I
306 DISTINGUISHED CHURCHMEN
was clear to leave Worton. He replied, naming St Augustine s, and asking me to exchange, if possible. The then Vicar of St Augustine s paid a visit to Worton, and took a fancy to the place, and the whole affair was practically settled within four days."
It was a change, indeed, for St Augustine s, destined, as it was, to stand out prominently in the heart of East London in the very district, in fact, where the horrible Whitechapel murders occurred, and where sin and crime of every de scription had long been rampant. Here was opened up, with vigour from the first, a phase of Church work full of meaning and full of pathos without a rival of its kind in importance and it is pleasant now to reflect that for a period of close on twenty years Mr Wilson and his de voted staff have braved endless discouragements often wondering where the money, the workers and the accommodation were to come from to help sustain the effort, but never without hope mindful only of their responsibility to the Master for the souls of those in the midst of whom they found themselves planted, and of the crying need to rescue them from the benighted conditions under which they lived.
��Lest the reader, like the author, should lose his way in the confusing sameness of East-End
�� �
