Part 2
“ISAIAH lix. 1.—‘Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear.’
“ISAIAH liv. 7, 8.—‘For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer.’
“Rebecca Jarrett was born of respectable parents, her father being a good tradesman; but through his excessive drinking brought on failure of business, and early death of the father, the mother having to struggle hard with seven children. Rebecca being the youngest, and the only daughter, as would be expected, the mother lavished a good share of her love and care on her. This daughter lived at home with her mother till the age of fifteen, being brought up in a private school; but the chief thing was neglected in the bringing up of this daughter—the name of Jesus was never mentioned, nor a prayer thought of by this loving mother for her family. So Rebecca was brought up in ignorance of her Redeemer and Saviour.
“At the age of fifteen she entered into service, but only stopped one month in her first place, remaining at home again for seven weeks. Then she was taken into a good family as housemaid, being tall of stature; and after living there for five months (she was then a little over fifteen) she came in contact with one of the gentlemen visitors, who by flattery and presents led her to meet him in the evening unknown to her mistress.
“On a Good Friday she went for a day’s holiday to her home. After having tea with her mother and brothers, she left that home, not to enter it again for some years; for that evening, as she was returning home to her master’s house, she was met by this deceiver and led away from the path of virtue. By making some excuses for her absence she was taken back to her place, but still carrying on this sin till she could hide her state no longer. She was bound to leave her place. From there she went to Southampton, where she was met by this gentleman, who accompanied her to St. Helier’s, Jersey, where she was left alone by him to get over her trouble under the care of a Frenchwoman.
“In January a little girl was born. She was then taken to Fairfield, in Derbyshire, with her child, where she lived for two years with this man as his mistress, till another child was born. He then took her to Manchester and placed her in a house of ill-fame to get a living for herself and her two children, which she did for twelve months, carrying on a sinful career and giving way to drink and all kinds of vice.
“She afterwards met with an accident from a fall, by which she sustained the injury to her hip which lamed her for life. She was laid up for a considerable time in an infirmary. On leaving the infirmary, she found that her two children had been taken away from her; the father claimed one, and the other died. This loss of her children broke that young woman’s heart. The one was put away in some school which she could not trace. They kept it from her, as they said she was leading a bad life, and was, therefore, not a fit mother to have the charge of her children. About that time she was advised to go into a Home; but her heart was turned to bitterness on finding herself scorned by all who knew her, and the one thing she had been longing for and living for, she had been deprived of—to hear the voice of her children. One fond word from them would have woke up her mother’s heart within her, and made her try to do better. To feel their little arms around her neck once again, and to hear them call her ‘mother’ once again! Though they were the children of sin, yet she had a mother’s love for them; but they were gone from her for ever.
“Some kind hands were put out to help her then, but she refused all help, and returned with her mother to London, where she drowned her sorrow in drink. She afterwards made several attempts to begin again a respectable life, but fell from one sin to another. She then met with a man who took her about as his wife. He was a commercial traveller, but he could not give her the peace and rest which her heart was longing for; and from this time she entered still further into sin by taking four more of her poor sisters, to join her in her sinful career of life. Oh, my kind friends, where was God during all this time not to awaken her up? Why was her heart so hardened not only for herself, but to lead her younger sisters into sin?
“It would have been well if her sins were ended here; but they did not. For after awhile a larger house was taken, and more poor girls were taken in. What horror to think that she was the cause of many of those poor girls being introduced into a life of sin and vice; some of them leaving their homes—father and mother, perhaps, far away in the country; some led away by false deceivers, who, to gain their purpose, bring them to these houses.
“The girls thus brought in are led to believe they are being taken to some of their friends, and when they enter they find the house filled with poor unfortunates; and then with drink they are soon overpowered, and the seducer gains his purpose. After this the poor girls mostly feel there is no rise for them now; they dare not let their friends know what has happened; so they stop where they are, and give themselves up to an evil life. The great condemnation is for that landlady to encourage such sin. Such is the history of Rebecca Jarrett.
