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A PREACHER'S STORY OF HIS WORK
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W. S. Rainsford
A PREACHER'S STORY
OF
HIS WORK
/ BY
V
W. S. RAINSFORD
Rector of St. George's Church New York City
NEW YORK THE OUTLOOK COMPANY
1904
Copyright, igo3, by The Outlook Company
Published February, 1904
UNIVERSITY PRESS • JOHN WILSON AND SON • CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
CONTENTS
I. An Irish Lad
II. Venture and Adventure . .
III. Curate and Street Preacher
IV. The Determination to Fail V. An Alien Missioner . . .
VI. The Mission in Toronto .
VII. The Turn of the Battle
VIII. New Measures
IX. The Renovation of a Parish
X. Men and Means ....
XI. People in the Mass . . .
XII. All Sorts and Conditions
XIII. The Tongue of Fire . .
XIV. Mixing vv^ith Men . . . XV. The Work of the Ministry
Page I
38 54
72 92
lOI
121
132
H3
160
173
197
208 219
INTEODUCTORY NOTE
TWENTY years ago there was a dying church on the East Side of New York. Famihes that had lived in the vicinity were moving away. Their houses were being transformed into flats. The in- coming population was to all appear- ance indifferent to what the church had to offer. The emptying houses were being refilled with more people than they contained before. The emptying church became each year emptier and emptier. The church was offered for sale. Nobody would buy it.
To-day that church is one of the greatest powers for good in that great city. Its services are thronged. Work- ing men and women sit and kneel be-
vii
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
side people of wealth and power. A Parish House joined to it affords recre- ation for those who have no other places of recreation than the saloons, the dance-halls, and the street, as well as for those who choose to go there from homes of refinement for the social life it affords. A trade school is maintained by the church to supply industrial training for the boys of the parish. Active organizations thrive — religious because ministering to needs that are fundamentally human. The church which two decades ago was itself in the grasp of death is to-day living in that community that the community itself may have life and have it more abundantly.
Humanly speaking, this change has been wrought by one man. In 1882 he was acting as rector of St. James's Cathedral Church, Toronto, Canada. When he was called to this despondent
viii
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
church in New York, he went with a clear idea of what a city parish ought to be and what ends it ought to serve. That idea, by persistent, active, coura- geous faith, he has translated into a living, visible reality. That man is Dr. W. S. Rainsford, and his achieve- ment is the great parish of St. George's.
The story of human achievement is first of all the story of man. The story of every human achievement is the story of some human life back of the achievement. So the record of what has been done near Stuyvesant Square in New York is ultimately the record of the experiences and activities of the man who has done it.
This is why the publishers have asked Dr. Rainsford to tell in his own words the story of his work. And Dr. Rainsford has told it. He did not write it. He related it to listeners in his study at St. George's Rectory.
IX
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
The only changes which have been made, in translating this story from oral to printed form, have been those transpositions and excisions necessary for coherence, which in spoken words is supplied by gesture in the speaker, and inquiries or responses by the hear- ers. So the readers of this story, if they would get the story as it was given, must place themselves in imagi- nation in that room, where books and antlers covering the walls, bearskins on couch or floors, and papers on desk betoken a life of combined thought and activity ; and then settle them- selves, not to read, but to hear.
The Publishers.
A PEEACHEE'S STOEY OF HIS WOEK
I
AN IRISH LAD
I WAS born in Dublin, the 30th of October, 1850. My father was the Rev. Marcus Rainsford, at that time chaplain of the Hospital for the Blind in Dublin. The chaplain attached to a hospital like that was often the center of quite an important ministry ; the hospital was almost sub- ordinate. My father was a preacher from the very beginning ; he had drawn about him quite a large congregation in Dublin. He was a man of remark- able power then; he was about thirty years old when I was born. My mother was the daughter of a clergy- man who was appointed to the living of Dungarvan, in the South of Ire-
A PREACHER'S STORY
land, by his father, who was, I believe. Bishop of Meath. This is interesting because my great-grandfather was Fox's one episcopal appointment. He was at Eton with Fox, and Fox died in his house in Mayfair. He stuck to Fox through thick and thin; and there has always been a tradition that my great-grandfather had a great deal to do with bringing out what was best in Fox. I noticed in Trevelyan's " Life of Fox" the pleasantest sort of a letter about him.
An ancestor of my father's had been one of Cromwell's right-hand men in Ireland, and in the rearrangement of things had come in possession of a large estate, the last remnant of which had become heavily encumbered when my father was a young man, and he had volunteered to pay his father's debts, which, as you understand, under English law he need not have done.
OF HIS WORK
Therefore, during the early years of my life, my father and mother struggled with very real poverty.
Later he left his work in Dublin to become Vicar of Dundalk, a town in the northeast of Ireland, and to become chaplain to the Earl of Roden, a great friend of my father's ; and there, in the old red brick vicarage, we children grew up — eight of us. My father and mother at that time had certainly not $1,500 a year to bring us all up on — to school us and everything else. I re- member my dear mother, who was a very strong little woman, used to get up at six o'clock every morning to look after her flowers in the garden ; a large part of our clothes she made with her own hand; anything very nice we had to eat she cooked herself; she was the soul of brightness ; and everything I am I owe largely to her. She suddenly broke down when she was about forty-
3
A PREACHER'S STORY
eight with rheumatic gout — from over- straining — and the last years of her hfe were spent in bUnding torture. She died at sixty-seven, worn out with agony — nearly twenty years of intense suffering. I have never seen in all my ministry pain so persistent and so agonizing.
In Dundalk all my brothers and sis- ters were born. In England we could not have lived as refined a life as we did in Ireland, on the small amount my father had. Very nice people would come and stay with us. We did not entertain many visitors, but still we did entertain some charming people ; and there was in those days a very high tone in the best society in Ireland. There were no country gentry to speak of in the town of Dundalk, and so our house — very simple and plain as it was — was the place where any one of note stayed. Then there were two or three
4
OF HIS WORK
big houses always open to us, and that is a great help to a boy. Lord Roden was well known in England — one of the few good men who still maintained a place in court under George IV., a man of very stern Christian character, though an Irishman, and he was always very kind to me. I remember my first dinner party, in a made-up evening coat at Tullymore Park, a beautiful place (a well-known show place in Ireland to- day) where some of the most distin- guished people of the time came. You will see that the life of a poor vicar in Ireland, if he came of a good family, lacked entirely the sordid element. That condition was a good deal because of my mother ; an ordinary woman would have sunk under the burden ; she did not; for twenty years she ac- complished miracles.
My early life was spent in Dundalk. The old grammar school was the only
5
A PREACHER'S STORY
place where I could go to school ; my parents could not afford to send me away. The master of the school, as is often found in Ireland, was a first-rate man — a college man — Trinity Col- lege, Dublin ; but the other masters did not amount to much. I was a great, overgrown boy, terribly tall for my age and unspeakably thin. Our school hours were long and hard. We had to be there at seven o'clock on a winter morning and do two hours' work on an empty stomach before we could go home to breakfast; then we went back and stayed from ten until two; then a recess from two until four ; then returned at four to stay until six.
It was a beautiful place ; and one of the blessed things in my life — my love of nature — I got right there. The old vicarage stood facing the bay into which a river emptied itself. There was an ancient quay, and considerable
6
OF HIS WORK
shipping — fishing, coaling, and landing of steamers — mountains 2,000 feet high running down to the sea; and, jutting into the bay, a beautiful moun- tainous promontory. I can see as clearly as if it were only yesterday the yellow patches of golden grain, the purple heather, the light on the moun- tains. They were treeless mountains, except along the base.
Whenever I got a holiday, I was off to the mountains. When I was only about twelve years old, I had an almost crazy desire for sport; and I shall never forget one of my first gifts, a small fishing-rod which my father gave me. The only time I had to fish was on Saturday afternoons, and I had to walk three or four miles to a stream where occasionally a trout was caught. I re- member when I caught my first trout I ran home wild with delight, and my Daddy gave me half a crown. When
7
A PREACHER'S STORY
I was thirteen years old, he gave me a gun ; and after that, for several sum- mers, I arose every morning at four. I had leave from the Earl of Roden to shoot rabbits on his domain, and my mother gave me sixpence for every rab- bit I got. Each one was a real addi- tion to the larder. So I used to get up at four and poke around looking for rabbits; sometimes I got two or three, and then off to school at seven. As I look back I wonder how I managed to get up so early, morning after morning, and stick it out on an empty stomach until nine. I think my intense love of the open air, my delight in the open country, and the fascination of pursu- ing rare game (for it was very rare — if a man shot a snipe or a wild duck he would mark that day with a red letter) kept me up. All such things have much to do with giving a lad certain freedom and certain power to see and
8
OF HIS WORK
find himself, and are of immense value in after-life.
My school life in Dundalk was not happy. I was stupid, very dull at Latin and Greek, very shy ; I was only really happy when off by myself in the coun- try. I was very much bullied by the bigger boys because I was so tall and thin and shy. I cannot think of any master at that time who understood me. School life was brutal then. The boys did not like my father ; I never could quite make out why ; he was generally most popular; but I think the boys were obliged to go to church and listen to his long sermon, and they took out their spite on me. I remember often in the morning they would shut me in between the inside and outside doors of the school, and pour a bucket of cold, dirty water down my back ; that was not exactly a pleasant thing to begin the day on. Schools have changed
9
A PREACHER'S STORY
much ; boys now have delightful mem- ories ; I have never had any but un- pleasant ones. The master v^ore very heavy boots, and when I made a mis- take in class he would kick me vio- lently in the shins. A mistake in Virgil was announced by a fearful kick on thin, boyish shins with his heavy boots ; and if through self-consciousness we did not answer quickly enough to suit him, we got a slashing box on the ear. I did the best I could, too. I do not know exactly how my standing in school would compare with a boy of the same age now. When I was fif- teen I was beginning to construe Virgil without extraordinary effort, I was fond of mathematics, I knew five or six books of Euclid pretty well, and I was beginning on Algebra, but of modern history I knew nothing. We were taught geography pretty well, of the old-fashioned kind, and we were taught
10
OF HIS WORK
the Bible thoroughly. I always worked hard, saving the two or three hours in the morning which I kept for the open air.
I shall never forget the home train- ing I got on the Bible. My mother made me repeat to her five or six verses every day. However hard my school work might be, I always learned those verses for Mother. It was an invalua- ble thing to me. So, by the time I left home, I knew a vast part of the Scrip- ture by heart ; that is one thing I never have forgotten — those verses I learned every day. My memory was never even second-class. I remember the boys were required to learn by heart forty lines of Virgil every day, but the master found out after a time that the task, for me, was simply impossible, and he let me off with ten or twenty. I never had a memory. For years and years I have tried to commit to memory
II
A PREACHER'S STORY
a few lines while dressing ; but though conscientiously always doing the best I knew in that direction, I have never had a memory ; I have had to supple- ment that lack with a thorough system of memoranda ; it has been a great drawback.
At that time there was quite a strong movement in the religious world both in England and Ireland. The great re- vival in Ireland in '59 made a great im- pression ; the revival swept all over the country and produced some remarkable phenomena. The Revivalist Hymn- Book was one of the results. Before that time, as I remember, there was no such thing as hymnology in the Church. The wave was something more than the Moody and Sankey movement in this country. It was distinctly evangelical. You will find a number of the hymns that came to life then in the Moody and Sankey book; they were ultra-evan-
12
OF HIS WORK
gelical, as we understand the term. It was a new presentation of the doctrine which my father was really preaching with all his might. By this time he was quite a noted preacher. His pulpit in Dundalk had become quite remarked. He did not know anything but his Bible ; he did not know even his Greek Testament; but he was eloquent — one of the first exponents of the early evan- gelical movement in Ireland. Of course that movement slopped over into hysteria of all kinds. They had the phenomenon of a man falling down in a sort of fit, or trance, and all that sort of thing. Spiritual conversion was supposed to express itself in that form. The best people in the country were swept along in that wave. Laymen went to preaching ; my father was in correspondence with scores of people all over the country ; it was emotion- alism; it moved profoundly the North
13
A PREACHER'S STORY
of Ireland. It did not get among Ro- man Catholics to any extent; they were divided by a Chinese wall from Protes- tantism; but it profoundly affected the life of Ireland. I fancy it was similar to the movement which swept over Scotland ten years earlier ; but the sober Scotch character was partially saved from the emotional manifestations of the Celtic temperament which belonged to the Irish experiences.
When I was fifteen, my father got the idea that the school in Dundalk was not the place for me. He deter- mined to send me to a boarding-school in Shropshire, England, which was emi- nent throughout the country for its religious position. My father was pro- foundly impressed by the religious op- portunities this school presented, and I and a brother were sent there. It was a boarding-school, but because of my father's position we did not pay full fee.
14
OF HIS WORK
It was in a most beautiful part of Eng- land, but it was a regular hell — a hor- rible place, although there was a good man at the head. I missed immensely the freedom I had enjoyed in Ireland, and I felt I was learning nothing. We were forced to unnatural religious ex- pression; the boys who professed re- ligious experience were favored and pampered, and the whole atmosphere was unreal, unscholarly, and stultifying to the last degree. It was the unhap- piest time of my life. I look back to it with the keenest possible dissatis- faction ; it was physical, moral, and intellectual death. But it gave me, perhaps unconsciously, the deepest sym- pathy with multitudes of young people whose school environment has been unhappy ; and it helped me afterwards, I think, to do something, by voice and otherwise, towards helping forward education.
15
A PREACHER'S STORY
In 1866 my father was called to take charge of St. John's, Halkin Street, Belgrave Square, London. I left this abominable school and went to my father and mother. I cannot exagger- ate the extraordinary change that came to me — a slow, raw Irish boy who had spent every spare minute on the moun- tains and by the streams in Ireland and then had been entirely suppressed in this horrible school ; I do not think I was aware myself at first of the mo- mentous nature of this change.
16
OF HIS WORK
II
VENTURE AND ADVENTURE
IT is only fair to say that my father took the West End of London by storm. He was a holy man, a very eloquent man, he was tremendously in earnest ; and he very quickly gathered around him what, as I look back, seems to me to have been one of the strongest congregations in London, from a social point of view. The chapel was soon jammed, not even standing room ; and, until the High Church movement took practical shape in the West End of London some years later, he exercised more influence in that section of the city than any other man, I do believe.
I began to get interested in my school life at Kensington, and did a
pretty good year's work, until in '67, » 17
A PREACHER'S STORY
when I attended the Oxford-Cambridge race at six o'clock and got wet through. A cold settled on my lungs, and I was in bad health for several months. The doctors said I must have change of air, and I went to stay for three months with one of the dearest, kindest friends a man ever had, the late Lord Farn- ham. He had always been kind to me ; and there, in his beautiful estate in the North of Ireland, I got back to the free life of the country — fishing, hunting, and climbing. I did not get worse, but at the end of three months I came back to see the doctor. He was one of the best medical men of the day on pulmonary troubles. He looked me over carefully, and then said to my father, who was present, with almost brutal frankness, " This boy has six months to live." I did not believe him. My father asked what was to be done, and he said, " His only chance
i8
OF HIS WORK
is to go to the South of France.'' My father had not enough money to send me. The pinch of poverty had gone from our household by that time, but we were not rich. Again kind friends came to the rescue (one of the for- tunate things in my life has been my kind friends). They immediately put money at my father's disposal and I
went off to the South of France
my second real home-leaving. The first time off to school in England and now to the South of France, an abso- lutely green boy. I was in the society of some very charming English people who had villas there; the late Duke of Westminster and his wife were very kind to me, and many others, too; I was getting well and strong. At the end of three months I was able to walk thirty-five miles. I really had a glorious time. I cannot look back on anything more idly delightful from a
19
A PREACHER'S STORY
boy's point of view. I felt that I was not going to die, but that there was something for me to do in the world. I think the time spent in the South of France was of incalculable value.
By this time I was casting about in my mind as to what I should be, and all my hopes and aims tended towards the army, where I had many friends, and where my ancestors had been for many years ; both on my father's and mother's side my ancestors had been field officers. I loved the army and made up my mind to go into it. With that intention I returned to England at the end of six months, and was con- fronted with the question, what to do ? I awoke to the fact that I had no proper education. The year in the school in England had knocked out what I had learned in Ireland, and the six months in France had knocked out what I had gained at Kensing-
20
OF HIS WORK
ton. I set to work very hard for the next six months with an excel- lent tutor — a fellow of Cambridge, an excellent mathematician and good French master.
During that time something very- remarkable happened ; I began to be interested in the problem of East Lon- don. It was in '67 that the people of London first became alive to the prob- lem of the poverty on the East Side. The East Side Committee was formed, with Lord Ripon, who was after- wards Governor-General of India, Lady Ripon, a type of the high-class English- woman, Lady Hobart, a very dear per- sonal friend of my parents, and others. They made about the first effort to grapple with the East Side problem. One of the pathetic things in London about this time was that no one knew what any one else was doing in this way ; and yet the tremendous problem
21
A PREACHER'S STORY
was being attacked from many points of view. I suppose the ladies on this committee would be considered emo- tional to-day, but they sacrificed time and money in trying to get at the diffi- culty, and in giving help the best way they knew how.
My first visit to the East Side of London was, I believe, the turning- point in my life. I was a gawky boy, but through my father's influence I had entree to some of the best houses in London, so, when this committee was formed, I knew personally half of the members. One day Admiral Fish- bourne came to lunch with my father and said to me :
" Willie, come over with me to the East Side of London ; I want you to see what we are trying to do there." We went to East London to an old chapel in a dirty street where there were about four hundred poor women
22
OF HIS A¥ORK
working. These women met together twice a week for three hours' work, getting sixpence ; I think they also got what they were working on, and when the work was done some one gave an address. They were very ignorant and very poor ; there had been no social movement to reach these people, but these charming ladies (no bluestocking type) took the trouble to show these poor women how to work, and talked with them, and that was something. Well, I went to this chapel, talked with the women, asked questions, etc., and when the time came for the ad- dress, the Admiral, a great big man, got up and said, " My friends, [I hope God has forgiven him the lie] my young friend William Rainsford is here to-day, and has come to make an address." I had no more idea of talking to these people than the man in the moon ; I had never even talked in Sunday-school,
23
A PREACHER'S STORY
so when I heard him say that I shiv- ered with dismay and terror. I was only seventeen ; there were half a dozen ladies present, of whom I was naturally afraid, and four hundred poor women looking up at me. I seized the Bible upside down and stammered and sputtered something for three or four minutes. The agony of that thing is still vivid in my mind. Afterwards one of the ladies, a sweet Christian woman, came to me and said, " Now you must come back next Tuesday." I went back and I spoke again. I think it was largely conceit that gave me courage, but I had made a begin- ning ; but I think God uses our miser- able little sins and mistakes often for his purposes. It ended by my speak- ing regularly to these women. I liked to go, and they listened. So this work in the chapel had important results as far as I was concerned.
24
OF HIS WORK
While in Switzerland I had met a young man named Fred N. Charring- ton, the son of a rich brewer, and among other things we discussed re- ligion, and I talked earnestly about my own religious experiences, which were very real and vital, and a new thing for him. Months afterward, to my amazement, I found Charrington at work in the East Side of London. I met him in this new field ; he had got in ahead of me and was working with great enthusiasm. He had entered a little house in Bethnal Green, and went to live there, his people protesting vio- lently. He is living there to-day. Anoj:her man at that time was going through a similar experience — H. W., also the son of a rich brewer, who afterwards married my sister ; he was also drawn to the work ; and, like Charrington, giving up an enormously large fortune to do it.
25
A PREACHER'S STORY
At that time we knew nothing at all about social service ; but we were anxious to help these people. We all spoke in the streets. It was a religious movement — nothing but religion — we had not the slightest consciousness of the social side of it. Charrington really had a social settlement, but he did not know it.
