human language-poetry, figure, allegory, symbol, and parable, as well as doctrinal definition, to set forth its many-sided truth, and it was never intended, nor is it humanly possible, to force into one rigid mould all the types of Christian opinion. This I hold, while equally convinced that there is a Divine unity of Scripture, and a convergence of all the rays of light on the central focus of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The storm centre has now changed. The labours of Lightfoot and Hort have planted the historicity of the New Testament on an impregnable basis, but the modern school of rationalists are trying to pulverize Old Testament history. Some of them see plainly that if they succeed in overthrowing the historicity of the Pentateuch, the authority of Christ falls along with it, for He undoubtedly believed and taught the Hebrew Old Testament. "Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me, for he spake of Me; but if ye believe not his sayings, how can ye believe My words?" I avow my conviction that this attack will fail, like that on the New Testament I mean that riper scholarship will prove the reliability of the old Hebrew History; but meanwhile the faith of many is weakened in Divine Revelation: At bottom the repugnance to believe the Christian revelation is too often repugnance to a

life of holiness and self-denial. Men draw their convictions from a great depth. They too often display a fatal bias against the truth, and argument alone will never convince mere gainsayers.

CHAPTER X

We come to "Carleton "- Work at the ColiseumThe Temperance Movement in Liverpool

I HAVE drifted a little from chronological order in piecing together religious events, and have omitted to notice our change of abode in 1875. Increasing engagements in Liverpool made residence in Cheshire inconvenient, and at last, with great reluctance, we gave up our sweet home-Woodlands, Liscard Vale-and came over to Carleton, Prince's Park. It was a sore wrench, for delightful associations had gathered round that peaceful home: the happiest time of my life was spent there and once embarked on the tempestuous ocean of Liverpool life there was little more rest for body or mind. One delightful engagement was found possible at Carleton. We formed a "Clerical Club," which met there in the winter months once every three weeks. It included most of the Presbyterian ministers of Liverpool and neighbourhood, and some other friends. We took tea together, and then for two hours discussed some theological subject, one of our party opening by a short paper. Our object was edification, not argumentation, and we succeeded in keeping up this character for several years. Even after I entered Parliament we continued, with fewer meetings, and only finally closed our sittings two or three years ago. Most of our earlier members have passed away, and one feels impoverished by the loss of such men as Dr. Lundie, Dr. Symington, Dr. William Graham, James Towers, J. J. Muir (my special friend), and others, who "served their own generation by the will of God." These lines of Shairp often recur to me :

SAINTS DEPARTED.

While they here sojourn'd, their presence drew us
By the sweetness of their human love;

Day by day good thoughts of them renew us,
Like fresh tidings from the world above,

1300

1001

Coming, like the stars at gloamin', glinting

Through the western clouds, when loud winds cease,
Silently of that calm country hinting,

Where they with the angels are at peace.

Not their own, ah! not from earth was flowing
That high strain to which their souls were tuned ;
Year by year we saw them inly growing

Liker Him with whom their hearts communed.

Then to Him they pass'd; but still unbroken,

Age to age, lasts on that goodly line,

Whose pure lives are, more than all words spoken,
Earth's best witness to the life divine.

(John Campbell Shairp.)

Another very interesting development of religious work occurred in this way. An old theatre, the Coliseum, in Paradise Street, was closed up as the result of an accident in which thirty or forty people were trodden to death. We had an eccentric temperance reformer called William Simpson, who had charge of the landingstage. I had been much impressed with the need of providing wholesome amusements for the poor, on temperance lines, so as to wean them from the public houses, where a great part of their earnings were spent. I offered to take the theatre for a year, and place it at the disposal of Simpson, to organize innocent amusements at a low charge: The experiment was tried for a year, but was not very successful, and involved considerable loss. So it was given up; but another and far more successful attempt was made, which I will now describe.

