042. Adelphi; The Open Air Mission, The Pure Literature Society

8/9/2019 042. Adelphi; The Open Air Mission, The Pure Literature Society

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Sir John Kirk: The Children's Friend

Chapters

Title Page

Foreword

Chapter I

Chapters II and III

Chapters IV and V

Chapters VI and VII

Chapters VIII and IX

Chapters X and XI

Chapters XII and XIII

Chapters XIV and XV

John Kirk Main Site

Sir John Kirk

2 . 9 . 0 5

Title Page

SIR JOHN KIRK

THE CHILDREN'SFRIEND

by

John Stuart

Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged

London

S.W. Partridge & Co.

8 and 9 Paternoster Row

1907

BUCKINGHAM PALACE,

17th May 1907.

Sir, --I have had the honour of submitting your letter to the King,

and I am commanded

to inform you, in reply, that His Majesty is happy to accept the

copy of your "life" of Mr. John Kirk which you have forwarded to

me for him. --I am, Sir, Your obedient Servant,

KNOLLYS.

JOHN STUART, Esq.

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Foreword

Dedicated

By Permission

ToHer Royal Highness

THE PRINCESS CHRISTIAN

Herself a lover

Of all good works

FOREWORD

Six years ago I had the pleasure of making Mr. John Kirks personal

acquaintance. In 1903, in response to my wish that I should prepare a

monograph of his life and work, he placed his numerous scrap-books

at my disposal and gave me much personal information. The pressure of

a busy life delayed the completion of my pleasant task, and there was,

in addition, a modest reluctance on Mr. Kirks part to intrude his

personality upon the public.

When the fact was known that 1907 marked forty years of service in

connection with the Ragged School Union, a desire arose

spontaneously in many minds that some mark of national appreciation

should be bestowed upon so zealous and unselfish a worker. This

culminated in the presentation of address, portrait, and substantial

cheque at the Mansion House, fixed for May 14, 1907, under the

presidency of the Right Honourable The Lord Mayor, Sir William

Treloar.

This seemed a fitting time to expedite the publication of this sketch of

Mr. Kirks life and work. The correspondence received by Mr. W. J.

Orsman, honorary secretary to the Testimonial Fund, would of itself fill

a volume, and has ranged from the humblest Ragged School worker to

the Princess Christian, who graciously and most cordially accepted my

dedication of this book to Her Royal Highness.

It is a delight to enjoy the friendship of a man like Mr. John Kirk, and I

am grateful to him and to the publishers for the privilege of compiling,

however unworthily, this sketch of a life full of usefulness and blessing.

JOHN STUART

March 1907

*******************************

Note to Second Edition

It is a matter of sincere satisfaction that the publishers large first edition

of this book was exhausted nine months after publication. The many

appreciative Press notices and numerous personal letters which have

reached me are still more gratifying. Lord Knollys letter of acceptance


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by the King is printed on another page. Some slight corrections have

been made in the body of the work, ensuring accuracy; and a further

chapter has been added narrating the interesting series of events

connected with the National Testimonial and Knighthood by His

Majesty.

J.S.

HERSHAM,

WALTON-ON-THAMES


Chapter I

Chapter I

From Village to City

The little house in which John Kirk first saw the light stands right

opposite to the handsome parish church of Kegworth, a village of a

thousand or more inhabitants, seventeen miles from Leicester. Its

nearest market town, Castle Donington, is three miles away, and itself

has a population under four thousand. So often does it happen that the

unknown hamlet produces men whose names become household

words.It is an encouragement to resolute and ambitious youth in every age that

positions are earned and won by those who were nurtured in humble

surroundings, and without those special advantages which wealth and

rank, education and patronage are though to bring. Mr. Kirks father

was the village tinman and brazier, employing two or three assistants.

He was a man of sterling moral qualities without any special religious

enthusiasm.

His family consisted of six sons and three daughters. Samuel, the eldest,

assisted his mother to maintain the business after his fathers death, and

was of that bright winsome temperament which endeared him to the

whole village, so that his death at the early age of twenty-seven was

greatly lamented. John was the second son. The third was George, who

died in 1899. One died in infancy, and Alfred is now in Canada.

Charles, the youngest, after a brief foray into the turmoil of London

business life, returned to Kegworth, where he fills a large share in the

social and commercial life of the village, and is held in general regard.

Of the three daughters, one died in early life, one several years ago, and

the third still survives.

The roominess mentally associated with a thinly populated English

village even in this generation is not always coincident with spacious

dwellings or healthful systems of sanitation. And it not infrequently

happens, despite the general rule, that country youths are far from

robust. This, at least, was the case with John Kirk, whose impressions

of childhood are rather of a dull-grey. He suffered much from

headaches and languor, arising from physical weakness, so that he had

little vigour for play, and was more content to watch the enjoyment of

others games.
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The delicate child, however, is often nearest the mothers heart, and the

good lady, who lived until 1891, achieving the ripe age of seventy

years, and saw her son crowned with honour and success in incessant

labours for children, could have no higher tribute than that sons remark

in later years: A palace would have been a prison without mother.

When she came in at the door my sorrow went out by the window.

Until he was ten the boy attended the village national school, but when

strong enough to face the trudge, three miles and back to Castle

Donington, he studied at a small academy held in the Baptist School of

that town. Of its master, Mr. Stenson, Mr. Kirk speaks in terms of high

respect. The curriculum would not bear comparison with that of a

twentieth century grammar school, but it included the rudiments of

Latin. Mr. Stenson was a master of that art of graceful copper-plate

handwriting so much in vogue in the early Victorian period, and its

influence may be traced in the firm, rapid, and stylish penmanship whih

characterizes Mr. Kirks very ample correspondence.

Still more valuable was the taste for reading and literature implanted by

his tutor, and most helpful to his moral development was the personal

example of Mr. Stenson and his sympathetic talks during the dinner

hour. A good disciplinarian, he emphasised the need of reverence and

the value of courtesy, of purity of speech, and of strict regard for truth

all which virtues have been amply displayed in at least one pupils

subsequent career.

In an interesting series of articles in the Sunday Companion, entitled

Incidents of my Youthful Days, Mr. Kirk in 1901 contributed some

reminiscences of his boyhood. One is that of being separated from his

mother on a busy market day in a midland town, when a kindhearted

policeman gave the lost bairn a shelter at the police station and treated

him to buns. Another is that of the yearly invasion of the Sleepy

Hollow of Kegworth by Irish harvesters, and his dread lest any harm

should come to his father when the Irish process of haggling began. Thislove for his father was a deep-seated affection, quite remarkable in a

lad, and its fragrant memory remains to this day.

Presumably the boy was a favourite with the villagers, many of whom

had entered upon the stress of life with but scant acquaintance with the

three Rs. At all events they used him as their amanuensis. Husband and

wife, widow and worker, and even lovers, called in his aid in the art of

useful and polite letter writing.

An interesting experience with the pen came in his having a share in the

copying of the old and faded parish registers, which dated back some

three hundred years. Sometimes, says Mr. Kirk, I would lift my eyes

to look on the greensward under which the dust of the old generations

was lying in the Gods acre just over the way. Nor was it a bad

preparation for the future conduct of many services that he copied

something like a thousand hymns for a new compilation.

It is worth while to note the source of that deeper life which has

subsequently flowed in so many streams of Christian usefulness. We are

told: Definite religious impressions came through a cousinwoman

grownwho lived at some little distance. Sometimes I became her

guest, and greatly I enjoyed my visit. How tenderly I was receivedI

can never forget her prayers with and for me. She took me to her classin the Sunday school. Through her I realised the unseen as I had never

done before. How much I still owe to her saintly influence! How simply,

sometimes, the heavenly is reached through hallowed channels of earth!

As a now long experienced Sunday school teacher, I am strengthened

in faith and good works by this sweet personal memory.

Special interest in the young lad had also been displayed b the then


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curate of Kegworth, the Re. Peter Lilly. As ill-health compelled him to

winter in the Riviera, his regard reached a climax in the offer to take

with him the delicate boy. It was a remarkable opportunity for the stay-

at-home villager, who had never even seen London. With some

reluctance at parting so long from their child, the parents agreed, and

John Kirk entered upon the first of his numerous Continental journeys.

