The two days'respite having expired and,he being unwilling to undertake matrimony,we brought her away,and sent her to one of our Homes,where she is enjoying peace and penitence.
When we informed the mistress and brother of the success,they were greatly rejoiced and overwhelmed us with thanks.
A LOST HUSBAND.
In a seaside home last Christmas there was a sorrowing wife,who mourned over the basest desertion of her husband.Wandering from place to place drinking,he had left her to struggle alone with four little ones dependent upon her exertions.
Knowing her distress,the captain of the corps wrote begging us to advertise for the man in the Cry.We did this,but for some time heard nothing of the result.
Several weeks later a Salvationist entered a beer-house,where a group of men were drinking,and began to distribute War Crys amongst them,speaking here and there upon the eternity which faced everyone.
At the counter stood a man with a pint pot in hand,who took one of the papers passed to him,and glancing carelessly down its columns caught sight of his own name,and was so startled that the pot fell from his grasp to the floor."Come home,"the paragraph ran,"and all will be forgiven."His sin faced him;the thought of a broken-hearted wife and starving children conquered him completely,and there and then he left the public-house,and started to walk home--a distance of many mile--arriving there about midnight the same night,after an absence of eleven months.
The letter from his wife telling the good news of his return,spoke also of his determination by God's help to be a different man,and they are both attendants at the Salvation Army barracks.
A SEDUCER COMPELLED TO PAY.
Amongst the letters that came to the Inquiry Office one morning was one from a girl who asked us to help her to trace the father of her child who had for some time ceased to pay anything towards its support.
The case had been brought into the Police Court,and judgment given in her favour,but the guilty one had hidden,and his father refused to reveal his whereabouts.
We called upon the elder man and laid the matter before him,but failed to prevail upon him either to pay his son's liabilities or to put us into communication with him.The answers to an advertisement in the War Cry,however,had brought the required in formation as to his son's whereabouts,and the same morning that our Inquiry Officer communicated with the police,and served a summons for the overdue money,the young man had also received a letter from his father advising him to leave the country at once.He had given notice to his employers;and the #16salary he received,with some help his father had sent him towards the journey,he was compelled to hand over to the mother of his child.
FOUND IN THE BUSH.
A year or two ago a respectable-looking Dutch girl might have been seem making her way quickly and stealthily across a stretch of long rank grass towards the shelter of some woods on the banks of a distant river.Behind her lay the South African town from which she had come,betrayed,disgraced,ejected from her home with words of bitter scorn,having no longer a friend in the wide world who would hold out to her a hand of help.What could there be better for her than to plunge into that river yonder,and end this life--no matter what should come after the plunge?But Greetah feared the "future,"and turned aside to spend the night in darkness,wretched and alone.
Seven years had passed.An English traveller making his way through Southern Africa halted for the Sabbath at a little village on his route.A ramble through the woods brought him unexpectedly in front of a kraal,at the door of which squatted all old Hottentot,with a fair white-faced Child playing on the ground near by.Glad to accept the proffered shelter of the hut from the burning sun,the traveller entered,and was greatly astonished to find within a young white girl,evidently the mother of the frolicsome child.Full of pity for the strange pair,and especially for the girl,who wore an air of refinement little to be expected in this out-of-the-world spot,he sat down on the earthen floor,and told them of the wonderful Salvation of God.This was Greetah,and the Englishman would have given a great deal if he could have rescued her from this miserable lot.But this was impossible,and with reluctance he bid her farewell.
It was an English home.By a glowing fire one night a man sat alone,and in his imaginings there came up the vision of the girl he had met in the Hottentot's Kraal,and wondering whether any way of rescue was possible.Then he remembered reading,since his return,the following paragraph in the War Cry:--"TO THE DISTRESSED.The Salvation Army invite parents,relations,and friends in any part of the world interested in any woman or girl who is known,or feared to be,living in immorality,or is in danger of coming under the control of immoral persons,to write,stating full particulars,with names,dates,and address of all concerned,and,if possible,a photograph of the person in who the interest is taken.
"All letters,whether from these persons or from such women or girls themselves,will be regarded as strictly confidential.They maybe written in any language,and should be addressed to Mrs.Bramwell Booth,101,Queen Victoria Street,London,E.C.""It will do no harm to try,anyhow,"exclaimed he,"the thing haunts me as it is,"and without further delay he penned an account of his African adventure,as full as possible.The next African mail carried instructions to the Officer in Command of our South African work.
Shortly after,one of our Salvation Riders was exploring the bush,and after some difficulty the kraal was discovered the girl was rescued and saved.The Hottentot was converted afterwards,and both are now Salvation Soldiers.
