' Charge It ': Keeping Up With Harry Part 15

"'I'm with you,' he said, 'and I think I can see Knowles moving and Deacon Joe coming down off his high horse.'

"'Possibly we could use Knowles,' I suggested. 'There'll be a lot of detail.'

"'But only as a kind of clerk,' said Harry.

"As a kind of clerk, I agreed. 'We shall need a number of clerks. I intend that every family within ten miles shall be visited at least once a week. We shall not only let our light s.h.i.+ne, but we shall make it s.h.i.+ne into every human heart in this community. If they're too callous we'll punch a hole with our trusty blade and let the light in.

The lantern and the rapier shall be our weapons.'

"Harry was full of enthusiasm. He had met Marie on the street, and she was glad to learn that he was going to work.

"'Incidentally, I hope to win your grandfather's consent,' he had said to her.

"And she had answered: 'If you could do that I should think you were an extremely able young man.'

"'And worthy of the best girl living?' Harry had urged.

"'That's too extravagant,' Marie had said as she left him.

"Harry went to work with me at once. He bought the rink and the ground beneath it and some more alongside. We spent days and nights with an architect making and remaking the plans, and by and by we knew that we were right. Soon the contractor began his work, and in three months we had finished the most notable meeting-house of modern times.

"The walls were tinted a rich cream color, the woodwork was painted white. There were new carpets in the aisles, and between them comfortable seats for nine hundred people. The fine old pulpit from which Jonathan Edwards had preached his first sermon was the center of a little garden of ferns and palms and vines and mosses, all growing in good ground, with a small fountain in their midst--a symbol of purity. A great sheet of plate gla.s.s behind the pulpit showed a thicket of evergreens. High above the pulpit was another big sheet of gla.s.s, through which one got a broad view of the sky, and it was framed in these words: 'The heavens declare the glory of G.o.d and the firmament showeth his handiwork.'

"The walls were adorned with handsome pictures loaned by my friends.

On one wall were these modern commandments, most of which were gleaned from the masterly volume ent.i.tled _The Life and Writings of Robert Delance, Bishop of St. Clare_, which Harry had found in a London bookstore:

"1. 'Be grateful unto G.o.d, for He hath given thee life, time, and this beautiful world. Other things thou shalt find for thyself.'

"2. 'Be brave with thy life, for it is very long.'

"3. 'Waste no time, for thy time is very little.'

"4. 'See that this world is the better for thy work and kindness.'

"5. 'Doubt not the truth of that thy senses tell thee, for thy G.o.d is no deceiver.'

"6. 'Love the truth and live it, for no one is long deceived by lying.'

"7. 'Give not unto the beast and neglect thy brother.'

"8. 'Go find thy brothers in the world and see that these be many, for a man's strength and happiness are multiplied by the number of his brothers.'

"9. 'Beware lest thy wealth come between thee and them and tend to thine own poverty and theirs.'

"10. 'Suffer little children to come unto thee, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.'

"The simple-hearted old Bishop had just the philosophy we needed. It seemed to have been carefully designed to meet the inventiveness of the modern sinner. He was turning out well and had already exerted a wholesome influence on the character of Harry. Would that all ancestors were as well chosen!

"We did not wish to hinder the other churches, and that spirit went into all our plans. First, then, we decided that our services should begin at twelve o'clock every Sunday, and close at one or before twenty minutes after one. That gave our paris.h.i.+oners a chance to go to the other churches if they wanted to. I traveled from Boston to St.

Louis, and returned _via_ Was.h.i.+ngton, to engage talent for our pulpit.

I wanted the best that this land afforded, and was prepared to pay its price. I engaged nine ministers, distinguished for eloquence and learning, three Governors, the Mayor of a Western city, two United States Senators, one Congressman, and a Justice of the Supreme Court of the land. They were all great-souled men, who had shown in word and action a touch of the spirit of Jesus Christ. Some of them had been throwing light into dark places and driving money-changers from the temple and casting out devils. They were all qualified to enlighten and lift up our souls.

"I asked that their lessons should be drawn from the lives of the modern prophets--Abraham Lincoln, Silas Wright, Daniel Webster, Charles Sumner, Henry Clay, Noah Webster, George William Curtis, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Sidney Lanier, Horace Greeley, and others like them. What I sought most was an increase of the love of honor and the respect for industry in our young men and women. Holiness was a thing for later consideration, it seemed to me.

"I put a full-page advertis.e.m.e.nt in each local paper, which read about as follows:

"'The Church of All Faiths.

"'Built especially for sinners and for good people who wish to be better.