The experience was wider than that of mere travel. Basking in a sunny

clime, and moving amid a strange people, he was to gather new

impressions and ideas at a far more rapid rate than is possible in any

school or academy. The width of view then acquired by the studious,

inquiring lad has proved a valuable possession in a life crowded withincident and rich in personal acquaintance. An extract will show how

well, on occasion, Mr. Kirk can use his pen.

What a romance it was! First of all London, the unlimited, was glanced

at, and then I battled with the rough seas of the Channel. I heard for the

first time a strange tongue in a strange land. I saw the genius of its

people enshrined in the stones of Amiens Cathedral. Then followed the

wonders of Paris, the bustle of Lyons, the old-world air of Avignon,

and the maze of Marseilles.

We left the railway for the diligence, and crept along the fairyland of

the Riviera. We stayed not until our chosen shelter lay before us, in themidst of the oranges, the lemons and the olives, the blue waters of the

great inland sea washing the strand outside the garden gate.

Young Kirk was thirteen when cam to him this new revelation, and his

stay at Mentone lasted six months. Politically, it was a rather exciting

time. Napoleon III, having aided the ambitions of the young Italian

nation, had annexed a portion of Sardinia to France, and the English lad

heard a curious jargon of Italian-French.

But while gaining health, enjoyment, and experience by the

Mediterranean shore he had endured an unexpected and distressing

bereavement by the death of his father. It is even surmised that this was

hastened by grief at the absence of his favourite son, for the affection of

the boy for his father was equalled or surpassed by that of the father for

his boy.

The bereavement had several consequences. It threw a heavy strain

upon the widow with her young family to maintain. But the kind-hearted

curate was equal to the occasion. He employed his companion in Italy

in his Kegworth household as an assistant almoner in the

neighbourhood.

During an epidemic of whooping-cough Johns share was to weigh and

pack up the medicine. House to house visitation gave him an intimate

acquaintance with the life and environment of the very poorest, and

sowed seeds of sympathy which have since born rich fruitage.

In a year or so Mr. Lilly was appointed vicar of Collaton, near

Paignton, and thither youn Kirk accompanied him, remaining until he

was sixteen. Evenings were spent as a pupil of the village schoolmaster,

and so progress was maintained. But he was also educating himself by

rambles in the great book world. He was sub-librarian of the village

library, and he read or skimmed every volume. To use his own phrase:

Reading awoke thought, it nurtured character, it bred judgment.

The friendship of those early days between the curate and the village

youth has been cemented by time. Proud of his quondam pupil, the now

venerable clergyman is ever glad to entertain as his guest the

philanthropist who has since acquired an almost national reputation. Mr.

Kirk, for his own part, counted it one of the pleasantest features of a

recent autumn holiday that he was able to spend some days in Mr.

Lillys quiet country vicarage.


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Mr. Lilly, now a venerable octogenarian, wrote as follows:

"COLLATON VICARAGE

Jan. 12, 1907

DEAR SIR,It has been to me a very great pleasure to hear of the

movement for recognising in some suitable manner Mr. John

Kirks forty years of faithful works in connection with the Ragged

School Union, and to receive your kind invitation to the meeting at

the Mansion House. I should indeed be rejoiced if it were possible

for me to be present, but the long distance, together with my

fourscore years, will not allow me to come.

I regret this the more because I can claim to be Mr. Kirks oldest

friend, and have known him from his boyhood.

I feel sure that it will be a great satisfaction to all those who have

had the opportunity of watching his indefatigable labours on

behalf of the children to take part in this movement, and thus to

testify their sense of the value of a life devoted, as it has truly

been, to a work of such national importance.

Believe me, dear Sir, yours faithfully,

PETER LILLY

In the same year, 1863, that witnessed Queen Alexandras enthusiastic

arrival in London, John Kirk, now a youth of sixteen, made a humble

entry into the business life of the metropolis. There existed at that time

the Church of England Book-hawking Society, whose agent was a

Mr. John Morgan in Paternoster Row. Its functions were subsequently

transferred to Messrs. Rivington, publishers. His stay with Mr. Morgan

was brief, but long enough to gain some experience of the publishing

trade, and to master the simple but not very prevalent art of neatly

covering books in brown paper. Those who practise it on their own

volumes can testify to the valuable protection it affords.

The young bookworms first lodgings in London were in Whitechapel,

where lived some former Kegworth neighbours. Thus early he saw day

by day the East End poverty. The Old Bailey of that time, with its

crowds awaiting the sentence in some great murder trial, differed from

the modern thoroughfare.

It was characteristic of the new arrival that when asked to give a

specimen of his handwriting by Mr. Morgan, he traced the words: Not

slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.

Further experience of books came in his next appointment. This was in

the office of the Pure Literature Society, an organisation founded by

Rob Roy Macgregor and others in the year 1844 for the purpose of

disseminating healthy reading. Within a few months of its formation, Mr.

Richard Turner was appointed secretary, an office he has now filled for

more than half a century. On the ground floor of a roomy house in

Buckingham Street, Adelphi, one of the quiet little thoroughfares

between the busy Strand and the Thames Embankment, this Society

has rendered, and is rendering, good service to the cause of pure

literature. It publishes no books, but issues a list of those which may

safely be purchased for libraries or gifts by persons who would make

books a mental and moral inspiration. Each volume is read by at leasttwo friends or members of the committee, and only on their

recommendation is it added to the catalogue. So great is the enterprise

of publishers, however, that the most recent list contains nearly five

thousand titles of chosen books, varying in price from sixpence to half-

a-guinea, and ranging over the fields of science, travel, biography,

fiction, and Bible study. In the slack autumn months members of the

staff call upon booksellers and newsagents throughout the country. All


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through the year there is a steady flow of applications for library grants

books being supplied to schools, clubs, parishes, army depots, and

ships crews at half the published price. Thus a comparatively small

income from subscriptions is turned into a highly useful channel.

These years of familiarity with the best books, when youth was dawning

into early manhood, were of high educational value, not only to the

mind of the book-lover, but in fostering his moral and spiritual impulses.

Moreover, the association with Mr. Turner ripened into life

acquaintance and friendship. In later years they travelled frequently

together in European tours, and in London philanthropy and Christianwork they have been in constant touch. Mr. Kirks first connection with

Ragged Schools came through Mr. Turners introduction, he himself

being superintendent of the Ann Street School, Camberwell. In this, for

five years, Mr. Kirk laboured as a teacher, and subsequently as

honorary secretary, and here he met the lady who became his wife.

The young clerks salary was not princely, but it had to cover numerous

demands, for John Kirk had sent to Kegworth for his younger brother

George, and they lived and studied together. Both were of a

persevering nature, and they toiled diligently at Pitmans system of

shorthand. John found it of service in taking down sermons and

addresses, and as the future Mrs. Kirk had also mastered its symbols,

letters of courtship were safe from prying eyes.

Mr. Kirk still preserves the following cards:

1869, Des. 16

Kard ov membership to Jon Kirk of Fonetik Sosieti.

Klas I.

Izak Pitman,

Sekretari.

Jan. 12, 1870.

I hereby certify that Mr. John Kirk has a thorough knowledge of

my system of phonography or Phonetic Shorthand and is a

qualified teacher of the art.

(Signed) Izak Pitman.

George Kirks tastes inclined to the law, and in due time he practised

as a solicitor.

Polytechnics and continuation schools had hardly arisen in the sixties,

but private study has been the privilege of all ages. The young aspirant,however, attended evening classes for French and German at the

Working Mens College, and became a member of the Church of

England Young Mens Society.


Chapters II and III

Chapter II

The Real Ragged School
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Mr. Kirk was still a young man of twenty, in the office of the Pure

Literature Society, when the call came to what has practically proved

his life-work.

As has been mentioned, he was already associated with Ragged School

work, and in that connection had come into touch with Mr. J. G. Gent,

then and for many subsequent years secretary of the Ragged School

Union. The Societys offices were two rooms in Exeter Hall, the Exeter

Hall of olden days, recognized throughout the English-speaking world

as the centre of Christian philanthropic agencies.

The Ragged School Union was the Earl of Shaftesburys institution. The

gulf between the aristocrat and the coster and the poor was vast but the

Christian Earldespite his tendencies to narrownesscould bridge it

with delight to himself, and with joy to the recipients of his bounty and

interest. Like all men of means and position, he was besieged with

begging letters, and was content to seek the knowledge and aid of the

Ragged School Unions secretary, Mr. Gent.

