ts te 4 : fart oe aed we BPEL ETA ry, yin, te « * ve, corers >, ai ae Page $9 (ere an 15 as ¢ us A ps Shwe! ey tga ak, iy te tke res sey ie price RS 2 eee Soe So, Tox Seyi ro a yavinys es, o a “rte ~ oe Slt e iS Toe sigh ten sete: The A, —] ae THE LAST OF THE HERETICS BOOKS BY ALGERNON SIDNEY CRAPSEY RELIGION AND POLITICS THE RISE OF THE WORKING CLASS THE WAYS OF THE GODS INTERNATIONAL DEMOCRATIC REPUBLICANISM SARAH THORNE AND OTHER BOOKS AMR OF PRINZE. j ALGERNON SIDNEY CRAPSEY THE LAST OF THE HERETICS “We have piped unto you And ye have not danced; We have mourned unto you And ye have not lamented,”’ NEW yorRK ALFRED:A-+-KNOPF McmxxIv COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY ALFREDA. KNOPF, ING. ° PUBLISHED, JUNE, 1924 ° SET UP, ELECTRO- TYPED AND PRINTED BY THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, INC., BINGHAMTON, N. Y.°* PAPER FURNISHED BY W. F. ETHERINGTON & CO., NEW YORK. ‘ BOUND BY H. WOLFF ESTATE, NEW YORK. ° MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA To WILLIAM ROSSITER SEWARD “My Father: My Father: The Chariot of Israel and the Horsemen thereof.”’ Digitized by the Internet Archive In 2022 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library httos://archive.org/details/lastofhereticsOOcrap PREFACTORY NOTE It has been my fortune to live in one of the greater ages of human history. In successive stages of my career I have been influenced by the master minds of Newman, Darwin and Karl Marx. Under the inspiration of Newman I be- came a Neo-Catholic and a High Church clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Under the guidance of Darwin I became an Evolutionist, a rationalist and a disciple of the Higher Criticism. In this process of growth I could no longer think within the confines of the literal interpreta- tion of the creeds of the Church of which I was a member and a minister. In my effort to interpret the creeds in the light of my increasing knowledge I came in conflict with the authorities of my Church, was accused, tried and con- demned as a heretic. I then renounced my ministry and exchanged the pulpit for the platform. Apart from this main issue of my career, I have had a varied and to me, most interesting history. My life has been a series of adventures. From my tenth year I have been master of myself. I was, in fact, heretical by nature. A heretic is one who thinks and gives voice to his own thought; chooses his own way; does not easily submit to authority. Such has been my estate. Spiritually and intellectually I have been constantly on the move. And yet both inwardly and outwardly my life has pos- sessed a unity far out of the common. From first to last I have been a Humanist. God has never troubled me. I have taken Him for granted. I studied and in a measure mastered the theology of my church; but it was never vital to me. It was the humanity of Jesus and not His divinity that won and held my allegiance. vii Vill PREFATORY NOTE It occurs to me that a life which has been so interesting to myself may, in some measure, interest my friends and neighbours, so I submit it to their reading. I know this to be arash proceeding. Self-revelation is always hazardous. But I take the risk because I want to be known to others even as I know myself. If this book does nothing else, it will manifest to the world the inconvenience of a creedal religion and the mani- fest absurdity, not to say the immorality, of vows of any kind and of priestly vows in particular. When a young man comes to the entrance of the ministry of the Church, he finds written over its portals the words, ‘‘Leave thought behind all ye who enter here.” During the formative period of Christian history, from the first to the fourth century, there was no fixed creed, such as the Church has to-day; the conditions of church membership were moral, social, and economic, rather than intellectual; they were the warm impulses of the heart, rather than the cold concepts of the intellect. There were, to be sure, certain beliefs which were the common possession of all Christians—such as the divine sonship of Jesus; His death, resurrection and ascension; His second coming and the establishment of His Kingdom in the earth. But this was an emotional rather than an in- tellectual belief; it found its expression in life; when men gave themselves up to the hope and expectation of the speedy second coming of Christ they no longer had any interest in this present world; they who had lands and pos- sessions, sold them and laid the price at the apostle’s feet; nor said any man that aught of the things which he possessed was his own for they had all things in common, The main elements of association in this communistic Church were social and economic. The Church was not a State; it was a brotherhood; it was a family; it was the Household of God. PREFATORY NOTE 1X It was not until the fourth century that the intellectual and political forces dominated the Church. The struggle between Arius and Athanasius was in reality a struggle be- tween the Household of God, in which all things were in common, and the Imperial State with its supremacy of private property. In this contest the Imperial State prevailed—Athanasius and his party sold out to the Emperor; the Church lost her liberties and came under the dominance of the imperial and priestly powers. If there is any significance in my life it is that from the days of my youth I have been, without knowing it, a disciple of Arius, rather than of Athanasius. If anyone will be at the trouble to read my book, ‘‘Religion and Politics,’ which contains the lecture which brought about my trial and con- demnation, such an one will see that I was condemned primarily not for theological, but for social, political, and economic heresy. This, I think, will also be evident in the general story of my life which I herewith submit to the judgment of the reader. CONTENTS BIRTH AND LINEAGE HOME LIFE THE UNJUST PUNISHMENT THE GREY WITCH THE GREY MAN MY DISGRACE AT SCHOOL NECESSITY CALLS TO WORK WAR’S ALARMS I WALK IN HIGH PLACES WHITES AND BLACKS DEAD LETTERS THE TRAIL OF DESTINY THE CALL TO PREACH COLLEGE LIFE THE WAYS OF A SEMINARY A DEACON OF SORTS PRIEST OFFICIATING JUNIOR ASSISTANT MINISTER A LODGING-HOUSE MY DREAM COMES TRUE BEGINNINGS ARE HARD THE PREACHER THE PASTOR THE PRIEST 103 109 116 122 128 132 137 143 X11 XXV XXVI XXVII XXVIII XXIX XXX XXXI XXXII XX XIII XXXIV XXXV XXXVI XXXVIT XXXVIITI XXXIX XL XLI XLII XLIII XLIV XLV XLVI XLVII XLVIII XLIX L LI CONTENTS THE CONGREGATION OUR INSTITUTIONS RETREATS AND QUIET DAYS A MISSIONER DANGEROUS READING ILLUSION DISILLUSION A REVULSION OF FEELING A STARTLING DISCOVERY THE RATIONALIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY THE RITUALIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIALIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY A DECADENT CHRISTENDOM A CHALLENGE TO THE CHURCHES SPIRITUAL SOIL AND SUNLIGHT TIME PASSES THE PHILIPPINE EPISCOPATE AN EMPTY CHURCH THE AMERICAN CHURCH-STATE A WORD THAT WENT ROUND THE WORLD NO CAUSE FOR ACTION GUILTY AS CHARGED THE CHURCH SHUTS THE DOOR RENUNCIATION ABIIT AD PLURES THE BISHOP ERRS THE DIVINITY OF A TELEGRAPH POLE 147 150 158 164 177 182 186 I9I 195 201 205 208 212 217 226 232 236 239 244 249 254 260 269 275 284 287 291 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS une ‘ ve F rae ' ‘i Vaak eeaet CHAPTER I BIRTH AND LINEAGE WAS born on the 28th day of June, 1847, in the town | of Fairmount, County of Hamilton, State of Ohio. My father was of Teutonic origin. I can trace my an- cestry in the male line as far back as my great-grandfather. Just after the Revolutionary War two brothers, Ulric Jan and Jan Ulric Kropps, were living in the town of Schodack, in the County of Columbia, in the State of New York; they were tenants of the Patroon Van Rensellaer and followed the honest trade of the blacksmith. They came from their native land to the new world some time during the Revolutionary War. My surmise is that they were members of that mercenary army hired by George III of England to subdue his revolting subjects in the American Colonies, and, finding this land to their liking, made it their home. One of these men, whether Ulric Jan or Jan Ulric, I cannot tell, took to wife a Welsh woman, Ann Griffith by name, and begat sons and daughters. One of these sons, called Jan, or as it is in English, John, moved westward to the town of Parma, in Genesee County, State of New York, where he engaged in farming, being at the same time the minister of a small Baptist Church. In due time John Crapsey (for so now was the name spelled) married a wife—name and lineage unknown—and begat sons and daughters. To the youngest of these sons he gave the name of Jacob Tompkins—Jacob in honour of the great Patriarch, and Tompkins in honour of the then Governor of I 2 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS New York, a Democrat of power in his day. By reason of his birth my father was a Calvinistic Baptist in religion —in politics a Democrat. My mother was Rachel Morris, the daughter of Thomas Morris, of the town of Bethel, Clermont County, Ohio, a leading citizen not only of his State of residence, but of the United States of America. He was, at the time of my father’s courtship, representing his state in the Senate of the United States. Thomas Morris was not a politician, not even a statesman in the popular sense; he was a seer and a prophet, a hero and a martyr. A man of signal ability, he was self-educated and the maker of his own for- tune. While yet a lad, to escape the miasmatic atmosphere of slavery he migrated, alone, from his native State of Vir- ginia, to the wilderness north of the Ohio River. Morris chose this region for his home, because by act of the Con- tinental Congress, confirmed by the United States, the soil of this land was made for ever sacred to free labour. With all the courage of a pioneer this boy built his cabin on the banks of a small running stream in the depths of the forest; living by his own labour off the land and, after his day’s work was done, enlarging his mind by reading history and law by the light of his hickory fire. When the territory of Ohio was ready for the larger life of Statehood, Thomas Morris was also ready for polit- ical service. He was a member of the Constitutional Con- vention and of the early legislatures of the State, and after this a Justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio. In 1830 he was chosen to represent his State in the United States Sen- ate. Gifted as a jury lawyer, he was successful at the bar and had accumulated quite a property. My Grandfather Morris was pure Kelt. Driven by re- ligious persecutions, certain Welsh families of the clans Morris and Griffiths left Wales and made new homes for themselves in the mountain regions of Virginia. These BIRTH AND LINEAGE 3 families by intermarriage kept the race pure. My grand- father had all the characteristics of his race. He was small of stature and frame, intense in feeling, alert in action, highly emotional and deeply religious; he was easily moved to anger, and, in the outbreaks of his passion, given to vio- lence. The whole life of Thomas Morris was mastered by a deep-seated, passionate hatred of human slavery as prac- tised in his native State of Virginia. To escape it he exiled himself into the wilderness; to fight it he forfeited his polit- ical career. This tragedy came upon him just as my father married into the family. The political exile, the social ostracism, the religious excommunication of my grandfather was the consequence of a speech made by him in the Senate in the session of 1836. This speech was made in answer to one of Henry Clay in which that Senator advocated one of his many compromises between freedom and slavery. Morris attacked the whole scheme of Clay, root and branch; he would permit no compromise with slavery; he not only de- fended the right of petition against it; he not only called for its abolition in the District of Columbia, he denounced the whole institution as a foul thing, cruel to the blacks, degrading to the whites, a violation of human rights; a contradiction of the fundamental principles of the Ameri- can Republic, and repugnant to the Word and will of God. This speech had in it the sublimity of a biblical prophecy— it laid bare the hideous social ulcer and called down upon the sins of the nation the wrath of God. Occupying the attention of the Senate for the better part of two days, this speech closed with these fateful words: ‘‘The Negro shall yet be free!” For this speech the Southern Senators called for the ex- pulsion of Morris from the Senate; he was read out of the Democratic Party, excommunicated by the Methodist ‘Church, and hunted through his State as though he were a 4 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS mad dog. He joined the Liberty Party, and spent the rest of his life in anti-slavery agitation. He was a candi- date of his party for Vice-President. He died in his sixty- ninth year of a stroke of apoplexy, with the words “Lord have mercy on my soul” on his lips. He was denied Chris- tian burial. The memory of this moral hero survives in a single paragraph in the National Biography, and in a “Life of Thomas Morris’—of incomparable dullness—written by one of his sons, a Presbyterian clergyman. My mother was her