Before long I was deeper in the East Side work than I knew ; I had worked pretty hard, and had grown to be a pretty stout boy, although the doctors were not quite satisfied. Strangely enough, about this time the committee determined to send out a batch of emi- grants to Canada. There was great distress in East London, and to relieve the pressure somewhat the committee determined to send some families to Canada ; and H. W. and I were as- signed to select the families. He did most of the work. The doctors ad-
26
OF HIS WORK
vised another change for me, and I was anxious to see the country, so H. W. and I took these eight hundred people to Canada, and saw them settled along the Canadian line. The Canadian Emigrant Bureau took charge of them entirely : we simply brought them over, and got reports of where they were settled.
After that was done I wanted to see the States. I proposed to my brother- in-law to go West and shoot buffalo — I wanted to see the great West I had read about as a boy. He met me half- way ; he was well off, and I had no money. Off we started. At that time I still thought of the army ; I had not thought of the ministry.
It was exceedingly interesting from a hunter's point of view, this great West. We arrived at St. Paul, where the rail- road stopped, absolutely ignorant, with- out maps, and no proper outfit ; but,
27
A PREACHER'S STORY
with the ignorance of Englishmen, we thought it would be easy enough to start out and hunt buffalo. We had letters of introduction and of credit from the Hudson Bay Company ; and one fine day in '68 we started out with a discharged soldier of the United States army, with the idea of riding to the last United States army post. The country had been devastated by the Sioux Indians ; everything was de- serted ; occasionally we came upon a shack, the walls riddled with bullets ; and the farther we went the more dis- contented our guide got. At last we got to Winnipeg — it was only Fort Garry then. We laid our plans before the Hudson Bay people. They said we could cross the country all right ; and we started from that place the begin- ning of June, with a Hudson Bay convoy, and we never stopped until we reached Vancouver's Land. So I
28
OF HIS WORK
crossed the plains, and saw the buffalo in herds ; I lived for weeks with differ- ent bands of Indians ; I saw long lines of Indian horsemen charging great herds of buffalo ; I stayed for days with bands of Indians who had never seen a white man except in war; and I had two or three pretty narrow shaves. It was very stimulating and intensely interesting, though somewhat risky.
We found ourselves at last in the heart of the Rocky Mountains at the end of December, near the headwaters of the Columbia River. We had no maps, and often no guide ; sometimes we had to lie hidden all day on account of hostile Indians ; our clothes were in rags. One day I nearly split my foot in two with an ax. We were nearing American civilization, and my brother- in-law, with great self-sacrifice, rode one hundred miles, without food and in a heavy storm, to the nearest outpost
29
A PREACHER'S STORY
for help. Three days later the doctor came, but my wound was then much better. It troubled me for years after- wards.
After returning to the East we spent two months in travelling over the country and visiting the battlefields of the war. I had seen the '^ Illustrated London News " occasionally with pict- ures of the war that had been going on in this country ; but I was very immature then, and they did not make much impression. I went back to England in the summer of '69.
When I got back to England, I set- tled down to hard work. I remember one morning, while studying in the same room where my father was writ- ing his sermon, he suddenly looked up and said : *' Well, have you made up your mind what you want to be ? The desire of my heart is that you should become a clergyman." I was always
30
OF HIS WORK
emotional ; I always jumped before I looked, as my father always said ; and at that moment I seemed to have a vision of my life-work. I had just come back from a trip of adventure in a new country ; I had always looked forward to going into the army, and it came to me then that, should I go into the army, I was in danger of becoming a man of pleasure ; going into fight- ing for the sake of fighting, into ex- ploration simply because of the love of adventure ; and a vision came to me. These moments of vision are known to everybody. I remember the sunlight streaming into the room outlining the pattern of the carpet. I bowed my head and said : " Daddy, if you will send me to Cambridge, I will be a clergyman." That settled it then and there.
My father sent me to Cambridge. I worked pretty hard, but not as hard as
31
A PREACHER'S STORY
I should, and, on the whole, I have not much to say about those Cambridge years. I did not make the most of them. I had the great advantage of attending Lightfoot's classes, and he was very kind to me. Lightfoot was the shyest and biggest-hearted man I met at Cambridge ; and he was a great help to me. Some went to Westcott's lectures; but I was not prepared for them ; I was not enough of a scholar. When I left Cambridge I knew almost nothing about theology. I simply knew the Bible as my mother had taught it to me. I prayed ; I tried to be good. ' I passed through a fearful struggle at Cambridge with what is called evil, which first presented itself to me there with terrific power. In my boyhood, and during my strenuous, open-air life in the West, I was not tempted much with evil ; but when I came to my full
32
OF HIS WORK
strength and force at Cambridge and had leisure time, evil presented itself with all its seductions. I had a most appalling struggle, and through the mercy of God I came out all right. I think that strengthened me so that years afterwards things that appealed to other men did not appeal to me at all. The intellectual struggle was to come years afterwards ; I was then simply a boy struggling with the flesh.
The intellectual struggle really ought to have come then, or ought at least to have begun. It compHcated my posi- tion that it did not come until later. I simply took things as I heard them ; no intellectual ferment at that time touched me ; I have no doubt there was such ferment, but it made no im- pression on me whatever. You know what I mean by a " grind.'' I suppose if you got hold of one of that sort he would tell you that many men entered 3 33
A PREACHER'S STORY
earnestly into the spiritual, social, and political movements of the time ; but I was not a grind, and not particularly intellectual. I remember one brilliant man at St. John's, a queer, lonely crea- ture who was looked upon as a heretic ; but I suppose I should call him very conservative now. No doubt I might have made much more of my oppor- tunities ; the conversation at the college table was anything but inspiring ; we never got much in the way of politics, literature, theology, or anything else. The most earnest fellows I knew there gathered at the prayer-meeting on Sun- day afternoons ; over one hundred and fifty men used to meet every Sunday ; the meetings were entirely evangelical in character. I cannot recall anybody who touched me deeply through preach- ing ; Dean Farrar I heard, but he did not impress me particularly. Nobody impressed me as did my father ; his
34
OF HIS WORK
doctrine was sufficient for me ; and his earnestness touched me.
The High Church movement did not touch Cambridge much. I am in- chned to think that if you asked any ordinary Oxford man — a man fairly average in everything and not specially prominent in any one thing — he would tell you that the general effect of the High Church movement on the Uni- versity was grossly exaggerated. When I give my impression, I am speaking for the vast majority of clean, decent, well-bred fellows at Cambridge who went through the University without particular distinction. Another man might come along and give you an entirely different picture of Cambridge during that time ; but the movement of unrest did not touch me. I was not at all a prominent man in college. We had athletics, and I might have been a good oar, but I got rheumatism in my
35
A PREACHER'S STORY
back and had to quit just about when I was beginning to amount to something. I might have rowed in the 'Varsity if it had not been for that bad luck. I was second captain for a time in col- lege ; but altogether I was a very in- conspicuous figure in Cambridge.
So I say I was not affected by any great movement ; I do not believe Harvard as a whole is much affected by such things ; but I do think there is far more discussion of public things at Harvard to-day than at Cambridge then. Moreover, I think it is hard for you to realize how very boyish we were at that time in England — how immature. I was very immature at twenty-three ; perhaps more so than the average, although in a way I had had wider experience than some. My own boys knew more at seventeen than I did at twenty-three. I had nobody to advise me and tell me things as I
36
OF HIS WORK
tell them. My father was as innocent as I was ; he knew nothing of the world ; he lived in a world of his own.
While at Cambridge I was keeping fully in touch with the East End Lon- don work. Whenever I got a holiday, I was off to the East Side. I passed my examinations pretty well, and took a plain degree. The question then was : where to go.
37
A PREACHER'S STORY
III
CURATE AND STREET PREACHER
WHEN I left Cambridge I had attained a certain reputation because of my speaking at the East End — such speaking as it was. My father naturally thought it would be a good thing for me to be in London. He had considerable influ- ence; and it would not have been diffi- cult for me to become a curate at St. Margaret's, Westminster, where Canon Conway, of Westminster, a great friend of my father's, was at that time the rector. But I felt that were I to be- come curate of a great and fashion- able London church, I should become worldly and frivolous. Besides, I was not fit for the place; I did not know
38
OF HIS WORK
enough ; and, as I look back, I cannot thank God enough that, with all my faults and sins, I was determined from the bottom of my soul to do the best I knew. I think if a man, by God's grace, can keep in that unworldly spirit, it is wonderful how he will pull through without any human help ; for I had no help from any one in these matters. I came to the con- clusion that London was not the place for me. About this time a man I had never heard of offered me a curacy in Norwich — the Rev. William Nottage Ripley. Norwich was a city of eighty- five thousand people in the centre of the shoe trade, at that time in a most depressed condition, being torn between the old and new methods of manufac- turing — handwork and machinery. I heard of the unfortunate conditions and of the unsatisfactory religious life in the churches, and I knew there was
39
A PREACHER'S STORY
work to be done ; and, as always, jump- ing before I looked, I accepted the offer.
My father, when he was bidding me good-by, gave me a piece of advice for which I can never be thankful enough, and which I have repeated in hundreds of cases, I hope with profit to all who have heard it. He said :
** You are going to a place where you will probably have a great deal of speaking and teaching to do. You are not prepared to do it ; let me give you one bit of advice : Give your whole week, if necessary every single morning in the week, to preparing as thoroughly as you can one discourse; if you do that thoroughly, you will never run utterly dry, even if you have to speak five or ten other times during the week without preparation."
I owe a great deal of my success to following out that one idea. If you
40
OF HIS WORK
enrich your mind on one single subject, honestly and persistently, it gives you a certain sense of security, even if you have to repeat it again and again. I found that by concentrating on one subject, and keeping at it until I had something to say on it that was w^orth listening to, I was never utterly de- feated.
I went to Norwich. I had never seen my rector nor his wife, but found they lived in a beautiful place called Earlham Hall, three miles out of Nor- wich. There was a trap waiting for me at the depot. I put in my little portmanteau, and said I would walk. After I had been walking some dis- tance, I met a lady walking along with a very sprightly gait ; she looked hard at me and said, ** You must be our new curate." " Are you Mrs. Ripley ? " I asked. ** I am," she said ; and that was my first meeting with the dear
41
A PREACHER'S STORY
woman who was afterwards a second mother to me.
The next Sunday evening I preached my first sermon in St. Giles's Church. It was a beautiful church — over four hundred years old — one of forty-eight churches in Norwich, surrounded by a parish composed of the very poorest shoemakers, and a certain element of professional men — lawyers and doc- tors — belonging to the town. Natur- ally, that Sunday evening before I spoke was a terrible time for me. I had made the best preparation I could for my first sermon ; it was extem- poraneous ; somehow I felt from the start that I lost power by writing. I have always spoken to people. Some- times I have written what I really felt to be a good sermon ; I have worked over it until not a sentence could be changed with profit, as far as I could see ; I have read it, and lost in
42
OF HIS WORK
power. I cannot account for that, but
it is so.
Naturally, the whole congregation turned out in Norwich to hear the new curate. When I got into the pulpit, I was full of misery ; never have I for- gotten the agony of that first sermon. I walked down as into the darkness. I felt that I had made a hopeless fail- ure. And as I stood alone, Mrs. Ripley came up to me and said, " Thank God, my boy, that you have been called to preach."
I began a strenuous life in Norwich. I lived in a tiny house, but I was very comfortable. My rector insisted on my visiting, and visit I did. Before I knew it I was simply overwhelmed with the amount I had to do. It seemed to me I did not seek it; it sought me.
If I were to describe to you the re- ligious state of that town, you would scarcely believe it. There were forty-
43
A PREACHER'S STORY
eight old churches — college livings — very poor livings, but enough for a man to live on. The holders of some of these livings did little — some had sunk into a spiritual slough. I did not know them, as a rule; they looked upon me as a wild firebrand, and had nothing to say to me. I think now, on looking back, I was often thought- less in my dealings with them and hasty in my judgments.
One church, a very old church, was held by a don of Cambridge, a remark- able scholar in his day. That man was a curiosity. On certain occasions he used to have, comparatively speaking, a full church, because he introduced cer- tain things into the service that amused people. Among other things, when he came, in the Psalter for the twenty- fourth day, to the tenth verse of Psalm cxvi., where, you remember, it reads, " I said in my haste, All men are liars,'*
44
OF HIS WORK
he would invariably stop and say, " David, if you had lived in these days, you would have said it at your leisure." And in the lesson for the twenty-first Sunday after Trinity occurs the passage, *^ At what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psal- tery, dulcimer, and all kinds of musick, ye fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king hath set up." This list of instruments is repeated, you recall, three times in the course of the chapter. The first time he would read it as it is written, but the other three times he would substitute for it the phrase, " The afore- said gentlemen with the brass band." He had other eccentricities that he would indulge in on stated occasions. These things came to be known, and on those Sundays the church would be full. Once a year there was a collection for the choir, and he got some one
45
A PREACHER'S STORY
else into the pulpit to address his people and draw a crowd. After I had been about a year and a half in Norwich, he asked me to preach. The feature of that church was its music. The wife of the old don had a beautiful voice ; they had gathered together a good choir. The pulpit was a tiny black- oak box, with a small desk for the Bible or sermon. This desk sloped down ; my Bible slipped, and I had to stoop to get it ; in stooping I leaned against the pulpit door; it split open, and I nearly fell out of the pulpit ! After I had been preaching for a time, I looked down into the choir, which was in a great box pew in front of the pulpit, after the old-fashioned way, shut off from the congregation by a curtain ; and I saw one fellow put his arm right around the waist of the girl next to him and draw her head down to his shoulder ; and he kept it there ;
46
OF HIS WORK
then he looked up straight into my face and winked. It broke me all up. I walked out of the pulpit, went to the
rector, and said : " Dr. , your
choir members are behaving outra- geously ; I cannot preach until this is stopped." He walked up to the square pew where the choir sat, tore the red baize curtain down with a jerk, and exposed them, disconcerted and ashamed, to the full view of the con- gregation, and then sat down again. I returned to the pulpit and went on with my sermon. In the midst of it I looked and saw walking up the middle aisle, in solemn procession, a hen with twelve or fourteen chickens ! When the sexton tried to drive them out, he was so drunk that he fell right on top of the hen ! The old doctor called out, " Let her alone, John; she is doing no harm.''
In Norwich I was face to face with a very poor and very discontented
47
A PREACHER'S STORY
population. The problem that natu- rally presented itself to me was, How to reach these people ? I started to preach — in the church — on the street. Saturday was always a great day. Then everybody gathered in the beautiful market-square in the middle of the town ; and I used to stand in the market-place ringing a big bell with all my might. When I got about a thou- sand people about, I began to preach. That is the way I began my ministry in Norwich. I gathered young men around me — perhaps forty — and gave them certain districts. We preached on the streets, about the love of Jesus and conversion — purely evangelical; I had no qualms or difficulties of any sort intellectually. What I preached was the doctrine of Jesus Christ appeal- ing to men ; there was a great deal of hell-fire in it ; it dwelt on the impera- tive need of being born again — people
48
OF HIS \\^ O R K
were the children of the devil and not the children of God until they turned back again to their Father ! The in- congruity of it all had not struck me then. The people there were ready for nothing else ; any other preaching would have been absurd; any other preaching would have been impossible for me ; it was the very best thing to give them ; it was all I had.
The Church has always had a mes- sage from God to the people. If a man only tries to do the best he knows, and talks what he believes, he will have as much power and influence at one point of experience as at another. I never, so far as I know, influenced people more for good than in those green, unripe days when I was simply praying and preaching the best I knew. For four or five months I preached every night in the streets ; and met with opposition at first — opposition 4 49
A PREACHER'S STORY
which naturally would come from vice, ignorance, and brutality. Many were reached and touched ; although I did not know whether those who made the disturbance were ever reached. In this way I became known, and was soon bewildered with invitations to preach. We once invited Henry Var- ley to come to Norwich ; he was ahead of most evangelists, and he did great work in Norwich for ten days. We took St. Andrew's Hall, holding about two thousand people, and he filled it every night.
When he was about to go he said to me, " Rainsford, you must continue these meetings Sunday nights.''
I cannot think of it," I answered. You 've got to ; these people are hungry and must be fed."
" So help me God, I '11 try," I said.
The result was that, for two years, every Sunday night I preached in St.
50
OF HIS WORK
Andrew's Hall to congregations vary- ing from one to two thousand people.
Let me tell you a strange instance. About three years ago I was travelling in the West, and a man came to me on the train and said, " You must be Mr. Rainsford."
" I am/' I said.
** I used to listen to you in St. An- drew's Hall, Norwich, in 1875, and I have never forgotten those services. I am living in Dakota now."
In Norwich my Sunday work began early and lasted until late at night. We had early communion at eight o'clock ; Sunday-school at half-past nine ; at eleven o'clock, service, when I very often preached, as my rector was not in good health ; and every second Sunday I preached anyway ; afternoon service and sermon at four, which I took ; in the evening I always preached, and we soon began to have
51
A PREACHER'S STORY
crowds ; and after the evening service I went to St. Andrew's Hall, and then walked to Earlham Hall and slept until nine o'clock the next morning.
The rector kept insisting that I visit among the poor people, and I visited a good deal every day. My district was comparatively a small one. I usually arose at six, and did two or three hard hours' work before break- fast ; after breakfast I studied my Greek Testament, and then worked at my sermon for the next Sunday ; for I ran up against pretty strong criticism. You could not find more critical audi- ences than these people, though they were not intellectual. They did not want new ideas ; they resented them ; and very often I met with a good deal of protest, though the rector always stuck to me. The home of the rector and his wife was a blessing to me ; when I got very tired, I would go out
52
OF HIS WORK
to Earlham Hall, and often stayed a few days. I did a tremendous amount of work in those days, and yet I was seldom tired ; I seemed to have super- abundant health. Soon the church was jammed every Sunday ; other churches filled up too ; we opened a tent in Norwich ; the whole city was stimu- lated. The Bishop of Norwich was always kind to me. My friends, how- ever, all looked upon me as strange and unaccountable ; they never knew what I was going to do next.
Up to this time I did not have any doubt in my mind at all ; no diffi- culties seemed to come to me until the last year of my stay in Norwich ; the change then came suddenly and very painfully.
53
A PREACHER'S STORY
IV
THE DETERMINATION TO FAIL
I BEGAN to be aware about that time that my father was not quite holding his own in London. He was more than a Low Churchman ; he was a very extreme Low Church type ; and when I speak of him, I speak of his school ; they had no con- ception at all of the Church idea. They were Gospel preachers, seeking only to evoke personal experience. That school did not really admit to themselves that religious life was pos- sible except through the definite form of experience. An absolute require- ment was a conscious conversion to God, which they called New Birth ; there was really «no distinction made
54
OF HIS WORK
in their minds between New Birth and Conversion — they were synonymous terms in their minds. They had no conception at all of the Church as an organization ; they were individuahsts of the most marked type. Baptism was entirely a sign ; and I may say right here that the question of bap- tism was the thin edge of the wedge which wrought havoc with my faith ; my doubts commenced on this ques- tion of baptism.
About that time, Mr. Wilkinson, who afterwards was made Bishop of Truro, was appointed to the vicarage of St. Peter's, Eaton Square, the church next my father's in London ; and Wil- kinson began to draw to himself the attention of that part of London. He was as zealous and almost as emotional in his appeal as the Evangelical party were ; but he had an idea of the re- lation of the Church to society which
55
A PREACHER'S STORY
the Evangelical party never had. To mention a concrete illustration : There was my father's church, with, I might say, almost one of the strongest clien- teles in London, and it never occurred to him, nor to any of the men in half a dozen or more other chapels of the same sort (some of which were livings held by trustees for the Evangelical party under the deed of Lady Hunt- ingdon), to associate these preaching centers with any special work in the great town. For instance, my father's church had no parochial connection whatever. The social idea of the Church's relation to the community, to leaven and lighten it and minister to it, was almost a thing apart from the Evangelical movement of '50 and '60. My father was simply the clergy- man in charge of St. John's ; there was no district attached to it ; it was simply a preaching church ; and it is
56
OF HIS WORK
there to-day under precisely the same conditions.
