CONCLUSION

“Being in the line of Duty, and realising my oneness with Omnipotence, I cannot possibly fail of success; for Omnipotent Love is pledged for the accomplishment of that for which I trust. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts shall perform it. ‘Thou shalt decree a thing,’ He hath said, ‘and it shall be established unto thee.’ There is no room for doubt. Because of the imperativeness of duty and the faithfulness of God, I am fully equipped with power to fulfil that duty.”

In concluding this volume of personal reminiscences, I am reminded of the survey of the work of the decade which expired in 1880, which I was asked by our friends to bring before them on the occasion of the Annual Meeting of the “Ladies’ National Association” of that year. The thoughts which rose to my mind then, come again vividly before me now. I may fitly close this record by some extracts from that address, as follows:—

“The fact that a Select Committee of Parliament is now sitting to inquire into the working of the system which we oppose, produces a certain lull in the more public and demonstrative action of the Abolitionist movement. Our question is again placed sub judice by the House of Commons, and our Parliamentary leaders consequently have their lips closed. For five years past successively, we have had the support of the eloquent voice and powerful arguments of Sir James Stansfeld, who always on all occasions asserted that, amidst all his convictions, deep and strong on this question, he had none deeper or stronger than this—that women must continue to stand in the forefront of this battle, and that, 238if they should cease to do so, the battle would be lost. Mr. Stansfeld is now, however, a member of the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry, and cannot be with us here. Sir Harcourt Johnstone, our Parliamentary leader, is in the same position, being also a member of that Committee.

“We are this evening called once more, therefore, to plead publicly our own cause; and this happens to be the case just at the close of a decade of labours, as if to call us, as women, to look back and record what God has done for us, perfecting His strength in our weakness, in these past ten years.

“These circumstances seem to prompt us to an attitude of grave retrospect, and of calm and deliberate preparation for the future.

“We must remember that the principal labours of a great movement do not consist in those public demonstrations and exciting parliamentary debates in which they culminate. Thought leads, after all, and the intellectual battle must continue to be waged by solid argument, by repeated assertion of principles, and by the unwearying pursuit of the multifarious fallacies and falsehoods to which a retiring cause inevitably betakes itself. Above all, ours is a spiritual warfare, and the victory must be won by the deepening of our own convictions, by increased faith in the permanence of the eternal principles of justice, and by a more absolute trust in Him in whose cause we are engaged.

“Since our first uprising in 1869, we have been gathering around us an increasing number of adherents of the medical profession, the breadth of whose views has led them to take a foremost place, not only in our crusade, but in the ranks of scientific teachers; they have set forth, not only the true medical aspect of this question, but also its far higher scientific aspect, in its relation to ethics and jurisprudence.

“The Society of which Elizabeth Fry was a distinguished member was, as we might naturally expect, among the first to welcome the public action of women in this matter; and the earliest public meetings addressed by women on this 239question were held in Quaker meeting houses. I cannot refrain from expressing my gratitude to those who, while most persons were scandalised by women’s action in those early days of our conflict, frankly gave me the right hand of fellowship, asking for no credentials whatsoever, except my own assertion that the cry of the oppressed and the voice of God within me were calling me to this work.

“It would be impossible for me, in this brief hour, to enumerate the succession of conferences, debates, mass meetings, and stormy election conflicts in which we have taken part during the last ten years; and my address to you this evening is not in any sense a report of work done, but only a most brief and imperfect survey of the rapid expansion of our cause....

“Let me lead you on to the spring of 1874. At that date we became aware of a vast enterprise, conceived and planned by the advocates of regulated vice,—an enterprise which involved a world-wide scheme for bringing under this degrading system all the nations of the earth. In order to meet this international action, it seemed to us that we must ourselves make an appeal to all the nations of the earth.

“A few of us—very few—met in York in June, 1874; our small number seemed utterly incommensurate with the vastness of the scheme before us. Faith enough was found, however, in that little band to welcome the suggestion of one member of it that she should go whither God would send her on the Continent of Europe.

“On the eve of her departure a company of friends assembled at Birmingham to commend to God this mighty enterprise in its small beginnings. The conference of that evening began by the reading of those prophetic words—for, in fact, they proved to be prophetic—‘I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in Him will I trust;’ ‘He shall give His angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways;’ ‘Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder’ (violence and treachery).