father’s daughter, a pure Kelt, low of stature, small of frame, tireless in action; extreme in her moods. Now dancing and singing on the terrace like a happy child; now, in deepest despair, wandering alone in the woods like a lost soul. It was the irony of love that married this passionate, practical woman to her calm, philosophic, impractical husband. My mother hated my father’s name, Jacob. When speaking of or to him she called him Mr. Crapsey, and he called her Mrs. Crapsey! Under such circumstances, this union could not be a happy one, and yet it was not altogether unhappy. In a wistful way my father tried to meet the practical demands and humour the varying moods of my mother, and in an equally wistful way my mother admired the sterling honesty and intellectual supremacy of my father. CHAPTER II HOME LIFE larger measure than at present, was the economic unit. ‘It did not, as in the days of old, provide its own raw material, and the spinning-wheel was rather more for ornament than for use; but in spite of these changes the family was still an industrial establishment. It did its own baking; it manufactured the clothing for the women and the children; it made its own soap and did its own laundering; it canned and preserved its own fruits and vegetables and smoked its own meats; except in the cities, each family raised its own cattle, swine and fowls. A family so organized could afford numerous children, because after the fifth year each child was an asset. ‘The boy of six or seven could feed the chickens, weed the gar- den, gather the fruits and vegetables, and drive the cows to pasture. In those good old days a woman’s place was in the home; there she found full occupation for her organiz- ing power, and all the muscular exercise that she needed for her full development. In our home the wife and mother was the head of the industrial establishment. She, with the assistance of her children, not only directed, but performed, the labour of the house. Her working-hours were from six o'clock in the morning to nine o'clock at night. It was the variety of the work that made this life of ‘constant occupation endurable. To the older children were assigned the duties of the care of the younger ones, and assisting, as far as they were able, in the household 5 if the mid-nineteenth century the home, in a much 6 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS tasks. Our father left immediately after breakfast, for his office in the city, and returned at nightfall to busy him- self with the cattle. He did not meddle with the manage- ment of the house or the discipline of the children. In fact, until I was eight or nine years old I seldom saw my father; at breakfast or at supper I caught a glimpse of him; we younger children looked on him, not as a member of the household, but as company. He was never familiar with his children; from the first he treated us as his equals. If he were to meet me on the road he would say, “Well, sir, where are you going?’ When he called me in the morn- ing it was always by my full name; to others I might be “Al,” or ‘Allie’; to my father I was always Algernon. I can hear him now, as if it were yesterday, calling up the stairs, ‘“‘Algernon, Algernon; it is time to get up’—and he never called but once. But if I presumed upon his good nature and snuggled down to sleep again, I heard a treble voice, quick, decided, crying, “Allie! Allie! Get up this minute’—-and I got up, for this voice meant business. It was my father’s calling me in the early morning light that first put me in awe of my name; it was such a big name for such a little boy! It came to me because of my eldest brother’s admiration for Algernon Sidney, the lieutenant of Cromwell. ‘[o my mother I was nothing but the baby boy to be petted and whipped as occasion required. In those days we lived in a sort of rude luxury. We had abundance of food, in which no thought of calories entered. Toothsome ignorance ruled in the kitchen and served at the table. Our breakfast consisted of fried meats, beef or pork, fried potatoes and buckwheat cakes; our dinner of boiled or roast meats, vegetables and pie; our supper of chicken or eggs, fruit and cake. My mother made wonder- ful pies and cakes and she never denied us a second piece. I look back on those gargantuan feasts with astonishment and terror. That my digestive organs were unequal to HOME LIFE 7 the task laid upon them is not surprising; the wonder is that they did not fail altogether. To this mode of nourishment I owe the biliousness, the dyspepsia and the low spirits of my early life. In a large family the children always run in pairs. My older brothers and sisters were my tyrannical enemies, against whom my brother Thomas and I formed an al- liance, offensive and defensive. He, the next older than lI, stood between me and the buffetings of the grown-up world. On every occasion we paired, and were always mentioned together as Tommie and Allie. When I went into the army Thomas followed; soon after I left home Thomas died. I do not remember ever quarrelling with him; with others I could kick and scratch; never with Thomas! Our house was so arranged that the night was the time of adventure. When we went to bed we never knew what would happen before morning. ‘The flat roof over our heads was so related to the hill behind the house that it was possible for any man or beast to step from the hill to the housetop. As we lay in bed we could hear cats and coons scurrying over our heads; these we soon learned to endure, but when the cattle came down we had to go out in our night-shirts and drive them off. ‘Then we would call our dog, Rollo, to keep guard on the roof while we slept. This early home life remains with me as a medley of crying, crawling babies, laughing, weeping boys and girls. I was carried along in this family life as in a boat. I re- member it only as one remembers passing scenery: the de- tails are forgotten, only the general impression remains. I can recall only a few distinct incidents, such as an unjust punishment, the grey witch, the grey man, disgrace at school, my walks with my father, and the like. CHAPTER III THE UNJUST PUNISHMENT HERE is no event in human history more interesting and exciting than the settlement of the Ohio Valley in the third and fourth decades of the nine- teenth century. What was in eighteen-twenty an almost unbroken wilderness became in eighteen-fifty the site of thriving villages and populous cities. The richness of the soil, the abundance and value of the timber, the unfailing water power furnished by brooks, creeks and rivers, at- tracted settlers from various parts of the world, especially from Virginia and the Eastern States, from Ireland and Germany. In eighteen-twenty Cincinnati was a military post on the banks of the Ohio, protecting a few hundred settlers; in eighteen-fifty it was a thriving city of three hundred thou- sand people, a centre of trade, especially with the South; with churches, schools, and colleges; renowned for its scientific, artistic and musical institutions. This distinc- tion it owed in a large measure to the German element of its population. Men of culture came to this new country to enjoy its intellectual freedom; peasants by the thousands were attracted by the freedom of the land, and artisans by the scarcity of labourers. One large section, separated from the rest of the city by a canal, was known as “over the Rhine’’; only the German language was common to that section of the city. The movement of population from East to West was as constant as the flowing of the Ohio River. Our house was 8 THE UNJUST PUNISHMENT 9 situated on the Harrison Turnpike about five miles west of Cincinnati, and was a landmark to the emigrants making their way to the Golden West. Standing on its terraced hill-side surrounded by its orchards of peach and _ pear- trees and its grove of locusts, with roses blooming in its dooryard, it was to the emigrant his first view of the promised land. Lawyer Crapsey’s house was the site of a famous spring of water. ‘his spring came out from under the limestone rock, a steady stream of clear, cold water; the spring proper was covered by a spring house, in which was housed the milk, the butter, the eggs and perishable fruit of the household; outside the spring house on the roadside was a great trough for the watering of horses and cattle, and drinking-cups for men, women and children. The children of the Crapsey family found unending de- light, sitting on the roof of the spring house, watching the wagons go by. They were long wagons, covered with canvas, drawn by teams of horses or oxen. ‘The emigrants lived in the wagons; they carried their cooking-utensils hanging from the wagonsides; in fair weather they ate and slept on the wayside; in foul weather they huddled under their canvas covering. ‘The children laughed and played beside their moving homes; the mothers nursed their babes under the open sky, and so they went on and on, an unend- ing procession of wagons carrying an old people going to an old land, that out of these two oldnesses there might come forth a new people and a new land, people and land combining to create a new era for the human race. All flowing streams deposit a sediment and it was so with this moving stream of humanity: A mile or so to the westward of our home was such a deposit. It was com- posed of poor whites from Virginia; of feeble Germans and drunken Irish. The centre of this settlement was the saloon; not a reputable beer saloon, but a ginshop of the IO THE LAST OF THE HERETICS lowest order, the scene of drunken orgies and sexual im- moralities. This vicious deposit lay between our house and a village half a mile beyond in which was the grocery that furnished us with our daily supplies. To this grocery I was sent as occasion required; this errand was to Thomas and myself a dread and a danger. As we walked along the road there would rush out at us from this ginshop a burly boy, larger than we (I say ‘“‘we,”’ but we were seldom together, so I will change the narrative to ‘I,’ ‘“‘myself,” as the victim of the drama); and throw me down, kick and cuff me and rub my face in the dust. When I came crying to my home without supplies I was sent back again, and my older brothers said, ‘Why don’t you boys lick the brute ?”’ and this we determined to do. Thomas and I laid out a plan of action for the defeat of our enemy worthy of Cesar himself. We prepared an ambush. Thomas ran along the hill-side and hid himself in the bushes opposite the home of our enemy. I took my basket and went up the road as though I were going to the grocery, and I whistled by the way. The sight of me and the sound of my whistle was, to our foe, as a red rag to a bull: he came rushing at me, yelling like a wild Indian; he knocked me down, began mauling me and rubbing my face in the dust. While busy with me the bully did not see Thomas shooting down the hill-side, as a ball from a cannon. When he was struck by this human missile, he went bowling over and over in the dust of the roadway. I jumped up and joined Thomas, who was sitting on our fallen foe, giving him a taste of his own medicine. We walloped him with our fists; we rubbed his face into the grit of the roadway; we kicked him and cuffed him and sent him bleeding and yelling to the shelter of the saloon, while we ran up into the woods and scurried home, inflated with the joy of victory. But our joy was shortlived. While Thomas and I were washing away the evidences THE UNJUST PUNISHMENT II of our conflict, the father of our defeated foe came raging into our yard and told our mother that we had nearly killed his boy and he was going to have the law on us. Our ac- cuser so frightened our poor mother that, without waiting to hear our side of the case, she dragged us, her own boys, into the woodshed and gave us the whipping of our lives, leaving our bodies burning with the stripings of her whip and our souls burning with a sense of injustice. When our brothers came home in the evening and our mother learned the truth in the case her heart was broken with sorrow and remorse. She put us to bed, sponged our burning bodies with cool water, rubbed them with soothing- oil and, with tears streaming down her cheeks, begged our pardon. Our elder brothers went down to the home of the father of our enemy and so frightened him with threats of the law that he took his woman, his boy and his brood of children, his meagre household stuff, and trekked away to the westward and the victory remained with Thomas and myself. Our dear mother never forgave herself this act of injustice. Years afterward, when visiting me in New York, she recalled this event and once more asked my pardon. I said, ‘‘Never mind, Mother dear; if I got one whipping which I did not deserve I am sure I escaped a hundred which I did deserve’; and my mother said, smiling through her tears, ‘I guess that’s so, my son.” So we kissed and agreed to forget. CHAPTER IV THE GREY WITCH s late as the eighteen-fifties the wraiths of Indian A braves still haunted the forests of the Ohio region. Weird stories were told to little boys when they were naughty, of the great chief, Wanamaka, whose ghost glided in and out among the trees, seizing upon little boys who had offended their fathers, their mothers, their elder brothers and their sisters and, above all, their teachers, changing