"'Will begin its work in this community Sunday, June 19th, at twelve o'clock, with a sermon by Socrates Potter, Esq., of Pointview, in which he will set forth his view of what a church should do, and an account of what this church proposes to do, for its paris.h.i.+oners.

Other churches are cordially invited to wors.h.i.+p, and to work with us for the good of Pointview.'

"The curiosity of all the people had been whetted to a keen edge. They had begged for information, but Betsey and I had said that they should know all about it in due time. I had given my plan to the contributors only, and they were to keep still about it.

"Sometimes silence is the best advertis.e.m.e.nt, and certain men who seem to be so modest that they are shocked by the least publicity are the greatest advertisers in the world. The man who hides his candle under a bushel is apt to be the one whose candle is best known. So it happened with us. Nine hundred and sixteen people filled the seats in our church that morning by twelve o'clock, and two hundred more were trying to get in.

"At the next service an honored minister whose soul is even greater than his fame preached for us, and that week a pet.i.tion came to me, signed by six hundred citizens, complaining that the hour was inconvenient, and asking that it be changed to 10.30 A.M. I believe in the voice of the people, and obeyed it; but I knew what would happen, and it did. The other churches were deserted and silent. One by one their ministers came to see me--all save one old gentleman in whom the brimstone of wrath had begun to burn more fiercely. We needed and were glad to have the help of two of them. There were the sick and the poor to be visited; there were weddings and funerals and countless details in the organization of the new church to be attended to.

"I ought to tell you that a curious and unexpected thing had happened.

Fisherfolk, street gamins, caddies, loafers on the docks and in the livery stables, millionaires and million-heiresses--people who had thought themselves either above or below religion--came to our meetings. Each resembled in numbers a political rally.

"We have started an improvement school for Sunday evenings, in which the great story is told in lectures and fine photographs thrown on a screen. And not only the great story, but any story calculated to inspire and enlighten the youthful mind. The best of the world's work and art and certain of the great novels will be presented in this way.

I am going to get the great men of the world to give us three-minute sermons on the phonograph. Thus I hope to make it possible for our people to hear the voices and sentiments of kings, presidents, premiers, statesmen, and prophets--the men and women who are making history.

"We have started a small country club where poor boys and girls can enjoy billiards, bowling, golf, and tennis. Any boy or girl in this town who has a longing for better things is sought and found by our ministers, and all kinds of encouragement are offered. People and clergy of almost every faith that is known here in Pointview are working side by side for one purpose. Think of that! The revolution has been complete and mainly peaceful. As to the expense of it all, we tax the rich, and for the rest we temper the wind to the length of their wool.

"Of course, there were certain people who didn't like it, and among them was Deacon Joe. He and four others hired a minister, and sat in lonely sorrow in the old church every Sunday, until the expense sickened them. Then the Deacon got mad at the town, and refused to be seen in it.

"'Reach everybody,' had been one of our mottoes, and Deacon Joe said that he guessed we wouldn't reach him."

XVI

WHICH PRESENTS AN INCIDENT IN OUR CAMPAIGN AGAINST NEW NEW ENGLAND

"We had some adventures in new New England which ought to be set down.

Here's one of them.

"The old village of Trent lies back in the hills, a little journey from Pointview, on the sh.o.r.es of a pleasant river. To the unknowing traveler, who approaches from either hilltop, it has a peaceful and inviting look. But the rutted, rocky road begins at once to excite suspicion. A bad road is an indication and a producer of degeneracy in man and beast. It tends to profanity, and if it went far would probably lead to h.e.l.l. Trent itself is one of the little modern h.e.l.ls of New England. There are the venerable and neatly fas.h.i.+oned houses of the old-time Yankee--the peaked roofs and gables, the columns, the cozy verandas, the garden s.p.a.ces. But the old-time Yankees are gone.

The well-kept gardens are no more. Many of the houses are going to ruin. One is an Italian tenement. The others are inhabited by coachmen, chauffeurs, gardeners, mill-hands, and degenerate Yankees.

The inn is a mere barroom. Sounds of revelry and the odor of stale beer come out of it. In front are teams of burden, abandoned, for a time, by their drivers, and sundry human signs of decay loafing in the shadow of the old lindens. Among them are the seedy remnants of a once n.o.ble race. They are fettered by 'rheumatiz' and the disordered liver.

They move like boats dragging their anchors. To make life tolerable their imaginations need a.s.sistance. They are like the Flub Dubs of lost Atlantis. Each imagines himself the greatest man in the village.

They talk in loud words. They quarrel and fight over the crown. So it has been a brawling, besotted community.

"Trent's leading citizen is a Yankee politician who owns most of its real estate and derives a profit from its lawless traffic. Trent has been his enterprise.