The Strand was not a long way from his lordships house, 24

Grosvenor Square, afterwards occupied by another Ragged School

Union president, the Earl of Aberdeen, and by others, and he was a

frequent visitor to the office, and a fairly diligent attendant at the

meetings of the committee and of sub-committees. It was also the

practice of Mr. Gent, and after him of Mr. Kirk, to call upon Earl

Shaftesbury once or twice weekly and keep him au courantwith the

Societys affairs.

Mr. Gent himself, who died in 1894, at the ripe age of eighty-two, was

an elderly, good-natured official of the quiet Times-reading type

existing before typewriters, telephones, and a dozen mails a day had

solved the problem of perpetual motion. The chief business of the

Ragged School Union of the sixties was to aid in the maintenance of

day schools for the poorest and most unkempt classes. In the year of

the Second Reform Bill the Union had 200 such schools under its wing.

The British and Foreign School Society had united educational

reformers throughout the country, who were caring for the children of

those trade and artisan Nonconformists who objected to the

Establishment. In London hundreds of thousands were unreached by

Anglican, Catholic, or Noncomformist, and Ragged School workers

did their best to empty the gutters. It was a heroic effort, heroically

maintained, and, after all, could but touch the fringe of the population.

The workers themselves were not readily endowed with this worlds

goods, being recruited from tradesmen, foremen and superior clerks.

The well-to-do who supported the Ragged School Union werecomparatively few, and their gifts for a twelvemonth only aggregated

4,008.

The committee of the Union did not undertake direct work. They

gathered funds and distributed them in grants to local committees who

were facing the burden of day-school maintenance. A generation has

grown up which knows nothing of those days of the lean kine; many

missions to-day conduct operations in substantial buildings. But forty

years ago the working philanthropists took what they could get, and the

best was bad. Sheds and tenements of low pitch, ill-ventilated, without

sanitation, with damp and dirty walls, unrelieved by maps and pictures,and fitted with desks and benches hardly good enough for firewood

were the Victorian equivalent for the modern school palace.

These buildings were used by day for teaching, by night for clubs,

meetings, and sundry purposes, and on Sundays for schools and

services. In many cases one section of supporters would be most

interested in the Sunday religious work; then came divided counsels and


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rough working.

Of course there were limited Government grants, awarded by H.M.

inspectors, who lived in a state of chronic discontent at the miserable

accommodation. But remonstrances were unavailing. Even had the

early committees been as wise educationists as they were devoted

philanthropists, their reply must have been the same: No Funds!

For the chief requisite in teaching is the teacher, and the teacher could

no more live on air than a Scotch dominie, and he was less fortunate

than his Highland brother in that he had not been early taught the value

and economy of oatmeal. But it was hard work to provide the teachers

salaries, small as the were. The ablest men and women of course

obtained the best posts in Church and British and Wesleyan schools;

those without certificates, and some who had never tried for

parchments, gravitated to these poor Ragged Schools. The united

incomes of husband and wife managing a boys and a girls school often

failed to reach 100 a year, and where a headmistress of to-day

receives 300 (it is true supervising many more scholars), the woman

teacher of that day could often not count on more than 30.

Their qualifications varied; yet clearly, in many cases, the attainments

were low; and in the early days of the London School Board, when,

one by one, these schools were closed because not reaching an

efficient standard, it was quite easy for an arrogant young solicitor to

make merry before the magistrate over a teachers misuse of hs and a

sad indifference to Lindley Murray.

These workers must not, however, be wholly judged by such

standards. Many, indeed most, came to their work with a zeal and a

sympathetic interest in the children beyond all praise. Men like Mr.

Kirk, whose experience and memory reach back to these early days,

are the best able to realize what enormous strides have been made. But

they aver, also, that no sooner was a school even of the humble and

imperfect character just described, opened in a neighbourhood, than it

gradually and unconsciously affected its inhabitants.

The schools werefree ; no payments were exacted from the scholars.

The urchins who came were shoeless and hardly clad at all; they were

ill-fed and often starving; they were the poorest of the poor. But soon

there arose a feeling ofamour proper; often stimulated by the efforts of

teachers and committee to lighten their dark lot, they would try to come

washed, and better clothed, and slowly dark ignorance gave way to the

elements of knowledge. These keys, in turn, opened to many doors of

wisdom, usefulness, and progress.

Every effort, too, such as that of the Ragged School Union, drove one

more dart into the national conscience and helped to pave the way for

the attempt made by Mr. W. E. Forster to institute a really national

system of education in 1870.

It was in this seething time of reform and agitation that Mr. Kirk was

appointed assistant secretary of the Ragged School Union. One day he

was in Mr. Gents room when that gentleman was opening letters from

candidates for the then vacant post. A happy thought struck the

Secretary, who said in his quiet tones:

Why dontyou apply for the post? You are just the man who could

serve us.

This was October 1867. Mr. Kirk took the hint, wrote his letter, and,

with the slow haste characteristic of committees, in December the

appointment was formally completed, and the young man entered on his

duties.

They were far less onerous than have become those of his successors.


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With the aid of a boy, two or three copies of the monthly Ragged

School Union Magazine had to be issued, subscriptions

acknowledged, and full records kept of the Societys connection with

the Ragged Schools aided by grants.

Oversight was maintained through two inspectors of visitors, salaried by

the Committee. One of those, Mr. E. J. Hytche, spent his time in calling

and reporting on the schools north of the Thames, and Mr. R. J. Curtis

visited those in South London.

Few names that can be recalled of the committee and workers of the

sixties live now in public remembrance, though their works follow

them. Mr. Robert Mountstephen, a ruddy-faced hay salesman in

Smithfield Market, was a very devoted worker and a model

Superintendent of his Ragged School in Field Lane. A one-armed man

named Watts, a railway employee, proved what splendid service the

humblest ranks may render. Mr. R. J. Snape, a barrister, who for forty

years served on the committee, was a valuable co-worker. Miss

Snape, his sister, became the wife of Prebendary Cadman, who at one

time had no fewer than seven Ragged Schools under his immediate

care.

The name of George Holland is indissolubly associated with George

Yard, Whitechapel. He was a special favourite of Lord Shaftesbury,

and often associated with H.R.H. the Duchess of Teck and with

members of the aristocracy. Queen Victoria sent him a copy of her Life

in the Highlands, with an autograph inscription. He was a real power

in East London, and a neighbouring clergyman said of him that his life-

work was the most perfect and satisfactory he knew.

Earl Cairns, Lord Chancellor, was a man remarkable for many gifts,

and not least for his labour as a Sunday school teacher. He, too, was

associated with Ragged School work. Dr. Stoughton, the

Congregational historian and eminent divine, was also in fellowship with

the movement, as was Rev. Henry Allon, the gifted and musical minister

of Union Chapel, Islington. The Ragged School in Nichol Street was

under his aegis, and Mr. Henry Spicer, with members of his family,

were devoted teachers, as were also Mr. Henderson and Mr.

Erlebach.

Dr. Allons successor, the Rev. W. Hardy Harwood, who is a great

lover of children, is a vice-president of the Ragged School Union.

Dove Row Ragged School bears an honoured name, one of whose

worthiest adherents has been Mr. Hardy, a day-school teacher. Mr.

George Kelsey, who long served as treasurer, has but recently died.

Mr. Cotsford, still living was until recently superintendent, and was

associated with Mr. Gent in Agar Town even before the Ragged

School Union was formed.

It is not always that workers see or know of the beneficent results of

their toil. Yet sometimes the deeds of these worthy men come to light.

In January of 1907 Mr. Kirk, while at Hove, met a grocer who in

boyhood had been taught in Hatfield Street School by a Mr. Robottom,

and now when groups of children are lodged in Hove working-class

homes through the summer, gathers and cares for them the whole of

Sunday. In this way he endeavours to requite the kindness shown him in

early days.

