Josephine E. Butler

I recall these things to sustain me in the midst of mournful questionings. He has chosen the manner of our companionship, and therefore it is dear to me. No pleasant walks on the slopes of the Mount of Olives, no evening converse or public teaching on the shores of the lake or on the green hillside, no sweet ministerings by the wayside or in humble dwellings to His human needs. These are not His choice for me. In the morning of life I chose for myself – I chose the beautiful and good things set before me; and now in the evening, when the shadows are closing round, He chooses for me. If I have worn a crown of roses, shall I not gladly change it for one of thorns, if it brings me nearer? When my earthly paradise faded, and its best human companionship was withdrawn, and I was left alone, then my Lord remembered my first request – for companionship with Him. And how could He choose better than He had chosen – to share His solitude, to know the sweet and awful companionship of suffering, of darkness, of the vision of the whole world’s sin, for which He was wounded to death, and of the slow hours counted in silent pain? I thank thee, O God!

The following message was written for the Conference of the Federation held in Paris in June, 1900.

In the midst of all that is now being done to promote a higher morality and to win men, our soldiers and others, to accept the higher standard, there is still, I think, a tendency to forget, or at least to feel less, our responsibility towards the immediate and the saddest victims of the social evil – the women, the young girls of the so-called outcast class. May I once more put in a plea for them? Unable now to work among them in any practical way, yet the thought of them is ever with me. There are memories which nothing can efface, forms which visit me again in the night season, faces which look through the mists of the past and seem to plead for some word from me, some reminder addressed to our busy workers and noble social reformers – a word to recall to them that “we are still in bonds; we are still in State prison-houses, in beleaguered cities where a famine of all that heart and soul crave, and the disease-impregnated atmosphere are wearing us out and holding us until the last breath of hope is extinguished and we die; and yet no sound of any relieving army reaches our ears, no glad tramp of swiftly-flying horses bearing our deliverers; no cry from the watch-tower, Relief is on the way! We are here while you are preaching purity, more manliness to men, more courage to women, more love for humanity. Have you forgotten us?” From the Maisons tolerées of Geneva, of Paris, of Berlin, from slave pens and prisons all over the Continent comes this cry to those who have ears to hear.

At the meeting of our Abolitionist Federation about to be held in Paris will that voice be heard, or will it be lost amidst the excitement of those days, amidst the pressure of a thousand interests and the voices of appeal from many workers in innumerable good causes? And yet a few streets distant there are and will be abodes filled with human beings – our sisters, driven outside the pale of all law, hemmed round and crushed down by a cordon and by weights of arbitrary police rules, slaves and prisoners to whom no light comes, to whom no word of hope penetrates. They have been so welded into a compact class by human egotism that even the good and kind among men and women are apt to forget that they are no more criminal than others who are free, and to look upon them as a peculiarly degraded portion of humanity.

May I recall a few memories? In Paris some twenty or more years ago my husband and I, on our way to an evening meeting, shortened our route by going through an obscure by-street. As we passed there darted out of the darkness a girl gaily dressed, painted, but no fille de joie, no dressing or paint could hide the marks of slavery and pain. She made for me, she threw her arms round my neck, her cheek for one moment pressed against mine, the tears coursing down through the paint which hid the pallor underneath, and calling me by my name, she said (in French), “We love you! Oh, we love you!” I had no time to respond. She, seeing or feeling the approach of a policeman or something, tore herself away and darted back into the darkness. Like a meteor out of the darkness this vision appeared, and into the darkness it returned, leaving no trace behind. I never heard of her again. I know nothing. Where is that spirit now? Where? I ask it of God. She told me she loved me (she and her doomed comrades). Shall I ever have the opportunity of returning to her those dear words? We had been having meetings, in which sympathy was expressed for these captives. Some few of them, in spite of police surveillance, had managed to creep into our meetings, and perhaps they had read something in the newspapers.

