The cross in
such dens as these, or, worse than dens, in such sewers! If it be
anything, it is a symbol of victory, of power to triumph over
resistance, and even death. Here was nothing but sullen subjugation,
the most grovelling slavery, mitigated only by a tendency to mutiny.
Here was a strength of circumstance to quell and dominate which
neither Jesus nor Paul could have overcome--worse a thousandfold than
Scribes or Pharisees, or any form of persecution. The preaching of
Jesus would have been powerless here; in fact, no known stimulus,
nothing ever held up before men to stir the soul to activity, can do
anything in the back streets of great cities so long as they are the
cesspools which they are now.
We came to the room. About a score of M'Kay's own friends were
there, and perhaps half-a-dozen outsiders, attracted by the notice
which had been pasted on a board at the entrance. M'Kay announced
his errand. The ignorance and misery of London he said were
intolerable to him. He could not take any pleasure in life when he
thought upon them. What could he do? that was the question. He was
not a man of wealth. He could not buy up these hovels. He could not
force an entrance into them and persuade their inhabitants to improve
themselves.
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