Mr. John Macgregor (Rob Roy), whose energy and enthusiasm oozed

at every pore, was deeply interested in the dissemination of pure

literature. As everybody knows he was the originator of the Shoeblack

Brigade, an offshoot of the Ragged School movement. In its early days

no embers were enrolled save those who were nominated by teachers

of Ragged Schools. The committee of the Union voted 200 towards


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the erection of premises for lodging and recreation in Saffron Hill, and

in other ways assisted the movement. One of the most devoted

workers in the Brigade was Mr. Martin Ware, long the superintendent

of Peace Cottage Ragged School, St. Pancras, and a veteran standard-

bearer of the Union. Mr. W. J. Taylor, Secretary of London Female

Preventative and Reformatory Institution of Euston Road, also served

his apprenticeship to Ragged School Union work at Peace Cottage.

One of Rob Roys marked characteristics was the persuading other

people to work, and it was only natural that he should find valuable

recruits in the legal profession with which he was himself connected.

One of the most distinguished of these was the young student who has

been so long known as the upholder of Christian statesmanship in the

House of Commons and the advocate of Christian missions everywhere

Sir John Kennaway, Bart, M.P.

One of the men who companioned with him on the Conservative

benches was the late Earl of Harrowby, better known as Viscount

Sandon. When Mr. Forsters Education Bill was in the air he was a

constant caller at the Ragged School Union office to confer with the

officials and the committee.

On the general question it was rather remarkable that Lord

Shaftesbury, the unswerving friend of the poor, should have taken

umbrage at Mr. Forsters proposals. Of necessity they had to start

from the premises of efficient education, which implied efficient teachers

and efficient buildings. All schools and buildings, private or public,

which, after a fair interval, failed to come up to a reasonable standard,

must necessarily be regarded as inefficient and shut out from receiving

government aid. Lord Shaftesbury was, as we have said, deeply

interested in his clusters of Ragged Schools, and foresaw their doom,

since it would be impossible, from private sources, to raise the amount

needful to adapt them to the laws new requirements. He therefore

assumed a somewhat rather antagonistic position, and the Education billhad to be carried through without the valuable aid which, had he looked

at the matter from another standpoint, he would have been able to

render.

His view was not shared by all members of the committee, and Rob

Roy, seeing that the change must come, and with an ever alert mind,

was among those who resolved to adapt themselves to the new order

of things and find some other channels of usefulness for the Ragged

School centres in the metropolis.

The good Earls fears were well founded. On the formation of the

London School Board, and its enquiry as to which were efficientschools, one after another of the poorly-equipped Ragged Schools

were condemned, and had to be abandoned by the committees. The

Sunday departments were maintained, but hardly one-tenth remained

for secular education, and the last of them, Stephen-the-Yeoman,

continued until 1906.

This mission in Marigold Place still continues its varied useful agencies,

and may be described as an example of the very poorest. It is situated

in Marigold Place, about fifty yards off Jamaica Road, Bermondsey on

the one side, and a stones-throw from the river on the other. It is

neighboured by a population largely consisting of dock labourers, and

besides the drink cause of poverty, has that of casual and often scarce

labour.

In 1859, in a room at the street corner, a very humble educational

beginning was made, and in 1863 a small one-storeyed building was

erected on the present site, to which Lord Shaftesbury was a constant

visitor. So late as 1901, his son, the Hon. Evelyn Ashley, presided at


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the annual meeting of the Mission.

Through Lord Shaftesbury, Miss Charlesworth, author of that delightful

book,Ministering Children, and aunt of the Miss Charlesworth who

became a Salvationist and married one of General Booths sons, was

led to take an interest in this particular school. She, with many of her

friends, also became visitors. Miss Charlesworth was a lady of rare

heavenly-mindedness and of great generosity, expressing itself in a

variety of ways. On one occasion she came to the school, accompanied

by a coster, whose entire barrowful of apples she had purchased. She

specially set aside 100 from the profits of her book,English Yeomen,

towards a new building in 1861 (hence the name of its hero, Stephen-

the-Yeoman). Her brother, the Rev. Samuel Charlesworth, contributed

generously to a second building twenty years later. It has two storeys,

several class-rooms, and kitchen apparatus.

A tablet over one fireplace records Miss Charlesworths virtues, and

another on the opposite side, below a portrait of Lord Shaftesbury,

records his introduction of that lady. It was rather a sad coincidence

that on the very day (October 1, 1885) the new foundation stone was

laid, Mr. Kirk received a telegram announcing Lord Shaftesburys

death.

It was a mixed school, accommodating about a hundred and fifty

children. The four lady teachers constituting the staff drew a salary

aggregate of194, and in 1901 the Government grant amounted to

204. All other outgoings had to be met by donations. Each teacher

wrought cheerfully in some other department of the mission. Miss

Challis, the principal, after forty years service, is still, in optimistic

youthfulness, continuing her self-sacrificing labours, and finds warm

friends in Lady Newnes whose philanthropy iis as retiring as it is

generous and in Miss Friedrichs, of the Westminster Gazette. Mr.

Charles Morley, M.P., is president of the whole mission. Among other

workers are Mr. Farmer

who founded the school

Mr. John and Mr.James Menzies, and Mr. J. H. Challis.

The kindergarten teacher was twelve years at work, and so gentle were

her methods that even H.M. inspector mentioned the fact in one of his

reports. Another assistant took entire charge of the breakfasts and

dinners given in the winter months. The fourth rendered valuable service

in the Sunday school held on Sunday evening. This is crowded with

scholars, most of the boys among whom have, at one time or another,

been in far too close touch with the police.

The various agencies of this and kindred schools are maintained in a

truly Christ-like spiritSunday services, Band of Hope, Girls FriendlySociety, Evenings for the People, Penny Bank, Flower Show, and the

like. The Mothers Meeting at Stephen-the-Yeoman, long conducted

by Mrs. Menzies and Miss Stone, is held on a week evening for the

convenience of the women, and is largely attended. Strenuous efforts

have been continuously made to find clothes for the children,

wretchedly clad beyond any conception of West End folk. Sometimes

a girl attends with absolutely only one garment, many without shoes and

stockings, and the majority appear to wear foot-gear utterly useless for

protection and originally the property of adults. The condition of some

of the boys is pitiful in the extreme, and yet there is great difficulty in

extending relief, for in many families a pawnable article does not long

remain.

It is surprising what charming little people are some of these children in

the infants department. Golden hair, lovely eyes, and pretty ways

would make some them priceless treasures for the artist. They are quite

a joy to the teacher, and, though sometimes mischievous, are

remarkably obedient. A girl of six, who has quite a talent in recitation,


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one day suddenly altered a line, and declared, It drives me fair balmy!

When reproved, she argued that she Quite forgot herself.

It is in the years of boyhood and girlhood that the influence of home (!)

and surroundings is felt for evil, and the teachers difficulties increase.

But the twentieth century student of social problems will find, if he cares

to visit, a real Ragged School in Marigold Place, Bermondsey.

Each Ragged School has almost invariably been a similar hive of useful

agencies for adults as well as children. They were originally pitched in

the most densely populated quarters and amid the worst slums. The

conductor and his friends would raise their voices in hymn or speech in

some court or alley, and women would open their windows, look on,

and listen, the men perchance lounging against the walls with pipes in

their mouths.

The next step was that some would be induced to enter the mission-

room. To attract and hold them, clubs were formed and pleasant

evenings maintained. When, perforce, day-teaching was stopped,

additional efforts were made in this direction. Gymnasia were found to

delight and recreate the children and the elder lads; Bands of Hope

were sustained, and special services for children were promoted.

The Committee of the Ragged School Union altered also their method

of making grants. Hitherto such monies as they received had been given

solely to day-school managers; now they made smaller gifts in aid of

every kind of useful effort which local committees set on foot.

Yet in face of the appalling ignorance of the masses, the educational

idea was ever uppermost with men of the type of John Macgregor, and

evening schools were started in very many of the buildings. Teachers of

a superior stamp, employed by the London Board and Voluntary

School managers, were not averse to adding to their income by

working a couple of hours on several evenings of the week.

Evening schools are difficult at all times, even with the most ambitious

pupils, for after a days physical toil or mental study, the penultimate

hours before bed are the very worst for fixing intellectual powers on

new subjects. Experience proved that in the poorer classes of working

folk, fatigue, weak health, and insufficient nourishment subtracted

largely from the power and willingness to learn. Nor did the evening

school teachers cherish the same personal interest in their pupils as that

felt by the less qualified men and women who had entered into the

work largely as a labour of love. So year by year the number of these

schools diminished. Now they are entirely merged in the London

County Council Evening Continuation Schools.