these little boys into Indians and carrying them away into the Far West to fight the battles of the red man. When I had reached the ripe age of seven years I began to discount these stories as the invention of grown-ups to frighten little boys into an irrational obedience, and such an obedience was then and always has been abhorrent to my conscience. In spite of these ghostly tales, or rather because of them, these forests were my daily attraction; when I could I would slip away from the open spaces of civilization and wander hour after hour in their Druidic shades, hoping against hope that Wanamaka would come and change me into an Indian brave and carry me away to the Far West to fight the battles of the red man, that so I might escape the tyranny of grown-ups and the weariness of school. In vain my mother whipped me; my father warned and my teachers kept me in; the ghost of Wanamaka still lured me to my fate. Sometimes my brother Thomas was my fellow wanderer, and our errancy once brought us to the edge of destruction. But for this evil Wanamaka was not to blame. Our igno- rance was our enemy. ‘Though there be no wraiths of 12 THE GREY WITCH 13 Indian braves haunting its shades, yet the forest is a treach- erous place; poisonous snakes glide through its grasses and poisonous berries grow on its bushes; it was the berries that were nearly the death of us. We saw them hanging in tempting clusters and we plucked them and did eat, and by and by, feeling griping pains, we hurried home and a frightened mother sent in haste for the doctor, who gave us emetics and so saved our souls alive. My mother’s in- terpretation of this mishap was that we should keep out-of the woods; my interpretation was that we should not eat berries. But alas for the valour of youth! what an Indian chief could not do was easily accomplished by a harmless old woman. One evening, just as the sun was going down, my mother called me and said, “Allie, run up to Mrs. Gunther and ask her to come down to- morrow and help me with the washing.”’ I went upon this errand with a glad heart, for of all the hours of the day in the woods this was to me the magic hour; the deepening shad- ows, the falling winds, the twittering of the birds in their nests, the passing of the glory of the day into the mystery of the night combined to make this hour sacred to my soul. Mrs. Gunther lived up on the hill-side, in the thick of the forest, about a mile from our house. As I lingered along my way I heard the trees and the underbrush rus- tling with life, as bird and beast hurried to nest and hole. Far down below, the monastery bell was ringing vespers, and the whistles of the factories were releasing the worker from his toil. Everywhere was peace, and God was giving His beloved sleep. As I approached the home of Mrs. Gunther I was as- sailed by the sickening smell of rotting apples. As I drew near the Gunther house this smell was overpowering; it was then quite dark. ‘The Gunther house, built as it was in the side hill, had its cellar even with the ground; the cellar door was open and it was from this cellar that this 14 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS smell of rotting apples came out. When I came to this open door, there rose up from the midst of the decaying fruit a gaunt, grey creature, which for all the world was just like the scarecrow in our cornfield. This horrid witch, for so it seemed to my frightened soul, came toward me, its hands dripping with rotten apple juice; its scant dress flapping about its bare legs; its grey hair hanging in wild disorder over its eyes; its voice screeching an outlandish gibberish, frightening my soul out of my body, so that I turned and ran down the hill for dear life. I did not stop running until I came up against our fence. I seized hold of the fence and vomited the contents of my stomach, down to the bitter bile, out upon the ground and fell down into a dead faint. I lay unconscious for some time, until the growing coolness of the night brought me to myself. I rose up, crept under the fence and made my way to our house. When I came in my mother began to scold me for being gone so long. At this I broke out into wild hyster- ical crying. I cried and cried until my frightened mother took me in her arms and carried me to bed. When I could speak I told her how the scarecrow from our cornfield had followed me up the hill and had hidden in Mrs. Gunther’s cellar and had tried to catch me and carry me away. My mother took me in her arms and soothed me, telling me that it was not the scarecrow that had frightened me; it was only Grandma Gunther. Be that as it may, for many years thereafter Grandma Gunther, in the guise of a grey witch, would come to my bed, when I was in my early sleep, sit upon my stomach and drop the juice of rotting apples in my eyes. At this I would awaken with a scream and it would take a long time to soothe me to sleep again. This grey witch robbed me of at least three inches of my growth and sent me forth upon my life’s journey with shattered nerves. I did not get rid of her until I left my home in Cincinnati. CHAPTER V THE GREY MAN HE emigrants who came from the old world to the new brought with them their several religions. So it came to pass that in the city of Cincinnati, rigid puritanism existed side by side with devout Catholicism. The Irish and the Germans made of my native land a Cath- olic stronghold. The whole of the region known as “‘over the Rhine” was given up to this form of religion. Catholic churches and institutions sprang up on every side. Catholic priests in their cassocks, Sisters of Mercy in their habits, were as familiar to my youth as the emigrant wagon and the wandering pedlar. Convents and monasteries followed in the wake of the churches. The influence of the Catholic element was powerful in the political, social, industrial and business life of the community. It was the Irish Catholic labourer with his pick and shovel who made our roads, dug our cellars and carried in his hod the bricks and the mortar that built our houses. The German Catholics cleared our lands, cultivated our gardens, planted our vineyards and our orchards, raised for us our cattle and our pigs, and in the course of twenty-five years made Cincinnati the Queen City of the West. It was the German element, largely Catholic, that gave to us our system of free schools and made our city an intellectual and artistic centre; so that for a time Cincinnati was for the West what Boston was to the East: the home of the thinker and the scholar. Inthe month of November, 1843, there was laid in Cincinnati, largely because of the German 15 16 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS element, Catholic and Protestant, the foundation of the first astronomical observatory ever erected in America. This occasion was made for ever famous by the oration of John Quincy Adams, pronounced after an exhausting jour- ney from Boston, at the risk of his life. A lad could not grow up in such an atmosphere as this without breathing it in with his own breath. When I left my native city I carried away from it a deep feeling for natural beauty, a reverence for devout religion in any form, and a veneration for sound learning, natural science and sincere art. It was part of the benefit of my environment that I came to my manhood without serious religious prejudice. Arch- bishop Purcell, who presided over the Catholic Church, was venerated as a good man and a useful citizen by men and women of all religions and of no religion. When financial disaster came upon him he was rescued by the common charity of the whole people, without regard to religious differences. But far beyond this I learned to love the Catholic Church because of its appeal to my sense of beauty and my sense of mystery. The call of the monastery bell to prayers from matins to compline reminded one every hour of the life beyond life. The friars reading their offices as they walked between the graves of their dead filled the soul with a reverence for holy men and holy things that was never lost. I am sure I owed my own future calling to the ministry of the church to the impressions made upon my soul by these devout friars. One day as I was lingering by the monastic gate, one of the friars laid his hand upon my head and blessed me, and I came away weeping with an unknown joy. For a long time after this, if I were walking alone in the woods, I would see a grey man walking before me. I would follow him, but could never come up to him; when THE GREY MAN Vi I would come near to him he would fade away into the greyness of the earth and the sky, and it was pressed in upon my soul that I should be as that grey man—a minis- ter of the most high God and a servant of the people; and so it came to pass. The grey witch was my bane by night; the grey man was my blessing by day. CHAPTER VI MY DISGRACE AT SCHOOL , " J HEN I was about six years old I suffered what seemed to me a shameful wrong. I was seized by violent hands and, in spite of screams and kickings, I was dragged away to what was to me a prison house and a torture chamber. I was sent to school, liter- ally sent. No healthy child of six ever went to school of his own accord; he had to be dragged or driven there. And the instincts of the rebellious boy were sane and sound; he had no call to be in a school, at least in such a school as was provided for him in the mid-nineteenth century. In these schools a mere child, a baby, was com- pelled to sit still on a hard bench hour after hour and listen to weary children under the rod of exasperated teachers, droning their a, b, c; spelling c-a-t, cat; d-o-g, dog, and if a little boy or girl failed to spell aright, his or her little hands were blistered with the rod. From the very first day of my incarceration in this place of torment, I was in rebellion against it. Instead of being a good boy and attending to my letters, I was for ever gazing through the open door and the open window out into that world of freedom and beauty from which I had been snatched away. Instead of watching those ugly things called letters and the pages of my book, I was gazing at the dragon clouds floating through the sky, and listening to the drone of dragon-flies floating above the flowers. The outer region of the sky and the earth was so lovely and so interesting, the inner region of the school so ugly 18 MY DISGRACE AT SCHOOL 19 and forlorn, that I adored the one and despised the other. As a consequence, I was a trial to my teacher and a sor- row to my mother. It seemed to me that my mother and my teacher were in a conspiracy to compel me to learn my letters. I set my will against their will. I flatly refused to learn my letters. I was whipped in school and I was whipped at home because I would not learn my letters. I remember, as if it were yesterday, how my teacher, who was my Cousin Sidney, took me into a dark closet of the school, in which the girls hung their hats and cloaks —how I hate to this day the smell of girls’ hats and cloaks! —and there, after whipping me until my body was stinging with the striping of the whip and my soul aflame with anger, my Cousin Sidney told me, with tears running down her cheeks, that it hurt her more than it hurt me for her to whip me as she did; at which in my inner soul I laughed sardonically, for if it hurt her why didn’t she stop? She told me that I would grow up in ignorance. I would break my mother’s heart and make my father poor buying me first readers. I went out from that closet with the evil smell of girls’ hats and cloaks in my nostrils and with black despair in my heart. When Cousin Sidney came home, for she lived with us, she cried and told my mother, and my mother cried and whipped me again; and all this bother because I would not learn my letters. If they had only let me alone my letters would have learned themselves. I never did learn my letters. From constant iteration and reiteration on the part of the other children I learned my first reader by heart and could read it looking out of the window. ‘This was also an offence for which IJ suffered punishment. But confinement in school had its compensation; it gave added value to the freedom of the divine outdoors. With a shout of joy we escaped from the durance of school into the liberty of nature—the great teacher who taught us by 20 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS the seeing of the eye and the hearing of the ear, whose letter was the violet and the daffodil, and whose voice was the voice of the blue jay and the oriole. I am told that children run to school to-day as we used to run away from it. I am glad of this, and yet I am afraid lest the instruction of the schools should usurp that instruction which is unlettered and cannot be printed on the pages of a book; that divine instruction which must be read directly from the pages of the earth and the sky; the letters of which are the flowers and the stars. And I am also afraid of that which we worship to-day as science, which seeks to make of nature a bond-slave of our industrial system, to sell her secrets as if she were a harlot, in the markets of the world. When I was about eight years old my father removed from the town of Fairmount to the village of College Hill, where we resided for four years. During this period I learned my letters and mastered the rudiments of what is called education. Leaving College Hill at the expiration of the four years, we made our home in the city of Cincinnati. While we were living in College Hill, my father gave the most of his time to an effort to create a pleasure park for the benefit of the people of Cincinnati; this to the neglect of his business. ‘The scheme was a failure. CHAPTER VII NECESSITY CALLS TO WORK T this time anxiety was a guest in our household. My father could not easily recover his failing practice. Our only certain source of income came from my grand- father’s estate and this was dwindling away. There is nothing sadder in this sad world than the failing fortunes of a once well-to-do household. Day by day the ghost of want sits at table; clothing becomes shabby; food scanty; debts increase and friends fall away. The world says of the head of such a household, ‘‘He’s a has-been.’ Success passes him by with a rush, and he must admit the sad fact of his failure and adjust himself to the conditions of that failure. It was this low estate at home, together with my natural repulsion to the dullness and futility of my life at school, that moved me, one morning, to turn away from the road to the school and go down into the streets of the city in search of a job. Fifth Street was the centre of the larger retail business of Cincinnati. ‘To this street I made my way, reaching the centre at about ten in the morning. At first I walked up and down the street, with my heart in my mouth, not daring to go into any of the stores that lined the way. At last I summoned my courage, went into one door after another, gaining bravery with each rebuff, until I came to the dry-goods store of Cole and Hopkins, on the corner of Fifth and Pine. Entering this large establish- ment, I timidly approached a black-bearded man standing 21 22, THE LAST OF THE HERETICS in the aisle, and asked him if he wanted a boy. He looked at me with a kindly face, asked me some questions, then motioned to a big blond man, standing near, to come to him. The dark man and the blond man talked together, look- ing me over the while. Then the dark man asked me if I knew anyone near by who could speak for me. [ in- stantly remembered that a cousin, George Morris, was a librarian in a near-by library. I ran over to him; he came with me to the store, and told the black man and the blond man who I was. His recommendation being sufficient, I was employed on the instant as a cash boy in this store of Cole and Hopkins, the second largest in the city; the black man was Mr. Cole; the blond man Mr. Hopkins. I was in my eleventh year when I thus entered upon business life, and with one brief exception I never went to school again until I was twenty years old. When I came home and told my mother what I had done, she cried and said that I could not, must not leave school and go to work. What would people say when they heard that the grandson of Thomas Morris was cash boy in Cole and Hopkins’? When Father came home and the matter was discussed in the family council, my father said, “You had better let the boy do what he wants to do, Mrs. Crapsey. As for school, life is the best school of all, and your father, Senator Morris, began his life as a squat- ter, making his living by the work of his own hands. It seems to me that Algernon has shown enterprise and deci- sion. We had better let him have his own way.” Whether this reasoning convinced my mother or not, I can- not say, but I do know that I was up bright and early the next morning without being called. My mother was likewise out of bed, and in the kitchen. She made me a hot breakfast, packed my lunch box and, with tears stream- ing down her cheeks, kissed me good-bye, and I went proudly, in the early morning light, down the hill to Vine NECESSITY CALLS TO WORK 23 Street, through Vine Street, ‘“‘over the Rhine,’’ down to my place of business in the city. In exchange for my talent and my time I received the princely sum of one dollar a week. Do not scorn me, dear reader, for a dollar was a dollar in those days; it bought all my clothes, gave me my spending-money, and enabled me to help a little with the family expenses. When the first Christmas of my business life came, I took my dollar and bought my mother a toilet case for her Christmas present. I went up early in the morning before she was out of bed and said, ‘‘Mother, here’s a little Christmas present; I bought it with my own money.” Then my mother drew me up on the bed, took me in her arms, hugged and kissed me, laughed and cried and said she was proud of me, and we were as happy together as though my present had cost a hundred dollars instead of a single dollar. When I started in business a cash boy was a cash boy; when a sale was made the clerk would rap on the counter with his pencil and cry ‘‘Cash”’; then the cash boy would scurry to the call, take the goods and the cash to the desk; the bundle boy would tie up the goods, the cashier make the change; the cash boy would carry the bundle and the change to the clerk at the counter, and that transaction was closed. It was an exciting occupation; it was run, run, run all the day. ‘The boy learned to be sharp and quick, to call down the bundle boy, chide the cashier; for woe betide the boy who was wrong with his change. If it was too little, the cashier would say the cash boy stole it; if it was too much, the cashier would say, ‘‘The cash boy ought to ’a’ known it afore he took it from the desk.” Once I remember some money was lost; the cashier said I took it. I said I didn’t. When Mr. Hopkins came along I cried and said, ‘Mr. Hopkins, Cashier says I stole seventy-five cents. Do you think I ud do it?” Mr. Hop- 24 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS kins laughed and said, ‘‘No, I don’t think a grandson of Thomas Morris would steal seventy-five cents”; and so I went free, thanks to Grandpa. A dry-goods store in those days was a dry-goods store and it was nothing else. We didn’t demean ourselves to sell gumdrops and popcorn and soda water and candy. Not we; we sold cottons and silks, woollens and linens. It was a man’s job; no skirts were allowed behind the counters. No long-legged girls answered to the call of ‘‘Cash! Cash!” I followed this calling for nearly two years, when my father was retained in a lawsuit involving millions of money. The retaining-fees lightened the financial gloom of the family. My mother said I ought to go back to school. I agreed, and so brought to a close this first episode of my active business life. CHAPTER VIII WAR’S ALARMS HEN I went back to school, a lad of fourteen, I \) \) had to begin where I had left off and was graded with boys of ten and eleven. It is true that I had learned in the world of business what I could never have learned in the school, but this availed me not at all. Knowledge of the world and knowledge of books have little in common; proficiency in the one gives one no credit in the other. Because of this I, a tall growing boy, was placed with the little shavers in the lower forms. ‘This was not only disgraceful, it was deadly dull. After submitting to this humiliation from the summer opening to the Christmas holidays, I gave it up and never was subjected again to the confinement of the desk and the indignity of the ferule. My next venture in life was equally unfortunate. A cousin, Edward Morris, was a partner in a hardware factory, the firm name being Hollingshead, Morris and Company, and a place was made for me in this enterprise. Of all places in the world, none is harder to fill than a place that is made for one. What is gained by favour is lost by disfavour. JI had in this factory nothing in particular to do and did it with great zeal and constancy. I was not one of those story-book boys who go smelling after work as a dog after a cat. I never ran after work, but waited with patience for work to come to me. ‘This did not raise me in the esteem of my employers. When I was a cash boy, I was busy all the day; when I was supposed to be a handy lad of all work, I did little or nothing, 25 26 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS One hot day in August as I was standing idly in the doorway of the factory, watching the traffic of the street, the younger Mr. Hollingshead came along and gave me “down the banks.”’ He told me that I was an idle, good- for-nothing boy, that I didn’t earn my wages, and, without further words, turned on his heel and left. He didn’t dare give me my discharge for I was the cousin of his partner and the grandson of Thomas Morris—fatal pedigree. When I reflected upon the censure that I had received, I could not but admit that it was deserved, and that my situation was intolerable; so without further ado, I took my hat and jacket off the peg and went down to the station, took the first northbound train to Camp Dennison, and en- listed for a soldier in Company B, 79th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. ‘This action liberated my soul. I was no longer in a place that was made for me, but in a place that I had made for myself. I selected this regiment and company because Captain West, its commander, was a friend of the family. It was fortunate for me that the captain was not in the camp that day; had he been, I am quite sure he would have packed me off home with a flea in my ear. When I thus entered upon my military career, I was in the first quarter of my fourteenth year; was small for my age, and pink and white like a girl. I am still wondering how I passed muster. It was seen at once that I was too young for the line, but what then—could I not enroll as a musician? When the sergeant suggested this, I jumped at it. When I was asked if I would be a drummer boy, I rejected the proposition with scorn. What instrument would I play? I answered proudly, ‘“The bugle,”’ and the bugle it was; and without further ado I was sworn in as a soldier to serve for three years, or during the war. I made this great adventure in mid-August, in the year 1862, the worst year of the war. Lee and Jackson had driven the Federal army to the banks of the James River, WAR’S ALARMS 27 had beaten Pope to a frazzle at Bull Run the Second, and put Washington in danger. Halleck had fumbled affairs in the West, had done all he could to frustrate the genius of Grant, and, as a reward, had been given the command of the armies of the United States. It was at this perilous moment that I entered the breach to save my country from final ruin. I enlisted in mid- August and in early September was in active service. No year of training was permitted us. Our enemy was not beyond the sea on the banks of the Marne; but, in the person of General Kirby Smith, he was near Lexington and coming as fast as his soldiers could march to capture and hold the city of Cincinnati. Without training, with- out proper equipment, almost unarmed, our regiment was hurried over the river and entrenched on the Covington Hills. ‘There was no bugle to be had for the bugler, and if there had been a thousand bugles, so far as I was con- cerned, they would have been useless, for I had no more knowledge of the art or science of music than a brass monkey. So there was nothing for me but to be degraded to the ranks, which degradation I accepted with joy as a promotion. One Sunday afternoon my father came over to visit me in the camp; he brought me a revolver, the barrel of which was at least two feet long, and with that weapon I was to win the war. My father spent the night in the camp. In the early hours of the morning, in the deep darkness before the dawn, we were startled from our sleep by the beating of the long roll; the bells of Covington, Newport and Cincinnati were ringing a wild alarm. Kirby Smith was coming with his rebel horde to capture our army, burn our cities, ravish our women and slay our children: ‘Those were times when anything, no matter how atrocious, found ready belief. To avert these disasters, our regiment stood as a bulwark between the foe and our women and children. 