From the Bottom Up Part 15

My first impulse was to jump the fence and save the woman but the man being evidently half-drunk might have turned and poured into me what was intended for his wife; and the first law of nature was sufficiently developed in me to let her have what belonged to her! I tried to speak but my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. I was positively scared.

The old fellow walked up to the tree, letting out as he walked a volley of oaths. I recovered my equilibrium, sprang over the fence, crept up behind and jumped on him, knocking him down and instantly disarming him.

I went inside with them and sat between them until they seemed to have forgotten what had happened. Then I put them to bed, put the light out and went home. I examined the revolver and found it empty. Next morning I went back and told the old man that I would volunteer to give him some lessons in target practice; and that the reason I knocked him down was because he was such a poor shot. This old couple became my staunchest supporters.

I interested the students of Tabor College in the people of that out-of-the-way community, and before I built the Chapel of the Carpenter which still stands there I organized a college settlement which was manned by students.

The small church, the chapel on "the bottoms," the work of the college students and the increasing circle of converts and friends made the work attractive to me, but I had entered the political field in order to protest against and possibly remedy something civic that savoured of Sodom; and for a minister that was an unpardonable sin. The "interests" determined to cripple me or destroy my work. This they did successfully by the medium of a subsidized press and other means, fair and foul. It was a case of a city against one man--a rich city against a poor man and the man went down to defeat--apparent defeat, anyway: I packed my belongings and left. As I crossed the bridge which spans the river I looked on the little squatter colony on "the bottoms" and as my career there pa.s.sed in review, for the second time in my life I was stricken with home-sickness and I was guilty of what my manhood might have been ashamed of--tears.

CHAPTER XIV

MY FIGHT IN NEW HAVEN

The experiences of 1894, '5 and '6 gave me a distaste--really a disgust--with public life I felt that I would never enter a large city again. I sought retirement in a country parish; this was secured for me by my friend, the president of Tabor College, the Rev. Richard Cecil Hughes.

It was in a small town in Iowa--Avoca in Pottawattomie County; I stayed there a year.

In 1897 I was in Cleveland, Ohio, in charge of an inst.i.tution called The Friendly Inn; a very good name if the place had been an inn or friendly. My inability to make it either forced me to leave it before I had been there many months. It was in Cleveland that I first joined a labour union. I was a member of what was called a Federal Labour Union and was elected its representative to the central body of the union movement.

Early in 1898 I was in Springfield, Ma.s.s., delivering a series of addresses to a Bible school there. My funds ran out and not being in receipt of any remuneration and, not caring to make my condition known, I was forced for the first time in my life to become a candidate for a church. There were two vacant pulpits and I went after both of them. Meantime I boarded with a few students who, like their ancestors, had "plenty of nothing but gospel."

They lived on seventy-five cents a week. Living was largely a matter of scripture texts, hope and imagination. I used to breakfast through my eyes at the beautiful lotus pond in the park. We lunched usually on soup that was a constant reminder of the soul of Tomlinson of Berkeley Square. Quant.i.tively speaking, supper was the biggest meal of the day--it was a respite also for our imaginations.

The day of my candidacy arrived. I was prepared to play that most despicable of all ecclesiastical tricks--making an impression. I almost memorized the Scripture reading and prepared my favourite sermon; my personal appearance never had been so well attended to. The hour arrived. The little souls sat back in their seats to take my measure.

It was their innings. I had been duly looked up in the year-book and my calibre gauged by the amount of money paid me in previous pastorates.

The "service" began. My address to the Almighty was prepared and part of the game is to make believe that it is purely extemporaneous. Every move, intonation and gesture is noted and has its bearing on the final result. I was saying to the ecclesiastical jury: "Look here, you dumb-heads, wake up; I'm the thing you need here!" Sermon time came and with it a wave of disgust that swept over my soul.

"Good friends," I began; "I am not a candidate for the pastorate here.

I was a few minutes ago; but not now. Instead of doing the work of an infinite G.o.d and letting Him take care of the result I have been trying to please _you_. If the Almighty will forgive me for such unfaith--such meanness--I swear that I will never do it again."

Then I preached. This brutal plainness created a sensation and several tried to dissuade me, but I had made up my mind.

It was while I was enjoying the "blessings" of poverty in Springfield that I was called to New Haven to confer with the directors of the Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation about their department of religious work. I had been in New Haven before. In 1892 I addressed the students of Yale University on the subject of city mission work and, as a result of that address, had been invited to make some investigations and outline a plan for city mission work for the students. I spent ten days in the slum region there, making a report and recommendations. On these the students began the work anew. I was asked at that time to attach myself to the university as leader and instructor in city missions, but work in New York seemed more important to me.

I rode my bicycle from Springfield to New Haven for that interview.

When it was over I found myself on the street with a wheel and sixty cents. I bought a "hot dog"--a sausage in a bread roll--ate it on the street and then looked around for a lodging.

"Is it possible," I asked a policeman, "to get a clean bed for a night in this town for fifty cents?"

"Anything's possible," he answered, "but----"

He directed me to the Gem Hotel, where I was shown to a 12 6 box, the walls of which spoke of the battles of the weary travellers who had preceded me. I protected myself as best I could until the dawn, when I started for Springfield, a disciple for a day of the no-breakfast fad.

Things were arranged differently at the next interview. I was the guest of the leaders in that work and was engaged as "Religious Work Director" for one year. I think I was the first man in the United States to be known officially by that t.i.tle.

The Board of Directors was composed of men efficient to an extraordinary degree. The General Secretary was a worker of great energy and business capacity and as high a moral type as the highest.