It was necessary, of course, that they should be supervised on behalf of

the Ragged School Union Committee. Mr. Curtis, already mentioned,

retained his connection, paying in the evening the visits of inspection

formerly made in the day. Mr. Hytche having retired, Mr. Kirk, whose

position as assistant secretary made him familiar with the schools, took

a share in the duties of inspection.

Secretaries and others calling at headquarters naturally took a liking to

the young fellow of genial bonhomie and Christian courtesy with whom

they had most to do. He was not a mere official, but a Ragged School

worker like themselves, and numerous were the invitations he receivedto visit them on Sunday afternoons and evenings. Through the four

decades following, this relish for Mr. Kirks presence has been

preserved, and every mission affiliated to the Ragged School Union of

to-day not only seeks his name for the printers placard, but gives him

hearty welcome on arrival.

The young inspector, being known as a friend, was gladly received by


14/25

the conductors of the evening schools, and in the course of time he

became familiar with every school and with every department of local

enterprise.

The committee felt equal confidence, for on Mr. Kirks acceptance of

the secretaryship of the Open-Air Mission (to which our next chapter is

devoted), he continued for some months to attend the Ragged School

union office during the day and to discharge his mission duties in the

evening. Very quickly, however, these increased, and the Open-Air

Mission demanded the whole day, leaving only the evenings for the

Ragged School Union service.

If 186773 was the most easeful period of Mr. Kirks strenuous life,

that of 18739 must have been about the hardest, since through nearly

the whole period he would, during five evenings of each week, visit

something like a score of the evening Ragged Schools.

Advantage lay, however, in meeting a host of self-denying workers.

There were men of ripe experience, as their grey hairs testified; men in

the prime of life and devoting their best energies to the uplifting of their

fellows; some were men of the same age, who have marched step by

step with john Kirk in the varied developments and advances which

have arisen in the Ragged School movement. Many have been called to

higher service, and others are perforce resting from their labours, yet

able to write or dictate a letter at times to show their unabated interest

in the ever-increasing usefulness of the Ragged School Union.

Sir Charles Gage Brown, for some time medical adviser to the Colonial

Office, was a member of the Ragged School Union Council, until failing

health compelled him to retire. He was one of the first to write his good

wishes for the Testimonial Fund, and his desire, if possible, to be

present at the Mansion House meeting. The honoured secretary of the

Church Missionary Society, Prebendary H. E. Fox, when Vicar of

Christ Church, Westminster, was associated with the Ragged School

there; in the house of Mr. Robert Baxter he and Mr. Kirk often met.

Mr. Baxter was a Parliamentary solicitor, and father of the Rev. M.

Baxter ofChristian Heraldfame.

Mr. James Pascall, a former member of the London School Board,

was a worker for twenty years in the Croydon Ragged School.

Mr. J.T. Dunn, long connected with the Metropolitan Tabernacle, was

superintendent for many years of the Richmond Street Ragged School,

Walworth, and with his energetic colleague, Mr. C. G. Barr, Mr. Kirk

has long worked in cordial intimacy.

Baptists are, generally speaking, hard workers, and Mr. Kirk has foundno more faithful supporter than in the Rev. William Cuff, whose peculiar

gifts have so long maintained in spiritual prosperity the manifold

agencies of Shoreditch Tabernacle.

To the Lambeth school the members of the Briant family have been

attached for two generations, Mr. Frank Briant, member of the London

County Council, being still interested. With this in its early days some of

the Doultons were associated. At present it rejoices in the

superintendency of Mr. William Medwin, who is a worthy successor of

the somewhat noted leader, Mr. W. H. Miller, who has long since

passed to his rest.

********************


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Chapter III

The Open-Air Mission

On July 17, 1873, Mr. Kirk was appointed secretary of the OPEN-

AIR MISSION, another of the Christian agencies which were the

outcome of Rob Roys ceaseless activity.

The Committees choice was not made because Mr. Kirk was himself

an ardent open-air preacher, although in the summer of 1880 he had

but one dumb Sunday. His natural gifts do not lie in the way oforatory. Long practice in the exposition of subjects more especially his

own has made him an effective speaker, and wide reading and close

observation have added a great wealth of illustration. But the office life

of a busy man, when followed by an engagement from home almost

every evening in the week, leaves scant opportunity for that quiet

meditation which enables a man to plan with sermonic and scientific

exactness a logical arrangement of thoughts. Speaking often, and

frequently on the same platform at distant intervals, the best that he can

do is to take the though which comes uppermost and clothe it with facts

or anecdotes noted that day in the newspaper or the office

correspondence.

Mr. Kirks easeful fluency of speech comes out to greatest advantage

seated at his desk or across the dinner table. There, in cultured and

dignified phrase and in quiet tones, he presents his argument with force

and paints word-scenes with picturesque effect.

Nor was it in any way essential that the new secretary of the Open-Air

Mission should himself be a street preacher. His business was to

organise, guide, protect, support, and unite the company of earnest men

who, in London, the provinces, and elsewhere, were intent on carrying

the Gospel to the people.

The first committee of the Open-Air Mission was constituted in June

1853. The only name among the eight gentlemen who composed it

which survives the lapse of years is that of Mr. John Macgregor (Rob

Roy), who filled then, until his death, the post of honorary secretary.

For several years the secretarial work was undertaken by Mr. John

Wilde Taylor at an office in Robert Street, Adelphi, removed in later

years to Duke Street.

The first report reads like a defence of open-air preaching, and this

shows how marked the influence of the Mission has been on public

opinion, since to-day no one would consider the practice needful of

defence.

Its difficulties are common to every age, and they are outlined in the

very first Occasional Paper issued by the Society. There are, to begin

with, the imprudent and indiscreet men who open up controversy they

are not sufficiently well equipped to maintain. Then, a single

mischievous person can disturb the congregation. And there are the

peculiarities in the English climate which affect both speakers and

hearers. One friend of the Mission, a University man, compiled a thirty-

two age pamphlet to show that laymen had a right to preach.

The new movement, however, went steadily on, extending to fairs and

race-courses in the provinces, to public executions, and to any great

concourse of people, such as a Royal visit. Other friends spent their

summer vacations in rendering similar service.

In the course of a few years auxiliaries to the Mission were formed in

several London districtsSouthwark, St. Pancras, and Islington being

specially to the front.


16/25

Early use was made of literature, and from the outset generous grants

were made by the Religious Tract Society. The Mission also provoked

other bodies to similar good works, such as the London City Mission,

the Church Pastoral Aid Society, the Lay Helpers Association, Young

Mens Societies, and the London Diocesan Home Mission. An early

record shows that some of the plans for regular week-night services

included the leading clergymen and ministers of the neighbourhood.

A register was kept of lay preachers associated with the Mission, and a

common rallying-point was found in a meeting held on the last Monday

evening in each month. Speakers and subjects were highly varied, and

proved extremely useful.

In 1860 Mr. Gawin Kirkham succeeded to the post of secretary, and

except during the years 18737, was connected with the society until

his death. His name is inextricably linked with the mission; he was a

persuasive and powerful open-air speaker, a man of wide brotherly

sympathies, and of a deeply spiritual nature. On his devoting his whole

time to the office, the range and extent of its operations very

considerably increased; permission had been obtained for services in

the parks, others being regularly conducted in lodging-houses. Large

and clearly-printed Scripture placards were regarded as effective silent

preachers.

An amusing line in the report of the ninth annual meeting records that

Mr. Payne (subsequently Deputy Judge of the Clerkenwell Sessions)

read his 1738th poetic effusion. At the same meeting one of the

speakers was Mr. Robert Baxter, who, until his death, was one of the

missions warmest friends.

Since in later years we have experienced the salutary change of

executions being privately conducted, the younger generation can

hardly realise that throughout the greater part of the Victorian era vast

crowds were wont to witness the spectacle of a man or woman being

hurled into eternity.