“Once a poor girl came from Exeter, and having lost her situation, came to Rebecca to live where she was. She afterwards caught cold; but no notice was taken of it, till at last the doctor was sent for. Inflammation of the lungs was pronounced to be very bad, till she found she could not get over it. She then thought of her Sunday-school and her aged parents. She asked Rebecca to pray; but no one in that house knew how to pray, and could not do so. Her parents were sent for from Exeter; but she was dead when they came. She died the same morning, and with no prayer offered up for her. Rebecca cannot now bear to think of the day when that father and mother came to witness that loved daughter dead in that house.
“You can guess what were the feelings of Rebecca, who had led her into sin, when she saw the look of that father and mother, who knew that she had helped their daughter to her sinful career. What sharp remorse, and what despair she felt! Will God ever forgive her? For that one soul did she not deserve to be cast down in her sins? But she did not listen to the voice of God even then, her heart was so hardened; she still went on in her sins.
“I fancy I can hear you say, ‘It was time she was cut down,’ but Jesus Christ did not think so. She was taken from London to Northampton by a man, leaving her house in the care of her mother and brothers, who had come to live with her. She had been a week at Northampton, when she was down ill of bronchitis. The doctor came and ordered her to keep her room. She was left a great deal alone at that time. And now it was that God began to awaken her from the sleep of death in which she had been for thirteen long years, ‘having her understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that was in her, because of the blindness of her heart; who, being past feeling, had given herself over to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness’ (Eph. iv. 18). ‘Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? Lord, let it alone this year also’ (Luke xiii. 7).
“Rebecca was very ill, and no one to look to her, except the landlady of the lodging, who belonged to the Salvation Army; and by her speaking to the Captain of the Northampton Corps, unknown to Rebecca, she came to visit her. Rebecca was extremely rude to her at her first and second visits, but in consequence of her loving care and attention to her while she was so ill, she allowed her to come often; but she would not listen to the message of salvation which the Captain wished to give her.
“Still this noble woman would not be daunted in the work for her Master. She got Rebecca to go and live with her in her own house, and as she found that talking was of no use, she just lived her life of a good Christian before Rebecca, which made a great impression on her; so that at last she consented to come up to London to Mrs. Bramwell Booth’s Refuge.
“She got very unsettled again, and longed to go back to her old home; but dear Mrs. Booth prevailed with her, though it sometimes took many hours’ pleading and praying for her: and even then she was not saved. But the great conflict had begun. She was rescued the 21st December. In the following January, while at Mrs. Booth’s, she came across some of her old companions, who pressed her to go home, with the excuse that her mother was ill and the house going out of order.
“On the 14th January they noticed her packing her box, and began to question her about the meaning of it; and she told them she was going back home again. Mrs. Bramwell Booth spent the whole of the morning, and the next day, pleading with her; but it seemed of no use. In the afternoon the kind friends still would not give her up. Dear Mrs. Booth, Miss Sapsworth, and all of them, kneeled around her as a last resource. They gave her into God’s hands, and asked Him not to let her go, for the sake of her own soul, and for the sake of the poor girls whom she had kept in her house.
“The conflict was great, for Rebecca had to give up her home and relatives, and to cast herself, entirely dependent, on the hands of strangers. But God was strong to deliver, and He helped the kind friends; for at five o’clock that day, after seven hours of prayer and pleading, God gave the victory, and Rebecca fell down at the feet of Christ Jesus and acknowledged her misery and sin. And He who had watched over her during all these years of sin took her that night and washed her in his own precious blood from every stain.
“After this Rebecca was taken ill, and had to go to hospital. Mrs. Booth thought it was best for her to leave London, as she had a bad hip, and they sent her to Mrs. Butler’s hospital Home at Winchester to rest for a time, and get her away from all her friends in London; as her own mother and brothers would be looking to her for support, and the man she had lived with, and others, were doing all they could to get her to come back. This made her new course of life very difficult. She was more than two months in the hospital (House of Rest), but was often wavering and unsettled in mind.”
