would make it worth their
while to put them again under sheep, and they would pay
their way; not grandly, for there is Australian competition,
but yet humbly and to their own content. And these
glens would not lose in beauty ; Nature would still hold
her own. It makes all the difference if a stretch of land
is farmed by the avarice of one man, or the industry of
a dozen families. At present some of the tenants even
practise the " field-to-field " trick. If a tenant has any
money at all, he is tempted to do as his betters do,
to be "alone in the earth." We know a Highland
farm on which a generation ago there were a dozen
families — all humble, all content ; now it is one farm,
because one moneyed tenant offering higher rent to the
landlord has managed to squeeze out, one after another,
his poorer neighbours. No wonder there are ruined
cottages ! But this was a case mostly of turf dwellings,
which, pulled down and scattered over the fields, make
a rich top-dressing — manure in fact ! What species of
government, save landlord-rule, is equal to this — getting
rid of labouring hands, and turning homes into top-
dressing ! What became of the poor folk and their
children ? who cared ? who inquired ? What appeal had
they, what law in the land to shelter them from the
blast? The industry of such squeezed-out families is
lost to the soil ; no wonder the glens are barren !
Yet these glens cannot be more unyielding than that
326 A Colony of Mercy
Senne was, and has not that Senne been turned into a
garden — a garden thrice beautiful because of the moral
beauty enveloping it? Pastor von Bodelschwingh was
telling us in the summer how he would like a holiday
in these Highlands. He only thought of the perfect
quiet, not knowing these goings-on. We cannot help
thinking what a lesson in arithmetic he would adduce
from these glens, what a lesson in political economy,
not to say in common-sense. This country is wasting
Jier substance I Now every housewife has a duty to see
that no waste goes on in her kitchen ; and this may be
another reason why there should be a Scotch Parlia-
ment for the Scotch to inquire into this tremendous
waste. These moors are let to the sportsman at a
guinea per brace of the grouse he is likely to shoot.
If he sells the birds he kills, he can at best realise three
shillings per brace — this is guess-work, but we know
that grouse at the London poulterers' can be had at
five and six shillings the brace. This is not political
economy, it is idiotcy. The guineas of course go to
the owner of the shooting-box — the yieldings to the
one, instead of to the many — and if he is a Sassenach
that money is not even spent in the country. If he
spend it in the country, even this is not national economy,
for the people themselves ought to have some of the
spending — or, shall we say, saving ? at first hand, and
not be beholden for it to the one man, acting as his gillie
or what not, before they earn their share of the country's
produce. It is high time, then, that a Scotch Parlia-
ment sat in Edinburgh and went through a course in
political economy before it did anything else. It may
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 327
interest the innocent reader to know that stalking a stag
costs fifty pounds sterling to the stalker, at least to him
who rents the shooting-box for the season, for they let
at such fancy prices. If he may kill fifty stags he pays
^"2,500 rent for that box of a house for the two or
three months. That lovely shooting-lodge we have been
talking about, at the top of a beautiful glen, lets at
£4,000 or thereabouts for the season, deer and grouse
combined. Nor is this a solitary instance. And what
on earth has made the stags the property of such glen-
owner ? If they walk away over the hills, they belong to
another man till they come back again. And what
on earth has made the hills his property ? Mountain
ranges nowhere under the sun belong to private indi-
viduals. Fancy the Alps being shut up as the Grampians
are ! Wouldn't the British tourist with an injured air
write his letter to the Times ? There are chamois to be
stalked in the Alps and there is lesser quarry, but the
mountains the Lord God has made belong to the country
— that is, to nobody, and therefore to all. Here some of
the landlords have even tried to shut up tracks over the
hills ; at least it required a right-of-way society to be set
up in Edinburgh in order to prevent it. And it required
Professor Bryce's Bill to open the hills during winter and
spring ; they are shut up during the sporting season : by
what right an ignorant person vainly inquires. This is
joining " hill to hill " till there be no place for ordinary
mortals to enjoy the glories God has made. And, to
come back to the great grievance — "till there is no
place " for the children of the soil.
A friend of ours, with a leaning to landed proprietors,
328 A Colony of Mercy
said to us, " You would not rave like that, if you were
owner." Well, possibly — " from hardness of heart, good
Lord, deliver us." When we looked at that shooting-
box at the top of the glen, wild, solitary, enchanting,
lover of nature as we are, we said, " What perfect enjoy-
ment to spend a summer all to oneself in such a glorious
spot ! We should delight in it." Of course we should,
and if we were of sporting mind, possibly we might
enjoy the moors, and we might enjoy overtaking a poor
stag by the superior intelligence God has given to man.
