Chapel for the destitute

AMAZING CONVERSIONS
John Ashworth and his strange tales
Tentmaker Publications. 311 pages. £13.95
ISBN 978 1 901 670 905

Today the evangelical church in Britain wrings its hands over its failure to reach the working classes and the poorer members of society. This was not the case in previous centuries and John Ashworth (1813-1872) sets us a wonderful example of how it’s done.

He set up a ‘Chapel for the Destitute’ in 19th-century industrial Rochdale. Walking the rough and dreary back streets, he would seek out the lonely, the needy and the notorious and invite them to come to church. He preached to them and did what he could, often at his own expense, to care for them.

The first part of the book gives a short biography of Ashworth. The second part is a collection of 21 stories written up by Ashworth, relating the Lord’s dealings with those who came to Christ through the Chapel for the Destitute and whose lives were transformed. Many of the conversions are of bad, brutalised men rescued from a life of drunkenness and cruelty. The resulting change for their families was amazing. These testimonies are heart-warming wonderful monuments to the grace of God. Even amid continuing poverty, the joy of Christ upheld these ransomed souls. One of them spoke of himself as ‘the happiest old fellow this side of heaven’. Ashworth comments that none of Satan’s servants, old or young, were ever able to say such things.

Ashworth himself was a gifted and brave individual. Able to approach the most dangerous men, he had a directness for Christ and an ability to turn any rebuff into an evangelistic opportunity. But, most of all, having once been poor himself, he had a love for the people.

Some of us might dismiss these moving stories as over-sentimental. But such a comment probably says more about us than about the book, which shows what God will do when sound gospel people take pity on the poor.