In the meantime, the High Church people had got very distinctly in their minds the relation of the Church to the community. My father, and the others of his party, appealed to men's sense of sin. There were many vivid experiences ; his ministry v^as insistent, his visiting persistent ; night and day he went among his people, going from house to house ; but the other man, of a different type, a few blocks away, set other people to work, told them what to do and how to do it. In his parish he sought to direct the spiritual life of his people into channels that had good results in the community ; and, natu- rally, work like that was more perma- nent than that of my father, which was simply based on personal experience. His people came to him Sunday after Sunday ; and the sermon was the one
57
A PREACHER'S STORY
mark in their lives from week to week. The rest of the service was very slov- enly— all the methods of the church were slovenly ; they had no conception at all of worship as we understand it. The sermon was everything. The Nonconformists differed from them in that with them the pulpit was the center of a vast number of organi- zations. For instance, a Methodist meeting-house would have connected with it a series of organizations and committees, whereas the Evangelical churches had nothing of the sort. They never recognized the opportu- nity of working in the community. The High Church people came along, saw that opportunity, and stepped into the gap ; so they maintained their or- ganization and drew people away from the others. It is of vital importance to remember that in order to under- stand the downfall of the Evangelical
58
OF HIS WORK
party as a power in England in '60 and '70. I am not now speaking of this country at all.
The change in my father's congre- gation naturally impressed me, and I tried to account for it in my own mind. I had no idea at that time of any organization in the Church. In my work in East London we had no idea of social service — the idea was simply to preach to the people. Of course, if they were hungry, we gave them bread (unwisely very often) ; if they were naked, we tried to clothe them, in a purely charitable way ; but the appeal was wholly to the soul; the body was lost sight of. This was more so in West London, where there were no poor to deal with ; hence it was purely the indulgence of a deep religious feeling in listening to the man you loved best and who could touch you most deeply. The High
59
A PREACHER'S STORY
Church party added something to that, and gained a strong foothold.
In Norwich I found myself in a community where the spiritual life was at the lowest ebb ; and I had no method of reaching the people except by preaching ; and this I did, as I have said, in the pulpit, at Sunday-school, in the great City Hall downtown, which was six or seven hundred years old, and on the streets — anywhere — it was preach, preach, preach. We had not yet learned to be interested in the social evolution of the people. All I knew was to preach the Gospel by word of mouth, from the pulpit, on the street — anywhere. I noticed the great falling off in the congregation in my father's church, but I had no means of correcting it, except by more zealous and more persistent preaching, and by naturally developing the gift of associ- ating other young men with me, which
60
OF HIS WORK
my father did not have. He simply- preached to the people who came on Sunday ; but, as I say, I drew other young men around me and gave them something to do.
In my work in Norwich I was encouraged and helped by the Non- conformist churches more than by churches of my own denomination. I had much support and help from the Congregationalists. Norwich was the center of Congregational life. Doc- tors Barrett and Gould were quite famous in the Congregational ministry — men of considerable intellectuality. In that way I had the privilege and ad- vantage of intellectual companionship, especially with Dr. Barrett, from whom I gained a great deal. In my own Church I had no special intellectual companionship, except with one or two men, especially the Rev. J. W. Nash, a
noble man.
6i
A PREACHER'S STORY
I cannot exactly remember how my trouble began ; but towards the end of my second year in Norwich I became deeply troubled over the question of infant baptism. It was in that way, I think, that the critical spirit first touched me. I could not make the wording of our service agree with what I was preaching, and I could not alter my preaching. I saw nothing then but simply the appeal to men through Jesus Christ to be converted and turn to God. When they did that, I taught, they became the sons of God ; and I could not make that agree with the very definite teaching in the service that men by baptism were made chil- dren of God.
The next step was that I saw how this might be applied to adult baptism, but I could not see how it applied to infant baptism. Then I began to read very widely in the literature of baptism ;
62
OF HIS WORK
I got into correspondence with the best men in the country — Mr. Spur- geon among the rest — he sent me a whole sheaf of books, which I read diHgently; I read our own literature on the subject, and at last I went to my rector. He could not help me at all ; the stock arguments with which the Evangelical party sought to compromise between the teaching of our baptismal service and their preaching I could not swallow.
To make a long story short, I went to every man I could find whose opin- ion I could respect on the question of infant baptism ; first to my dear rector, then to my dear father, and then to my bishop; and, while most anxious to help me, they could not do any- thing for me to settle the things that by this time were troubling me most terribly. In fact, I had come to the conclusion that infant baptism was not
63
A PREACHER'S STORY
to be found in the New Testament ; I could not satisfy myself that there was any proof that infants had been bap- tized by Jesus and his disciples ; and I do not believe so to-day. You must remember that I was to the backbone a believer in the Scripture as inspired literature, and not only that, but that every word of it was literally true ; it was not an inspiration merely, but a divine dictation. An argument by in- ference would not satisfy me. I had no vision of evolution along the whole line which came to me afterwards. I was consumed with the desire to do the truth and to preach what was true. I could not find in the New Testa- ment that infants had been baptized. I could reconcile the idea perfectly to adult baptism ; a man had individual experience, inward experience, he con- fessed it — that was all right ; but a child could have no inward experi-
64
OF HIS WORK
ence ; and the whole idea of confession through some one else, and having somebody else say something over you, v^as repellent to me. This came be- cause of my intense belief in the very Gospel which the Evangelical party taught — the essential need of the inner voice. I was simply following the Evangelical position ; and I was really doing my first bit of Higher Criticism. Nobody helped me, be- cause all the men who might have helped me begged the question of infant baptism.
At last I felt I could not compromise with my conscience any more. My rector told me I need not use the bap- tismal service — he would let me off on that — but I was not satisfied, and I went to my bishop. He talked to me, but he could not say much that I did not know on the subject — I had studied and read ; and nobody suggested that
5 65
A PREACHER'S STORY
the idea of infant baptism was a gradual growth of the custom of the Church, following the example of Christ's dis- ciples who baptized adults ; and that afterwards the child, having a natural place in the religious community, came to be baptized. That idea had not yet dawned on me. I was a poor, green, ignorant boy struggling with the first tremendous difficulty.
I remember, before going to my bishop, I went to see my father in London. I told him, and he argued and plead with me not to throw up my work, and not to give up my posi- tion of influencing others, and so on. With despair in my heart I started off on a long walk, and at last, after much wandering, found myself in front of a low, dirty brick chapel in the south of London beyond the Thames. I saw that it was a Baptist chapel, and I bowed my head and said, " It is a long
66
OF HIS WORK
way that has led to this, but, so help me God, if I cannot see my way out, I will spent the rest of my life in a place like this." And I got peace; I had the feeling that I was willing to do my best. And I want to emphasize right here that any usefulness which afterwards came to me was the result, again and again, by His grace, of get- ting into that position or state of mind. There was nothing I was not willing to do if only He would show me the way.
Then I went to my bishop and said, " I am very sorry, but I must give up my letters of orders ; '' and then I was blessed with the advice of a wise and good man. He said, <^ My son, I ordained you. I have watched your work and I have approved it, and I lay my hands on you as an old man and as your bishop, and say to you : Go and earn your bread any way you can ;
67
A PREACHER'S STORY
preach the Gospel, if you can, for two years, and at the end of two years come back to me, and if you still feel that you must resign your letters of orders, I will take them. You have promised to obey, and I now lay this command on you." I obeyed his command. I went back to Norwich and stayed.
I did not know where to turn. My people thought I was crazy, very natu- rally. My good friends were worried to death over me, but they could only pray and show their sympathy. I did not know what to do. I did not find another soul going through a similar experience. Four years later I entered upon a far more formidable struggle ; but I will come to that later ; that is, my struggle in Canada, which marked my ministry definitely.
All I could do was to pray. I was
terribly upset. I finally told my dear
friends and my rector that I must go.
68
OF HIS WORK
He said, " Where ? '' I did not know. I seemed ungrateful. I had the kind- est friend man ever had, and, without exaggeration, I may say I had a great deal of social support, which is invalu- able in the Church of England. People wanted to give me work to do which I felt in my heart I was unfit for. They offered me positions, and I knew I was not a big enough man to fill them, and yet I was restless and dis- satisfied, and anxious to turn my back on the whole thing.
A few days after I had seen the bishop, I went back to my little lodg- ings in Norwich, after a day of terrible unrest, and found two letters for me. I suppose every man recalls some in- stance in his life that he cannot ac- count for. I do not at all accept the theory of " special providences ; " but there are some things so remarkable
that you cannot account for them logi-
69
A PREACHER'S STORY
cally. Well, on this day, the same mail had brought me two letters which I found on my table ; one asking me to undertake an evangelical tour in Australia with Henry Varley for a year ; the other asking me to take charge for the summer of a church in New York City on Madison Avenue. The rector I had never heard of. I bowed my head again. Here was a way out. I had not the ghost of an idea where the call from New York came from ; but I learned afterwards it came through a friend — a lady — travelling in America. This clergyman was worn out, and wanted some one to take charge of his church for four or five months while he rested. " I know just the man you want," she said. He asked her to write to me. She had said, "He was here in the country for a year and likes it ; he 's just the one." She had not the slightest idea of the
70
OF HIS WORK
struggle going on in my mind at that time. As I say, some things you can- not explain. New York was a great deal nearer my home than Australia, and so, for no other reason, I wrote back saying I would come. About a week afterwards — on the 2d of June — I took passage on a steamer for New York. I turned my back on the dear- est, kindest friends a man ever had. They crowded around me when I left Norwich ^ — the young men — they gave me a watch and their blessing, and I went, the sickest, saddest, lone- liest fellow who ever turned his back on his native land.
^ I did not go back to Norwich until fourteen years afterwards, and when I did go their welcome was some- thing tremendous. You could not get into the church for the jam of people outside waiting to welcome me.
71
A PREACHER'S STORY
AN ALIEN MISSIONER
I ARRIVED in this country on the loth of June, in the fiercest kind of heat — 103° in the shade; I remember it very well. There was a layman waiting for me when the steamer landed, and he took me out to a New Jersey suburb, where, in
his country house, I found Dr. ,
with his wife and one of their chil- dren.
He welcomed me very kindly, told me he was going to rest for the sum- mer, and that he wanted me to take charge of the church ; and then he said : " In addition, I have a tent on Thirty-fourth Street and Broadway, and I want you to preach in that tent every evening."
72
OF HIS WORK
I sat back : and said with a gasp, " My dear sir, I came over understand- ing I was to preach twice on Sunday ; that will give me all I can manage. I am not a man to stand up in a great city and preach every night. I am only twenty-six ; I am nothing of a preacher ; it will be all I can do to prepare for preaching twice on Sunday."
" Oh, there are men who will help you in the tent," he replied, " and, anyway, you Ve got to do it."
I had lived a hand-to-mouth life, as it were, among poor people — the ignorant factory-folk, the working people, in the city of Norwich, with its eighty-five thousand inhabitants, and in the East of London. But never was a man less fitted to deal with the complex questions that a city like New York develops. But there I was, and there was nothing for me
73
A PREACHER'S STORY
to do but to begin. The next Sunday came, and I preached, and a vilely bad sermon it was. Sometimes even now I get all in a sweat when I am in the pulpit, and almost lose my head; but at that time I lost my head continually. I stammered, stuttered, and floundered about, trying to get my bearings. Everything was new and strange ; and in front sat this man — the Doctor — listening critically. I knew when I got through that I had preached as bad a sermon as I had ever preached in my life. The Doctor was deeply disappointed ; in fact, he as much as told me that he was disappointed. He was very frank, and said : " I have got to get away and take a rest, and you must do the best you can." And so I entered upon my work in New York.
Those were days of depression. I had a room in a Broadway hotel, where I boarded, and I had a study
74
OF HIS WORK
in the tower of the church ; and from the middle of June to the middle of September I preached twice every Sun- day in church, and every single night in the tent on Thirty-fourth Street. I had to get up early in the mornings, and in the boiling heat of the tower room sit and grind until I had worked out something I could say to those people. All that time I met no one but one family who knew me and helped me. I was lonely, and engaged in a mental struggle the painfulness of which no man can conceive who has not been through it himself, and pray- ing daily, " Give me this day my daily bread to give to these people ! ** My difficulties were very great. Every evening I preached in the tent as well as I could. I remember when I got through a man got up — a good man — he was a butcher — and said some things that, even in my immaturity,
75
A PREACHER'S STORY
I knew undid everything I had said ; and then another man in the same rank in hfe got up and said some- thing ; it was more of a jumble than I was prepared for, and I saw it would not do ; low as my own standards were, I felt that this was worse. I stood it about a week, and then I made up my mind that, poorly fitted as I was to talk to the congregations that gathered, these men were much less fitted. So I telegraphed to the rector saying I had come to the de- cision that if I were to do the work, I must have absolute control. He wrote back that I was working with men with whom he had been working for years, and that I must continue to work with them. Then I sent word : " If that is so, you must accept my resignation." He could not do that, because he did not want to come back ; and so it went at that, and I
76
OF HIS WORK
had the power given into my hands, but in that unwelcome way.
Of course these people went away growling and grumbling, and I was lonelier than ever ; but the congrega- tions began to grow. This was not because my preaching had any special value ; for, looking back, I cannot but feel that it was made up of the most hastily constructed, unconsidered, ex- temporaneous utterances that a boy with a certain volubility and doing the very best he could was capable of. It was Centennial year — a fearful sum- mer ; during July and August the ther- mometer in New York averaged 84°, night and day. I suppose there was not a church open on Fifth Avenue during that summer; people were crowding the city on their way to the Centennial, and so after a time the tent was almost full. On Sundays the church was quite full, and I began
11
A PREACHER'S STORY
to taste for the first time the sense of being able to put things through, and it thrilled me. It was sweet beyond words. I was sick and tired ; I could not sleep at night ; I do not think I averaged more than four hours' sleep every night during that summer ; and the mosquitoes, which I had known nothing of before, worried me ; but I began to feel that I had plunged into the midst of things. I felt that I had a message for these people in New York, as I had had a message for the people in Norwich.
I had a good many discouragements. For instance, the rector came back before the set time had elapsed. I had a definite engagement with him, so he could not put me out ; but he advertised himself to preach at the same hour in the church opposite, and I had much to contend with.
I finished my work in the middle
78
OF HIS WORK
of September. I had carefully made a list of all the people who came to me ; I took names and addresses ; and so, when my work was done, I had a list of over two hundred names of people who said they wished to join this church in which I had been laboring. When my time was up, I handed the list to the rector, and said I had done the best I could. I might say right here that about this time Mr. Aiken, famous in America as well as in Eng- land, had asked me to associate myself with him to take up mission service in England ; but I did not want to go back to England just then. His invi- tation, however, gave me the idea to take up missions in the States, for then I could get away from my troubles about baptism. I also had an invita- tion from a large Presbyterian church here to accept the pastorate of that church, but I did not want to accept
79
A PREACHER'S STORY
the pastorate of any church. I wanted to be free until I could see my way clear and go back in peace to my own land. So, having about decided to take up mission work in the States, when the time came for me to go from New York, I asked the rector for letters of introduction. It was a blow when he refused to give me letters.
I pressed for reasons. I said, " I have worked hard here, and of the result of my work I think you are fully aware ; why will you not give me letters ? ''
" Well," he said, " if I give you letters to different churches, you will go there and unsettle the rector; the people may want you, not him, after a fortnight."
" But," I said, " I am not seeking a place in the Episcopal Church; I am not seeking your place or any one's. Here is the list of two hundred people
80
OF HIS WORK
who have come to me as a result of my work. All I want is a chance to earn my bread so that I will not be obliged to go home until I can see my way and know what to do."
He would not give me any letters, and I was almost in despair. I had no money, and I was on the point of cabling to my father for funds to take me back again. (I might say inci- dentally that I owed a dentist's bill of fourteen dollars, which I was not able to pay for a long time.) I had never taken money from my father after leaving Cambridge, and I did not want to begin. In my quandary I went to Bishop Horatio Potter.
I took my letters of orders out of my pocket and said : " Sir, I am a clergyman in good standing. I have been preaching every Sunday all sum- mer in the church at Street,
and every evening in the tent on 6 8i
A PREACHER'S STORY
Thirty-fourth Street and Broadway. I want to take up mission work in the Episcopal Church in this country, and I cannot get letters commendatory to the clergy from the rector. I want to know whether you will give me a letter." I shall never forget the quick and loving response which the old man made.
" Mr. Rainsford, I attended some of your meetings in the tent, and I liked the work, sir. I shall gladly give you a letter, sir."
" May I use the letter ?" I asked.
** You may use the letter in any way you please, sir."
And the old man wrote me a mag- nificent letter. I had the letter printed, and then I broke down. I had a sud- den sharp attack of illness, and with the last money I had I went off into the Maine woods for ten days, with a guide ; and, being young and strong, I
came back feeling all right again.
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OF HIS WORK
I sent a copy of the Bishop's letter to different churches, and received a response from a church in Baltimore — you know the Southern way — full of enthusiasm : " Mr. Rainsford, will you come and hold a mission in such and such a church ? We have heard of your work in the tent ; our people are church-going people, but they need to be stirred up ; you are just the man we want. Will you come down and hold the mission ? " I think this was about the first week in October. I wrote back saying I would be glad to come, and asking them to make some simple preparation for my coming. Then I stayed with friends in New York until the time came — at the one single house in the city where I was received — and on the Friday before the Sunday I was to begin my mission I left for Baltimore. I wrote saying I was coming. There
83
A PREACHER'S STORY
was no one at the depot to meet me. I left my portmanteau and made my way to the rectory. When I got there, the rectory was closed. I made inquiries and found that the rector was in Philadelphia at the Centennial.
" Is there no other clergyman con- nected with the church ? " I asked.
" No."
'' None at all ? "
" No."
" Do you know of any mission to be held here ? "
" No, don't know anything about any mission ; the missionary collections were taken some time ago, and we don't want any more."
I asked if there was no one to give me information about the church, and finally I was directed to an insurance agent, who was a deacon in the church. I went to him, and found him a de-
84
OF HIS WORK
lightful man. Yes, I found a lifelong friend.
"Do you know anything about a mission to begin in your church next Sunday ? " I asked.
" No."
** Do you know anything about a man named Rainsford who is coming down to take charge of it ? "
" Never heard of him/' he said, cheerfully.
" Well, then, there 's nothing to be done ; I *d better go back to England,'* I said.
" What do you mean by a mission } " he asked, beginning to be interested.
I sat down and talked to him about half an hour, and he said, *' Why, that 's just the thing we want."
" But there 's no preparation made at all," I replied.
« Well," he said, " Dr. has for- gotten all about it; that 's just like
85
A PREACHER'S STORY
him ; he '11 not be back before eleven o'clock Saturday night ; but this is, I believe, God's doing ; you stay — "
" But what can I do w^ithout any preparation ? ''
" Go ahead any w^ay you like," he said.
I took the last dollars I had in the world and had two hundred posters printed :
" Mission, such and such a church. Beginning Sunday, such and such a time. W. S. Rainsford will preach Sunday morning and evening and each day in the week. Bible readings [as we called them] at 1 2 o'clock. Gospel services 8 o'clock. All welcome."
I took these two hundred circulars under my arm — all I could afford — and succeeded in getting these posters placed in the windows of the best shops on Charles Street; I also got the street- car people to put them up, free of
86
OF HIS WORK
charge — two things which I have never been able to get done in a town since ; and then I waited for Sunday to come.
At eleven o'clock Saturday night back came the Doctor. I was in his study waiting for him.
" Mr. Rainsford, I am glad to see you, delighted to see you, sir. I have not made any preparation — in fact, our people are not back in town yet, but I 'm glad to see you. I am going to preach Sunday morning, the Bishop will preach Sunday night, and you will begin Monday."
" Dear Doctor," I said, " I have only come here to help you, but I cannot agree to the arrangement that you preach in the morning and the Bishop in the evening. I 've got to get hold of the people on Sunday if I hope to reach them during the week."
87
rm- a ■T,'» ^ » I
A PREACHER'S STORY
" Mr. Rainsford, you are a stranger in this country ; you do not under- stand ; I am rector of this church, and I repeat, I shall preach in the morn- ing, the Bishop Sunday evening, and you begin Monday." It was a little thing, you may say, but it was a real crisis.
