The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1881-08-19
Religious Tramps-Their Modes Of Ope.
rating.


Manager Bunting of the Christian Home
for Incorporate Men. The man had
apparently just passed middle life. ''He
can sing finely, pray earnestly and ex-
hort eloquently. I wish l could talk as
we'll as he CAM
"Why do you call him a religious
tramp?''
81 will explain. There are religious
tramps Just as we'll as there are tramps
who prey upon the general public and
who are honest enough to make no pre-
tense of religion. These religious
tramps are known to every evangelist,
clergyman and philauthropist. They
haunt gospel temperance meetings, make
religious professions in the meetings of
the Women's Christian Unions, are
present at the mission rooms, aud when
one CITY fails to afford them further Pc
cuniary relief they start out in the track
of q temperance orator, or follow up
some revival movement, visiting all parts
of the country. God is not deceived.
We are not deceived. Many just such
men, however, have been saved. and
have led useful lives"
"You do not mean to say that these
religious tramps are ever sincerely con-
verted?''
eft is q fact. Because it is so these
men are asked to come under Christian
influence. To be sure many of them will
not reform. They love their miserable
drunken life. have taken men into
this Home, cast their ragged clothes into
the ash box, given them baths, q new
suit af clothes, and sobered them up.
Often they have secured good situations.
but, before giving two days. application
to their duties, they have deliberately
gone back to Chatham and Baxter.street
dens and imbibed poison to that extent
that nv next knowledge of them is that
thew are on BLACKWELL Island shoveling
ashes. Men have been through all this
and reformed. 1t is rare exception,
however. | .s.-
"What is the bright side of this re-
ligious tramp pictureP" -
"These men have one common place
of meeting. 1t is generally in the back
room of a groggery of the lowest de-
scription. recall one particular place
in Chatham Street where hundreds OF
them congregate, because have had
occasion to snatch men from its inf1u-
ence. In this place can be found men
who were born tramps. The surround
ings of their lives have been such that
they could not help following vicious
course, almost from the cradle to the
present. Associated with them, linked
together by the common tie of misery.
are young men whose parents are hon
orable, respectable and wealthy citi-
zens. Drink has led them into errors,
into the committal of crime. They have
gone down step by step in the social
scale, until to-day they subsist almost
entirely on liquid poisons, mere sem.
blances of humanity. Some Of them
have been cast off from parental recog'
milton; in some instances they draw q
specified amount of money from home
at regular intervals. I have put just
such men on their feet again, and fpl
years past have been blessed in know
!, ing that they are enjoying the conf
dence of their families, filing good stu
, tons, and leading Christian lives"
One of those men, who has been fo1
some time leading an honest life, has .
, good situation in business house, ant
looks on his past career as terrible
nightmare, was asked: