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Jerry McAuley Mission of Today
The
HE old Jerry McAuley Mission was the
first rescue mission in the world, where
the drunkard was more welcome than
a sober man, a thief more welcome than
an honest man, and a poor lost girl
more welcome than a beautiful, pure
woman.” These are the words of
Sam’l. H. Hadley, a redeemed drunkard
for more than twenty-three years,
T
and the efficient’superintendent of Jerry McAuley
Mission for twenty years. This wonderful old mis
sion that carries on such an immense work with
drunken humanity is situated on Water street,
nearly under Brooklyn bridge, New York.
It is not a very inviting looking place from the
exterior, or so the personal worker thought as she
picked her way gingerly through the narrow, mud
dy street one rainy Sabbath afternoon in July. Two
earnest Christian workers were standing on the
street outside the mission doors, and they extended
a cordial invitation to the missionary to enter. The
room w’as long and rather narrow, with perhaps 150
cane bottom chairs in it. The raised platform at
the end contained a piano, a reading desk, and sev
eral chairs. Pictures of Mr. Hadley and others
with some comforting wall mottoes adorned the walls
of the room. The rumble of the trains continually
crossing the Brooklyn bridge could be heard quite
distinctly, and the presence of a great boarding
stable next door was unpleasantly manifest.
Thomas Farmer, the son of a saloon keeper, and
a jail bird of fifteen and a half years’ standing, but
converted in the mission, is the faithful janitor.
He kindly receives and sends up to the superin
tendent’s office the many, many weary sin-cursed
men who come for help, from early morning till
late at night, and they are never sent away empty.
No matter how disreputable a man may seem, it’s
love gets hold of him here. These beautiful words
from Browning form their motto:
“There is nothing good in life
But love—but love.
What looks good is but a shade flung from love.”
The superintendent and his family live upstairs
over the mission room, and the unfortunate and the
outcast come in and eat at his table. If too filthy,
he is given a meal in the kitchen. The Jerry Mc-
Auley Mission convert is kept and fed until he finds
work for himself. If he fails, as alas! too often he
does, he is picked up and set on his feet again, and
he is kept continually in the heart and in the
prayers of the mission workers as long as he can be
reached. Do all the converts stand? You may
well ask. Alas, no! Many fall repeatedly before
they reach at least a vantage point in Christ Jesus
where the craving for drink seems to have left
them. But if Jerry McAuley Mission had saved
only one man in its thirty-three years of existence
and that one man had been Mr. Hadley, the great
worker among drinking men, then would it deserve
all honor and reverence for that one thing. But
numbers have been kept by the power of God
throughout the remainder of their lives. I have in
mind now one of the evangelists in the great evan
gelistic campaign of New York City, who was once
a noted minister of God, having a church of nearly
a thousand members, and a yearly salary of SIO,OOO,
but who fell away through the power of drink, till
having been sent to Blackwell’s Island, and after
his release kicked out into the street by a bartender,
at last found his way to Water street mission, where
the power of God seized him, and today he is going
up steadily. He hasn’t reached his old place yet;
ah, no; but he is climbing to it surely. He has a
Bible class at the mission every night from 7 to
7:30, and it is doing what it has never done before,
in compelling men to listen to the tender invitation
of the lowly Jesus.
Every Thursday night a full hot supper is fur
nished by Mr. Jno. S. Huyler, the president of the
mission, and many a poor, hungry, drunken tramp
has had a square meal upstairs before he found
Jesus Christ at the altar downstairs.
One of the missionaries of the mission, Miss Cora
Dettinger, goes out about midnight to the “Fleisch
man Bread Line,” on Broadway and E. Tenth street,
Sy Ada 2. Smith.
and invites the line of four or five hundred men
congregated there in the hope of getting a half loaf,
to go down to Water street mission, and more than
one man who has accepted her invitation has found
One who could keep him from the power of sin.
This great work is carried on almost entirely by
converts of the mission. You may well ask where
they received their theological training. It was in
the school of experience, in the gin mill, in the pen
itentiary, in the alcoholic ward of Belleview Hos
pital, and in the station houses. As Mr. Hadley
once remarked, “They knew the dark and dread
ful side of life before they came here, and through
God they know the beautiful side of life since com
ing here.”
Oh, what tales did the faces in the mission room
tell the personal worker that Sunday afternoon!
Some seamed with care, some with the marks of a
former dissipated life upon them, but with the
peace of God shining from clear eyes now; others,
red faced, disheveled of hair and ragged of figure.
How quickly man followed man —well dressed and
good looking —to tell the story of how he had been
saved by grace. Former thieves, burglars, gamblers,
saloonkeepers, ministers of the Gospel, bankers,
bookkeepers, all in quick succession, eager to tell
how they had found peace at the well worn altar
in dear old Jerry McAuley Mission. This was a
testimony meeting. Three men, drinking and filthy,
were much impressed by these testimonies, and when
the invitation was given two came forward for
prayers, but the third and most disreputable one
would not come, although the superintendent urged
him to “get right with God” then and there. As
we all knelt in prayer, and from hundreds of hearts
were arising petitions for these poor, undone, friend
less men, this man came stumbling to the altar, cry
ing, “I’ve changed my life! I’ve changed my
life!” May God grant that, with the help of the
Mighty One, he has been changed.