Rebecca goes on to tell of a deepening of the work of grace in her own soul; especially speaking of a day in April, when, after many hours of inward conflict, she rose from her knees with a beaming face. She then continues:—
“Till then Rebecca had always had the idea when she prayed that she was speaking to God, but that He was far away from her; but on this day in April it was different. She felt as if she had that day met with Jesus, and she has kept closer to Him since that day. ‘God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness’ (Rom. vi. 17).
“After staying awhile longer in the Winchester House of Rest, God put it into Miss Humbert’s heart to go out into the streets at night and seek those poor fallen girls. So on the first Saturday night after this Miss Humbert took Rebecca with her to try and undo some of the evil she had done, by speaking to her poor lost sisters in the streets and in the public-houses. (Rebecca, who had been very lame from hip disease, recovered the power of walking somewhat suddenly during a time of earnest prayer that God would heal her completely; and after this she walked without fatigue for many hours a day in her mission work.) Twelve of those girls were spoken to on the first night of the mission, and on the following Monday were visited in their homes; and from that time Rebecca went on working for her poor sisters.
“A cottage, to which we gave the name of ‘Hope Cottage,’ was got for her, so that Rebecca could take her poor sisters home with her when she rescued them; and, thank God, one was rescued from a bad house after two years of a sinful life, even before they had got the furniture into the cottage. A week later another was brought in who had been leading a sinful life fourteen years. She was broken down in body; but God called her at the eleventh hour to give up all sin, and give herself to Him. Another and another was got in; and then some of these rescued ones went down to Portsmouth and visited over forty houses of ill-fame. They got their poor sisters to come home with them to their lodging, and gave them tea, and afterwards spoke to them about God. They might have got some of these poor girls to have stopped altogether if they had only had a place to bring them to. Some under the age of fourteen were carrying on the life of prostitution, sometimes in company with men over forty years of age—old enough to be their grandfathers.
“You, dear friends, who read this history will hardly realize it is true; but you have a living witness of the truth of it. This is not written in order to speak of the sinful past; but to encourage Christian friends to help the poor rescued ones on their new life—for the struggle is hard. No one knows but those who have gone through it.
“I would like to say it was not the being shut up in a Home for a length of time that won Rebecca, or brought her to God. It was the love and kindness of those around her. If love and kindness will not bring them to God, no locking up in a Home will. Often on our visits we hear the girls tell us they have been in such and such a Home; and when they get out they have again sunk as deep in sin. Dear friends, speak to these poor creatures, and tell them you love them, and let them see that you love them; and then they will believe in God’s love. I write this from my own experience; this is how I was won for Jesus by my friends in Winchester and London: not by preaching to, but by their love for me—a poor, miserable sinner, scorned by all men.”
To this account of herself I must add—what Rebecca cannot so well tell—some details of the work she did in Winchester. It was from my observation of her, and her influence amongst the most degraded of men and women, that I conceived the idea of a little Mission School of reclaimed women, who might be trained to go forth to seek and save the lost of their own sex. So far as we were able to carry out this idea, we found it wonderfully fruitful; and I do not mean to lose sight of it on account of a temporary check.
Rebecca’s influence here was something extraordinary. Her love and pity for the worst sinners were genuine and unbounded. She shrank from nothing that might have been repulsive or difficult to a more refined or less loving nature. She went straight into the worst and lowest dens of infamy, choosing frequently for her most arduous work the Saturday night, when drunkenness most prevails. She would stand in the midst of a den full of men and women of the lowest type, get them down on their knees, pray with them and for them, and teach them to pray; and when other persuasions failed, she related to them what she herself had been, and what God had done for her.
The reality of what she thus recorded struck home; many faces turned to her in wonder, and the fact that she had been one of themselves and now ardently desired their salvation, seemed to have a power to win their hearts and to overcome their incredulity, beyond any power which the words of a more blameless person might have had. Her influence was great with those low drunken men who abound in towns where the Contagious Diseases Acts have been in force; lazy scoundrels who disdain work, and live upon the prostitution of those poor creatures (formerly Government prostitutes), whom they tyrannize over, and often treat most cruelly. One of these, who afterwards attended our meetings like a man “clothed, and in his right mind,” came lately, on hearing of her visit to Winchester, to express his gratitude to her for what she had done for him.
