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WV ete AGL oOUIL BV 3785 .S6 A4 1925 Smith, Gipsy, 1860-1947. Gipsy Smith ee aes = te “0 Gipsy Smith The Two Authorized Works of GIPSY SMITH NEW REVISED EDITION INTRODUCTIONS BY DRS. MORGAN and McLAREN Gipsy Smith HIS LIFE AND WORK By Himself Illustrated, cloth, “What a poem this man’s lifeis. It is all of God’s shaping. No doubt the book will be read by many for its good stories—but it is greater than its stories.” —Expository Times. As Jesus Passed By AND OTHER ADDRESSES 12mo, cloth, “Tf you want to read a gospel that glows with the fire of Pentecost, get this book. I need not ask you to read it. You will be so fascinated with the won- derful majesty and power of that one luminous soul that you will lay aside all other literature and read it to a finish.” —United Presbyterian. Gipsy Smith HIS ELE E AND WORK By HIMSELF Introductions by G. CAMPBELL MORGAN and ALEXANDER McLAREN, D.D. REVISED EDITION NEW YORK °.° CHICAGO °*.° TORONTO FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY COPYRIGHT, I9OI, NATIONAL COUNCIL OF THE EVANGELICAL FREE CHURCHES (All Rights Reserved) COPYRIGHT, 1902, 1925, BY FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY Printed in the United States of America TO My Father TO WHOSE UNSELFISHNESS I OWE 8O MUCH NOTE TO MY READERS 1% the year 1901 this story of my life was sent to the printers, at the request of many of my friends, but much against my judgment: I thought the time was not ripe for its publication. I knew tens of thou- sands had listened to the story from my lips, but whether they would read it, and feel its grip, in cold type, was quite another thing. But my fears soon vanished when the story was published; the reviewers and the public were all kind and treated it better than I had ever hoped. I have no doubt now that the advice of my friends was right. The story has reached people whom I shall never see, and from whom I have had letters of thanks. From all parts of the world have they come, telling of blessing received while reading of the power of the Cross over the Gipsy tent. And, now, as the book has reached its seventieth thousand, I desire most gratefully to offer my thanks to all who have helped to make the story, in book form, such a splendid success. I gladly acknowledge the invaluable literary help, which I received from my friend Mr. W. Grinton Berry, M.A., in its preparation. Gipsy SMITH Romany Tan, CAMBRIDGE. INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN EDITION By G. CAMPBELL MORGAN Y first acquaintance with Gipsy Smith was made in 1886 when I entered upon work in Hull, which he had originated. Going at the invitation of the committee then in oversight of the work at Wilberforce Hall to conduct services for fourteen days, I remained thirteen months, and thus had opportunity to observe the results of his labors. I found very many whole-hearted followers of Jesus Christ in dead earnest about the conversion of others. These, most of them, had been brought to God under the preaching of this man. Many of them remain in the churches of the town unto this day, and retain their first love to Christ and devotion for His cause. During this time I often met Gipsy, and from the first my heart was joined to his as a brother beloved, and I count him still as my close personal friend and a highly valued fellow- laborer in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ. During these years I have noted with great joy his remarkable development, until to-day he stands at the very front of those who are doing the work of the Evangelist. His early life, as this book 6 Introduction to American Edition clearly shows, consisted of certain facts which were against the chances of his success, and yet, taking a higher viewpoint of consideration, they were in his favor. His lack of educational advantages would have seemed likely to bar his progress. He recognized this, and set himself from the first with a devotion and earnestness which were magnificent to remedy the defect. He has been a hard worker and hard reader, and this has found its reward in the fact that to-day he has acquired a style and delivery that is full of force and beauty. One of our great London dailies said of him recently that he is one of the finest exponents of the possibilities of Anglo- saxon speech since the days of John Bright. It is possible to hear him again and again, as I have done, without detecting a flaw in his grammar or pronunciation; and one is filled with wonder at his wonderful triumph in this direction. In his case the very early lack has been the stimulus of constant effort, and there has been no arrest of development consequent upon the mistaken notion—alas, too common among more favored men —that he had his education long ago. Greatly in his favor is the fact that he was a child of nature, nurtured near to her heart. When that Spirit who breatheth where He listeth brought him into living contact with Christ, the gain of this early environment was manifest. To know him to-day is to catch the sweet, healthy freshness of woods and flowers and dear old mother Introduction to American Edition 7 earth, and to breathe the fragrance of the life lived far from the stifling atmosphere of great cities. I never talk with him without taking in a wholesome quantity of ozone. His most remarkable growth has been spiritual. In tone and temper, and those fine qualities of spirit which are the fairest produc- tions of Christian life, he has steadily advanced, and to-day more than ever is a child of God in outward conduct and inward character. Though thus a child of the country, his mission has been pre-eminently that of a messenger of the Gospel to great cities. It is one of the most heart- stirring and spirit-reviving sights I know to watch a dense mass of city folk, toilers in the factories, clerks from the offices, professional men, and those of culture and leisure, listen to him as he pleads with tender eloquence the cause of the Master. Gipsy Smith is an evangelist by right of a “ gift,” bestowed by the Spirit of God, as certainly as there ever was such in the history of the Church. In his case, moreover, we have a conspicuous example of the fact that the Spirit bestows such gifts on those by natural endowment fitted to receive and use them. There is no conflict between a man as God made him and the work of grace in him when he is utterly abandoned to the will of God. This story of his life is full of deep interest, as it breathes the very spirit of the man—artless, intense, transparent. For it I bespeak a reading on the part of all those who love the Lord Jesus and are in- terested in the story of His methods with the mes- 8 Introduction to American Edition sengers of His grace. I welcome the book asa fresh living message of that grace, and as adding another to the long list of lives that show forth the excellencies of Him who calls men out of darkness into His marvellous light. This brief prefatory work is a work of love, for out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh, and of my friend who is at once Gipsy and Gentle- man, because wholly Christian, I can truly say, thank my God upon every remembrance of him. INTRODUCTION By Rev. Dr. ALEXANDER MCLAREN THERE is little need for any introduction to this book; but my friend Gipsy Smith having done me the honor of asking me to prefix a few words to it, I gladly comply with his request. I have at least one qualification for my present position—namely, my long and close knowledge of the man who here tells his life-story, and I can say with absolute con- fidence and sincerity that that knowledge has dis- covered to me a character of rare sweetness, good- ness, simplicity, and godliness, and possessed of something of that strange attractiveness with which popular beliefs have endowed his race. But the fascination is explicable on better grounds than magic spells ; it is the charm of a nature which draws others to itself, because it goes out to meet them, and is loved because it loves. The life told in this book has its picturesque and its pathetic sides, but is worthy of study for deeper reasons than these. It witnesses to the transform- ing power of Jesus Christ, entering a soul through that soul’s faith. A gipsy encampment is the last place whence an evangelist might be expected to emerge. Almost alien to our civilization, with 10 Introduction little education, with vices and limitations inherited from generations who were despised and suspected, and with the virtues of a foreign clan encamped on hostile ground, the gipsies have been all but over- looked by the churches, with one or two exceptions, such as the work of Crabbe half a century since among those of Hampshire and the New Forest. But the story in this book brings one more striking and welcome evidence that there are no hopeless classes in the view of the gospel. We are accus- tomed to say that often enough, but we do not al- ways act as if we believed it, and it may do some of us good to have another living example of Christ’s power to elevate and enrich a life, whatever its an- tecedents, disadvantages, and limitations. Gipsy or gentleman, “we have all of us one human heart,”’ and the deepest need in that heart is an anodyne for the sense of sin, and a power which will implant in it righteousness. Here is a case in which Christ’s gospel has met both wants. Is there anything else that would or could do that? For another reason this book deserves study, for it raises serious questions as to the Church’s office of “evangelizing every creature.’’ Gipsy Smith has remarkable qualifications for that work, and has done it all over the country with a sobriety, trans- parent sincerity, and loyalty to the ordinary ministra- tions of the churches which deserve and have re- ceived general recognition. But what he has not is as instructive as what he has. He is not an orator, gor a scholar, nor a theologian. He is not a genius. Introduction il But, notwithstanding these deficiencies in his equip- ment, he can reach men’s hearts, and turn them from darkness to light in a degree which many of us ministers cannot do. It will be a good day for all the churches when their members ask themselves whether they are doing the work for which they are established by their Lord, if they fail in winning men to be His, and whether Christ will be satisfied if, when He asks them why they have not carried out His commands to take His gospel to those around them who are without it, they answer, ‘“ Lord, we were so busy studying deep theological questions, arguing about the validity of critical inquiries as to the dates of the books of the Bible, preaching and hearing eloquent discourses, comforting and edifying one another, that we had to leave the Christless masses alone.’”’ This book tells the experience of one man who has been an evangelist and nothing more. May it help to rouse the conscience of the church to feel that it is to be the messenger of the glad tidings first of all, whatever else it may be in addition! May it set many others to bethink them- selves whether they, too, are not sufficiently furnished “for the work of an evangelist’ to some hearts at least, though they have neither learning nor elo- quence, since they have the knowledge of One who has saved them, and desires through them to save others:' ALEXANDER MCLAREN. a f 7 TUN UUats H Ae CHAPTER I, II, III, IV. V. VI. Vil. VIII. Ix, XI, CONTENTS. BIRTH AND ANCESTRY—WITH SOME NOTES OF GIPSY CUSTOMS . 5 ° ° ° MY MOTHER . e e ° > ° ° A MISCHIEVOUS LITTLE BOY—WITH SOMETHING ABOUT PLUMS, TROUSERS, RABBITS, EGGS, AND A CIRCUS . ‘ ‘ : : } THE MORALS OF THE GIPSIES e ° ° MY FATHER, AND HOW HE FOUND THE LORD ., OLD CORNELIUS WAS DEAD ° ° ° ° CHRISTMAS IN THE TENT—A STORY OF THREE PLUM-PUDDINGS ° ° ° ° ° THE DAWNING OF THE LIGHT . > ° e LEARNING TO READ AND WRITE—PREACHING TO THE TURNIP-FIELD—SINGING THE GOSPEL IN THE COTTAGES . ° ° ° . ° I BECOME AN EVANGELIST—THE CHRISTIAN MIS- SION AND REV. WILLIAM BOOTH—MY FIRST FROCK-COAT AND MY FIRST APARTMENTS ° GROWING SUCCESS—WORK AT WHITBY, SHEF- FIELD, AND BOLTON—MEETING MY FUTURE PAGE 17 27 38 48 54 65 74 78 84 gi WIFE—ROMAN CATHOLIC RIOTS ,. « 104 XIII. XXT. XXII. XXIII. XXIV. XXV. XXVI. XXVII. XXVIII. X XIX. XXX, XXXII. XXXII. Contents - BALLINGTON BOOTH--MY MARRIAGE—THE CHATHAM FOSSILS . HULL AND DERBY—A GREAT SUCCESS AND A PARTIAL FAILURE . . - HANLEY—MY GREATEST BATTLEFIELD . DISMISSAL FROM THE SALVATION ARMY - HANLEY AGAIN. MY FIRST VISIT TO AMERICA MANCHESTER TO AMERICA RETURN . MY MISSION OF THE GIPSIES - THIRD VISIT TO AMERICA GLASGOW AUSTRALIA MY FATHER AND HIS TWO BROTHERS LONDON, MANCHESTER AND EDINBURGH . MY FIFTH VISIT TO AMERICA SOME FRESH STORIES ABOUT PETER MACKENZIE AS THE NATIONAL COUNCIL’S MISSIONER . SOUTH AFRICA: A MISSION OF RECONCILIATION MORE MISSIONS TO AMERICA: MINSTERS’ PREJ- UDICES VANISH . . . . ° MY MISSION TO PARIS . ° . : WITH THE BOYS DURING THE WORLD WAR . FROM THE ARMISTICE TO TO-DAY PAGE LEE GIPSY Savi) te CHAPTER 1 BIRTH AND ANCESTRY—WITH SOME NOTES OF GIPSY CUSTOMS I WAS born on the 31st of March, 1860, in a gipsy tent, the son of gipsies, Cornelius Smith and his wife, Mary Welch. The place was the parish of Wanstead, near Epping Forest, a mile and a half from the ‘‘Green Man,” Leytonstone. When I got old enough to ask questions about my birth my mother was dead, but my father told me the place, though not the date. It was only quite recently that I knew the date for certain. A good aunt of mine took the trouble to get some one to examine the register of Wanstead Church, and there found an entry giving the date of the birth and christening of Rodney Smith. I discovered that I was a year younger than I took myself to be. The gipsies care little for religion and know nothing really of God and the Bible, yet they always take care to get their babies christened, because it is a matter of busi- ness. The clergyman of the nearest parish church is invited to come to the encampment and perform i 18 Gipsy Smith the ceremony. To the “ gorgios” (people who are not gipsies) the event is one of rare and curious inter- est. Some of the ladies of the congregation are sure to accompany the parson to see the gipsy baby, and they cannot very well do this without bringing pres- ents for the gipsy mother and more often for the baby. The gipsies believe in christenings for the profit they can make out of them. They have, be- sides, some sort of notion that it is the right thing to do. I was the fourth child of my parents. Two girls and a boy came before me and two girls came after me. All my brothers and sisters, except the last born, are alive. My eldest sister is Mrs. Ball, wife of Councillor Ball, of Hanley, the first gipsy in the history of the country to occupy a seat in a town council. And he is always returned at the head of the poll. Councillor Ball, who is an auctioneer, has given up his tent and lives in a house. My brother Ezekiel works on the railway at Cambridge, and is a leading spirit of the Railway Mission there. He was the last of the family to leave the gipsy tent, and he did it after a deal of persuasion and with great reluctance. My father and I, on visiting Cambridge, got him to take up his quarters in a nice little cottage there. When I returned to the town some months later and sought him in his cottage, I found that he was not there and that he had gone back to his tent. “ Whatever made you leave the cottage, Ezekiel?’ I asked. “It was so cold,” he replied. Gipsy wagons and tents are very comfort- Birth and Ancestry 19 able—“ gorgios”’ should make no mistake about that. My second sister, Lovinia, is Mrs. Oakley, and lives at Luton, a widow. I had a mission at Luton last year, and she was one of those who came to Christ. My father, myself, and others of us had offered thou sands of prayers for her, and at that mission, she, a backslider for over twenty-five years, was restored. God gave me this honor—the joy of bringing my beloved sister back to the fold. I need not say that I think of that mission with a special warmth of gratitude to God. Mrs. Evens—Matilda, the baby of the family—helped me a great deal in my early evangelistic labors, and together with her husband has done and is doing good work for the Liverpool Wesleyan Mission. Eighty out of every hundred gipsies have Bible names. My father was called Cornelius, my brother Ezekiel. My uncle Bartholomew was the father of twelve children, to every one of whom he gave a_ scriptural name— Naomi, Samson, Delilah, Elijah, Simeon, and the like. Fancy having a Samson and a Delilah in the same family! Yet the gipsies have no Bibles, and if they had they could not read them. Whence, then, these scriptural names? Do they not come down to us from tradition? May it not be that we are one of the lost tribes? We ourselves believe that we are akin to the Jews, and when one regards the gipsies from the point of view of an out- sider one is able to discover some striking resem- blances between the gipsies and the Jews. In the first place, many gipsies bear a striking facial re 20 Gipsy Smith semblance to the Jews. Our noses are not usually quite so prominent, but we often have the eyes and hair of Jews. Nature asserts herself. And al- though, as far as the knowledge of religion is con- cerned, gipsies dwell in the deepest heathen dark- ness, in the days when I was a boy they scrupulous- ly observed the law of the Sabbath, except when the “gorgios” visited them and tempted them with money to tell their fortunes. It was a great trouble to my father—I am speaking of him in his unregenerate days—to have to pull up his tent on the Sabbath day. And I have known him go a mile on Satur- day to get a bucket of water, so that he should not have to travel for iton the Sunday. And the bundles of sticks for the fire on Sunday were all gathered the day before. Even whistling a song tune was not al- lowed on the Sunday. When I was a boy I have been knocked over more than once for so far forget- ting myself as to engage in this simple diversion on the Sunday. Sunday to the gipsies is a real rest-day. And at the same time it is the only day on which they get a properly cooked mid-day meal! Then, again, the ancient Jewish law and custom of mar- riage is the same as that which is in vogue, or was in vogue, until quite recently among the gipsies. Sixty years ago a marriage according to the law of the land was unknown among the gipsies. The sweet- hearting of a gipsy young man and maiden usually extends over a long period, or, as “gorgios” would say, the rule is long engagements. Very often they have grown up sweethearts from boy and girl. It Birth and Ancestry 21 was so with my brother Ezekiel and his wife. There is never such a thing as a gipsy breach of promise case, and if there were the evidence would probably be scanty, for gipsy sweethearts do not write to each other—because they cannot. Ninety-nine out of every hundred of them have never held a pen in their hands. When the young people are able to set up for themselves they make a covenant with each other. Beyond this there is no marriage cere- mony. There is nothing of jumping over tongs or broomsticks, or any other of the tomfooleries that outsiders attribute to gipsies. The ceremonial is the same as that which was observed at the nup- tials of Rebekah and Isaac. Isaac brought Rebekah into his tent, and she became his wife, and he lived with her. The gipsies are the most faithful and devoted of husbands. I ought to add that the mak- ing of the marriage covenant is usually followed by a spree. When a gipsy becomes converted, one of the first things about which he gets anxious is this defective marriage ceremonial. At one of my missions an old gipsy man of seventy-four sought and found his Saviour. Hewentaway happy. Somedays after he came back to see me. I perceived that something was oppressing his mind. “ Well, uncle, what’s the matter?’’ I asked. By the way, I should say that gipsies have great reverence for old age. We should never think of addressing an old man or woman by his or her name—not Mr. Smith or Mrs. Smith, John or Sally, but always uncle or aunt, terms of 22 Gipsy Smith affection and respect among us. Uncle looked at me gloomily and said: “The truth is, my dear, my wife and I have never been legally married.’”?’ They had been married according to the only fashion known among the gipsies, and I told him that in the eyes of God they were true husband and wife. But he would not be persuaded. “No,” he said, “I am converted now; I want everything to be straight. We must get legally married.’’ And they did, and were satisfied. Like the Jews, the gipsies have in a wonderful way preserved their identity as a race. Their sep- arate existence can be traced back for centuries. Throughout these long years they have kept their language, habits, customs, and eccentricities un- touched. The history of gipsies and of their tongue has baffled the most taborious and erudite scholars. We can be traced back until we are lost on the plains of India, but even in these far-off days we were a distinct race. Like the Jews, the gipsies are very clean. A man who does not keep his person or be- longings clean is called “chickly” (dirty), and is despised. They have hand-towels for washing them- selves, and these are used for nothing else. They are scrupulously careful about their food. They would not think of washing their table-cloth with the other linen. Cups and saucers are never washed in soapy water. I saw my uncle trample on and destroy a copper kettle-lid because one of his children by mis- take had dropped it in the wash-tub. It had become “unclean.”’ A sick person has a spoon, plate, and Birth and Ancestry 23 basin all to himself. When he has recovered or if he dies they are all destroyed. It is customary at death to destroy the possessions of the dead person or to bury them with him. When an uncle of mine died, my aunt bought a coffin large enough for all his possessions—including his fiddle, cup and saucer, plate, knife, etc.—except, of course, his wagon. My wife and my sister pleaded hard for the cup and saucer as a keepsake, but she was resolute. Nobody should ever use them again. To return to my father. He earned his living by making baskets, clothes-pegs, all sorts of tinware, and recaning cane-chairs. Of course in his uncon- verted days he “found” the willows for the baskets and the wood for the clothes-pegs. Guipsies only buy what they cannot “find.” My father had inherited his occupation from many generations of ancestors. He also pursued the trade of horse- dealer, a business in which gipsies are thoroughly expert. What a gipsy does not know about horses is not worth knowing. The trade is one in which tricks and dodges are frequently practised. A Dr. Chinnery, whom I met on one of my visits to America, told me of a gipsy horse-dealer for whose conversion he had been particularly anxious and with whom he had frequently talked. Said this gipsy, “Can I be a Christian and sell horses?’ Dr. Chinnery urged him to try, and he did. The poor gipsy found the conjunction of callings very difficult, but he managed to make it work. After two or three years, Dr. Chinnery asked him how he was getting 24 Gipsy Smith on. He answered that when he had a good horse to sell he told those with whom he was dealing that it was a good horse. Since he had become a Chris- tian they believed him. If it was a horse about which he knew little, or a horse of which he had doubts, he said: “ My friends this (naming the sum) is my price. I do not know anything about the horse; you must examine him yourselves, and as- sure yourselves of his fitness. Use your judgment; you buy him at your own risk.” It will be seen from this anecdote that the gipsies are not want- ing in finesse. This gipsy had also not a little of the Yankee cuteness which is breathed in with the American air. His Christianity did not in the least hinder, but rather helped, his horse-dealing. The gipsy women sell what their husbands make, and of course when we were all little my mother did the selling for us. The women are the travellers for the concern; the men are the manufacturers. This old trade of making baskets is passing out of the hands of the gipsies; they can buy these goods for less than it costs to make them, and consequently they confine themselves to selling them. Recaning chairs and mending baskets is still done by some. Most of the men deal in horses and in anything else which is possible to their manner of life, and out of which they can make money. I estimate that there are from 20,000 to 25,000 gipsies in the British Isles. The women-folk among them still do most of the selling, but I am afraid that too frequently they carry their wares about with them merely as a blind. Birth and Ancestry 25 The occupation of most of them is fortune-telling. It is the fashion and the folly of the “ gorgios” that have to a large extent forced this disgraceful pro- fession upon gipsy women. Soothsaying is an Eastern custom, a gift that Westerners have attributed to Orientals. The gipsies are an Eastern race, and the idea has in course of generations grown up among outsiders that they, too, can reveal the secrets of the hidden future. The gipsies do not themselves be- lieve this; they know that fortune-telling is a mere cheat, but they are not averse to making profit out of the folly and superstition of the “gorgios.”’ I know some of my people may be very angry with me for this statement, but the truth must be told. We travelled in the counties of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridge, Bedford, and Hertford. In my young days I knew these parts of England well, but since I left my gipsy tent, nearly a quarter of a cen- tury ago, I have not seen much of them. I had no education and no knowledge of “gorgio” civiliza: tion, and I grew up as wild as the birds, frolicsome as the lambs, and as difficult to catch as the rabbits. All the grasses and flowers and trees of the field and all living things were my friends and companions. Some of them, indeed, got almost too familiar with me. The rabbits, for instance, were so fond of me that they sometimes followed me home. I think I learned then to have a sympathetic nature, even if I learned nothing else. My earliest clear impression of these days, which have now retreated so far into the past, is that of falling from the front of my father’s 26 Gipsy Smith wagon. I had given the horse a stroke, as boys will do. He made a sudden leap and jerked me off onto the road. What followed has passed from my mind, but my father tells me I was run over by his wagon, and if my loud screams had not attracted his attention I should have been run over also by his brother’s wagon, which followed his. It was my mother’s death, however, which woke me to full consciousness, if I may so put it. This event made a wound in my heart which has never to this day been really healed, and even at this moment, though I am now in middle life, I often feel my hun- gry soul pining and yearning for my mother. “ Rod- ney, you have no mother!’’—that was really the first and the ineffaceable impression of my boy’s Life, CHAPTER tf MY MOTHER WE were travelling in Hertfordshire. The eldest of the family, a girl, was taken ill. The nearest town was Baldock, and my father at once made for it, so that he might get a doctor for his child. I remember as if it were yesterday that the gipsy wagon stood outside the door of the doctor’s house. My father told him he had a sick daughter. The doctor mounted the steps of the wagon and, leaning over the door, called my sick sister to him and ex- amined her. He did not enter our poor wagon. We were only gipsies. “Your daughter has the small-pox,” he said to my father; “you must get out of the town at once.” He sent us to a by-lane about one and a half miles away—it is called Norton Lane. In a little bend of this lane, on the left-hand side, between a huge overhanging hawthorn and a wood on the right-hand side, making a natural arch, father erected our tent. There he left mother and four children. He took the wagon two hundred yards farther down the lane, and stood it on the right-hand side near an old chalk-pit. From the door he could see the tent clearly and be within call. The wagon was the sick-room and my father was the nurse. In a few days the doctor, coming to the 28 Gipsy Smith tent, discovered that my brother Ezekiel also had the small-pox, and he, too, was sent to the wagon, so that my father had now two invalids to nurse. Poor mother used to wander up and down the lane in an almost distracted condition, and my father heard her cry again and again: “My poor children will die, and I am not allowed to goto them!”’ Mother had to go into Baldock to buy food, and, after pre- paring it in the tent, carried it half-way from there to the wagon. Then she put it on the ground and waited till my father came for it. She shouted or waved her silk handkerchief to attract his attention. Sometimes he came at once, but at other times he would be busy with the invalids and unable to leave them just at the moment. And then mother went back, leaving the food on the ground, and some- times before father had reached it, it was covered with snow, for it was the month of March and the weather was severe. And mother, in the anxiety of her loving heart, got every day, I think, a little nearer and nearer to the wagon, until one day she went too near, and then she also fell sick. When the doctor came he said it was the small-pox. | My father was in the uttermost distress. His worst fears were realized. He had hoped to save mother, for he loved her as only a gipsy can love. She was the wife of his youth and the mother of his children. They were both very young when they married, not much over twenty, and they were still very young. He would have died to save her. He had struggled with his calamities bravely for a whole My Mother 2y month, nursing his two first-born with whole-hearted love and devotion, and had never had his clothes off, day or night. And this he had done in order te save her from the terrible disease. And nowshe, too, was smitten. He felt that all hope was gone, and knowing he could not keep us separate any longer, he brought the wagon back to the tent. And there lay mother and sister and brother, all three sick with small-pox. In two or three days a little baby was born. Mother knew she was dying. Our hands were stretched out to hold her, but they were not strong enough. Other hands, omnipotent and eternal, were taking her from us. Father seemed to realize, too, that she was going. He sat beside her one day and asked her if she thought of God. For the poor gip- sies believe in God, and believe that he is good and merciful. And she said, “ Yes.” “Do you try to pray, my dear?” “Ves, Iam trying, and while I am trying to pray it seems as though a black hand comes before me and shows me all that I have done, and something whispers, ‘ There is no mercy for you!’ ” But my father had great assurance that God would forgive her, and told her about Christ and asked her to look to Him. He died for sinners. He was her Saviour. My father had some time before been in prison for three months on a false charge, and it was there that he had been toid what now he tried to teach my mother. After my father had told her all he knew of the gospel she threw her arms around his 30 Gipsy Smith neck and kissed him. Then he went outside, stood behind the wagon, and wept bitterly. When he went back again to see her she looked calmly into his face, and said, with a smile: “I want you to prom- ise me one thing. Will you be a good father to my children?’ He promised her that he would; at that moment he would have promised her anything. Again he went outside and wept, and while he was weeping he heard her sing: *T have a Father in the promised land. My God calls me, I must go To meet Him in the promised land.” My father went back to her and said: “ Polly, my dear, where did you learn that song?” She said: “ Cornelius, I heard it when I was a little girl, One Sunday my father’s tents were pitched on a village green, and seeing the young people and others going into a little school or church or chapel —I do not know which it was—I followed them in and they sang those words.”’ It must have been twenty years or so since my mother had heard the lines. Although she had forgotten them ail these years, they came back to her in her moments of intense seeking after God and His salvation. She could not read the Bible; she had never been taught about God and His Son; but these words came back to her in her dying mo- ments and she sang them again andagain. Turn- ing to my father, she said: “J am not afraid to die My Mother 3r now. I feel that it will be all right, I feel assured that God will take care of my children.” Father watched her all that Sunday night, and knew she was sinking fast. When Monday morning dawned it found her deep in prayer. I shall never forget that morning. I was only a little fellow, but even now I can close my eyes and see the gipsy tent and wagon in the lane. The fire is burning outside on the ground, and the kettle is hanging over it in true gipsy fashion anda bucket of water is stand- ing near by. Some clothes that my father has been washing are hanging on the hedge. I can see the old horse grazing along the lane. I can see the boughs bending in the breeze, and I can almost hear the singing of the birds, and yet when I try to call back the appearance of my dear mother I am baffled, That dear face that bent over my gipsy cradle and sang lullabies to me, that mother who if she had lived would have been more to me than any other in God’s world—her face has faded clean from my memory. I wandered up the lane that morning with the hand of my sister Tilly in mine. We two little things were inseparable. We could not go to father, for he was too full of his grief. The others were sick. We two had gone off together, when suddenly I heard my name called: “ Rodney!”’ and running to see what I was wanted for, I encountered my sister Emily. She had got out of bed, for bed could not hold her that morning, and she said to me, “ Rodney, mother’s dead!’’ I remember falling on my face in the lane as though I had been shot, and weeping my heart out 32 Gipsy Smith and saying to myself, “I shall never be like othe: boys, for I have no mother!” And somehow that feeling has never quite left me, and even now, in my man’s life, there are moments when mother is longed for. My mother’s death caused a gloom indescribable to settle down upon the tent life. The day of the funeral came. My mother was to be buried at the dead of night. We were only gipsies, and the author- ities would not permit the funeral to take place in the day-time. In the afternoon the coffin was placed on two chairs outside the wagon, waiting for the darkness. Sister and brother were so much better that the wagon had been emptied. My father had been trying to cleanse it, and the clothes, such as we had for wearing and sleeping in, had been put into the tent. While we were watching and weeping round the coffin—father and his five children—the tent caught fire, and all our little stock of worldly possessions were burned to ashes. The sparks flew around us on all sides of the coffin, and we expected every moment that that, too, would be set on fire. We poor little things were terrified nearly to death. “ Moth- er will be burned up!’”’ wewept. “ Mother will be burned up!’ Father fell upon his face on the grass crying like achild. The flames were so strong that he could do nothing to stop their progress ; and, indeed, he had to take great care to avoid harm to himself. Our agonies while we were witnessing this, to us, terrible conflagration, helpless to battle against it, may easily be imagined, but, strange to relate, while the sparks (GHGs aoe COW. ATA. HOLE NI HIN Vial saeie My Mother 33 fell all around the coffin, the coffin itself was un- touched. And now darkness fell and with it came to us an old farmer’s cart. Mother’s coffin was placed in the vehicle, and between ten and eleven o’clock my father, the only mourner, followed her to the grave by a lantern light. She lies resting in Norton church- yard, near Baldock. When my father came back to us it was midnight, and his grief was very great. He went into a plantation behind his van, and throw- ing himself upon his face, promised God to be good, to take care of his children, and to keep the promise that he had made to his wife. A fortnight after the little baby died and was placed at her mother’s side. If you go to Norton church-yard now and inquire for the gipsies’ graves they will be pointed out to you. My mother and her last born lie side by side in that portion of the grave-yard where are interred the re- mains of the poor, the unknown, and the forsaken. We remained in that fatal lane a few weeks longer ° then the doctor gave us leave to move on, all danger being over. So we took farewell of the place where we had seen so much sorrow. I venture to think that there are some points of deep spiritual significance in this narrative. First of all, there is the sweet and touching beauty of my father’s endeavor to show my mother, in the midst of his and her ignorance, the way of salvation as far as he was able. My dear father tried to teach her of God. Looking back on that hour he can see clearly arn the hand of God. When he was in prison 34 Gipsy Smith as a lad, many years before, he heard the gospel faithfully preached by the chaplain. The sermon had been on the text, “I am the good Shepherd, and know My sheep, and am known of Mine.” My father was deeply distressed and cried to God to save him, and had there been any one to show him the way of salvation he would assuredly have found peace then. At the time of my mother’s death, too, my father was under deep conviction, but there was no light. He could not read, none of his friends could read, and there was no one to whom he could go for in- structicn and guidance. The actual date of his con- version was some time after this, but my father is convinced that if he had been shown the way of sal- vation he would have there and then surrendered his life to God. Another significant point was this: what was it that brought back to my mother’s mind in her last hour the lines: “‘T have a Father in the promised land. My God calls me, I must go To meet Him in the promised land’’? Was it not the Holy Ghost, of whom Christ said, “ But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you”? (John xiv. 26). My mother had lived in a religious darkness that was all but unbroken during her whole life, buta ray of My Mother Qk light had crept into her soul when she was a little girl, by the singing of this hymn. That was a part of the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. ‘No minister ever looked near our gipsy tent, no missioner, no Christian worker. To me it is plain that it was the Holy Ghost who brought these things to her remembrance—as plain as the sun that shines, or the flowers that bloom, or the birds that sing. That little child’s song, heard by my mother as she wandered into that little chapel that Sunday afternoon, was brought back to her by the Spirit of God and became a ladder by which she climbed from her ignorance and superstition to the light of God and the many mansions. And my mother is there, and although I cannot recall her face, I shall know it some day. I became conscious after my mother’s death that I was a real boy, and that I had lost something which I should never find. Many a day when I have seen my aunts making a great deal of their children, giv- ing them advice and even thrashing them, I have cried for my mother—if it were only to thrash me! It tore my hungry little heart with anguish to stand by and see my cousins made a fuss of. At such times I have had hard work to hide my bitter tears. I have gone up the lane round the corner, or into the field or wood to weep my heart out. In these days, my dreams, longings, and passions frightened me. { would lie awake all night exploring depths in my own being that I but faintly understood, and thinking of my mother. I knew that she had gone beyond the 36 Gipsy Smith clouds, because my father told me so, and I believed everything that my father told me. I knew he spoke the truth. I used to try to pierce the clouds, and often-times I fancied I succeeded, and used to have long talks with my mother, and I often told her that some day I was coming up to her. One day I went to visit her grave in Norton church- yard. As may be imagined, that quiet spot in the lonely church-yard was sacred to my father and to us, and we came more often to that place than we should have done had it not been that there in the cold earth lay hidden from us a treasure that gold could not buy back. I shall never forget my first visit to that hallowed spot. Our tent was pitched three miles off. My sister Tilly and I—very little things we were—wandered off one day in search of mother’s grave. It was early in the morning when we started. We wandered through fields, jumped two or three ditches, and those we could not jump we waded through. The spire of Norton church was our guiding star. We set our course by it. When we reached the church-yard we went to some little cottages that stood beside it, knocked at the doors and asked the people if they could tell us which was mother’s grave. We did not think it necessary to say who mother was or who we were. There was but one mother in the world for us. The good people were very kind to us. They wept quiet, gentle tears for the poor gipsy children, because they knew at once from our faces and our clothes that we were gipsies, and they knew what manner of death our mother My Mother a7 had died. The grave was pointed out to us. When we found it, Tilly and I stood over it weeping for a long time, and then we gathered primrose and violet roots and planted them on the top. And we stood there long into the afternoon. The women from the cot- tages gave us food, and then it started to our memory that it was late, and that father would be wondering where we were. Sol said, “Tilly, we must go home,”’ and we both got on our knees beside the grave and kissed it. Then we turned our backs upon it and walked away. When we reached the gates that led out of the church-yard we looked back again, and I said to Tilly, “I wonder whether we can do anything for mother?” I suddenly remembered that I had with me a gold-headed scarf-pin which some one had given me. It was the only thing of any value that I ever had as a child. Rushing back to the grave, upon the impulse and inspiration of the moment, I stuck the scarf-pin into the ground as far as I could, and hurrying back to Tilly, I said, “ There, I have given my gold pin to my mother!’’ It was all I had to give. Then we went home to the tents and wagons. Father had missed us and had become very anxious. When he saw us he was glad and also very angry, intending, no doubt, to punish us for going away without telling him, and for staying away too long. He asked us where we had been. We said we had gone to mother’s grave. Without a word he turned away and wept bitterly. CHAPTER Ii A MISCHIEVOUS LITTLE BOY—WITH SOMETHING ABOUT PLUMS, TROUSERS, RABBITS, EGGS, AND A CIRCUS THE wild man in my father was broken forever. My mother’s death had wrought a moral revolution in him. As he had promised to her, he drank much less, he swore much less, and he was a good father to us. When my mother died he had made up his mind to be a different man, and as far as was possible in his own strength he had succeeded. But his soul was hungry for he knew not what, and a gnawing dissatisfaction that nothing could appease or gratify was eating out his life. The worldly position of our household, in the mean time, was comfortable. My father made clothes- pegs and all manner of tinware, and we children sold them. If I may say so, I was the best seller in the family. Sometimes I would get rid of five or six gross of clothes-pegs in a day. I was not at all bashful or backward, and I think I may say I was a good business man in those days. I used so to keep on at the good women till they bought my pegs just to get rid of me. “ Bother the boy,” they would say, “there is no getting rid of him!”’ And I would A Mischievous Little Boy 39 say, “Come, now, madame, here you have the best pegs in the market. They will not eat and wil! not wear clothes out; they will not cry, and they will not wake you up in the middle of the night!”’ Then they would laugh, and I used to tell them who I was, and that | had nomother. This softened their hearts. Sometimes I sold my pegs wholesale to the retail sellers. I was a wholesale and a retail merchant. I got into trouble, however, at Cambridge. I was trying to sell my goods at a house there. It chanced to be a policeman’s house. I was ten or eleven years of age, too young to have a selling license, and the policeman marched me off to the police-court. I was tried for selling goods without a license. I was called upon to address the court in my defence. And I said something like this: “Gentlemen, it is true I have no license. You will not let me havea license; [amtoo young. Iam engaged in an honest trade. Ido not steal. I sell my c'othes-pegs to help my father to make an honest living for himself and us children. If you will give me a license my father is quite willing to pay for it, but if you will not, I do not see why I should be prevented from doing honest work for my living.”” This argument carried weight. My ingenuousness impressed the court, and I was let off with a small fine. I think I can tell some amusing things about these days. My dress consisted of an overall (and an underall too), a smock-frock of the sort that is still worn in the Eastern counties. When I took this off, I was ready for bed The frock had some advan- 40 Gipsy Smith tages. It had pockets which it took a great deal to fill. They were out of sight, and no one could very well know what was in them. One day I was upa tree, a tree that bore delicious Victoria plums. I had filled my pockets with them, and I had one in my mouth. I was ina very happy frame of mind, when, lo! at the foot of the tree appears the owner of the land. He gave me a very pressing invitation to come down. At once I swallowed the plum in my mouth, in case he should think that I was after his plums. He repeated his pressing invitation to come down. “What do you want, sir?’ I asked, in the most bland and innocent tones, as if I had never known the taste of plums. “Tf you come down,” he said, “I will tell you.” I am not used to climbing up or climbing down, but I had to come down because I could not stay even up a plum-tree for ever, and my friend showed no disposition to go. He said, “I will wait until you are ready,” and I did not thank him for his courtesy. Idid not make haste to come down, neither did I do it very joyfully. When I got to the foot of the tree my friend got me by the right ear. There was a great deal of congratulation in his grip. He pulled me over rapidly and unceremoniously to an- other tree. “Do you see that tree?” he said. i Vesu sine? “Do you see that board?” “Yes, sir.” A Mischievous Little Boy Af “Can you read it?” auNoy Sirs “Well, I will read it for you: ‘Whosoever is found trespassing on this ground will be prosecuted according to law.’”’ since that day I have never wanted anybody to explain to me what “whosoever” means. This memorable occasion fixed the meaning of the word on my mind for ever. The irate owner shook me hard. And I tried to cry, but I could not. Then I told him that I had no mother, and I thought that touchea him, although he knew it, for he knew my father. Indeed, that saved me. He looked at me again and shook me hard. “If it were not for your father,’ he said, “I would send you to prison.’’ For wherever my father was known in his unconverted days, by farmer, policeman, or gamekeeper, he was held in universal respect. At last he let me off with a caution. He threw an old boot at me, but he for- got to take his foot out of it. But I was quite happy, for my pockets were full of plums. I dared not say anything about it to my father. My father would have been very angry with me, because, even in his wild days, he would not allow this sort of thing in his children if he knew. ‘Then there were farmers who were kind to us—very ; and we had to be special- ly careful what we did and where we went. If our tent was pitched near their places, my father would say to us, “I do not want you to go far from the wagons to-day,” and we knew at once what that meant. 42 Gipsy Smith My father was a very fatherly man. He did not believe in sparing the rod or spoiling the child. He was fond of taking me on his knees with my face downward. When he made an engagement with me he kept it. He never broke one. He sometimes almost broke me. Ifa thrashing was due, one might keep out of father’s reach all day, but this merely deferred the punishment; there was no escaping him at bed-time, because we all slept on one floor, the first. Sometimes he would send me for a stick to be thrashed with. In that case I always brought either the smallest or the biggest—the smallest be- cause I knew that it could not do much harm, or the largest because I knew my father would lay it on very lightly. Once or twice I managed to get out of a thrashing in this way: One was due to me in the evening. Inthe afternoon I would say to him, “ Dad- dy, shall I go and gather a bundle of sticks for your fire?’’ and he would say, “Yes, Rodney.” Then when I brought them to him I would hand him one, and he would say, “ What is this for?’ “Why, that is for my thrashing,” I would answer. And sometimes he would let me off, and sometimes he would not. Occasionally, too, I used to plead, “I know mother is not far behind the clouds, and she is looking down on you, and she will see you if you hit me very hard.’’ Sometimes that helped me to escape, sometimes it did not. But this I will say for my father: he never thrashed me in a temper, and I am quite sure now that J deserved my thrashings, and that they all did me good. A Mischievous Little Boy 43 As I grew older I became ambitious of some thing better and greater than a smock-frock, namely—a pair of trousers. My father did not give an enthu- siastic encouragement to that ambition, but he told me that if I was a good boy I should have a pair of his. And I was a good boy. My father in those days stood nearly six feet high, was broad in pro- portion, and weighed fifteen stones. I was very small and very thin as a child, but I was bent on hav- ing a pair of trousers. My father took an old pair of his and cut them off at the knees; but even then, of course, they had to be tucked up. I was a proud boy that day. I took my trousers behind the hedge, so that I might put them on in strict privacy. My father and brother, enjoying the fun, although I did not see it, waited for me on the other side of the hedge. When I emerged they both began to chaff me. “Rodney,” said my brother, “are you going or coming?’ He brought me a piece of string and said, “ What time does the balloon go up?” And, in truth, when the wind blew, I wanted to be pegged down. I did not like the fun, but I kept my trousers. I saw my father’s dodge. He wanted me to get dis- gusted with them and to go back to the smock-frock ; but I knew that if I went on wearing them he would soon get tired of seeing me in these extraordinary garments and would buy me a proper pair. A day came when we were the guests of the Prince of Wales at Sandringham—that is, we pitched our tents on his estate. One day I helped te catch some rabbits, and these trousers turned out t¢ be very use- 6 44 Gipsy Smith i ful. In fact, immediately the rabbits were caught, the trousers became a pair of fur-lined garments; for I carried them home inside the trousers. At length my father bought me a pair of brand- new corduroys that just fitted me, but I was soon doomed to trouble with these trousers. One day I found a hen camping out in the ditch, and there was quite a nestful of eggs there. I was very indignant with that hen for straying so far from the farm-yard. I considered that her proceedings were irregular and unauthorized. As to the eggs, the position to me was quite clear. I had found them. I had not gone into the farm-yard and pilfered them. On the other hand, they had put themselves in my way, and I naturally thought they were mine, and so I filled my pockets with them. I was sorry that I had to leave some of these eggs, but I could not helpit. The capacity of my pockets in my new trousers was less generous than in the old ones.. My next difficulty was how to get out of the ditch without breaking any of the eggs. But I was a youngster of resource and! managed it. And now I had to take my way across’ a ploughed field. This meant some very delicate pedestrian work. Then [ heard a man shout, and I thought that he wanted me, but I did not desire to give him an interview. Sol ran, and asI ran I fell; and when [ fell the eggs all cracked. I got up, and, looking round, saw nobody. The man who I thought was pursuing me was only shouting to a man in another field. It is truly written, “The wicked flee when no man pursueth.” I thought I A Mischievous Little Boy 45 had found these eggs, but my conscience found me. I have never found eggs again from that day to this. One other episode of my childish days will I inflict upon my readers. It was the time of the Cambridge Fair, and our wagons were standing on the fair-ground. The fun of the fair included a huge circus—Sanger’s, I think it was. In front of the door stood the clown, whom it was the custom among us to call “ Pinafore Billy.”’ This is the man who comes out and dilates on the wonders and merits of the performance, tells the people that the show is just about to begin, and invites them to step in. My highest ambition as a boy was to become a Pinafore Billy. I thought that that position was the very height of human glory, and I would have done anything and taken any trouble to get it. Now I wanted to get into the circus, and I had no money. A man was walking round the show with a long whip in his hand driving boys off, in case they should attempt to slip in under the can- vas. I went up to this whip-man and offered to help him. He was very scornful, and said, “ What can you do?” I said, “I will do what I can; I will help to keep the boys off.”” So he said, “ Very well; what will you do?” I answered, “You go round one way and I will go the other.” It was agreed, but as soon as he started to do his half of the round and turned his back on me, and had got round the tent, I slipped under the canvas. I thought by doing so I should at once be in the right part of the circus for seeing the show, but instead of that I found myself in a sort of dark, dismal part underneath 46 Gipsy Smith the raised seats of the circus. This was where the horses were kept. I saw at once I was in a fix, and to my horror I perceived a policeman walking round inside and coming towards me. I was at my wits’ end; but luckily I perceived some harness lying about, and seizing a loose cloth close at hand, I be- gan to polish the harness vigorously. When the policeman did come up to me he said, “My boy, that is a curious job they have given you to do in such a place as this.” “It is very hard work,” I said, and went on polishing as vigorously as ever, never looking up at the policeman’s face. I was afraid to, for I knew that my looks would betray my guilt. Then the policeman went on. I really do not know how I made my way into the circus. How- ever, I found myself sitting among the best seats of the house, and I am sure that I attracted great attention, for here was I, a poor little gipsy boy, dressed in corduroys and velvets, sitting among all the swells. I was not long in peace. My con- science at once began to say to me, “ How will you get out? You dare not go out,by the door in case you meet the whip-man that you offered to help.” I felt myself to be a thief and a robber. I had not come in at the door, but I had climbed up some other way. Ido not remember quite how I got out of this terrible dilemma, but I know that I escaped without suffering, and was very glad, indeed, to find myself outside again with a whole skin. These are the worst of the sins that I have to con- fess. My boyhood’s days were, on the whole, very A Mischievous Little Boy 47 innocent. I did not drink or swear. I am afraid, however, that I told lies many a time. I had no opportunity for cultivating bad habits, for all the companions I had were my sisters and my brother, and so I was kept from serious sin by the narrow- ness and the limitations of my circumstances. CHAPTER [IV THE MORALS OF THE GIPSIES PERHAPS this is a fit place to say a few words about the morals of the gipsies. I want to say at once that the character of my people stands very high. I never knew of a gipsy girl who went astray. I do not say that that never happened, but that I never knew a fallen woman in a gipsy-tent. The gipsy boy is told from his earliest days that he must honor and protect women. He drinks in this teach- ing, so to say, with his mother’s milk, and he grows up to be very courteous and very chivalrous. The gipsy sweethearts do their courting in the day-time, and where they can be seen by their parents. The “‘gorgio’’ sweethearts would probably find these conditions rather trying. Gipsy sweethearts do not go out for walks by the light of the moon, neither do they betake themselves to nooks and corners out of sight and out of reach of everybody. All the sweet things the gipsy man says to the gipsy maid must be uttered, if not in the hearing of their parents, at least in their sight. My brother Ezekiel and his wife were sweethearts from childhood, One day, when they were approach- ing the estate of manhood and womanhood, Eze- The Morals of the Gipsies 49 kiel was sitting talking to his girl in the presence of her mother. “I know,’ said Ezekiel’s prospective mother-in-law, “that you young people want a walk. You shall have one. I will go with you.’”’ And this is the kind of thing which occurs invariably during gipsy courtships. Sweethearts would never think of going off alone for a little walk, yet the gipsies find this no bar to pleasant and successful courting. The result of these customs is that gipsy courtships are not marred by untoward and unpleasant in- cidents. The hearts of the young men and young women are pure, and this purity is guarded by their parents like gold. The gipsy men, indeed, pride themselves on the purity of their women, and that says a great dealforthe men. Practically all gipsies get married. There are very few old maids and old bachelors. The gipsy husband and wife live on the most intimate terms. The wife knows all that her husband knows. I would not say thata gipsy husband knows all that his wife knows, any more than a “‘gorgio”’ husband knows all that his wife knows. They usually have large families. There is no more groundless slander than the statement that gipsies steal children. They have every reason for not so doing. They have plenty of their own. My great-uncle was the father of thirty-one children, and a brother of my father’s was the father of twenty- four, I think. I have never heard that they sought to add to their number by theft. The young gipsy couple start their married life by burcha sae a wagon. This costs anywhere from 50 Gipsy Smith £40 to £150, and is obtained from a “ gorgio ” wagon- builder. Oddly enough, the gipsies never learn the trade of making their own wagons. The wagons are very warm and very strong, and last a great many years. The young husband 1s, of course, the manu- facturer of the goods, and his wife the seller. When she leaves the wagon in the morning to go her rounds she arranges with her husband where the wagon shall be placed at night, and thither she betakes her- self when her day’s toil is over. In the course of the day she may have walked from fifteen to twenty miles. Gupsies have plenty of exercise and a suff- ciency of food. This explains their very good health. If the husband has been refused permission to stand his wagon on the arranged spot and has had to move on, he lets his wife know where he is going by leaving behind him a track of grass. Gipsies are very lovable and very loyal to one an- other. They are respectful, and even reverential, to old age. I never knew of a gipsy who ended his or her days in the workhouse. The gipsy young man would rather work the flesh off his fingers than tol- erate any such thing. They would feel ashamed to abandon those who had done so much for them. The gipsies do not hate the “ gorgios,”’ but they feel that they are suspected and mistrusted, and that everybody is afraid of them. They feel that all * sorgios’”’ are against them, and therefore they are against the “‘gorgios.”’ Ifa kindness is done them by a “‘gorgio”’ they never cease to talk about it. They remember it all their days and their children are The Morals of the Gipsies a4 told of it too. Quite recently a curious illustration of this trait came to my knowledge. I was travel- ling from Cambridge to Thetford, and had as my companion a clergyman of the Church of England. “Some years ago,” he said to me, “a gipsy family came to my parish. The father was ill, and I went to see him. I read to him, I prayed with him, and my wife brought him some nourishing soup. This poor man became a sincere seeker after Christ, and I have every reason to believe he was converted. I followed up my friendship with him. When he left the parish and went a few miles farther away | kept in touch with him, and wrote to a brother clergyman and arranged with him to follow up what I had tried to do for this dying man. This he gladly did, and the man passed away happy in the knowledge of sins forgiven. Two or three years after I was driv- ing out of Norwich when I met two young gipsy fellows with a donkey which they were going into Norwich to sell. I was in need of a donkey, so I got down and began to talk to them. I questioned them about the donkey. They said it was a very good one, and from its appearance I thought so too. Then we went on to discuss the price. I finally decided to purchase the donkey. I had some further conver- sation with them, telling them where to take the don- key, and when I would be home to pay for the same. In the mean time I observed with somewhat of alarm that these two young fellows were exchaging curi- ous glances. We were about to fix up the bargain when one of them said to me, ‘Are you Mr. So-and-so?’ 52 Gipsy Smith ‘Yes, Iam.’ ‘Oh, well, sir, we have heard of your great kindness to poor So-and-so when he was dying, and we cannot sell you this donkey: it is a bad one; we could not take you in; but if you will let us we will give you a good donkey, a genuine, good arti- cle.’ And they got me a fine animal, which has done a good deal of work, which I still have, and have been delighted with.”’ The gipsies are naturally musical. In fact, I believe that the only naturally musical people in the world are the Jews and gipsies, and this is an- other point of affinity between the two races. The gipsies love to dance in the lanes to the music of the harp, the dulcimer, and violin. They do not object to the “ gorgios’”’ looking on, but they would rather they did not join in the merriment. They like to live their own life with absolute freedom and without interference. But, alas! there is a debit side to this moral balance account. The gipsies drink a good deal. Beer is their beverage. Spirits as a rule they take sparingly. They do not drink for the mere sake of drinking, but only when they meet friends. Their drinking is an unfortunate outcome of their highly social dis- positions. They may be abstemious for days, weeks, and even months, but when they begin to drink they go in for it thoroughly. Cans and bottles do not satisfy them. Buckets are what they need; and the spree sometimes lasts for nearly a week. Gipsy women, however, are abstemious. I have only known one who was really a drunkard. And then The Morals of the Gipsies G2 zipsies swear, some of them, indeed, fearfully. They do not lie to each other, but to the “gorgios.”” They are paid to lie, to tell fortunes. This vile business, which has really been forced upon them by the “ gor- gios,” utterly debauches the consciences of the gipsies. And I should like all our educated women to know that every time they pay a gipsy woman to tell their fortune they make it the more difficult for that woman to becomea Christian. The gipsies, too, are pilferers. They do not commit big robberies. They do not steal horses or break into banks, nor do they commit highway robberies, or find a few thousands, or fail for a few. But they take potatoes from a field or fruit from an orchard—only what is sufficient for their immediate needs. The potatoes they take from a field are only those they need until they get to the next potato field. Sometimes, too, late at night, they will put five or six horses into a field to feed, and take them out early in the morning. They are also in the habit of finding young undergrowth stuff that they use for their clothes-pegs and baskets, Most of them never dream that there is any sin or wrong in such actions. They regard them merely as natural, ordinary, commonplace events in their Jaily lives CHAPTER V MY FATHER, AND HOW HE FOUND THE LORD To return to the story of my own life. I have said that the gipsies are very musical, and my father was a good illustration of this statement. He was a very good fiddler—by ear, of course. He tells a story of the days when he was learning to play in his mother’s tent. Dear old lady, she got tired of the noise the boy was making, and she told him to stop. As he did not stop, she said, “If you don’t I will blow out the candle.” This she did. That, of course, made no difference to the young musician ; he went on playing, and grannie said, “I never saw such a boy; he can play in the dark!” For years my father had greatly added to his ordinary earnings by fiddling to the dancers in the public- houses at Baldock, Cambridge, Ashwell, Royston, Bury St. Edmunds, and elsewhere. Even after my mother’s death, though his fiddling led him into great temptations, my father continued this practice, and he sometimes took me with him. When he fiddled I danced. I was a very good dancer, and at a certain point in the evening’s proceedings my father would say, “Now, Rodney, make the collec. tion,’ and I went round with the hat. That is where My Father—How He Found the Lord 55 I graduated for the ministry. If ever my father took more drink than was good for him, with the result that he did not know whether he was drawing the bow across the first string‘or the second, I -went round again with my cap. What I collected that time I regarded as my share of the profits, for I was a member of the firm of Smith & Son, and nota sleeping partner either. How delighted I was if I got a few coppers to show to my sisters! These visits with my father to the beer-shop were very fre- quent, and as I think of those days, when I was forced to listen to the vile jokes and vulgar expres- sions of the common laborers, I marvel at the grace which shielded me and prevented me from under- standing what was being said. All this time, while my father was living this life of fiddling and drinking and sinning, he was under the deepest conviction. He always said his prayers night and morning and asked God to give him power over drink, but every time temptation came in his way he fell before it. He was like the chaff driven before the wind. He hated himself afterwards be-. cause he had been so easily overcome. He was so concerned about his soul that he could rest nowhere. If he had been able to read the word of God, I feel sure, and he, looking back on those days, feels sure, that he would have found the way of life. His sister and her husband, who had no children, came to travel with us. She could struggle her way through a little of the New Testament, and used to read to my father about the sufferings of Christ and His 56 Gipsy Smith death upon the tree for sinful men. She told my father it was the sins of the people which nailed Him there, and he often felt in his heart that he was one of them. She was deeply moved when he wept and said, “Oh, how cruel to serve Him so!” I have seen father when we children were in bed at night, and supposed to be asleep, sitting over the fire, the flame from which was the only light. As it leaped up into the darkness it showed us a sad picture. There was father, with tears falling like bubbles on mountain streams as he talked to himself about mother and his promise to her to be good. He would say to himself aloud, “I do not know how to be good,”’ and laying his hand upon his heart he would say, “T wonder when [ shall get this want satisfied, this burden removed.’”’ When father was in this con- dition there was no sleep for us children. We lay awake listening, not daring to speak, and shedding bitter tears. Many a time | have said the next morn- in to my sisters and my brother, “ We have no mother, and we shall soon have no father.’”’ We thought he was going out of his mind. We did not under- stand the want or the burden. It was all quite foreign to us. My father remained in this sleepless, con- victed condition for a long time, but the hour of his deliverance was at hand. “Long in darkness we had waited For the shining of the light: Long have felt the things we hated Sink us into deeper night.” My Father—How He Found the Lord 57 One morning we had left Luton behind us. My eldest sister was in the town selling her goods, and my father had arranged to wait for her on the road- side with our wagon. When our wagon stopped my father sat on the steps, wistfully looking towards the town against the time of his daughter’s return, and thinking, no doubt, as he always was, of my mother and his unrest. Presently he saw two gipsy wagons coming towards him, and when they got near he discovered to his great delight that they belonged to his brothers Woodlock and Bartholo- mew. Well do I remember that meeting. My father was the eldest of the three, and although he was such a big man, he was the least in stature. The brothers were as surprised and delighted to meet my father as he was to meet them. They fell on each other’s necks and wept. My father told them of his great loss, and they tried to sympathize with him, and the wives of the two brothers did their best to comfort us motherless children. The two wagons of my uncles faced my father’s, but on the opposite side of the road. The three men sat on the bank holding sweet fellowship together, and the two wives and the children of the three families gathered around them. Soon my father was talking about the con- dition of his soul. Said he to Woodlock and Bar- tholomew: “Brothers, I have a great burden that I must get removed. A hunger is gnawing at my heart. I can neither eat, drink, nor sleep. If I do not get this want satisfied I shall die!’’ And then tue brothers said: “Cornelius, we feel just the 58 Gipsy Smith same. We have talked about this to each other for weeks.” Though these three men had been far apart, God had been dealing with them at the same time and in the same way. Among the marvellous dispensa- tions of Providence which have come within my own knowledge, this is one of the most wonderful. These men were all hungry for the truth. They could not read, and so knew nothing of the Bible. They had never been taught, and they knew very little of Jesus Christ. The light that had crept into their souls was “the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” “He, the Spirit, will reprove the world of sin, righteousness, and judg- ment.” As the brothers talked they felt how sweet it would be to go to God’s house and learn of Him, for they had all got tired of their roaming life. My father was on the way to London, and fully resolved to go to a church and find out what it was his soul needed. The three brothers agreed to go together, and ar- ranged to take in Cambridge by the way. They drove their wagon to the Barnwell end of the town, where there was a beer-shop. The three great big simple men went in and told the landlady how they felt. It is not often, I feel sure, that part of a work of grace is carried on in a beer-shop, and with the landlady thereof as an instrument in this divine work. But God had been dealing with the landlady of this beer-house. When the brothers spoke toe her she began to weep, and said, “I am somewhat My Father—How He Found the Lord 59 in your case, and I have a book upstairs that will just suit you, for it makes me cry every time I read it.’ She brought the book down and lent it to the brothers to read. ‘They went into the road to look after their horses. A young man who came out of the public-house offered to read from the book to them. It was The Puilgrim’s Progress. When he got to the point where Pilgrim’s burden drops off as he looks at the cross, Bartholomew rose from his seat by the way-side and excitedly walking up and down, cried: “ That is what I want, my burder removed. If God does not save me I shall die!” All the brothers at that moment felt the smart of sin, and wept like little children. On the Sunday the three brothers went to the Prim- itive Methodist Chapel, Fitzroy Street, Cambridge, three times. In the evening a certain Mr. Gunns preached. Speaking of that service, my father says: “ His points were very cutting tomy soul. Heseemed to aim directly at me. I tried to hide myself behind a pular in the chapel, but he, looking and pointing in that direction, said, ‘ He died for thee!’ The anx- ious ones were asked to come forward, and in the prayer-meeting the preacher came to where I was sitting and asked me if I was saved. I cried out, “No; that is what I want.’ He tried to show me that Christ had paid my debt, but the enemy of souls had blinded my eyes and made me believe that I must feel it and then believe it, instead of receiving Christ by faith first. I went from that house of prayer still a convicted sinner, but not a converted one.” 60 Gipsy Smith We now resumed our way to London, and had reached Epping Forest when darkness came on. My father put his horse in somebody’s field, intend- ing, of course, to avoid detection of this wrong-doing by coming for it early in the morning. That night he dreamed adream. In the dream he was travelling through a rugged country over rocks and bowlders, thorns and briers. His hands were bleeding and his feet torn. Utterly exhausted and worn out, he fell to the ground. A person in white raiment ap- peared to him, and as this person lifted up his hands my father saw the mark of the nails, and then he knew it was the Lord. The figure in white said to my father, showing him His hands, “I suffered this for you, and when you give up all and trust Me I will save you.” ‘Then my father awoke. This dream shows how much the reading of The Puilgrim’s Progress had impressed him. He narrated the dream at the breakfast-table on the following morn- ing. When he went to fetch his horses his tender conscience told him very clearly and very pointedly that he had done wrong. As he removed the horses from the field and closed the gate he placed his hand on it and, summoning up all his resolution, said, “That shall be the last known sin I will ever wil- fully commit.” My father was now terribly in earnest. There were a great many gipsies encamped in the forest at the time, including his father and mother, brothers and sisters. My father told them that he had done with the roaming and wrong-doing, and that he meant My Father—How He Found the Lord 61 toturntoGod. They looked at him and wept. Then my father and his brothers moved their vans to Shep- herd’s Bush, and placed them on a piece of building land close to Mr. Henry Varley’s chapel. My father sold his horse, being determined not to move from that place until he had found the way to God. Says my father: “I meant to find Christ if He was to be found. I could think of nothing else but Him. I believed His blood was shed for me.” Then my father prayed that God would direct him to some place where he might learn the way to heaven, and his prayer was answered. One morning he went out searching as usual for the way toGod. He meta man mending the road, and began to talk with hin— about the weather, the neighborhood, and such- like things. The man was kindly and sympathetic, and my father became more communicative. The man, as the good providence of God would have it, was a Christian, and said to my father, “I know what you want; you want to be converted.” “I do not know anything about thai,” said my father, “ but I want Christ, and I am resolved to find Him.”’ “Well,” said the working-man, “there is a meeting to-night in a mission-hall in Latimer Road, and I shall come for you and take you there.”’ In the evening the road-mender came and carried off my father and his brother Bartholomew to the mission- hall. Before leaving, my father said to us, “ Children, I shall not come home again until I am converted,” and I shouted to him, “ Daddy, who is he?” I did not know who this Converted was. I thought my 62 Gipsy Smith father was going off his head, and resolved to follow him. The mission-hall was crowded. My father marched right up to the front. I never knew him look so determined. The pene were singing the well-known hymn: ‘‘ There is a fountain filled with blood Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins, And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, Lose all their guilty stains.” The refrain was, “I do believe, I will believe, that Jesus died for me.’”’ As they were singing, my father’s mind seemed to be taken away from every- body and everything. “It seemed,” he said, “as if I was bound in a chain and they were drawing me up to the ceiling.” In the agony of his soul he fell on the floor unconscious, and lay there wallowing and foaming for half an hour. I was in great dis- tress, and thought my father was dead, and shouted out, “Oh dear, our father is dead!’”’ But presently he came to himself, stood up and, leaping joyfully, exclaimed, “I am converted!”’ He has often spoken of that great change since. He walked about the hall looking at his flesh. It did not seem to be all quite the same color to him. His burden was gone, and he told the people that he ‘elt so light that if the room had been full of eggs he could have walk- ed through and not have broken one of them. I did not stay to witness the rest of the proceed- ings. As soon as/J heard my father say, “I am con- MY FATHER, MY SISTER, AND MYSELF. My F ather—-How He Found the Lord 6 5 verted,”’ I muttered to myself, “ Father is converted; I am off home.” I was still in utter ignorance of what the great transaction might mean. When my father got home to the wagon that night he gathered us all around him. I saw at once that the old haggard look that his face had worn for years was now gone, and, indeed, it was gone for ever. His noble countenance was lit up with something of that light that breaks over the cliff-tops of eter- nity. I said to myself in wonderment, “ What mar- vellous words these are—‘I do believe, I will believe, that Jesus died for me.’” My father’s brother Bar- tholomew was also converted that evening, and the two stopped long enough to learn the chorus, and they sang it all the way home through the streets. Father sat down in the wagon, as tender and gentle as a little child. He called his motherless children to him one by one, beginning with the youngest, my sister Tilly. ‘Do not be afraid of me, my dears. God has sent home your father a new creature and anew man.” He put his arms as far round the five of us as they would go, kissing us all, and before we could undersand what had happened he fell on his knees and began to pray. Never will my brother, sisters, and I forget that first prayer. [I still feel its sacred influence on my heart and soul; in storm and sunshine, life and death, I expect to feel the bene- diction of that first prayer. There was no sleep for any of us that night. Father was singing, “I do believe, I will believe, that Jesus died for me,’”’ and we soon learned it too. Morning, when it dawned, 64. Gipsy Smith found my father full of this new life and this new joy. He again prayed with his children, asking God to save them, and while he was praying God told him he must go to the other gipsies that were encamped on the same piece of land, in all about twenty families. Forthwith he began to sing in the midst of them, and told them what God had done for him. Many of them wept. Turning towards his brother Bartholo- mew’s van, he saw him and his wife on their knees. The wife was praying to God for mercy, and God saved her then and there. The two brothers, Bar- tholomew and my father, then commenced a prayer- meeting in one of the tents, and my brother and eldest sister were brought to God. In all, thirteen gipsies professed to find Christ that morning. CHAPTER VI OLD CORNELIUS WAS DEAD AND now commenced a new life for my father. He felt so new inside that he was sure he must look new outside. And so he did. There was a hand- glass in the wagon. My father was continually examining himself in it. He looked at himself all over, at least as much of him as could be perceived in the glass, and when he had done this minute in- spection he would say to himself, “Is this old Cor- nelius?’” It was not. The old Cornelius was dead. The new Cornelius was a great surprise and delight to my father, and also to his children. As it is writ- ten, “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”’ Christ makes new men and a new creation. No sooner had my father begun this new life than he had to withstand the assaults of Satan. His attention was first drawn to his old fiddle. He took it down, and I felt sure he was going to play “I do believe,” and I asked him to do so. He said, “No, my dear, I am going to sel) this fiddle.” I said, “No, daddy, do not sell it; let Ezekiel and me play it. You et teach us how to.” My father said, 66 Gipsy Smith “No, that fiddle has been the cause of my ruin. It has led me into drink, and sin, and vice, and bad company. It shall not be the ruin of my boys. It shall not be where Iam. I will get rid of it, and I shall not have one again until I feel strong enough to be able to manage it.’”” So my father sold the fiddle and began to preach to the men that bought it from him. Very soon the third brother, Woodlock, was brought to God. The critical event in his life took place in Mr. Varley’s vestry. As soon as Mr. Varley heard of the conversion of my father and his brothers, he invited them to his Tabernacle. He put up a mission tent on the ground where the gipsies were encamped and called it the Gipsy Tabernacle. A lady came to teach the gipsy children in the day- time and some young men in the evening read to them. The three brothers made a solemn league and covenant with each other that they would never fall out, and that for Christian work they would never be parted. This pledge they kept until death dissolved the bond. If you wanted one of them for a meeting, you had to invite the three. These three men were as simple as children. One of the first hymns they learnt and the one that they were most fond of singing was “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, Look upon a little child.” And, after all, they were only children, felt themselves children always, and possessed all their days a truly Old Cornelius was Dead 67 childlike spirit. Each of them was as sweet as a sister, as tender as a mother, and as playful as a kitten. They were very fond of singing, and we children loved to sing, too. As for anything deeper, we did not yet understand the need of it. We had no books, and if we had had books we could not have read them. Our first idea of God came from father’s beautiful life in the gipsy tent—a life which was like the blooming of a flower whose beauty won us all. If father had lived one life in a meeting and another in the gipsy tent, he would not have been able to rejoice to-day over his five children converted. But the beauty of father’s character was most seen in his home life. We dearly loved to have him all to ourselves. Nobody knew whata fine, magnificent character he was as well as we children. Whenever we were tempted to do things that were at all doubtful, we at once thought of father, and if we had any suspicion that the course of con- duct we contemplated would not be pleasing to him, we at once abandoned all idea of following it. Father’s life was the leaven which leavened the whole lump. One Sunday morning, seven or eight weeks after their conversion, the three brothers set out to visit their father and mother. The old couple were camped in Loughton Forest,near High Beech. They walked all the way from Shepherd's Bush to Loughton, and when they got within hearing distance they began to sing, “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild.” Granny heard the voices of her boys and knew them, 68 Gipsy Smith — as every mother would have known them. She got up, and peering with her old, weary eyes over the bushes, said to herself, “ Why, bless me, if them’s not my boys coming!’ It does not matter how old you are, as long as your mother is living you will still be a boy. Then granny, turning to grand- father, said, “I say, Jim, come out of the tent and see if these ain’t my boys!’ And the three stalwart men still marched triumphantly on with proud, smil- ing, beaming faces, singing, “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild.”’ Then says old granny, “ What in the world is the matter with you?” “Oh,” says my father, “mother, we have found Christ; we have found Jesus; we are converted!’’ My poor grand- father walked round the tent, saying, “My boys have come home to teach me what I ought to have taught them!’’ Granny soon had a meal ready for her boys. “Before we eat,” said my father, “we always pray now’’; and they all knelt down. As soon as they got off their knees, grandfather began to cry for mercy, and soon found peace. Grand- father’s brother was camping with him, and he, too, sought and found the Saviour. He was ninety- nine years of age, and lived two years after this, dying a triumphant Christian death. Grandfather and grandmother were both seventy, and lived five years after their conversion. Presently the brothers returned to London, and soon were deeply engaged in Christian work. The gipsies were all turned off the ground where they had been staying, and the Gipsy Tabernacle went Old Cornelius was Dead 69 with them. My father hired a field at the rent of £25 a year, and all the gipsies followed him there. The tents were pitched around the field with the mission tent in the centre, and meetings were con- tinually held. Once again, however, they got into trouble. Several of the antagonists of the gipsy Christians got drunk, fought and made a great dis- turbance, with the result that the gipsies were sent away from the land. We still travelled about a little, chiefly between Cambridge and London. The winter months we spent usually in Cambridge and the summer months on the east side of London. My father was anxious that his children should learn to read, and he sent us occasionally to school. By this he reckons that I must have had about six or eight weeks’ schooling at the most, one winter. These weeks comprise all my collegiate career. I had just enough schooling to learn my letters and a little more. The school was at Cambridge, the seat of learning; sol ama Cambridge man. While working day by day to support their children my father and his two brothers never lost an oppor- tunity of preaching the Gospel in chapel, in mission- room, and in the open air. I remember their work in the summers of ’73, ’74, and ’75. Their method of proceeding was in this wise: father would get out his fiddle, for by this time he had another one which he used in his meetings, and which proved a great attraction. He was ac- companied by his two brothers and all the children of the three families. They would start singing and 70 Gipsy Smith keep on singing until three or four hundred peo. ple gathered. And then they would commence an evangelistic service. The work that stands out most clearly in my mind is that which took place at Forest Gate. There was a great revival there, and as a result a large mission hall was erected, which is standing now, I believe. About this time my father and his brothers got into touch with the Rev. William Booth, the founder of the Christian Mission. Mr. Booth gave them much encouragement in their work, and told them that the way to keep bright and happy was to work for God. He persuaded the three brothers to under- take a week’s mission at Portsmouth. The town was placarded with the announcement that the three converted gipsies with their “hallelujah fiddle” were coming. So successful was the work that that week extended into six, and to us children in our tent, father being absent, it seemed almost like six years. When he was away, both father and mother were away. For he was mother as well as father to us. The six weeks seemed much longer to us than to the children of my uncles, for they had their moth- ers. At last we were told of the day of his return. We thought he would come back early, and we were ready for him at six o’clock in the morning. Alas! he did not come until six at night. It was his cus- tom when he came home to embrace us one by one, and speak words of tenderness to us. On this oc- casion, as on others, we all made way for the baby, namely, my sister Tilly. It was my turn next, I A Old Cornelius was Dead 71 came after her. But Tilly stayed such a long time in my father’s arms that I became very impatient. “Look here,”’ I said, “it is my turn now; you come out!” “All right,’ said Tilly, quite cheerfully, “you get me out of my father’s arms if you can.” I knew that I could not do that; so I said, ‘ Never mind, there is room for me, too, and I am coming in,” and I went. There is room, too, in our Heavenly Father’s arms for all. He pours out His love over His children with more fulness and tenderness than ever earthly father did; and remember no one can take us from our father’s arms. My father now became possessed with a strong desire to go to Baldock, the scene of his troubles, awakening, and conviction. He had played his fiddle in the public-houses there for years. He felt he had done great mischief, and that now it was his duty to do what he could to repair that harm. He and his two brothers started for Cambridge. It was their custom to do evangelistic work as they pro- ceeded on their way, and consequently their prog- ress was not rapid. They stopped for the night just outside Melbourne and placed their wagons at the side of the road. The horses were tied to the wheels of the wagons and were given plenty of food. Then the brothers went to bed. At four o’ clock there was a knock at the front door, and a voice shouted, “ Hallo there!”’ “Who are you?” my father asked. “Tam a policeman, and I have come to take you into custody.”’ 72 Gipsy Smith 66 Why rahe “There is a law made that if any gipsies are found stopping on the road for twelve miles round they are to be taken up without a summons or a war- rant.” “You must take care,’”’ said my father, “what you do with me, because I am a King’s son]!”’ When my father got up and dressed himself he found that there were four policemen awaiting the brothers. They were handcuffed like felons and marched off to the lock-up, a mile and a half distant. All the way the three converted gipsies preached to the policemen and told them that God would bring them to judgment if they neglected Him, that they would be witnesses against them at the great day, and would then declare in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ that they had faithfully warned them to flee from the wrath to come. The officers made no reply and marched on. It is very certain that they had never had such prisoners before, and had never heard such a lengthy discourse as they did that night. For my father preached to them a sermon a mile and a half long. In the cells the gipsies fell on their knees in prayer and asked God to touch the hearts of the policemen. Then they sang— ‘“‘He breaks the power of cancelled sin, He sets the prisoner free.” The keeper said that they must not make such a noise. The gipsies asked him if he had read of Old Cornelius was Dead 73 Paul and Silas having been put into prison, and he said, “Yes.’”’ Then they inquired of the policemen whether they knew what Paul and Silas did. They answered, “ They sang praises to God.” “And so will we,” said the gipsies; and they began to sing again— ‘‘ His blood can make the vilest clean; His blood avails for me.” The keeper gave them rugs to keep them warm, and his wife brought them hot coffee and bread and butter. My father gave her a little tract, entitled “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin,” and told her the story of our Lord’s death for sinners. She drank in every word, and there and then trusted Christ as her Saviour. In the morning the brothers were brought before the magistrates and fined 25s. each, or in default they must go to prison for fourteen days. They had no money, but their fines were paid—by whom they never knew. When the three gipsy brothers got to Baldock they told the people that they had been locked up at Melbourne, and the news spread on every hand, with the result that the interest in the meetings was very greatly increased. The first service was outside a public-house, and the landlady and her daughter were converted. The meetings were held in a meadow, and so great were the crowds that policemen were sent to keep order. CHAPTER VII CHRISTMAS IN THE TENT—A STORY OF THREE PLUM-PUDDINGS WHEN my father and his brothers travelled about the country, all their families accompanied them. By this time my father had prayed my sisters Emily and Lovinia and my brother Ezekiel into the king- dom. They came in the order of their ages. I was the next, and in my heart I, too, was longing for God. My father used to pray continually in my hearing, “Lord, save my Rodney!” All this time my father was very poor, and one winter at Cambridge we were in the hardest straits. My father was sitting in his van, looking solemn and sad. That day one of my aunts, I knew, had been buying provisions for the Christmas feast on the morrow. This had excited my interest, and, boy-like, I wanted to know what we were going to have for Christmas, and I asked my father. “I do not know, my dear,’ he said, quietly. There was nothing in the house, and he had no money. ‘Then the devil came and tempted him. His fiddle was hanging on the wall, and he looked at it desperately and thought to himself, “If I just take down my fiddle and go to a public-house and play to the people there, my Christmas in the Tent 75 children, too, will have a good Christmas dinner.”’ But the temptation was very soon overcome. My father fell on his knees and began to pray. He thanked God for all His goodness to him, and when he arose from his knees he said to his children, “I don’t know quite what we shall have for Christmas, but we will sing.”” He began to sing with a merry heart : “In some way or other The Lord will provide: It may not be my way, It may not be thy way; But yet in His own way The Lord will provide.’ Just then, while we were singing, there was a knock at the door of the van. “Who is there?” cried my father. It was the old Cambridge town missionary, Mr. Sykes. “Tt is I, Brother Smith. God is good, is He not? I have come to tell you how the Lord will provide. In a shop in this town there are three legs of mutton and groceries waiting for you and your brothers.”’ A wheelbarrow was needed to bring home the store. The brothers never knew who gave them these goods. But the word of God was verified: “No good thing will He withold from them that walk uprightly.”’ I remember one of my pranks in these days very vividly. My sister Tilly and I were out selling our 76 Gipsy Smith goods. By this time the gipsies were very well known in the town. Going from door to door, we came to the house of Mrs. Robinson, a Baptist min- ister’s wife. She knew my father and his brothers well, and she bought some things of us. Then, after the business transactions were over,*she began to speak to us in a kindly way, and it ended by her giving us three parcels, one for each of the three brothers. We carried them off in triumphant glee. But we could not resist the temptation to open the paper parcels and see what they contained. To our delight we discovered three plum-puddings. Each of us started on one. But we found out to our disgust that they were only partly cooked, and then it occurred to us—if we had been older and wiser it would have occurred to us earlier—that we really must not take home to our uncles these pud- dings that we had begun to eat. The one we had left untouched we carried home like dutiful children to our father, and there we thought the matter ended. A few days afterwards Mrs. Robinson met Uncle Bartholomew and asked him how he liked his plum- pudding? He stared at her vacantly. What plum- pudding? He did not know of any plum-pudding. Would she kindly explain herself? Mrs. Robinson told him that she had given Cornelius Smith’s chil- dren three puddings, one for each of the brothers. Uncle Bartholomew was forced to declare that his had never come to him. He spoke about the matter to my father, and I will sum up the situation by saying that my father explained it very clearly to us. Christmas in the Tent ried Never since that day have I had the least appetite for plum-pudding, and I believe that my sister Tilly shares this unnatural peculiarity with me. Quite recently Miss Robinson, the daughter of Mrs. Robinson, and a prominent worker in connec- tion with the Y.W.C.A., met me at a mission and asked, “Are you the gipsy boy who knows some- thing about plum-puddings?’’ At once the incident came back to my memory and we laughed together heartily. But let me say to all my young friends, “Be sure your sins will find you out. You cannot even eat your uncle’s plum-puddings without being discovered and punished for it.” And this recalls to my recollection how, before my dealings with Mrs. Robinson, I had palmed off a nest of sparrows as a nest of young linnets, and got paid for it as if they were the latter. CHAPTER VIII THE DAWNING OF THE LIGHT BUT, although I was a mischievous boy, I was not a really bad boy. I knew in my heart what religion meant. I had seen it in the new lives of my father, sisters, and brother. I had seen the wonderful change in the gipsy home—the trans- formation that had taken place there. I had seen the transformation-scene if I had not felt it, and in my heart there was a deep longing for the strange experiences which I knew to be my father’s. I re- member well a visit that my father paid to Bedford about this time. I shall never forget my thoughts and feelings while I listened to the people as they spoke of John Bunyan. They took us to see the church where he used to preach, and showed us his monument. During our stay in the town, I spent some portion of every day near the monument. I had heard the people say he had been a tinker and a great sinner, but had been converted, and that through his goodness he became great. And, oh! how I looked up as he stood on that pedestal, and longed to be good like him. And I wondered if I should always live in the “wagon” and spend a life of uselessness. I walked to the village where The Dawning of the Light 79 John Bunyan was born, and went into the house he had lived in. I stood and wept and longed to find the same Jesus Christ that had made Bunyan what he was. I never lost sight in my mind’s eye of the bright visions that visited me while I was in Bedford. I had got it into my mind that religion was a thing which first took hold of the head of the house, and then stepped down in the order of ages. My heart was heavy because I felt that I was standing in the way of my sister Tilly, who was younger than I. I remember one evening sitting on the trunk of an old tree not far from my father’s tent and wagon. Around the fallen trunk grass had grown about as tall as myself. I had gone there to think, because I was under the deepest conviction and had an earnest longing to love the Saviour and to be a good lad. I thought of my mother in heaven, and I thought of the beautiful life my father, brother, and sisters were living, and I said to myself, “‘ Rodney, are you going to wander about as a gipsy boy and a gipsy man without hope, or will you be a Christian and have some definite object to live for?’ Everything was still, and I could almost hear the beating of my heart. For answer to my question, I found myself startling myself by my own voice: “ By the grace of God, I will be a Christian and I will meet my mother in heaven!’? My decision was made. I believe I was as much accepted by the Lord Jesus that day as I am now, for with all my heart I had decided to live for Him. My choice was made forever, and had I at once confessed Christ, I believe that the witness of So Gipsy Smith the Spirit would have been mine, the witness which gives one the assurance of acceptance. I knew I had said “I will” to God. I made the mistake of not declaring my decision publicly, and I believe that thousands do likewise. The devil tells them to keep it quiet. This is a cunning device by which he shuts hundreds out of the light and joy of God’s salvation. Still I was not satisfied. A few days afterwards I wandered one evening into a little Primitive Methodist Chapel in Fitzroy Street, Cambridge, where I heard a sermon by the Rev. George Warner. Oddly enough, I cannot remember a word of what Mr. Warner said, but I made up my mind in that service that if there was a chance I would publicly give myself to Christ. After the sermon a prayer-meeting was held, and Mr. Warner invited all those who desired to give themselves to the Lord to come forward and kneel at the communion-rail. I was the first to go for- ward. Ido not know whether anybody else was there or not. I think not. While I prayed the congrega: tion sang: “I can but perish if I go, I am resolved to try, For if I stay away I know I must for ever die.” And: “TI do believe, I will believe, That Jesus died for me, That on the cross He shed His blood From sin to set me free.” The Dawning of the Light 81 Soon there was a dear old man beside me, an old man with great flowing locks, who put his arm round me and began to pray with me and for me. I did not know his name. I do not know it even now. I told him that I had given myself to Jesus for time and eternity—to be His boy forever. He said: “You must believe that He has saved you. ‘To as many as received Him, to them gave He power to be the sons of God; even to them that believed on His name. ’” “Well,” I said to my dear old friend, “I cannot trust myself, for I am nothing; and I cannot trust in what I have, for I have nothing; and I cannot trust in what I know, for I know nothing; and so far as I can see my friends are as badly off as I am.”’ So there and then I placed myself by simple trust and committal to Jesus Christ. I knew He died for me; I knew He was able to save me, and I just be- lieved Him to be as good as His word. And thus the ight broke and assurance came. I knew that if I was not what I ought to be, 1 never should be again what I had been. I went home and told my father that his prayers were answered, and he wept tears of joy with me. Turning to me, he said, “Tell me how you know you are converted?’ That was a poser for a young convert. I hardly knew what to say, but placing my hand on my heart, I said, “ Daddy, I feel so warm here.”’ I had gota little of the feeling that the disciples had when they had been talking with Jesus on the way to Em- maus: Pa not our heart burn within us?’ The 82 Gipsy Smith date of my conversion was the 17th of November, 1876. How my father rejoiced at my turning to the Lord. He said to me: “I knew you were sucha whole-souled boy that, before the devil spoiled you, I coveted you for Jesus Christ. I knew that you would be out- and-out one way or the other. I seemed to see that there were in you great possibilities for Jesus Christ.” Next morning I had, of course, as usual to go out and sell my goods. My first desire was to see again the little place where I had kneeled the night before ere I commenced my work for the day. There I stood for some minutes gazing at the little chapel, almost worshipping the place. As I stood, I heard a shuffling of feet, znd turning round I saw the dear old man who had knelt by my side. I said to myself, “ Now that I have my goods—clothes-pegs and tin- ware—with me, he will see that I am a gipsy, and will not take any notice of me. He will not speak to the gipsy boy. Nobody cares for me but my father.”’ But I was quite wrong. Seeing me, he remembered me at once, and came over to speak to me, though he walked with great difficulty and with the aid of two sticks. Taking my hands in his, he seemed to look right down into my innermost soul. Then he said to me: “ The Lord bless you, my boy. The Lord keep you, my boy.”’ I wanted to thank him, but the words would not come. There was a lump in my throat, and my thoughts were deep beyond the power of utterance. My tears contained in their silver cells the words my tongue could not utter. ee ee oe _ The Dawning of the Light 83 The dear old man passed on, and I watched him turning the corner out of sight for ever. I never saw him again. But when IJ reach the glory-land, I will find out that dear old man, and while angels shout and applaud, and the multitudes who have been brought to Christ through the gipsy boy sing for joy, I will thank that grand old saint for his shake of the hand and for his “God bless you!’’ For he made me feel that somebody outside the tent really cared for a gipsy boy’s soul. His kindness did me more good than a thousand sermons would have done just then, It was an inspiration that has never left me, and has done more for me than I can describe. Many a young convert has been lost to the Church of God, who would have been preserved and kept for it, and made useful in it, all for the want of some such kindness as that which fell to my lot that day. CHAPTER IX LEARNING TO READ AND WRITE—PREACHING TO THE TURNIP-FIELD—SINGING THE GOS- PEL IN THE COTTAGES I BELIEVE that with my conversion came the awakening of my intellect, for I saw things and understood them as I had not done before. Every- thing had a new meaning to me. I had already begun to spell out a little, but now my desire for reading was tremendously intensified. I now had something to learn for, and I seemed to have, I did not know how, a settled assurance that I should one day preach the gospel. At the time of my con- version I could only spell and understand words of one syllable. I used to get my Bible down and begin to read it, alas! sometimes.the wrong way up, in my father’s tent or in the corner of a field, away from everybody. Many a time have I wept and prayed over that Bible. I wanted my heart filled with the spirit of it. One day I was passing a huge sign-board with a red ground and gilt letters. As a matter of fact I believe now, if my memory serves me right, that it was a brewer’s sign-board. I stared at it in wonder and distress. I was so anxious to know what it Learning to Read and Write 85 said. A lady passed, going to market, and I asked her if she would read the sign-board for me. “ Why do you want to read that?” she said. “Oh,” I an- swered, “I really am anxious to know what it says.” Then she read the words, and I thanked her. She asked me if I knew my letters, and I said, “ Yes, I can go over them both backwards and forwards.” She patted my black head and said, “ You will get on some day.”’ Her kind words were deeply stamped on my memory. My first books were the Bible, an English Dio tionary, and Professor Eadie’s Biblical Dictionary. That last volume was given to me by a lady. I ex- pect my father had told her that I desired to preach. These three mighty volumes—for they were mighty to me—I used to carry about under my arm. My sisters and brothers laughed at me, but I did not mind. “I am going to read them some day,” I said, “and to preach, too.”” I lost no opportunity of self- improvement and was always asking questions. I still believe in continually asking questions. If I came across anything I did not understand, I asked what it meant—I did not mind. If I heard a new word I used to flee to my dictionary. I always kept it beside me when I read or tried to read. Then I began to practice preaching. One Sunday I entered a turnip-field and preached most eloquently to the turnips. I had a very large and most attentive congre- gation. Not one of them made an attempt to move away. While walking along the road with my bas ket under my arm I used to go on preaching. I 86 Gipsy Smith knew a great many passages of Scripture and hymns, and my discourses consisted of these all woven to- gether. My father, too, began to see that this was no mere boyish ambition, and encouraged it. A Mr. Goodman, in Brandon, Norfolk, advised my father to send me to Mr. Spurgeon’s Pastors’ College, and I was greatly excited over the idea. But events so shaped themselves that this project was never carried out. At this time, too, I did my first bit of real Christian work. One day I was hawking my wares, and, as usual, ever anxious to get a chance of telling people about Jesus. I went toa large house, and two maids came to the door to see me. I began to preach to them about the Saviour, and I discovered that they were both of them Christian girls. They took me into the kitchen, and we had a nice little conversation together. On the table was a collecting-box, which they told me was one of the British and Foreign Bible Society’s boxes. I asked them for a box. Their master was the secretary of the Bible society for Cambridge, and when they told him, he gave me a box. I carried this in my basket for many weeks, collecting halfpennies and pennies for the Society. When I took the box back to the man who gave it me I had collected from 15s. to £1. I never felt so proud in my life. I was on very good terms with the women in the villages. After I had done my best to get them to buy my goods I would say to them, “ Would you like me to sing for you?” And they usually said, Learning to Read and Write 87 “Ves.”’ Sometimes quite a number of them would gather in a neighbor’s kitchen to hear me, and I would sing to them hymn after hymn, and then per- haps tell them about myself, how I had no mother, how I loved Jesus, and how I meant to be His boy all my life. Sometimes the poor souls would weep at my simple story. I came to be known as “the singing gipsy boy.”’ One day one of these women was speaking to my eldest sister about her brother, and my sister said, “ Which brother?’ “Oh,” she answered, “the one who sings and stretches out his neck like a young gosling.’’ I could sing then with great force, though I was very small in those days and very thin. My favorite hymn was: * There is a fountain filled with blood Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins, And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, Lose all their guilty stains.” There is an old lady still living in West Ratton who bought a reel of cotton from me when I was a boy, and allowed me to conduct a service in her kitch- en. She will not part with that reel of cotton for love or money. I believe that these little singing sermons were made a great blessing. I was sought after particularly by the young folks in the houses. As my ability to read grew, I learned off by heart the fifty-third and fifty-fifth chapters of Isaiah, and the fifteenth of St. Luke. I occasionally went through one of these chapters for the lesson in father’s meet- ings. My father and his two brothers were, of course, 88 Gipsy Smith always engaged in evangelistic work, and I used to sing with them. My father says he still frequently meets old people who talk about those days. In the spring of 1877 we removed from Cambridge to London, travelling in our wagons. We did the journey in easy stages, which took us five or six days. The gipsy brothers held open-air services in the villages as they passed through them. Their coming was hailed with delight and enthusiasm. It was a fine spectacle—these three big, full-blooded, consecrated men, standing in the open air, with their children around them, singing and preaching the gospel. One poor man came to hear us. The hymn they sang and that my father played on his violin was called, “ Will you go?’ This man came and tapped the fiddle on the back and said, “ Didn’t that old fiddle say, ‘ Will you go?’” ‘The fiddle won great fame as the “ hallelujah fiddle,” and the people used to come long distances to the meetings sometimes merely to see it. During the summer we stood our tents on a piece of building land at Forest Gate. One day I was out selling my goods, or trying to. My luck varied con- siderably. A good day would mean that I made a clear profit of perhaps 2s. 6d. That implied about 7s. 6d. worth of sales. On a bad day, I might make only a shilling profit or even a good deal less. But on the whole, a father with his wife and children, if they were all helping, would do pretty well. Our expenses, of course, were small, but my father’s con- version increased them, because now he invariably Learning to Read and Write 89 paid for the land on which he stood his wagon and tents. Jf I remember rightly, the rent was about Is. 6d. or 2s. 6d. a week. There were no taxes to pay and no appearances tokeepup. There was no money spent on luxuries or on drink, and we lived in a very plain style. Guipsies have just two good meals a day —breakfast at 7.30 or 8 A.M. and supper about 5 P.M. Breakfast consisted of bacon or ham, or boiled meat with bread and potatoes, and supper was the same. The gipsies are great tea-drinkers. Throughout the day we had to beg or buy something to keep us going. Most of the gipsy food is either boiled or fried, for they have no ovens. They go to bed early and they rise early, about five or six o’clock. They live on plain food and not too much of it, and con- sequently they are very healthy. I remember one incident of this time vividly. It was a very wet day, and I had taken shelter in an unfinished building. The rain was coming down in torrents, and there seemed no immediate prospect of its stopping. I felt I could not do better than spend the time in prayer. I knelt down in the kitchen among the shavings, sawdust, and sand, with my cap on one side of me and my basket on the other, and began to speak to my Lord. I do not know how long I continued in supplication. It was a sweet and gracious time passing very quickly. I was startled by hearing something like a sob or a sniff, and, looking through the unfinished kitchen window, I saw on the wall which separated the two gardens three men with their caps off. They had go Gipsy Smith been listening to my petitions, and had been deeply affected thereby. Their tears fell with the rain- dops. If I had been a little older, or had possessed a little more courage, J should there and then have begun to preach the gospel to them; but I was shy, nervous, and frightened, and, taking up my basket and cap, bolted out like a wild deer into the rain. CHAPTER X [I BECOME AN EVANGELIST—THE CHRISTIAN MISSION AND REV. WILLIAM BOOTH—MY FIRST FROCK-COAT AND MY FIRST APARTMENTS I NOW approached my seventeenth birthday. My desire to become a preacher grew stronger as the days passed by. One Sunday morning I rose with the determination to undertake something in that line. I arrayed myself in my Sunday best, consisting of a small brown beaver hat, a velvet jacket with white pearl buttons, a vest with the same adornments, a pair of corduroys, and a yellow hand- kerchief with a dash of red in it round my neck. If gipsies have a weakness in the love of clothing, it is for silk handkerchiefs. I sallied forth in this attire. The people were just starting off for church and chapel. I stood in a little corner some way from the wagons. I knew the people must pass that way. I took off my hat and I began to sing, and after singing I prayed, and after prayer there was another hymn. By this time a few people had stopped to see what was going to happen. I dare say a good many persons about knew me by sight, for I took care that I was never long in a place be- fore the peopie knew me. I had a way of introduc: g2 Gipsy Smith ing myself. Iwasa child of nature, and I introduced myself as naturally as the flowers do. I told the people how I had found the Saviour, what my life and desires were, and that I loved Jesus and wanted everybody else to love Him, too. They listened and wept. When I had said this I began to get very anxious as to how I should end. I desired to finish off beautifully, but I did not know how. Happily, when I had finished what I had to say, I told the people that I hoped to do better next time, and then I crept back to the wagons, certainly not feeling over exultant about my first meeting. I found that my father and some of my friends had been listen- ing to me. They applauded my zeal, but I do not remember what they said about my sermon. In the spring of this year I got into touch with the Christian Mission, of which the Rev. William Booth, now General Booth, was superintendent. The headquarters of the mission were at 272 White- chapel Road. It had twenty-seven mission stations and thirty-five missionaries., They were under the control of Mr. Booth, who was popularly referred to by the Christian workers as the Bishop. They had an annual conference at which speeches were made and resolutions were put and voted upon, but what amount of directing or legislative power this conference possessed I do not know. It 1s cer- tain that Mr. Booth was as absolute in his control of the Christian Mission as he now is—nominally at least—of the Salvation Army. While attending some meetings at the mission station in Plaistow, I Become an Evangelist 93 we heard of an all-day gathering that was to be held at the mission’s headquarters in Whitechapel Road on Whit-Monday. Uncle Bartholomew and sister Emily arranged to go and take me with them. At the evening meeting there must have been about a thousand people present. The Rev. William Booth presided. He “spotted” my uncle, my sister, and myself, for he knew the gipsy brothers well, and availed himself of their services. Further, he knew a little about me par- ticularly. Some time previously my father had been conducting a mission at Leicester with the late Mr. William Corbridge, and he had told Mr. Corbridge that he had a boy who wanted to be a preacher, and whom he thought of sending to the Pastors’ College. Mr. Corbridge, as I got to know years later, there- upon wrote to Mr. Booth, saying “Cornelius Smith, the gipsy, has a boy, Rodney, whom he thinks of sending to the pastors’ College. He has a great desire to preach. Get hold of him. He might be very useful in the mission.’”’” My appearance at this Whit-Monday service no doubt brought this letter back to Mr. Booth’s mind. After several persons had addressed the meeting, he said, “The next speaker will be the gipsy boy.’”’ There was only one gipsy boy in the meeting, and I was he. My first inclination was to run away, but immedi- ately the thought came to me that that would never do. Said I to myself, “Have I not promised the Lord to do whatever He commands me? and, as I did not seek this, I feel itis from Him.’”’ Trembling, 94 Gipsy Smith I took my way to the platform, which, luckily, was only five or six steps off. When I reached it I shook in every limb. Mr. Booth, with that quick eye of his, saw that I was in something of a predicament, and at once he said, “ Will you sing us a solo?” I said, “T will try, sir’; and that night I sang my first solo at a big public meeting. It was as follows: “HAPPY, EVER HAPPY ** Jesus died upon the tree, That from sin we might be free, And for ever happy be, Happy in His love. He has paid the debt we owe; If with trusting hearts we go, He will wash us white as snow In His blood. “Then with joy and gladness sing; Happy, ever happy be; Praises to our heavenly King— Happy in the Lord. “Lord, we bring our hearts to Thee; Dying love is all our plea; Thine for ever we would be— Jesus, ever Thine. Jesus smiles and bids us come, In His loving arms there’s room, He will bear us safely home— Home above. I Become an Evangelist 95 “When we reach that shining shore All our sufferings will be o’er, And we'll sigh and weep no more In that land of love; But in robes of spotless white, And with crowns of glory bright, We will range the fields of light Evermore.”’ The people listened with interest and. attention. I felt I had done pretty well, that I had made a good introduction, and that now I should have a chance. I was clearing my throat with a preliminary nervous cough—every preacher knows quite well what I mean—when a great tall man (afterwards Com- missioner Dowdle, of the Salvation Army) shouted, “Keep your heart up, youngster!’ I said, “My heart is in my mouth; where do you want it?” I did not mean the people to hear this, but they did, and they laughed, and I was not sorry that they laughed, for while they laughed I had a bit of time to pull myself together. As far as I can remem- ber, this is how my address proceeded: “I am only a gipsy boy. Ido not know what you know about many thngs, but I know Jesus. I know that He has saved me. I cannot read as you can. I do not live in a house as you do; I live ina tent. But I have got a great house up yonder, and some day I am going to live in it. My great desire is to live for Christ and the whole of my life to be useful in His service.” My discourse was very brief, and I was “ery glad when it was done. I had sense enough go Gipsy Smith to sit down immediately I had finished what I had to say. Ido not know that I have been equally wise on every occasion since then, As I resumed my seat there came from many quarters of the meeting the exclamation, “God bless the boy!” Mr. Booth kept me beside him until the meeting was over. Then he took my arm in his and led me aside from the people and said, “ Will you leave your gipsy home, your father, sisters and brother, and come to me to be an evangelist in the Christian Mis- sion?’ I asked him what an evangelist was, and he told me. Then I said, “Sir, do you think I shall make a good evangelist?’? He said, “Yes, I do.” I replied, “ Well, you know more about this than I do, and if you think I am of any use, it is an answer to my prayer and I will come.’’ The date was fixed, 25th of June, 1877. When I got home to our wagon, I woke them all up and told them I was going to bea preacher. They had laughed a good deal at my youthful ambition, but now it was my turn to laugh. When the morn- ing came, I secured my three books and, putting them under my arm, walked swaggeringly up and down in front of the wagon, full of innocent joy and pride. “Rodney is going to be a preacher!’ They could not quite realize it, and they talked of nothing else for days. After breakfast that morning, I looked at my gipsy clothes and said to myself, “If I am going to be a preacher, I shall have to dress like a preacher.”’ I had saved a little money. I went to a clothier and outfitter’s shop and bought a frock- px] MY: FIRST > FROCK COAT-. N PRE wi 2 c. s pal rea Frey A -) io ie oe I Become an Evangelist 9? coat, a vest, and a pair of striped trousers, all ready made. I paid for-them and the assistant parcelled them up and pushed them over the counter to me. I drew myself up to my full height, and putting on all the dignity I could command, said, “Send them. Do you know I am going to be a preacher?’ So these clothes were sent to the gipsy tent. Next I went off to purchase some linen. A young lady came to serve me and asked me what my size was. I said, “I do not know, miss, but if you give me a bit of string I will measure myself.’”’ These articles, too, I had sent home to the tents. I further reflected that when folks went travelling it was proper that they should have a box. So I bought a box for half a crown, and a piece of clothes-line to cord it up with. At last the morning of the fateful 25th dawned. I was up early and dressed myself with much care. I know that I burst several buttons in the opera- tion. I will not say that I felt comfortable in these clothes, because the very reverse was the truth. I felt as if I had been dipped in starch and hung up by the hair of my head to dry. My sisters were whispering to each other in the most eager and excited tones. “What a swell he looks! Look at his collar! And, I say—I declare—look at his cuffs!’’ They called me a Romany Rye (gipsy gentleman), and Boro Rashie, that is to say, a great preacher. I did not leave the dear tent without many tears. I was only seventeen years and three months old, and my father’s tent was as dear to me as Windsor Castle is to a prince of the blood royal. I was leaving people who loved 98 Gipsy Smith me and understood me, and I was going to people who certainly would not understand me. It was like tearing my heart out to leave them. I kissed them all and started off, then ran back again many times; and they ran after me. Finally I tore my- self away. I had two cousins to carry my box to Forest Gate Station, on the Great Eastern Railway. I could have carried all that I had in a brown paper parcel, but the dignity of the occasion demanded a box, and forbade me to carry it myself. I booked to Aldgate Station, and I told the guard to put my box in the van. He knew me, or atleast he knew my father, and I found it difficult to impress him suf- ficiently with the dignity of my new position. He lifted the box and said with a laugh, “ What is in it?’’? I said: “ Never you mind, sir. You are paid to be civil and to look after passengers.’’ Yet even that did not greatly awe him. “ All right, old man,” he answered, laughing; “good luck to you!”’ At my destination I was met by one of the mis- sionaries, a Mr. Bennett, who took me to a good Christian family with whom Mr. Booth had arranged that I should stay. I think their name was Lang- ston, and the house was in a side street not far from the mission’s headquarters, at 272 Whitechapel Road. I remember the situation exactly. I arrived just in time for a meal in the evening, and for the first time in my life I had to sit up to table, and also to use a knife and fork. I began to entertain some feelings of gratitude towards the starch in which I was encased, because, at least, it helped me to sit up I Become an Evangelist 99 straight. I had resolved to watch what my neigh- bors did, but they served me first and told me not to wait. At the side of my plate was a piece of linen, beautifully glazed and neatly folded. I did not know what it was, nor what I had to do with it. I thought, perhaps, it was a pocket-handkerchief, and I said so to my hosts. Immediately, I felt that I had introduced a discord into the harmony of the dinner party. I was sensitive enough to feel and know I had blundered, but my hosts were kind enough not to laugh. I said to them: “Please forgive me. I do not know any better. [I am only a gipsy boy. I have never been taught what these things sie. I know I shall make lots of blunders, but if you correct me whenever I make a mistake, I will be very grate- ful. I will never be angry, and never cross.” I felt this was the right course for me to take. I knew that airs would not have fitted me at all. After supper and prayers, they told me they would show me to my apartment. My apartment! I made a mental note of the word and resolved to look it up in my dictionary at the first opportunity, for I still carried about my library of three books with me. When they shut the door of my room upon me, I felt I was in jail—a prisoner within four walls and a ceil- ing! Ifancied there was not room enough to breathe. It was the 25th of June, and the East End of London! I felt homesick and longed for my tent. Had I not often woke up in the morning with my head, or my arms, or my legs, outside the tent, on the grass, under the ample dome of heaven? Here in this small room 100 Gipsy Smith I felt suffocated. I looked at the bedstead and won- dered if it would hold me, and when, by experiment, I found that it was strong enough, I turned down the bedclothes and examined them, for I had heard of the London “company,” and I strongly objected to the way they made their living. I got into bed with a run, as long as! could have it, andaleap. It was a feather bed. I had been accustomed to sleep in feathers as long as myself, that kind which grows in a wheat-field, and very often I had to make a hole with my fist for my ear to lie in. I could not sleep. For hours I lay awake thinking of my home, for I realized acutely that I was in a land of strangers. Such sleep as I had was only in snatches, and I was dreaming all the time of my father’s tent and wagon. I rose very early in the morning, and at once knelt in prayer. I told God that He knew that I was among strangers— people who could not under- stand my wildness and my romantic nature; that He had brought me there; and if He would only give me grace I would try to do my best. Then I had to attend to my toilet. There was, of course, a wash- hand basin and a towel. I was almost afraid to use them, in case I should soil them. I had never seen such things in use before. It had been my custom to run to a brook of a morning and to wash in that or a pool near by. I took my bath with the birds. At other times I dipped my hand in the grass laden with dew and washed myself withit. I was up and dressed long before there was any stir or movement in the house, but of course I kept to my bedroom I Become an Evangelist 101 until I made sure that somebody else was up. I spent the time over my Bible. I felt easier at the breakfast table, because I had had some experience and at any rate I knew what a napkin was. However, | made many blunders and broke the laws of grammar, etiquette, and propriety again and again. But my hosts were kind. They did not expect too much from me. They told me when I was wrong, and I was grateful; encouraged me when I was right, and I was equally grateful: it was an inspiration to try again. You see, I was born at the bottom of the ladder, and there is no dis- grace in being born at the bottom. There are thou- sands of people who owe everything to their father and mother, and yet walk about the earth and swagger as if they had made creation. I knew I had tremendous odds to strive against, and I strove to face them as they came one by one. I did not face them all at once, I could not: they would have swamped me. Each day brought its own diffi- culties, iis own work, and there was strength for the day also. I received no educational training what- ever from the Christian Mission. My schooling and discipline was work—visiting the people and taking partin meetings. Iwas the thirty-sixth missionary. I was stationed at Whitechapel Road, the head- quarters of the mission, along with a Mr. Thomas, a very able preacher, who is now dead, Mr. Bennett (before mentioned), and Mrs. Reynolds. I owe a great deal to Mrs. Reynolds. She was as a mother to me. The other workers took most of the in-door 102 Gipsy Smith services. I helped in visiting, in open-air work, ane occasionally I spoke at an in-door service, but not often. Much was made of the fact that I was a rea! live gipsy, and I was always announced as “ Rodney Smith, the converted gipsy boy.”’ Mr. Booth found a home for me, and my father kept me supplied with clothes. What little money I had was soon spent. I worked in the Christian Mission six months without receiving any salary at all. When I was called upon to conduct a service alone I had to face a very serious difficulty—how to deal with the lessons. I had spent as much time as I could find in learning to read, but my leisure and my opportunities were very severely limited, and I was still far from perfection in this art. I certainly could not read a chapter from Scripture right through. What was I to do with the big words? First of all, I thought I would ask a good brother to read the lessons forme. “No,” I said, “that would never do. I think that the people would prefer me to read them myself.” Then I thought I ‘should get over the difficulty by spelling out to them any word that was too difficult for me. But I felt this would be like an open surrender. The plan I adopted was this— I went on reading slowly and carefully until I saw a long word coming into sight. Then I stopped and made some comments, after the comments I began to read again, but took care to begin on the other side of the long word. I used to struggle night after night in my lodgings over the hard words and names in the Bible. | I Become an Evangelist 103 But in the meetings I did, I think, pretty well. God gave me utterance, and I found myself saying things I had never thought about or read about. They were simply borne in upon me and I had to say them. In spite of mistakes—and I made many of these—I was most happy in my work, and always had a good congregation. At the headquarters in Whitechapel Road I sometimes spoke to well over a thousand people, and when I[ went to the mission centres at Plaistow, Canning Town, Poplar, and Barking, I always had crowded congregations, and I never had a meeting without conversions. These four happy months passed away very quickly, as ina dream. The most memorable incident of my work in Whitechapel was the conversion of my sister Tilly at one of my own meetings. Some members of the family had come with my father one Sunday to see me and hear me preach. I have already said that I came to Christ myself partly because I felt I was keeping Tilly from Him. I was immediately above her in age, and the members of our family had been converted in order of age. It was while I was sing- ing one of my simple gospel songs that my dear sister was won for the Lord. Speaking from the human side, I may say that my love for her led me to decision for Christ, and God repaid me more than abundantly by making me a blessing to her. CHAPTER XI GROWING SUCCESS—WORK AT WHITBY, SHEF- FIELD, AND BOLTON—MEETING MY FUTURE WIFE--ROMAN CATHOLIC RIOTS ONE Saturday morning Mr. Booth sent for me and asked me if I had quite settled to my new work, and if I had made up my mind to stick toit. I said, “Yes, certainly, I have fixed upon.this as my life work.”’ “Very well,’’ said Mr. Booth, “we think of sending you to Whitby. Are you willing to go?” I said, “ Yes, sir.”’? “Can you go to-day?’ I said “Yes, sir;’? and very soon I was at King’s Cross and on my way. I had been given a ticket for Whit- by, which had been bought by Mr. Booth’s instruc- tions, and the address of the missioner at that town, Elijah Cadman, afterwards Commissioner Cadman; but I had no money. This was my first long rail- way journey. When we once started I thought we should never stop. I had never travelled at such a rate before, and I had no idea the world was so large. I left King’s Cross at three and got to York at eight, where I had to change. I discovered that there was no train for Whitby until five o’clock in the morning. I was cold and hungry, and I had nothing to do but wait. J] had nine hours of that, Growing Success 105 and I spent the time in conversation with the railway porters and preaching the gospel to them. I walked up and down the platform, and once or twice I found a group of people in a public waiting-room and I had a chat with them about the Christ I had found, and of whom I was ever delighted to speak. I reached Whitby at nine o’clock on Sunday morn- ing. Nobody came to meet me, but I found my way to Mr. Cadman’s house at 16 Gray Street. He greet- ed me with the words: “I have been up nearly all night waiting for you.” I replied that since three o’clock on the previous afternoon I had been trying to get to him. After a hurried breakfast, I went out with Mr. Cadman and took part in six meetings that day, three out-door and three in-door meetings. The in-door meetings were held in St. Hilda’s Hall. I was now cut off from my first surroundings. I had to stand on my own legs, and I was made to feel that I must launch out for myself. I developed an older feeling and a greater independence of spirit. I did more speaking in the meetings than I had done in London. My singing was always a great attrac- tion, but especially in Whitby among the fishermen. I became a great favorite in the town, and much good was done. Some of the most prominent and most useful local preachers in Whitby at the present day were brought to God under my ministry in the town. Not a few of the converts were rough people, very sadly in need of instruction in Christian ethics. I remember one peculiar case well. A man who had been a drunkard and a fighter was converted. Soon 106 Gipsy Smith afterwards he was met by one of his old chums from whom he had borrowed a sovereign. “T say, Jack,’ said the lender, “I hear you have got converted.” “Yes, I have, and joined the Church.” “ Ah well, do you remember some time ago I lent you a sovereign?” “Ves, I remember.”’ “Well, I shall expect you to pay it back. When people get religious, we expect them to do what is right.” “Oh,’’ said Jack, “the Lord has pardoned all my sins, and that is one of them.”’ We had to put Jack right, and to tell him plainly that conversion meant restitution as well as amend- ment. The jailer when he was converted washed the stripes of the disciples whom he had beaten the same hour of the night, and Zacchzeus when he was brought to God made a fourfold restitution to those whom he had defrauded. And we persuaded Jack to do the right thing. Among my converts at Whitby was a Miss Pen- nock, whom I afterwards became engaged to, and who is now my wife. As soon as Mr. Cadman knew that I was sweethearting, he communicated with Mr. Booth, and I was removed from the town. The scenes of my next labors were Bradford, Lon- don, and Sheffield. I never preach in Sheffield now without a dozen or more people telling me that it was through my ministry in their town over twenty years ago that they gave themselves to Christ. It was in Growing Success 107 Sheffield, too, that my first salary was paid to me, eighteen shillings a week. Fifteen of these went for board and lodging, so that I had three shillings a week for clothes, books, and anything I wanted for the improvement of my mental powers. My three shillings per week did not go far when I had to visit the sick and the needy. I spent six happy and fruitful months at Bolton. My fellow-workers, with whom I lived, were Mr. and Mrs. Corbridge, who treated me like a son. Mr. Corbridge was a very able man, a deep student of scripture. Mrs. Corbridge was an educated and refined lady, and a noble helpmate to her husband in his mission work. While staying with Mr. and Mrs. Corbridge, I laid the true foundations of all the educational equipment that I ever possessed. Upon that corner-stone I have been striving to build ever since. I owe more to Mr. and Mrs. Corbridge than to any other person in the Salvation Army or the Christian Mission. The out-door services at Bolton were held in the Market Square on the steps of the Town Hall, where from two to three thousand people gathered to hear addresses by Mr. and Mrs. Corbridge and myself. We had some difficulties with the Roman Catholics. Several of them were converted, and two young wom- en brought their beads and rosary to Mrs. Corbridge and gave them up. This roused the anger of other Roman Catholics in the town and of the priests. One night Mr. Corbridge was not feeling well and stayed 108 Gipsy Smith at home, Mrs. Corbridge remaining to nurse him. So I had to conduct the open-air service in the Market Square alone. The crowd was larger than I had ever seen it before. My workers rallied round me and |] was provided witha chair. As the service proceeded the crowd grew. Until the benediction was pro- nounced everything had gone on in peace and quiet- ness, but the moment the benediction was said the crowd began to sway menacingly. My band of workers and myself were in the centre. The swaying grew more powerful and the people more excited. Then they set up one of those wild Irish Catholic yells and closed in upon us. My workers gathered round me for my protection. One ferocious woman in the crowd took off her clog and struck at me with the heel. But just as she was driving the blow home, her companion came between me and the heel and was felled to the ground. There were a few police- men near the spot,and when they heard the yelling and perceived what it meant they worked their way into the crowd and came to my rescue. I was pushed into the nearest shop—a drug store. One of the policemen came with me and got me out through the back door of the premises. We climbed over three or four walls and eventually reached a side street which led to quite another part of the town, and so reached home in safety. There is no doubt that if the mob could have got at me that night, my life would have been ended there and,then. The news of the riot had already reached Mr. and Mrs. Cor- bridge, and their anxiety about my safety had been Growing Success 109 painful. They were very glad, indeed, to see me safe and sound in every limb. On the following morning, Mr. Corbridge and I went to see some of the leading townsmen who were in sympathy with our work, and asked their counsel. Together we all called upon the Mayor, stated our case to him, told him that we thought this disturb- ance had arisen because of the conversion of some Roman Catholics, and that the opposition plainly came from an Irish and Catholic mob; and asked him what he advised us to do—whether to stop our work or to go on. He said: “By all means go on. You are not fighting your own battle merely. You are fighting ours as well. You have as much right to the square as the priests.”” And so that night we again held our open-air meeting in the Market Square. Mr. Corbridge had recovered and his wife came with us. The crowd was bigger than ever, and, as on the night before, there was the most per- fect quietness and good order until the benediction was pronounced. Then the swaying and yelling began. But in the crowd there were sufficient police- men in uniform or in plain clothes to form almost a chain round us, and, under the escort of this force, we were marched off to our home at No. 4 Birming- ham Street. The mob followed us all the way, yell- ing like furies, and when we were safe in our home a number of policemen were put on duty to watch the house until all was quiet. The riots were, of course, the talk of the whole town, but the feeling and sympathy of all respect- 110 Gipsy Smith . able citizens were all on our side. The local papers took the subject up and championed the cause of free speech. When the powers behind the scenes realized that their wrath was going to be unavailing, the tumults subsided as suddenly as they had arisen, and there was never another voice or movement against our work in the Market Square. These commotions brought us many friends and sympa- thizers that we should never have known of, and, instead of hindering our work, greatly helped us. We grew and flourished exceedingly, and the Lord daily added to the church such as should be saved. CHAPTER XII “The Word of the Lord Grew and Multiplied.” BALLINGTON BOOTH—MY MARRIAGE — THE CHATHAM FOSSILS My next station was West Hartlepool. During these months I was teaching myself reading and writing. I had to prepare a good many discourses. I soon came to the end of my own native mental store, and I had to seek replenishment for my mind in study and thinking. And one cannot well study un- less one knows how to read. I taught myself writing from a copybook, and like everybody else who has pursued this method of self-instruction, I found the first line I wrote under the copy was always the best. As I got farther away from the model, the worse my writing grew. The thoughtful reader will see a lesson here for himself. The nearer we keep to our model, Christ, the more like will our life be to His Should not this be our daily prayer: “A heart in every thought renewed And full of love divine, Perfect and right and pure and good, A copy, Lord, of Thine ’’? My days were spent somewhat after this fashion: I rose about seven and breakfasted at eight or half- 112 Gipsy Smith past. Some of the time before breakfast was always spent in devotional exercises, and occasionally also in a little study. Then I went out to visit the most urgent cases. If there were no such cases I spent most of the morning in reading, writing, and prepar- ing my addresses. The afternoons were occupied in visiting. I had a service every night, and the service was almost invariably preceded by an open-air meeting. On Sunday we had three Services. My stay at West Hartlepool was brief. Soon I received instructions to go to Manchester to work under Mr. Ballington Booth, the General’s second son. An address was given to me at which I might find him in Manchester. When I got there he was absent and was not expected home for many days. The woman who occupied the house told me that she did not know where I was to stay. I left a short note with her for Mr. Ballington Booth, saying that as he was not there, as operations had not begun, as the hall was not to be opened for some days, and as I had been working hard and wanted a rest, I would go and stay at Mr. Howorth’s, Blackburn Road, Bolton, and that that address would find me the mo- ment he needed me. That same night I went to Bolton and attended a meeting of the Christian Mis- sion there. I was, of course, well known to all the people. The missionary in charge, a Miss Rose Clapham, immediately asked me what business | had in her meeting. The people, naturally enough, were making something of a fuss of me as an old AT TIIE TIME OF MY MARRIAGE. Ballington Booth 113 friend. [ told Miss Clapham that I felt that I had a perfect right to be present; I should do her no harm. I attended these meetings regularly every night for a few days. On the Saturday afternoon a telegram reached me ordering me to Manchester at once, and saying that I was announced to preach the next day. I hada very sore throat, and I knew that we had no station in Manchester. I replied by another wire that I was not fit to preach or sing, and that I should stay in Bolton until Monday, resting myself. On Monday evening I again attended a meeting of the mission in Bolton. To my surprise, whom should I see there but Mr. Ballington Booth. Miss Clapham, it ap- peared, had gone to Manchester to consult Mr, Bal- lington Booth and his mother, who was in Manchester at that time, and to complain of my presence at her meetings. Throughout the whole of the meeting Mr. Booth made no reference to me, never spoke to me, and seemed determined to go away without speak- ing to me. I placed myself against the door, re- solved to bring him into conversation, and wnen he saw that he must say something, he took hold of me by the arm, and pulling mea little aside he said, “Gipsy, we can do without you.” I replied, “ Very well, so you shall.”” I am quite willing and ready to admit that I blundered there. I had no right to take any notice of what Mr. Bailington had said to me. He was not the superintendent of the mission. He did not engage me to work in it, and he had no power opaien to dismiss me. But I was a boy and 114 Gipsy Smith inexperienced and I felt deeply hurt. Sorrowfully I went home and sent in my resignation. The incident caused a great deal of excitement in Bolton, and many of my old friends, some well-to- do people among them, besought me that I should preach to them before I left the town. I preached for six weeks to crowds of people in the Opera-house. But I was very miserable all the time. I knew I had done wrong and I felt it. I knew that the step I had taken was not the right step, and I felt that I was not in the place I ought to be. I resolved to bring matters to a head, and travelled to Newcastle to see Mr. Booth. I asked for an interview with him, which was granted readily. I told him I was sorry for the step I had taken and for the pain I knew I must have given him. I might have had provoca- tion, yet I had acted wrongly, and I asked him to forgive me. Mr. Booth, from whom I personally had never received anything but kindness, treated me like a father and forgave me freely. He advised me to leave Bolton at once, to go home to my father for a few days, and then to report myself at head- quarters, where I should receive further instructions. I was reinstated as Lieutenant Smith, and sta- tioned at Plymouth. My superior officer was Cap- tain Dowdle. Just about this. time, early in 1879, the Christian Mission was in a transition state and was being transmuted into the Salvation Army. The old Christian Mission Monthly Magazine had been replaced by the Monthly Salvationist. The new name for the movement meant new methods an Ballington Booth 11S titles for the workers. While at Dovenport I was promoted to the rank of captain. I was married to Miss Pennock, daughter of Cap- tain Pennock, of the mercantile marine, at Whitby, on the 17th of December, 1879, at a registry-office. I started my married life with an income of 33s. a week, but I had besides a furnished house rent free. I do not think I shall ever know in this world how much of my success is due to my wife, her beautiful Christian life, and the unselfish readi- ness with which she has given me up to leave her and the children for the work to which my Master has called me. She knows and I know that I am doing my life’s work. When He comes to reward every bit of faithful service done in His name and to give out the laurels, my wife and children will not be forgotten. God has given us three children. The eldest is Albany Rodney, who was born in Newcastle the last day of 1880; then Alfred Hanley, born on the 5th of August, 1882; and Rhoda Zillah, born on the Ist of February, 1884. My eldest son is a sailor boy; my second is a student at the Victoria University, Manchester, a local preacher on trial, who hopes to become a candidate for the Wesleyan ministry; Zillahisat home. When she was somewhat younger, she once said to me: “Some little girls have their daddies always at home; mine only comes home when he wants clean collars.’”’ On another occasion she said to me, “ Daddy, if you really lived with us you would be happy.” My wife and children feel that my work is theirs, and that they must not for a mo- 116 Gipsy Smith ment say a word or do anything that would in the slightest degree hinder me. Wisely and lovingly have my dear ones carried out this principle. My first charge after my marriage was at Chatham. This station, which was several years old, had never been a success. If it had, then it had fallen very low. J was sent down to end it or mend it. The General had visited the town and knew the situation exactly. I shall never forget the reception that my congregation, numbering thirteen, gave me on the first night. There had been dissension among them, and each of them sat as far away from his neighbor as possible. I saw there was something the matter somewhere, and resolved to set it right if it were possible. J sat down and looked at my frigid con- gregation for quite a number of minutes. The thirteen isolated items were meanwhile exchanging glances, mutely inquiring of each other what was the matter, and what they were waiting for. At length one man more bold than his neighbors arose to tackle me, wanting to know what I meant by not beginning the meeting. “I am getting to know,”’ I said, “ what is the matter with you. I am studying the disease—am feeling your pulse. A doctor does not prescribe until he knows what the disease is.” There was another dead silence, and at length I began the service. But my troubles were still to come. One old man, who had gazed at me in con- sternation and suspicion all through my address, said to me: “Who sent you here, my boy?” Ballington Booth 117 “The Rev. William Booth, the superintendent of this mission.”’ “Well, you won’t do for us.” “Why, what have I done? Why do you not like me?” “Oh,” said the old man, “ you are too young for cE Ges “Ts that it?’ te LDAv ISA Ity “Well,” I said, “if you let me stop here awhile I shall get older. I am not to blame for being young. But if I have not any more whiskers than a goose- berry, I have got a wife. What more do you want?” I held up the book containing the names of the members, and I told the people that I had authority to burn it if I liked. But I had no desire to do this. I wanted their sympathy, prayers, and co-operation. I showed the people that I meant business—that I was eager for the help of those who were of the same mind, and as for the others, they must cease their troubling or betake themselves elsewhere. The result was as satisfactory as it was sudden. Har- mony was restored. The individual members of the congregation no longer sat far apart. The people of the neighborhood got to know of the change in the relation of our members to each other, and came to our chapel to see what was happening. The congregation grew apace, and when I left, after nine months’ service, the membership had risen from thirty-five to 250. At Chatham we had some difficulties with the 118 Gipsy Smith soldiers and sailors. They took a strange and strong aversion to our work, expressed by throwing things at us. I believe that the publicans were at the bot- tom of the mischief. The civilian population did not help us, but simply looked on enjoying the fun while we were being pelted and otherwise molested. But one day a gentleman came from London to see me and discuss the situation. He refused to give me his name, and I have never been able to discover it. He asked me if we were conscious of saying any- thing to aggravate the trouble, and I said no, we had no desire to pose as martyrs and we were not seek- ing a sensation. The result of the interview was soon manifest. We had soldiers and sailors among our members, and great was our joy when some of them came to us one Sunday morning and told us it would be all right now. Early that morning the soldiers were called out on parade, and a letter from headquarters was read stating that if any soldier was found interfering with the open-air services of the Salvation Army in the town he would be tried by court-martial. Something similar must have hap- pened in the case of the sailors, because from hence- forth we had no trouble at all. This was particularly gratifying to me, because I had never complained to the authorities of the treatment we had received. I recognized it as part of the cross we had to bear, and was resolved to face it out and endure it to the end for the sake of the Master. I could narrate many incidents of my Chatham work. There was one case, at once sad and comical. Ballington Booth 119 A poor, ignorant man—very ignorant—attended the services regularly for weeks. One night, as he was passing out, he said to me: “I am fifty years of age, and have served the devil all the time. But I am giving him a fortnight’s notice.’”’ I reasoned with him, and urged immediate decision. “Oh no,” said the poor man, “I would not like to be treated like that myself. I am going to do to others as I would like to be done by. But I have given the devil a fortnight’s notice.’”” When a week had passed, as the poor fellow was again passing out of the hall, he held up one finger to signify that the devil had just one week longer of him. When the notice had expired the devil was dismissed, and the man who had been in his service for fifty years entered a ser- vice which he liked much better, and which he has never left. Hewas for years a true and humble dis- ciple of another Master. At Newcastle, which was my next station, we had many conversions, as we always had. I remember well the case of a man whom his mates called “Bricky’’’— he was such a hard, tough customer. Bricky, with some companions, came to our meet- ings—not to be edified, but to scoff and sneer. I picked him out among the crowd and went to speak to him. He said: “Tam a good churchman; I say my prayers every night.”’ “Do you know the Lord’s Prayer?” “Of course I do.” Let us hear it, then.”’ 120 Gipsy Smith “The Lord is my Shepherd ; I shall not want,”’ etc. I did not seem to have made any impression on Bricky. I invited him back, and he came this time without his companions. I regarded that as a good sign. He came again, and yet again. I saw thata work of grace was proceeding in him. He began to feel the burden of his sins and to hate them and himself too. Finally he gave himself ‘to Christ. He was changed from a drunken, swearing, gambling sot into a new creature, and was used as an instru- ment for the salvation of many others. A few weeks after his conversion, as he was com- ing one night to the meetings, he passed the theatre, where a pantomime was going on, a theatre that he had been in the habit of attending. At the door he met a good many of his old companions, and they said to him: “Bricky, we have not seen you for a long time. Are you coming in to-night?” “No, Icannot come. Iam serving a new Master.”’ “Oh, but have you seen the transformation-scene this year?” “No,” said Bricky. “I have not seen it, but I have felt it.’ A man and woman who had lived together for Many years unmarried came one night into our meeting at Newcastle. They did not know of each other’s presence there. Neither knew what was passing in the mind and heart of the other. At the end, in response to my invitation, they both came forward among the penitents and I dealt with them. Ballington Booth 12! Even while they knelt there before God, confessing their sins and seeking His salvation and strength, each was ignorant that the other was among that little company. But presently, of course, the situa- tion was revealed to them, and the look of surprise and joy on their faces was a sight that will never be forgotten by meas long asI live. They told me their story, and I asked what they meant to do. They said, “We cannot go home together to-night; that is certain.”’ I asked them if they knew of any rea- son why they should not be married. They said there was none; and they ate their wedding-break- fast at our house. After this both led beautiful lives, adorning the grace that had wrought this miracle in them. CHAPTER XII HULL AND DERBY—A GREAT SUCCESS AND A PARTIAL FAILURE My next sphere of work was Hull. The success which we enjoyed there surpassed anything that had hitherto fallen to my lot. The Salvation Army had two stations at Hull, one at Sculcotes and one which was called the Ice-house. I was present, along with General Booth and some leaders, at the opening of this second station. All the money ex- cept £1,000 had been promised. Mr. T. A. Denny, however, offered to give £200 if the people would raise the other £800. A deputation of local gentlemen told the General that if they could have Gipsy Smith as their captain, they would raise the other £800 during his stay. By this time I had become known by the name of Gipsy Smith. At the beginning of the work I had been advertised as “ Rodney Smith, the gipsy boy.’”’ The people talked about me as the Gipsy, and very soon that became my popular ap- pellation. But in order to be quite distinct from my father and his two brothers, who were always spoken of as “The Three Converted Gipsies,’’ I re- solved to call myself “Gipsy Smith.” The General consented to the request of the local friends of the army, and I took charge of the Ice- MY WIFE AND MY FIRST-BORN. Hull and Derby 123 house. Never before had I seen such crowds and such wonderful results. It was quite a common thing for us to have gathered together a thousand people who had been converted at the services, and what is perhaps even more marvellous, an attend- ance of about fifteen hundred at the prayer-meeting at seven o’clock on Sunday morning. Very often the building was filled, and the street in which it stood, Cambridge Street, completely blocked. Many a time I have had to get to the platform over the seats, as the aisles were so crowded that nobody could walk up them. During the whole six months I spent in Hull we needed two policemen at every service to man- age the crowds at the doors. Some conception of the magnitude of the work may be gained from the fact that the Ice-house and the other branch of the mission, which was much smaller, sold every week 15,000 copies of The War Cry. One of the most notable of my converts at Hull was a woman who afterwards came to be known as “Happy Patty.”’ Poor Patty had plunged deep into the sink of impurity, and for eighteen years had been living a life of the foulest sin. She came to the Ice- house and, to quote her own words, “stripped off her old filthy rags and jumped into the fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins.’’ She went home to her house rejoicing, but she had still a hard battle to fight. Her former life continually kept coming back and facing her, and she had to cut off her right arm and pluck out her right eye. The mistakes of her life had been many, the sins of 124 Gipsy Smith her life more, but she became a child of God and a great force for good in Hull. Many weather-beaten seamen, too, were brought to God by my ministry in that old town. From Hull I went to Derby. Ido not recall my work there with much satisfaction. It was a partial failure. Ido not say that I had no success, because there was success, and great success, but I felt that I had not the success I ought to have had, and cer- tainly not the success I longed for. There were palpable evidences of worldliness among the mem- bers of the local corps. I rebuked them. They did not like my rebukes and they did not stand by me. I fought the battle practically single-handed, and al- though I had some fruit among outsiders and great sympathy from them, my labors were not nearly so happy or so fruitful as they had been at Hull. I became uneasy about my work, and I told the Gen- eral, taking upon myself for once to dictate to him, that I should hold my farewell meeting on a certain date. He made no objection, CHAPTER XIV HANLEY—MY GREATEST BATTLEFIELD I WAS instructed to go to Hanley, and reached the town on the 31st of December, 1881, accompanied by my wife and one child. The baby was just a year old. It was a Saturday when I arrived. The Gen- eral had said to me some days before, “ Where do you want to go to next?” I answered, “Send me to the nearest place to the bottomless pit.”” When I got to Stoke station, and began to make my way on the loop-line to Hanley, the pit fires came in sight, and I could smell the sulphur of the iron foundries, and see the smoke from the potteries; I began to wonder if I had not got to the actual place whither I had asked to be sent. At Hanley station we en- gaged a cab, got our trunks on it, and went off in search of lodgings. For two hours we drove over the town, knocking at many doors. But when we said that we were a contingent of the Salvation Army, the portals were shut against us. At last a poor old Welsh body took compassion on us and took us in. I went at once to see the battlefield—namely, the building in which the services were to be held. Three young men had been sent to the town to commence operations two or three weeks before our arrival, but they had utterly failed to make any impression 126 Gipsy Smith on the people. The meetings were held in the old Batty Circus, a cold, draughty, tumble-down sort of place, the most uncomfortable meeting-house in which I had ever worked. The ring of the circus had been left just as it was when the circus people cleared out, and any one who ventured therein was soon up to the knees in sawdust and dirt. There were no seats in this portion of the circus. On this Saturday evening I found two young lieutenants standing inside the ring, making it a sort of pulpit. Sprinkled over the seats of the building, rising tier upon tier, were from twenty to thirty people, looking for all the world like jam-pots on a shelf, and singing as I entered, “I need Thee, oh, I need Thee.’’ Believe me, I stood and laughed. I thought it was true enough that they needed somebody. After a brief talk with the people I asked them to meet me in the Market Place at ten o’clock next morning. The two young lieutenants, my wife, and myself duly took our stand in the Market Place on Sunday morning. Not a soul came out to support us. I played a little concertina which had been given to me on leaving Devonport by my friends there, many of whom were converts. We sang some hymns, and people living above the shops in the Market Place, thinking we were laborers out of work, threw us pennies. I had no uniform on—in fact, got out of wearing the uniform when I could, and, indeed, never in my life did I wear a red jersey. I used to dress somewhat, although not markedly, in gipsy fashion. Nobody stopped to listen to us. It was Hanley—My Greatest Battlefield 127 rather wet, and the people who passed by on their way to church put their umbrellas in front of their faces so that we should not see them. But we went on as though we had been addressing a crowd. In the afternoon, the four of us were in the open-air again. At night, about eighty people attended our services in the circus. The building seated 2,500 people, but these eighty people huddling themselves close together, to keep warm J suppose (for the build- ing was very cold), sat in the midst of the most ap- palling and depressing desolation. It was a very dismal beginning, without hope, without cheer, without anything that gave promise of success. But I was resolved to do what I could in this dif- ficult situation. On Monday morning we went to the building to see if we could do something to stop the draughts and get the windows mended. We found a hammer, some nails, and some pieces of timber in the empty stable of the circus, and we worked with these instruments all day, doing our best to make the place habitable. My wife assisted by holding a candle when we had to creep into dark corners in the course of our labors. I sometimes nowadays marvel at the great mechanical skill which we discovered among ourselves. It is wonder- ful what a man can do, even a man who knows him: self to be unskilful, when he is put to it. For two weeks we went on hammering and plastering, and then I secured the help of my brother-in-law, Mr. Evens, a joiner by trade. He spent a few days with us, and in that time we made some seats for the ring. 128 Gipsy Smith We got hold of some old chairs, knocked the backs off, and planked them together. In the mean time we continued our services in the Market Place and our audience grew quickly to large proportions. The people listened attentively, and joined heartily in the singing. But we had never more than a hundred people in the circus. After a month’s hard labor I asked the General for help—something in the way of a special attraction. I felt we were not making progress quickly enough. The first month’s collections just managed to pay the gas bill. There was no money for the poor evangelists, and no money for the rent. We did not apply for pecuniary assistance, because every station was supposed to be self-supporting, and we had made up our minds that Hanley would pay its way too. The General gave us the services of the “Fry family,’ a father and three sons, splendid musicians, for a few days. They could sing beauti- fully and play almost any instrument. It occurred to me that if I could get somebody of local reputa- tion to preside at their first meeting we should have a good congregation. I was advised to call on the Mayor of Burslem, who that year was Alderman Boulton, and ask him to preside. It so happened that the Rev. John Gould, who was then Wesleyan minister at Hull, had just been with the mayor, and had told him about my work in that great city. On the strength of Mr. Gould’s report, Alderman Boulton promised to preside at the first of the Fry meetings. Hanley—My Greatest Battlefield 129 I at once got out a huge poster, announcing that a great public meeting in connection with the Salva- tion Army was to be held in the Batty Circus; that the Mayor of Burslem would preside; that various speakers would address the gathering, and that the singing would be led by the Fry family. The alderman was kind enough to invite a good many of his friends, substantial business men, to accom- pany him to the meeting, so that the platform was filled, and there was a crowded attendance. The alderman plainly discerned what had been our purpose in organizing this meeting, and his speech was indeed a master-stroke. He told the people tersely, though fully, all about my work at Hull, and then he said, “ We have not heard Gipsy Smith, and we all want to hear him. I am not going to take up your time. The gipsy will address the meeting.” I was ready and willing, proud, indeed, to face such a magnificent audience. My sermon was very short, for I desired to get the people back again, and so I sent them away hungry. I never wanted a con- gregation after that meeting. As long as we oc- cupied this old circus it was crowded at every service. The mayor had placed the local hall-mark on our work, and we at once entered into the good-will of the whole town. The work in Hanley, once well begun, went on increasing in success and fruitfulness. The revival which had its centre in our meeting-place spread over the whole of North Staffordshire. There was no erste Saag church within ten or twenty miles 130 Gipsy Smith of Hanley that did not feel the throb of it. At the end of every week hundreds and thousands of persons poured into Hanley, the metropolis of the Potteries, to attend our meetings. From 6.30 P.M. on Saturday to 9.30 P.M. on Sunday we had nine services, in-doors and out of doors. I conducted them all. We sold ten thousand copies of The War Cry every week. No other station in the Salvation Army has ever managed to do this, as far as I know. I cannot go into any congregation in the Potteries to-day with- out seeing people who were converted under my min- istry in that great revival. In America and in Aus- tralia, too, I have met converts of those days. I preached every Sunday to crowds of from seven thousand to eight thousand people, and every night in the week we had the place crowded for an evan- gelistic service. The leaders of the churches in the Potteries were impressed by the work, and being honest men and grateful for it, they stood by me. CHAPTER XV DISMISSAL FROM THE SALVATION ARMY AT the end of June, having been six months in Hanley, the General informed me that he wanted me for another sphere of labor. Mrs. Smith was in delicate health at the time, and the ladies of the town sent a petition to Mrs. Booth, appealing to her, as a wife and mother, that for the sake of my wife’s health I should be allowed to stay in the town a little longer. The General readily gave his consent. When the leaders of the free churches knew that I was likely to be removed from their midst, a com- mittee was formed, representing all the churches in the town and neighborhood save the Roman Catholics. This committee, a leading member of which was a churchwarden, impressed by the striking work of grace which had gone on under my poor little min- istry, felt that I should not be allowed to leave the district without some expression of their love and ap- preciation, and presented me with a gold watch, bearing this inscription :—‘‘ Presented to Gipsy Rod- ney Smith, as a memento of high esteem and in rec- -ognition of his valuable services in Hanley and district, July, 1882.” My wife and my sister, Mrs. Evens, each re- ceived a gift of £5. These presentations were 132 Gipsy Smith made at a public meeting, presided over by Alder- man Boulton, who was supported by many of the leading persons in the town. The gifts came from people who were outside the Salvation Army. The soldiers of the army had some intention of making us a gift, but we stopped that movement, as we knew that, the General did not approve of such presenta- tions. To my surprise, about two weeks after, Major Fawcett, my superior officer, called on me about these presents. He said that he was sent to ask me what I had to say about these testimonials. I said that the gifts had not come from soldiers of the army, that they came entirely from outsiders, that I had done no more than many other officers, and that a little while ago an officer in Birmingham had received a silver watch. I added that when I received the gifts I rather felt that head-quarters would be delighted that we had made such an impression on the town, and that outsiders were showing. appreciation of our work. The major told me that I should hear from London shortly. On August 4th a telegram ar- rived for the two lieutenants, who had received silver watches from the same committee, summoning them to London. There was no communication for me that day. These young men had been with the Salvation Army for six months, and I had been for five years. The young men came to seek my advice. I urged them to obey the summons at once. They reached London early next morning, and on their arrival at the Training Home in Clapton, they were Dismissal from the Salvation Army 133 told that if they did not give up their watches they must leave the army. On Saturday morning, August 5th, about six o’clock, my second baby was born, a son. The morning post, a few hours later, brought me the fol- lowing letter from Mr. Bramwell Booth: ‘We understand on Monday, July 31st, a presentation of a gold watch was made to you at Hanley, accompanied by a purse containing £5 to your wife, and the same to your sister. “We can only conclude that this has been done in pre- meditated defiance of the rules and regulations of the army to which you have repeatedly given your adherence, and that you have fully resolved no longer to continue with us. The effect of your conduct is already seen to have led younger officers under your influence also astray. ‘“‘ Having chosen to set the General’s wishes at defiance, and also to do so in the most public manner possible, we can only conclude that you have resolved to leave the army. Anyhow, it is clear that neither you nor your sister can work in it any longer as officers, and the General directs me to say that we have arranged for the appointment of officers to succeed you at Hanley at once.”’ I was greatly upset by this letter. Some of the statements in it were wholly inaccurate. In the first place, I had never given my adherence to any rule forbidding the officers of the army to receive presents. I knew that at a conference of officers the General had made a statement in regard to this matter. He strongly disapproved of the practice, 134 Gipsy Smith for the reason that some officers, leaving their stations in debt, went off with costly gifts. Moreover, the tendency was that while successful officers received presents, those who had not been successful got none. This, of course, was not conducive to good feeling and discipline. I ought to say that throughout his speech the General was referring to gifts from soldiers of the army—at least this was my impres- sion. It did not apply to presents, such as mine had been, from outsiders. Another grossly inac- curate statement in the letter was that I had led astray two younger officers. The two young lieutenants accepted their watches without consulting me and without receiving any advice from me. None of us had ever dreamed that trouble would come from these presentations. The letter was totally unexpected, and gave me a painful shock. I was utterly overwhelmed, and such a communica- tion reaching me a few hours after the birth of my second son, was in the greatesi’ degree depressing. The letter was not only inaccurate, it was ungra- cious. There was no word of appreciation for my five years’ hard work, for I had held some of their most important commands, and had succeeded as few others of their officers had done. During that summer | had often secretly thought that some day I might leave the army, but I never gave expression to these sentiments except to my wife. I had written out my resignation twice, but my wife had prevailed upon me not to send it, and so the letters were put in the fire. I knew in my own heart that I was nota Dismissal from the Salvation Army 135 Salvationist after their sort. I felt thoroughly at home in the Christian Mission, but rather uncom- fortable and out of place in the Salvation Army. I did not like the uniform, I did not care for the titles nor for the military discipline. My style was not quite Salvationist enough. Still I succeeded, and the army gave me a splendid sphere for work and an experience which no college or university could have supplied me with. But I had never had any desire to leave in this abrupt fashion. I had hoped to withdraw in the most friendly manner and to re main on good terms with the movement and its leaders. But this was not to be. My heart was heavy as the prospect of parting from beloved friends and comrades opened, blank and bare, before my soul. I took the letter to my wife and read it to her. She felt greatly hurt, because she had been very loyal to the army and its leaders, but she bore it bravely and was very ready to stand by me. My first im- pulse was to take the letter to the editor of the local paper, and then I thought, “No, Sunday is before me; I will keep the matter to myself till the end of the Sunday services.’’ I determined in this way to communicate the news to all those who sympa- thized with me and my work. There were great congregations all day. I required no small amount of strength to go through my work, but I was won- derfully sustained. I preached the gospel as faith- fully as I could, despite the burden on my heart. At the evening service the building was crowded 136 Gipsy Smith to suffocation. I had stated at the morning and afternoon services that I had a very important in- timation to make at the close of the evening service. I arose in a stillness that could be felt to read the letter from Mr. Bramwell Booth. When I[ had fin- ished, there was an extraordinary scene. I needed all the self-possession and tact that I could summon to my aid to quell the anger of the people. They began to hiss. But I said, “That is not religion. We have preached charity, and now is the time to practice what we have preached.’’ And they dis- persed quietly, but in a state of great excitement. In the mean time I had replied to the letter from Mr. Bramwell Booth. I concluded my answer thus: “T need not say how sorry we all are in reference to the steps taken in the matter. You know I love the ‘army’ and its teachings, but, as you wish, I shall say ‘farewell’ on Sunday. But I shall reserve the right to say that you have turned us out of the ‘Army’ because we have received the presentations. I can hold the world at defiance as regards my moral and religious life. If I leave you, I do so witha clear conscience and a clean heart. Of course, my sister and myself hold ourselves open to work for God wherever there is an opening.” Early the next morning the testimonial committee was called, and meetings were held every day of that week up to and including Thursday. They sent communications to the General, stating how sorry they were that my dismissal had arisen out of their act, an act which was one of good-will and in loving Dismissal from the Salvation Army 137 appreciation of Gipsy Smith’s services. They said that if they had known what the result would be, they would rather have lost their arms. No good was accomplished by the letters, and so a deputation was sent to London to see the General. It was ar- ranged that they should send a telegram to the meet- ing at Hanley on Thursday night announcing the final decision, The place was crowded to receive it. The telegram said: “Dismissal must take its course.”’ Immediately there was a scene of the wildest confusion. At the close of my last Sunday’s services as an officer of the Salvation Army we found two brass bands outside waiting for us. I had no desire for demonstrations of this sort, and had no knowledge of these elaborate preparations. Two big Irishmen seized me and lifted me on to their shoulders, my sister was politely placed in an arm-chair, and the bands, accompanied by great crowds, carried us all round the town, and finally took us home. From five thou- sand to ten thousand people gathered outside the house on a piece of vacant land. They shouted for me again and again, and I had to address them from the bed-room window before they would move away. And so ended my connection with the Salvation Army. It has given me anything but pleasure to set forth the story of my dismissal, but I have felt —so important and cardinal an event it was in my life—that it must be told in full. I have not the least desire, and I am sure that my readers will believe this, to damage in the slightest degree the leaders 138 Gipsy Smith and workers of the Salvation Army. I consider it one of the greatest and most useful religious move- ments of the last century. Its great service to the Christianity of our country was that it roused the churches from their apathy and lethargy, and awoke them to a sense of their duty towards the great masses who were without God and without hope in the world. I shall always be grateful for my ex- periences in the Salvation Army, and I look upon the dismissal as providential. God overruled it. If I had carried out the intention that I had formed some time previously and had resigned quietly, nothing would have been said or heard about me in that connection at any rate; but the dismissal gave me an advertisement in all the papers of the land which cost me nothing and procured for me hun- dreds and thousands of sympathizers. I have the warmest feelings of love and admiration for General Booth. He gave me my first oppor- tunity as an evangelist, and he’ put me in the way of an experience which has been invaluable to me. I think that William Booth is one of the grandest men that God ever gave to the world. His treatment of me was always kind and fatherly. I do not myself share the frequently expressed view that Mrs. Booth was the real founder and leader of the army. Gen- eral Booth is too gracious and chivalrous, and, be- sides, he has too profound a sense of what he owes to his beloved and lamented wife, to contradict this view. But, for my part, I believe that William Booth was both the founder and the leader of the Salvation Dismissal from the Salvation Army 139 Army. Catherine Booth was undoubtedly a great woman, a great saint, and an able preacher, but even as a preacher she was in my opinion greatly inferior to the General. I always feel when I read her printed sermons that I know very much what is coming, for there is a sameness about her addresses and sermons. But the General, on the other hand, never gave an address or preached a sermon without introducing something quite fresh. He is more original and more ready than his wife was, and had he given his time solely to the pulpit he would have been one of the greatest preachers. But for many years he was fully occupied in the defence and explanation of the methods and aims of the Salvation Army. I have heard him talk for nearly a whole day at officers’ conferences in a simply marvellous fashion—with- out intermission, full of ideas, practical and possible, and full of common-sense. He was splendidly sec- onded in his work by Mrs. Booth, and has at the pres- ent time able coadjutors in his children. The of- ficers of the Salvation Army are men of intelligence and zeal. I have the happiness to number a good many of them among my friends to-day. Some of them, indeed, were brought to God under my min- istry. CHAPTER XVI HANLEY AGAIN THE excitement in the Potteries over the dismissal was simply indescribable. I received letters of sym- pathy from all quarters. Among the kindest of them was one from the Rev. Thomas De Vine, vicar of Northwood. Mr. De Vine, writing from Great Smeaton, near Northallerton, on August 8, 1882, said: “MY DEAR SIR,—I have just heard in this distant place, where I am staying for a little while, seeking rest and change after my recent bereavement, of the very severe and uncalled-for enforcement of discipline by your com- mander, and desire to express my deep sympathy with you under it, and to urge you to look up to the Great Commander, the Lord Jesus Christ, in the interests of whose cause and kingdom I believe you to have labored since your coming to Hanley, and He will cheer you and comfort you, because He knows the spring from which all our actions flow. I should be glad if something could be done to retain your services in Hanley, where evidently the Lord hath blessed you. Were I at home, I could talk on the matter with you. Suffer me to commend you to God and the word of His grace. “Yours faithfully, “THOMAS DE VINE.” CAPTAIN GIPSY SMITH, OF THE SALVATION = © ig » at wars a4 a’ a" ii ‘a ? as a Hanley Again 141 For about ten days I remained in Hanley, holding meetings in the neighboring towns arranged by the testimonial committee, in whose hands I was. From every one of these meetings I was carried home shoul- der-high and accompanied by a brass band, a dis- tance of from one and a half to two miles. There was no escaping from these demonstrations. The people were simply irresistible. If I took a cab they pulled me out of it. I was riding on the crest of the wave. But I felt that this excitement could not keep on long, that it must soon spend itself. Accordingly, I went to Cambridge for a week, in order to secure quiet, to realize myself, and to think calmly and prayerfully over the situation. I was made to prom- ise that when I came back I would hold meetings on the Sundays, wherever the committee decided upon. In my absence at Cambridge the Imperial Circus, a building capable of seating over four thousand peo- ple, was secured for next Sunday’s meetings. It had been built at a cost of £14,000, but the circus com- pany had failed, and the structure, which stood on three thousand square yards of land, was in the hands of the National Provincial Bank. When I returned for a Sunday’s services the con- gregations were overwhelming. At these meetings the committee made a strong appeal to me to remain in Hanley for the sake of the work, of the hundreds of people who had been rescued from sin and misery, and of the hundreds more who were ready to listen to me. Mr. William Brown, a miners’ agent, very well known in the district, made a speech in which 142 Gipsy Smith he asked my sister and myself, “for the sake of the suffering poor and the cause of Christ,’ to recon- sider our determination to labor as general evangel- ists and to confine ourselves to the Potteries and the neighboring towns. The committee disclaimed any intention of acting in opposition to the work of the Salvation Army. I had told the people that since General Booth had dismissed me from the army | had received letters every morning inviting me to conduct special missions in different parts of the coun- try. I said to the vast congregation that I must have time to consider my decision, and intimated that we intended leaving Hanley again at once for a week to recruit our health. There were at least twelve thousand people in these three Sunday meetings. | felt that I must really get away from these crowds and the excitement. In my absence my friends and sympathizers were busy. The Rev. M. Baxter, editor of the Christian Herald, and the promoter of “The Gospel Army” movement, took a leading part, along with the local men, in the deliberations. At first there were some doubts about taking the Imperial Circus, but Mr. Baxter stated that if the committee did not see their way to do this, he would himself hire the building for religious services. Accordingly the circus was secured by the committee for three months. It was arranged that two ladies connected with the Gospel Army movement should conduct the services until I could make my own arrangements. Alder- man W. Boulton, Mayor of Burslem, a Wesleyan Hanley Again 143 Methodist, was elected president of the committee; the Rev. T. De Vine, Vicar of Northwood, and Coun- cillor Nichols, Wesleyan Methodist, vice-presidents ; Mr. R. Finch, a Wesleyan local preacher and former treasurer of the Salvation Army local corps, was elected treasurer; Mr. James Bebbington, correspond- ing secretary ; and Mr. Hodgson, financial secretary. The other members of the committee included Mr. Tyrrell, a churchwarden; Mr. W. T. Harrison, a Con- gregationalist; and Mr. Bowden, a New Connexion Methodist, and this year (1901) Mayor of Burslem. It was altogether a very strong and representative committee, and remains so to this day. My committee, you will see, was thoroughly representative of the free churches, of the towns- people, including business men and the hundreds of working people who had been converted during our stay in the town. Besides, many joined us out of mere love of fair play and sympathy with those whom they thought to have been uncharitably dealt with. I had promised to stay a month, but the month grew into four years in all. The fact is, that when the month was up the work had become so important and so large that I felt it would have been sinful to leave it just then. Under the control of my strong committee, it went on with an ever-in- creasing volume and force. They paid me £300 a year for my services. The building for nearly two years was crowded every night and at the three services on Sunday. We had the largest congrega- tion outside London. The result of these labors 144 Gipsy Smith is to be found in many homes. In hundreds of churches and Sunday-schools to-day all over the land and in other lands are found officers, teachers, superintendents, class leaders, local preachers, and Christian workers who were converted under my preaching, while many others who were at that time turned unto God have passed in triumphant deaths to their reward. Our mission was an inspiration to the churches. It will be remembered that when I first started my open-air work at Hanley the people threw pennies to us, thinking that we were laborers out of work. But very soon I beheld the leaders of the free churches, their ministers even, engaged in open-air work. And even the incumbent of St. John’s, with his white surplice and his surpliced choir, began to conduct open-air services in the Market Place, marching through the streets, after the service was over, to the old church, singing “ Onward, Christian soldiers.’’ I regard the action of the vicar in some ways as the greatest'compliment that was ever paid to me in Hanley. It was our custom to meet at 5.30 on Sunday night for a prayer meeting, preceding the large public meet- ing at 6.30. The place of gathering was a large side room, which had been used by the circus people as a dressing-room, and was situated over the stables. Late in October, 1882, three hundred of us were in this room, singing praises to God and asking for His blessing on the coming service. While we were singing a hymn the floor opened in the centre and ‘dropped us all down into the stables, a distance of Hanley Again 145 ten or eleven feet. Seventy-five persons were in- jured ; arms and legs were broken, a few skulls were fractured, and there were bruises galore. But not a life was lost. The people, gathering in the large hall, heard the crash and were terrified, but there was no panic. Some of the stewards were on the spot, giving all the help they could. Doctors were sent for, and the injured were taken home in cabs. As soon as I could extricate myself from the falling débris, it occurred to me that the people in the great building would be in fear as to my safety. I rushed to the platform, explained in a few simple words what had taken place, told the people that all possible help and attendance was being rendered to the in- jured, and begged them to keep calm and cool. And then I retired to pass a few minutes of acute agony. I was urged to give up the service that night, for though my body bore no bruises, my nerves had sustained a severe shock. However, I insisted on taking my place. But our troubles werenot yet over. When I reached the platform I quietly asked the caretaker to turn on the lights full, and he, poor fellow, in his nervous- ness and excitement, turned them out. Immediately there was a scene of confusion and fear. Mr. Brown, the miners’ agent before mentioned, saved the situa- tion by his presence of mind. He at once began to sing “ Jesus, Lover of My Soul,” and sang it with great effect, for he was a very good singer. The people presently joined in the hymn, and very soon all were calm. In the mean time the lights had been IG 146 Gipsy Smith put full on and the service swung on its way. I preached as well as I could, but at the close of the service—so much had the nervous shock weakened me—I had to be carried home. Months passed away before I really quite recovered. I went on with my work, but not without fear and trembling. Even now, occasionally, when I am face to face with a great crowd, something of the feeling of that night comes back to me. None of these things—not even my dismissal from the Salvation Army—at all hindered our work of saving and redeeming men. The revival swept on like a mighty river, carrying everything before it. Strangers to the town seldom went away without paying a visit to the mission and witnessing for themselves the work that we were doing. And so, when I visit towns to-day, people frequently say to me, “Oh, Mr. Smith, I heard you at Hanley in the old days.” In March, 1883, my friends in Hull invited my sister and myself to conduct a fortnight’s mission in their town. I had many spiritual children in Hull, and I was naturally eager to see them. My Hanley committee granted me leave of absence. We were welcomed at Hull Station by from ten thou- sand to twenty thousaod people. A carriage, with a pair of gray horses, was waiting for us to convey us to our hosts. But the people unyoked the horses and dragged usin the carriage all over thecity. The meetings were held in Hengler’s Circus, a building with accommodation for over four thousand people. Hanley Again 147 This was all too small for the crowds that gathered every night. When the fortnight came to an end the committee who had arranged the mission determined that the work should not cease, and resolved to estab- lish a local mission of theirown. It was settled there and then that my sister and Mr. Evens, to whom she was shortly to be married, should take charge of the Hull Mission, and that they and I should change places pretty frequently for a week or a fortnight. Mr. Evens, who was by trade a joiner, had been a captain in the Salvation Army, and, I may say here, has for the last eight or nine years been engaged along with his wife in the Liverpool Wesleyan Mis- sion. For nearly two years our arrangements for the Hull Mission continued and worked well. At the end of that period Mr. Evens took up the work of a general evangelist, and Rev. G. Campbell Morgan, who has since acquired a world-wide reputation, succeeded him. It was thus I first met Mr. Morgan, and from the beginning I formed the highest opin- ion of him. My expectations of his usefulness and eminence have been fully realized, but not more fully than I anticipated. After eighteen months’ good service at Hull he settled at Stone; thence he was transferred to Rugeley; thence to Birmingham; thenceto London. The rest is known to all the world. In the summer of the same year I had my first experience of foreign travel. I went on a trip to Sweden, as the guest of Dr. and Mrs. Kesson and of the late Mrs. Poulton. They were members of the Hull Mission committee. I had some delightful 148 Gipsy Smith experiences during this pleasant holiday. My first Sunday morning in Sweden was spent at Stockholm. I went to the meeting of the Salvation Army. The captain was a Dane, who had been trained at the army home in London. I had not been five minutes in the building, where some five hundred people were gathered, before they found me out, and asked me to sing. I gave them ‘ Oh, Touch the Hem of His Gar- ment.’’ The captain told the people the number of the hymn in the Swedish army hymn-book, and while I sang in English they took up the chorus in their own tongue. There were tears in the eyes of many strong men as the sweet hymn found its way to their hearts. I sang again in the evening meeting. At both services I spoke a few words, which were translated to the listeners. One day I went to the King’s palace and saw the splendid furniture and the beautiful rooms. As we stood in the corridor the King himself passed down and graciously nodded to us. On another occasion we went to see the King reviewing histroops. Amid all the military show one little incident touched me most. A little sweep came running past the spot where the King was on his horse. His face was black and his feet were bare, but as he passed the monarch of Sweden he raised his dirty hand and saluted his sovereign. The King smiled upon the little fellow and returned the salute. Immediately afterwards a dashing officer came galloping up on a fine horse. His uniform shone like gold and his sword rattled as he careered bravely along. He also Hanley Again 149 saluted his King. The King saluted back with all the dignity of a sovereign, but I thought I missed the kindly gleam of the eye with which he had greet- ed the waving of the little sweep’s dirty hand, and I said to myself: ‘‘ This King loves the little sweep as much as the fine officer. And I love him for it.” The work in Hanley went on without any abate- ment of interest, attendance, or result. Having to face the same huge congregation so constantly, I began to feel acutely the need of wider reading. I had read very little outside my Bible until I left the army. My time had been fully occupied in teaching myself to read and write and in preparing my ad- dresses. Remaining, at the longest, only six or seven months in each place, my need of more ex- tensive knowledge had not been brought straight home to me. But now my stay in Hanley was extending into years, and I must have something fresh to offer my congregation every time I met it. And so I set myself to study. My first reading outside my Bible consisted of Matthew Henry’s Commentaries, the lives of some early Methodists, the Rev. Charles Finney’s Lectures on Revival Sermons to Professing Christians, and The Way to Salvation, and the books of Dr. Parker, Dr. McLaren, Robertson of Brighton, something of Spurgeon and of John Wesley. At this time, too, I began to taste the writings of Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, Tennyson, Whittier, Byron, Longfellow, George Eliot, and just a very little of Carlyle and Ruskin. 150 Gipsy Smith I read for two things—ideas, and a better grip of the English language. As I toiled through these — pages—for my reading was still toiling—I lived in a new world. What anignorant child‘I felt myself to be! I felt confident, too, that some day the people would find out how little I knew and get tired of coming to hear me. But they were kind and patient and put up with my many blunders and limitations, for they loved me and they knew I loved them. I was to multitudes of them a spiritual father, and even to some of them a grandfather. Whenever I was announced to preach the people came and God gave the blessing. This was my comfort and encourage- ment. Without these supports I should have utterly failed. My soul was possessed of a deep thirst for knowledge, and I greedily drank in my fill during the few hours I could find forreading. ForI had nine public services a week, each preceded by an open- air meeting, and I had much visiting to do. Con- sequently the time for reading, even with a view to my work, was short. When I look back upon those days I humbly and gratefully marvel at the great use God was able to make of me, with all my manifold imperfections. This hard grind at Hanley, and the constant preach- ing to congregations mainly composed of the same people, was an invaluable schooling for me. I was getting ready for the wide-world field of evangel- istic work, not knowing, of course, that this was before me. As Moses was forty years in the desert of Midian, being trained for the work of leading forth Hanley Again 151 the children of Israel, so was I, a poor gipsy boy, moulded and disciplined in Hanley during this time for my life’s work in the churches of England, Aus- tralia, and America. A few words about our church polity—if I may use this impressive phrase—in Hanley may fittingly come in here. When I began my work in the town the army had not enlisted more than twenty soldiers. Before my term as an army officer came to an abrupt end we had raised thenumber to between five hundred and six hundred. Our services in the Imperial Circus had not continued long before we had enrolled over a thousand members, all converted under my ministry. We had never any celebrations of communion in the circus, but at regular intervals we repaired in a large procession to one of the Nonconformist churches, and there took communion. I should say that not a few persons who were brought to God in the Imperial Circus left us immediately after this great event in their lives, and joined themselves to the churches with which they had been formerly, in some more or less loose way, associated. Saving that there was no dispensation of the holy communion (except dur- ing the later part of my stay), we were in all respects a regularly organized congregation, with Sunday- schools, classes, and the usual societies. I say this in order that no one may regard the Hanley work simply as a prolonged mission, although it is true that all my services were evangelical and most of them evangelistic. I was in the “regular ministry ” during these years at Hanley, if ever a man was. 152 Gipsy Smith In my congregation were seven or eight members of the town council. The mayor, the magistrates, and all the members of the municipality were in sym- pathy with us and would do anything for us. The mission was a geat fact in the life of the town, a force that had to be reckoned with. I do not think I ex- aggerate when I say that my congregation held in the hollow of their hands the fate of any candidate for municipal office. I had a devoted, enthusiastic, and hard-working band of helpers, who relieved me of the great multitude of lesser duties which a church has to perform, and left me free for my platform work. My people were very liberal. We had a collection at each service. The British working-man is not at all afraid of the collection-plate. Several times, in moments of absent-mindedness, tension, or ex- citement, I have forgotten to announce the collection, but I was promptly reminded of my negligence from many quarters of the building. “The collection has not been made, sir!’’ was the cry of many voices. [ had taught the people that giving was as scriptural as praying or hymn-singing, and that the collection was part of the worship. In October, 1885, the autumnal sessions of the Congregational Union of England and Wales were held in Hanley. The free-church ministers of the town prepared an address of welcome, and arranged that a deputation of their number should address the Union. I had seen most of these ministers come into the town and had seen their predecessors depart. Although I represented by far the largest congrega- Hanley Again 153 tion in Hanley, a congregation that would have made more than half a dozen of most free-church congre- gations in the town, I was not invited to join the depu- tation. When the secretary of my church inquired the reason why, he was answered, “Oh, he’s not an ordained minister.’’ That was to them reason enough for passing meover. I was hurt, but’! said noth- ing. However, one of these ministers, the Rev. Kilpin Higgs, a Congregationalist, was my very good friend, and had helped me from my first day in Hanley. I suspect that Mr. Higgs had spoken to some of the Congregational leaders about this slight to me, for after the deputation had addressed the Union and before Dr. Thomas, the chairman, replied, Dr. Han- nay rose and said: “ We cannot allow this interest- ing occasion to close without recognizing in Gipsy Smith a co-worker and a brother. I hear that he is in the church. Will he kindly come to the platform and address the assembly?’ I was sitting in the gallery, and so utterly taken aback by this gracious invitation that I cannot recall now whether I walked up the aisle to the platform or got round by the vestry. However, I soon found myself, happy but confused, standing among the leaders of the denomination and beside the deputation of Hanley free- church ministers. I told the delegates that I was not pre- pared to address them, but I ventured to say a few words which they graciously received with applause. They were acute enough to see that there was some little sore feeling between myself and the local free 154 Gipsy Smith church deputation and that I had been slighted. After thanking the Union and the chairman for their recognition, their brotherly sympathy, and the chance to be seen and heard, I turned to the Hanley minis- ters who were standing beside me and said: ‘‘ Brethren, I did feel hurt that you did not invite me to accompany you on this occasion. I know I have not been ordained, but I am your brother. I have not had the hand of priest or bishop or arch- bishop laid upon my head, but I have had the hands of your Lord placed upon me, and I have received His commission to preach the everlasting gospel. If you have been to the Cross, I am your brother. If you won’t recognize me, I will make you know I belong to you. I am one of your relations.”’ The delegates applauded loudly while I said these words, and I continued: ‘‘ You see what you have done. If you brethren had invited me to come with you I should have quietly appeared like one of yourselves, but since you ignored me, you have made me the hero of the day.” The Christian World published an interesting article of some length on this incident, from which I may be permitted, without offensive egotism, to extract a few sentences: ‘‘ Few incidents outside the serious proceedings of the Congregational Union meetings at Hanley excited deeper interest than the appearance on the platform of Gipsy Smith. Tull Dr. Hannay announced him, but few, it may be presumed, had ever heard of him. When the young man rose, presenting a dark but not swarthy counte- Hanley Again 155 nance, there was nothing, save a flash of fire in his black eyes as he gazed round upon the assembly, that would have indicated that he came of a gipsy iribe, or that he was anything different from an ordinary youth of the middle class. He certainly had never stood up in such an assembly before. His manly tone, his handsome presence, his elo- quence, and his earnestness procured him a flattering reception from the assembly.”’ The working people’s meeting in connection with the sessions of the Union was held on the Thursday night in the Imperial Circus, and in this gathering I sang a solo. “‘ There can be little doubt,” says the writer I am quoting, “that if he did nothing else the multitudes would crowd to hear him. Accom- panied by a small harmonium, he poured forth, with great taste and skilful management of voice, which was subdued by the deepest emotion, the most ex- quisite strains of sacred song. The burden of it was an exhortation to pray, praise, watch, and work, the motive to which was urged in the refrain that followed each verse, ‘Eternity is drawing nigh.’ So far as we had the opportunity of judging, the young gipsy’s speech is as correct as his singing. We saw nothing coarse in the young man’s manners, and heard nothing vulgar in his speech. ‘He is doing more good than any other man in Hanley,’ said an enthusiastic Methodist couple with whom we fell in—of course, they meant as an evangelist among the masses. All the ministers we met with who had come into personal contact with him were 156 Gipsy Smith as astonished at the amount of culture he displayed as at the simplicity and force of his address. The many ministers and other men of inteiligence who during last week were brought into personal contact with Gipsy Smith would one and all express for him the heartiest good-will, coupled with the sincerest hope that the grace given to him will be to him as a guard against fostering any feeling in his heart opposed to humility, and to the manifestation of any spirit such as the enemy loves to foster, that thereby he may mar a good work.” And now invitations to evangelistic work began to pour in upon me, mostly from Congregational ministers. These invitations I at first uniformly declined, but I was prevailed upon to go to London in December for a mission at St. James’ Bible Chris- tian Church, Forest Hill, of which the pastor was the Rev. Dr. Keen. I remember this mission very vividly, for it marked the beginning of a new era in my life. It opened my eyes to my true gifts and capacities, and showed me clearly that I was called to the work of a general evangelist, the work in which © for sixteen years I have been engaged and in which I fully expect I shall continue to the end. Dr. Keen wrote an account of the mission for the Bible Chris- tian Magazine, under the title, “A Tidal-wave of salvation at Forest Hill.” On the first Sunday evening the building was packed, more persons being present than when Charles H. Spurgeon preached at the opening of it. On the second Sunday evening scores of persons were outside the church doors Hanley Again 157 three-quarters of an hour before the service was an- nounced to begin. When I appeared in the pulpit every inch of standing ground in the church was oc- cupied—vestries, pulpit stairs, chancel, lobby, and aisles. Hundreds of persons had to be turned away. Dr. Keen concluded his account with these words: “There has been no noise, confusion, or undue ex- citement throughout, but deep feeling, searching power, and gracious influence. The whole neigh- borhood has been stirred. Gipsy Smith is remark- able for simplicity of speech, pathetic and persuasive pleading, and great wisdom and tact in dealing with souls.. His readings of the Word, with occasional comments, are a prominent feature in his services, and done with ease and effect. In his addresses he is dramatic and pungent, while the solos he sings are striking sermons in choicest melody. He is a gipsy, pure and simple, but God has wonderfully gifted him with the noblest elements of an evangelist, and made him eminently mighty in the art of soul-win- ning.” The mission made a deep impression upon my own soul. I perceived clearly that my voice and words were for the multitude, that I had their ear, and that they listened to me gladly. I now took occasional missions, and wherever I was announced to preach the people flocked to hear me. I had great joy in preaching to the multitudes and some little power in dealing with them. The people were calling me, the churches were calling me, and, above all, God was calling me to this new field of work, in which, 158 Gipsy Smith indeed, the harvest was plenteous and the laborers were few. Every day brought me more and more invitations to conduct missions, and the conviction that here was my life work took such a hold upon me that I could not get away from it. After much prayer and many struggles I resigned my position at the Imperial Circus, Hanley. My people felt the blow very acutely, so did my many friends in the town, and so did I. But, as I was still to have my home in Hanley and give all my spare time to the mission, the wrench was not so severe as it might have been. I cannot conclude this chapter on the dear old Han- ley days without the deepest emotions of love and gratitude to my troops of kind friends in that town, and without expressing my thanks to Almighty God for His tender guidance of me in those times of stress, difficulty,and crisis. Never was more love be- stowed upon mortal man than was showered on me by my friends in Hanley, and never have I worked among a people whom I loved more deeply and more devotedly. They were very good to me, and I did my best for them. No one knows as I know in my heart of hearts how poor the best was, but God was pleased to make it His own and to bring forth much fruit out of it to His praise and glory. Hanley and my Hanley friends have a peculiarly tender place in my heart. The very mention of the name makes my spirit rejoice with great joy in God my Saviour, who filleth the hungry with good things, while the rich—those who are conscious of gifts and graces Hanley Again 159 and powers above the common—may be sent empty away. Only the resurrection morn shall reveal the great things that God wrought in that town by the hand of that unworthy servant of His who pens these poor, faltering lines of praise and love. CHAPTER XVII MY FIRST VISIT TO AMERICA FROM 1886 to 1889 I was busy conducting missions among the churches. My experiences from the be- ginning convinced me that my decision to do the work of anevangelist was right. But during these three years I spent some months full of fear and dismal apprehension. In 1886 I was seized by a painful and distressing throat ailment, which rendered it impossible for me to preach or sing. Sir Morell Mac- kenzie, whom I consulted, said that the vocal cords had been unduly strained. I had been using my voice in public singing and speaking without a pro- longed rest, or any rest at all, for years, and the efforts now began to tell on me severely. For about nine months I was forced to abstain altogether from singing or preaching. I do not desire to spend such another nine months again. My readers, considering the busy full life I had led for years, will easily understand how sore and heavy a cross these passive nine months were. It was, besides, a severe test of faith. Our little stock of savings very quickly diminished, and we had started on our last £5 before I was able to take up my work again. Iwas recommended to consult the Rev. Mr. Sandilands, the Vicar of Brigstock, who My First Visit to America 161 was a specialist on voice production, and on the diseases of the throat to which clergymen and other public speakers are subject. I spent a fort- night in the Brigstock Vicarage. Mr. Sandilands’ treatment was so successful that in a day or two I was reading the lessons in church for him. I be- lieve that the long rest had all but cured me of my ailment, but I was nervous and depressed on the sub- ject, and Mr. Sandilands did me the great service of establishing my confidence in my voice. Before I had left him I was using my voice for five hours every day,and I was soon at work again. Never did I feel more thankful. I was busy during the latter part of the year in the West of England. An influ- ential journal in that district made me the subject of a leading article, as amusing as it was flattering. My literary friends tell me that J must work in as many picturesque touches as I can, and that is my only excuse for making some extracts from this ar- ticle. An autobiographer cannot directly write about his personal appearance and personal peculiarities, nor is he as competent an authority on these sub- jects as an outsider may be. Yet these are the very things, I am told, which perhaps most interest readers. With these apologies, then, let me say that this leader-writer described me as “‘ elegant in form and manner, and as genuine and unsophisticated a son of nature as ever the mother of us all gave to the world.”” My eyes were described as “ rather large, darkly hazel, bright and liquid, wells of light and Il ; 162 Gipsy Smith life,” and my countenance was labelled ‘‘ agreeable and winsome,” ‘“ The secret of his power,’ continued the writer, “‘is his simplicity, pathos, eclecticism, concentrativeness, and intense earnestness. Besides these, he is aided by freedom from all the meretri- cious airs and graces of pedantry which stick like excrescences to a studied and unnatural rhetoric. He is as simple as a child, as tender as a sister, and as mellow and merry as a nightingale.”’ The writer concluded by saying that I had the power of main- taining “that reverence and attention for the truth in an unconsecrated building crowded with good, bad, and indifferent characters which only a few ec- clesiastical authorities could maintain in a sacred edifice. And a man who in himself can so elevate the gipsy as to be deservedly envied by an archbishop, is the man for the masses.”’ I confess it had never occurred to me in my wildest and most sanguine dreams that I might be the envy of an arch- bishop! The story of my first visit to America begins in this wise. In 1886 I made the acquaintance of Mr. B. F. Byrom, of Saddleworth, near Oldham, a cotton spinner and woollen manufacturer. Mr. Byrom was residing in Torquay for the benefit of his health while I was conducting a mission there, and that is how we came to meet. A close friendship was soon formed between us, a friendship to which I owe a great deal more than I can ever tell. No man has been more fortunate than I in the number and the stanchness of his friends. Mr. Byrom took a holi- AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-SIX. Thee 5 é My First Visit to America 163 day in Palestine and Egypt in the early months of 1887, and while on his travels became intimate with two American Congregational ministers and Dr. ~R. S. Macphail, the well-known Presbyterian min- ister of Liverpool. He spoke to them about his friend, the gipsy evangelist, and told them all that he knew about my life and my work. They were deeply in- terested, and the American ministers expressed a strong desire that I should undertake an evangel- istic tour in their country. Mr. Byrom, on his own responsibility, gave some sort of pledge or promise that at some future time I should. When he came home to England he told me he felt I ought to go; but I was finding abundant and fruitful employment for all my energies in England, and I did not feel that I was called to go to America. In short, I shrank back altogether from the enterprise. In the mean- time, letters were passing between the two American ministers, Mr. Morgan and Mr. Kemp, and Mr. By- rom. It was Mr. Byrom’s firm faith that I should not only be made a means of blessing to the American churches, but also that the visit would be to me a further education and would supply me with help, material, and suggestion for my own work in the old country. I could hold out no longer, and in the au- tumn of 1888 I decided to go to America. Mr. By- rom generously guaranteed me against loss. But at the last moment obstacles rose up in front of me, like great rocks out of the ocean. When all the preparations had been made and my passage taken, word came that Mr. Kemp had suddenly 164 Gipsy Smith passed away and that Mr. Morgan found some local difficulties which prevented him carrying out his pro- posals on my behalf just then. And so the way seemed blocked by obstacles which we had not anticipated. But having once made up my mind to go, I was re- solved that nothing should hinder me. I had still time to secure letters of commendation and intro- duction from some of the leading Nonconformist ministers and other persons who knew me and my work. I felt sure that these would procure me a good starting opportunity on the other side. Among those who supplied me with letters were the Rev. Charles Garrett, Rev. D. Burford Hooke, Rev. S. F. Collier, Rev. Andrew Mearns, Dr. Henry J. Pope, Mr. William Woodall, M.P., the Mayor of Hanley (Mr. Henry Palmer), the Hanley Imperial Mission Committee, Dr. Charles A. Berry, Rev. T. Kilpin Higgs, M.A., Dr. Keen, and Mr. Thomas W. Harrison, Secretary of the Staffordshire Congre- gational Union. The words that touched my heart most were those of my Hanley Committee. “We cannot,” said the signatories, “allow you to leave for America without expressing our deep gratitude for the noble work you have done among us dur- ing the last seven years. You came a stranger but soon worked your way into the hearts of the people, and hundreds of the worst characters in the town were converted to God. Hundreds of once wretched but now happy homes thank God that Gipsy Smith was ever sent to our town. The work has spread, the churches have been quickened, and at the present My First Visit to America 165 time, in most of the towns and villages of the dis- trict, successful mission work is carried on.”’ I set sail from Liverpool on board the Umbria on the 19th of January, 1889. yo o"-; . tt ‘ > ems! oe iA 4 7 7b: a More Missions to America 309 Bill had not yet been reached, and that I would later need to face my father and step-mother (his mother), I grew more concerned than ever about Bill’s conversion. I was certain that Bill had not surrendered up to this time, for if he had he would gladly have told me. Before closing the final meet- ing, I stood for fully five minutes, pleading with Bill, mentioning his name even, and begging him, if he were in the audience, to surrender to his mother’s Christ, and to give me the joy of going home to Cambridge with the message for her that her prayers had been answered and that her boy was converted. I told the audience that there were old folks at home in Cambridge, England, praying for this man and that I felt sure he was some- where in that great crowd before me. At last I made bold to say, “Come on, Bill! I know you want to come now. Let me see you.” But Bill did not come and we went on singing. During the last stanza of a well-known hymn, a fine, handsome fellow came and pulled my coat behind me and fell on my arm sobbing as he said, “I am Bill and my mother is in Cambridge, England, and my father, too, and I know they are both praying for me, and I want to surrender my life to Christ.” This Bill thought I had meant him, all the while! Wasn’t this a strange coincidence of name, place and cir- cumstance? I did not succeed in getting my Bill, my step-mother’s son, but in reaching out after him, I had won another Bill whose people lived in Cambridge and were praying for him. My Bill was 310 Gipsy Smith there that night, but he dared not come to my cab to say “Good-night,”’ for his conscience was striv- ing with him. But the next morning, before I left Chicago, he came through the driving rain to see me and to say “Good-bye,” and to tell me the good news that after he had reached his room the night before he had had to surrender his stub- born will to God. This he did, alone in his room, and he had found his mother’s Christ, just as had the other Cambridge “Bill,” the same night at the public meeting. The prayers of two dear old couples, so many thousands of miles away from Chicago, had ascended from Cambridge and been answered in Chicago. Who says prayer is not answered? In the season of 1906-7 my work in America included engagements in many cities. Following Chicago in quick succession, I visited Galesburg, iil, “Peoria, UL; Clinton;) Tai, “Brooklyn, Ny Yu Atlanta, Ga., and Philadelphia, Pa. In Brooklyn, N. Y., the evangelistic campaign was arranged and carried through with great suc- cess and large results by Dr. S. Parkes Cadman and Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis. Meetings were held in both the historic Plymouth Church made famous by the labours of Henry Ward Beecher, and in Dr. Cadman’s church, one of the largest in Brooklyn. While in this city the weather was most unfavourable. There was rain or snow most of the time, but it did not seem to diminish the crowds More Missions to America 311 or interest. The churches were always full to over- flowing. One night we were spending an hour or two with Dr. Cadman in his parsonage directly across the street from the church. The rain was coming down in torrents. I wondered if any would come out to the service. About an hour before the an- nounced time to begin the storm grew worse and I was in the act of saying to my wife and daughter and to Dr. Cadman and family, “I shall get a rest to-night, for surely no one will come out to preaching service in this downpour,” when my re- marks were cut short by a burst of song. We pulled up the blinds and looked out to see where the sound came from. We saw the street crowded with people, more than enough to fill the church, standing under umbrellas, waiting for the church doors to be opened, and singing “Throw Out the Life-line.” We were amazed and amused and felt rebuked because of our small measure of faith in the drawing power of the Gospel. From Brooklyn I went to Atlanta, Ga., that charming city of the Southland, where the well- known and beloved Dr. Len G. Broughton preached for many years and did such a glorious work for Christ. The occasion of my visit to Atlanta was to preach twice daily for ten days to Dr. Brough- ton’s Annual Bible Conference. What a privilege and refreshment I found it, to meet with so many splendid preachers and others from all over the 312 Gipsy Smith State and from more distant points as well, who came to attend this Bible Conference! I recall how graciously they received my message and how eagerly they followed any poor word I had to utter and received it as a message from the Lord Him- self. I sometimes think, when the instrument is very poor, the Lord gets a better chance. If the instrument be self-assertive, and desirous of dis- playing its own magnificence and shining qualities, Jesus and the Holy Spirit may be crowded out! I sometimes think, also, that the Lord has been good enough to use me because I have been conscious of my own littleness and of my many limitations. Where soul-saving is concerned, it doesn’t pay to be too clever. The Holy Ghost must have a chance! Jesus once said “I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.” It was while in Atlanta that Dr. Broughton, at the close of our own service, took me one evening to a large church where coloured people were wor- shipping. As soon as they saw me enter, they struck up singing “Let Us Cheer the Weary Trav- eller Along the Heavenly Road.” They sang with great and glorious passion. Then a dear old col- oured mammie got up, leaning on her stick, and said: “Sometimes I gets discouraged, and thinks my work is vain, , And then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again.” More Missions to America 313 After this the congregation burst forth in the chorus, “Let Us Cheer the Weary Traveller,” and the place was filled with such singing as only those can imagine who have had the privilege of hearing the coloured folk sing with abandon. ‘The scene is not one I can well describe, but it lives in my memory. I talked to these people for a while. They listended eagerly, and we had a happy fellow- ship together. I always enjoy the spontaneity and unconventionality of a coloured audience. The next morning when I came down to break- fast at the hotel, the negro porter, as black as ebony, with a broad smile revealing his beautiful white teeth, and his eyes aglow, said “Mo’nin’ sah, Mo’nin’ sah, Mo’nin’; and yo’ done gone down at ou’ chu’ch last night, preachin’ to my folks, sah!’ “Yes,” I said, “and is that your church?” “Sure, sah, I done been de treasurah down dere ob dat chu’ch twenty-five yeahs, and yo’ sho did preach to dem people last night and make an expression on my wife and any man what makes an expression on my wife sho makes an expression on me.” “Good,” I said, “I am glad if you and your wife liked my preaching.” .“Yez, sah, yo’ orter done been dere to ob hea’d ow preachah Sunday, ’cause it bein’ de last Sunday befo’ Good Friday [Palm Sunday he meant, of course], ou’ preachah done gone and buried de Lawd, but nex’ Sunday mo’nin’ he’s goin’ to rose Him!” Returning to New York City, I stopped for a mission in Philadelphia, which was held in the great 314 Gipsy Smith church over which Dr. Russell H. Conwell has been pastor for so many years. This engagement com- pleted my work in America for this season, and I reached home in May, 1907. I carried with me the impression that the Ameri- can people were growing intellectually, socially, numerically and financially, but were not keeping pace with this growth in their spiritual and reli- gious life. I was sadly impressed with the change and also with another fact, that many of the preach- ers were being deeply influenced by the “higher” criticism. Any man who widens his stream must deepen the bed also, or he will not be able to carry much freight. There must be depth as well as breadth. In other words, if a man’s heart is teth- ered absolutely to Jesus Christ and the finished work of the Cross, I am not afraid of his head’s jumping off at a tangent. But if a man ceases to love, or loses the heart-grip with his Lord, then his head, though ever so brilliant, is no help to others when it comes to the spirit-life and abounding grace. Along with this realisation of the loss of much spiritual power in the American churches, I was also conscious of the other side of the situation. No one could visit the cities which I had visited on this trip, and come into live touch with the preachers and leaders, and work with them through such months of strenuous toil, without feeling the tremendous latent power of the churches and the preachers, and also being fully conscious of the More Missions to America 315 stupendous possibilities of this glorious America, under proper spiritual leadership! Again, in 1908-9, I was in America, holding missions in eleven of the greatest cities. At Balti- more the crowd outside the building was so great that the ministers took five-minute “turns” at hearing me, and then went out and repeated as much as they could remember. At Washington the meetings were attended by some of the leading American statesmen with their wives and families, and Lord Bryce came to one service. President Roosevelt gave me an audience, although it was election week. He was a student of George Bor- row, and wanted to know all I could tell him about my gipsy people. After the performance I held a meeting in the leading theatre. The company had been asked to remain. The leading star actor asked me, ‘““Now how many are there in your company?” I answered, “Just Jesus and me; that’s all.’ He said, “If you have my mother’s Jesus you need no other.” At a Cleveland meeting, the theatre was crammed with men and women of the under-world. For fifteen minutes I did nothing but quote arrest- ing Scripture texts, and I never saw an audience so moved and rapt. There was another of the prodigals brought to his senses by what I said about mothers. He was a Denver lad. When I reached Denver the mother, to whom the lad had gone home, covered my hand with kisses, and said, “You gave me back my lost boy, whom I had mourned 316 Gipsy Smith as dead for nine years.” At Pittsburgh eight hun- dred churches united for the mission. Sixty police- men assisted in the meetings. They raised their helmets during prayers, joined in the singing and I called them my “Choir in Uniform.” I gave them a little feast before I left, and the flashlight picture of the company is a treasured souvenir. Never was such a strain put on my nerves as at St. Louis, that great city in the Middle West. At the evening meeting on the first day when, for about fifteen minutes, I had been speaking to a densely packed audience, a dozen “toughs” pushed their way through the swinging doors at the far end. I scented trouble, and trouble it was. The men scattered and shouted “Frre! Fire!” In- stantly thousands of panic-stricken people were on their feet. A frightful disaster was imminent. I turned at once to the choir of a thousand voices, and bade them follow me in singing, “Where He Leads Me I Will Follow.” Never did choir give out such a volume of sound. This had a calming influence. I got an opportunity of recalling to the terrified people the statement in the Press the day before that “The Colosseum cannot burn, for it is built of concrete and steel.” Order and quiet were restored, and with shattered nerves I strug- gled on, the audience shouting “Go on, sir, we are with you and for you.” The “toughs”’ had been set on by the brewers, for St. Louis was, at that time, a brewery centre. More Missions to America 217 After a summer rest at home I returned for mis- sions in Chicago and Cincinnati. While in Chicago we had a midnight parade through the Red Light district. Even leading churchmen, in the Press, questioned the wisdom of invading this district, but the “lewd fellows of the baser sort’’ went further. The Police Commissioner hesitated to grant me a permit to parade the district. When we got into the midst of the fallen and the lost lights were lowered, if not turned out. Windows were thrown open and we could hear sobbing. From one window came the request, “Will Gipsy Smith sing my mother’s hymn, ‘Nearer my God to Thee’?” From another came the request, “Please sing ‘Where is my Wandering Boy To- night’? One girl jumped out of a window and cried, “For God’s sake, save me!” All along the line of our march things happened, heart-wrenching enough to make angels weep. When we reached the theatre it was filled with men and women lost to society and home and God. I asked them if they would sing, “Jesus, Lover of my Soul?” “No!” came the flat refusal. So I said, “All right, then I can sing it myself,’ and I did. If ever God helped me to sing He helped me then. After the first verse I appealed again, saying, “Who will help this time?” A rough young fellow called out, “I will, sir, because you're a sport.” Here and there they gradually joined in, and before we had finished they were all singing. Then I tried to preach the Gospel of Love 318 Gipsy Smith and Hope—hope for all—mercy for all—in the words of the hymn “Plenteous grace with Thee is found Grace to cover all my sin.” Nearly every one of those three thousand men and women responded before the meeting was over, asking for prayer. They did not merely stand as an indication of their desire but they spoke out, and asked for prayer. Only Eternity will reveal the struggles and strivings and results of that night. Early the next morning (or more properly speak- ing the same morning, for our meeting continued beyond midnight), a young man came into my room at the hotel, holding half-a-brick in his hand. He said, “Boss, I was in the theatre last night and I was under a wager to throw that very brick at you and I’d ah done it if you’d ah turned yer finger or yer hand the wrong way, fer there’s nothin’ left for me to do of wrong which I ain’t done. [ve been held in the Red Light district since I was seven for immoral purposes and I was in hell and was just waitin’ fer you to say somethin’ to rouse me—just waitin’ fer a chance to throw that there brick at you, when yer first words, as you seemed to look straight at me were ‘My brother, God loves you.’”’ The young man said he had never in all his life been told that before, and it overpowered him until he said that his arm, with the brick in the hand, had fallen limp by his side. ‘You told me,” More Missions to America 319 he continued, ‘‘that God loved me and I have come here this morning with this here brick and you’ve got to make it good.” Putting my arms around him I said, “My brother, J can’t ‘make it good,’ but He who loves you will. Let us kneel down and pray.” He turned to me and said, “Man, I can’t pray, I never did pray.” Then I asked him if he believed in God. “Yes,” he said, “and if He can make me a good man, I want Him to.” “Well,” I said, “just ask for that.” We both knelt and he began a prayer, the like of which I never did hear before and perhaps never will again. At least I hope I never shall, for I don’t want to. There wasn’t a pure expression that fell from his lips, but the poor fellow was using the only language he knew. He had never been taught any better, and God in His love and mercy just sorted out the man’s sincere desire and his soul from all the filth and impurity of his language and surroundings. God in His love lifted this soul out of the muck and the mire and the clay and saved him. Three or four years afterwards I received a little printed Christ- mas card bearing the names of a number of men and women who were graduating that year, or who had graduated, which is better, from the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, Ill. These grad- uates were prepared to spend their lives in Christ’s service, and my young man who had come to my room years before with the brick in his hand, whom I had discovered that night by the midnight parade in the Red Light district, was one of that noble list. CHAPTER XXX MY MISSION TO PARIS In some ways I look upon my work in Paris in March, 1918, as one of the most remarkable mis- sions of my life. The request came from not more than about fifty earnest Christians in that city to the National Free Church Council for a mission tc be conducted by myself. I hesitated, for vari- ous reasons. I did not know the language or the people. I was promised a good interpreter, but I felt that with my temperament I could not fit into the peculiar situation. When I am pleading for immediate decision, and feel a soul is on the point of surrender, I do not care for anyone to come be- tween that soul and myself, but with an interpreter that was inevitable. At last I felt I must yield. As we had never been in Paris before I took my wife with me. On arrival I found the committee had taken for the mission a “swagger” concert hall, used for classical concerts and entertainments for the cul- tured. There was violent prejudice against religion just then in France. The committee thought it wise not to call the meetings a “mission” at all, but a “conference,” to be conducted by “Gipsy Smith of England.” A circular letter had been issued to the wealthy, cultured English-speaking French people. 320 My Mission to Paris 321 These filled the hall at the opening meeting, about fifteen hundred being present. When I walked on to the platform scores of opera glasses were raised. But when I knelt silently at the little table to commit myself and these people to God and to ask for His guidance and Spirit to take pos- session of us, those beautiful, artistic people in- stantly became silent, too, in a reverence which could be felt. Then I tried to talk to them, and God only knows the struggle and the fear within my heart and mind, lest they should not understand, even though they were listening. When I had finished preaching I sang a simple Gospel song and I thought I saw the first glimmer of interest when here and there tears were brushed away with dainty handkerchiefs. I then told them I was a man who believed in prayer and in God and His love for poor sinful men. I told them that sometimes I knew I made stupid blunders and grieved God and that I needed the sympathy and prayers of the people about me who were greater saints than I could ever hope to be. I said that in such moments of discouragement I would turn to those in whose goodness I believed, and ask them to pray for me. I added that it might be that some of those before me were feeling at this moment that they, too, had made mistakes, that their hearts were sinful and their lives had got into a tangle and that they would like some one to pray for them. Then I simply asked if I might be that one. I said “I am going to pray now, and if you have understood me, and would like me to take you B22 Gipsy Smith to God, simply and humbly to ask Him to blot out your transgressions, and bring you back in penitence to His feet, just stand up with me.” To my utmost surprise fully two-thirds of that audience of fifteen hundred were instantly on their feet and remained there, many weeping, both men and women. I could not invite them to an inquiry-room, for there was none, but a still greater reason was, that had I done so, they would immediately have been reminded of the Confessional, and that would not have done. We remained standing and all I could do for the moment was to commit these people to God and the power of His grace and the teaching of the Holy Spirit. Then I watched them quietly and reverently leave. After a few nights I introduced, for the first time, my decision card bearing the following inscription: “Believing Jesus Christ to be the only Saviour for sinners I do here and now accept Him as my Lord and Saviour, and promise by His Grace to love and follow Him.” That night one hundred and fifty signed cards, and these names proved to be largely of the people whom we had first circularised, among them a prin- cess, a baroness, a duchess, and a count. When I returned to Paris, for they called me back one year later, the count was the Chairman of my Committee, and the baroness and the duchess were members of it. In this first mission to Paris, however, I had been compelled, before many days had passed, to speak through an interpreter because the crowds of My Mission to Paris 228 French people, who could understand no English, surged in upon us. I never suffered such agony on any platform or in any pulpit in my life. Each time when I got through, I felt like a bird which had not only had its wings clipped, but which had had every feather plucked. I shall never forget the last meet- ing at which I had an interpreter. I had been struggling for fifteen or twenty minutes to make myself understood through a brother whom I knew was doing his best, but his best was poor. The people knew and felt the struggle I was having. Finally I just dispensed with his services and look- ing at the crowd of nearly two thousand, I made venture with the best French I could command, and asked them in their own tongue, “Do you love Jesus?” It was the first real soul-to-soul touch. Con- tact was established and to the day of my death, and even in Eternity, I think I shall always remember that crowd of men and women and their response as, sobbing, they jumped to their feet and answered vehemently, “Oui, oui!’ I felt at that moment that IT would have been willing to have given both my arms to have been able to preach my Lord Jesus Christ in their own tongue. I might have become an apostle to the French. As it was my speech was bound, but in this Paris mission the Word of the Lord had liberty and triumphed over all difficulties and I returned to England marvelling at how great things the Lord had done among those people. I pause here to tell one more story in connection with this first mission to Paris. One of the belles 324 Gipsy Smith of Paris, who had been converted in the meetings, came to me. She was decked with diamonds and pearls and was fashionably gowned. But she shook like a tired bird in a storm. She said “I could have my box at the opera. I could have my fine automo- bile, my fashionable friends and all the pleasures the world can offer. But I am weary of them all. They are so unsatisfying. All, all is unsatisfying. I want Jesus.” I looked at her in pity, and quietly said “Madame, let us kneel and pray.” When the soul gets to the point of just being tired of every- thing else in the world, and knows it is just hungry for Jesus, it is not long in finding Him, and this French woman found Him. Just before I returned to Paris, twelve months later, I received a letter from this lady inviting me tc come to her home the first day of my visit, to meet twenty-five of the Protestant pastors of Paris and France. Remembering that on my former visit many of these pastors who were rationalists or Unitarians, refused to lend me their support or co- operation or the use of their churches, I replied, “They would not meet me before, and they may not meet me this time.” But I received the second letter saying, “I am going to invite them to my home for lunch and they will not refuse my invitation to meet you, for my social standing will demand a reply. They won't refuse for fear they will get no more invitations and they know my home is strategic. I will make my social standing tell for Christ.’ So I agreed. My Mission to Paris 325 Sure enough twenty-five pastors and their wives were there, and when luncheon was over, a little Frenchman, who was an earnest Christian and un- derstood English, put his back to the wall in the drawing room and plied me with questions, and then interpreted my answers. Our discussion lasted two hours, on the subject of the place which the Cross occupied in my ministry. You may be certain that I tried to put it where it ought to be. When I looked at my watch and said I was soon due at my next meeting the guests insisted they must have more another time, so the hostess set the hour. This time, instead of twenty-five persons, there were seventy. We had a genuine revival of religion amongst them. All this was brought about by the consecration, devotion and tact of this influential woman who was willing to use her social position for Christ. Could I have remained, all these pastors of French Protestant churches would have opened their pulpits to me, I believe. CHAPTER XXXI WITH THE “BOYS” DURING THE WORLD WAR THE year 1913 saw me again in America. I was on the programme of a Bible Conference at Carters- ville, Ga., the home of that mighty evangelist, Sam Jones. His widow and family entertained me. I went on to the Winona Lake Assembly, where three thousand preachers were present. At meetings be- fore the Bible Conference I’spoke along with Dr. Campbell Morgan. After my sermon on “The Lost Christ,” I found pushed under my door a note from a minister who said he had heard it. He had the largest church and congregation in the city, but said, “I have lost my Christ. I promise you and my church and my God that I will never preach again till I have found Him.” I came home for a Christmas rest, before starting on a six months’ tour with Rev. S. F. Collier, the then President of the Wesleyan Conference. We spoke twice each day, visiting every part of England, to representatives of every department of church life. Then broke on the world the Great War, with its torrents of blood and tears, and its challenge to the churches and to a world that had left Christ out of its calculations. For a time I went on with my missions in England, 326 MY MOTHER’S GRAVE IN NORTON CHURCHYARD mre Jn al During the World War 327 but I felt I must do my bit for the country, to help the “boys,” and most of all to serve my Master. Here I can only briefly sketch its features. In 1916-17, and again in 1917 and part of 1918, I was in the mud and blood with the “boys” in France. In 1918 the British Government laid hands on me, and sent me to America to speak on behalf of the Allies. When I returned to France in January, 1919, peace had come, but I toured the devastated districts of France and Flanders, speaking to the “boys” on my way to Cologne. I went back to Paris and had happy meetings with the American “boys,” to many of whom I was well known. The last months of 1919 and the first quarter of 1920 I was again missioning in America. I rested at home for the summer, and was in America again for a wonderful mission that began in October. When the war broke out I wanted to enlist, but I was born too soon, and, besides, the doctor diag- nosed a disqualifying ailment. My church turned down my plea to send me to do anything for the “boys,” but later the Y.M.C.A. gave me my chance. Never did I have such a chance. My work was cer- tainly not monotonous. I had, for one thing, to dis- tribute chocolate, malted milk, bachelor’s buttons, soap, candles, shoe polish and laces, matches, writ- ing paper and envelopes—in fact anything that came along. I threatened if they did not write home I would put them in the guardhouse—they knew I had no authority. I always knew if the letter was for mother or sister, for it was “One sheet, please’’ ; 328 Gipsy Smith if for “the other one” it was “Two sheets, sir, please.’ Serving tea and coffee to lads trembling with fever, shell-shocked, drenched to the skin, I felt I was doing Christ’s work as much as ever I had served Him on the platform. Of course, I never lost an opportunity of speaking a word for my Master. I could tell hundreds of thrilling stories of my dealings with the “boys.” I believe my personal ministry, with its ‘conversational preaching,” did much to revive concern for their souls. There was no blatant infidelity. I heard much said about the Church in general, and the way in which churches were conducted, but for Christ they had nothing but silent homage. CHAPTER XXXII FROM THE ARMISTICE TO TO-DAY In the course of my wartime trip to America I travelled 50,000 miles, and spoke three hundred and fifty times in fifty-four cities in every part of the United States. Fresh from the scenes of the war my stories of the sacrificial heroism of the “boys” served to arouse the country to a better appreciation of the greatness and urgency of the needs. Under the auspices of the Y.M.C.A., and with the endorse- ment of the American Government, I travelled usu- ally by night and worked in the day. My American mission in 1920 covered a very wide field, and there was certainly no falling off in the size of the meet- ings and in the results. A new chapter of the Acts of the Apostles might be made of the tour and the demonstrations of “the ancient power.” At Louis- ville, Kentucky, for instance, 8,000 people gathered every day for a month in a specially erected Taber- nacle. The “Flag of Christ”—a white pennant on a blue cross—was raised above the Stars and Stripes by a troop of American Boy Scouts. A pulpit was presented to me at the first meeting, but I felt more at home on the platform. A wealthy business man ‘phoned me up the first Sunday night. He insisted on seeing me, though I was just going to bed, be- 329 330 Gipsy Smith cause he was leaving the city the next morning, and “he wanted to know he was right before another day dawned.” He came to my room. We knelt and prayed, and when he rose he assured me, with tears, that he was saved. At Nashville an “education night” was arranged for college students. Thousands came from the colleges of the South. They seized me and decked me with their college colours, and even made me put on a football sweater, to everybody’s huge delight. When I got to business I said, ““Now I bring you my colours, the colours of my Lord Jesus Christ—the crimson cross of redemption, the banner of faith, the shield of protection, the assurance of salvation, the gold which signifies the glory when the race is run and the victory’s won. What will you do with my precious colours? What shall I tell my Master this night?” Up jumped a handsome lad of twenty, a well-known star on the playing fields. He said quietly “T’ll take your colours, sir!’ That state- ment was as divine electricity. Two thousand followed suit, and signed the decisioncards. “Moth- ers’ Day” was another unforgetable day in Nash- ville. Three hundred motor cars were lent to bring the aged, the crippled and infirm, and the “‘shut-ins” to the service. A loving-cup fashioned of jonquils, and standing four feet high, was presented to me by Parent-Teacher Associations and the children of the city. During my American missions, especially since the Armistice, I spoke to many meetings of coloured From the Armistice to° To-day 331 people. In the Southern States it was the rule to hold a meeting for coloured people only. Before one of these meetings a white friend asked me, “What colour are we going to be, when we get to heaven?” There rushed into my mind the text “It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” With those words, I began my address to 6,000 coloured people, and I shall never forget the exultation of that service. Two thousand students from Fiske University sang, with the choir, their own negro songs. There will be, thank God, no colour line in heaven. Not till 1922-23, after the war, had I spent a winter preaching in Great Britain. It was an un- speakable pleasure to work with old friends over the old ground. Sheffield, Bradford, Bolton, New- castle-on-Tyne, London, Plymouth, Glasgow, Han- ley, carried me to the spring. The crowds and the results surpassed all I had yet seen in Great Britain. At Sheffield there were 40,000 unemployed. I thought it would be kindly and Christian to have a meeting for them and give them a word of sym- pathy and cheer. A very active set of Communists chose to misconstrue our motives and came to the Victoria Hall to do their best to break up the meet- ing. For an hour they howled at me, to the disgust of the great majority, but I stood my ground, smil- ing at them, and seized whatever opportunities there were to speak a word for my Master. It was a pain- ful experience, but not without its consolations. AR Gipsy Smith When I left the platform a beautiful girl came to me and said, “Gipsy, I have been greatly moved by what I have seen. I felt I must give my heart to Jesus.” Some of the ringleaders of the disturbance were ashamed of themselves. They came to later meetings and were converted. The London campaign was brief, with Kingsway Hall as the centre. It was a crowded ten days, both as regards the number of meetings and the audi- ences. Rev. J. E. Rattenbury conducted overflow meetings on the two Sunday evenings. More than 3,000 men, forming fours, marched one day to the Cenotaph. The silent throng seemed to extend the whole length of the Strand. In Whitehall, in the dusk and fog of a winter evening, I deposited the wreath, and we sang “Abide With Me,” as the crowd each minute swelled. Here, for the present, I close, but the end is not yet. As I look back over my forty years of evan- gelistic service my amazement grows at the thought of what Christ can do with the poorest instrument. I cannot explain it. I can only say with Paul, “When I am weak, then am I strong.” I have been too conscious of my own weakness for any room to be left for pride. In that consciousness I have thrown myself wholly on my Master, and “His grace has been sufficient for me,” and He has shown His love and power by using me, even me. Of one thing I have been increasingly convinced, and let this be, for the present, my last word—the Lord has no use for half-hearted preachers of a half-hearted From the Armistice to To-day eeue Gospel. He demands full surrender, both of the preacher and the people. 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