Possibly. It is the natural man in us that would thus
enjoy ; but there is a higher being, at least there ought
to be, in every one of us — the still, small voice ; and it
says, This is selfish enjoyment, for others have to pay for
it, others have to suffer for it ! And since beauty of
earthly kind ever trails a shadow, these lovely glens with
the enchanting lodges, the pleasure ground of the rich,
have their dark side in those who are rendered home-
less because of this enjoyment. There is a homeless
and houseless Scotland. There is a Darkest Scotland
tramping.
Scarcely a day passes but a dozen of homeless
creatures come to the door of this cottage. They
knock, they ask for a " piece," and they get it ; for the
cottager, little as he has, shares his little with those who
have less. Not that this is commendable, for it keeps that
tramping class alive ; but let that pass for the present
We are told they are tinkers ; we are told they are gipsies.
Gipsies ? Then there is a curious cast of the Celt about
very many of them. There are Lowland tramps among
them, there are even Irish tramps, since there is a
The Message of Bethel to Ou? selves 329
homeless Ireland ; but a great proportion of them look
like simple Highlanders. It seems to us that, likely
enough, gipsies were not scarce in the land a hundred
years ago ; every country in Europe, a century ago,
had its true gipsies. But then that began its work
for Scotland which has turned so many cottages into
deserted ruins ; and we imagine that some of the
people rendered homeless refused to leave the country of
their love ; they preferred taking to the road, and their
children and children's children have come to be called
gipsies, along with what gipsies proper there may be.
Be this the explanation or not, it is astounding what
numbers live on the road in this sparsely populated
country. We are told the tramping population of Scot-
land is one hundred and fifty thousand. There are as
many vagrants hereabouts daily as there are cottage
roofs in all the countryside. A dozen, we said : on
many a day we have counted them by the score.
And, be it understood, " Darkest Scotland " in one respect
is worse than " Darkest Germany " ever was ; we never
heard that the German tramp carried wife and child
along with him. Here it is families tramping — a family
having a horse and cart of their own, otherwise a home-
less, houseless, floating lump of wretchedness — a wave
of misery truly, heaving to and fro in the land. Not
all have cart and horse, but very many of them — the
" aristocracy " these of unhoused Scotland, they have at
least a cart for a home ! They do a little business,
hawking, rag-collecting, tinkering, even horse-dealing
some of them — beggars besides.
Only a few days ago we watched such a roving family —
330 A Colony of Mercy
they rested by the roadside, giving their horse a graze —
father, mother, and seven children : a baby's curly head
peeping out of a rough-and-ready saddlebag, having its
cradle on the flanks of the horse, a little girl, and five
boys, ranging between six and thirteen, one would judge,
barefoot, ragged and unkempt, otherwise thriving enough,
for they beg their food. Beautiful children too, some of
them, wild and untamed, with the look on their faces
Murillo loved.
Now in the name of Christian Scotland what a state
of things ! What are these seven children other than
animal, other than heathen — never inside a school, never
inside a church ? We spoke to a minister ; we spoke to
a poor-law officer. " Can nothing be done ? " " Nothing,"
they said, " for there is no law to embrace this class."
Then it is high time for some such law to be made.
What chance have these children, growing up to the
same miserable life — homeless, houseless ? Can nothing
be done to gather in this homeless Scotland, the hapless
residue of Clan Tartan ? We have written this book in
vain if the passion awake not in some hearts to gather
in these vagrants, to gather in these children. Cannot
a net be spread, of mercy, of wisdom, of brotherly kind-
ness, yet of firmness withal, to seek the gathering-in of
Darkest Scotland ? Will any one give up his stalking,
his shooting, till this be done ? It is an appalling need.
The stalking is not wrong, the shooting is not, but these
things are ! The glass of wine hurts not ; yet some of
us have turned abstainers because of the terrible abuse.
Who, enjoying the moors now, not thinking, perhaps not
knowing, will have it in him to " abstain " as a protest ?
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 331
for it is time to protest ! It is the true-hearted man
only who could do this ; yet there are some true-hearted
among those even who now enjoy the sport. They
would be fit helpers.
There ought to be a " giving up " ! Here we have
talked about a " Programme of Christianity." Can we not
try and act upon it ? Cannot a PROGRAMME OF CHRIS-
TIANITY Union be formed to gather in these children —
nor rest till laws are made to make this possible ? Are
not some of us these children's keeper — brother to them,
sister to them ? And here they are, living on the road
— animal, heathen ! Who is going to try and house this
homeless Scotland after the example set by this working
model ? Say you it is impossible ? Do not say so till
you have tried. Has " beauty for ashes " not been written
for this people also ? There is beauty abounding in
Scotland, all about them ; but the vagrant's life is a
sitting in ashes ; it must end in despair.
In one thing at least these homeless wanderers are
like Him who had not where to lay His head. Yet
shall we not have to answer Him one day why they have
not where to lay theirs ? Wandering up and down the
country, room enough and to spare, children of the soil,
yet soil for a cottage denied them ! Of a truth, God
will require this one day at the hands of this country !
Where do these people spend the nights ? the many
drenching days ? the cold winter ? About a fortnight
ago — it was in the latter end of September* there had
* These observations on ill-housed Scotland being a photo-
graph from life, we leave the references to the time of year
when taken.
33 2 A Colony of Mercy
been a heavy frost, unusually early, and touching well-
nigh every sheaf of the yet ungarnered crop, to the hurt
of the poor tenant only, for it makes no difference to the
landlord's rent — a vagrant knocked at this cottage door
for a cup of tea in the early morning, and he had it. He
was all covered with the hoarfrost, hair, tatters and all.
" Poor fellow, where have you spent this grim night ? "
" In the wood!'
" It's the drink has done this for you," says the wife
who gives him the cup.
" Yes, the drink and my own foolish ways. I cannot
help it now. I shall drink again, when I can earn some
money."
What an appalling state of things : spending the
night in the wood — such a night — coming for a cup of
cottage tea, and going his way again, and knowing he
has sinned !
Who is going to be such a man's keeper, trying
to house poor sinning, drinking, homeless Scotland ?
The tinsel Christmas angel will not save this man, for he
has not even the squalid room to which he could take it.
We could almost write a book on Scottish tramps,
from the observation of a few weeks only. Yesterday a
woman accosted us with a bundle in her arms. It was
an infant, four days old. " Goodness sake ! and where was
it born?" " On the road, please : I couldn't get no further."
A lazy lout of a husband with a pony and a troop of
children was bringing up the rear. We have not a word
to say for the work-shirking tramp ; but in the name of
universal motherhood who could look unmoved at that
bundle ? The state of the road this week past has been
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 333
one deluge, an unusual downpour even for Scotland ; and
here was a woman who had not even an umbrella
cottage to receive a little stranger in. Here it was, four
days old, and she already on the tramp again, having
walked seven miles since the morning. We know she
spoke truth in this, for the child has been registered in
the place she named — the law seeing to that much of a
tramp's life. What could we do but take her, deserving
or not, to our cottage? We got her story out of her.
She married at seventeen a fellow of nineteen, and they
have been on the road ever since, this being the ninth
of their children. Why did they take to the road ?
Well, her people had always been tramping, his people
had been crofters till the cottage fell down about their
ears — no repairs, no new cottage — and his father dying,
he took to the road. This is a state of things ! the
unhoused cottar, then, it would seem, goes towards the
making of a gipsy in Scotland ! She said they were gipsies,
and her weatherworn complexion was " gipsy " enough ;
but she had the clear blue eye of the Highlander — no
true gipsy from Adam ever has had blue eyes. Did she
think she was a real gipsy ? But all she understood by
" gipsy " was " the road." What was her name ? " Both
the ' man ' (man, she said) and mysel' are Stuarts."
And she knew about their people on both sides back to
great-grandfather — all Stuarts — the royal clan actually.
Then what is this if not the "hapless residue of Clan
Tartan " ? We are told there is a tribe of so-called
Stuarts who have always intermarried, always been
"gipsies" since time out of mind. But that blue eye
does not hail from the Ganges, nor does the sandy wig,
334 A Colony of Mercy
half yellow, half red, of those children. Stuart or not,
what are they, if not the hapless residue of Old-Scotland ?
And is this gipsydom to continue ?
Of course not many hours passed after this tramping
family had left us before we knew our pitiful soul had
been sadly duped. The woman had been to the manse
with her bundle, carefully hiding all trace of the clothing
and other bounty the good minister's wife had given
her, before calling for a repetition of the same at our
hands. And an hour or so later we met her again a
couple of miles down the road, we protected by water-
proof and umbrella, she sitting cheerfully in the wet
with that four-day bundle, having a cottage wife after
her with sympathy and supplies. She will repeat that
trick a dozen times tramping along, that infant being
her stock-in-trade for a while. As we came up to her
she pointed to some smoke rising fifty yards further :
" that's the man, getting camp ready, I canna get
further." Indeed she had done well with nine miles
that day, considering. We walked on, and getting hold
of the " man " by himself, we gave him a bit of our mind.
" You should work instead of dragging about the woman
and bairn in that condition." " She is awfu' weak," he
replied. " Yes, but an able-bodied man like you should
be working." " She is awfu' weak ! " And say what we
would about his working, " she is awfu' weak," was all
the response we got. We gave him up in despair.*
* A couple of days after writing this we actually had a letter
from this tramp, — he apparently having got some one to act as
clerk for him — thanking us for our interest, etc. If this, in a
tramp, is not a trait of clan royal ! He signed himself with his
own pot-hooks, " Stuart."
