st opportunities lie before those who accept the service of man
as their service to God. It proved to me how infinitely more needed
are unselfish deeds than orthodox words, and how much the churches
must learn from the Labour Party, the Socialist Party, the
Trades-Union, before tens of thousands of our fellow beings, with all
their hopes and fears, loves and aspirations, have a fair chance to
make good. I learned also to hate the liquor traffic with a loathing
of my soul. I met peers of the realm honoured with titles because they
had grown rich on the degradation of my friends. I saw lives damned,
cruelties of every kind perpetrated, jails and hospitals filled,
misery, want, starvation, murder, all caused by men who fattened off
the profits and posed as gentlemen and great people. I have seen men's
mouths closed whose business in life it was to speak out against this
accursed trade. I have seen men driven from the profession of priests
of God, making the Church a stench in the nostrils of men who knew
values just as well as those trained in the universities do, all
through alcohol, alcohol, alcohol. This awful war has been dragging
its weary course for over four years now, and yet England has not
tackled this curse which is throttling her. We sing "God save the
King," and pretend to believe in the prayer, and yet we will not face
this glaring demon in our midst. Words may clothe ideas, but it takes
deeds to realize them.

* * * * *

My parents having gone, it became necessary for me to find
lodgings--which I did, "unfurnished," in the house of a Portuguese
widow. Her husband, who had a good family name, had gone down in the
world, and had disappeared with another "lady." The eldest son, a
mathematical genius, had been able to pay his way through Cambridge
University by the scholarships and prizes which he had won. One
beautiful little dark-eyed daughter of seven was playing in a West End
Theatre as the dormouse in "Alice in Wonderland." She was second
fiddle to Alice herself, also, and could sing all her songs. Her pay
was some five pounds a week, poor enough for the attraction she
proved, but more than all the rest of the family put together earned.
At that time I never went to theatres. Acquaintances had persuaded me
that so many of the girls were ruined on the stage that for a man
taking any interest in Christian work whatever, it was wrong to
attend. Moreover, among my acquaintances