This edited article about Dr Barnardo originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 669 published on 9 November 1974.

The Edinburgh Castle was a typical East End Gin Palace

It was the largest and most infamous gin palace in the East End of London. Its name was the Edinburgh Castle, but Thomas Barnardo called it the Citadel of the Enemy, and he decided, in the summer of 1872, that he would storm this citadel of evil with one full-scale attack on its notorious trade.

But Barnardo had no army, no weapons, and no bombs. Instead, he would use words to win his battle. He bought a large tent and planted it on a piece of bare land in front of the gin palace. Then, with his two friends, Joshua and Mary Poole, Barnardo began to try to lure the gin drinkers from their favourite nightly haunt. Joshua was a fine violin player and the sound of his music encouraged one or two people to enter the tent on the first night. Within a few weeks, though, the number had grown beyond even Barnardo’s highest expectations.

“The scenes we are permitted to witness nightly,” he later wrote, “are such as I never remember beholding during any previous period of my spiritual life. Last Lord’s Day evening 25 hundred persons crowded to hear the word of life, and for hours afterwards we were occupied in dealing with anxious souls . . . .”

By the autumn of the same year 4,000 habitual drinkers had sworn never to drink again, and the Edinburgh Castle, and other public houses in the area, had lost their most valuable customers. In October the Citadel itself fell. It had been forced to close down and was now up for sale.

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This edited article about William Hogarth originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 667 published on 26 October 1974.

William Hogarth takes a stroll in Vauxhall Gardens

The young schoolmaster was not earning enough, so he opened a coffee house where Latin was to be spoken. But even in an age when the classics were far more widely studied than they are today, he was risking his money. Or was it simply that he was not a very good businessman? Whatever the reason, the coffee house failed dismally and Richard Hogarth was flung into the Fleet Prison for debt.

With him went his wife and family, including his 10-year-old son, William, who was to be one of the greatest artists of his age. Prisons and debtors were often to feature in his work.

Until he was 15, William remained in the harsh twilight world of the Fleet, then the Government forgave debtors and let them go free. How sensible this was, for how could a man pay off his debts if he was in prison? Soon debtors were imprisoned once again, but the Hogarths were safe. And William, apart from learning the grimmer facts of 18th century life the hard way, had become very conscious of Right and Wrong, a feature of much of his art.

He had been born in 1697, and now he became apprentice to a silver plate engraver, but his main passion was sketching every sort of person and everything from savagery and cruelty to happiness and goodness. Though he painted wonderful portraits and groups of people, he was to become most famous as a “visual” artist of genius. He drew plays, as it were: “. . . my picture is my stage, and men and women my players, who by means of certain actions and gestures, are to exhibit a dumb show.”

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This edited article about the Second Coming originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 655 published on 3 August 1974.

William Miller was a Captain in the army during America’s war with Britain, which ended with an American victory at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, by Ron Embleton

Daylight glimmered through cracks in the shutters. The candle had dwindled to its last inch and was spluttering in a sea of wax. Feverishly, William Miller thumbed the pages of his Bible, his eyes flickering from the closely printed paper to the notes that lay beside it. Suddenly he threw down his pen, flung back his chair and fell on his knees in prayer. At last he had solved the problem which had vexed him since childhood. He knew now that the date of Christ’s Second Coming had been hidden there all along and that he alone had discovered it. The place was Hampton, New York State, U.S.A. The year was 1817. And Christ was due, according to William Miller’s calculations, in 26 years’ time, in 1843.

William was the son of a veteran of the Revolutionary War. His mother was the daughter of a Baptist preacher. Between them, they gave him a strict religious education. At the same time they planted in him a yearning for knowledge and he quickly became known along the frontier settlements because of his eager quest for books.

Not only did William read voraciously, he thought carefully about what he read. In the long winter nights he pored over the Bible and commentaries on it by scholars of the past and present, trying to reconcile the many anomalies and contradictions that he found in it. Eventually, the influence of his friends enticed him away from religious study and other pursuits occupied his mind.

