Ion Keith-Falconer - Early Evangelism

Early Evangelism

The area outside Cambridge known as Barnwell was then a rough area inhabited largely by labourers working on the railways, of which four competing lines met in Cambridge. Others worked in the fossil beds. Robert Sinker, Keith-Falconer's biographer, said the labourers were "mostly poor and ignorant, including even yet a large number of persons following vicious courses; and while the Gospel teaching of a band of devoted men was gradually leavening the mass, yet while the workers were slowly gaining on the task which faced them, hundreds were dying."

Keith-Falconer threw himself with others in May 1875 into a missionary project for the area. They hired a theatre and held preaching meetings there for a month. "All this time," Sinker said, "Keith-Falconer was a steady and consistent helper of the mission, by his purse, by his personal cooperation, and we may feel sure by his prayers." At the end of the month, they judged their work a success and repeated the process for three and a half years at the Ragged School, in New Street. There, Sinker said:

The gathering of people, of whom there were several hundreds, displayed a remarkable contrast to an ordinary Christian congregation. They represented a whole stratum decidedly below that of the decent working man of the poorer sort. Many were ragged, most were dirty and unkempt, and before the service began, many behaved outrageously. Yet when the service began, I rejoice to say, the conduct was orderly enough; evidently many, while coming in the first instance merely from curiosity, bore in their way a friendly feeling enough for their neighbours. Yet it may be noted, as shewing the stratum from which the bulk was drawn, that on one of the speakers' remarking: 'A great many of you, I know, have been, and some I fear still are, thieves!' he was greeted, in tones which shewed that no offence had been taken, with ready cries of 'Yes, sir!'

Keith-Falconer lectured this audience on Zelophehad's daughters.

The theatre in Barnwell became available in autumn 1878 and the evangelists acquired it, although outbid at the auction. Keith-Falconer was also involved in acquisition of the Great Assembly Hall in Mile End Road, in the East End of London. Here, the Tower Hamlets Mission was established. The state of the area is summarised by this account:

At the close of one of the meetings, a little boy was found sobbing. With some difficulty he was induced to tell his tale. It was simple. His widowed mother, his sisters, and he, all lived in one room. Everything had been sold to buy bread, except two white mice, the boy's pets. Through all their poverty, they had kept these white mice; but at last they too must go! With the proceeds he bought street songs, which he retailed on the 'waste' and so obtained the means of getting more bread for his mother and his sisters. Now they were completely destitute. The boy was accompanied home. Home! It was a wretched attic, in one of the most dilapidated houses. It was a wretchedly cold and dismal day. In the broken-down grate the dead embers of yesterday's firing remained. On the table, in a piece of newspaper, were a few crumbs. 'My good woman,' said Mr Charrington, 'why don't you open the window?' 'Oh,' she replied, 'you would not say that if you had nothing to eat and had no fire to warm you.' The family was relieved.