One of the staunchest friends of the mission is
Mr. F. Savage Clay, a member of the aristocratic
Ffth Avenue Presbyterian Church. Mr. Clay comes
from a long line of distinguished southern ancestors.
He brings down to the mission former friends of his
who have lost health and happiness, home and po
sition by drink, and not only that but he brings
down some of his wealth, aristocratic friends in
the Fifth Avenue Church that they may see how
wonderfully God saves and keeps sinful men.
This great soul-saving, body-purifying work is
carried on by voluntary contributions. It takes
many thousands of dollars every year, and such
names as Jno. S. Huyler, W. T. Wardwell, Edwin
Gould, Jno. D. Rockefeller, Miss Helen Gould, Tif
fany Co., Jno. Willis Baer, Rev. A. B. Simpson, Dr.
and Mrs. J. Ross Stevenson, Fleming H. Revell, W.
E. Briderwolf and Paul D. Moody are found among
those contributing. Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman, head
of the General Assembly’s evangelistic work of the
Presbyterian Church in the United States, is a firm
believer in rescue work as carried on at Jerry Mc-
Auley Mission. May He who owns the world and
all therein incline the hearts of the people to a gen
erous giving to this work.
»?
Among the Workers.
Rev. L. G. Broughton is at Live Oak, Fla., in a
meeting with Pastor Ridley, of the Baptist church.
It looks as if the reporters of the daily papers
are determined to set themselves up as examples of
total depravity. One of the reports of the Bap
tist Pastors’ Conference stated that the Baptist
pastors refused to endorse a paper defending the
doctrine of total depravity. Everybody knows that
that is absurd. If the paper defended the doctrine,
it was obliged to be approved by every evangeli
cal Christian. If it was condemned, it must have
been because it failed to defend the doctrine.
There has been in Florida a state-wide evangeli
cal movement something like that which we have
had in Atlanta. Churches all over the state were
invited to arrange for protracted meetings in April.
The Golden Age for June 13, 1907.
Before the beginning of these simultaneous meet
ings, there was held an evangelistic institute at
Arcadia to which all the pastors were invited, and
at which evangelizing plans and methods were dis
cussed while all prayed for the evangelizing Spirit.
The meetings that followed are said to have been
everywhere profitable and helpful, and fully com
mending the wisdom of the movement.
The following from the New York Examiner in
dicates that New York may come to life after all:
“No needier field for missionary labor exists
anywhere than in the city of New York, and no
more hopeful effort has ever been made to evan
gelize the city than the summer tent and open-air
movement. No matter for wfliat reason, the great
mass of the people do not flock to the churches, and
if they are to be reached the churches must go to
them. The tent and open-air services do reach
them, and the great crowds who attend and listen
to the preaching of Christ attest their interest in
the Gospel. Here, then, is the opportunity of the
churches. Let them embrace it with whole-hearted
devotion, and the saving of the city will proceed
apace.”
The evening before the sailing of Gipsy Smith
and Rev. Thomas Low to return to England, there
was a farewell reception tendered them at the
Hotel Astor, by the National Bible Institute. It
was made the occasion unavoidably of a memorial
service to Dr. John Watson (lan Maclaren) be
cause he had just died, and a number of those
prominent in the meeting were his personal friends
and co-laborers. This was especially true in the
case of Dr. Aked, pastor of the Fifth Avenue Bap
tist Church.
Among the workers it must be ever borne in
mind that the work is the Lord’s. The workers
are His servants; to prepare them for the service
is His care; one of the methods by which he pre
pares us to comfort those who sorrow is to send
afflictions on us. Pertinent to this are these words:
“Is it not worth going through sorrow if we can
therein learn the art of ministering to the sorrow
ful, and wiping tears that have not ceased to fall
through long years? Is it not good to sorrow, that
we may be comforted of God, and be able to comfort
others as we have ourselves been comforted?”—
of Rev. F. B. Meyer:
Some years ago this writer, when suffering under
a sore bereavement, happened to meet the very dis
tinguished orator and lovable man, Rev. C. K. Mar
shall, of Mississippi. Dr. Marshall introduced him
self and brought this sweet word of comfort: “Did
you ever notice how completely Paul’s words in
2 Cor. 1:3, 4 explain the meaning of many of the
afflictive dispensations that are visited upon us?”
And then he quoted: “ ‘Blessed be God, even the
father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of
mercies and the God of all comfort, who comfort
eth us in all our tribulations that we may be able
to comfort them which are in trouble by the com
fort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of
God.’ ” The black letter type shows how he placed
the emphasis.
The Wesleyan Advocate says that one Sunday
school class in St. Paul’s congregation of Atlanta
contributed to the new church building now going up
one thousand dollars. This is an instance of liber
ality found in Atlanta that is commendable. And
the following instance is given to the same ef
fect :
“The Philathea class of the Atlanta Wesley
Memorial Church —composed for the most part
of working girls—has pledged to the Wesley
Memorial Church building fund $1,500. This amount
will probably be increased to $2,000. How such lib
erality reproves the illiberality of many of our
well-to-do and rich people! If these Sunday school
classes can do so much, what can Georgia. Methodism
do? What will Georgia Methodism do, for the
spread of the kingdom of Christ if the spirit and
loyalty of these young people shall inspire and con
trol it?”
* *
W. T. WINN, Fire, Accident and Health Insur
ance. Both Phones 496. 219 Empire Building.