He was orthodox in theology and the directors were orthodox in sociology. It was a period when I was moving away from both standpoints.

To express a very modern opinion in theology would disturb the churches--the moral backers of the inst.i.tution; to express an advanced idea in sociology would alienate the rich men--the financial backers.

A month after I began my work I "supplied" the pulpit of a church in the New Haven suburbs called the Second Congregational Church of Fair Haven. The chairman of the pulpit supply committee was a member of the Board of Directors of the Y.M.C.A.

Gradually I drifted away from the a.s.sociation toward the church. The former was building a new home and many people were glad of an excuse not to give anything toward its erection. So any utterance of mine that seemed out of the common was held up to the solicitor. An address on War kept the telephone ringing for days. It was as if Christianity had never been heard of in New Haven. Labour men asked that the address be printed and subscribed money that it might be done, but an appeal to the teachings of Jesus on the question of war was lauded by the sinners and frowned upon by the saints.

With the General Secretary I never had an unkind word. Though a man of boundless energy he was a man in supreme command of himself. We knew in a way that we were drifting apart and acted as Christians toward each other. What more can men do?

Mr. Barnes, the director, who was chairman of the pulpit supply committee of the church, kept urging me to give my whole time to the church. Every day for weeks he drove his old white horse to my door and talked it over. I refused the call to the pastorate but divided my time between them. For the Y.M.C.A. my duties were:

To conduct ma.s.s meetings for men in a theatre.

To organize the Bible departments and teach one of the cla.s.ses.

Care and visiting of converts.

Daily office hour.

Literary work as a.s.sociate editor of the weekly paper.

Writing of pamphlets.

To conduct boys' meetings.

For the church:

To conduct regular Sunday services.

Friday night prayer meetings.

Men's Bible cla.s.s.

Visitation of sick and burial of the dead.

Cla.s.s for young converts.

Children's meetings.

At the same time I entered the Divinity School of Yale University, taking studies in Hebrew, New Testament Greek and Archaeology. A little experience in the church taught me that intellectually I was leaving the ordinary type of church at a much quicker pace than I was leaving the Y.M.C.A.

Dr. Edward Everett Hale told a friend once that he preached to the South Church on Sunday morning so that he might preach to the world the rest of the week. I told the officers of the church frankly that I was not the kind of man needed for their parish; but they insisted that I was, so I preached for them on Sunday that I might preach to a larger parish during the week.

Two things I tried to do well for the church--conduct an evening meeting for the unchurched--which simply means the folk unable to dress well and pay pew rents--and conduct a meeting for children. I organized a committee to help me at the evening meeting. The only qualification for members.h.i.+p on the committee was utter ignorance of church work. The very good people of the community called this meeting "a show." Well, it was. I asked the regular members to stay away for I needed their s.p.a.ce and their corner lots with cus.h.i.+oned knee stools. I made a study of the possibilities of the stereopticon. Mr. Barnes gave me a fine outfit. I got the choicest slides and subjects published.

Prayers, hymns, scripture readings and illuminated bits of choice literature were projected on a screen. I trained young men to put up and take down the screen noiselessly, artistically, and with the utmost neatness and dispatch. I discovered that many men who either lacked ambition or ability to wear collars came to that meeting, and they sang, too, when the lights were low. When in full view of each other they were as close-mouthed as clams. The singing became a special feature. My brethren in other churches considered this a terrible "come-down" at first, but changed their minds later and copied the thing, borrowing the best of my good slides and not a few of the unique ideas accompanying the scheme.

A Methodist brother across the river said confidentially to a friend that he was going to launch on the community "a legitimate sensation"--a boys' choir. My plans for getting the poor people to church succeeded. Such a thing as fraternizing the steady goers--goers by habit and heredity--and the unsteady goers--goers by the need of the soul--was impossible. The most surprising thing in these evening meetings to the men who financed the church was the fact that these poor people paid for their own extras. That goes a long way in church affairs.

The weekly children's meeting I called "The Pleasant Hour." Believing that the most important work of the Church is the teaching of the children, it was my custom for many years in many churches to personally conduct a Sunday School on a week day so that the best I had to give would be given to the children. In my larger work for the city two ideas governed my action. One was to get the church people interested in civic problems and the other was to solve civic problems or to attempt a solution whether church people were interested in them or not.

I organized a flower mission for the summer months. We called it a Flower House. An abandoned hotel was cleaned up. A few loads of sand dumped in the back yard as a sort of extemporized seash.o.r.e where little children might play. Flowers were solicited and distributed to the folks who had neither taste nor room for flowers. We did some teaching, too, and gave entertainments. A barrel-organ played on certain days by the sand pile; and that music of the proletariat never fails to attract a crowd.

The flower mission developed into a social settlement. We called it Lowell House. At first the church financed it, then it got tired of that, and when I incorporated the settlement work in my church reports in order to stimulate support, the settlement workers--directors rather--got tired of the church and went into a spasm over it. Lowell House is accounted a successful inst.i.tution of the city now. It is doing a successful church work among the poor--church work with this exception, that its head worker--its educated, sympathetic priestess--lives there and shares her little artistic centre with the crowd who live in places not good enough for domestic animals.

In 1898 New Haven's public baths consisted of a tub in the bas.e.m.e.nt of a public school. I photographed the tub and projected the picture on a screen in the Grand Opera House for the consideration of the citizens.

That was the beginning of an agitation for a public bath house--an agitation that was pushed until the dream became a brick structure.

I was not particularly interested in the bath _per se_. It was an opportunity to get people to work for something this side of heaven, to emphasize the thought that men were as much worth taking care of as horses--an idea that has not yet a firm grip on the mind of the bourgeoisie.