Section 5.— A NEW WAY OF ESCAPE FOR LOST WOMEN.
THE RESCUE HOMES.
Perhaps there is no evil more destructive of the best interests 01 Society, or confessedly more difficult to deal with remedially, than that which is known as the Social Evil. We have already seen something of the extent to which this terrible scourge has grown, and the alarming manner in which it affects our modern civilisation.
We have already made an attempt at grappling with this evil, having about thirteen Homes in Great Britain, accommodating 307 girls under the charge of 132 Officers, together with seventeen Homes abroad, open for the same purpose. The whole, although a small affair compared with the vastness of the necessity, nevertheless constitutes perhaps the largest and most efficient effort of its character in the world.
It is difficult to estimate the results that have been already realised. By our varied operations, apart,, from these Homes, probably hundreds, if not thousands, have been delivered from lives of shame and misery. We have no exact return of the number who have gone through the Homes abroad, but in connection with the work in this country, about 3,000 have been rescued, and are living lives of virtue.
This success has not only been gratifying on account of the blessing it has brought these young women, the gladness it has introduced to the homes to which they have been restored, and the benefit it has bestowed upon Society, but because it has assured us that much greater results of the same character may be realised by operations conducted on a larger scale, and under more favourable circumstances.
With this view we propose to remodel and greatly increase the number of our Homes both in London and the provinces, establishing one in every great centre of this infamous traffic.
To make them very largely Receiving Houses, where the girls will be initiated into the system of reformation, tested as to the reality of their desires for deliverance, and started forward on the highway of truth, virtue, and religion.