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 335
Getting back to our own temporary fireside, we heard
from a woman of these parts who had been to that
parish seven miles off, where this four-day infant first
saw the light, that this part of the story was true
enough ; the parish doctor had attended that roadside
arrival in the gipsy's half-egg-shaped tent, and when
he came to revisit his patient the second day she was
on her feet and away to the " public," infant and all, for
a " drappie," feeling " awfu' weak." This is Darkest
Scotland tramping.
There is a screw loose, if there is no law to take in
this class. That four-day infant was born and registered
at the parish of . If it should live to be a cripple or
otherwise disabled, that parish will have the keeping of
this pauper ; then in common sense this parish now ought
to have a right to say, " We'll see that child educated,
brought up to decent work." Here are two able-bodied
parents, having been on the road these sixteen years
apparently undisturbed by the country's law ; they may
be past saving as far as useful membership of society is
concerned. All they seem good for is to inflict a child
upon a parish and to walk off on the fourth day with full
liberty of ruining that child, bringing it up carefully in
the way it should not go. They are breeding the next
generation of vagrants — nine infants theirs already ; they
may enrich the country by fifteen if their luck continue :
and shall the training of such nine or fifteen be left to
their mercy? Has the country no duty, even in self-
defence, to gather in these children ?
Say you, parental authority must not be interfered
with, and British liberty is a sacred thing ? Yet there
3j6 A Colony of Mercy
is a limit to both : we do not allow a lunatic authority
over his children, and these parents are morally de-
mented ; we put a limit upon British liberty when it
turns into licence. We do not allow a man to drown
himself if we can help it ; we do not allow him to throw
himself before a passing railway train, if we can prevent
it : in short we do not allow him the personal liberty of
committing suicide. Now, these people are not only
working their own destruction, body and soul ; they are
working their children's. At this point parental authority
and British liberty should find themselves face to face
with a wholesome law.
Could not compulsory education be extended to
vagrants' children, requiring a child's attendance between
the ages of six and fourteen ? That would kill two birds
with one shot : it would bring the children to school and
it might tend to forcing the parents into settled life.
Such " settling " would require much supervision, much
helpfulness : it is a difficult question ; but the solving of
it should not be beyond the wisdom of the country.
Could it not work hand in hand with a general effort
for the unemployed — with an effort, possibly, of re-
peopling some of these glens ? Shall we be laughed at
for this suggestion ? Tramps' children ! Then we ask, in
what are they less promising than those who were the
making of Australia ? Tramp or not, they are Scotia's
children. A little story went through the papers a few
years ago. The Prince of Wales was visiting at the
late Duke of Sutherland's, and the Duke took His Royal
Highness up a hill whence there was a beautiful outlook
up and down one of the Sutherland glens. Said the
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 337
Duke, " There is not a finer stretch of country anywhere
in Scotland." Said the Prince, "It is beautiful, but to
me it would be more beautiful still if it were the home of
a people!' That was a royal speech ! There was not a
dwelling in sight. Shall bonny Scotland continue a
beautiful waste? shall one hundred and fifty thousand
of her children continue homeless, houseless vagrants?
What a fine opening here for historic justice — yea, for
atonement ! The present generation can wash its hands
in innocency, it never evicted — but your fathers did !
The residue of Clan Tartan is wandering about, every
hapless child born to these vagrants is a cry to heaven
for restitution. Let some of the country return to them
after ninety-nine years ! Let Scotland open her arms to
her own children ; she has been stepmother all too long !
Sending them off to Canada is not restitution — too
many have been sent — the desolate country is here.
'They do better there," say you? They may, but
Scotland is their mother country, and if things were as
they should be, some would do well here. When we have
wronged folk, maybe it is convenient to send them to the
antipodes, salving our conscience with a " they do better
there." The depopulated country is here ! Let some
of the glens, then, go back to the people ; let there be a
Jubilee to atone for the past. Or shall it be said by
your grandchildren, Scotland has lived to see the last
Highlander take her pride to a far country. She is
fairly on her way to this ! Will any one who has a glen
to give, will any landowner consider this, yea, and take
heart for a noble work ? It is a fine thing to take the
lead in high-minded endeavour, and there is a special
22
2,3% A Colony of Mercy
blessing on those who make homes for others ; they shall
find a home all ready for them in the Mansions beyond.
But to come to simple figures — one hundred and
fifty thousand vagrants in Scotland.* They must live !
Take them at five shillings or so a week — they cost the
community that one way or another — and this is two
millions sterling, roughly, a year ! a nice sum, most of
it going in " drappies ! " They beg their food, supporting
the public-house with their earnings — it comes to the
same ! As a rule they ask modestly for the " piece."