The records, e.g. of the Mission in 1862, describe a scene at

Lancaster, when, to avoid the shame of a public execution, the prisoner

drowned himself: As the crowd of three thousand or four thousand

people who had assembled would not go away, they were addressed

for three hours by the secretary, the town missionary, a local minister,

and a Yorkshire farmer. Many persons in the crowd had walked ten,

twenty, and even thirty miles; and so morbid were the tastes of some

that they shouted for the dead body to be brought out and hung up. It

was deeply interesting to see the people sitting on the churchyard wall,

and crowding round the preachers as they stood under the castle andspoke the words of eternal life.

Many other executions were attended that year, and at that of

Catherine Wilson, forty workers distributed 60, 000 tracts.

It is interesting to turn back to these days of the sixties and seventies of

last centurydays since which so much has happenedand learn the

qualifications deemed essential for open-air preachers.

1. A good voice.

2. Naturalness of manner.

3. Self-possession.

4. A good knowledge of Scripture and of common things.

5. Ability to adapt himself to any congregation.

6. Good illustrative powers.

7. Zeal, prudence, and common sense.


17/25

8. A large loving heart.

9. Sincere belief in all he says.

10. Entire dependence on the Holy Spirit for success.

11. A close walk with God by prayer.

12. A consistent walk before men by a holy life.

Very few such Admirable Chrichtons were to be found; but while some

men entered upon the work from egotism or unworthy motives, the

majority of those identified with the Open-Air Mission were earnest

godly men.

The value of union lay in mutual protection and counsel. Among a

number of hints given by the South London Auxiliaryand often

reprinted in the Mission paperswere sensible instructions, such as

these:

Work with others whenever you can, and as much as possible

regularly with the same group.

Let there be an acknowledged leader with each group.

Avoid services at late hours, noisy singing, vulgar tunes,

shouting, and ridiculous gestures.

Do not preach on controverted doctrines.

Do not attempt fine language or artificial manners.

Never resist the police.

Always speak courteously.

Give place to brethren who can speak better than yourself.

Always speak reverentially of God.

Never thrust tracts at persons.

At the time Mr. Kirk entered upon the work of the Mission Mr.

Gawin Kirkham having left it to assist the Rev. W. Pennefather at

Mildmaythe number of members was 160, and the income from

donations and subscriptions was 394. The races visited numbered 42,

fairs 39, and other special gatherings 26. Enough fields were occupied

to engage one mans time and to require his ability. Mr. Macgregor, the

Hon. Arthur Kinnaird, who was treasurer, and other members of the

committee had wisely judged that Mr. Kirks gifts of organisation and

his eagerness for work would lead to the extension alike of fields,

methods, and income. Nor were they disappointed, as the records ofsix and a half years service show.

The only remaining members of the original committee of the Mission,

after twenty years of work, were Rob Roy and the late Hugh Owen

(afterwards Sir Hugh Owen).

But in numbers and social weight the committee was now stronger,

including Colonel Wilmot Brooke, Colonel Kelly, Colonel Roxburgh,

Admiral Fishbourne, Mr. Robert Baxter, Sir C. Douglas Fox, Mr.

Henry Gibson, Mr. Lockhart Gordon, Mr. Richard Turner, Mr. Joseph

Weatherley, and others.

There was also a special list of distant corresponding members residing

in various cities of the United Kingdom, and in Australia, Canada,

Holland, Belgium, and the United States. Conspicuous among these

was Mr. D. L. Moody, then located at Chicago.

The most delightful feature of the Open-Air Mission was, and is, its

thoroughly unsectarian character. The first annual meeting arranged by


18/25

Mr. Kirk was held at the Wesleyan Church, Approach Road, Victoria

Park. On another occasion addresses were delivered by the Vicar of

Blackwall, the Presbyterian Dr. Edmond, and Dr. Samuel Manning of

the Religious Tract Society.

The first complete yearly report presented by Mr. Kirk showed

considerable advance. In 1856 the fairs and races visited numbered 18;

in 1872 the total was 107; in this year1874it had risen to 217,

ranging from Deal to Plymouth, from Yarmouth to Southport; and the

number of tracts presented by the Religious Tract Society alone

numbered 223,000. The leading religious journals seem, from time to

time, to have printed appreciative notices of the work done.

The twelve monthly conferences, held in various parts of the metropolis,

had been full of interest. Rob Roy lectured on The Sea of Galilee; and

it is interesting to note that thirty years ago Dr. Lorimer described St.

Paul Preaching at Rome, and the Rev. Mark Guy Pearse dwelt upon

The Gospel Preached to the Poor.

In this year, too, we come upon a report from the Christian Mission

under the superintendence of William Booth, now General of the

Salvation Army. He records that at their 34 stations, 7540 open-air

services had been held; these in East London and some large provincial

towns. A Hastings correspondent writes in the same year: At Warrior

Square we had services almost every fine Sunday evening, and a

mission, under the superintendence of the Rev. W. Booth, held

meetings in the Fish Market, Hastings.

Provincial items came from numerous towns, such as Abingdon,

Brighton, Cambridge University, Cardiff, Leeds, and Portsmouth, and

Mr. Gawin Kirkham made his annual trip to Yorkshire, very truly

remarking that Seven services a day are enough to test any man.

Encouraging notes came also from Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Dundee,

from Halifax in Nova Scotia, and from Hobart Town, Tasmania.

The next years report (1876) showed that 200 members had been

elected, who were assisted by some 600 workers, all being invited to

the monthly conferences. Besides arranging this central series, Mr. Kirk

had attended some 50 smaller conventions and meetings to extend

open-air work. That year a service in French was held regularly in

Soho, and Bank Holidays were being turned to good account.

Happily the old style of fair, with its crowds and excesses, was largely

passing away, but a new departure had been taken in assisting, by

special speakers, whose expenses were paid, various clergymen and

ministers who undertook special missions. These in 1876 numbered

244, and included an encouraging months work in Guernsey. This

involved increased expenditure; but the Mission was growing in public

confidence, and the years subscriptions and donations amounted to

731, including a special gift of100 from the Baroness Burdett-

Coutts.

Mr. Kirk was also successful in inducing Archbishop Tait to permit the

use of Lambeth Palace grounds for the annual meeting of 1876, and

himself to give an address. That statesman-ecclesiastic rightly observed:

Whatever efforts may have been made to extend the usefulness of the

Church according to its prescribed and regular machinery, you will all

see that it is quite impossible for any regular efforts of ordained clergy

to keep pace with the ever-growing populationIt is of the very

essence of such efforts as that which has brought us here to-day, to

endeavour to reach those who cannot be reached by the ordinary

ministrations of our churches.

The conferences of the year were maintained at their usual high level.

Opened in January by Rob Roy, the chairmen included Lord Ebury, Sir


19/25

George Williams, Mr. T. B. Smithies, Prebendary Row, and the Right

Hon. Cowper Temple. Dr. Culross spoke on The Preachers

Commission; Pastor William Cuff asked, apropos of Mr. Moodys

visit, What has the Revival left Us? Dr. Donald Fraser dealt with

Regeneration, as related to Gospel Preaching; and Mr. W. R.

Cooper delivered an instructive lecture on Ancient Egyptian Theology

and Literature and their relation to the Holy Scriptures.

Thirty-five pages of the report are filled with interesting memoranda

from the various districts. Mr. W. J. Orsman, so long the honorary

superintendent of Costers Hall, says of St. Lukes, Clerkenwell: For

our open-air services we have no banners or texts, but simply a

hundred good singers, who are led by a small harmonium. The Rev.

Styleman-Herring regularly conducted open-air preaching in the

barbican. At Ramsgate services were held nightly on the sands.

This was the year following Messrs. Moody and Sankeys great

missions, and everywhere sounded echoes of their speech and song.

Even in France evangelistic efforts were being made. The Rev. W. F.

Cobb organised five weeks energetic work among the Kentish hop-

pickers. For the tenth consecutive year Mr. Kirkham visited the great

Gala Day of Bury St. Edmonds, and was assisted by a hundred

preachers and singers. The increased number of private race-courseshad unfortunately provided further scope for effort.

The persistent efforts of the Mission had largely removed the scruples

cherished by some Christian people as to the propriety of such

visitation, and inherent difficulties of the work were slowly disappearing

the Secretarys love of reading led him to quote in the new report a

passage from Conybeare and HowsonsLife of St. Paul, showing that

the Great Apostle pursued an absolutely similar plan in visiting festivals

at Corinth, Ephesus, and other cities.