It was decided to use the theatre for Sunday evening services, and try to gather in the degraded population around it. This was attained by giving a roll or small loaf of bread to each person who attended. This may be called a species of bribery, but we argued that a piece of dry bread could only be acceptable to a hungry man, and our object was to get at the lowest stratum of the population. We succeeded to our hearts' content, for we had the place crammed each Sunday; and so many children came in with their parents, especially squalling babies in their mothers' arms, that the noise was like that of Pandemonium. At last we were obliged to separate the children and form a special meeting for them. We utilized a large room at the top of the building, which held 1,000 children, and we soon filled it, and secured a devoted class of teachers and an able superintendent, and from that day

to this-some twenty or twenty-five years-the school has flourished. It has long been removed from this upper room, with its dangerous steep stair, to a ground floor, but it is still called the Coliseum Sunday School, and gathers about 1,000 of the poorest children of the city; and some sixty teachers, many of them hard workers in shops all the week, faithfully attend, not merely on Sunday, but on several nights of the week, when classes of all kinds are carried on for gymnastics, ambulance, sewing, etc., and even their wounds are attended to by a doctor.

When we began our work the condition of the children was deplorable. Indeed, the whole company, young and old, almost literally fulfilled the words of Isaiah : from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot there was no soundness in them, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores." The filth and stench of the audience were indescribable. One could hardly walk through to the platform without feeling sick. Those were the days when public baths for the poor were almost unknown, or at least unused, and when a large part of the poor population lived in enclosed courts" or closes," with no ventilation and no lighting at night. The women sat on the doorsteps gossiping or quarrelling with their neighbours most of the day, and the men spent half their wages in the public house, which sucked the life out of the people. After some years we moved the adult meeting to the Picton Lecture Hall, where it has been held for many years. Often have I seen it crowded to suffocation with 1,200 or 1,400 people, and we had to limit the number at last to avoid risk of accidents. During that long period we never had an accident or trouble of any serious kind, though we had the debris of our social system, men and women who had drunk themselves to rags, and whose very breath was poisonous. Each night we took temperance pledges from all who voluntarily offered, and employed visitors to follow them up as far as possible. I fancy since we began this work we must have taken little short of 15,000 or 20,000 pledges. No doubt the great bulk were not kept, but many hundreds of people have been entirely changed. From being little better than brute beasts they have regained self control and decency of life. The Gospel still proves itself "the power of God unto salvation to every one who believeth."

In the earlier stages of the movement my friend, Alexander Simmonds, divided with me the management, and we took the Sunday service alternately. When he went to London I found

an efficient helper in Edward Boreland, and a staff of earnest voluntary workers: Failing health will, I fear, not permit much more personal supervision, but this work still goes on:

The

Looking back on Liverpool in those days, it may very truly be said that the drink trade was the curse of the town. squalor of the lower parts was indescribable. Some classes of labourers, and even of the higher artisans like ship carpenters and boiler makers, were excessively drunken, and the higher the wages the more wretched the home. I knew of cases of men with 50s. or 6os. per week who had hardly a stick of furniture in their houses, and whose children were in rags. One of the commonest tricks was to send out little children on snowy nights, half naked, to solicit alms. I have often seen small boys and girls with unsold bundles of papers asleep on doorsteps near midnight. When you awakened them and asked them to go home they began to cry, as they would be beaten if they returned without their stock being sold off. Gradually this state of things was altered by prosecutions for neglect by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Now we have excellent bye-laws of the Town Council to regulate street trading, which makes this impossible; also an excellent system of clothing ragged children, inaugurated by the then Mayor, Mr. Watts. In the seventies, and after I entered the Town Council, I made many attempts to get supervision of street children, but the time was not ripe. The usual reply was: "Surely you would not interfere between a parent and his children!"

As Ephesus was said to be a worshipper of the great goddess Diana, it might be said that Liverpool was a worshipper of the great goddess Beer. It had so entrenched itself in the Town Council and among the magistracy by allying itself with politics, that it was almost impossible to get any real supervision of the public house. Both political parties had made huge mistakes. Some years before, the Liberals, following the lead of Robertson Gladstone, in order to get rid of the monopoly, adopted the system of free licensing. This practically meant that every one who asked for a license obtained it unless specially disqualified. The effect was to flood the town with drink and to greatly increase drunkenWhen too late it was seen that vast mischief was done, but then the opposite policy was adopted of regarding a license as a vested right which could never be taken away except for some outrageous abuse. The Tory party at the time was so closely allied with the drink interest (though many among them detested

ness.