But we have known them entering cottage kitchens
with simple orders — " Gie us a quarter pound o' tea, half
* We wrote these pages simply from our own observation, and
from such information as we ourself gathered in the Highlands ;
but, subsequently, we came across a Glasgow " Report of Com-
mission on the Housing of the Poor " for 1891, in which we find
reference to the alarming growth of vagrancy in Scotland, to
which the Commissioners' attention had been called by a letter
on the subject from a Glasgow parochial officer, which letter
was published, and from which we quote the following : —
"From the statistics given in the report of Her Majesty's
Inspector of the Constabulary for Scotland for the year 1885 (I
go back to this year simply to furnish some idea of the increase),
it appears that the number of vagrants were 59,214 males, 21,513
females, 10,840 children — total 91,567. In 1886 there were 70,754
males; 23,015 females; 12,892 children — total, 106,661; while
for the year 1887 the total return is 138,748 ! Surely these figures
demand the most serious consideration of every intelligent rate-
payer."
Surely they do ! These Constabulary Reports are annually
laid upon the table of Parliament, they are printed in blue-books,
yet the nation at large apparently has no suspicion of even the
possibility of such figures, as above quoted. It was thought an
alarming state of things, that Germany, with her fifty millions
of inhabitants, had about 150,000 vagrants, and here is Scotland
reaching that figure upon not five millions !
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 339
a pound o' sugar, and a joog o' milk ! " and they get it,
as though they were the clan royal indeed, levying
contribution. There is quite a superstitious feeling in
Highland cottages concerning bounty to these tramps —
much to be blamed of course — but might it not be the un-
conscious sense of kinship? Nay, there is more — the
cottager, while present conditions last, never knows but
that his own children one day may be on the road — it is
this sorrowful sense of kinship ! Thus these vagrants
are kept in food, their pennies keeping the public-house.
Is the country not going to stop that, find provision for
them at a less cost, even though at the cost of their own
personal liberty, of which they are no fit keepers ? In
short, is it not in simple arithmetic a duty to " compel
them to come in," wisely, kindly, but still compelling, for
the sake of their children, the future vagrants of Scot-
land ? For these children live ! " It won't ketch cold,"
said that tramping mother, consolingly ; " it's born out ! "
There will be a great many more than one hundred and
fifty thousand, if you let that state of things go on
unchecked.
We must stop, else this chapter itself will grow into
a book. The one thing wanted is an anti-umbrella law.
It will mean a great many things. If the land laws can
be seen to for Scotland, better times will dawn.
One word to cheer the heart of the gander. It is
better to " give than to receive," and it is better to be sat
upon than to sit upon. We used to wonder where the
poet got his David Elginbrods and Alec Forbeses ; we
used to think they must be the children of his own large-
340 A Colony of Mercy
hearted imagination, but one knows better, getting to
know Highland cottagers. It is good for a man to bear
the yoke, and not only in his youth ; and these Highland-
men, if they do not go to the bad for very heaviness of
spirit — that umbrella cottager does not drink, but if he
did, who could wonder ? — go, very much so, to the good.
They are a fine race, with roots the firmer for the
ungenial soil, and, like their own Scotch firs, the better
for the blast. Men are but in training now, Highlanders
and all, for a time to come, and in that day much that
was wrong here will be found right. In that day some
of these humble cottagers, who now are last, may be first ;
and, who knows ? may then be saying to some of their
landlords, " It is you who made us what by the grace of
God we have grown." It is good for a man to bear
hardship.
We know a young farmer on the borders of a northern
deer-forest who was but two-and-twenty when he took
over the holding of his father and grandfather, some
fifty acres ; and not only is he driving a steady plough,
picking up job work besides, but he is bringing up
his four brothers, keeping one of them at college
too. This is fine ! These are the poet's heroes, young
men of hardy field labour in vacation, and doing well
during the session at Aberdeen. For, as that young
farmer says of his younger brothers — " they shall have
their chance." This, we repeat, is fine ! We should like
to know where in England, in Germany, in sunny France
you could easily match this ? Landlord's son, even, if
he have any, will he at two-and-twenty be equal to
that, and do it? Will landlord say, Then by your
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 341
own showing they cannot be so badly off? Does he
say that ? It is the hard-yielding soil, it is the hard-
ship borne, — the frugal life, the steady plough, the growth
of the inner man because of the weight upon him.
We met a boatman in our Scotch travels, a mere
common boatman on a loch, and a bit of a crofter. We
had talk with him twice, thrice, and thought there was
something in that man. He told us he had not married
— " I couldn't keep both wife and the old mother/' he
said. When we bade him good-bye, he asked us, could
we not send him some German reading ?
" Why, Jim, do you know German ? "
" Well, it's this way, I've got a bit bookie, English
words down one side and German down the other, and
I compare the two. I can make it out fine, and thus I
edicate myself."
" And what sort of reading would you like ? " said we,
breathless.
" Oh, most anything you could send. . . . Now, if there
were such a thing as a German Shakespeare, I think I
could make him out."
After that we did send some reading to that wonderful
Jim ; and of the wintry nights, long and dreary, he
will be sitting in his humble croft with the old mother
" edicating " himself with the help of his dictionary.*
We have seen many countries, but nowhere have we met
the like of this ! It is the hard-yielding soil, the hardship
borne.
