"A struggling mother desires a start in life for her boy of ten, whose stepfather subjects him to ill-treatment. The lady interested in him (for the woman attends her mothers' meeting) writes: 'William would be saved from destruction, to which he is fast hastening from unkind treatment.' "Arthur's story is summed up in his own words: 'I saw my father kill my mother; he stamped on her when he was drunk, and killed her, and I cried out.' Then, turning to his new friend and protectress, the little fellow went on: 'But when I get a big man I'll work for you, and pay you back for taking care of me when I was a little boy.' "The next group, clad in deep mourning, is brought by a professional opera singer: a babe in arms, a boy and girl aged two and four, evidently born in a much higher sphere--pretty, refined children. At their mother's death this young woman took charge of them, their father having promised to pay 1 pound a week for their support;--an empty promise it proved, for the '_gentleman_' absconded, heavily in debt to many others. The children's friend can no longer afford to keep them, though she seems tenderly attached to them, and will not part with the baby as long as she can maintain it. The only way open to her was to let the children wander on the street, on the chance of their being taken up by the police and put in the workhouse, at the same time risking her own imprisonment if discovered. Mercifully she heard of the Refuge, and came to beg a home for these deserted lambs. "A widowed mother, whose failing eyesight prevents her sewing, and whose earnings by charing cannot support herself and four children, heard Miss Macpherson speak at the Moorgate Street Hall Noon Prayer-Meeting, and was led to bring little Alice to her, pleading for Christian care. Amid many tears she tells of the wayward wilfulness of the elder girl, out at all hours of day and night, and whose pernicious example is too likely to ruin the little sisters." Could such cases be sent away, or a deaf ear turned to the cry of these "young children asking bread, and no man giving it them?" (Lam. iv. 4.) Miss Macpherson also writes:--"Many of those, once the little match-box makers, are now Christian girls taking our counsel and going as servants into Christian families. "Thus our child-loving hearts cannot refuse to rescue the sorrowful children that come to us to escape the atrocities of the almost unacknowledged bloodless war that goes on in our midst. Most of the fifty rescues now under our care are here through the slain upon the battle-field of drink, shaven heads telling the tale of neglect. The last two motherless little girls sent to us were turned out by their drunken stepfather.