Dare I to ask our friends who will assemble in Paris to keep their ears open to this cry, and to remember that there, close by, in the midst of all the charms of the Exhibition, and the interest of social gatherings and meetings on behalf of every good end, there, close by, are crushed hearts and maddened spirits, whose existence as an officially acknowledged social necessity is a crime prophetic of woe for that charming city en fête just now, but which must pass under a cloud sooner or later, if for these and other slaves the sword of justice is not unsheathed?

In the years past I visited sometimes houses of ill-fame in my own country, where the law is with us and not against us in entering such places. I recall one day sitting in a room with some score of young women of the unhappy sisterhood. They were seated mostly on the floor around me, some with an expression of weariness or indifference on their faces, some hard, others gently inquisitive. I spoke to them (do not be surprised, any friend who may read this) of the sweetness of family life, of the blessing of the love of a pure and chivalrous man, and of happy married life, of the love of little children, the gaiety, the gladness they shed in the home, of the delight even of the humblest household work in such conditions in a home where true love reigns, and of the affection between a true husband and wife, which deepens and becomes more holy as life goes on. Was it cruel? It might seem so. But the effect was not so. All round me there were heads bowed low; no more hardness nor indifference, but tears dropping on clasped hands and faces hidden on the shoulders of their companions. The room seemed to be full of the sound of sighing and sobbing; it seemed to me a wail – almost like the wail of lost spirits:“Too late! too late! That is not for us. Once we had now and then such a dream, but now – nevermore!” I dropped on the floor to be nearer and in the midst of them, and spoke words which I cannot remember, but to this effect:“Courage, my darlings! Don’t despair; I have good news for you. You are women, and a woman is always a beautiful thing. You have been dragged deep in the mud; but still you are women. God calls to you, as He did to Zion long ago, ‘Awake, awake! Thou that sittest in the dust, put on thy beautiful garments.’ It may be that the picture I have drawn is not for you, yet I dare to prophesy good for you, and happiness even in this life; and I tell you truly that you can become, in this life, something even better than a happy wife and mother – yes, something better. You can help to save others. You can be the friend and companion of Him who came to seek and to save that which was lost. Fractures well healed make us more strong. Take of the very stones over which you have stumbled and fallen, and use them to pave your road to heaven. My beloved ones, I have come to tell you of a happiness in store for you, greater than any earthly happiness.”

Did I speak to them of their sins? Did I preach that the wages of sin is death? Never! What am I – a sinner – that I should presume to tell them that they were sinners? That would have stirred an antagonism in their hearts, a mental protest:“Perhaps you are not much better than we. If you had had to go through what we have gone through, if you had been neglected, poor, betrayed, kicked about by society – ” Ah, yes, I knew all that; and I knew that the vision of what they might have been had stirred in every poor heart of them a sad, dreary sense of loss– of irreparable loss – and a keen sense of shame and of bitter regret that they were what they were.

And the seal set upon every such message was the seal of the blessed name of Christ the Lord, the Lover of the lost, the Friend of sinners; of Him who welcomed the sinful woman, the sister of those who are called in police reports “habitual prostitutes,” “abandoned women,” “recalcitrants,”“social nuisances”; of Him who accepted her tears, who suffered her to kiss His feet; of Him who said, “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which is lost”; the noble Shepherd who goes forth in search of His lost sheep, following it over hill and dale, rock and torrent, and through the wide, waste wilderness – till when? till He sees that that erring creature does not want to be saved, is too stupid and silly and perverse, too tainted with vice to be saved, and then does He turn back and give it up? No. It is written: “He goeth after the sheep that is lost until He finds it.” How is it that the Chief Shepherd never turns back (as we do) from the search after a lost soul, or His vast lost humanity? The answer comes to me – because of His faith. He had faith in God the Father, and He had faith also in that human nature created by God. He sees what we cannot see – the spark, all but extinguished, in the most wretched soul of man or woman, which can be fanned into a flame when the Divine breath breathes upon it.

We know that the words translated in our Scriptures, “Have faith in God,” are now more truly translated, “Have the faith of God.” In order to follow our lost sheep until we find them– never stopping short of that – it seems that we must have, in some degree at least, the faith of the Son of God; His faith in the creative power of the Father of the human race, who can create and recreate, and His faith in the possibility of resurrection for every dead soul.