Then, in 1812, America went to war against Britain. William served as a captain in the army. His experiences in battle changed him. He saw at first hand the fear, bravery, sickness and death of which he had hitherto only read in books and he turned again to religion. Naturally, his unbelieving friends scoffed at him and asked him to convince them of the truth of the Bible. William took up their challenge. He began to read and study it once more.

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This edited article about religious fanaticism originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 654 published on 27 July 1974.

Rev Edward Irving the charismatic Presbyterian preacher

The gaunt preacher with the mane of black hair leant out from his pulpit and blessed the vast congregation which stared up at him in admiration. He had been preaching for three hours and, as he stepped back, he mopped at the sweat that streamed from his brow. The silence that followed was broken by a piercing shriek: “The Lord is in the midst of you!” It came from a figure writhing in a corner of the chapel. Nervous ladies scurried for the doors. The writhing ceased and the figure revealed itself as a respectable-looking young man. He advanced into the middle of the aisle and addressed them: “Why will ye flee from the Voice of God?” he demanded. “Ye cannot flee from it on the Day of Judgment.” Up in the pulpit Edward Irving, no longer the subject of attention, groaned inaudibly. Mr Taplin was prophesying again and had upstaged him for the third week in succession.

It was 1832 and religious fervour was sweeping the country. It had been sparked off by the French Revolution which had seemed to bring to an end the world as most people knew it. No sooner had the spectre of the guillotine ceased to haunt the middle-classes than Bonaparte threatened death and destruction. The relief brought by his defeat at Waterloo had lasted barely 20 years before agitation for the emancipation of Roman Catholics and for the Reform Bill seemed to presage fresh changes in the world order. To crown it all, in 1831 an epidemic of cholera had brought death to many homes. Some fearful climax to these terrors must be imminent. And a number of prophets suddenly appeared to reveal just what the climax was to be.

Many of them were associated with the Irvingites, followers of Edward Irving, a Scottish Presbyterian minister at Regent Square Chapel in London. He was a brilliant orator and regularly drew congregations of over a thousand. The tense atmosphere created by his marathon sermons seems to have encouraged members of his audience, like Mr Taplin, to “prophesy” – to babble incoherently in strange tongues, or to utter mysterious warnings. When Irving and others examined their utterances, striking similarities appeared. Their words corresponded with the writings of several mystics which had been published in Britain and the Continent. Together they indicated that the world in its present form was drawing to a close and that the Second Coming of Christ was at hand.

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This edited article about London originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 653 published on 20 July 1974.

In the eighteenth century many children were taught to believe in a God of Wrath and sang hymns full of hell-fire, by Richard Hook

It had been a good speech, full of emotion. Already the jury’s eyes were moist. At this rate, thought the young barrister, he would get an acquittal in ten minutes. He adjusted his wig and prepared for his peroration, something the Court of King’s Bench would not forget for a long time. He doubled his fist and thumped the table before him – there was a loud, rumbling noise, the walls and floor trembled and a piece of plaster dropped from the ceiling to hit him on the head. It was noon on 8th February 1750 and the outer waves of an earthquake had just reached London.

With one accord, the jury sprinted for the court-room door. The judge followed close behind with the public prosecutor hard on his heels. The barrister and his client were left alone; they exchanged glances of dismay. What would become of their case now? Then the ground trembled again and they, too, ran for their lives.

All over the city and suburbs, people thronged the streets. Pewter pots had rattled on the shelves in their kitchens; ramshackle wooden sheds had toppled in their yards; chimneys had crashed down from their roofs. London was terrified. But when, after several hours had passed, no further tremors had been felt, life returned to normal. Or something like it. To his annoyance, however, the barrister found that his case had been adjourned.

The following Sunday, the preachers made the most of the affair. Their congregations were larger than usual, expecting some sort of explanation.

The preachers were not slow to respond. The tremor, they explained, had been a sign of God’s wrath. London had become a sinful place and had received a warning. Now the people must repent and mend their ways lest worse should befall them.

Most newspapers and journals took the same line. But some were prepared to go further. The warning was not just addressed to London, they argued; it was an injunction to mankind. When so great a city shook at its foundations, could the devastation of the world be far behind? Mankind must repent.

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This edited article about Anabaptists originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 651 published on 6 July 1974.

