THE VOICE OF UNDER THIRTY
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Pagc 737 in your issue of October 29th naturally attracted my attention, and copies of it have been sent me by a number of members of Toc H who share my inveterate habit of turning week by week to The Spectator.
I would humbly suggest that the young director of a business firm, who writes in such a melancholy strain of the divorce between the Christian Churches and opportunities for social service, is taking a gloomier view of the situation than he need.
Any normal church in his neighbourhood would gladly assign him work in some good cause. Work of all kinds awaits the amateur, and men of his ability are precious. I do not know the West End churches well ; but it must be extremely difficult today, in those much understaffed parishes, to visit flats and chambers thoroughly. That is why he has not been visited in London.
Would that his offices were situated in this humbler region of the city. He would certainly be visited in office hours by some young clergyman who would request permission to make friends with his employees, among whom some wear badges in their button-holes. Most of these badges mark those who wear them as belonging to some body with a plain code for making leisure fruitful.
It can hardly be that, at the age of 24, the writer of your article is altogether unacquainted with those enterprises for which he protests his fitness. Has he neither a school mission nor a college settlement to go to ? Has he no friends who are eager for his help in a boys' club ? Has he heard of scouting ? Did he avoid all forms of social work in his spare time at Cambridge ? Can he now defend with honesty his statement that no one has ever asked him for help or service ?
He has charged those who profess to be working for the
healing of the world with lack of importunity. I have therefore no need to be diffident in drawing his attention to something which hitherto has not enlisted him—Toc H in London. Small as this body is, and struggling for a foothold, it numbers a hundred and eighty teams of men who work, unpretentiously and at their own cost, to supply an element of help to the innumerable needs they are confronting in their own neigh- bourhoods. They are painfully conscious that their numbers and competence fall profoundly short of the immensity of the social task ; and they would be ready with joy to put your author in touch with any form of work. He need not join Toe H unless he wishes ; but, if he does, no one will be more glad than his obedient servant, P. B. CLAYTON,'
Founder Padre of Toc H.
All Hallows Porchroom, Byward Street, London, E.C.3.
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