28 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS My father stood at my side with my revolver cocked and ready in his hand; I with my musket, with bayonet in place, waiting to repel the rebel host or die in the attempt. Kirby Smith must have learned of the fate that awaited him for he never came to test our valour, and Cincinnati was safe; its wives and children in no further danger of outrage. In a few days our brigade, under the command of Colonel Ward, was embarked on_a flotilla of river steamers and transferred to Louisville to reinforce the army of General Buell, then confronting the rebel army under General Bragg. Our regiment was in the command of Lieutenant Colonel Doane; our Company B was under Lieutenant Thompson. Neither our colonel nor our captain had made his appearance. Captain West joined us on our way south- ward. Colonel Kenneth showed the white feather, and Papa Doane, as we called him, remained in command to the end of the war, rising to the rank of brigade- commander. Our regiment was stationed a few miles from Louisville. We were within hearing of the battle of Perryville, but were not called into action. Had Buell made use of all the forces within his reach he could have turned that drawn battle into a rout. If Thomas had not magnanimously refused the command of the army just before that battle there would have been a different story to tell and Bragg would have been driven from Kentucky, his army ruined, if not captured. But it was not to be. Rosecrans suc- ceeded Buell in command, and we began the slow pursuit of Bragg’s forces through the State of Kentucky. For raw troops that was a cruel experience. We were without proper camp equipment, without tents, and half the time without rations. It was in the fall of the year and we were marching into the mountain region of Kentucky, exposed day and night to the weather. It was very warm when WAR’S ALARMS 29 we started on our march and many of the soldiers threw away their blankets. I am glad to say that I was more prudent. The extent of my prudence may be measured by the fact that I was carrying an equipment almost equal to my own weight. My musket, my blanket, my knap- sack, my haversack, my clothing weighed about sixty pounds. I weighed less than a hundred. Many and many a day I marched for more than twenty miles carrying this load, having a little coffee, hardtack and sowbelly for breakfast; hardtack and sowbelly pierced by a stick and toasted over a fire for dinner, and went supperless to bed on the ground under the open sky. I shall always remember one such day of discomfort. We had outmarched our wagons and after a hard day’s travel, in which we had fed upon the contents of our haversacks, were encamped on a hill-side; we had to stay ourselves with rails to keep from rolling down while the rain poured upon us all through the night. Could we sleep? A dead-tired man can sleep anywhere; not arctic cold, not torrid heat, nor rain from heaven nor fires of hell can keep him awake. During all this march I was in the ranks doing my full duty. I was on guard in my turn day and night, and when at some lonely post I was never afraid—not afraid of the dark, nor afraid of the foe. Captain West tried to pre- vent this; he was very angry with the corporal of the guard. He said with an oath, “This boy is not to be placed on guard at night.’”’ But I said, “I came out here to see the fun and I am going to see it.’’ I did not say this to my captain. I said it to myself, and went on guard in my turn just the same. I have another story to tell of the power of fatigue to compel sleep. We had been marching all day through the rain, one of those tiresome marches, when you march and stop, march and stop, because your officers do not know how to clear the road. We were approaching Frankfort, 30 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS the capital of the State. Just at nightfall we came to the Kentucky river; a halt was called, and in a moment, as if stricken with death, the men fell in their tracks and were sound asleep in an instant. I looked on that sight with horror. By and by came the sharp command “Attention!” ‘Shoulder arms, forward march!” and we passed over the bridge into Frankfort. The rebel army, together with the legislature which had just passed an ordinance of secession, had fled the city; we were received by the loyal inhabitants with royal welcome. We were encamped in the city square, feasted upon hot biscuits and hot coffee, corn pone and roast pig, chicken and cakes, shook hands with the men and kissed the girls. One good mother, seeing how little I was, took pity on me and wished to take me to her home, but I was too happy where I was to wish for further happiness. ‘The soldiers painted the town red that night —Bourbon whisky was to be had for the asking. The boys filled the State House, organized a House of Representatives and a Senate, repealed, with wild cheering, the ordinance of secession, and placed the Blue Grass State back in the Union, where it has remained, all snug and safe, ever since. We were held for several days in camp at Frankfort. The tired men and still more tired mules were given a needed rest. Every man was supplied with a blanket; the tents were put in order and the army made as comfortable as possible against the coming winter. It was about the first of November when we started on our long hike as the rear of Rosecrans’ army, which was moving southward following Bragg’s army, that after the battle of Perryville had fallen back upon its line in middle Tennessee. We were in the high hills and it was bitter cold. I marched with my company carrying my full equipment. As we were going uphill our progress was slow and our spirits were WAR’S ALARMS 31 low. There was no singing or cheering. In almost sullen silence we climbed the hills, halted at noon, made our coffee, toasted our hardtack (a very big hard biscuit) and our sowbelly (a coarse, fat, salt pork), and huddled about our fires until the bugle called us to our ranks and the command “Forward march!” set us once more on our weary way. We reached the border of Tennessee on the 30th day of November; it was Thanksgiving season, but there was .no turkey nor cranberry sauce for us; no grandpa nor grandma at our table. A deep sadness pervaded the ranks as thoughts of home and its comforts haunted our souls. We said little and that little had better been left unsaid. We offered no prayer of thanksgiving. We damned the rebels; we cursed the politicians; we jeered at our generals. Our brigadier, “Old Ward,” as we called him, was a gruff fellow for whom we had no affection. Rosecrans, the commander of the army, inspired no confidence: For the private soldier war is a grim game; his is the killing and the dying; if he wins he gains no glory; that goes to the General commanding; if he loses, his is the shame! He surrenders his personality; he is not a name, he is a number; when the battle is over his shattered body may lie for hours on the ground where it fell, and his unshriven soul goes out into the darkness with no pity to soothe its agony, no love to light its way. It was in some such spirit of despondency that I greeted the light of the morning of the thirtieth of November; the cold was intense; the snow was falling, the wind cutting like a razor. We broke camp in the early morning and made our way slowly up the mountain in silent suffering. We were marching in files of four and I was leader at the end of a file. When the noon hour came we did not halt for dinner, because of the cold, but were hurried on that we might camp in the early afternoon and have the heat q2 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS of our fires and the protection of our tents. Just at noon- tide the adjutant of the regiment came riding down the line. When he came to the file, of which I was the left-hand leader, he reined in his horse and looked at me; his lips were blue with cold; his eyes alight with pitiful kindness; he dismounted, and, without saying a word, took away my gun, lifted me into the saddle and took my place as left- hand leader in my file. It was a kindly act, but it was a kindness that killed—my only safety was in motion; it was fatal for me to sit still. The slow walking of the horse, the constraint necessary to my keeping in the saddle, chilled the blood in my veins. When we reached the camp all power of motion was gone. I sat, a frozen figure, on my horse. My comrades lifted me from the saddle, wrapped me in my blanket, and ‘when our tent was pitched, carried me in, and with a blanket under me laid me on the ground. When the fires were made and the dinner was ready, my mate brought me coffee and beans; the coffee I drank greedily, but the sight of the beans turned my stomach. All the afternoon I lay half conscious in the corner of the tent. When the drums beat for evening roll call, I could not answer to my name and no one answered for me and I was entered on the roll as absent without leave. When my comrades came in from supper they found me shivering like an aspen, sick at my stomach and delirious. The doctors were hastily called. I was carried to the hospital tent where the surgeon and his assistant worked over me all through the night. I was never told the name of my particular sickness but presume that it was pneu- monia. Our regiment lay in camp on the border of Ten- nessee until Christmas-time and I was cared for in the hospital tent. In any well-ordered universe that should have been the end of Algernon. But that was not to be; WAR’S ALARMS a the universe apparently had use for him in this human sphere for the next fifty years and more. In some three weeks I was sufficiently recovered to return to my tent, but was not fit for duty. I lay for a fortnight in the corner close under the canvas, half hidden from the men; they ignored my presence and I could not help hearing what they said'to one another. In that charming book, “The Education of Henry Adams,” the author tells us that his friend, Clarence King, once said that this world of ours might have been a tolerable success but for the inclination of the earth’s axis to the plane of its ecliptic and the dif- ferentiation of the sexes. Mr. Adams seems to have agreed with his friend in this judgment. But with all due modesty, I beg to dissent from the dictum of these high authorities. It seems to me that the Creative Powers knew what they were about when they inclined the earth’s axis to the plane of its ecliptic and differentiated the sexes; for without this inclination there would be no weather; with- out this differentiation there would be no women; and if there were no weather and no women, pray what would men have to talk about? Think of a world in which a man could never say, “It’s damned hot’’; “It’s beastly cold” ; Fvinitshew a, \peacii?, ; \ohe’s, some, girl!) No! ‘The Creative Power had pity on the vacuity of the ordinary male mind and gave him two subjects for unending conver- sation. Long before I had so much as heard of Henry Adams or of Clarence King I had mastered the vast impor- tance of weather and women in the conversational life of mankind. I had my first knowledge of this as I lay and listened to the talk of the men in my tent. These men were young men, between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five. They had come from the small towns and the farms; they were clerks in stores, farmer’s sons, lawyers, and one of them was 34 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS a schoolmaster. ‘The tales these young men had to tell of their doings with women would have brought the blush of shame to the cheeks of Margaret of Navarre and made the “Decameron” an innocent book. If the stories of these men had any foundation in fact, the notion of the greater virtue of the women of the country as compared with the women of the city must be dismissed as idle, untrue to fact. Not one of these young men but had his tale of illicit love. The most boastful Lothario of them all was the school- master. As part of his recompense he was boarded round by the patrons of his school and his talk reeked with the salacious accounts of his amours with the wives and daughters of his hosts; his descriptions were not veiled in decent phrase; he left nothing to the imagination, and the men that listened shouted with laughter at the more nau- scous of his words. I was too young and too sick to be moved by this erotic conversation, but it did put evil thoughts in my mind against which I had to struggle through all the earlier years of my life, and left me with a debased opinion of both men and women. I must, of course, have learned of this evil at some period of my life, but never perhaps in a way so harmful to my moral nature. As we lay in the camp guarding the railway that was the line of communication between the army of Rosecrans and its supplies, we were subject not only to the debasing moral influence of camp life, but were also devastated by its physical impurities. The sanitary conditions of the camp were deplorable. Every day we would hear the drums beat the dead march as some poor victim of military routine and medical incapacity was buried in the trench that was always open, ready for the next comer. These sights and sounds had a most deleterious effect upon my soul and body. I lost my manhood and was dying of nostalgia. I wanted nothing but to go home. WAR’S ALARMS BS I wanted my mother—my heart became hypertrophied, not surely from excess of nutrition, but from excess of sorrow. One day the doctors came in to see me, and [ heard one of them say to the other, ‘I guess we had better send him home and let his mother see him before he dies. The poor brat should never have been enlisted; he’s not the sort for this kind of work.’’ So I was sent down to the General Hospital at Nashville, was examined and, as a result-of that examination, was duly discharged from the Army of the United States, never to be re-enlisted, because of this hypertrophied heart. In this manner did my military career come to an igno- minious end, and yet I am glad of that experience. I was in my little way part and parcel of one of the greatest wars in human history; a war that made the American Continent, in measure, “‘safe for Democracy’’; it destroyed for ever the institution of human slavery, and by a happy accident it brought into history one of the greatest States- men and purest souls known to the annals of mankind. It has been my high privilege to serve in my small way the cause of Jesus of Nazareth and of Abraham Lincoln. What greater destiny can any man crave? CHAPTER IX I WALK IN HIGH PLACES HEN I reached home after my long journey from \) \ Nashville, it seemed as though I had come home to die. I was so pale and peaked that my mother was greatly alarmed. She called in the family phy- sician who, after examination, reassured my mother, telling her that while my condition was serious, yet with care I could come through and live as long as I wanted to live. And the doctor spake sooth; I had the care; I did come through, and I have lived as long as I have wanted to live. I kept my bed for a month, was kissed and coddled, given chicken broth and toast, porridge and tea until I was strong enough to be on my feet and walk about the house. When I wearied of this confinement, my father asked me if I would care to go down and keep his office for him. I agreed and the next morning entered upon my duties. My father’s ofice was on Walnut Street, near the corner of Sixth Street in Bacon’s Building. It was on the second floor in the rear. ‘The office was a long narrow room with lofty ceiling; looking out of the window one had a view of the backs of the buildings on Vine Street, with about fifty feet of space between; this space was a catch- all for the rubbish of the tenants of the various buildings, barrels and boxes, old hats and boots and sometimes a dead cat or two. It was not a view to charm the eye of one who had been out in the open climbing the mountains, in the shadow of the pine forests, watching eagles and 36 I WALK IN HIGH PLACES 3/ hawks as they mounted upward and were lost in the grey- blue of the sky. The office itself was not a lively place in which to pass the day; its walls were lined with shelves filled with law books; it was in the shadow of the high buildings beyond and was as quiet as a graveyard at midnight. As the keeper of this office, it was my duty to tell anyone who called that my father “wasn’t in,’ which this caller might have seen for himself, and if he asked when Lawyer Crap- sey would be in, to answer “I didn’t know.” It would seem that the office might just as well have kept itself; as indeed it had before I came home. I was there only because just then I had nowhere else to go. My father was no longer in general practice; he was fully occupied with the Whitewater case and his one client was Colonel West, an old man with plenty of money. He was not only a client, he was a friend; he called my father “Judge,” and.my father called him ‘Colonel.’ Though my father had never been on the bench, nor West at the head of a regiment, West might come into the office of a morning; he would sit for an hour or two, or three hours, damning the courts, telling stories; my father taking up the refrain, talking Whitewater, discoursing on the law’s delays and so beguiling the morning away; when the Colonel would say, ‘“‘Come, Judge, let’s go to dinner”; and to dinner they would go and that was the last that I would see of them that day. I had my lunch in my basket; after eating it, the long afternoon lay before me in which I had nothing to do. After a day or two of this kind of life I was bored to madness. I tried the law books, but their dry lore did not relieve the tedium of my soul. I was in despair and was about to desert my post when I found a way out of this dullness into a way of life and light and joy, so that I look back to the months that I spent in my father’s 38 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS office, not only with delight, but with gratitude. In those months I laid the foundations of my future career. Just below Bacon’s Building was a library. One noon hour after my father and Colonel West had gone to Hofmei- ster’s Garden for dinner, I went to this library and took out a book, and with this book under my arm, came back to the office and spent the afternoon in the company of the writer of that book. I do not remember the name of that writer nor the title of his book, but whoever he was, I owe him a debt that I can never repay. Of one thing I am sure, this book was no trashy novel; it might have been Hume’s “History of England” or Bishop Berkeley’s “Treatise on LTar-water,’” but whatever it was, it was for me an introduction into the great universe of letters. As soon as I had finished that book I took out another. I was up bright and early in the morning that I might the sooner enjoy the master minds who gave to me so freely of their wisdom and their wit. While Lawyer Crapsey and Colonel West were talking Whitewater, I was sitting in a far corner of the room, deaf to their voices, absorbed in the adventures of ‘“Tom Jones” or the wickedness of ‘Ferdinand Count Fathom,” or the vagaries of ‘Tristram Shandy.” During that period of my life I read the Eng- lish classics in history, in philosophy and belles-lettres. I read such writers as Hume, Robertson and Mackintosh in the department of history, Fielding, Smollett, Richardson and Sterne, in the realm of the novel, while Addison, Steele and Goldsmith were my masters in the style and form of the essay. From that time to this, reading has been not only a habit but a passion. In the first glow of that passion I lived with my love. I will confess that I was no monog- amist with books. I had a new mistress every week. I came under the spell of the Wizard of the North and would spend a day and half the night absorbed in “The Heart of I WALK IN HIGH PLACES 39 Midlothian” or “Guy Mannering” or “The Black Dwarf.” The youth of my generation had an advantage unknown to the boys and girls of the present time. The novels of Dickens, Thackeray and George Eliot came to us fresh from the press; “Pickwick,” ‘‘Vanity Fair’ and ‘Adam Beed”’ were received by us as a mother welcomes a new- born child. Macaulay’s essays and history carried us away with their vehement eloquence. Prescott’s ‘Ferdinand and Isabella,” “Conquest of Mexico” and ‘‘Conquest of Peru”’ made known to us the romance of our own Continent, while Washington Irving gave us unending delight with his Knickerbocker’s History and his stories, ‘Rip Van Winkle” and the ‘Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” I am glad that it was my lot to be a late Victorian; to have lived when Scott was still in fashion, when Ruskin was writing his ‘(Modern Painters” and Carlyle his ‘‘French Revolution.” I do not deny the brilliant fecundity of the present time, but I do affirm that “‘Middlemarch”’ is a more perfect form of the realistic novel than ‘‘Main Street,” and the English of Goldsmith more rhythmic and convincing than the Eng- lish of The Freeman, but this may be the prejudiced judg- ment of an old man, and my reader may discount it as he will. I only wish to say that my education is the education of a reader rather than of a student. I read for the pleasure of reading with no thought beyond the present enjoyment. It was the intense heat of that enjoyment which made my reading a permanent possession of my mind and soul: The meaning of my author was burned into my understanding; unconsciously I was laying up in store material for future use. As the main business of my life was to be public speaking I could have had no better preparation than that which my reading gave me. ‘The one principle that guided me in my reading was that the book should be interesting. A dull book with me was a discarded book. I shall speak 4O THE LAST OF THE HERETICS of this again when I come to compare my scholastic educa- tion with the self-education which was the outcome of the experience of my life and the product of the reading of my own choosing. It was during this period that I discovered the Bible. We had a large Bible with brass clasps on the centre table, but I never opened it. I went to church sometimes with my mother, and the preacher read out of the Bible in preacher style, but I never listened. From what little I knew of it I was not attracted to the Bible; it was to me a sacred and a stupid book; it was a holy book and I left it alone in its holiness. But in a single hour this attitude was swept away and the Bible became to me an inspiration and a delight. It came to pass in this wise: One winter’s night in this year of my idleness I was strolling through Fourth Street in the city of Cincinnati. It was the Sabbath and the stores were closed. ‘The rising wind was blowing the snow against my face, so when | came to a lighted building I turned in to escape the rigour of the storm. The place of my shelter was Christ’s Epis- copal Church. I had never been in an Episcopal church in my life and became at once deeply engaged in what was going on. The dress of the ministers, the form of the prayers, the alternate reading of the psalms gave me the impression of a reverent and solemn dignity which I had until then never known. In due time one of the white- robed ministers came down to the front of the platform and read a chapter from the Bible. This man was a reader of rare merit. He read not only with his lips, but with his understanding also. He conveyed to us both the sound and the meaning of the words. It was Sexagesima Sunday and the lesson was written in the book of the prophet Jere- miah at Chapter 36, in which is told the story of the burning of the book of the prophet by Jehoiakin the King. I WALK IN HIGH PLACES 41 I was instantly captured and carried away by this dramatic narrative. I was no longer in Christ Church, Cincinnati. I was in the city of Jerusalem in the days of Jehoiakin the King. I heard Jeremiah give his command to Baruch the Scribe to read the scroll of his book in the ears of the people in the Lord’s House on the fasting-day. I heard Michaiah, the son Gemariah, who heard this reading tell the Princes in the Chamber of Elishama the Scribe, of the fearful prophecies he had heard in the Temple. I saw Baruch in this Chamber of Elishama the Scribe at the com- mand of Elishama read this book of Jeremiah the Prophet in the ears of the Princes that sat in the Chamber of Elish- ama the Scribe. I heard the Princes tell Baruch to go and hide himself, he and Jeremiah the Prophet. And I saw Elishama the Scribe and all the Princes take this book, which Baruch had read in their ears, in their hands and go down with that book to the King who sat in a chamber in his winter house, and there was a fire on the hearth. And as Elishama the Scribe read a page of the scroll of the book of the prophet Jeremiah, then Jehoiakin cut away that page with his penknife and threw it on the fire that was on the hearth, and so did he until all the pages of the book were consumed by the fire that was on the hearth. This reading swept my soul along as on the winds of imagination, into an entirely new region of thought and feeling. I did not follow the rest of the worship, but was held spellbound by the power of this ancient poet. As soon as the congregation was dismissed I left the church, hurried home, found the place in the Bible where that story was written, and read it for myself with growing enthusiasm. I followed up this reading with the reading of the whole book of Jeremiah, the book of Isaiah and all the prophetic and historic books, the Psalms and Job. So I came to know my Bible, not as a book apart, but as be- 42 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS longing to the literature of the world. I came to know Jacob, the son of Isaac, as well as I knew my own father Jacob, the son of John. The Bible became my constant companion. I absorbed its language so it became to me as my mother tongue. I became imbued with its spirit and went frequently to the Episcopal church for the purpose of listening to the reading. But I gradually abandoned this practice because I could not put up with the slovenly reading of my favourite book by the common run of the clergy. I looked back on that Sexagesima Sunday night as the date of my conversion. The religion of the great prophets became my religion. I became a disciple of Isaiah, the son of Amoz, who to this day is my master in the realm of religious thought and life. I still consider him the great fundamental thinker on these subjects. It was his words that four centuries later inspired Jesus, the son of Joseph, to preach his gospel of peace to the people. This change in mental and spiritual attitude was not made known to the world about me, not to my mother, much less to my father. I was hardly conscious of it my- self. J went on my way without reckoning with this new experience. The winter passed, the summer came and I was reasonably well again and anxious for active life. I left my father’s office with regret. It became to me a sacred place; while sitting in its quiet gloom I was carried up by the spirit of knowledge and the spirit of wisdom and had walked in high places with God and Men. CHAPTER X WHITES AND BLACKS aR HE summer had come again and I was longing for the open sky and the open road, for the woods and the hills. The outlook from our office win- dow over the back yards with their debris of old cans and dead cats was more depressing under June than under Jan- uary skies. I was approaching my sixteenth birthday and the stir of adventure was in my blood. Keeping my father’s office was slow work and no pay, and I was amb- tious for active and profitable employment, and in due time my ambition was gratified. It was my habit to scan the want column in the Morning Gazette, hoping to find someone who wanted me, and one morning toward the end of June my search was rewarded. To my delight I read: “Wanted, a young man to take charge of a store at the Watson Salt Wells on the Kanawha River. Only