" Dear sir," I said again, " I am only here to help the work in this church and to do the best I can, but I know my business. If I begin the way you suggest, the mission will be a failure. No doubt you are going to preach to-morrow morning and the Bishop Sunday night, but then I am not going to begin on Monday."
He stormed up and down his study for twenty minutes. I did not say a word ; I sat on the sofa and looked at him. At the end of twenty minutes he rushed out saying he had got hold of a rampageous Englishman who was
88
OF HIS WORK
bound to have his way, and asked the Bishop to let him off. The Bishop let him off, and I began Sunday morn- ing. It was not exactly encouraging. It was a wet, stormy day. I preached in the morning, and I really felt that God stood by me. When I got through, the Doctor said, "You did a great deal better than I expected ; you will make a preacher. But you made a great mistake ; you did not take any text.*'
*^ Doctor,'* I said, " I am not here to preach sermons. You have been taking texts and preaching better ser- mons than I can preach all these years ; I am here only for ten days ; I must work in my own way."
" Go the way other people have gone," he replied ; " do not do that sort of thing."
I preached again in the evening, and we had as many as in the morn-
89
A PREACHER'S STORY
ing ; again the Doctor grumbled be- cause I took no text ; on Monday as many as on Sunday, and by the time Wednesday came the church was three-quarters full. There was an old-fashioned pulpit, from which one could look right down on the com- munion-table. On Wednesday even- ing I heard the sound of emotional crying. I looked down, and there sat the Doctor, his head wrapped in his surplice, crying like a baby. Before I could give the blessing, he ran to the front of the church, spread out his arms, and cried :
** Friends, you must come to hear this young man ! ■ '
After that the church was always
full. That was my first mission in
the United States. For two and a
half years I went all over the country
holding missions in a similar way ; and
I have always been thankful for the
90
OF HIS WORK
good opportunity it gave me for know- ing the country and the people. I twice had a mission in Baltimore, one in Washington, in Philadelphia, in Boston, in Harlem, several places in Ohio, in Kentucky, etc. ; I got pretty well around the country.
After a time, at the end of the second or beginning of the third year of mission work, I got an urgent in- vitation to go to Canada ; and I went to London, Ontario, where I had one of the most successful missions in my whole experience. That led to my being asked to Toronto, and there the work developed into something more than a mission; it led ultimately to my living in Toronto for four years.
91
A PREACHER'S STORY
VI
THE MISSION IN TORONTO
THE Cathedral Church of St. James, Toronto, by which I was invited to hold a mission, was a large and unusually fine church, very well endowed. It held to Toronto somewhat the same position that long ago Trinity held in New York ; it rep- resented an endowment given by the Government for the Church of Eng- land in the whole town of Toronto. At the time when the endowment was given Toronto had not five thousand inhabitants ; when I went there, there were eighty-five thousand. Meanwhile the church held the endowment. St. James's seated twenty-three hundred people. The Dean of the diocese was rector of the church — a man of cul-
92
OF HIS WORK
ture, refinement, and very considerable learning, and a graduate from some Oxford College, I forget which. He was distinctly Evangelical, but of the cultured school ; it was not quite the Evangelical school to which my father belonged. He was an old man, be- ginning to fail rapidly, and he was urged to have me there to hold a mission. In fact, the whole town of London, Ontario, had been moved, and that led to an insistent call to Toronto. Let me say that I am speaking now of the year 1878. There had been no movement in Canada such as Moody had been associated with in this coun- try ; the people were ready for a seri- ous religious movement. They were church-going people, well grounded in the Bible. They were a moral com- munity— very moral, as I look back and think how they compared with others ; but there had been no distinct
93
A PREACHER'S STORY
religious awakening at that time. The time was ripe when I went into Can- ada. I was not responsible for the wave that came ; I only happened to come with that movement, as it were.
I went to Toronto, and I had from the start the evidence there of the pres- ence of God moving on the consciences of men as I have never had at any other time in my life; from the start the crowds were perfectly enormous.
It was midwinter, and I had been preaching ten days. As I say, the crowds were immense — crowds out- side the church waiting to get in ; I do not exaggerate ; there would be thousands turned away each night ; I have seen four hundred and eighty peo- ple stand, with perfect reverence, inside the chancel rails. The people came there to hear. You could hear a pin drop. It was like the things you read of in Finney's life. The people were
94
OF HIS WORK
fired. I did not attempt to have after- meetings in the church. There was a Sunday-school room that would seat perhaps six hundred people at the other side of the church, across a plot of ground ; and in order to restrain and prevent mere emotionalism I had my first after-meeting there, not in the church. I said, one evening, after I had preached, " If there are any present who would like to talk with me on matters of personal religion, if they will go to the Sunday-school room, I will be glad to speak with theni." I waited a short time, and when I went into the Sunday-school house, I found not less than five hundred people on their knees. I grappled with them as best I could.
I might say in passing that the effects of that work were largely per- manent. Men of first-rate position in the city confessed conversion ; lived up
95
A PREACHER'S STORY
to their confession for many years — are living so to-day. Multitudes of young men came forward to join the church ; and at the end of three weeks I had administered Holy Com- munion to such crowds as had never been seen before in St. James's; nothing approaching it had ever been seen before in Canada. I prolonged my mission ; but at the end of three weeks I was about played out. I had preached nearly every sermon I had ; but people came to me and said:
" You must not go ; it is absolutely essential for you to stay longer ; stay four months, and preach twice on Sun- day and once during the week."
It seemed to be God's call, and I
had to stay. The Dean went to
England. I lived in the deanery, and
preached twice on Sunday and once in
the week ; and the crowds were almost
96
OF HIS WORK
as big and as eager at the end of four months as when I commenced.
You will understand that at the end of the four months I was absolutely preached out. I was spiritually ex- hausted, not physically exhausted, be- cause I was young and strong, but I had a feeling as though I never could preach a good sermon again. I felt as if I had put the last thing I ever knew into my last sermon ; I was preached out.
It was a tremendous wave of reli- gious excitement at that time ; I could not get away from it. I preached against dancing ; we all did ; I told peo- ple they should not go to the theater ; they did not go ; dances were broken up. People who came to dance re- mained to pray, and all that sort of thing.
There is a completeness about the mission sermons that a missioner 7 97
-••- T-y^M rTirt^^ "^o^lanii'i".! ■
A PREACHER'S STORY
preaches that makes them better in a way than sermons preached from Sun- day to Sunday ; for this reason. In three years a mission preacher addresses himself to certain topics, and ap- proaches those topics from all sides. He listens to confessions of faith, he picks up dijfferent illustrations of an idea, and, if he is methodical, as I was, he puts all down. He works, he reworks, he polishes ; and there is no excuse for him if, after three or four years of that work, he cannot produce a couple of dozen of such sermons as are about perfect of their sort. The sort may be very poor ; but as instru- ments to produce what a man is after, they ought to be very good. The point that I am coming to is, that their effect on a congregation is marked and apparent, but the effect on the mind of the man who preaches them is not
so favorable, if he does not supplement
98
OF HIS WOUK
the work with other things. The mind gets into a rut. It is working and reworking in a circle, and it may become a vicious circle. This is my judgment ; and I am quite certain that the experiences of others verify what I say. I do not want to quote names, but I can think of several good men who have, in my judgment, greatly deteriorated by constant mission preaching.
I parted with the people of Toronto at the end of four months, my heart wrung. Kindness is no word to use for what I received. I cannot describe the effect on myself when I quit preaching, except as a general let-down. I went to England to take a six months* rest and to be married. I was still in a quandary as to my future. I did not feel that I could be a curate in the Church of England, and I was upset and unsettled. Then an appeal
99
A PREACHER'S STORY
which I could not resist came again from Toronto :
" The Dean is getting very old ; the doctors say he cannot live long; there are signs of brain trouble. You have built up the whole community ; they look to you. Come back and be assist- ant rector. We give you both our hands, as you know you have our hearts, and our universal pledge that, on his death, you shall be our rector."
That pledge was given with most absolute assurance on their part of good faith. I laid the matter before my wife, asked her if she was ready to go with me for some years to Canada, she said " Yes," and we went.
100
OF HIS WORK
VII THE TURN OF THE BATTLE
MY intellectual trouble began with my return to the Cathe- dral Church of St. James, Toronto. I had taken absolute rest during the six months ; I had read nothing to speak of; and when I got back to Toronto I found enormous crowds waiting to hear me ; the church jammed and people waiting outside. I set to, and did the best I could to preach to these people.-^ Scarcely had
^ The following is an extract from one of Dr. Rains- ford's sermons delivered during the mission which he conducted in Toronto. It may give an idea of some of the beliefs which he held and preached at this time. This sermon is on the Second Coming of Christ. After stat- ing what he declares to be two certitudes, that ** there are two comings of Christ and two resurrections of the dead*' — the first coming of Christ being for his saints only, the second coming being the great day of judgment ;
lOI
A PREACHER'S STORY
I commenced when I found myself confronted with a terrible difficulty. I felt as if I had already preached every single thing I knew ; I had nothing new to give them. I began to read, but my reading did not lit in with what I had been preaching ; I could do nothing but pray. The only thing that saved me was the conviction that, step by step, I had been honest in try- ing to do God's will ; that each step
the first resurrection being that of the ** dead in Christ,'* the second being that of all other men for judgment — he continues : ** We don't know but that the very next soul called to Christ in Toronto may make up the great num- ber of God's elect — His elect Bride — and just so soon as the number is made up, and the Bride has made her- self ready, so soon shall this mighty shout be heard, and the dead in Christ shall rise first, and shall be rapt away to meet Him in the clouds and be with the Lord forever
— « and so shall we ever be with the Lord.' * Where- fore,' says the Apostle, 'comfort one another with these words.' I want to-night, briefly, to dwell on the con- sequences of this first coming. The first object will be to manifest who are God's children, and who are not."
— The Publishers.
102
OF HIS WORK
had been taken, so far as I knew, for his glory and not for my own advance- ment. Night after night on my knees I said, " I am prepared to do Thy will. I cannot preach what I do not believe.'*
It would be perfectly impossible for me to describe the struggle I went through for two years. My wife's health failed in the meantime — failed utterly ; I had anxiety at home ; and people came to me and said : '* You are undoing the good you did before ; what do you mean?" My oldest friends plead with me, " We love you, but what are you doing ? You are not preaching as you used to preach ! " And I knew I was not preaching as I used to preach. I had no liberty, no sense of power. There was not a man in town to help me. All I could do was to pray to God for help and light, and pledge myself again and again that
103
A PREACHER'S STORY
I would not express an emotion that I did not feel, or preach something I did not believe to be absolutely true.
I had got past the baptism question by that time ; I had run up against something bigger. How could I tell men that, if they believed in Jesus Christ, they would be children of God ? If they were not children of God to begin with, believing on Jesus Christ would not make them children of God. And yet — did not the Bible say they had to be born again before they were children of God ? Very simple ; but it came to me with ap- palling insistence as an unanswerable intellectual problem. I could not for the life of me believe that a man could become a child of God if he had not been antecedently a child of God. A child of God is always a child of God, whether or not he be- lieves that God is his Father; but
104
OF HIS WORK
if God were not already his Father, believing it would not make Him his Father. That is, if God were not antecedently his Father, believing so would not make Him so.
I had not a soul to speak to in my inward strife, except that I once went to Phillips Brooks for help. I went to Boston solely to see him. He was a dear friend of mine ; but Phillips Brooks could not help an individual at all. What he said was : " I cannot help you ; you must fight it out your- self." Very wise advice, but terribly hard for me at the time. That was the only appeal I made. I remember what was troubling me terribly then was the impossibility of believing in transferred righteousness, and Brooks had not a word to say. I suppose his big soul drew a gasp when I came to him ; but all he said was, " You 've got to fight
it out yourself
105
A PREACHER'S STORY
In the meantime, the congregation had very perceptibly fallen away ; the great crowds were gone ; I had to preach three times to get four hundred dollars missionary money. People did not know what to make of me ; my friends would come to me and say, " Why don't you preach against danc- ing and the theater and worldliness as you used to ? why don't you come out with your old assurance ? ''
No one can realize what this gradual failure in Toronto meant who has not felt the intoxication of gathering to- gether thousands of people, the stim- ulus, and spiritual elation, and the joy which comes from leading and sway- ing a mass of people eager to hear, and the pleasure in the ties of friend- ship that are formed, and then seen it seemingly all go — melt away ; the church get less and less crowded, col- lections melt away, friends look doubt-
io6
OF HIS WORK
fully at you, and enemies jeer. It seems all a long time ago now — but it was a searching fire then. What saved me from defeat was just this, that through it all I could and did keep saying to myself, " I must act as my heart tells me ; I won't speak until I have the light, by God's help I won't.'* A man who has gone through that cannot be beaten. I could not exaggerate, if I spoke for a week, the effect of that experience on my life. Although I would not wish to dupli- cate that experience in the life of any one I loved, yet I do think an enor- mous gain and blessing will come to the man who is prepared to fail, at all cost to himself, rather than say what he cannot truthfully say.
I shall never forget my sense of relief when the first gleam of light came to me. It seems so simple now. Why had it not come before ? I re-
107
A PREACHER'S STORY
member I had been praying late one night, and suddenly the fifteenth chap- ter of St. Luke came to me with new light. One of the most effective ser- mons I used to preach was based on that chapter ; the sermon I always re- served for the end of my mission work — a dagger for the fifth rib of a man who had not given in before. And now I discovered this — a new dis- covery all for myself. If the son had not been his father's son before he went into the far country, he would certainly not have come back ; he came back because he was a son. His coming back was coming to his true self. His smothered self, but his real self all the same.
I got up in the pulpit and preached that sermon all over again. He came back because he was a son ; a man turned back to God because God was
his Father ; we were to live as the
io8
OF HIS WORK
children of God because we were his children ; I found new light in the things I had been repeating over and over. People began to come back to the church ; collections increased ; joy and peace returned to my soul.
I was worried, and still uncertain about lots of things, but I had got my feet on the rock, I felt I had some- thing to say once more. It was then I found Robertson — Frederick W. Robertson ; he came to me like a voice from high heaven. I drank him down as a man shriveled with thirst alone can drink. I read and re-read him. I preached him. Unconsciously, almost, I began to feel how things should go. Spiritual truth was an evo- lution ; God had spoken, but He was speaking still. I began to read Fiske ; I began to get a grip on the great idea of evolution ; but it was Robertson who was the messenger of God to me.
109
A PREACHER'S STORY
I may say here incidentally that, years afterwards when I was preaching in New York — when I was rector here — a call came from the New York Hospital very late one night to see a dying woman — a very rare thing. I went and found a frail woman of fifty, perhaps more, in a private room, sur- rounded with every sign of attention and refinement, very near death. She said :
" I would not have sent for you to- night, but I feel I shall not live until morning ; and I wanted to say this to you before I go. I have been attend- ing St. George's for some years. I have been a housekeeper in a large house in this city ; they love me ; they give me everything that conscience and friendship can give. I have not had much money to give ; St. George's was free, and I have given what I could ; my name would not have been
no
OF HIS WORK
of service for I had no time to do work for the Church, but I have always felt that, before I died, I wanted to tell you that I know it was Frederick W. Robertson who was God's messenger to you : I knew it would delight you to know that it was he who brought me to Him."
Just about when I got well on my feet again in Toronto, the call came from St. George's, New York. I then refused it. I should like to say that, during the first three years in Toronto, I had not been able to take one holi- day. The people were kind to me ; backed me up loyally ; but there was a certain party in the church by this time who wanted me to resign. The old Dean, whose health was failing very fast, and to whom all these things came dimly as to a very old and fad- ing man, said to me : ** Mr. Rainsford, if you respect yourself, you will re- in
A PREACHER'S STORY
sign." I was torn and upset, but I felt that, before God, I could not re- sign. I had responsibility for these people. I had led them to a certain point, and if I were to leave them there, I had absolutely failed; I had led them nowhere. I was bound to preach nothing except what I believed. I was bound to get light from God, and so fill up the hiatus between my preaching in '78 and in '81. I had to hold on ; I could not resign.
I took my sick wife and our little baby to Gloucester, and left them there by the sea, and took the train back to Toronto the next morning. I dared not leave ; I did not know what would happen if I left. But when I began to see light and get on my feet again, I went off for a glorious holiday of nine weeks in the Rocky Mountains ; and while I was away the call came
from St. George's. Some one, no
112
OF HIS WORK
doubt, had heard me preach occasion- ally in the tent, and at intervals I spoke in some church in the States, but rarely. The St. George's people did not know anything about the con- dition of my church in Toronto ; and if they had investigated towards the end, they would have found an immensely successful church. The outside world knew nothing of my struggles. I had not spoken of them to one single friend but Phillips Brooks, and to him I had said but little. I knew something about St. George's, having stayed with Dr. Williams, who succeeded Dr. Tyng, senior, right here in St. George's Square ; and Williams had thrown up his hands in despair at the condition of affairs.
When the call came from St. George's, Mrs. Rainsford could not find me — I was off in the Rocky Moun- tains; but when I got home she told 8 113
A PREACHER'S STORY
me about it ; and I said, ** I cannot take it ; I cannot go anywhere ; I must not leave here."
Then suddenly the Dean died. I had refused St. George's ; and my way seemed perfectly plain. I had the pledge of my wardens that I should be rector, and I had the hearty support of my people. I expected, as a matter of course, to be elected rector, and I was elected rector with practical una- nimity.
But, some little time before, a new Bishop had been elected to the Dio- cese of Toronto, and he, standing for the letter of the canon, which had not been at all rigorously applied in Canada, said that he would not confirm my appointment because the vestry had not consulted him before electing me. So here was everything changed again. The people were almost unanimously for me, but the Bishop took a firm
114
OF HIS AVORK
stand, and refused to confirm the ap- pointment. Nothing could be done. The deadlock was maintained for sev- eral months, a very strong feeling being developed against the Bishop in the church. I felt that there was nothing to be gained by staying under such conditions.
It was a terrible disappointment to me ; I longed to stay there. My mind by this time was perfectly clear ; it seemed to sprout, so to speak, in every direction ; I could see things. In a few months I conceived the whole idea of what a city parish ought to be. I longed to make St. James's such a parish, and I was certain I could do it. Almost everything that I later carried out in St. George's Church was born in my mind in that year.
I believe that the seizing of a funda- mental idea will change everything. I was not then entirely out of the maze,
115
A PREACHER'S STORY
but I had the thread in my hand that led to the maze's center. The whole thing came to me with marvelous continuity ; and, as I say, the whole idea of what a great city parish ought to be blossomed in my mind — a staff of young clergy being educated to teach the people ; above all, helped to learn to preach ; frequent services suitable to the special needs of the people. I felt that we could have jammed St. James's with thousands of people in the way people used to throng Trinity Church, New York, in Lent, when they were given a good preacher.
I did not say a word to a soul, but kept on working the thing out in my mind. No one knew about my strug- gles but God ; there was only one man in Toronto I spoke at all freely with — Dr. D. J. Macdonell, a Presbyterian. He had his own troubles, and passed for
ii6
OF HIS WORK
a heretic, though I fancy no single man in Toronto wielded more influence for good in those days. He was a man who comforted and helped me.
In the midst of this deadlock came the second call from St. George's. Here I was ; my life mission was broken up ; the Bishop had set his teeth and would not confirm my nomi- nation — I could see that. My friends felt bitterly about it ; but I felt that the call from St. George's might be a way out. About this time I also had a call to return to England ; and if it had not been for the Athanasian Creed, I might perhaps have gone ; I did not believe I could repeat that creed; and, besides, I had a taste of the new wine in a new country, and I began to want to stay. I received word that Mr. Morgan and Mr. Stearns would come up and talk with me, but I telegraphed back that I would come to see them. On the
117
A PREACHER'S STORY
way down to New York I turned the situation over in my mind.
Dr. Williams had told me he had been beaten ; that the Roman Catholics would not even take St. George's as a mission ; the only chance to do any- thing with it was to move uptown ; but he also had said that there was an immense population here that the church had never touched. I knew the neighborhood a little, and by that time I had absolutely fixed in my mind that the only church worth serving was a church that served the people, not one set or class of people chiefly, and the people in the neighborhood of St. George's were the ones I had made up my mind to work for. My church in Toronto was a pew church ; but the tremendous wave of religious fervor had swept the pew idea out of the people's minds altogether ; that is, the
spirit diffused throughout the church
ii8
OF HIS WORK
was so real that the people did not bother about their pews very much ; so the fact of its being a pew church did not bar my way.