240“The history of that winter’s journeyings and labours is known to you, as well as something of the subsequent progress of the work on the Continent. This being the anniversary of the Ladies’ National Association, I may fitly mention that women on the Continent are faithful to the call they have received. Indeed, the hearts and consciences of women, especially of women of the humbler classes, bear the same witness in every land, concerning this question. At a meeting of women lately addressed by the Baroness Stampe and the Countess Moltke in Copenhagen, the poor women crowded up to sign their names, and pay their little contributions as members of our great League. One, who was very poorly clad, said, ‘If I have to sell my shawl in order to become a member, I will do it.’ If every woman in the more favoured classes of life were willing to make a sacrifice in proportion to this which the poor Danish woman was ready to make, we should have a mighty force added to our army.

“Another important feature of our progress is that of the establishment of a branch of our work in the United States of America, to prevent the encroachments of the Regulationists there, who are making constant efforts to introduce this system. Every great cause is propagandist in its spirit. Mr. H. J. Wilson and Mr. Gledstone went over as delegates from England to America, to arouse the lovers of virtue and freedom there. The seed they sowed has been very fruitful.

“The great event of the Geneva Congress, in the autumn of 1877, is well known to you all. I may remark, however, that an important element in our success has proved to be the importation into England of Continental opinion on this subject, opinion which is the more weighty as our Continental neighbours have had a prolonged experience of the regulation system, which has been comparatively recently introduced here. We have now in our hands a powerful weapon to employ for this work; I mean the published Actes of the Congress of Geneva. The conspiracy of silence of the 241press has done us this service—in that it has forced us to create a literature of our own.

“If we ask ourselves what are the results which we have gained, in the form of the actual abolition, in any part of the world, of the regulations against which we contend, we must confess that they are small. But the approach of victory is signalised not so much by the definite results which we are able to record in the shape of abolition as by the attitude and manœuvres of our opponents, accompanied by the progress of public opinion everywhere, on the question of morality and of the equal application of the moral law to both sexes. The Spartan general Brasidas, surveying the ranks of his enemies, said, ‘I see by the shaking of their spears that the rascals are preparing to run.’ We see as clearly by the ungraceful and eccentric dance now being performed by our opponents that they are preparing for a forced retreat from the position they have so long and so proudly maintained. The whole army of Regulationists have changed their front during these past ten years, having introduced the most extraordinary alterations in their tactics; and, as is generally the case when a bad cause begins to fall, they are introducing changes in the most opposite directions; on the one hand exaggerating all their pretensions and demands, and on the other hand making concessions, with the hope of prolonging their own existence.

“I may enumerate the concessions which have already been made to the advancing force of public opinion in the form of committees or commissions of special enquiry into this question: First, the Royal Commission appointed in 1870, the report of which was contradictory and inharmonious, resembling the confusion of tongues at the tower of Babel. Secondly, the Italian Parliamentary Committee, which sat in Rome, and which, at the close of its inquiry, proposed some kind of compromise. Thirdly, the Commission of the Municipal Council of Paris, now sitting. Fourthly, the Hong Kong Commission, which reported unfavourably of the Government establishment of vice in that colony, but 242gave way practically to the urgency of medical men in maintaining an amended form of the system. Fifthly, the Parliamentary Committee actually in session in London.

“Through all the cycles of human history, certain crimes and cruelties have in a great measure succeeded in hiding themselves, but now the fierce light is bursting in upon them on every side. The horrors and agonies of sensual sin are appearing in view. We continually receive from all parts of Europe revelations such as men had never guessed of before. The international slave traffic in human souls (that necessary adjunct of State-organised vice) has prospered in silence and secrecy; but it also is now coming to the light; it has been and is carried on on a larger scale and in more horrible ways than is generally suspected or can be easily conceived.

“It is possible, even probable, that the most anxious and difficult days of our struggle are yet to come; that when the upholders of the existing regulations of vice in various lands shall see it necessary to abandon their present position, they will come to us with offered compromises; and then there will be a sifting-time; our principles will be tested, and our integrity severely tried. That such compromises, various in kind and more or less subtle in their nature, will be proposed, and that they are already being concocted, I cannot doubt. We shall require clearness of insight to discern their nature, and firmness of purpose to deal with their propositions.

“We have experience enough to demonstrate that, whenever a practical victory awaits us, we may look for a corresponding attempt on the part of the Regulationists to re-establish the evil principle in, it may be, an extremely modified form or in a misleading guise; hence the supreme importance of clearness of discernment on our part, of wisdom and penetration, of skill to separate the old leaven to its last particle from every plan for the future, and to reject, at the risk of being deemed vexatious irreconcilables, every proposal which bears within itself the theory that prostitution is a necessary evil, and the consequent admission that a certain 243number of God’s creatures are doomed, also by a fatal law of necessity, to be transformed into mere instruments for the basest and most unholy purpose.”

