hing to
keep him clean, and to keep him from the sordid things to which you
and I know well enough he will descend in the long run if one cannot
put the love of clean, wholesome life into his heart. But how to get
at him? If you talk to him about his soul you disgust him, and you
feel a sort of sneaking sympathy with him too. It does not seem the
thing to make a chap self-conscious and a bit of a prig when he is
not one to start with. On the other hand, if you just keep to buns and
cinemas you never get any farther. Well, it is a big difficulty. The
only experience that I have had which counts at all is experience that
I gained while trying to run a boys' club in South London, and you
must not think me egotistical if I tell you what seems to me to have
been the secret of any power that I seem to have had over fellows.

At first I used to have a short service at the close of the club every
evening, to which most of the boys used to stay. I also had a service
on Sunday afternoon. Something of the same sort might perhaps be
possible in the Y.M.C.A. tent if there is one where you are. When I
was talking to them at these services I always used to try and make
them feel that Christ was the fulfilment of all the best things that
they admired, that He was their natural hero. I would tell them some
story of heroism and meanness contrasted, of courage and cowardice, of
noble forgiveness and vile cruelty, and so get them on the side of the
angels. Then I would try and spring it upon them that Christ was the
Lord of the heroes and the brave men and the noble men, and that He
was fighting against all that was mean and cruel and cowardly, and
that it was up to them to take their stand by His side if they wanted
to make the world a little better instead of a little worse, and I
would try to show them how in little practical ways in their homes and
at their work and in the club they could do a bit for Christ.

Well, they listened pretty well, and I think that they agreed in
a general sort of way, only 'they knew that I was a richish man in
comparison with them, and that I didn't have their difficulties to
contend with, and that all tended to undo the effect of what I had
said. And then accident gave me a sort of clue to the way to get them
to take one seriously. For some idiotic reason--I really couldn't say
just what it was--I dressed up as a tramp one day, and spent a night
in a casual ward. I didn't do it for any very worthy motive