Anabaptists caused mayhem as they ransacked churches smashing images and murdering bishops, as they proclaimed the New Jerusalem in Munster

The heavy tread of the band was muffled in the snow that lay deep on the cobbles. Torches flared and crackled in the dark, winter morning, revealing the blazing eyes, the bared teeth of the men who marched down the street. Their leader, his gaunt face shadowed by a black hood, pointed to certain houses on either side and his men hammered on the front doors. The bewildered householders who answered were dragged outside and hustled towards the city gates. The gates were opened and they were unceremoniously bundled out. Some turned to protest but the leader of the band cursed them into silence. “Out, out ye godless ones,” he cried, his grating voice echoing across the snowy waste beyond the walls. “Never come back! Ye are the enemies of the Father and of the New Jerusalem!” The year was 1534. The “New Jerusalem” was the city of Munster in Germany. And Jan Matthys, once a baker in Haarlem, now leader of the Anabaptist sect, had purged it of all who did not share his faith.

In the aftermath of the Reformation, many Protestant sects sprang up, among them that of Anabaptism. In its most violent form, it spread from Holland to Germany and its most militant supporters gathered at Munster. They believed in a prophecy that the year 1533, held to be the fifteenth century of the death of Christ, would see the inauguration of the Millenium, the end of the old corrupt world and the beginning of a new, in which only believers like themselves would be saved.

The belief was especially strong in Holland and parts of Germany because of extensive unemployment amongst the workers in the cloth industry. The thought of a new world in which there would be justice for all and wealth would be equally divided was an attractive one and Anabaptism soon won many adherents. Even when 1533 passed without any noticeable change in the world, they clung to the belief that the end was only months . . . weeks . . . days away.

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This edited article about piracy originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 636 published on 23 March 1974.

Blackbeard by Richard Hook

Of all the pirates who terrorised the seas, Edward Teach, popularly known as Blackbeard, was the worst by far. Many of the great buccaneers had some redeeming quality. Henry Morgan, who ended up as Sir Henry, Governor of Jamaica, always had a secret desire for respectability, and even the infamous Captain Kidd had occasional qualms over his piratical career. Nearly all of them were at least loyal to those who served under them. But Blackbeard was an evil-hearted monster, incapable of loyalty even to his own men.

Teach was a Bristol man who took to piracy at an early age by joining forces with a Major Bonnet, who had abandoned an honest calling for the more attractive prospects of piracy. Hunting in couples, they captured, burned and plundered, preying on those unlucky merchantmen who were forced to sail along the routes where they mainly operated between Boston and the coast of Brazil.

But if Bonnet was feared, Blackbeard struck horror into the hearts of those who were unlucky enough to see him boarding their ship, wearing a sling over his shoulder in which he carried no less than six pistols. He was an enormous man, with a great black beard that almost covered his entire face. To make his appearance even more frightening, he carried matches in the tangle of hair under his hat, which he lit whenever he went into action. It was hardly surprising that even his own men were frightened of him. And with good cause. On one occasion while he was playing cards with some of his crew, he calmly produced two of his pistols and shot the men sitting on either side of him, remarking that if he did not kill some of his crew every now and then, they were likely to forget who he was.

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This edited article about the Salvation Army originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 899 published on 14 April 1979.

Catherine and William Booth by John Keay

In the middle of the 19th century, people in London’s East End fought a grim battle against poverty. With jobs ill-paid and hard to come by, it was generally a losing battle, and one in which they lacked any leadership. Yet a leader was at hand.

Many poor Londoners made regular visits to the pawnbrokers, to deposit an article of clothing or some other possession as security for a small loan. In one of these shops, in Southwark, worked a young man named William Booth. It was an unlikely job for the man who was to become the champion of the poor and unfortunate.

Booth had been born in Nottingham on 10th April, 1829. His father had apprenticed him to a pawnbroker, and this brought him into contact with poverty, and all the misery it can cause. To him it seemed that the only solution was to be found in practical Christianity, and he became a lay preacher.

His apprenticeship over, he did not at first abandon pawnbroking, but obtained a post in London. He continued to practise as a lay preacher, and joined a break-away branch of the Methodist Church. In 1858 he became a minister.