Among those whom we call “lost women” I have known better rescuers of other lost women than I have known among the truest Christians who have kept firmly in the paths of righteousness. There are among them – perhaps not many, but some – whose ardour and spirit of self-sacrifice in the work has amazed us. Their own experience drives them on, and once given and having accepted such a work, they rise to a height, or rather, I might say, they stoop to a depth, of self-abnegation which comes near to the highest ideal of saintliness. “We are poor creatures,” as one of them said; “we have done badly. We can do little, but at least we may be of use in raking a few of our dear fellow-sinners out of the mud.” And they have raked them out of the mud – those lost diamonds in the dust, trodden under foot. They have plunged into the dust heaps and refuse of society, and brought out thence treasures which, when cleansed – even as we all need to be cleansed – become as the stars which shine for ever and ever.

Is it any wonder that such memories visit one in the night season, and that a prayer rises from the heart that the God of Love may send a message of fire into the hearts of our so-called purity workers, our higher morality pleaders, a message which will not be ignored or set aside, but which will compel them to seek a way to the direct deliverance of these captives and the breaking of their chains. And if these workers feel that this work is not theirs, or that they are not fitted for it, or called to it, then I pray that God will prepare and call up a relief army, a forlorn hope brigade from among the humble, the uneducated, the poor and unambitious, who are not so “awfully busy” with good works that they cannot turn aside to lift the wounded or carry the dead; and that He will give to this relief army to fight, in this humble but holy war with the inexpressible bravery, endurance and self-sacrifice with which men are fighting to-day in another war.

I know it will be said, as it is often said: “But rescue work is such discouraging, such hopeless work. It is far better to act on public opinion, to elevate the morality of men, to educate the young in principles of justice and purity, to strike at the root, at the causes of prostitution. What you are counselling is but ambulance work for picking up and helping the wounded. Is it not far better to abolish war, which necessitates ambulance work?” All this is quite true. I have preached it many a time myself. Nevertheless, while we are still in the midst of war can we, in the name of pity, neglect our wounded and leave them to die? “This ought ye to have done, and not to have left the other undone.”

Moreover womanhood is solidaire. We cannot successfully elevate the standard of public opinion in the matter of justice to women, and of equality of all in its truest sense, if we are content that a practical, hideous, calculated, manufactured and legally maintained degradation of a portion of womanhood is allowed to go on before the eyes of all. “Remember them that are in bonds, as being bound with them.” Even if we lack the sympathy which makes us feel that the chains which bind our enslaved sisters are pressing on us also, we cannot escape the fact that we are one womanhood, solidaire, and that so long as they are bound, we cannot be wholly and truly free. We continue to be dragged down from that right place and influence which we aim at by the deadweight of this accursed thing in the midst of us.

This year (1900) Josephine Butler wrote two books about the South African War. In the first, Native Races and the War, she endeavours to prove that the treatment of the native races of South Africa, though it had “not yet in England or on the Continent been cited as one of the direct causes of the war,” really lay “very near to the heart of the present trouble.” We suspect that the writing of this book was partly due to the fact that her patriotic spirit recoiled at the violent denunciations against England, especially by continental writers, for having entered upon the war from base and covetous motives; but perhaps she fell into the opposite extreme of exaggerating the faults of President Kruger’s Government. In any case, whether or not she proves her thesis that the native question had anything to do with the origin of the war, all will agree with her view, that “Great Britain will in future be judged, condemned or justified according to her treatment of those innumerable coloured races, over whom her rule extends;” and that “race prejudice is a poison which will have to be cast out if the world is ever to be Christianised, and if Great Britain is to maintain the high and responsible place among the nations which has been given to her.” In Silent Victories she does not deal with controversial questions, but tells the simple story of humane and spiritual work carried on amongst the troops by various religious agencies, giving many pathetic incidents from soldiers’ letters from the front, which showed that in the midst of the horrors of war silent victories were won in many hearts, lifted from selfishness to true manhood and brotherliness.