I want you to understand that the plans I have made and carried out here at St. George's were not suddenly formulated. Many, nearly all indeed, of the ideas came to me during my last year in Toronto.
On the train coming down I made up my mind that a few conditions were absolutely essential to success in the work at St. George's, and I determined to propose those conditions to the vestry. I had very little hope that they would agree to them. However, I also made up my mind that if they would not agree I would not accept the rectorship.
I arrived in New York, and was most kindly received. I met the vestry in Mr. Morgan's study, and they asked
119
A PREACHER'S STORY
me to become rector of St. George's Church. I said : " I think the church has gone too far to be pulled up ; I do not think I have the strength or the capacity to pull it up ; but," I said, " I will undertake the work on three conditions."
" Name your conditions," said Mr. Morgan ; and I did.
" First, you must make the church absolutely free — buy out all those who will not surrender their pews ; next, abolish all committees in the church except the vestry ; and, third, I must have $10,000 for three years, apart from my salary, to spend as I see fit; my salary I leave to you."
'' Done," said Mr. Morgan.
That which I did not expect had come to me. But it was none of my seeking.
I bowed my head and thanked God.
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OF HIS WORK
VIII
NEW MEASURES
IT is quite remarkable to my own mind that I have never seen my way to modifying, to any great extent, the plans I formed for the work of a great city parish while in Toronto, quite by myself. It was simply the re- sult of an intensely earnest desire and effort to minister to all sorts and con- ditions of people as I found them in a city of a hundred thousand people.
I had one great advantage in com- ing to St. George's — an advantage generally regarded as a disadvantage : I found positively an empty church. There had been an interim of two years without a rector. When Dr. Williams, my predecessor, resigned, he resigned because he felt that it was
121
A PREACHER'S STORY
quite impossible to build the church up ; indeed, even to hold it together. When I came, so far as I could make out, there were about twenty families of the old congregation left in the whole church, and there was a con- siderable floating debt. We did not advertise St. George's ; we put no ad- vertisements of any kind in the papers. I began to preach to a very small con- gregation ; and, as I said, I think it was a great advantage to begin in this way instead of having a lot of people around I should have had to fight — people who would be sure to be op- posed to the things I wanted to say and do. A certain number of people who were here when I came soon left ; they did not like my way. As an usher said, years afterwards, "Those that stayed stood for work, and could stand anything."
We did not open the galleries at all
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OF HIS WORK
for six months after I came. There was none of that — I think often harmful — rush of strangers and curiosity-seekers at the beginning ; we grew, compara- tively speaking, slowly. I preached very badly the first six months, too ; I don't know why; I did not feel as if I had any grip of things for quite a long time. But I think a slow growth is a great advantage. A great many men are broadly advertised before they come ; people hear that a great preacher is coming ; they crowd and rush at first, but soon melt away. So, for the first year or two, our growth was slow, as our accounts show. Charles Tracy, one of the greatest helps a man ever had, my senior warden, and I used to count over the pennies, on Sunday evenings.
I started out in the beginning to try to reach the people in the neighbor- hood ; I knew they had never been
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A PREACHER'S STORY
reached before ; they never could have been reached w^ith the old pew church system. Great changes had taken place in this part of New York City. Houses that had always been occupied by one family were constantly being given up, and into these houses came four and five and sometimes more families. As long as the houses were occupied by one family, those families naturally sought a pew, and they were likely to seek a pew in the nearest church ; when they moved uptown, smaller families with smaller means, people who had been neglected, took their places.
That is a point I should like to dwell on ; and I have taken every opportunity to present it to the clergy in my own and in other denominations. Since I came to New York, below Twentieth Street, forty churches have moved uptown, and over three hun-
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OF HIS WORK
dred thousand people have moved into that section of the city from which the forty churches have gone. That is the great mistake the Protestant churches have made : they are all alike — Pres- byterians, Episcopalians, Baptists, Meth- odists — their whole idea of church relation is based ofi the family that can live in a twenty-foot house. As soon as that social unit moves away from them, they are lost.
The Church ought to be able to fit herself to new conditions. She is like a fisherman accustomed to earn his bread at catching herrings ; presently the run of herrings goes away from that section of the sea ; in their place comes a tremendous run of smelts. If the fisherman could change his net, he would be a richer man than before, because smelts are better fish ; but he starves because he cannot change the size of the meshes. That is putting it
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A PREACHER'S STORY
very simply ; that is about the idiotic policy that the Protestant Church has followed. Follow the churches from the Battery up. They can minister fairly well to the family ; they know, by tradition received from their fathers, how to do that; but when that ele- ment departs, they get frightened and run after it. That is precisely the situation ; but the churches do not recognize it.^
" How do you get on ? " they often ask.
By altering the machinery to the needs of the people.
It is wonderfully simple ; and yet it did not seem to occur to anybody be-
^ In this condemnation of the movement of Protestant churches north in New York, I do not wish to be under- stood as denying the reasonableness of, nay, the needful- ness of, the departure of some churches. There are localities on the East Side, once Protestant, now entirely Jewish or Italian. The Roman Catholic Church alone can at present care for the Italians.
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OF HIS WORK
fore. If the Church cannot fit itself to so moderate a change — a change wrought in the evolution of a great city — is that not a most tremendous criticism on the lack of life, develop- ment, and adaptability in the Church ? That was the problem with which I was confronted. Here was a church which, in the sixties, had been im- mensely successful. After 1865 it be- gan slowly to fall off. I found a big church ; empty, expensive to run, very costly to heat, most inadapted to my work in many ways, surrounded by a denser population than in its palmier days, and yet incapable of reaching that population, except through the Sunday-school ; and the gulf between the congregation and the Sunday-school was a great one. How to cross the gulf between the Sunday-school and St. George's broad aisle-line of pews
was a question to be solved ; and it
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A PREACHER'S STORY
was solved ; otherwise my work would have been impossible.
I took the stand, first of all (and I am more firmly convinced of this to- day than ever before), that in order to reach the people of a great city the church must be absolutely free and open. You cannot successfully preach one kind of Gospel in the pulpit if you do not practice it in the pews. I don't care how liberal you may be, or how hospitable; the Church of God is not the place to exercise mere hospitality. Every man seeking his Father has a right there. The thing is to open your heart and hand to every man because he is a child of God and has a right to hear of his Father ; the Church was built for that purpose ; it is futile for her to repeat the Gospel of freedom and practice something else.
If people ask the cause of my suc- cess, so far as I know, that was one
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OF HIS WORK
of the main things — I recognized that point ; and the Church in her attitude towards the mass of people *is wrong to- day — wrong, wrong, wrong. People say I 'm a crank on the free church. Well, perhaps I am ; but then I pro- pose to live and die a crank. They say, " You get a lot of bums in a free church.'' All right ; '' bums '' — or, I might say, religious rounders — want religion, and when one of them is con- verted and feels that the Church needs him, and needs what he can do, he becomes a grand working man. There is no other way to reach the middle- class people and working people than by the free church ; and they make the best workers ; they are not unsettled by the social engagements of an inefficient life, as are the rich ; they will stand by you, work for you and with you ; give you three evenings in the week and stick to it. There should be at least 9 129
A PREACHER'S STORY
one place beside the grave that men have in common — the Church of God. I think it is wrong to charge ad- mission to any church. The Roman CathoHc Church can occasionally do that because, traditionally, for so many years she has been right in her applica- tion of the free church to the people. She has established a tradition by long years of self-denying effort, persuading the people that she is working for the people, and that enables her to charge admission now. The priests go to the poor as quickly as to the rich ; and now, when she puts a tax of twenty- five cents for admission, people pay it. On the other hand, her doors are al- ways open. I can go to the Cathedral at any time on any day, and find a place to kneel. I went one day into St. Patrick's and found there four of the clergymen who had come to my anniversary. A Protestant church can-
130
OF HIS WORK
not charge admission, because it does not fit with Protestant traditions. But I would a great deal rather make a man pay twenty-live cents to get in a church than say, " I own a piece of real estate in the floor of such and such a church, and therefore I can go in."
In St. George's Church some of the pews were owned in fee simple, by as good a title as that of real estate or a house. This idea of proprietorship in the church is all wrong. The pews were nearly all surrendered after I came, but one or two we could not buy ; they are still owned ; but we don't pay any attention to them ; we fill the church right up, and do not keep any places ; we never turn people away when there is a seat. Some owners objected at first, but they gradually dropped out ; the spirit of the church was too much for them.
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A PREACHER'S STORY
IX
THE RENOVATION OF A PARISH
ONE of the first means I adopted in trying to reach the people of the immediate neighborhood was to start a mission on Avenue A. I hired a room at five dollars a night behind a saloon on Avenue A ; and there I w^ent, with one layman. We had printed a circular saying that a Sunday-school would be opened for boys at three o'clock on Sunday after- noon. We had boys alone at first.
I went to the room with one lay- man, and found perhaps seventy-five or eighty boys, ranging in age from ten to sixteen. This was all the result of a placard ; I had done no personal work at all. I walked in, and one of
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OF HIS WORK
the first things I saw was that the boys had ranged themselves like a wedge, and before I could say a word I was knocked flat on the floor — full length
— and for a while we had a pretty rough time, until we had cleaned out about twenty of the worst of them. We did the best we could with the boys that remained. When we got ready to go, my friend went out a little ahead of me, and when I got out, I found him astride the gutter, with two boys between his legs, de- fending himself from two more. I never called a policeman ; though at first things of that kind happened.
I remember one man in particular
— a big, strong fellow. He came in and sat down in the Sunday-school (by this time I had some of the very best teachers I could find working there, and I always put the best workers I had there), and began to talk in a way
^33
A PREACHER'S STORY
that a man should not talk to a lady. He was a little drunk. I saw the lady's face flush ; I walked over, and told him to get out. He would not move. I said :
" We are here to help you people ; we are paid nothing for it ; now, you are enough of a man to respect a lady ; why do you sit here and make it im- possible for her to teach these boys ? ''
He swore at me and would not get out.
" You don't want me to call a police- man, do you? Go out quietly."
He jumped to his feet, and I saw I was in for a row. He was as big a man as I am. I did not call a police- man, but I hit him harder than I ever hit a man in my life, and knocked him down. Then I stood over him and said:
" Have you had enough ? "
He said, " Yes."
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OF HIS WORK
" All right/' I answered ; " now get out.'' And he went.
About three weeks after that, we got into a scrimmage outside the Sunday- school room with some toughs, and, to my horror, I saw, elbowing his way through the crowd, this same burly fellow, and I began to feel that, be- tween him and the others, I would be killed, when, to my astonishment, he walked up to the ringleader and said :
" The Doctor an' me can clean out this saloon ; you get out."
But all that sort of thing soon passed away. We carried on meetings every night for six or seven years in Avenue A. The work we did there would be characterized as entirely Gospel preach- ing. We had men from the McAuley Mission constantly taking charge of the services. Every single night for six or seven years we had Gospel preaching there. We had experience meetings,
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A PREACHER'S STORY
we had evening prayer-meetings — sometimes lasting all night. I allowed all my associates the widest liberty, even when my own convictions did not per- mit me to approve entirely of their methods. Dr. Wilson was with me then; he was chief among my asso- ciates ; he had come to me from Canada. He had been a stiff church- man. While in Canada he had been stimulated and helped, and his own life had been greatly quickened, by the Salvation Army ; he believed in those methods and practiced them, and I did not feel like doing anything to hinder him, although I became thoroughly convinced that such work did not pay, that time and energy were wasted. I should not like to say that no good came from those meetings, but I do say that little good came from them. Far more good, in my judgment, would have resulted from one well-conducted
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OF HIS WORK
Bible class led by a capable, godly man or woman among boys and girls than came out of six nights a week preach- ing of the Gospel in that way in Avenue A. That is, so far as I can judge. Never was a more persistent, painstaking effort made to apply what is called old-fashioned Gospel preach- ing to the community than we made for six years on distinctly Salvation Army lines ; and I satisfied myself that the testimonies and all the rest were mostly trumped up. The effect was bad. It was absolutely necessary to start the children's work. The only lasting good that came from the work was that we gathered the young people together ; the older people who came to the Gospel meetings spread to other Gospel meetings, and are probably giving the same testimonies to-day. Here and there good is done by such methods ; here and there a man is
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A PREACHER'S STORY
reformed ; but men can be reformed in the church if she is only big enough and wide enough, and will push open her doors. I do not want to appear as condemning this style of work ; I merely say that I found other work more profitable. I preached on the streets, often ; my laymen — solid, capa- ble, first-rate men — preached on the streets again and again ; we worked for six years, and there was nothing to show for it worth speaking of.
The times had changed since I had done my work in Norwich, England. The conditions were different. I am sure the methods I employed there would not succeed to-day. I could not do that sort of thing now ; I could no more do it than I could put a butterfly back into the chrysalis. That method would not succeed anywhere to-day ; the men I stood alongside of years ago, if they are preaching that way now,
.38
OF HIS WORK
are preaching to diminished audiences — there is no question about that. Another illustration of the fisherman who would not change his net to the fish. They had a message that ap- pealed to a decade, but that decade has changed ; it lies behind us ; people want the Gospel, but not in that way. That is my profound conviction ; and I believe that I have had probably a larger experience in that line than any other clergyman in our Church. I do not think I could gain the ear of the people here to-day using the means I employed in Norwich years ago — I do not know anybody who does ; I do know I can get the ear of people by using the means I do use. I have often stopped and listened to a street preacher ; and while I honor their devotion and take oflF my hat to their Christian character, I have never heard one with a message likely to meet the
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A PREACHER'S STORY
needs of all sorts of men as they pass on the street. It seems to me they have mistaken the spirit of the time. Some people think I am reacting too far ; I cannot help it ; I am working on the lines that seem to me right.
For several years we had very de- lightful work in the Mission among the young. The ladies' work among the mothers of the neighborhood was excellent ; and when we found we had sufficient hold there, and our new building was ready, I gave up Avenue A and drifted the people up here.
When I first came, there was no building, only a little old-fashioned chapel seating about four hundred chil- dren, where Sunday-school had been carried on. We did not have much difficulty in getting the people to change and come up here ; although at first it was a little hard to get the adults — the very poor men and wo-
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OF HIS WORK
men. But I have already said that the chief result of our work on the East Side here in New York was that we got hold of the young. I emphasize that, because my experience leads me to feel strongly that the way to reach a neighborhood is to reach the children. I do not think a man's ministry in a district begins to tell until the end of ten years ; that is, until the children he has taken hold of as little fellows begin to reach young manhood and woman- hood. So, if I were asked how to reach a neighborhood, I should say, "Get hold of the young — the chil- dren."
I was talking the other day with some gentleman about the extraordi- narily unique opportunity afforded by the development of the city on the north ; and some one asked, " How would you manage it ? " I said, " I would take six stables, or rent space
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A PREACHER'S STORY
above a stable, pick out half a dozen godly, capable young men, give them $1,500 a year, and tell them to start Sunday-schools in those stables." I would pick out places where the pop- ulation was coming in ; I would go where real estate people thought prop- erty was likely to advance ; and in ten years I believe that half of those Sun- day-schools would have developed into big churches. I know I could do it myself; I know I could pick out men to do it. That is my idea of how churches ought to be started in a great city. Of course New York offers a unique opportunity ; an opportunity which our Church (I will not criticise other Churches) is not taking — or taking very imperfectly. .
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OF HIS WORK
X
MEN AND MEANS
A LARGE part of our success is due to the young men, my junior clergy. When I came to St. George's, I said to my vestrymen : " I want you to let me have three to jfive assistant clergy here," and I got them. There was a remonstrance all over the parish at first against my sending the young clergy to visit. Some said, *' We do not want these young pastorettes coming around visiting us," so I had to tell them, ** Then you would better go to some other church. It is quite im- possible for me to visit you all. When you are sick or when you need me, I will come. But meanwhile I look to you people to aid me in training
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A PREACHER'S STORY
and keeping my junior clergy. Re- ceive my clergy and give them oppor- tunities to know you."
When I took these young men as associates, I made a bargain which I have lived up to and which they on their part have lived up to. I said : " You will preach in St. George's Church ; I will criticise your sermons ; you will visit the cultured people as well as the poorest ; you will see the whole life of the parish, fairly and squarely, and after two or three years you ought to know more than you do now." I met with opposition at first, but I have stuck to the rule.
At first we had a system that included senior and junior clergy, but I found that necessarily seniority was accounted by length of time and not by compe- tency, and I found that the senior, being only human, arrogated to himself cer- tain rights which were not helpful to
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OF HIS WORK
him or to his junior brothers. Then
I got the inspiration that each of my
clergy should be the senior assistant
for one week in a month; during that
week he is officer of the week, so to
speak, as a cadet at West Point is
selected to be officer of the day ; he
must see the people, take the funerals,
preach, and make emergency calls.
This plan has worked delightfully ; it
gives each man as many rights as the
others ; and in addition gives more
leisure to the others to read. Then I
have what I consider another good
plan : I make my associates select in
turn the new associates. For instance,
after a man has worked here two or
three years, he knows pretty well what
I want, and I tell him to pick out some
one to take his place when he gets
ready to leave. At first theological
seminary students were very timid
about coming here, and asked all sorts lo 145
A PREACHER'S STORY
of questions as to what was expected of them ; now they ask no questions ; they ask to be let in. Some, at the end of a year or six months, are ready to go somewhere else ; others I have to drive away. I like the idea of sending them away two at a time, if I have two men who make a good team, as I did recently to Christ Church, Cin- cinnati. One man fitted the other exactly. Three months ago I sent two more to Dayton, Ohio ; I always try to fit the men to the conditions I find.
Another thing : I urge my associates to be as elastic as possible with the service. I cannot conceive of any man, whose religious life is earnest, who does not find himself more comforted and uplifted by the use of written prayers, especially when he has a col- lection of the best prayers of the ages. Personally I find more rest to the soul
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OF HIS WORK
and more ease of worship in following along lines which we know perfectly- well and which help me to express what I feel. To the educated spiritual consciousness I do not believe there is any special appeal in the variety of extemporaneous prayer. If all men prayed always as some men pray some- times then we might do away with the liturgy; but they don't. If I felt I were bound to any liturgy, I should throw the whole thing out of the win- dow ; but I am not. I think preaching and music catch men as a rule. But the associated idea of worship is an enormous help to men ; the stimulat- ing, purifying and uplifting influences of worshipping with a big congregation is immense ; it is one of the strongest things to draw men to the House of God. There are men in my congrega- tion who I know are not in sympathy with my point of view ; they do not
A PREACHER'S STORY
like my preaching ; it irritates them and startles them, who are nevertheless greatly helped by worshipping with a great congregation. We are allowed large elasticity in our Episcopal Church, and I urge my junior clergy to make full use of their liberty. It is a griev- ous mistake to make the service too long. No suffering mortal wants to listen to a sermon after listening to the three whole services of the Episcopal Church. Furthermore, these services were not intended to be given together ; they were rolled together in former times by men who held several parishes and were obliged by law to visit and read all the three services in each parish church each Sunday, and they com- bined the services to get them all in without too frequent visits. The Epis- copal Church discounts her splendid liturgy ; it is used often as unwisely as
a great instrument could be used.
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OF HIS WORK
One great influence in my success I lay to the fact of trying to make the young clergy feel at home in this rectory. I issued an invitation seven- teen years ago to the Senior Class of the General Theological Seminary to take supper with me before they gradu- ated. I had three men. I issued the same invitation last year ; I had forty- one out of a class of forty-three ; and this year I had a request from the Junior Class that I should let them spend an evening with me at the be- ginning of their seminary life as well as at its close. I only mention this to show that if you hold out your hand and keep on holding out your hand (for I have invited the General Semi- nary students every year) to the young clergy they will respond.
