God's Answers Part 13

The following deeply affecting lines are from the same pen as those before quoted. Miss Geldard, the gifted writer, was for a time a much valued fellow-labourer both in England and Canada:--

A HOME AND A HEARTY WELCOME.

All day has the air been busy, As the daylight hours went by, With the laugh of the children's gladness, Or their pitiful, hopeless cry.

But now all is hushed in silence, They are lying in slumber deep: While I ask, in this solemn midnight, _Where_ do the children sleep?

We know there are children sleeping In many a happy home, Where sickness rarely enters, Where want may never come.

Their hands in prayer were folded Ere they laid them down to rest, And on rosy lip and soft white brow Were a mother's kisses pressed.

They sleep and dream of angels; Ah! well may their dreams be fair!-- Their home is now so like a heaven, They seem already there.

But where are the children sleeping In these wretched streets around, Where sin, and want, and sorrow Their choicest haunt have found?

Will you climb this broken staircase, And glance through this shattered door; Oh, can there be children sleeping On that filthy and crowded floor?

Yes! old and young together, A restless, moaning heap; O G.o.d! while they thus are sleeping, How dare Thy children sleep?

Does the night air make you s.h.i.+ver, As the stream sweeps coldly by?

(Cold as the hearts of the heedless), Here, too, do the children lie.

An archway their only shelter; The pavement their nightly bed; Thou, too, when on earth, dear Saviour, Hadst nowhere to lay _Thy_ head.

So we know Thou art here, dear Master, Thy form we can almost see; Do we tear Thy sad voice saying, "Ye did it not to Me?"

Yes, chill is the wind-swept archway, The pavement is cold and hard Better the workhouse coffin, Softer the graveyard sward.

Thank G.o.d! yet we say it weeping, Thank G.o.d for many a grave!

There sleep the little children Whom Christians would not save!

Yet smiles through our tears are dawning When we think of the hope that lies In our children's Land of Promise, 'Neath the clear Canadian skies.

Though the frost he thick on the windows, Though the roof with snow is white, We know our Canadian children Are safe and warm to-night.

There thick are the homespun blankets, And the buffalo robes are warm; Then why should these children s.h.i.+ver Out here in the winter storm?

Why wait till the prison claims them?

Why wait till of hope bereft For that fair young girl the river Be the only refuge left?

Come! help us, answer the message Now pealing across the seas-- "A home and a hearty welcome For hundreds such as these!"

It comes from broad Ontario, And from Nova Scotia's sh.o.r.e; They have loved and sheltered our gathered waifs, They have room for thousands more.

S. R. GELDARD.

CHAPTER IX.

Questions and Answers--Sorrowful Cases--Testimonies from those who have visited Canada--Stewards.h.i.+p.

The fallowing plain answers to practical questions, are written by those well acquainted with the work:--

I. "Are these children really _street Arabs?_ If not, where do you find so many?"

In the early days of the work, before the establishment of School Boards and kindred inst.i.tutions, a large proportion of the children were actually taken from the streets. Now, the rescue work begins farther back, and seeks to get hold of the little ones before they hare had a taste of street life and become contaminated. A policeman brings one sometimes, having found it in a low lodging-house, forsaken by its worthless, drunken parents. Christian ladies are ever on the look-out for the little ones in their work among the poor, and many a child has been taken straight from the dying bed of its only remaining parent to Miss Macpherson. "Rescued from a workhouse life"

might be written on many a bright little brow, and "saved from drink"

on many more. Poor, delicate widows, striving vainly to keep a large, young family, have often proved their true, unselfish love by giving up one or two to Miss Macpherson to be taken to Canada. Such are encouraged always to write to and keep in loving memory the dear toiling mother at home. Widowed fathers in ill-health, and short of work, feeling their utter helplessness to do for their motherless flock, have come to Miss Macpherson entreating her to take care of some of them.

2. "How come the Canadian farmers to be willing to take these children?"