* This boatman is by no means a solitary instance. One of the
finest British Goethe scholars, we are told, has thus educated
himself in a Highland cottage.
342 A Colony of Mercy
Well for a man if he bear the yoke, and not only in
his youth ! Scotland is blessed in a race like this. Let
the gander take heart.
We would fain add a word also to an umbrella
landlord. Proof of tenants' hardship is rife in that
region, but this book is not a muckrake. Yet this : the
tenant of that cottage never by any chance in this fitful
climate makes a £30 rent of thirty acres. It is a simple
fact that this man and his family have to do hard
work off the farm, doing gillie work and other service
between the seasons, in order to find the landlord's rent.
If the landlord farmed that bit of land himself, he could
not make so much as ten shillings an acre, perhaps not
five with paid labour ; this family, then, slaves away for
his gain. This were hard enough, if harvest never failed ;
but it does fail, and half-fail often ! This very year, with
incessant rains and early frost, it has suffered seriously —
not a sheaf garnered by the end of October, but snow
on the ground ! And here they are with their wretched
cottage, winter once more upon them, suffering in health
too, the man ill as we write with this week's wet in the
cottage, yet not daring to appeal to the landlord for
a reduction of rent lest he show them the door ! Can
these lords of the soil be forgetting there is a Door,
before which the children of men one day will stand
knocking for admittance? Is there any one among
them who would not have it said of him then : He was
a landlord in the days of his earthly life, but he was
faithful? Do they not know that landlords actually
will be wanted in heaven to be set over five cities, over
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 343
ten, but only if they were faithful over the one city — the
property — they held here? Landlords are not singular
in this : it is true of every one of us, we all one day shall
stand knocking at that Door. . . .
Yet it is not so much the landlord as the iniquitous
system, which is at bottom to blame, and the country is
answerable for tJie system. Such landlord rule, such
cottages, should be a recollection of the dark ages. But
future history will have to chalk up the strange fact that
a civilised country at the latter end of the nineteenth
century had returned to the childhood of nations in
having a nomad people — homeless, houseless tribes, for
sheer want of cottages.
And what of the Christian country, sending her
missionaries to the ends of the earth to convert the
heathen, the Chinaman, and her own wandering children
never inside a school, never inside a church — born by
the roadside, and, for aught we could learn, dying by the
roadside, animal, heathen ? Who, think you, will have
to answer for this when Britain, as a nation, one day
shall stand knocking at that Door ?
m * * * *
We expect to be told this is a queer book, beginning
with epilepsy and ending with land trouble. But we
could not help it. We only followed upon the track of ■
our working model. Bethel, large-hearted and high-
souled, ever ready to comfort all manner of human
sorrow coming under her notice, is launching out in
every direction, and we have caught some of her spirit.
Beginning these pages, we had not the remotest intention?
nor faintest suspicion even, we should eventually alight
344 A Colony of Mercy
on Scottish home affairs ; it is only that we have hap-
pened to carry our manuscript to these Highlands, and
once here we were helpless : our receptivity window
standing open, impressions have streamed in, till we
were overpowered : we simply could not help receiving
them, putting them on paper, and here they are.
For this is a true tale, and thus it was obtained : The
writer having had her vision last winter of the " Pro-
gramme of Christianity " realised, returned to Bethel in
the summer to pick up the story. She was prevented
unfortunately, or fortunately, from taking any notes,
having sprained the wrist of her writing hand. As for
those in authority, they really were little help ; with Pastor
von Bodelschwingh she twice got ten minutes, — in the
winter, when there was no question of book-making, she
had seen more of him. The other pastors were a little
more accessible ; but everybody there is far too busy to
attend to you, even if you want to write their story.
Statistics they have, plenty, and report papers, a tre-
mendous collection, which Pastor Sturmer after some
coaxing handed over. But these, after all, were not what
one wanted : one wanted talk, one wanted to hear and
see, one wanted impressions. So all this unfortunate
writer could do, labouring as she was with her vision,
the mighty message of Bethel, was to throw open the
shutters of her soul that impressions might stream in by
the window of receptivity. She had four weeks of this,
and often wondered was there enough for a book?
Some one suggested, in fairness to the colony she ought
to stay six months. " No," she said, " such a book must
be written while the ' first love ' is strong." She went
The Message of Bethel to Ourselves 345
about with her soul in her ears, in her eyes, watching ;
and unawares some of the folk were got to talk, little
hints of the working secret leaked out, little stories
of the past. One day, towards the end of her stay,
Pastor Sturmer inquired solicitously, had she transcribed
a sufficiency of his mountain of report work ? Not a
word. And then she told him how she rather relied
on her receptivity window. " That will be a nice muddle
you have got," he said, looking at her doubtfully. She
had even told him statistics were no good, and that she
wanted to catch the ideal spark, to fling as a kindling
power into English souls. " H'm ! " he said, " that's
a big mouthful." Pastor Schmidt of Hermon had a
truer word, as she bade him good-bye — he was seeing
her a little way through the beech wood, past Zion
Church. "It will be just like this," he said; "it will
be as it is with us when we are making a sermon :
you may have your mind brimful of preparation, but
after all God has the making of that sermon" And
so — her window open still — she went to that Highland
cottage, right away in the solitary wilds, with the one
hope, that God Himself would have the writing of
this book.