My idea is to let my associates enter fully into the life of the parish ; to visit the rich, and not simply the poor ;
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A PREACHER'S STORY
to let them see me whenever they wish, and make them feel that we are working together. Every Monday morning my clergy spend a couple of hours with me, often more, and during the week they are in and out of the study all the time. I expect good work, and I get it. Give a man a chance, and if there is anything in him it will show. I do not have any trouble in keeping them.
How do we get our money for this work ? Well, here at St. George's we have received in these twenty years over four thousand five hundred acces- sions to the church from the Sunday- school alone, and though I suppose there is hardly a child in the Sunday- school who can afford to put ten cents in the plate, yet I get thousands every year from the young people of the church. It is easier to train twigs than trunks.
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OF HIS WORK
The great thing is to adapt your machinery to your environment. If you have a brownstone environment — people who can afford to live in a twenty-five-foot house — it is a very simple thing to adapt church services and methods to them. Give them a good sermon and good music and visit them, and the thing is done. But that has not been my problem. My prob- lem has been how to get at the peo- ple who do not want to come forward and join the church at all, or who, if they do want to join, cannot pay a hundred dollars or upward for a pew. And I have found that one can raise a good deal of money in a free church if one has a system.-^
All these people are willing to pay something; they ought not to go to worship without paying; offering
^ We have raised over $2,300,000 in St. George's during my pastorate.
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A PREACHER'S STORY
money is part of worship ; and I do not want people to get the idea that they can come to church and not give anything. A great many people feel they cannot afford to pay so much a year for a pew ; and yet, on the other hand, poor people — even people with ten dollars a week income — people who must cut their cloth most care- fully in order to have any coat at all — these people are all willing to pay some- thing. Not long ago I had a message from a large number of people on the East Side who could not take an envel- ope of twenty-five cents per week, but they wanted to take envelopes ; and as a result of that movement we have had a thousand dollars a year added to St. George's in five and ten-cent envel- opes — all from poor people, unskilled wage-earners. One man comes to me year after year and brings me sixteen dollars as regularly as the seasons come ;
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OF HIS WORK
he has no envelope, but he brings his sixteen dollars.
Just after my anniversary a poor wo- man — a servant — came to me and said : " I am a lonely w^oman ; St. George's has been a great help to me. I have no family ; I know how im- portant it is to keep the church here, and I know the church wants more endowment. I have saved fifty dollars ; will you take it for the endowment ? " That is God's money. I could give you instance after instance like that. If a man says that the poor and the middle-class people are not willing to pay, he does not know what he is talk- ing about. The people who use our building are all middle class or poor ; but all who use it pay something for what they get. Last year we raised $7,600 from the young people's soci- eties alone in that building ; that is fine, you know.
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And then there are some people who say, ^* If you feel that way, why do you always call for an endowment ? '' Well, for this reason : the difference between what these people can pay and what the thing costs must be met by some- body, hence the endowment. People who say, " Do not give the people of New York any institutions except what they can pay for," do not know what they are talking about. The poor people cannot pay for these things alto- gether ; they need them, they are will- ing to pay what they can ; but somebody must pay the difference. When St. George's separated from Trinity Parish, it had thirty-six lots, and in 1883 all these lots but two had been sold ; there was not a penny of endowment, and there was a floating debt. We have now over $300,000 endowment, but that is not enough. We want half a million at the very least.
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I have found in my experience that you can raise money by the envelope system, but it must be organized. We raised last year ^9,000 for foreign and domestic missions. Everybody in the congregation gets an envelope before the collection for foreign missions comes up ; and when the time comes for domestic missions, everybody gets an envelope in the same way. Our bill for stationary and stamps is terrible, and I have a big staff of secretaries ; but much of the work is done voluntarily. My treasurer, for instance, gives up time and strength which no money could purchase. And that is the secret of St. George's success ; we have service that money could not buy.
Preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ brought those men ; trying to restate old truths in a way to reach the men of to-day. The most efficient lay assis- tants that churches have are doubtless
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women ; that ought not to be ; but I think we have to face that fact and seek reasons for it. The reason is that the laity, consciously and unconsciously both, feel the need of the restatement of the Christian doctrine, and very few churchmen, comparatively, are setting themselves to do that.
If I could sum up in a line what I think has been the reason why I have such a unique band of lay helpers, it is because the great majority of them were attracted and held by the fact of my constant aim to restate the old truths of the Christian religion in terms which commend themselves to men's conscience and judgment. From my experience I should say that the cul- tured laity are not giving up religion, but too many of them are ceasing to look for it in the churches. There is great danger that public worship may be left to women, clergymen, and the
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uneducated. The movement I speak of affects men rather more than women. We must bring the teachings of Christ nearer the level of modern thought ; the thinking of our day is more natu- rally Christian than the thinking of any other age. I am all the time try- ing to do that — very imperfectly, it may be, but still I am trying. It is my profound belief that if a man has any gift of God to do that, he can get a hearing among people.
The best way to keep lay-helpers is to give them work to do for their fel- lowmen — not always religious work — some men you cannot reach on that point at all — but sociological work : a class of boys to train, a battalion to organize, something that makes them feel they are giving service to those who have less than they — money, time, or skill. In that way you can hold the men as well as the women.
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I have hundreds of men and women giving up their evenings for St. George's work. I have a hundred and fifty Sunday-school teachers, and last Sunday, a wet, disagreeable day,^ there were only three absent. Six came from Brooklyn, and nine or ten from above One Hundredth Street. I try to make them feel that we are all working to- gether; twice a year we have supper together, and we discuss in a demo- cratic way the needs of the Sunday- school.
The Sunday-school is carried on as far as possible on the basis of the public school. We try to apply the kinder- garten system among the younger chil- dren, but usually I cannot get that sort of teacher without money. Kinder- gartners are worn out during the week and cannot teach again on Sunday. I should like to apply the kindergarten
^ February 8, 1903.
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system to all children under eight. We do teach with the blackboard, and follow the general system of the public schools. Many churches seem to think any sort of a young man or woman can teach in a Sunday-school, but that is not so. These children are accustomed to first-rate teachers during the week, and they are not going to put up with slovenly teaching on Sunday. Of course I am working all the time for better teachers, and we do get better ones ; the standard to-day is immensely better than it was ten years ago. I have some fine young men, but there are more women than men ; I have some great women working here as Sunday-school teachers. We make out our own les- sons. Our own committee has drawn up our lessons ; that is the highest point we have yet reached.
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XI PEOPLE IN THE MASS
EVERY single organization we started was an earnest effort to meet the needs of the people, particularly to supplement inadequate home life. That is the reason we have dances. I have been criticised for starting a dancing-class; that was a new thing not many years ago. I did it because I found that the girls were going to bad dances. There is no chance for these people to dance at home, or to dance outside under conditions that are moral and health- ful, and so we get our boys and girls together in our church building and let them dance there. At first, when we started the dancing-class, there were always three or four of the
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clergy and half a dozen ladies present to look after things ; the boys would spit in the corners and throw cig- arettes on the floor ; now there is noth- ing of the sort ; you could not find better behavior in Sherry's, and there are often no clergy or deaconesses present. Ten years ago, if one of these boys met me in the street, he would scarcely notice me ; now there is hardly one who does not take off his hat when he meets me, and I have never asked them to do it. Boys like brass bands ; they want to join organizations, and so we started the Battalion. We have one hundred and twenty in the Battalion. St. George's sent seventy-one men to the Spanish War ; four were killed. Our Bat- talion is a great power for good.
Then, when we started the dramatic society, some people said I wanted to turn St. George's into a theater. My " i6i
A PREACHER'S STORY
boys and girls want to go to the theater; they ought to go. The drama has a great influence; that influence will increase, not decrease ; it has an immense place in human life ; and so we started the dramatic society ; they take up good plays, and it is a great success.
So about the saloon question. Peo- ple said I advocated the saloon — church saloon. I never said anything of the kind. As a matter of fact, what I did say was that there was nothing more harmful than a light regard for law. A law that cannot be enforced is a curse in the community ; and therefore I advocated having the saloon open part of Sunday. Ten years ago I talked about it in the pulpit and on the platform : " I would to God there were no saloons, but, since they are here, you have no right to pass a law which cannot be enforced. There is
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nothing so destructive to the well- being of a community as a light regard for law. Your Puritan who insists on passing his own peculiar law is the ally of the bad element in the city. His stupid insistence to pass laws that cannot be enforced is disastrous ; there can be nothing worse." That is what I said over and over again.
On Sunday afternoons I introduce my young people ; we arrange a pro- gramme ; not altogether a religious one. At first they were stiff, and sat on opposite sides of the room and looked at each other ; but in time the ice was broken, and now they have a happy time. I cannot allow my young people to stand and talk to- gether on the sidewalk ; it is against the laws of the City of New York ; and besides, if they talk and walk to- gether right here, when they have gone a block or two they may strike
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a gang of hoodlums — sometimes two or three are boys who occasionally come to church — and I do not care to have my girls walk with them.
There is, of course, very little reli- gious life in the families of the tene- ments. In three small rooms, where boys and girls must often sleep in the same room, separated by a flimsy cur- tain, there is no chance for privacy, and consequently there is very little re- ligious life. We may as well face that. Their working hours are long and hard : they must be up before six in the morning ; and, on the other hand, they are apt to stay up late at night. The great danger of the time is that our young people won't go to bed early. A young girl will go to a pub- lic dance and stay until all hours, then up again at six to get to her factory at seven or half past. The result is, her nerves are overstrained, and she is
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old before middle life. Too often pub- lic dances are a curse. The greatest need in our city to-day is places of re- creation ; they are far more needed than libraries. Good wholesome recreation is first cousin to religion : the rest and refreshing of the body goes a long way towards giving the soul a show. I have studied the needs of the people and have tried to meet them. I wish rich men would give the people more opportunities for pleasure — innocent pleasure. I do not specially indorse Mr. Carnegie's gifts to libraries.^ Li- braries are good things, but in New York there are things we need more. We need pleasure-houses far more in New York ; places of amusement that will not degrade. For instance, I have had a good man come to me and say,
^ This was said before the announcement of Mr. Carnegie's generous and wise gift of a social center to the people of his native town.
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" Next week is the anniversary of our wedding, and I want to give a little dinner and dance to my wife and her friends. Do you know of any hall I can get?" And I cannot tell him where to go. My boys and girls wanted to dance. I wanted a place for them, and I had to bring them right into our parish building ; but it is not the proper place. There is not room enough. The church ought to meet the social needs of the people, and the social needs of the people of the tene- ment district of New York are not the social needs of the people in a Maine village, nor even the social needs of Baltimore or Philadelphia. If a man would minister successfully, he must have his finger on the pulse of the community where he is and know how it beats. That is the whole thing.
Since there is no provision for social life in the tenement-house district ex-
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cept the dark alley and the street, I try- to meet this condition by providing social life here under right influences. The gymnasium, the cooking and sew- ing schools, are all efforts to supplement the home training. The time is com- ing when the Church will not need to do these things at all. The public schools are going to have cooking taught as it should be ; manual training will be introduced ; gymnasiums will be opened. But in the meantime, by the use of these things, we get in touch with the people, and the whole neigh- borhood is affected. I can give a beautiful illustration of this. There is an old Dutch woman on one of the blocks on the East Side who owns her own tenement, and who has lived there a great many years. Talking with her the other day, as she mentioned the great changes she had seen, I said,
" Well, what about the people ? "
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" Ach/' she said, " twenty years ago there was all bums and toughs here; now there are four or five gentlemen on every block."
Some years ago a man came to see me — a nice-looking fellow — and said : **Dr. Rainsford, I want to tell you a story. I was a physician, doing well, already earning $10,000 a year, hap- pily married ; my wife loved me and I loved her, and, looking back, I cannot see any reason why we did not con- tinue to be happy ; but meddling friends interfered, we drew apart, and, to my great shame, I must confess I began to drink. As I drank more and more, we drew further and further apart ; I began to lose my practice; and, to make a long story short, in a couple of years I had nothing. I was a lonely man on the way to the bottomless pit, going as fast as I could go. One hot day in July I was wandering about this part
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of the city, and I saw a notice on the outside of this church which I had never seen on any other church : ' Come in. Rest and Pray/ I went in and threw myself on my knees; it was the first time I had prayed for years. I reviewed my life. I knew my wife was a good woman ; I knew I still loved her; I believed she loved me; I saw no reason why I should be beaten. I prayed to God to give me strength, and I got it. I sought my wife and regained my professional position and my friends ; and I lay it all to your open church that said, ' Come in. Rest and Pray.' Let me introduce you, sir, to my wife."
St. George's is out of the way on Stuyvesant Square, and it is not used as much as if it were on the avenue, but it is used a great deal. I should like to reach the tides that go up and down the avenue on Sunday afternoons. I
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should like to have a place like Trinity Church, Boston; there Is the place to preach to men; I do not say that Boston does not see the opportunity and use it ; but look at our avenue churches with their doors closed all week.
What we want is to have the most beautiful churches in the crowded dis- tricts, and the best music. Where life is sordid, you want beauty; where life is crowded, you want the big church ; where there is discord, you want the most beautiful music. A beautiful church, like Grace Church, situated on Broadway, is an enormous power ; its ministry of beauty is not to be ignored ; the beauty of it alone will draw people ; and if we cannot make use of that beauty to help people to the Source of all beauty, we fail, that 's all. The ministry of beauty as a source of re- freshment and uplifting is of immense value. When I am tired I can get
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more rest by looking at a sunset for twenty minutes than by anything else in the world. I have never had the good fortune to have ecclesiastical sur- roundings that were beautiful. I think our idea of mission churches is all wrong. If I had my way, I would consolidate many of the small missions down town into one beautiful spacious church; I think more good could be done in that way than as they are now, scattered in little ugly pepper boxes all around. Put beauty where there is ugliness ; spaciousness where life is crowded ; I have advocated this for years ; and when the question of the Cathedral came up, I urged a down- town site ; although now I think, on the whole, the place chosen is the best ; the city will grow to it. But in the meantime, if I had the power, I would put the most beautiful churches in the Bowery, and give them the right sort
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of preaching and the right sort of music, and the people would come.
Make them feel that in giving them the best you can you are genuine, and they will stand up for you — like the big fellow I had to knock down before I could get him to leave the Sunday- school ; he evidently was impressed that I was doing something genuine, and when the time came, he stood up for me and routed the others. I do the best I can to be perfectly genuine ; that is the reason why I never wear the clerical dress ; that is why when I fish I say I am fishing ; when I hunt I say I am hunting. I try to be absolutely natural and sincere; it helps the mes- sage, though often people don't under- stand.
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XII
ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS
I HAVE very seldom found a high development of the spiritual life in very rich people ; the environment of flattery in which the immensely wealthy live is death to it. The power which a rich man wields, for good or evil, perhaps with every desire for good, is a bar to frank criticism. The inevitable result is that others who wish to stand in. his favor urge on him opinions in which he already believes. So in accepting views which men press on him, he travels around in a circle, though he does not realize it. As a consequence he tends gradually to fail in belief in the people. I have not found the same faith in the people and
in the institutions of the United States
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among very wealthy men that you find among people of moderate means, and among the poor.
Rich men are apt to react on one another ; that is one of the greatest difficulties in dealing with them. In this country, the very rich, quite un- consciously perhaps, form a clique, and like men in any clique they stand for the brotherhood of their organization ; it is almost impossible to break the ring.
I do not think the rich are specially to be blamed for this. The criticism of the public, the flattery of their friends, the ignorant and often un- kindly belittling of their efforts and the misrepresentation of their best in- stincts and motives, all help to draw them together, and cut them off from the criticism, the sympathy, and the interchange of ideas with men of an- other class which they need more than any other class of men.
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I remember one case — a friend of mine, a very wealthy man in this city. We had constant arguments, at his own dinner table usually, about socio- logical questions, and he differed very sharply from me. I remember we had a long argument on the justice of the income tax as a mode of direct taxation. This man, like many of his class, had not an extended knowledge of the country ; he had lived almost exclusively in New York, taking care of his great financial interests, and he was suddenly forced to go to the Far West to look after some important in- terests there. On his return, we dined together again, and he said, " Rains- ford, I am converted. I never knew the working people before ; I know a little about them now ; I am not only in favor of the income tax but of a graded income tax as well." Well that man had been forced out
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of his coterie ; he had widened his circle ; he had found out something. It is perhaps hard for us to under- stand how completely these rich men are wrapped up in their financial schemes ; how their whole nervous force and intellectual power is con- centrated there ; how it is almost im- possible for them to take a wide vision and see things as they are. They are bound to look at everything from a financial point of view. The danger- ous men are not the masses ; but often men we know and dine with ; the men prominent in religious and phil- anthropic enterprises who are all the time trying to buy something that the law does not allow to be bought and that enlightened public opinion knows to be wrong : these are the men who do not trust the people — the great lawyers, great corporations, great insur- ance people — men who are always
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trying to do something that th'e law does not quite allow — it may be a good and advisable thing, or it may be something unworthy and bad — but their scheming for it is in any case bad. They are doing dangerous work. If I might state in an illustrative way what seems to me to be the spec- ial dangers of very wealthy men from a spiritual point of view, I should say that their religion is apt to be perhaps of a not uncommon sort — I should call it a water-tight compartment reli- gion— and rests on the supposition that life can be divided so effectually into compartments, that one compartment might be filled with water, and yet show no unpleasant leak to invade the others ; that is, their religion is so effectually confined to one part of their lives that it can be safely trusted never to invade any of the other enormous interests which make up the whole
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ship which they sail on the sea of life.
On the other hand, I have found the lives of the working people full of stimulus and full of inspiration. Church people are often ignorant of what seems to me very important in the whole movement among the poor people ; that, in their struggle with capital there is not simply an indi- vidual struggle, but there is a constant struggle to lift the whole class. There is a strong class feeling among them of a worthier kind than the class feel- ing of which I have spoken among the rich. The class feeling among the rich is distinctly limiting — even harmful — I cannot think of instances where it helps and broadens ; it tends to make the class smaller, narrower, less demo- cratic and less patriotic, because it surrounds them with a vicious atmos- phere ; whereas class feeling among
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the poor has an opposite effect. It has a great regard for the under-dog. There is a quality there of self-sacri- fice ; a willingness to sacrifice personal interest for the building up of the number, which is very valuable.
Their unionism is full of mistakes
— I am not seeking to defend them
— their treatment of the '* scab " is wrong ; they assume an unmoral posi- tion which they have learned from the rich, like the Standard Oil Company and others ; but fundamentally they are trying to build up something bigger than personal fortune. As a basis there is distinctly the idea of brotherhood, which is a valuable thing to go on, however mistaken they may be in their expression of that idea. John Mitchell is not working for his own advancement ; he is working for the general good of his class, and others are doing the same thing They
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believe there is no development for the class (and they are quite right) except by organization, and so they seek to force the hand of those vv^ho are unwilling to join that organization. Their methods may be wrong ; but to the observer of human nature there is among the poor an element of unselfishness that im- presses one, a willingness to help one another, a readiness to do things for others which people of the rich and middle class would not think of doing, except for intimate friends, perhaps.
I know it can be said that there are instances where walking delegates take bribes ; but, on the whole, I can give more instances of fine self-denial in the lives of labor leaders. I have per- sonally known many of these men, and I have known them to cut their salaries almost in half in order to advance the cause for which they were working, and for which they were already in-
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sufficiently paid. I know as a matter of fact that Mr. Powderly took a large slice out of his salary and turned it into the treasury of his organization. Men like Mitchell and Debs could have large sums of money if they cared to ; but they have invariably refused ; and yet Mr. Debs, in my judgment, comes very near being an anarchist.
Go into the sordid tenement houses, and again and again you v^ill be sur- prised to find, when you are once admitted to the secrets of their lives (and you will not be hastily admitted) some very beautiful and Christlike things among those who seldom or never darken a church door. I know of one little woman, four feet nine inches high, who came to this land thirty years ago. She had a husband and five children. Soon after they landed her husband was stricken with blindness. She had to work for all.
