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HOW MEN ARE MADE OVER: S
HO HAS not heard of the Jerry M. Mc-
Auley Mission in New York and the
great work it has done for fallen human
ity? Some of you have seen the mis
sion. It is situated in one of the dark
est places in the city on Water Street,
south of .the Bowery—where it is
dwarfed by gigantic warehouses, sur
rounded by black, tortuous lanes and
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shoulder to bare shoulder with the most poverty
stricken tenements and the most abominable dives.
The saloons crowd each other—a dozen sometimes to
the block. Evil resorts of another kind often share
the same houses that are the homes of wife and
child, of the very poor.
In such a horrible environment Jerry McAuley was
born and bred. He was ignorant, but he was ambi
tious. He wanted to be a big figure in the only life
he knew, so he early became a river pirate, and in
due time landed in Sing-Sing penitentiary. He had
been sentenced to a term of sixteen years. While
he was serving his sentence he was converted by a
visiting missionary. But when he was pardoned by
Governor Dix he did not know where to go save to
return to the haunts and life of his former days.
Five times he returned to drunkenness and theft, but
each time, in spite of the jeers and blows of his pals,
he climbed painfully back again.
At last, after he had tested himself for four years,
he and his wife started their mission among the
bums, the thugs and outcasts of that neighborhood.
They started it in their own little room, and it grew
and became known throughout all the land as the
place where lost men were helped to find themselves.
Jerry died in the faith, full of good works, and his
task was carried on faithfully for over twenty years
by Hadley, that prince of mission toilers, who died a
few years ago. His successor is John H. Wynn,
whose story is similar to that of McAuley.
Twenty-two years ago there was not a tougher man
in New York than John Wyburn. He was a drunk
ard, ragged, unkempt, dirty. He had passed through
the successive stages of shame and hopelessness,
until he was content to be a hanger-on at the Bowery
saloons, working just enough to get liquor and its
accompanying lure, the free lunch.
One night he stumbled into th 3 McAuley Mission,
and there his eyes and his h"i”t were opened, and
he was made over into a man.
Another well-known convert was Dave Ranney.
He tells his own story in this v 1 e: “One bitter night
I found myself worse up again t it than I had ever
been before. I’d just finished a erm, an’ was sittin’
in that saloon over there.” (V) were standing at
the corner of Doyer street and he Bowery.) “The
barkeep’ was a friend of mine, 1 ut he’d stood me to
all the drinks I had any right tc expect, and he had
to tell me that he waaiit runnin’ the business for his
health. So it was me for the cm bstone an’ any hold
up I could make.
“I piped my man a couple of minutes later. He
was cornin’ along with his head (’own, kind of study
in,’ and I ups to him with the o' I whine about bein’
starved, countin’ on getting a s' angle hold the sec
ond his hand went to his pocket.”
But Ranney, for about the only time in his life,
had “got the wrong dope.” The man straightened
up when addressed and showed an athletic frame
that brought Dave to a pause.
“Yes,” he replied to the “speil” that has just been
given him, “I guess I have been as hungry as you
are many a time. Come over here to Beefsteak
John’s and I’ll buy you a meal.”
Once inside, Ranney’s troubles grew thicker. All
he wanted was a drink, and here was this man offer
ing to pay for beefsteak and coffee, and the waiter
leaning over to take his order. Ranney could do
many things, but the one thing above all others that
he could not do then was to eat. Every nerve in his
poisoned body cried out against food. And opposite
him was sitting this strangely honest man.
Ranney straightened up.
“Friend,” said he, “I lied to you out there. I
couldn’t eat a meal to save my life.”
The stranger was neither surprised nor angry. In
stead he came back with this:
“Try some coffee and sinkers, then.”
The Golden Age for June 30, 1910.
By TIABYE,. BV.YAN.
“No,” said Ranney, “I couldn’t even go that.”
His host leaned back and twirled a fifty-cent piece
between his fingers.
“Will you come to see me,” he asked, “at the
Broome Street Tabernacle tomorrow morning at 9
o’clock?”
Ranney confesses that just then he would have
promised to meet the devil in hell for fifty cents. So
he got the coin, spent the night “blowing it in” with
a number of friends similarly fortunate, and next
morning decided that he would, contrary to his pre
vious intentions, keep his appointment. Indeed, he
had nowhere else to go. He knew that, as a released
convict, the police were watching him; he was not
safe beyond the dead lines —north of Forty-second
street or south of Fulton —so he went to the Broome
Street Tabernacle.
His friend of the night before welcomed him at the
door. He smiled and held out his hand.
“I knew you’d come.”
Here was another solar-plexus blow for Ranney.
“What in the name of God kind of a man am I up
against?” he said to himself.
“Come in,” said his friend. And Ranney came.
“Is that the best suit of clothes you’ve got?” An
odd catechism, this.
“Yes,” said Dave.
“I believe,” the missionary continued, “I have a
suit that will just about fit you.”
Another surprise.
“A bath first, of course.”
“Os course,” said Ranney.
He came back to the study a half hour later, the
vermin and dirt gone from his body, the new suit
covering and fitting it.
“What is your name?” This question, thought
Dave, usually came first.
“My name is David Ranney.”