Tolstoi’s latest novel, Resurrection, has been reviewed by several well-known literary men on the Continent. In reading their able articles I am surprised by the absence in them of any full appreciation of the vital chord which has been struck by this master hand, on one side of the great question of justice. The masculine reviewers (I speak of continentals, not yet having read reviews which have appeared in England) seem to have missed in a measure hearing the note which goes straight to every woman’s heart. The book might be called the amende honorable made by the masculine conscience to the womanhood of the world, for the centuries of wrong inflicted by the absence of the recognition of an equal moral standard for the sexes. It has brought hope to many, showing how the truth is marching on, how the winged seed has taken root, not only in obscure ground, and in humble minds, but in the mind of a great genius, whose voice has sounded aloud and afar the justice of the movement, for which so many of us have prayed and laboured, and the injustice under which so many have suffered and died – their sorrows and their death taken no account of because they were the helpless victims of the tyranny appealed against.

The Resurrection which Tolstoi pictures is the resurrection of conscience in a man who arises to do the whole of his duty towards a fallen woman, a woman of the streets in fact, whose first seducer he had been. The book is full of sad and tragic scenes, depicted with the author’s unrivalled power; but it stands for truth, for justice, for the right, and in the hand of the giant Tolstoi, it is like a clarion sounding the dawn of a new day. Millions will read this book, appearing as it has done in several languages at the same moment, an accomplished work of art, a marvel of composition, of achievement, even of translation, for it is translated into French by a masterly pen. No man having read it can help having heard the call of conscience.

Madame Pieczynska, who has lived in Russia and Poland, wrote to me as follows: “For me this book is a great event to be thankful for, even unto God. I am told that it is received with enthusiasm in Russia, though it has been mutilated by the censor before being allowed to appear. I hope you will share our impressions about it. To some the hero’s character will probably appear invraisemblable. Let me assure you that it is nevertheless a true and not exceptional type of the Slavian youth of the period, more entire, more extreme in his tendencies, good or bad, than English, French or Swiss men are. The Slavian race is not as yet like those others at the climax of civilisation. It is still growing, ascending, shaping its characteristics, while the others are mature or even growing old. In Russia, in Poland, there is not such a crowding of humanity; there is more room to expand, and to stretch out a thought even to its last consequences. Hence we have Nihilists, strange sects, and such men as Nekhludow and Tolstoi, whilst in some countries mediocrity reigns supreme, everyone elbowing his neighbour closely, and allowing him no extraordinary move, be it onward and upward, or downward. The hero of Tolstoi will undoubtedly be called by many an exalté, but none the less ‘Truth will be justified of her children.’”

Madame Pieczynska’s words are true, for in spite of the reserves and objections which will fill the minds of many readers of Resurrection, it is good and right that there should be foreshadowed for all men the question which will have to be faced and answered in the great Day of Judgment by all seducers, corrupters and despisers of women. I will not attempt to give the story, which has been reported in many reviews; but will only add that there are sentences in the book, confessions of an awakened, “resurrected” conscience, and recitals which no Abolitionist among us could read unmoved, and which, when once read, will not easily be forgotten. It would be hopeless to endeavour to bring together here in any adequate degree these remarkable passages. The sister of the hero, a good, kind, prosperous, society woman, asks him with sincerity: “But do you believe it possible that a woman who has lived such a life can ever again be really elevated, morally re-instated, and restored to the nobility of womanhood?” She waits for a reply, imagining that that question is the one which presses most on her brother’s mind, while he is thus determined to sacrifice all for his former victim. His reply embodies a thought, which rarely, if ever, occurs even to the best of men. “That is not the question which I have to answer. The question which I have to answer is: Is there hope for me? Can I be rehabilitated, morally restored, and elevated to the true dignity of manhood?”

CHAPTER XX.

THE MORNING COMETH

The death of her brother-in-law, Tell Meuricoffre, in the spring of 1900, and the death of his wife in the autumn of the same year, were a great sorrow to Josephine Butler, increasing the feeling of loneliness that so often comes to the aged; but amid all her weakness and loneliness in these last years, hope, illimitable hope, was the dominant note of her soul, as she looked forward to the “smile and the ‘good morning’ with which God would greet her” on the other side.