His appreciation of books led to an attempt to form an office library for

the preachers. Publishers and friends contributed, and some books

were bought, but the collection hardly reached the dimensions or the

usefulness that Mr. Kirk desired.

The number of towns visited during the year rose in 1877 to 271; and

so general was the demand for capable helpers on the part of local

friends, that Mr. Gawin Kirkham (after the death of the Rev. W.

Pennefather) was appointed travelling secretary, devoting his whole

time to open-air work. This, together with the expenses of other

helpers, increased the expenditure, though, so great was the hospitality

of friends, only once did he have occasion to use a hotel. Happily,

under Mr. Kirks fostering care, the income also increased, the amountof donations and subscriptions in 1877 reaching 897, besides a legacy

of200. In addition, free grants of tracts were received of the nominal

value of258. The total of tracts, scripture cards, and other

publications issued during the year grew to the large total of 637,500.

Mr. Kirk found another source of income and of greater public interest

by enlisting the aid of London clergy and ministers. Sunday, May 5,

1877, was used in 187 pulpits to advocate the claims of the Mission,

and gifts from the collections to the amount of66 reached the Mission

treasurer. Of these, forty-eight preachers belonged to the Established

Church, and included many notable men, some of whom have long

since joined the Master, while others are still proving their devotion by

service. Among them may be mentioned Dr. Whittemore, Rev. Gordon

Calthrop, Rev. R. C. Billing, Rev. H. E. Fox, Rev. C. Neil, Canon

Hussey, Canon Money, Rev. Henry Sharpe, and Prebendary Webb-

Peploe.

Among the ten Presbyterians were the Rev. J. B. Woffendale, who in


20/25

his teens had carried the reference books to which, if needful, Rob Roy

appealed when combating atheistic arguments in the still popular

debating square near St. Pancras Station.

Baptists were specially cordial in this new movement, forty-five

ministers lending their aid. The Rev. J. P. Chown, sturdy alike in form

and principle, and in the zenith of his fame at Bloomsbury Chapel, was

a faithful and powerful supporter of the Mission. Dr. Dawson Burns

upheld the banner in Paddington, Pastor Cuff in Shoreditch, Dr.

Culross in Highbury, George W. MCree in Borough Road, Charles

Stanford in Camberwell, Pastor Frank White in Notting Hill, Rev. J. R.

Wood in Upper Holloway, and Pastor C. B. Sawday at Kings Cross.

Congregationalists were less numerous, but included some able

exponentsRev. W. F. Adeney, M.A., at Acton, Dr. Fleming in

Kentish Town, Dr. MAuslane in Finsbury, Rev. James Knaggs at

Stratford, G. D. MGregor at Paddington Chapel, Thomas Sissons at

Woolwich, Josiah Viney at Highgate, and J. De Kewer Williams at

Hackney.

Quite a number of Wesleyan ministers then in the London circuits

assisted, among them Thomas Champness, George Curnock, Professor

Findlay, Allen Rees, and John S. Workman. Other denominations were

represented, and some unattached bodies. (General) William Booth

was then at a Mission Hall in Whitechapel Road, George Hatton in

Clare Market, Gawin Kirkham at Conference Hall, Mildmay Park, and

Mr. W. J. Orsman at Foresters Hall. A hundred other ministers, who

wrote, sympathising with the objects of the Mission, from various

causes were unable to unite in preaching.

In other respects 1877 was a year of progress. The register of

members increased from 200 to 314. A list of 142 stations, occupied at

regular times in London for preaching the Gospel, was issued to

members. Many were sustained throughout the whole year. Twelve

auxiliaries were maintained, and others were in course of formation.

The single badge of membershipa small lettered ribbon to hang from

the Bibleand only given after careful scrutiny, was being increasingly

valued as a cementing link between the qualified preachers.

The School Board was abroad, and in the spirit of the new educational

era the committee had arranged four lectures on The Art of Reading

and Speaking by the Rev. Alexander J. DOrsey, B.D., Lecturer on

Public Reading and Preaching at Kings College, and as the first

accommodation provided proved insufficient, a larger hall was secured,

in which gathered some four hundred preachers. Many profited, and

some continued their studies privately.

Owing to largely increased membership, the central monthly meetings

were exchanged for district gatherings; but quarterly meetings were held

in the Queens Square Mission Room, Westminster, long maintained by

Mr. Robert Baxter, and used in the day as a Ragged School. This

gentleman defrayed the expenses, and occasionally entertained

members at his residence in Queen Annes Gate.

The monthly assemblies in 1876 had included a special address to

open-air preachers by Charles Haddon Spurgeon, and a lecture by Dr.

Thain Davidson on London a Hundred Years Ago. In 1877 one

subject was: John Wesley: a Model for Open-Air Preachers, and

among the speakers was Sir Stevenson A. Blackwood. At the annual

meeting the Earl of Shaftesbury presided, and the speakers included

Dr. Paterson and Dr. Joseph Angus. At the annual meeting in 1878 the

president was Sir John Kennaway.

The annual report for 1878the twenty-sixthcame out in new guise.

It was printed in clearer type, and its special feature was illustrations.


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Woodcuts in those days were expensive, but nine engravings included

Preaching in the Punjab, Preaching at Pauls Cross, An Open-air

Pulpit at St. Marys, Whitechapel, and Gwennap Pit, Cornwall,

where John Wesley preached. These added greatly to the interest of

what had now grown to a voluminous pamphlet of seventy-two pages.

Advance was still the key-note. Mr. Kirk could now count on 375

members and 21 auxiliaries 331 races, fairs, ftes, and the like had

been visited, and 726,000 tracts and papers had been distributed.

Donations and subscriptions reached a total of1,168; this the second,

years church collections realised 162, and 76 had been forthcoming

from the sale of tracts and books. The balance in hand had grown from66 to 140.

A printed list of nearly two hundred stations in London gave the day

and hour of service and the minister or layman who acted as

superintendent.

Since Mr. Kirks appointment the Committee had issued to the

members a motto card:

1874. Occupy till I come (Luke xix. 13)

1875. Be not far from me (Ps. Xxii. 11)

1876. He is faithful that promised (Heb. X. 23)

1877. He that winneth souls is wise (Prov. Xi. 30)

1878. Redeeming the time (Col. Iv. 5)

1879. Lay up His words in thine heart (Job xxii. 22).

Not long before her lamented early death (June 3, 1879), that gifted

hymn writer, Frances Ridley Havergal, had woven these texts into six

stanzas, which she sent, together with 6,000 of her leaflets, to the

Mission, saying: I do think yours is such a brave work for Jesus. May

I pass on to you a text I never noticed till this morning? My glory was

fresh in me, and my bow was renewed in my hand (Job xxix. 20),

taken with Christ in you, the hope of glory (Col. i. 27), and His bow

abode in strength (Gen. xlix. 24). May your glory thus be fresh in you,

and your bow renewed in your hand.

This was the last complete report for which Mr. Kirk was responsible.

When Mr. Gawin Kirkham heard that he had been appointed Secretary

to the Ragged School Union, he remarked: There isnt a man in

London who would not feel it an honour to be invited to fill that post.

He himself returned to the office he had previously held in the

Open_Air Mission, and in which he had rendered such yeoman service.

The progress of the Mission had continued, and during 1879 had

attracted considerable notice from the London Press. By this time the

Christian Mission, under its larger title ofThe Salvation Army, was

doing good and provoking opposition. Several Judges had upheld the

Metropolitan Board of Works in refusing permission to preach on

Clapham Common and Leicester Square. On the other hand, there was

rejoicing at the increased toleration in Roman Catholic countries of

open-air preaching, the Burgomaster of the Hague saying that One

good street preacher is worth ten policemen.

In this connection Mr. Kirk himself contributed a brief report of his

experiences at Basle, which shows his facility with the pen.

"There is a charm and attractiveness about any street novelty

which conduces much to its popularity, if not success. The sight of

the usual crowd at the street corner now no longer excites the

query, What is it? but is often dismissed with the comment, It

is only the street preacher.It was in some respects quite


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refreshing to confront an audience and to deal with people who

had never before seen or probably heard of open-air preaching,

and such an opportunity was afforded during the meeting of the

Evangelical Alliance at Basle, in Switzerland, last summer.