1897.

And now, my dear Friends and Fellow-workers who have followed so far with me this record of our first ten years of conflict, my concluding words shall be addressed to you.

As I look back through our long warfare there rise before my mind not only our united band in untiring conflict with injustice, but many pleasant adventures, social gatherings, and sweet friendships, taking their rise in a common aim, cemented by fellowship in trial and in hope, and ripening, year by year, for the higher communion of the life to come. Many pleasant memories are revived, and some sorrowful ones. Ties have been riven, ties so dear and so familiar that when they vanished our weak hearts were rent. Fair households amongst us have been scattered. Some who were active in the work are now disabled by permanent physical weakness or approaching age; and we daily feel that our dearest communion fronts the hour of death. We have mourned together when some of our ablest helpers and boldest champions fell in the heat of the battle. But we have had strength given us to rise again, to put on our armour, and to turn our face to the foe.

We are of those (it has been said) who represent the imperishableness of principles, one of the many assurances of immortality. Let us be of good courage, then! He who has helped us hitherto will be with us to the end. More than twenty-seven years ago, while we were but a small, feeble company, and few cared to give ear to our appeal, much less to join in our aggressive action, we may have said in our hearts, ‘Who will rise up for me against the evil doers, or who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?’ and, indeed, I may say for myself, ‘Unless the Lord had been my helper, my soul had almost dwelt in silence.’ But the heavy curtain of darkness was lifted up at last, and we now see that there were celestial warriors on our side, and 244more for us than against us. The event foretold by Christ is coming to pass; the secret sins of Europe are beginning to be proclaimed from the housetops; the light of truth is already falling upon the dark places of the earth, full of the hideous habitations of cruelty; the hidden things of darkness can escape the dreaded light no more.

Looking forward, as we must, to another term of conflict, and considering what may, and probably will be, the special trials which await us, I counsel you, Friends, to be strong. Cultivate a sound judgment. Take this question into the solitude of your chamber; let the light from God’s presence penetrate your inmost thoughts; see clearly and act firmly.

Let this be all our care

To stand approved in sight of God, though worlds

Judge us perverse.

God forbid that we should ever trifle with the righteous conditions of success, for we know that every compromise is a loss of power, and would force us to begin all our work over again! May He grant us the disciplined conscience whose unfaltering logic shall hold its own against every fallacy, and continue to pierce through an iniquity which has corrupted more or less all the Governments of Europe, and blinded even the Churches, in which there can be no real health until they have openly taken their stand on God’s side in this matter.

Our opponents continue to tell us that ‘something must be done.’ True! practical effort is wanted on every side, economical, industrial, social; legal reforms are required, as well as moral and spiritual forces. We do, in fact, already combat, from all these sides, by means of the many collateral organisations which have gathered around us, the great evil of prostitution itself. It is true we had long neglected this work; but let those who blame us look round now, and survey the array of forces and agencies which have sprung up in many countries during these last twenty-seven years, animated by our protest, and working hand in hand with us. 245Let them regard these efforts and their results, and say whether we have not fully recognised the fact that ‘something must be done,’ and whether we have not faithfully endeavoured to do that something. But what some men mean when they call for something to be done, is that some provision of some sort must be made, whereby impurity may be divested of its unpleasant physical consequences,—that some organisation must be planned, based on the recognition of prostitution as a necessity of our social condition. To these we have but one reply: while it is our turn to remind those persons that ‘something must be done,’ and that that ‘something’ is that men must learn to live virtuously; that is the only possible remedy for the physical plague. But there are men who do not like to hear this; they will try everything rather than this. The end, however, will be the failure of their every effort to separate the moral and the physical laws of the universe, and the confirmation of this truth—that the only cure for the evils which they so much dread is purity of life.

O! that men would turn from the evil of their ways, for then, though their sins should be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, and they shall find themselves in the hand of a Saviour who is able to save to the uttermost!

Let holy charity continue, dear Friends, to be the inspiration of all our work. Pity for the suffering; justice for all; the oppressed to be delivered; the slave to be set free; the moral law to be obeyed to the last tittle; the soul of the poor to be delivered from the hands of the spoiler; and the Governments of the world to be warned of that logic of retribution whereby men and nations reap as they have sown. Such has been our programme in the past; such it will continue to be in the future.

THE END.

Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.

Renumbered footnotes and moved them all to the end of the final chapter.