To the Editor of the Shield.April, 1900.

You ask me for a few words on the character and career of my brother-in-law, the Chevalier Tell Meuricoffre, who fell asleep on Thursday, March 22nd. It would hardly be possible for me to write of him impersonally, while even as a sister, to whom he was very dear, it is not quite easy. But I will try. I cannot speak of him in any direct connection with the cause which your paper represents, for he never came personally to the front in our work, though in sympathy he was with us and with his dear wife, my sister, who has been for several years a member of our International Committee, and some of whose published letters reveal a deeper insight than I have ever observed in any other person into the intimate relations of our question with the spiritual life of individuals and nations. Mr. Meuricoffre’s was a very full, varied and most useful life. Swiss by parentage, he was born and lived almost all his life in Naples, where he fulfilled some of the highest citizen functions in a manner to attract the esteem of his fellow-citizens of every nationality and creed. Now that he is gone a thousand testimonies are pouring in to his sterling worth, and to the affection he had inspired far and wide. He was the head and support of the Swiss Protestant colony in Naples – a very numerous society – and the promoter of countless good works, such as the International Hospital, which he created for the reception of strangers arriving in Naples, who did not find any such safe or good treatment in the other hospitals of the city. Truth, purity, uprightness, singlemindedness, and a most munificent generosity were among his characteristics. Noblesse oblige seemed to be his motto. He did not let his left hand know what his right hand did. Besides his public acts of benevolence, he aided privately numbers of individuals and families whose needs or misfortunes were a secret to all except himself. He was the most open-handed of men. He and my husband were great friends, and in several points they resembled each other. If the world were more largely peopled with such men as these two, we should not have needed, dear Editor, to maintain so continuous and arduous a struggle as we have had for justice and mercy at the hands of men. Mr. and Mrs. Meuricoffre used to spend a part of each summer at their beautiful Swiss home on the borders of the Lake of Geneva; and it was here that many delightful family gatherings took place, assembling from Italy, England and France. We have golden memories of those times, where we (from England) used sometimes to rest, in order to prepare ourselves for approaching conferences of the Abolitionist Federation in Switzerland. Some of your readers may remember Mr. Meuricoffre’s presence at the conference in Berne in 1896, and my sister’s words spoken in the sacristy of the large church at Colmar, the year before, when she pleaded for the poor child victims in Italy.

The occasion of the Colmar meeting, referred to in the above letter, is described in the following extract from a journal kept by Josephine Butler in 1895.

This week at Colmar was altogether sweet. My darling Hatty made a lovely impression on all our friends. I shall never forget her words spoken at a preliminary meeting in our salon at the hotel, where arrangements for the week were discussed. One saw there was a tendency, in the preparing of certain resolutions, to drop to a lower standard in the proclaiming of principles (in order to disarm opposition, it was said). Her few words spoken very gently, but firmly, led the whole company up to the higher standard – that of Christ; and our old and valued friend, Professor Felix Bovet, thanked her for recalling them to that standard. At one of our early morning devotional meetings, which were held in the sacristy of the large Protestant Church, her voice went to my heart, and to that of many, as she stood up and prayed for poor Italy, and for Naples especially, asking God to send some of His inspired teachers and workers there. But most of all there dwells in my heart the memory of that early morning when, before going to the sacristy, I went to her room. I had been ill and exhausted all the day before. She kneeled down, half dressed as she was, and drew me down beside her, and putting her arm round me, and drawing me close to her side, she poured out her soul in such a loving petition for me, weeping as she prayed, and yet with such firm faith and loving assurance as people only have when they feel God very near, and realise His will to grant what is asked. Her voice sounded to me like that of some ministering angel, pleading pleading face to face with God – a voice trembling with emotion and yet steadied by the sense of the dear and awful presence of the Christ to whom she spoke. And her prayer was large and far-reaching, embracing those dearest to us, and “the little ones, the lost lambs of Jesus.” Wonderful strength and health were given to me for the remaining days at Colmar.