By October, 1909, our expenses for rent, fuel and necessities had increased from $100 to $150 each month.
Our statistics for 1908, as shown by our circular, were as follows:
_Statistics of the year and of the last quarter—From January, 1908, to January, 1909_
_Statistics of three months of 1908, as follows_:
Attendance Req. for Prayer Seekers Conversions Services
Dec. 1908 1961 165 86 14 41 Jan. 1909 2487 217 73 37 46 Feb. 1909 1245 51 34 13 28 ———— ——— ——— —— ——— Total 5693 433 193 64 115
(Now we care for over 50,000 persons a year.)
During the year employment was found for probably 300 men.
We accept it as a great privilege to have presented the gospel of Jesus Christ to this number of people.
Our little circular of that period thus sets forth:
“Washington is a dreadful place for a man out of work. The city having no manufactories, and all rough work, such as excavating, is let by contract to men who prefer Italians or Negroes as diggers, while stores and offices have room for only the efficient young person, so that, when from age, inefficiency or lack of political influence, people are dropped from the government service, we are often at our wit's end to provide means of subsistence for these worthy persons most anxious to labor. We have some old men whose working days are over. These are for the most part good men, for the wicked do not live out half their days. A few immigrants from northern Europe, sick men who are able to walk about, but could not work if they had it; the shoestring man, the umbrella man, the sandwich man, the men who are half insane for lack of food and enforced lack of sleep, for they have no place to sleep oftener than once a week. Then we have the criminal classes, which must be touched with the Spirit of God, or they will become the dynamite which will destroy our cities, also the men just out of prison. These are the special thought of the Mission, for unless they are made to feel that they are but temporarily sidetracked from the great highway of success, they will become an ever-increasing menace to society.
“Above all, we have the drunkard, who has lost his grip, lost family, lost place in society, lost business and has become a mass of putrid flesh, utterly abhorrent to his fellow-men. When we look at these people, whose weary eyes have looked long into unspeakable sorrow, our very souls rejoice that we have proven beyond possibility of doubt that 'the blood of Jesus Christ, His son, cleanses from all sin; that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,' for we have seen some of every class mentioned redeemed, placed back in society, among the producing power of the nation.”