Winch told me his own “experience.” His daughter went out to
service in the country and wrote him letters about the “blessed
Sundays” she passed, but did not say where she passed them. Then
the second daughter went down to the same place and began to write
the same sort of letters. About this time he chanced to go to a
meeting of the Salvation Army and on coming home said to his wife:
“I had rather see my daughter in her coffin than belonging to the
Salvation Army.” In spite of what I said, by and by the wife began
to look into the work, and she fair fell in love with it. Well,
where the women folk go, the men must follow, and it’s three years
since I was led to join the Army, and it’s the blessed times I have
had. Last Sunday I walked six miles to hold an outdoor meeting,
then an indoor meeting, then another outdoor meeting. I led the
march. After that six miles’ tramp on foot at the end of a hard
week’s work.
The part Winch enjoys the most is the meetings, especially those
held out of doors.
“Some of the things we do,” he said, “I can see myself must look
ridiculous, like the beating the drum and sich, but if souls are
saved, what does it matter?” What, indeed?
We next visited the Elevator, so called because it is planned to
elevate the men. On our way we went through a poor Jewish quarter
where the children, a crowd of superb, red-haired, brown-haired,
black-eyed babies, filled the narrow sidewalks....
It was polling day, the streets were filled with carriages bearing
the names of the candidates. The walls everywhere were placarded
with the names of the Liberal and Unionist candidates. I asked
Sergeant Winch who he had voted for.
“I yielded to a great temptation to-day and voted for the Grand Old
Man for the first time in my life.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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