Josephine E. Butler

In going from city to city on the continent of Europe, I have felt that I must needs meet this sword-thrust with open arms, and the promised result has followed. The thoughts of many hearts have been revealed among the élite of earth, among whom I include every creature of whatever rank, rich or poor, whose regard is directed towards the light, who desires justice and abhors injustice: the thoughts of these begin to be expressed openly, in speech and in action. On the other hand, the thoughts are revealed of those who desire at all costs to hold fast their base privileges, and to defend the means by which these privileges are safeguarded. The thoughts of these also take expression in speech and in action. Silence and acquiescence are at an end. It is now war to the death through the revelation and outward expression of men’s hearts for good and for evil. The sword-pierced heart of holy motherhood – a motherhood which lives by sympathy in many a woman who is not actually a mother – will continue to work in this mission of revealing, and we know on which side will be the final victory.

When the question shall be asked, “What of the night, brothers? What of the night?” the answer which I would leave with you, friends, is this:

The Angel of the Dawn alights,The pale peaks glisten with His presence fair.

My last words to you, in case I may not be permitted to remain long among you, will be words of hope – all of hope. It cannot be said that now, aged, and often in pain and in much weakness, it is any natural buoyancy which upholds me. It is a granted hopefulness. The “Angel of the Dawn” is ever present. Deeply fixed in my soul is the conviction that the power and love of God are about to be manifested in proportion to the troubles of our times, and far beyond them. Is He not the Creator of the universe, of the myriads of the stars of heaven —God “once manifested in the flesh” in the person of the Christ? Everywhere – east, west, north, and south – those whose eyes are open see in this our day manifestations of a spiritual power, of a loving, divine pressure on the souls of men, of a holy compulsion bringing them to a new consciousness, and drawing them irresistibly to the source of Light and Life. I believe that every effort, however humble, which is being made for the triumph of good over evil will be found to be a contribution towards the final victory, and towards the fulfilment of the Divine promise that the “knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.” I am emboldened, therefore, to hand on to you this message of joyful and undying hope, from “the God of Hope and of all consolation.”

To a young worker in America.February 26th, 1906.

You say that “many persons do not welcome new recruits, lest they should make mistakes.” They will no doubt make some mistakes, but they will learn as we did by our errors. This brings me to express the thought that has been uppermost in my mind for some years past, viz. that the great hope for the future movement is in the young manhood of our day– in the generous heart of youth. Young women too must and will come forward. But I press the fact of the need of a great army of young men; for the great evil which we combat is the result of the egotism of men, and of the deeply-rooted idea that the sin of impurity is a greater sin in a woman than in a man. This unequal standard is the devil’s invention, and dates from very early times, in spite of the severe and sublime teaching in that matter of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

It must be the part of the young manhood of our days to make a place for womanhood, to restore them to their rightful position before the law of God, and before the laws of the land. And here I wish to emphasise the fact, that it is not only the pure and blameless of our youth who are called and who can work effectually in this advance guard of the army of the future. Let me tell you something of my own long experience. I have seen young men whose lives have been far from blameless, some in whose hearts rankled an oppressive sense of the wasted past, even a terrible remorse – I have seen such throw themselves into the battle (not in a conspicuous position, to be seen of men), in order to take a noble revenge against their former selves, and die, if need be, as leaders of a forlorn hope, making merely a bridge of their own dead selves for worthier comrades to pass over to victory.

So, I beseech you, let none of goodwill hold back. “Many a wounded soldier hath won the day.” Society is in peril from dangerous wounds which will not close until the young, the brave, the reckless, for Christ’s sake shall throw themselves into the yawning gulf. Christ rejects none. It is to His glory that He is able to furnish precious material out of the very rubbish of the earth, that He should gather up the fragments that remain that nothing be lost, and direct to one holy end all these scattered and desecrated energies.

Josephine Butler lived the last few years of her life at Wooler, near to Milfield, the place of her birth. There she died peacefully in her sleep, on December 30th, 1906, and was buried in the churchyard of Kirknewton, where many of her ancestors had been buried.

Surely we may say of her, but very slightly altering the words of Bunyan: As she drew nigh unto the beautiful Gate of the City, she asked, “What must I do in the Holy Place?” and the shining Ones answered, “Thou must there receive the comfort of all thy toil, and have joy for all thy sorrow; thou must reap what thou hast sown, even the fruit of all thy Prayers and Tears, and suffering for the King by the way. There also thou shalt serve Him continually, whom thou desired’st to serve in the World, though with much difficulty because of the infirmity of thy flesh. There thine eyes shall be delighted with seeing, and thine ears with hearing the pleasant voice of the Mighty One. There thou shalt enjoy thy friends again, that are gone thither before thee; and there thou shalt with joy receive even every one that follows into the Holy Place after thee.” As she entered in at the Gate, then I heard in my Dream that all the bells in the City rang again for joy, and that it was said unto her, “Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”

1

Fragments of Prose and Poetry, by Frederic W. H. Myers, 1904 (Longmans, Green & Co.), p. 22.

2

Memoir of Anne J. Clough, by Miss B. A. Clough, 1903 (Edward Arnold) p. 129.

3

Ibid. p. 131.

4

Ibid. p. 135.

5

The Laws in force for the prohibition, regulation or licensing of vice in England and other countries. By Sheldon Amos, 1877 (Stevens and Sons), pp. 15 and 227.

6

Speech of the Earl of Chatham on the exercise of the judicature in matters of election, 1763.

7

Lord Chatham’s Speeches.

8

Creasy, English Constitution, p. 148.

9

Middle Ages, chap. ii, p. 324.

10

Ibid.

11

Ibid.

12

De Lolme on the Constitution, p. 354.

13

De Lolme, p. 171.

14

Blackstone, book iii, p. 378.

15

The New Abolitionists [by James Stuart], 1876 (Dyer Brothers), pp. 8-10.

16

Castelar gave his personal adhesion to the principles of our abolitionist crusade in 1877, and one of his friends, Señor Zorilla, attended our first congress.

17

See pp. 13-16 supra.