3 minute read
Reflection
Living with Covid-19
Major Mel Jones considers what we can learn from epidemics of the past
CHRISTMAS was all planned. My wife, Kath, and I were going to spend the festive season with our youngest grandson. Coronavirus intervened and our plans were put on hold as we awaited the results of our daughter-in-law’s PCR test.
The good news? The test result was negative. The visit went ahead. The bad news? Norovirus struck instead. I was the only person in the household to avoid the unpleasant stomach bug. It was a Christmas to remember for all the wrong reasons.
Regardless of what other problems we are facing, the coronavirus pandemic is an ever-present, dreary reality for us all. It is the major theme on the news and on radio phone-ins. Like so many others, I just want to get back to a brighter normality.
LIVING WITH EPIDEMICS
Epidemics are not a new phenomenon. One of the most infamous was the Great Plague of 1665–66, which was the last major epidemic of the bubonic plague to occur in England. The fear that gripped the country must have been intense –fear bordering on terror due to ignorance and helplessness in the face of such a devastating illness. The country had limited scientific knowledge and minimal health facilities at that time.
Almost 400 years later, fear remains an understandable response to an epidemic, but it should never be used to manipulate people. century – a period that saw several epidemics, including cholera. The first volume of The History of The Salvation Army says: ‘Up to 1865 sewage was emptied directly into the Thames. The 1866 cholera epidemic was caused by contaminated water having been turned into the mains from reservoirs at Old Ford… During the summer there were more than 8,000 deaths in east London from cholera and kindred complaints.’ This was the normality within which the Army, or The Christian Mission as it was called then, ministered.
Several references to cholera can be found in early Christian Mission literature, with some members having cholera – for example brother Clare of Portsmouth – and other members visiting and caring for people with cholera, such as James Flawn of Bethnal Green. This caring and costly ministry was undertaken by Christians of all denominations.
During a cholera epidemic on the Isle of Man in 1864, 15-year-old George Scott Railton lost his mother and father, a Wesleyan Methodist minister. A plaque was placed on the door of the Peel Methodist chapel commemorating their sacrificial service of nursing those who were too poor to afford medical care.
Whether by placing a plaque on a chapel door in the 19th century or clapping on our doorsteps in the 21st century, we do well to recognise those who serve us at great cost to themselves.
LIVING WITH SMALLPOX
The Christian Mission also lived through several smallpox outbreaks. In an 1872 Christian Mission Magazine article titled ‘Friends pray for us’, Arthur Beale of Hackney reported that smallpox had appeared again. A further article titled ‘Friends in Heaven’ stated that smallpox had hurried another Mission convert to Glory.
The Booth family had personal experience of this deadly disease. In 1876 Lucy, the youngest child of Catherine and William, contracted smallpox together with one of the servants who worked for the family. Sadly, the servant died.
The 27-year-old Railton visited Lucy in hospital and contracted the disease. Bramwell Booth stated that Railton was terribly ill and had been given up on by the doctors. He eventually recovered, but his body bore the scars of smallpox. Serious illness leaves its marks in more ways than one.
LIVING WITH FAITH
The loss of his parents during a cholera epidemic and his brush with death during a smallpox epidemic left their mark on Railton during his early and impressionable years. But he was a remarkable man of faith. He played a vital role in shaping our Movement in its early days and went on to live his life with a fearlessly deep and touchingly simple trust in God.
One hundred and fifty years later we are all learning how to live with a pandemic, with faith.