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She did. They were often hungry, but she brought them all up — big, strong boys and clever girls. The boys did well. One of the girls is now a well-known dramatic author; has writ- ten plays that have been very successful. On January ist, a few winters ago, all the children and the mother dined together. After the dinner she said : " This is my sixty-fourth year, and it is the first easy year of my life. I thank God he has let me bear and bring up good children. I feel rather tired ; I will go and lie down.'* She went to her bed, and did not rise from it again. She died peacefully in a few days. How worthless and meaningless our own lives often seem when contrasted with such lifelong heroism ! People do not readily realize what such a struggle means ; it was superb.
There is a boy, eighteen years old, in my Sunday-school, not a very regu-
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lar attendant either, nor was his stand- ing specially good, whose mother fell ill. They were all very poor. An operation was declared necessary, but before she submitted to the operation an expert's opinion was desirable. How should the family raise the fee ? They were all out of work but this young boy. The mother knew of a doctor she had had years ago, she liked him, and his opinion she wanted to have, if it could be procured, but it would cost three dollars. Three dollars was beyond the family means. They dis- cussed the question on Sunday night. This boy at the time I speak of was the only one earning anything, which was three dollars and a half per week. He gave his three dollars and a half regularly into his mother's hand, and received ten cents each day for his meager luncheon. In the early morn- ing of the New Year, in a shamefaced
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way, the boy made his way to his mother's room and said guiltily " Take my luncheon, Mother?" His break- fast had been none too heavy ; and for a month that boy went without his luncheon so that his mother could have the opinion of the doctor she wanted.
We came to know of the story in this way. At early communion some time after, I saw the boy standing lean- ing against the rail, his face white and drawn; I told one of my young clergymen to look after him, and then leaked out the story of the luncheon lacking the entire month. Pretty line, I think.
A young man who held a good posi- tion as a mechanic and was earning ex- cellent wages, was missed from our organizations. He was followed up, and found to be living in a single room with his mother. This man was under thirty. The woman was quite old ;
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gradual mental decline had in her case passed into complete imbecility. She was helpless ; she could do none of the offices of life for herself.
I asked him ; ** Why do you not procure a proper person to nurse and care for your mother ? "
Without any pretentions whatever, or seemingly the least bit of self-con- sciousness, he let me understand that his mother had watched and cared for him, and he was not going to trust his mother to any one else's care.
" But," I said, " she needs constant care, day and night.''
" I will give her care day and night," he replied.
" What about your work ?"
" I have given up my work."
" What ! given up $15 or $iS per week ? "
- Yes."
" What are you doing ? '*
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" Basket work."
" What do you earn at that ? "
" Four dollars a week."
*' Why have you given up your good trade for this work ? "
" Because I must watch over my mother."
So, night and day, for two years, while the flickering spark remained alive, that man watched and cared for the imbecile being whom he called " Mother."
In times of sickness many of the poor will not accept treatment at hospitals. As in the case of this young man they have suspicion of unknown attendants. Some of the hospitals have not treated the poor right. It will be a long time before the rudeness, carelessness and bad attendance that have characterized some hospital treatment will cease to influ- ence multitudes of the poor. There
are many hospitals in the city to-day
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where all work is admirably done ; but still in the mind of the poor the rough- ness of former times remains fresh ; and I think that even now the privacy of the poor is not sufficiently respected. It is much better now than it used to be ten years ago ; the very fact that there is competition between hospitals to get clinic cases will help matters.
It is idle to deny that there is a strong prejudice against clergymen among the wage-earning class generally. It is idle to say that a large portion of the work- ing men come to church ; they do not. A great many men will come and talk to me, and say they like the church and thank God for it, but they do not often come to church. In fact, very few of the rich people go to church either ; nothing but a sense of need for what the Church can give will bring them. When I came to St. George's, people around here did not know the Church
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at all, and it took a long time before I could touch them. That was one of the objects we had in starting the mission on Avenue A. Those who did come were the least deserving, to be sure. You cannot reach the worthy poor in just that way ; they resent mingling with the others. Mission work, as a rule, does not reach the worthiest poor ; it often puts up an- other barrier between the Church and the people ; they do not want cleri- calism ; you have got to go among them personally, and when you once get among them, the reward is rich.
But even then my experience with laboring men, and with leaders of unions especially, in their relations to religion, is that they wish to make capital out of it ; and I do not say this in any unkind way. They have per- verted the idea of the Master's relation to mankind ; and they want to quote
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the sayings of Christ as entirely in favor of one class against another class, as on the side of the poor against the rich. I have attended a great many labor meetings, and they are nearly always absolutely vv^rong on that. From my experience I should say that the labor- ing people are to a great extent unreli- gious. Their conception of Christ as a reformer is absolutely v^rong.
One of the reasons undoubtedly w^hy the Church has not a stronger hold on working men is because they have the idea that the Church ought to make a re-division of the social scale in their favor. How do I meet that? I try to show them where they have use for the Church; that life is not tolerable without Jesus Christ; I tell them of the hope He brings and the peace He offers ; that they do need Him in their work and in their daily lives ; I show them that the Master was a working
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man and that they need the illumina- tion of His life and hope in everyday living.
I have had very unusual opportuni- ties to come in contact with the uni- versity spirit, especially during the last ten years of my life. I have made the time to leave St. George's to go to the universities ; that is the only thing that has drawn me away, that and the de- mands of health. Many years I preach in nine different universities ; and my experience has been that, nowhere, do I get such a hearing as in universities ; there are no audiences that stimulate me as audiences of young men and young women do. I think that be- neath all, there is the readiness, the desire, the unexpressed hunger for the presentation by a living man of the Gospel. This is no theory; I am only giving my experience, an experi- ence prolonged for many years. I find
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no greater satisfaction than in address- ing a university audience, and whether I am at Yale, Harvard, Minnesota, or Vanderbilt University, the experience is the same. Of course in some places, like Philadelphia, for instance, where there is no college life at all, and where there have been no steps taken to give the men of the university a meeting place, it is not so easy to get an audience, and you cannot work miracles in that way ; you cannot touch men unless you first can reach them ; but granted an audience I have never found any difficulty in a uni- versity in winning stimulating and great response.
I think there is nothing more hope- ful to-day than the splendid readiness of university life all over the land to listen to a man who has a message. I have never had Paul's experience at Athens. The Greek spirit would only
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A PREACHER'S STORY
be a veneer in this country ; in Greece it was not veneer ; it had soaked in. Our people have never been Grecian- ized ; any such movement would not be more than an eddy in the stream of our rushing practical life ; in St. PauFs case it was the stream not the eddy. I am constantly having univer- sity boys coming to me ; they drop in to church, they write to me, they come to see me ; and yet my oppor- tunities have been those of a bird of passage; I have only been able to stop a day or two in one place.
I think one reason why so many clergyman — good men, men abler than I, by far, seem to get discouraged when they step into a university is because they try to fit themselves to what they conceive to be the atmos- phere instead of being perfectly natural. Hence they lose their power ; they surrender something by being unnatu-
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ral. This being unnatural is the great secret of loss of power in the pulpit ; as soon as men stand in the pulpit things change ; there are certain things they feel they must not say — unfortu- nately often the best things they have to say — their convictions must be toned down, very often just the con- victions that do not want to be toned down ; they must trim their words and leave out their most vital illustrations.
I remember, long ago, when I was just starting out, there was in Norwich a crude, rough revival preacher who had great vogue in the religious move- ment. He did not begin to know how to put a sermon together ; his most admiring friends could not say he had a grain of eloquence, but he got the people. One evening I was visiting with him, and we were talk- ing about this very thing, and he told me of a visit he had had the week 13 193
A PREACHER'S STORY
before with an earnest, devout and learned clergyman who was devoting his life to his work, and seemingly with very little success. This clergy- man said to him :
" Will you tell me how it is ? I have been preaching to these people for years and I cannot do anything with them; you come along, talk to them, ask them to lead a better life, and they are profoundly affected and ready to promise anything. I pray ; I seek the presence of God ; I do everything He tells me, but I can- not grip these people as you do, explain it."
" Well," answered the countryman (for that was all he was), " your pulpit is at the end of the aisle, is n't it ? "
« Yes."
" It looks right out of the front door ? "
« Yes."
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" Well, you think over your sermon the whole week; you draw it out on beautiful straight lines ; you put one thing in front of another logically and in the right way ; you get into the pulpit Sunday morning, you have the whole thing beautifully arranged in your mind ; you speak to those people, and your sermon goes out of your mouth, over the heads of the people, down the aisle, straight out of the door. My sermon is not a sermon; it is like boys' fire-crackers in Guy Fawkes' day, it jumps here, bangs away over yon- der, fizzes and sizzes there, hits one or another, and the first thing you know people are moving around."
There was great truth in that. What he meant to say was that he was absolutely natural, and he reached the people.
I think the clergy are afraid — un- duly afraid of saying anything that can
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A PREACHER'S STORY
draw criticism. I am against *' yellow journalism " in the pulpit as much as any man. I have seen the utter use- lessness of mere emotionalism ; it burns the ground, destroys the present crop and makes a second crop impossible ; it leaves things barren. I have seen during my twenty years in New York a number of men who have appealed unfairly to the passing emotion. Any- body who cares to make a guy of him- self can get an audience for a time, but such crowds go as fast as they come. If a man would only be hifitself^ always remembering that putting on a sur- plice or gown does not make him less of a man, but more of a man, he may be pretty sure of a response, if he has anything to say.
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XIII THE TONGUE OF FIRE
THROUGHOUT all my minis- try, I have tried, first of all, to draw a great many people by preaching. Every day of my life I more profoundly believe that the in- strument God uses for the development of His kingdom among men is exactly the same to-day as on the day of the Pentecost ; the symbol of that ministry is the tongue of fire, the message of man to man by word of mouth ; and personally, while I know there are many reasons advanced for believing that the pulpit cannot hold anything like as important a place in social life as it did a generation ago — the magazines compete with it, the daily papers com- pete with it, the University Extension
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A PREACHER'S STORY
movement competes with it, a thousand and one methods by which education is presented to the "herd" are all sup- posed to compete with it and do com- pete with it in a measure — still, I profoundly believe that when a man has a vision of God on the one hand, and, on the other, the needs of the people in his heart, that man will get a hearing. No writing, no litera- ture, no diffusion of knowledge, no religious or pedagogical press, or any- thing else, can take the place of that sort of preaching.
Again I have seen churches doing good work, and when I have come to analyze their strength, I have found it lay in wise organization to meet the needs of the people, and patient main- tenance of that organization ; but these things, good and necessary though they be, cannot take the place of preaching. The church that has good preaching as
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well as wise organization can do what no other can do. I see also fully — I have proved it in my own ministry and in the ministry of my clergy — how im- portant visiting is ; anything that brings you in vital touch with people is im- portant and useful ; but it does not take the place of preaching. When I say " preaching," I am using the word in the widest sense. It may be preaching at the dinner-table, in the study, on the street, on the political platform ; it must be preaching in the pulpit ; the giving forth of the message that a man has when he stands up and will not sit down until he has delivered it, subordinating time, method, manner, everything, to that. That is what im- presses people; that is the way still to reach all sorts and conditions of people.
I try to make myself the mouthpiece of my parish. What I mean by that
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is this : I do not think there ever was a man as fortunate as I am in the band of lay workers that surrounds him. Many of them have been with me now for almost twenty years. We need each other, love each other, and trust each other. They give me of their best. For instance, I am going to speak to the Sundaj-school. I go to my superintendent : " What do you think I ought to say ? What do they most need just now ? " Or, if I am speaking to my Working Girls' Soci- ety : " What should I talk to the girls about ? '* If it is the young men of the club, I ask in some sort the same question. The result of my question- ing is that my friends who know the inward needs of each of these organiz- ations, and the young people who make them up, give me their own sermon to preach, and I preach it. They can see what I cannot see. They hear and
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OF HIS WORK
know what I have not had an opportu- nity to hear and know. The sermons I often preach are more often theirs than mine. Such experiences make a man's ministry very rich, and keep his preach- ing very much to the point.
I suppose the time will come when our business men will help us in the same way. Alas ! they do not yet do it. When, for instance, a great rail- road president, or a great lawyer, or a great politician, will tell the clergyman he trusts something of the inwardness of the hour, will tell him the struggle between light and darkness going on in the business field, between truth and lies, between knavery and righteousness, bribery and honesty — when, I say, he does this, the man who speaks in the pulpit can speak with power. As it is, the clergy often fail to make their special messages go home because, while they are right in the main, they are
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A PREACHER'S STORY
almost sure to be wrong in the detailed statement of their case. And men sneer at them and say, " Let the shoe- maker keep to his last. Don't bring politics or business into the pulpit ; you do not understand them. Give us the old doctrines of Christianity. Preach to us the Gospel." And, of course, all this sort of talking I hold to be little short of hypocrisy, if it falls short of it at all. If the laity would help us to preach, the pulpit would have more power than it has, the ministry would be more vital than it has been. But I am bound to say that I think the fault is often with the preacher more than with the laity, for the preacher does n't impress on his people how anxious and ready he is to borrow their knowledge and experience, and use it freely in pressing home the great mes- sage of truth and righteousness on the conscience of the community.
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OF HIS WORK
There is great danger that the laity should lose sight of their need of the Church. To turn away from her, results in the promotion of all sorts of quack religious systems, misleading and perverting the religious instinct of ignorant men. But a too conservative ministry repels the often healthy, though impulsive, religious spirit. Un- less clergymen set themselves resolutely to restating old truths, they are not doing as they should. What w^e need to-day in the Church is a restatement of the truth in terms that men can accept. I do not think belief in a creed should be demanded of a man before he can enter the Church. All the Master demanded was that a man desired His presence and wanted to fol- low Him. The Church made a mis- take— a necessary mistake if you like, but still a mistake, in demanding belief in a creed. At first men were not bap-
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A PREACHER'S STORY
tized in the name of the Trinity, but in the name of the Lord Jesus ; and I think it absolutely wrong that a man should be obliged to profess belief in the Apostles' Creed before he is ad- mitted to the Church ; I should rather lay emphasis on his willingness to serve the Master ; the sooner the Church takes that ground the better. Any creed can only be an effort to express the Infinite in terms of the finite ; in other words, it is a symbol, not a definition. I repeat the Apostles' Creed, con amove ^ but if a man comes and de- mands of me, as a pledge of my loyalty to my faith, that I answer the question, *^ What do you mean by * God, the Father, Maker of Heaven and Earth,' etc.," my reply is to show him the door, and to say, " I claim the freedom I give you." The creed cannot be a definition of the Infinite because it is expressed in terms of the finite. I have no right to
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ask a certain belief of any man, except a statement of honest determination to try to serve and follow Jesus Christ ; and that is not a creed at all in the or- dinary acceptation of the term. Never- theless, that does not mean that men want to give up the great doctrines ; they do not ; but they find it impossible to accept them as they are often given to them. Many of the laity attached to St. George's I got on the basis of re- stating old truths in a way adapted to the thought of to-day. Of course the free church idea had something to do with it ; but, even if you cast your fly over a fish, it does not follow that he will take it ; you must give him the right sort of fly. What we need is earnest, persistent effort on the part of the clergy to restate old truths — truths men learned at their mother's knee. There must be real good in those old doctrines or they would not have sur-
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A PREACHER'S STORY
vived the wear of the ages — in terms that they can accept to-day ; the terms in which they were taught thirty years ago will no longer touch them. These truths now live in men's minds as a memory ; we must restate them so that they will become a living power ; as Paul said, " Let us commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God." That is the way to get the laity ; and this is not impossible. I have had no difficulty in getting the laity in the last twenty years' experience.
Neither had I any difficulty in Toronto. I came to Toronto on the crest of an extraordinary spiritual wave. Moody had not been there ; no revival had been there ; the movement that burst out in New York in the sixties and seventies came years later in Canada ; I happened to be the match that lit the fire — that is all. If I were to go to Toronto to-day and preach the
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OF HIS WORK
sermons I preached twenty-five years ago, I could not get the people at all in the same way. I firmly believe that if you keep constantly befiDre men the truth that the essence of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the Love of God, and therefore the brotherhood of men, they will respond to it ; there will be a great and growing response.
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XIV MIXING WITH MEN
JUST as there is a difference be- tween the preaching needed to-day and that needed when I began to preach, so there is a difference between the sort of call upon people a minister should make to-day and that made a generation or so ago. My visiting of course began in the East of London, and in Norwich, the eastern part of England ; and in those days the people expected the visits to be of a distinctly clerical, professional type. I remem- ber I made it a rule in those early days that, if possible, I would never visit without praying or reading the Bible, and that was the common ex- pectation of the people on whom I
called. I sometimes found it very irk-
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OF HIS WORK
some, but I went through with it from a sense of duty. I made it a rule in those early days never to go into a railway carriage without trying to read my Bible, or talk to people about their souls. It was a terrible standard I set for myself, and caused me much trouble. I fear it was not very acceptable to my neighbors; but I stuck at it until I saw a better way. That sort of thing did not have the appearance of unre- ality nor seem as unreasonable thirty years ago as it would to-day ; it would not be possible now here in the States, and I doubt whether there is as much of that sort of thing in England.
And yet, in a modified way, I still try to pursue that policy. I think the smoking-room of a Pullman car affords a great many opportunities for earnest conversation. One naturally begins with politics, then the next step is sociology, which is the first cousin to 14 209
A PREACHER'S STORY
religion. I recall an extraordinarily- interesting conversation that I had in a Pullman car two or three years ago. I had been preaching at Yale, and got into the New Haven train. There were three or four men in the smok- ing-room ; we talked politics, and then slipped gradually into an earnest soci- ological discussion and so into a re- ligious one. I was led on from step to step until I dwelt on what I have al- ready said has been an immense power in my life — the relation of man to God because he is man ; of the Father- hood of God ; that men were children of God, not because they had been converted or baptized, but because they were born the children of God ; and as I went on, I suppose I put a certain sense of energy and earnestness into what I said. At any rate, after I had been talking about three-quarters of an hour, one of the men arose (they were
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OF HIS WORK
all perfect strangers to me), wrung my hand, and said : " I 've got to get out here, sir; but I want to thank you, and to say to you that I am a Senior Warden of an Episcopal church, and I have never heard that before, and that is God's truth/' I would not think of getting into a train and pulling out my pocket Bible, or talk to people about their soul and ask them if they were saved, as I did years ago in Eng- land ; such practices are impossible ; but I do think there are great oppor- tunities, if we are only ready to take them in our daily intercourse with our fellow-men, of bringing in such sub- jects, and generally you find them as ready for discussion as you are yourself. Then, such discussions are robbed of all professionalism — a great advantage. I remember an illustration of the same thing in a very different environ- ment, years ago when I was in the Far
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A PREACHER'S STORY
West. I was in a very wild part of the country ; for five or six weeks I had been away from every kind of civiliza- tion and of course I dressed as every- body else did there. One day I was riding with a friend (who was a lawyer, by the way) to the next United States Army post. I wore no coat ; my shirt was heavily spattered with blood from butchering our own meat and carrying it into camp on my shoul- ders; just before we reached the post we met three or four rough Western fellows ; they looked at me and at my friend, gave us the time of day, as they always do there, and passed on to where our outfit was behind ; they hailed the drivers of our pack horses and said,
" Who arc those two fellows in front?"
" One is a lawyer and the other 's a parson."
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OF HIS WORK
" Suppose the big fellow is the lawyer ? ''
" No, he 's the parson."
" Well, he looks big enough to work for his living," they answered, as they rode on.
I had a chance to speak to those same men at the post the next Sunday ; and coming in contact with them in this absolutely natural way was a splendid introduction.
