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T he H adley R escue H all , 293 Bowery, occupies the .site of the old Germania As sembly Hall, a nest of vice, drunkenness, and gambling. The superintendent, the Rev. John Callahan, has been a converted man twenty-three years. He began life as a boot- black around the Grand Central Station, and was later employed in the baggage room. Afterwards he was a burglar, finally landing in Joliet Prison. He was tending bar for Pat Killen, a champion pugilist, at the time of his conversion. When walking along the street with Patsy Millen, another prize fighter, he received a card of invitation from a “barker” .for a mission, entered the mis sion hall, and was converted. For eight years he has been in charge of the Hadley Mission. Among the mission workers are Otto Liebner, an Austrian Jew and univer sity man, who strayed into the place, heard the testimonies and, although himself an atheist, determined to test the truth of con version; “Terrible Terry,” a saloon roust about, who, seeing Messrs. Hadley and Huyler inspecting the premises preparatory to opening the mission, came over the roof from his home to find out why they were planning to settle next to old Suicide Hall, and who now for six years has been a ser vant of'God; Don Husban, son of a Chris tian home in Canada, later a panhandler, free lunch fiend, and drunkard, who visited the mission seventy times for coffee and sandwiches before he was converted; T. G. Willis, railway postal clerk, who came to the mission from Bellevue Hospital alco holic ward and lost his appetite for drink eight years ago; C. A. Starr, newspaper man, brought up in a Methodist home, and later a drunkard; Jacob Knecht, an illiterate, drunkard, who is now a Bible student and missionary to drunkards; and the Smith brothers, gamblers, saloonkeepers and down- and-outs, though sons of a praying Meth odist mother,—now Christian workers.— Rec. Christ. Work. T he R ev . F eed J. P aton , son of Dr. John G. Paton, whose autobiography has been the delight and wonder of tens of thousands,
Witherspoon Hall for Dr. Eliot s dogmatic tirade.” F ifty years ago it was not uncommon for a Moslem on hearing the name of Christ to show his disgust by spitting, or, if he did not go as far as that, he would try to drown the sound of His name and cleanse his ears from the pollution of hearing it by a loud petition of Islam’s creed. Occasionally he would snatch the Bible from a missionary’s hand and trample it. Twenty-five years ago a change was no ticeable. Hatred and contempt had given place to fear of the name of Christ ana of the Bible. Schools were patronized by Moslems on the ground of economy, but pupils were warned not to touch the Bible, as it was a sort of spiritual bomb whose power would be destructive to Moslem faith. To listen to Christ’s name was as harmful as the supposed power of the evil eye, so greatly feared by most Indians. Indeed, they said that not a few school boys had become so “possessed” by a spirit that no amount of beating ever drove it forth; nor did severer remedies avail, such as securely tying the victim and allowing boiling oil to drop at intervals upon his bare skin. Moslems might be willing to enter a preaching place and would listen intently, but when prayers were read out of a book, or a Bible was opened, that was a danger signal resulting in a Moslem retreat. Today even mullahs and others, high in Moslem circles, possess and read the Bible. Mohammedan students in Christian colleges study it when not required, and will go so far as to say : “We come to your college to learn the Bible. The Koran we learned at school, but not the Bible, as it' is as much our book as yours. We want to know it.” The name of Christ is likewise lis tened to, and with marked reverence in many cases. This is all within the recol lection of a single missionary, and it is pro phetic of even better things to come.— Indian Witness.
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