12 Chapter 12. A Rock-Bound Coast.
Chapter 12. A Rock-Bound Coast. My dear girls, please do not think because we have visited quite a number of workrooms during the year that nothing is left to be seen or learnt about the working girls of East London.
Lillie and Florence are, we fear, feeling just a little hurt on finding that our walks have not taken us so far Citywards as Fleet Street, for there we should have found them each busy at her work: Lillie among the bookbinders, Florence as an envelope-folder in one of our large city firms.
We know both girls well, we have met them so often in a Bible class, and it would really have been pleasant to watch their bright faces and busy fingers for a little while. But if we cannot stop to visit City workrooms, it will be pleasant, and I hope profitable, to spend half an hour in the inspection of the "South London Workshops for the Blind."
Stockrooms and a shop in which articles made by blind workmen and workwomen are exposed for sale occupy by far the greater part of the ground floor. But when the manager says "Would you like to see our basket and matmakers busy at their trades?" in such a bright, pleasant way that we feel sure he will not mind the trouble of shewing us over the building, we are glad to avail ourselves of his kind invitation, and follow our guide. The basket-makers are very busy, several fresh orders having been received by the morning’s post, and as we watch how quickly and deftly the willow-canes, after having been first steeped in water to soften them, are handled and woven into baskets differing greatly in shape and size, it seems difficult to believe, and still more so to realise, that all the workmen are blind. But baskets are far from being the only things made in this department, though it is called the "basket-shop." Cane and bamboo chairs, bed and leg-rests (the latter to be used in the surgical wards of one of our London hospitals) and many useful things are the work of their skilled fingers. And when we remember how many difficulties had to be faced, and often the temptation to say "I’ll give it up; I cannot work in the dark" must have come to these blind workmen, one cannot but feel ashamed of so often giving way to fits of depression and not always trying to do our very best. But our guide has more to shew and more to tell. The mat-makers are busy people, too. Though their work is not so varied as that of the basket-shop, their mats are so strong and well made that they will stand hard wear and often last for many years. The brush-shop also presents a busy scene. It would take up far too much space were I even to attempt to give the names of all the different kinds of brushes required for use in yard or stable, to say nothing of household and toilet use. The smaller and finer kinds are generally made by girls and women; each works upon a board in which a number of very fine holes have been drilled, through which the bristles are drawn or passed; this part of the work is called brush-drawing. When ready the brushes are taken to another department, in which the backs are shaped and fastened by male workers. But I must not stop to introduce you to blind shorthand typists, teachers of music, pianoforte tuners, carpenters, picture-frame makers, and other workers who have found ways and means of making themselves useful. As we say good-bye to our sightless friends our hearts thrill with the longing that each dear, blind worker may learn what it means to "walk in the light" in the simple, happy consciousness of being "children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." For such the darkness in which their outer lives must be spent cannot last long. Soon, it may be very soon, the shadows and gloom of earth will give place to the cloudless light and joy of being for ever with the One they have through grace learnt to love and trust. This may be my last opportunity of having a quiet talk by way of pen and ink, and I want very much to tell you another true story of a young girl who in her far-away home in one of the Shetland Isles was allowed to do a work that will last when everything we can see with our eyes, or touch with our hands, has been worn out and forgotten, for it was work for God, and when any who belong to Christ work from the sweet constraint of love to Him, it is really of no consequence how small or feeble the work may be, it is sure to last.
Some of our friends who have been to the Shetlands tell us it would be difficult to find a more delightful place in which to spend a long summer holiday.
Live seals may often be seen basking in the sunshine or sporting among the rocks, and the silence is broken by the shrill cry of many a sea bird, almost if not quite unknown on our southern coasts. The simple islanders, too, will not be easy to forget by those who have spent even a short time among them. The only way in which people who live in the different islands can get at each other is by boat, and some of the smaller islands can only be reached by such narrow openings among the rocks that visitors can only approach them in fine, calm weather. On one of these islands lives a fisherman — I am not sure that he would like me to tell you his real name, so I will call him Donald.
Donald was a very busy man, but at the time our story begins he was not a happy one.
Light from heaven had shined into his heart, and in that light he had seen himself to be a lost sinner, and the thought that one day (he did not know how soon) he must leave his fishing, and then, ah, then! his soul — that soul that must, he knew, live for ever — would go into eternity, made him very unhappy. But the light came from God, a God who loves to bless, and as it grew clearer he saw that there was salvation for him as the free gift of God (Romans 6:23), so in simple faith Donald took the gift and thanked the Giver, and a strange new joy, the joy of forgiveness, filled his soul. But for a long time he treated this joy in much the same way in which a miser hoards and hides his gold, he kept it to himself, he did not tell his friends or neighbours of the Saviour who had sought and found him.
He only talked of these things to his little daughter Agnes, and she, too, loved and trusted the same precious Saviour, and so you may be sure that father and daughter were great friends. But the One who had saved Donald and Agnes wanted to have a witness for Himself in that lonely sea-girt isle.
Other fishermen and their families lived near Donald’s cottage and the Lord Jesus loved and longed to bless and save them too. He wanted them to hear through Donald’s simple words of His great love.
Donald, however, was not quite ready to be His messenger. He had to learn in the school of sorrow that the Lord who is mighty to save is also able to comfort.
Agnes was taken ill, and before many days her almost broken-hearted father saw that his dearly-loved little girl was dying. But even on her sick bed there was a work for Agnes that perhaps no one but herself could have done. The Lord had given Agnes a deep, faithful love for souls, and she longed that not only the fisher children she used to play with, but their fathers and mothers should know the One who had saved her. So she asked her father if he would promise her "one thing," that when she had gone to be with the Lord he would get the neighbours together and, preach Christ to them.
He said, "It is of no use for me to promise, I cannot preach."
Such a troubled look came over the face of the dying girl, and for a moment she seemed disappointed. But only for a moment, for she asked, "But, dear father, if you cannot preach to the grown-up people, we have no Sunday school here, won’t you tell the children about the Lord Jesus?"
Donald said, "I’ll try," in a voice almost choked with sobs. And he has kept his promise, too.
He began very soon after dear Agnes fell asleep by holding a meeting for children in his cottage, but very soon fathers and mothers began to attend, and now Lord’s day after Lord’s day Donald is telling "the old, old story" of Jesus and His love to nearly all the people who live in his island home.