A man and his wife, who had kept a notorious house of ill-fame for a great number of years in Winchester, were persuaded by her to give up their house, and induced even to co-operate with her in helping some of the inmates to a better life; and they themselves, yielding to her persuasion, took rooms near her, not far from the cottage. Their evil house was closed, and remains closed to this day. This place had withstood the repeated efforts of the police and of philanthropists; and at last succumbed to the simple persuasions and strong love of this poor woman—the same who during the recent weeks has been made the object of the fullest vocabulary of scorn, hatred, and contempt.
The man and his wife, above referred to, hearing that Rebecca was with us for a few days in the interval between the hearing at Bow Street and the trial at the Old Bailey, came to us begging that they might “just see her here for one moment to say, ‘God bless you,’” and added, “for what should we have been but for her?”
I must again mention Mary ——, to whom I recently referred in speaking at Exeter Hall. She was a handsome woman, of superior intelligence and nature, who had lived in great sin, and was bound in that life by affection to a man who, though not worthy of it, seemed to exercise a strange spell over her. Week after week, Rebecca pleaded with her in the streets, with tears and most earnest entreaties; and at last she prevailed. The poor woman came, suffering and ill, to Hope Cottage, too ill indeed to be properly received there; but Rebecca welcomed her, and she was put into an upper room, and nursed with the utmost tenderness and unwearying love by Rebecca, in circumstances which to most people would have been almost intolerable. It was one of those cases in which the sufferer becomes a mass of corruption before death. The inhabitants of the neighbouring cottages were so annoyed that they made a formal complaint: in consequence of which it became necessary at last to remove her to the pest-house of the Union, where she died. But during her sojourn with Rebecca, this poor Mary —— thought she was “in heaven.” The love of the woman who did everything for her with her own hands, although faint from the sickening odour of the wounds she had to dress, won that poor soul. She saw what the Saviour of sinners was, through the faint likeness of Him reflected in this poor Rebecca. She accepted the message of salvation which Rebecca brought to her.
We were obliged to take precautions, and remove other inmates from the house. Rebecca felt constantly sick, but never uttered the slightest expression of disgust; and if her task was spoken of to her as a sacrifice, she repudiated the idea, and said, “Oh no, I would do anything for her; I love her so much.”
When these things passed before my mind in the Law Court, during the five long hours of summing up, in the course of which the most dishonourable epithets were applied to this “disgusting and abominable woman,” I again recalled that scene in the Temple, where a sinful woman stood in the midst of a crowd of accusers; and I thought, If the Lord Jesus Christ had entered that Court of Law, and standing in the midst, had said to all present, from the highest to the lowest, “Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone at her”—would any have moved? How many would have left the Court? How many would have remained? Rebecca Jarrett’s vindication has yet to come. _But it will come._ I wondered if such an act of self-sacrificing love could ever come even within the range of the imagination of many in that Court; and I remembered that there is a God in heaven, who, while man’s condemnation was falling so crushingly on her, was not and will not be unmindful of “her labour of love.”
The success of the mission on which I sent Rebecca to Portsmouth, accompanied by two of her rescued friends, who were being trained in the Cottage, has been testified to by others resident there, who continued to write urging us to allow her to come again. I take a few extracts from the little Journal which she kept at that time at my request. It is headed by the words, “Is not the Lord gone out before thee?”
“May 4th.—Took lodgings in Portsmouth. Went to a Salvation Army meeting. Asked God for fresh courage for the work.
“May 5th.—A wet day. Plenty of work for us. Visited in —— ——, No. 27, Mrs. S—— and three girls; Mrs. P——, No. 28; Mrs. T——, No. 29, a Roman Catholic, and three girls. Spoke to two; one promised to come to us. Visited Nos. 31, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42. No. 44, full of girls.
“May 6th.—Went visiting the ‘bad houses’ three hours in the afternoon. Katie and Mrs. S—— spoke to five; and I and Katie went for three hours at night to Queen Street. Stopped about nine girls. Spoke and prayed in the evening meeting of the Salvation Army.”
The same kind of report follows of May 7th, giving addresses of ten houses visited.