From a business point of view this is quite easily explained. Labour is so scarce out there, and hired help so dear, while _food_ is _so plentiful,_ that the Canadian farmer finds it quite worth his while to take a little boy from the old country, whom he can train and teach as his own, and who very soon will repay him in quick ability for farm labour.

3. "Are you sure the children are really _better off_ there?"

Every boy in Canada has before him a definite hope for the future.

If he be steady, industrious, and of average intelligence, he may reasonably look to being independent some day, to owning land of his own, and attaining an honourable position in Canada. People do not ama.s.s fortunes there as a rule, but they may all live in comfort and plenty, and what they have is their own. Surely this is a brighter prospect than the ceaseless round of toil at desk or counter, in which so many in England,--even the more fortunate,--spend their youth helping to make rich men richer.

4. "Among the hundreds are there not some failures, some exceptions?

What becomes of them?"

Yes, there are disappointments and failures in this work as well as in every other. We do not take little angels to Canada, but very human little boys and girls with every variety of temper and character, and sometimes hereditary disadvantages which it is hard to battle with. But patient forbearance and gentle treatment and time do so much for them. And often a kind farmer has asked to be allowed to keep, and "try again" the wilful little fellow who has tried to run away or proved tiresome to manage.

"Ninety-eight per cent, of our children do well, and for the two per cent, we do the best we can. If any circ.u.mstance arises making it desirable for a farmer to give up a boy, he is at once returned to the Home, where he is received and kept until another more suitable place is found for him."

Should any be still blinded to the blessings of emigration for the young, surely their eyes will be opened on reading the following facts as related by Miss Macpherson:--

"William and Mary were brother and sister living in a terrible warren near Drury Lane. The boy's employment was to gather rags and bones. Their parents had been buried by the workhouse. Their condition was too deplorable to be described. A year's training was not lost upon this sister and brother. They came to Canada in 1873.

Now, could yon see them at nineteen and twenty-two--able to read and write, well-clothed with their own honest earnings, having saved, in 1877, one hundred dollars; and this year, 1879, William is having $100 as wages, and Mary $60. They come from time to time to visit the Home. William is thinking of having a farm of his own.

"A. B.--Who was he? The son of a drunken woman, who, when very tipsy still comes in from Ratcliff Highway to abuse us at Spitalfields. Alfred has been many years in a lawyer's family, and has saved enough money to be apprenticed as an engineer. He was a wise boy to be guided by the kind counsel of those he served. We are not satisfied with earthly adoptions only; we continue to pray that each one may be adopted into the family of those who are washed in the blood of the Lamb.

"Well do we remember the winter, when a wild man from Seven Dials discovered that we had the little Annie, of whom he used to make such traffic in the gin palaces; though we had no right to her. The lamb was but six years old. Thank G.o.d, an ocean separates her from his drunken villanies. Now she is with kind-hearted, homely people, the companion and playmate of their daughter.

"S. W., seven years old; so puny--only a few pounds weight--owing to her being starved and beaten by a drunken stepfather. Now, a year in a happy home, going to school regularly, is companion to an only child, and lacks no earthly comfort. The poor mother was ill-used in the dens where she lived by her neighbours, for having, they said, sold her child. We received a photograph of the little one from her happy Canadian home; this closed every mouth, for it could not be gainsaid.

"Whilst stopping at one of the railway stations, we were accosted by a young man, who told us he was one of our old boys of ten years ago, but was now settled in that town. He had 'rolled' about a good deal, he said, but at last had settled down, and never was so happy in his life before. He had sent for his brother to come and live with him.

Since then John and his wife have spent a day at the Gait Home, and they think in another year, if they continue to prosper, that they also would like to be entrusted with a little one. Thus openings are ever occurring for those yet to follow."

Since the above was written other young emigrants, now married and settled in homes of their own, have offered to adopt orphans and children, homeless as they once were themselves.

The following are independent testimonies of those who have travelled or are residing in Canada:--