*****
There is a science which says " Survival of the Fittest,"
and capital, that awful power, says so too. But Bethel
says — the spirit of Christianity says : " Salvation of the
Least."
THE END.
APPENDIX
The Imperial Law of Insurance of German working men and
working women against Permanent Ill-health and Old
Age, passed June 1889, came into force January 1891.
This law may well be called the aged Emperor William's legacy
to his people. It was his darling thought, and the preparation
for it occupied the waning years of his life. For fully five years
some of the wisest men of the empire put their heads together
to work out this provision for the German working man and
working woman, and the present Emperor did not fail to carry
out this bequest of his august grandfather, a true gift to the
people.
Like all insurance, it is based on the principle of mutual
assistance, with this difference, that those insured — viz., the
working population, of which there are about twelve millions in
the empire — do not solely bear the burden of the premium, but
one-half only, the other half being paid by their respective
employers. No working expenses attach to this insurance, the
business part being managed by the Imperial Post Office, so
that the full benefit of the funds collected may flow back to the
insured working people.
It is compulsory.
Every man-servant and woman-servant, every factory worker
(male and female), every man and woman working for any
wage whatsoever — in short, the whole working population of the
country — is required by law to join this insurance after the com-
pletion of his or her sixteenth year. Clerks, small tradespeople,
and others may join whose incomes are not above ^100 a year ;
such " self- insurers," as they are called, paying the whole pre-
mium, there being no employers liable on their behalf.
347
348 Appendix
There are four classes of this insurance, according to the
wages of the individual, viz. (omitting fractions) : —
Class I.
on wages of £\% a year and under.
„ II.
>> 5J Zj>2* )) )>
„ III.
>» J) A>4 5' >>
„ IV.
,, ,, above ^42 ,, not exceeding ^100
The weekly premiums, to be paid equally by every working man
(woman) and by their employers, are : —
Class I.
(seven Pfennige) about \d.
„ II.
(ten ,, ) „ id.
„ III.
(twelve ,, ) ,, \\d.
„ iv.
(fifteen ,, ) „ \\d.
Thus, be it understood, for every penny paid by the working man,
the servant, and the factory hand, the employer pays a supple-
mentary penny ; and the employer is bound to see that both
pennies are duly paid up every week. Speaking of " pennies," in
actual value it is tenpence to the shilling.
Some employers grumble ; for, if a great factory owner employs,
say five hundred hands, the insurance mulcts him in about £$
weekly — about .£250 a year. Yet is it hard on the great employers
of labour, asking them to assist in making provision against the
rainy day for their " hands " ?
This provision for the future is going on in every German
household. If you have a cook and housemaid, you have to
see to their being insured by means of their weekly twopence
and your additional twopence. If you employ a charwoman
— but to show how well it is regulated : workers by the day,
of course, also pay their weekly pennies and it is the employer
who takes the first day of any given week (the Monday em-
ployer; or, if they stay at home on a Monday, the Tuesday
employer) who has to supplement the insurance. No one
grumbles at this ; your charwoman once a week has a right to
ask for her penny over and above her day's wage. Indeed, if
one were to inquire in German families, one would find that the
paterfamilias ', in very many cases, not only pays his penny
cheerfully, but the cook's and housemaid's penny also. The
trouble is not the penny, but the despatching of it properly
and regularly.
Appendix 349
For it has to be taken to the Post Office, which gives a certain
oblong stamp for the penny (or pennies), the weekly stamp being
affixed on a card, which card has to be kept by the insured person.
When full, it is exchanged for a fresh card, on which the summed-
up value of the previous one is duly entered. If you are inex-
perienced enough to go to a German post-office for your ordinary
postal affairs on a Saturday — which seems the chosen day for
most of these insurers, in certain districts at least — you may learn
a lesson in patience watching the stamp-sticking insurance
business of your more humble fellow-mortals. Some impatient
person has nicknamed the insurance the "stick-law" in con-
sequence, which designation, sad to say, has passed into
currency.
Now, by this " stick-law," which came into force two years
ago, over five million pounds sterling have already been col-
lected. Twenty years hence, it is computed, there will be an
accumulated fund of twenty -five millions, eighty years hence an
accumulated fund of fifty millions.