He now began his campaign which was to occupy him for the rest of his life. Supported by his wife Catherine, herself an effective preacher, he toured Britain, holding open-air meetings in various parts of the country. Soon he gave up his official ministry to devote himself to his own brand of evangelism.

Establishing himself once more in London, he set out to spread the gospel among the East Enders. Through religion, he was convinced, they could be won over from drunkenness and crime.

At an early stage Booth had compared his campaign to warfare, with his followers as “Christ’s soldiers”. In 1878 he formed them into the blue-uniformed organisation which we know as the Salvation Army.

William Booth, the first “General” of the Salvation Army, knew the popular appeal of pageantry and music. So military-style parades, and bands playing stirring tunes, became a familiar part of the Army’s activities.

To begin with, Salvationists had to face up to ridicule, and even brutal violence. At one time the police even arrested them for “provoking breaches of the peace”. But gradually their dedicated work won them universal approval.

By the time General Booth died in 1912, his organisation had long since spread to North America and other lands. The Salvation Army has since gone from strength to strength, its soldiers always on the march against sin and misfortune.

This edited article about Russia originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 887 published on 20 January 1979.

Ivan the Great in a sleigh, a mode of transport he used on many expeditions to the north which helped to extend his kingdom, by Richard Hook

The tide of invasion turned. Those fierce, slant-eyed men from the far east, the Mongols, sometimes so aptly called the “Golden Horde”, loaded their wagons, mounted their horses, and went back by the way they had come many years before.

They left Russia united under the reigning Prince of Moscow. Moscow was the capital of the country, just as it is today.

Later, after the capture of the great Christian city of Constantinople (now Istanbul) by the “infidel” Turks in AD 1453, Moscow also became the centre of the Christian faith in Russia.

The Russia of those days was still a tiny country compared with the gigantic Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) of today. In fact it was not much bigger than the British Isles.

Then there came to power a remarkable man who was to extend Russia’s dominions very considerably. He was Ivan III, and he reigned for 43 years, from 1462 to 1505.

Because of his genius for both military enterprise and peaceful administration, he is known as Ivan the Great.

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This edited article about America originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 882 published on 9 December 1978.

Hysteria overtakes the witch trials in Salem, by Ken Petts

As the self-proclaimed victims and main prosecution witnesses, the two young girls were given pride of place in the New England courtroom. Abigail Williams, aged 12, and her nine-year-old cousin, Betty Parris, sat with every eye on them, awaiting the arrival of the accused.

Then three women – a coloured slave known only as Tituba, a down-and-out called Sarah Ford, and Sarah Osburne, a woman with no religion – were ushered into the dock. As the prisoners turned to face the spectators, Abigail and Betty suddenly and apparently became possessed.

The youngsters began to roll their eyes, tear their hair, and writhe in their seats. They screamed and wailed and finally fell to the floor, still in convulsions and still crying out as if the devil had entered their souls.

And this, according to the villagers of Salem, Massachusetts, is exactly what had happened. Indeed, Tituba and the other two defendants were on trial for their lives, accused of having practised black magic on the children and of spreading Satan’s message throughout the tight-knit and extremely puritanical community.

The trial was held in the local chapel, and it opened in February, 1692. The events which had brought it about had occurred earlier that winter, when Abigail, Betty and six other girls (who had not been called to court) came under Tituba’s so-called evil influence.

Tituba was the cook and maid-of-all-work to Abigail’s father, the Reverend Samuel Parris, a local preacher, and his wife. He had brought Tituba, and her husband John, back from Barbados, where he had previously and unsuccessfully worked as a trader.

The coloured couple proved to be willing and conscientious servants, and Tituba became friendly with Abigail and Betty. The girls and their friends used to meet in the Parris’ kitchen, when Tituba would hold them spellbound with stories of voodoo and witchcraft in the West Indies.

The girls came to regard Tituba herself as a witch and, before long, their various parents noticed that they were no longer acting like God-fearing and normal youngsters. Abigail and Betty, especially, went around in a kind of trance. And, when questioned about their behaviour, they replied: “We are no longer of you. We are disciples of the devil.”

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