In regard to visiting by a rector in New York, often it is quite impossible to introduce the subject of religion at all ; that is not the chief function — the thing is to come in touch with the people — to break the ice and know the life we are trying to appeal to ; only when we know and understand it arc we in a position to appeal to it wisely and well. Most clerical appeal is insufficient because the clergyman does not know, and most clerical intercourse
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A PREACHER'S STORY
with the people is so horribly profes- sional that the clergyman never learns. I always say to my younger clergy, " Let us try to be natural." That is the only way to succeed with them. We have got to know these people be- fore we can help them, and we cannot know them unless we come in contact with them ; a great city like this does not offer many opportunities of know- ing people except by visiting. In many cases, when you get to know them well, you can go right into the home and magnify your office, and preach, and speak, and pray. I can cite an interesting illustration. One of my assistants had been visiting for some time a man, a noble sort of fellow, who had been through the war and had fallen into ill health through the results of a heroic effort to save three men fallen down a well into a poisonous vapor — the strain on his heart and lungs had
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OF HIS WORK
been so terrible ; and, as I said, one of my assistants had been visiting him for years. He would talk to him of the weather, the events of the day, and all sorts of things — never of religion ; but instinctively the sick man knew the young man came to him as a friend and a brother. My assistants do not wear clericals, as a rule ; they can if they wish, but they usually follow my example. After fully two years' con- stant visiting, this brave old man — for he suffered bravely — said to my assis- tant : " I want the Holy Communion ; I never was baptized in the Episcopal Church, but though I have not been baptized in the Episcopal Church, don't you think I could take the Holy Com- munion ? " And he added later: "You are the only minister I ever asked for the Communion.'' A beautiful result of wise and patient visiting for years. I know, too, that the bravery and forti-
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A PREACHER'S STORY
tude with which the old man bore his sufferings was of immense help to the young clergyman.
Often the visitor gets as much benefit as those who are visited. I have made it a rule with myself, whenever I feel particularly depressed and down-hearted — as we all feel at times — to go visit- ing. I don't like it ; I have to spur myself to do it ; but I do not know of any better stimulant for the soul than to visit sad, sick, and suffering people ; it is an immense help. I urge visiting for that reason ; not merely because it helps the poor people, but because it is of great benefit to the visitor.
In St. George's Church we do not
urge the Holy Communion on any one,
but it is a great help ; and to those
brought up in the Lutheran Church,
or in our Church, it is an immense help
as a confession of faith. Of course in
a great many churches private com-
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OF HIS WORK
munion is urged ; we do not do that ; but we hold ourselves ready at any time to administer it to those who seek it ; we never urge it, as some churches do. Practically, I have found my best material for my sermons in visiting. In talking with people I have found out the subjects about which they wished to be instructed ; I have found out the mistakes they have made, and in the objections offered I have found my text. I have also found it very helpful to bring up in conversation, while visiting, the subject on my mind ; and some of the very best suggestions and the best points I have made afterwards I have gained by contact with people in visit- ing. We do not fully appreciate the value of knowing people — how they live and what they think. Just as the sonship of man to God is only about dawning on men's minds to-day, so it follows that the brotherhood of men to
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A PREACHER'S STORY
one another, which follows after the first, has not yet been accepted at all ; and it seems to me that the constant intercourse I have spoken of affords all sorts of opportunities to illustrate this revolutionary gospel and press it home. The brotherhood of man is a gospel that is not preached yet ; it is not understood, but it is bound to come because of the sonship of man to God.
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OF HIS WORK
XV
THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY
A MINISTER ought to be able to make his people want to hear the doctrines he believes in. Of what use is a coachman if he cannot drive his team ? Let him get off the box and get some team he can drive ; the team is not there to drive him. I have seen men of brilliant promise in the seminary leave the seminary and take charge of a big church and be beaten by their churches ; but a defeat like that, in my judgment, is the result of a wrong course. No man ought to take a church in which he thinks he is not going to have freedom — a clear road to go his way. As I look back, I thank God for my own experience. I was assistant for eleven years before
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A PREACHER'S STORY
I had sole charge ; St. George's was my first sole charge. I deprecate the ten- dency of young men to take sole charge as soon as they leave the seminary; be- fore they are ready for a big church. A boy who has learned to drive a pony in the country is not fit to drive a four- in-hand through the streets of New York ; and the trouble with seminary boys is, before they have learned to drive ponies they want to drive a high-spirited four-in-hand ; it cannot be done. A man who rides a bicycle may think he can drive a locomotive, but he can't.
But I know, too, that if only a man will not put self-seeking first, and if he has a message in his heart, he will draw around him the people who want that message. Like a magnet a man draws to himself what he is able to draw ; his personality and his message influence his sort of people and he draws them,
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OF HIS WORK
especially in a great city ; that is one of the charms of preaching in a great city. If he cannot draw people around him, I doubt whether he was meant to deliver a message as a minister of the Gospel. God does not want ten thousand men who will just pass ; He wants the two or three who know what truth is and are willing to die for it if necessary ; not those who, after a day's march, must needs pause, duck their heads into the river, and take long draughts; but those who are content to keep on their way and lap up water in their hands.
Then, a man must have freedom ; if a man is placed where he is not free, let him, first of all, make himself free. If he has not freedom as a clergyman, let him be a bootmaker, or anything else where he can be free. A clergyman is no use until he is free. If he can- not find freedom in his church, he has been mistaken in the church ; if he
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A PREACHER'S STORY
has a vestry, deacons, or any board that ties him up, let him get out and find some place where he can go his own way ; sometimes it is better to get the deacons or vestrymen out. A clergy- man cannot give God or man his best service unless he has freedom. I have had considerable experience with young clergymen; and I cannot recall an in- stance of a man's failure who really tried to live up to this principle. A man must first get rid of self-seeking before he can deliver his message so that it will tell. First, let a man be fully persuaded in his own mind of his message, and then go to work. The world of men needs him. He will find his place. As I look back upon my own ministry, I know the reason why I succeeded long ago in England was because, so far as God gave me light, I was willing to give up everything — St. Giles's, or London, or anything else
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OF HIS WORK
that stood in my way — in order to be
FREE.
Later on, when I came to Toronto, and that second great season of dark- ness, of which I spoke, settled for eighteen months on my soul, I was, without quite knowing it, going through just the same struggle again. I was forced into a position in which I had the agony of seeing my work falling to pieces, my friends being disappointed in me, those who had been converted through my means saying, " You are tearing down what you built up ; what are you doing ! " and those in ecclesias- tical authority saying, " If you respect yourself, you will resign," and not a soul to go to ; and yet feeling that I could not preach what I did not believe to be true, nor could hesitate to say what I did believe to be true. If you are true to yourself, you cannot preach a thing until you are fully persuaded of
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A PREACHER'S STORY
it in your own mind ; and when you are once fully persuaded, you cannot hold your tongue.
There is no downing a man who will get down on his knees and say from his heart, " Almighty God, I am willing to fail, if failure means the advancement of the kingdom of God." It sounds egotistical, perhaps, but I know from my own experience that the mistakes that have marked my own ministry have helped me to better things. Those eighteen months of darkness ground that into my soul : I would not and could not say what I did not believe, and when I saw things, I would not and could not fail to say them ; and again and again in my ministry God in His mercy has brought me where I have failed, and I have been helped upward and onward.
I should like to give a specific in- stance or illustration of failure. I can
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OF HIS WORK
look back now and see that God's hand was in it, but then it was nothing but bitterness. It was before I went to Toronto. I had been conducting a series of missions in different parts of the country, and I had been preaching some pretty good sermons — it is very easy, as I have said before, to turn out some good sermons when you preach ten or fifteen over and over, repeating them as you visit each church. A call came to me to speak on missions at the Church Congress in Boston. This was in 1877. I was so ignorant of ecclesiastical matters that I did not know what a Church Congress was — I had an idea that a few clergymen met together to discuss clerical matters. I had to speak at this Church Congress, I think, on Wednesday or Thursday. I had been holding mission services at the Church of the Holy Trinity, One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street and »s 225
A PREACHER'S STORY
Fifth Avenue, New York, on the very morning I had to leave for Boston. I arrived in that city at 6.30, if I remem- ber rightly, and I had to speak at 8.30. I went to the Music Hall about 8, and saw an audience of quite two thousand people — the place jammed, and two hundred and fifty ckrgymen and bishops on the platform. Cold shudders ran down my back. However, I knew my subject, or thought I did, and I was going to speak without notes — some- thing I have never done since. My turn came after Father Benson, of Oxford. The whole place looked black to me ; I got up, stammered and sput- tered for five or six minutes — my time was twenty-five minutes — and sat down. I am not exaggerating in this ; I did not say one clear sentence that would parse in that time. I sat down in darkness, and the meeting went on. At last people began to go, the men
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OF HIS WORK
began to leave the platform ; I did not know a soul. I sat there utterly cast down — a lonely youth indeed. All at once a large hand was laid on my shoulder, and a big, kind voice said: "Mr. Rainsford, will you preach for me in Trinity Church next Sunday morning ? '' That was my first meet- ing with Phillips Brooks. Was it any wonder I loved him ? I did not know until afterward that Brooks had heard of my preaching, that he knew that a certain vestry of an important church were looking for a rector, and that he had engineered my speaking at the Church Congress in Boston. Naturally, after the display I made, the vestry did not want anything of me, and Brooks, out of his big heart, felt that this green boy had lost his head and failed, and determined to give him another chance at Trinity the next Sunday morning; I preached there, and nearly as badly;
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A PREACHER'S STORY
Brooks sat listening to me, and he was a very terrifying man to preach before ; but after that I saw a good deal of Phillips Brooks until he died.
That failure was one of the best things that could have happened to me. I was entirely unprepared to take charge of a church in Boston. Had I gotten it, I should have had an early and cheap success, and then nothing. I should not have gained my knowledge of the country, nor my experience with different people ; nor would the people in Boston have been as patient with me as they were in Toronto in the great struggle that came to me. The people in Toronto I had led myself, and they were ready to suffer my lapses and changes ; even so, their patience almost broke down. But in a great city, had I followed the same up-and-down course, I should simply have lost my grip and made a
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OF HIS WORK
failure that would have been hard to recover from.
So, when you ask. How can a man succeed ? my answer is. If a man comes to the point where he is willing to fail that God may succeed, he can- not be downed. I think we have a great advantage in the Episcopal Church, for we are about the freest church, although we are supposed to be the narrowest, and so if a man in the Episcopal Church is fully per- suaded in his own mind that a certain course of action is right, it is very hard to shake him out of his seat.
You might ask if conscientiously preaching the things one believes and trying to meet the needs of the people ever got one into difficulty. Yes, it has got me into difficulty — into con- stant difficulty. I have had men leave the church on those grounds. I have had a man come to me and say :
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A PREACHER'S STORY
" I am going to take my family out of your church because I do not want my daughters to hear the things you say on Sunday morning."
" All right, I 'm sorry, but I shall never stop saying those things as long as I believe them."
This man was about sending his daughters forth into what is known as New York society ; and what I know of New York society leads me to feel pretty sure that his daughters would hear much worse things there.
I should like to say another thing right here, although it is not exactly germane to what I have been saying, and that is, a man's success often lies (if you were to trace its cause) in being able at certain definite times to say " no " ; he must know what he must not do.
When I began my work here, it was pretty hard ; it was hard to get
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OF HIS WORK
money, and hard to do anything ; and if I had not had that guarantee of $10,000 a year for three years I should have been all broken up. If I had had to collect that money I would have worn out the friendship of my friends ; but for three years that money came without collecting ; that saved me. Again and again certain tempta- tions came to me. I remember one interesting illustration. A man whom I respected greatly — a good man and liberal — he was immensely wealthy — was interested from the first in St. George's ; he liked the free church idea ; and he was a great lover of music. He had fixed in his mind the idea that he knew what St. George's music should be ; and I had my idea what St. George's music must be. I had to have a surplice choir, of course, because the people could not affbrd to wear their own clothes ; the difference
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A PREACHER'S STORY
would be too marked, and it could not be artistic in any sense ; and then, my idea of a choir was not simply to sing the music, but to lead the people in the responses — and I believe that is a great thing.
A man goes through the sordid strife of daily life all the week feeling that he is nothing but a competing animal, and on Sunday he kneels and worships with a great congregation ; there is no competing there ; and he, perhaps, a poor man side by side with a rich man, and that helps him. I have had many confess to that. To go back to my story. The difference between my idea of a choir and the idea held by this wealthy and liberal man became more and more marked ; he wanted a certain choir and a certain place ; and I saw more and more that I wanted a surplice choir and in an-' other place. Looking back, I see very
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OF HIS WORK
well that he dreaded the idea of High Church ; he was afraid I would drift into ritualism. One day he said to me :
" Mr. Rainsford, I want to help you ; you have a big fight to fight ; now, if you will hand over the choir to me, I '11 do anything you want for St. George's." I did not say anything, and he added, "What do you want most ?" " I want a parish building." " How much will a parish building cost ? "
" Nearly $200,000." "Well," he said, "if you will let me run the choir, I will give you my check for $200,000." " I cannot do it," I said. " Then you are going wrong." " I cannot help it ; I can't do what you ask."
"Then I won't come to your church any more."
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" I cannot help it," I said.
And he never did.
I should have been ruined if I had accepted his offer. I got my parish building within six months without any conditions.
I do not think it is an easy thing to be a clergyman. It is an easy thing to draw a salary and make a fair success ; but to make your mark among men, to do anything more than simply march in the ranks — that is a pretty hard thing to do. I think it is only fair to say that, from 1876, when I first came to New York, to 1883, when I left Toronto, though I preached in almost every State in the Union, I never re- ceived a call to a single church except to one Presbyterian church ; and if I were to leave St. George's to-day, I very much doubt whether I should have a call to many churches, certainly not to many influential ones. The people at
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St. George's would not have called me only they were so hard up; the church was going down, and they had to take my conditions, after other men had refused the call ; and I firmly believe that if I were to close my relations honorably with St. George's now, there are very few churches in the United States that would have me. I was once presented to the Bishop for trial*; and I do not think anything saved me from coming to trial but the fact that almost immediately afterward I broke a blood- vessel in my head when preaching, and for some time was near death. I had worked very hard, and I suppose my brethren of the clergy knew it, and the agitation slowly died down. The case never came to trial.
In meeting difficulties a sense of humor, of course, helps a man all the time; if he hasn't got it, he soon gets fagged out. All sorts of funny things
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come up which, if a man has the sense to see them, can buoy him and keep his spirit bright. For example the children in our Sunday-school often give very amusing answers on their examination papers on the catechism. One of the declarations in the cate- chism, you remember, is the promise to " renounce the devil and all his works, the pomps and vanity of this wicked world," etc. On one exami- nation paper the answer given was, " I will renounce the vanity of work."
There are not only obstacles in the ministry, but influences that succeed in keeping young men from the ministry. I have known of strong influence at home brought to bear to suppress per- haps even only a boyish desire, which might yet have come to much, on the basis that there is no money in the ministry. For instance, the father earns 1 20,000 or $50,000 a year; he
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learns that his boy as a clergyman will never be likely to get more than $5,000, and determines that he does not want his son in the ministry. This difficulty exists, unquestionably ; but I think what keeps more men out of the minis- try than anything else is the idea that clerical life seems unreal and a little unmanly, and this idea is fostered by our clerical training and the clerical environment. It is a great mistake to think to train a clergyman differently from other men. In his training he is kept apart ; he begins at last to think he is different ; and the first thing you know, he who should have his soul most open to truth, and who should be the keenest to appreciate what is vital in life around him, does not get at truth as quickly as other men. His atmosphere is unhealthful and unreal, and that is the thing I think every man
who takes a high view of what the
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clerical calling ought to be wants to fight against, wants to change. Mere clericalism is a terrible hindrance to religious life.
I think theological students average much better to-day than they did twenty years ago ; the standard is un- questionably higher. If we could only convince men that when they put on the garb of a clergyman they do not dimin- ish the man under the coat, the average would be still better. The laity are largely responsible for this. I hate, when I come into a gathering of men, to have them drop their voices because I am a clergyman. If they are swear- ing, I would far rather have them swear, and not stop swearing when I am there. It is unfortunate that the seminaries should be in any way with- drawn from the universities. Men in- tended for the ministry are put away
by themselves, they are taught that
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they are different from the rest of mankind, they dress differently, their methods of Hving are somewhat differ- ent, and so they get a certain profes- sional stamp and twang which very often never wears off, and it is a hin- drance ; because, as I am trying to point out, the man who is merely clerical is going to play a diminishing part in this country ; he has no place in democracy ; he is an exotic ; he is not a healthy growth ; he is something imported from outside ; he belongs to the past.
I am, of course, now speaking of the Protestant Church ; the Catholic Church is more than clerical, it is sacerdotal. It has an enormous organization ; it has the terrible ipse dixit of the Pope of Rome ; it has a cast-iron system ; it holds the keys of heaven and hell. An enormous proportion of the ignorant people are willing to accept all that, as
an escape from themselves ; but the
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ruling and controlling element in hu- manity is not going to yield to it. There is unquestionably a great deal of weariness as life grows more intense, and as knowledge increases more and more men can only gasp and say, " I can- not cover that ; it is beyond me," and perhaps naturally seek relief in the Papal authority. Doubtless there are some people who are not willing to accept Romanism who find relief in the ritualism of the High Church ; but I do not think those are the people who hold their own valiantly in the foreground of the battle of life ; they are rather the maimed, the weary, the footsore. Democracy is not going to be led forward by them ; nor is the minister going to succeed who minis- ters chiefly to them. The rest that I want, and the rest that will satisfy the poorest man, is not necessarily the rest which the Roman Catholic Church
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gives. I do not want the rest that comes with surrendering something that God has given me to defend, that I may gain strength in maintaining, using, and developing it.
Nevertheless, if a man only has a vision of God, he may be in the Roman Catholic Church, or anywhere else, and he will reach some people. Let men but stand for what they see and feel, and they will help their age. A man with this vision, if in the Roman Catho- lic Church, will reach thousands I never could reach ; and I am thankful to God that he can help them ; my message is not for them. My business is to get the light into my own soul, and then associate with those who can, generally speaking, march with me. I think as one grows older one grows more profoundly thankful that there are messages so absolutely different from one*s own — different expressions of x6 241
A PREACHER'S STORY
" the same spirit that worketh in every man severally as He will."
I fear that in what I have said about the clerical life I may appear to dwell entirely on the intellectual side, but that is not so. I spoke of my intellect- ual struggle, and the results of that struggle, but I do not want it under- stood that I believe in a purely intel- lectual ministry — that is not my idea at all. What I do maintain is that in a great majority of cases men will be stimulated and helped toward God by an intellectual effort to restate Gospel truth to them so that they can accept it without insulting their intelligence. Men are hungry for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but you must give it to them in some form that does not out- rage their common sense. Men do not want to give up the things their parents taught them — things that are sacred and sweet to them ; but they can
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no longer accept them in the form their parents did. We must restate these things — awaken in them a sense of their sonship with God, and so stimu- late their sense of service to their fel- low-men. That is my experience. And this is exactly the point I have been working at all the time. There are great spiritual unities that bind men to one another — rich or poor, wise or unwise, learned or foolish ; and if you approach men on those great basic unities, you win from them response.
One of the secrets of a successful ministry is to preach what you believe to be true, and nothing else. If it is true, it is going to win. A good deal of the success that has followed me in my ministry I lay to the fact that I was always sure of what I preached. I was sure I was right when I was talking to the people of Norwich, England, and
when I was holding my missions in
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Toronto. I scored people ; I abused them ; I told them exactly what they must do and what they must not do. It was the fault of evangelicalism that it was a system over-systematized, and I fell fearfully into the fault of that creed in the earlier days of my preach- ing. Now I have no definite system such as I had then, a tradition received from my fathers. But in giving up the old systematic faith I have felt no loss ; this other is so much richer and biggen I had a delightful sense of exhilaration when I grasped this great principle, capable of universal applica- tion — that people are the children of God. I tell them that, and it thrills me as I say it, no matter how common- place the words are. If a man has a spark of the divine in him when he is born into this world a crying, helpless baby, that spark is not going to be extinguished; God is not to be outdone,
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even by tons of muck. But in the old days, those dear happy early days before I had this larger faith, God blessed my ignorance as much as He blesses my ignorance at this moment. I was trying to do the best I could ; I was trying to give to men the poor best I had. Oh, how imperfect and mud- dled it is even yet ! I see some things now that I did not see then ; but all along I only tried to do what God gave me to do, and that won the way for me. There is something in the soul of every man that responds to the divine reality in a messenger, if he is a real messen- ger. I believe that as firmly as I believe anything, and I repeat that to the young clergy, and my boys and girls, and all over the land wherever I have a chance.
THE END