“A coffee-roasting firm has pledged five pounds of good coffee each
week for use at the 'Penny Lunch' room, and we are sure dealers in
other lines will be glad to assist. Corby Brothers have been
furnishing from fifty to seventy-five loaves of bread for our 'bread
line' for many months, and Browning & Baines, coffee dealers, have
supplied six pounds of coffee a week for a long time past.
“We greatly appreciate the generous co-operation of all these dear
friends, who help us to help others to help themselves.”
The benefits of the Penny Lunch can never be told till the books of
eternity are opened, but some idea may be gathered when we state that
the report of the bread line from May 12, 1911, to May 12, 1912, was
41,750, but the report from May 12, 1912, to May 12, 1913, was 18,950.
The Bread Line is the name of a service at 6 A.M., the year round, when
bread and black coffee is served to all who come for it. If people will
come before daylight in the winter, or at that early hour in the summer
for coffee, without cream or sugar, and a quarter of a loaf of bread, we
believe they need it, and we gladly give it, not as a charity, but as a
visible token of our sympathy. Now, the fact that 22,800 fewer people
took bread and coffee free in the year 1912 to 1913, compared with the
preceding year, can only be accounted for that when a man has a few
pennies in his pocket he could buy a satisfactory breakfast, and gladly
did so rather than to line up for an unrequited kindness.
How shamed many men were to take food in the bread line, but the loving
word sweetened many a bitter cup. Once a hand so unusually white and
well-kept reached for the cup of coffee. Mrs. Kline looked up and saw
the face of a man who had been a minister of the gospel. She said,
“Brother, take only the coffee, we want you to take breakfast at our
family table this morning.” He sat down to drink the coffee with bitter
tears coursing down his shamed face. Of course, every kindness was shown
him, “for need has its right, and necessity its claim,” then the blessed
Spirit came in and lo, he prayed, and God received back to a useful life
a man who had found sorrow and sin bitter and the tears of remorse salt.
WHAT DR. HALLIMOND, OF THE NEW YORK BOWERY MISSION, SAYS ABOUT THE BREAD
LINE
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account