“Ranney”—there was a strange thrill in the voice
—“don’t you know that God put you on this earth to
lead a different life from the one you are leading?”
Ranney’s voice, when he reaches this spot, has
something strange in it, too. “Os course I knew
that,” he’ll tell you.
“Let’s get down and pray about it,” said the man.
Deep inside of Ranney “something busted.” But
he could not pray —or so he thought.
“Pray the publican’s prayer,” said the man. “Say,
God be merciful to me a sinner, and help me to cut
out the booze!”
For an hour Dave Ranney, on his knees, repeated
that prayer over and over. At last he conquered.
That was fifteen years ago. Today he is still known
to the police, but it is as one of the most successful
of missionaries, and there are daily calls for him
from the Bowery lodging houses, the hospitals and
the Tombs. He owes it all, he is sure, to that prayer
which was taught him by a man who, for my own
part, I am proud to count among my friends —to the
Rev. Alexander Irvine, assistant rector of the Episco
pal Church of the Ascension.
I find that, after all, I have been betrayed into
saying more about Ranney than I had intended, but
Ranney is worth it, both for his own sake and be
cause he serves well to illustrate one point upon
which I want especially to insist: these members of
the great Soul Trust are, above all, manly men. It
takes something more than an incompetent to keep
in the straight path those who knew their preacher
in his unregenerate days, those who have been his
cellmates, or have shared with him their drunken
beds. It takes more than a weakling to handle —and
sometimes man-handle —the bad men of the Bowery
who oubHerod the bad men of our vanished West.
It takes, in a word, to direct the precarious business
affairs of any one of these missions, a man with an
executive ability that would qualify him for a far
more lucrative position—did he care to secure one —
in the world of trade.
But it is not in this alone that one finds their
secret. When I began to look into their work I
thought that, perhaps, they had mastered some mys
tery of psychology unknown to men at large. Far
from that, I discovered that their success lay, first,
in being simply their best selves, and, second, in
appealing directly and simply to the best in the
hearts of their audience. They know the lives Qf the
men and women they want to reach, and they realize
that these men and women are not members of a
different species, citizens of another planet, but just
precisely what you and I should be with their heredi
tary taints and in their slum environment.
Whether they be men or women, these workers
have themselves all tramped the road that is rough,
wherefrom they now seek to win the present pil
grims of vice and palmers of crime. They are their
own advertisements of the cure they offer. Above
all, their offer is not for sale; it is free; the collec
tion box is handed only to visitors from the outside
world, and then so inconspicuously as to avoid all
realization of social distinction in the minds of the
regular congregation.
••
HE GAVE HIS HAND.
One of the missionaries in Burma, once stopped
in a village on the banks of a river. Seeing a wo
man close to the landing place, he offered her his
hand and asked how she was. A few moments aft
erward he was called back to the boat, and left
her with his blessing. Judson probably thought no
more about the incident; but what was the result?
The woman had never before received such cour
tesy from any man. Though a princess, she had
been treated as a slave. She had seen, she said,
“one of the sons of God,” and after this nothing
would persuade her to worship the heathen gods
again. She had served them ever since she was a
child, but she said, “They have never prevented my
husband from beating me. This man spoke kindly
to me and gave me his hand. His God must be the
God. That very night she began to pray to the un
known God of the white foreigner, a most touching
prayer: “Lord God, in the heavens, in the earth,
in the mountains, in the seas, in the north, in the
south, in the east, in the west, pity me, I pray. Show
me thy glory, that I may know thee who thou art.”
Thus she continued to pray for five years. Then a
Christian missionary came to that district. She
heard the Gospel, and at once became a Christian.
She helped to establish a Christian church at Dong
Yahn, out of which two others soon grew. From
that time Guapung (that was her name) tried to win
for Christ all she came in contact with. She had
great power with every one, for she herself lived so
near to Christ. —The King’s Messengers.
THE SPIRIT OF RELIGION.
I thank God for a religion that makes a man want
to do right for right’s sake. The law is a rule of
right; it is an emanation from a most Holy God; it
is his moral sentiment with respect to conduct, and
the man that is right at heart will not want to vio
late it, nor will he feel cramped by his presence as a
rule of conduct. I do not feel that my personal lib
erty is in any way curtailed by the Divine demands.
There is not a thing in the Divine law that I do not
want to do. And why? Because I love the Giver of
the 4aw and I love the ends which the law seeks to
conserve. Thus the law finds fulfillment in the Chris
tian. Love and law are handmaidens in the establish
ment of the Kingdom of God.—Selected.
RESIGNATION.
Resignation is the courage of old age; it will grow
in its own season and it is a good day when it comes
to us. Then there are no more disappointments, for
we have learned that it is even better to desire the
things that we have than to have the things that we
desire. And is not the best of all our hopes—the
hope of Immortality—always before us? How can we
be dull or heavy'when we have that new experience
to look forward to? It will be the most joyful of all
our travels and adventures. It will bring us our best
acquaintances and friendships. But there is only
one way to get ready for immortality, and that is to
love this life, and live it as bravely and faithfully
as we can. —Dr. Henry Van Dyke.
* H
There is only one real failure in life possible, and
that is not to be true to the best one knows. —Canon
Farrar.