The benefits accruing are that any working man, any working
woman, thrown permanently out of employment by sickness or
accident, draws a sick pension, or, living over seventy years of
age, an old-age pension. The claim to the sick pension is estab-
lished if less than one-third of the yearly wage has been received;
if health returns, the pension, of course, is discontinued. These
pensions are not large, else the weekly premium would have to
be larger than it is and become a burden. They are intended to
make the sick one, the aged one, a welcome addition to any house-
hold of his or her own class, which otherwise might look askance
at them.
A man or woman is entitled to the sick pension after having
paid insurance for five years ; indeed, there is a generous pro-
vision in this kindly "stick-law" that if any man or woman be
thrown permanently out of employment even during the first or
second year of its working, if he or she can prove they have
been in receipt of an honest wage during the last five years (in
which case they would have been insured if the law had already
existed), they are entitled to its beneficent provision forthwith.
Similarly, some aged pilgrim already near his three-score and
ten can, after having paid in for one year, draw the old-age
pension, if he can prove he has earned his livelihood during the
last three years. This is doing it generously.
The pensions paid in case of permanent want of employ-
33
o Appendix
ment through sickness or accident (after five years and under)
are : —
Class I. (omitting fractions) £$ i<\s. a. year.
» II. ,, £6 5s.
,, III. ,, £6 us. „
?j i*- >> £7 J?
These pensions rise proportionately with the years of insurance.
Thus a man or woman, having paid in for fifty years, would
receive : —
Class I. (omitting fractions) £& — a year.
„ II. ;£l2 ios. „
„ HI. -, £16-
„ IV. „ ^20 1$S. „
While any man or woman, irrespective of sickness, having
passed his or her seventieth year and having paid in for thirty
years, is entitled to an old-age pension, viz. : —
Class I. (omitting fractions) £$ 6s. a year.
„ II- ,, £6 *$s.
» HI- » £% 3s.
„ IV. „ £9 us.
3 }
3'
Two cases to exemplify the working of this insurance and the
benefit received : —
Take the case of a woman aged thirty-seven ; in her twenty-
fourth year she lost her right arm, through sickness or accident,
no matter which. If the law now in force had been in force then,
she would from her sixteenth year have paid into the insurance,
and so would her employer ; she would have paid (say Class II.)
in about eight years some 38^., but she would have been drawing
for the last thirteen years a yearly pension of £6 15J., in all over
;£8o ; and she will draw her pension as long as she lives.
Take the case of a man aged forty-nine, who for the last eleven
years has been permanently unfitted for work in consequence of
ill-health. If the provision had already been in force, he would
have been insured for twenty-two years ; he would (say Class III.)
have paid in all about £6 4^. (his employer paying the same
amount on his behalf), but for the last eleven years he would
have drawn a pension of about £10 55". a year ; he would have
drawn some ^112 in these eleven years, and his pension will
continue while he lives. Now, supposing this man to have a
thrifty wife earning a weekly sum on her own account, perhaps
Appendix 351
some growing sons and daughters bringing a few shillings each
to the household, such household, even with a disabled head
bread-winner, would not be badly off.
To every pension paid the public purse adds £2 10s. a year,
which is included in the figures above given. It is a State pro-
vision, and the State does its part, having the use of the funds
meanwhile.
If servant-girls or other female workers marry, they have the
option of continuing the insurance — in which case the whole
premium, of course, falls to their charge — or they may discon-
tinue it ; receiving in that case the sum standing to their credit —
not a bad arrangement for a bride in humble life. Also, if a
man dies without in his own person having drawn the benefit of
the insurance, his widow or his children, if under fifteen years
of age, inherit the sum standing to his credit. Likewise, if a
woman dies in similar circumstances, her children, if fatherless and
under fifteen, inherit what may be standing to her credit. The law,
indeed, is rich in sub-paragraphs, witnessing to the true benevo-
lence which framed it. For instance, if a man or woman entitled
to the pension be habitual drunkards, the pension is not given
them in cash, but in kind !
These, briefly, are the main features of the compulsory in-
surance of the German working population, and the great point
to be noticed is this : the pensions are not a charity, like parish
relief. These men and women, are e7ttitled to draw this benefit,
having themselves made it possible, by paying up their pennies.
They are not fiaufiers, then, when the ills that flesh is heir to
overtake them. It is a fine thing to keep a man above the pauper,
and by his own exertion, too, supplemented by your charitable
foresight. Moreover, it is not every man for himself only, but
every man for his neighbour ; it is a lifting of the whole working
population to a higher level. As we said above, the provision
is on its first trial ; a weak point here, a weak point there, may
claim modification ; but the same benevolence which framed the
law will no doubt watch over its workings, and will amend it
whenever need of improvement may become evident. The spirit
of the law is admirable, and its aim a truly noble one, ensuring
not only pensions, but a moral growth of the people — an im-
perial gift indeed.
Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.
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