172 DISTINGUISHED CHURCHMEN
bearing at first sight all the outward appearance of a street row. The form of one man lay prostrate ; there was a hurried helter-skelter movement on the part of a number of ruffians we call them Hooligans to-day and looking on with curiosity rather than concern was the typical London crowd, disobeying, as usual, the policeman s stereotyped order to " move on ! " As a matter of fact, there was no row at all, in the generally - accepted sense. There had been an assault of a dastardly character one of those assaults which are calculated more than anything else to provoke the righteous indigna tion of Englishmen. The prostrate position of the young clergyman for that was the station in life of the victim represented the rude ter mination of an open-air Gospel service. The evangelists had secured on their side, as his presence on that eventful occasion proclaimed, the disposer of a gang of thieves, and the dis organised ruffians, chagrined at the turn their erstwhile colleague had taken, had resorted to deeds of violence in their endeavours to regain him. Six months illness six months of hover ing between life and death sufficiently indicate how really serious had been the assault upon the leader of that brave little band of evangelists. Let us lift the veil. The central figure of this scene, its victim, was none other than Wilson Carlile, the man known to-day throughout
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