The various conferences and meetings were deeply interesting, the

unions of Christians from all lands was delightful, while a spirit of

brotherly love and joy abounded. With all this it was felt that some

testimony ought to be left with the people around, many of whom

as in our own land, were too evidently strangers to Him whom to

know is life eternal.

At my instigation an application was made to the town authorities,

by General Field, for permission to preach out of doors. After

some delay, Herr Sarassin intimated that there was nothing in the

Swiss laws to prohibit this; he and his fellow burghers, however,

did not feel justified in giving formal authority, but thought the

experiment might be tried, and, it was hoped, with success and

blessing.

A romantic spot was chosen at the foot of the old bridge spanning

the river Rhine. A constant

stream of people passed and repassed, and the unused space on

the bank of the swift-flowing stream seemed made for an open -air

service. Some earnest German pastors attended, with the Revs.

John Greton, De Kewer Williams, William Tyler, Wilson, and other

veteran ministers; and Mrs. Michael Baxter secured the help of

some ladies in the singing. Leaflets with Sankeys hymns in German

were distributed to the people, who quickly began to gather round

the knot of foreigners. The commencement of the singing was the

signal for many more to come, and the crowd soon numbered

some hundreds. It was a strange and impressive sight. Lofty

houses overlooked, bearing strange-looking names; the many

windows were thrown open. The surging crowd revealed a motleymixture of garb and face.

All went well for a time. Safe in the arms of Jesus was sung

heartily, followed by earnest pleading with God to bless His word

to the souls of the audience, and then Dr. Baedeker told of the love

of God to poor perishing sinners, amid silence and attention. A

portion of Scripture, rather indifferently read, was listened to

impatiently. A German pastor next gave Herrings for Nothing,

in a German dress, and at the literal intimation ofherrings for

nothing, which, by the way, were magnified to mackerels, some

one angrily interrupted. He was joined by others; and as the

disturbance increased, it was deemed prudent to sing. This over,

the Rev. John Greton began to speak, each sentence being

translated from the English by Pastor L. He was not

allowed to continue, for a gendarme came pushing his way

through the crowd to the speakers, and insisted in loud tones on

the meeting being stopped. The letter from General Field was

produced amid great excitement in the crowd, but this failed to

satisfy the irate representative of the law, who swore and got into

a great passion. As further altercation seemed likely to cause a

breach of the peace, Messrs. Greton and Kirk were led off to the

police station, followed by the threats and jeers of the people.

Much gesticulatory talk followed, and, after promising to appear

before the town authorities in the morning, the preachers were

liberated, thankful to be counted worthy to suffer persecution for

righteousnesssake. The next morning Herr Sarassin kindly

undertook the responsibility from the preachers, but begged them

not to make another attempt.


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So impressed, however, was this godly man with the desirability of

such an effort, that he secured the central space in the Barrack

Square on the following Sunday, and there ministers and laymen

preached the everlasting gospel to an attentive audience of two

thousand people.

Thus was an effectual door opened, and the good news of the

kingdom proclaimed in spite of many adversaries."

The severance of Mr. Kirk from immediate association with the Open-

Air Mission was received with very general regret, but this regret was

tempered by rejoicing that he had entered into a sphere of yet widerusefulness. His term of office had brought him into contact with many

hundreds of Londons most earnest Christian workers; in journeyings of

the had met like-minded men in all parts of the country; and the regard

for him cherished by many of high and of low degree had been

deepened.

All this found expression in the most sincere and grateful fashion.

First came a minute upon the records of the Committee, moved by Mr.

Richard Turner, seconded by Mr. John MacGregor, and supported by

Colonel Robert Wilmot-Brooke:

That the Committee of the Open-Air Mission regret to receive

Mr. John Kirks resignation of the post of Secretary, the duties of

which he has fulfilled, during nearly seven years, with zeal, ability,

and success.

The Committee believe that they express the general feeling of

the members and friends of the Mission in sincerely thanking their

late Secretary for his earnest work in the past, and uniting their

hope and prayer that his future labours in another part of the

Christian field may continue to receive the blessing of Almighty

God.

LOCKHART GORDON, Chairman.

In April 1880 the Committee showed their appreciation by doing Mr.

Kirk the honour of adding him to their membership. He still retains the

post, which is honorary in the second sense that he can spare but little

time to join in the Committees deliberations.

The general feeling of the members rapidly assumed a more

substantial form. At a gathering in December 1879, the secretaries of

the Metropolitan Auxiliaries were constituted a Committee to arrange a

testimonial; and though the united subscriptions were valued from the

numerical rather than the financial point of view, in less than threeweeks more than 50 was subscribed by 251 contributors. The

presentation took three forms: (1) a handsome writing table, which in

Mr. Kirks home has been in almost daily use; (2) a valuable gold

watch which he wears to this day; and (3) a cheque for the

unappropriated surplus.

Upon both watch and the writing table is engraved this inscription:

Presented to Mr. John Kirk by Members and Friends of the

Open-Air Mission as a token of esteem on his resigning the

Secretaryship and with prayerful expectation that he will be

blessed and prospered in his renewed connection with the RaggedSchool Union.

January 26, 1880

GAWIN KIRKHAM, Sec.

It was not the least pleasing part of the whole matter that Mr. Kirkham

should have thrown himself with enthusiasm into the testimonial to his

friend and co-worker, and on February 16, 1880, he writes:


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MY DEAR KIRK,I now close my pleasant labours in

connection with your testimonial by handing you a cheque for the

balance, 20, 11s. 9d. The accompanying album will explain

everything else, and also enable you to peruse the correspondence.

The Lord bless you in your office, in your home, and in your

spiritual life.Ever yours,

GAWIN KIRKHAM.

This handsomely bound quarto album referred to had pasted on its

leaves all the letters sent by subscribers in remitting amounts varying

from sixpence to twenty shillings, and at the beginning has an

alphabetical list of those so sending. The author may be permitted to

say that few men can have in their possession an object of greater

appreciation and interest, or an heirloom of which children and

grandchildren may be more justly proud.

Among the indexed names are those which have been casually

mentioned in the course of this chapter, and among others are Bishop

Billing, Rev. Burman Cassin, Canon Clayton, William Quartermaine

East, Jonadab Finch, William Forbes, John Groom, Dr. Gritton, H. L.

Hastings (of the Boston Christian, who sent Mr. Kirk a copy of his

Critical Greek and English Concordance), Sir Duncan MacGregor,

Major C. H. Malan, R. Cope Morgan (of the Christian), Hon.

Captain Moreton, Hon. Thomas Pelham, Wm. Olney, jun., Samuel

Gurney Sheppard, Joseph Weatherley, Edward Wright, and Charles L.

Young.

The list is comprehensive, not only in its representation of individuals

and districts, but by the inclusion of so many officials of kindred

societies.

Many of the letters are of indifferent calligraphy, but show the regard

Mr. Kirk had inspired among the artisan workers in the Mission.

A friend writes from Uxbridge: I have always received the greatest

respect and assistance.

One from Battersea: Will you please axcept this small Triffel as a

Token of my Esteem for the Fellowship and Services of Dear Mr.

Kirk.

A Camden Town worker, remitting twelve stamps, strikes at one of the

roots of Mr. Kirks success as a secretary: He has filled the post so

well, paying the utmost attention to any communication.

A Brentwood correspondent adds: I never had to transact

correspondence in Christian work with any secretary I liked so

much.

A lawyer in Chancery Lane says: Although I have not the pleasure

of his personal acquaintance, judging from the nature of his work

in connection with the Mission, I can heartily join in any

testimonial.

At the first quarterly meeting in 1880 (January 26) in the Queen Square

Mission Hall, Westminster, the presentation was made by Rob Roy,

after which the Rev. Marcus Rainsford, M.A., delivered an address on

The Secret of Success.

The Christian Worldwrote: Mr. Kirk, who was received with

immense applause, and who was evidently affected by it, expressed

his feelings of deep gratitude for the testimonial, the value of

which had been enhanced by the way in which it had been given

and the kind words with which it had been accompanied.


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042. Adelphi; The Open Air Mission, The Pure Literature Society

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Transcript of 042. Adelphi; The Open Air Mission, The Pure Literature Society