Part 15 (2/2)

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.

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