A fortnight later John wrote to Glory:
“Fairly under weigh at last, dear Glory! Taken priest's orders, got the
Bishop's 'license to officiate,' and found myself a church. It is St.
Mary Magdalene's, Crown Street, Soho, a district that has borne for
three hundred years the name of the 'Devil's Acre,' bears it still,
and deserves it. The church is an old proprietary place, licensed, not
consecrated, formerly belonging to Greek, or Italian, or French, or some
other refugees, but long shut up and now much out of repair. Present
owners, a company of Greek merchants, removed from Soho to the City, and
being too poor (as trustees) to renovate the structure, they have forced
me to get money for that purpose from my uncle, the Prime Minister. But
the money is my own, apparently, my uncle having in my interest demanded
from my father ten thousand pounds out of my mother's dowry, and got it.
And now I am spending two thousand on the repair of my church buildings,
notwithstanding the protests of the Prime Minister, who calls me
'chaplain to the Greek-Turks,' and of Mrs. Callender, who has discovered
that I am a 'maudlin, sentimental, daft young spendthrift.' Dare say I
am all that and a good deal more, as the wise world counts wisdom--but
it matters little!
“Have not waited for the workmen, though, to begin operations. Took
first services last Sunday. No organist, no choir, no clerk, and next to
no congregation. Just the church cleaner, a good, simple old soul
named Pincher, her son, a reformed drunkard and pawnbroker, and another
convert who is a club waiter. Nevertheless, I went through the whole
service, morning and evening, prayers, psalms, and sermon. God will be
the more glorified.
“Have started my new crusade on behalf of women, too, and made various
processions of three persons through the streets of Soho. First, my
pawnbroker bearing the banner (a white cross, the object of various
missiles), next my waiter carrying a little harmonium, and familiarly
known as the 'organ man,' and finally myself in my cassock. Last
mentioned proves to be a highly popular performance, being generally
understood to be a man in a black petticoat. We have had a nightly
accompaniment of a much larger procession, though, calling themselves
'Skellingtons,' otherwise the 'Skeletons,' an army of low women and
roughs; who live vulture lives on this poor, soiled, grimy, forgotten
world. Thank God, the ground of evil-doers is in danger, and they know
it!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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