young men of experience need apply. Write to or call on Watson and Watson, 36 Water Street. Boat leaves Friday.” I had hardly finished reading this enticing advertisement, before my hat was in my hand and I was running through the hall, down the stairs, out into the street; nor did I stop running until I came to No. 36 Water Street, to the ware- house of Watson and Watson. I had great difficulty in persuading Mr. Watson that I was a young man; in his eyes I was only a boy, but when I gave him my record, told him I was the son of Lawyer Crapsey, referred him to the dry- goods house of Cole and Hopkins, and related my army 43 44 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS experience, he admitted that I had earned the right to call myself a young man. After making inquiries of Cole and Hopkins, and talking with my father, Mr. Watson gave me the employment that I desired. From the month of July, 1863, to the month of January, 1864, I was to be the storekeeper in the salt yards of Watson and Watson on the Kanawha River, my pay twenty-five dollars a month with food and lodging. When I came home with the news everyone was delighted. My mother said that the change and the mountain air was just what I needed to complete the restoration of my health. Two busy days were spent in darning and washing and packing, and on the given Friday I made my way down to the wharf, my father going with me, and at four o’clock was on board the Charleston steamer. At five o’clock my father said good-bye as the whistle blew all ashore. When all were ashore that were going ashore, the plank was pulled up, the steamer gave her farewell scream, backed out into the middle of the river, turned her nose up-stream and began paddling on her way to Charleston on the Kana- wha. ‘That voyage up the Ohio is one of the pleasant recollections of my life. I had a nice bunk on the lower deck, with hog and hominy, hot cakes and molasses, hot bread and coffee to satisfy the most voracious appetite. I sat on the deck all the day and most of the night, going in for meals in the daytime, and being driven in by the deck watch to my bunk at night. The weather was warm, the water was low. Twice we ran on a sand-bar and were delayed for several hours, but this delay did not trouble me. I was inno hurry. I had plenty to eat, a place to sleep, and was drawing eighty-three and a third cents a day. Why should I worry? We ar- rived at Charleston July first and were carried by a tug to the salt wells on the same day. When I came to my destination and had spent a day WHITES AND BLACKS 45 or two in my new home I was more than satisfied with my adventure; I was delighted. I made my home with Mrs. Watson, the wife of my employer, a very charming South- ern lady, who was a mother to me. With us was her brother, a young man of twenty-five, who was the superin- tendent of the yards. His name was Clarkson. He was a Kentuckian, bright, energetic, who received me as a com- panion and with whom I spent many a pleasant hour. My storekeeping was, as we say in these days, a cinch. This was a Company store. The women of the workers came to the store for their household supplies, and their purchases were charged to them on the books; the amount of each account being deducted from the weekly wage. This is an evil system; it has a tendency to promote extrav- agance and to keep the men in debt to the Company, which is a condition of semi-slavery. But these evils were not excessive in our Company; the goods were excellent, the prices fair and the debts never burdensome. ‘The store was open from eight in the morn- ing until six in the evening. ‘There was never a dull hour in the day; a constant coming and going—chit-chat and chaffing all the time. The clerk had all that he could do to keep his head clear in the midst of the babble. With plenty to eat and plenty of sleep, with pure air for my breathing and the mountains for my worship, this life was true to its promise; it restored my health; it added some inches to my stature and gave to me an experience which I could have had nowhere else in the world. I arrived at the salt wells on the first of July, 1863. The country was in the throes of the Civil War. ‘Three days after my coming, Lee was defeated by the army of Meade at Gettysburg, and Pemberton had surrendered to Grant at Vicksburg, but these decisive events did not break the political silence of these mountain solitudes. Western Virginia had seceded from the Old Dominion 46 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS and had just been admitted as a State in the Union. Pro- visions had been made in the constitution of the new State for the gradual extinction of slavery, but the Negro was still a chattel to be bought and sold as a horse or a cow. While a decided majority was strong for the Union, there was a considerable minority, equally staunch, for the South- ern cause. Political discussion was far too dangerous to be indulged in as a pastime. In the heat of discussion the opponents were apt to support their words by their blows and the quarrel to become a battle. So by common consent, politics were taboo. If the reader ask, ‘‘Of what, then, did these men talk ?” I answer, “Weather and women’’—“weather,”’ because they were always exposed to its heat and cold, its rain and shine. The men were always in the open while at work. The salt water was pumped from the wells into long shallow troughs, where it was subjected to a process of boiling until the water was evaporated and the salt left as a deposit. The workmen were in two shifts, the day shift, and the night shift. ‘The labour was not exacting. The men had only to keep the fires alive under the boilers and to stir the water from time to time with a long stick to promote the granulation of the salt. By day and by night, and especially by night, the men had nothing to do but to talk. I count it an advantage that I listened to that talk; it re- vealed to me the uttermost depth to which the depraved human spirit can descend. Many of these men were poor whites from the mountains, who had left their women at home and were living in concubinage with the Negro wo- men of the-valley. The favourite sport of the southern white man was to prey upon the wives and daughters of the black man. ‘The stories of these low adventures were told night after night, within the sound of the river, under the shadow of the mountains and by the light of the stars. It was not only the poor whites from the mountains who WHITES AND BLACKS 47 boasted of their amours with the Negro women; the gentry of the valley were in this respect on a level with their men. The Negro husband was not supposed to have any rights which the white man was bound to respect. The institu- tion of slavery made marriage between the blacks a mere form to be dissolved at the will of the master. The slave woman was not degraded; she was ennobled when she be- came the concubine of a white man. A story was told me of a white man who met a black man weeping as if -his heart were breaking, and the white man said to the black man, “‘What’s the matta; what yo’ cryin’ for?” The black man sobbed out, ‘“‘Mah wife had a white chile las’ night”; and the white man jeered, ‘“‘What makes you cry ’bout that? My wife had a white chile last week; I didn’t cry; I was glad of it.’’ This story illustrates the tragedy of slavery in all its forms: The soul of the slave as well as his body is under the dominion of the master; to protect himself the slave must lie; to get a little of what is his own he must steal; he must stand by without a word and look on at the humiliation of his women. I saw this insti- tution in its last stages, and I can never be sufficiently thankful that I did my bit to put an end to it. It depraved everything with which it came in contact; the home, the State and the church. The religion of the poor whites and of the slaves was orgiastic, an emotional indulgence ending in a debauch. I recall a funeral conducted by a Baptist minister with a feel- ing of grotesque horror. The dead man had been killed by a falling tree; he was in his young manhood and was widely known in the mountains. His funeral was held after nightfall. People came from far and wide, lighting their way with tar torches. The scene of the funeral was the mountain-side, illuminated by a bonfire; nothing could have been more sublime and nothing was ever more dia- bolical. The preacher, half naked, jumped and screamed; 48 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS the mourners filled the air with inarticulate wailings; whisky was served out of buckets with a ladle, and a drunken orgy closed the scene. I can never think of that night without a chill of horror. It was the degradation of man and the degradation of the gods; below this neither man nor god could go and continue to exist. J owe to this experience a revulsion from the lower forms of vice such as drunken- ness and debauchery, which was my safety in future years. But all this only added to the intense interests of my life at the salt yards. I enjoyed every moment of it. All too soon the summer was over and gone; the winter came, bring- ing the ice that closed the river so that the shipping of the salt was impossible. The works were closed and I re- turned to my home in Cincinnati, much the wiser in every way for this experience. CHAPTER XI DEAD LETTERS | LEFT the salt works on the first day of January, 1864, and by continuous travel on the railway arrived at my home on the morning of the third and faced anew the problem of existence. With me the dictum of St. Paul, “Tf a man will not work, neither shall he eat,’ had the virtue of necessity. I began once again to scan the want columns of the Morning Gazette. I very soon came across an advertise- ment which I thought promising; it read: ‘‘Wanted, a young man to take charge of the office and keep the books in a printing-concern. Apply at No. 34 [Third Street, Cincin- nati.” I had mastered the principles of double-entry book- keeping at the salt yards and the science of office-keeping when in the employ of Jacob T. Crapsey, Esq., on Walnut Street. Thus equipped, I made my way to No. 34 Third Street and applied for the job as advertised. The pro- prietor of the establishment was one C. N. Blank—of course, Blank was not his name, but for the sake of his posterity I will use this alias. After asking a few ques- tions, Mr. Blank told me to hang up my hat and go to work, which I did. ‘The salary agreed on was fifteen dol- lars a week; the hours of work from eight A.M. to six P.M. It was about three miles from our home on Ohio Avenue to my office on Third Street and I walked both ways. I soon found that my knowledge of bookkeeping was too limited for efficiency; to remedy this, I entered on a course of study in a commercial academy in the evenings and soon 49 50 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS acquired sufficient knowledge to do my office work rapidly and easily. I also mastered commercial mathematics; could calculate discount and interest; beyond this I have never gone in mathematical science—to my very great re- gret. While attending night school I had my supper in the city and walked home when my class was dismissed. Because of this I enjoyed a new experience which was a delight at the time and an influence for good during the rest of my life. Walking down Vine Street I passed, every day, on my way to work the Vine Street Theatre. At first I was not attracted, but the continuous appeal of the bill- boards roused my curiosity; so much so that one night in- stead of going to school I took fifty cents of my hard- earned wages and, buying a ticket, entered ‘“‘the gateway to hell,’ as I had heard a preacher call it. I entered with fear and trembling, my conscience ringing its warning bell so that I could hear nothing else. By and by the curtain went up and I was soon so absorbed in what was going on in front of me that I could no longer hear the conscience bell. ‘The play was “The Flying Dutchman’’—if I remem- ber rightly, a story of piracy, of a ship which because of its sins became the Wandering Jew of the sea—it must sail on, sail on and still sail on. It was a sign of doom to the ship that encountered it on the sea. To me it was the revel- ation of a new world. I was late getting home, but as all the folk were asleep, no one knew how late it was. After the first sin it is easy to commit the second, so in a week or so, walking through Fourth Street, I saw on the bill- board of the Opera House the announcement of the play of “Hamlet”? with James E. Murdoch in the stellar role. That night after my supper I began to walk up and down Fourth Street, my heart beating to the refrain, ‘Shall I go or not? Shall I go or not?” stopping at the door of the theatre, and then passing on till the clocks began to strike eight; then, as my conscience said, “Shall I go?” I went, DEAD LETTERS SI buying my ticket at the window, paying the awful sum of a dollar for that bit of pasteboard. When I entered, the theatre was dark and the usher stumbled as he led me to my seat. I was no sooner seated than the curtain went up and I was looking at a sentinel slowly pacing his beat on the platform of the castle at Elsinore. And then a voice from without: ‘‘Who’s there?” The answer of the soldier on guard: ‘Nay, stand and unfold yourself.” ‘‘Long live the King” from without, and the sentinel, now recognizing the voice, calls the name ‘Bernardo.’ Then a soldier appears on the stage and cries, “He.” ‘Then the opening dialogue: Francesco. “You come most carefully upon your hour.” Bernardo, ‘‘’Tis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Francesco.” Francesco. ‘For this relief much thanks; ’tis bitter cold and I am sick at heart.” From that moment began my worship of Shakespeare. As the play developed I saw in these words of Francesco the keynote of the great drama, the undertone of the poet’s life. ‘These soldiers, so honest, so gentlemanly, so con- siderate of each other, were out in the cold and the dark; their virtue the guard of incest, adultery and murder. From that moment the theatre ceased to be to me the “Flouse of Sin”! It became to me the temple of truth, and Shakespeare, together with Isaiah and Jesus, became the master of my soul. The winter was over and gone and the bluebells were clothing the grass of the field. On the fifteenth morning in the month of April my mother and I were at breakfast, when my mother said, ‘‘Listen, Allie, listen to the bells! What can it mean?” We listened and we heard all the bells in the city tolling, tolling as for the dead. Mother a2 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS looked at me and I looked at her and we said, ‘‘What can it mean?” I rose from the table, forgetting my lunch box, ran to the top of the hill, and all the air about me was vibrant with the tolling of the bells, tolling as for the dead. I saw the streets of the city below me black with people. I ran down the hill and came to Vine Street, to the grocery where we traded; the grocer was standing on the street crying as though his heart would break. I said, ‘‘What is it? Why are the bells tolling?” And he said, wring- ing his hands, ‘He’s dead, he’s dead.” ‘‘Who’s dead?” I cried. ‘““The President.’ ‘“‘What, Lincoln?” “Yes, Lin- coln.” ‘How did he die?” ‘Some God-damned rebel killed hime?) When ?o\ east night!’ 0) ow re aie God-damned villain shot him as he sat in the theatre.” I looked and saw all the people running, the men, the women and the children, weeping aloud over their dead. I turned and ran up the hill and told the sad news. ‘The family was at breakfast. When I said, ‘“The President is killed,” they all stood and said, ‘How? When?’ And I told them and my mother cried out as she did when Mar- shall died, and the children cried and my father looked sad and stern. He said, ‘“This is bad, very bad. It may mean a war of vengeance, and then the country is lost.”’ For the next seven days Abraham Lincoln was mourned as never mortal was mourned before, and by his martyr- dom he ascended to the rank of a saviour of mankind. From the first I did not like my employer, Mr. Blank, nor did he like me. He was unnecessarily bossy and I re- sented bossing; he was crooked in business and smutty in his talk. One day we had words together. He paid me my wages and told me to go and I went; and once more Algernon was in search of a job, but he did not have to look long nor go far. The Providence that shapes our ends had a job awaiting for him in the city of Washington DEAD LETTERS 53 and another in New York and another in the wide, wide world. One day after a fruitless job-hunting in the city, I came home, tired and discouraged, and found my Uncle Franklin there. I was not particularly fond of my Uncle Franklin, so the sight of him did not bring me comfort. Little did I know that in a moment this despised uncle would be changed into a minister of fate, upon whose words would hang my future. When I went up and shook hands with him and said, ‘‘How do you do, Uncle?” Mother said, ‘We were just talking about you.” ‘Talkin’ about me?” I said. ‘What have I done now?” Uncle Franklin was a preacher and I thought I was in for a sermon, and so I was, but not such a sermon as I looked for. My Uncle Franklin, speaking in his preacher voice, said, “‘Nephew, your mother tells me that you are just now out of employ- ment and I have asked her if she thought you would care to go to Washington and take my place in the Dead Letter Office for six months.” “Yes,” said my mother, “your uncle wants to be at home for six months to finish writing the life of your grandfather. He can only get his six months’ leave by furnishing a substitute; will you go?” Would I go! Would I go to Washington! What a fool- ish question! Of course I would go, and jump at the chance; and I went. To explain the situation, I must say that my uncle was not a successful preacher, and, being out of a pulpit, he had taken an appointment in the Dead Letter Office that he might have time to write the life of his father, Senator Morris, and also that he might be near the Congressional Library where he could consult his author- ities. Did you ever consider, dear reader, how fate dovetails events, how it plays with them on the checkerboard of life and so wins or loses for each of us our game? If my uncle hadn’t been a poor preacher and hadn’t given up the 54. THE LAST OF THE HERETICS pulpit that he might write a dull book, for it is the dullest ever, I might never have gone to Washington, nor gone to New York, nor become a poor preacher myself, and this book would never have been written. In a week my clothing was cleaned, my socks were darned. I kissed my mother good-bye, hugged my sisters, and with my carpetbag in my hand, left the home of my childhood, never to return except as a visitor. I took the afternoon train on the Baltimore and Ohio Railway, sleeping in my seat in the day coach through the night, in the morning eating the breakfast of sandwiches, cold boiled eggs and cake which my mother had put up for me, gazing out of the window all day as we ran through Virginia to Balti- more, and through Maryland to Washington; reaching the Capital of the Nation in the late afternoon. I went at once to the boarding-house to which my Uncle Franklin had directed me, was shown to his room, which was to be mine for the six months of my stay. ‘The next morning at nine o’clock I was in my Uncle’s seat in the Dead Letter Office, duly installed as the temporary servant of my Uncle Samuel. ‘This new uncle was not a hard task- master. He required us to be on our job at nine o'clock in the morning with half hour’s grace—there weren't time clocks in those days—we were expected to work until twelve, when we had a noon hour, with fifteen minutes’ grace; then we were on duty until four, beginning at half past three to get ready; we were all out on the street at the hour of dismissal. Our time of actual work averaged five hours, much of which was spent in fierce political dis- cussion. The great fight between the Congress and the President was then raging. ‘The men in the office were fierce against President Johnson. ‘They were for the most part sorry specimens of our sorry humanity, broken-down political hacks from every part of the country: fat men from DEAD LETTERS 55 Gotham; lean men from Hoosierdom. There they sat, their jaws working faster than their hands as they “chawed” their tobacco. I can see one of them now, a long lean Hoosier, with a goatee that went up and down as his jaws worked, grinding the juice out of his plug to- bacco, squirting this juice on the floor in a vain attempt to reach the spittoon, and voiding his vile venom on the name of the President. The man made me sick and mad, and at last I broke out and asked how he dared to so revile the President of the United States. He turned on me and cursed me with a picturesque profanity known only to the banks of the Wabash. I called him a brute and a traitor: was reported to the head of the department as disorderly and mildly rebuked. The Dead Letter Office is the morgue of defunct human correspondence. When a letter fails to reach its destina- tion, it is sent to the Dead Letter Office and opened. If there is in it nothing of importance, it is declared to be dead and sentenced to cremation. It was my duty to open such letters and see if they were alive or dead. I found ninety-five per cent of them so dead that they were offensive. There were in the most of them no sign that they had ever been alive with human thought or feeling. They were vain attempts on the part of unlettered men and women to con- vey their thoughts and feelings by means of letters. I was deeply grateful to my Uncle Samuel for giving me such short hours as a scavenger in these foul chambers of the dead. I found my compensation in viewing Washington and its environment. ‘The Washington of 1865 was not the Washington of 1924. It was then an unkempt country town; its streets unpaved country roads deep all the time with either mud or dust; mean houses straggled, unkemptly, with wide spaces between; foul Negro quarters disgraced the alleys between the streets. In the midst of this squalor was set the majestic Capitol, the White House, the Patent 56 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS Office, the Treasury Building and other buildings of purest marble and classic in form. Washington owes its redemption from that squalor to General Grant and “Boss” Shepard. Grant gave the com- mand; Shepard did the redeeming; he paved the streets, cleaned out, as far as he could, the alleys, tore down the meanest of the buildings and made it possible for Wash- ington to become what it now is, the most beautiful city of the world. I have visited nearly all the great cities of Europe; only three of them, Venice, Florence and Edin- burgh, are more fascinating than Washington. Washing- ton is a city of monuments; in almost every circle is a heroic figure of American history. For his work Shepard was sent into exile and Grant was smirched in reputation. It was said that Shepard stole a lot of money. I don't care how much he stole, he deserved it all. Even the old down-at-the-heels Washington of ’65 was of absorbing interest to me, the country round about it of immense educational value. I had one other experience which makes the remem- brance of Washington a holy room in my mansion of memo- ries. In the summer of my stay there an “‘all-star’’ com- pany of players came from New York to Washington and produced the great English comedies. My salary of a hundred dollars a month enabled me to enjoy this oppor- tunity to the full. I saw ‘““The School for Scandal,” ‘She Stoops to Conquer.’ I saw “The Merry Wives” and “The Merchant of Venice.” I saw “Money” and ‘‘Richelieu.” I saw “Lady Gay Spanker’ and “Bob Acres’; from two to four times a week I went to school to these masters of speaking and acting and what I learned from them is at the base of all my knowledge. All too soon my six months passed, my Uncle Franklin was back at his work, and I was once more face to face with fortune. CHAPTER XII THE TRAIL OF DESTINY , T the close of my engagement in Washington, as I was preparing to return to my home in Cincinnati, I encountered my Uncle, Isaac N. Morris, who was in the city on legal business. My uncle Isaac was a widely different man from my Uncle Franklin. He was a man of parts, physical and intellectual, had represented his district in the United States Congress and was a leading lawyer in the State of Illinois. At that time he had a case pending in the Supreme Court, which had called him to the capital of the Nation. When we met he asked me to go with him to his hotel. We went to his room, and when we were seated he said, “Well, Nephew, how have you enjoyed Washington?” I answered that I liked Washington very much; it was wonderfully interesting, especially the country roads in Virginia. He asked me about the Dead Letter Office. I said the Dead Letter Office was fun for me; the hours short, the work easy, but I did think my Uncle Franklin ought not to be there. Uncle Isaac said, ‘“Why not?” I said, “Why, you see, Uncle Isaac, Uncle Franklin is a preacher and a gentleman and most of the men in the Dead Letter Office are vile and vulgar. They chew tobacco all the time and spit on the floor; they use bad language and tell nasty stories.” “It hasn’t done you any harm,” said Diveunicic mie NO, Uncle, \lireplied: Tyhate: tobacco and can talk to myself so I don’t hear them. I have to be there only five hours a day and have nineteen hours to my- 57 58 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS self. But it’s different with Uncle Franklin; he just naturally hates the place. I think it will kill him”; and it did within the year. My Uncle Isaac agreed with me about my Uncle Franklin and said he would see what could be done, and then he asked what I was going to do. I said I didn’t know. I guessed I would have to go back home and get something to do in Cincinnati. My Uncle shook his head and said, ‘‘Nephew, don’t do that. It’s a bad thing to go back; al- ways go forward. How much money have you?” I said, ‘Nearly a hundred dollars.’ My uncle said, “That's good; don’t go back to Cincinnati. Go to New York. They keep telling young men to go West; it’s all wrong; New York is the centre of the life of the country. I am very sorry that I did not go to New York instead of going to Quincy. Quincy will never be anything but a small town. New York will be the largest city in the world. Go to New York, Nephew, go to New York”; and I went. The next morning I left Washington by the Pennsy]l- vania road and reached Jersey City at nine o’clock on the night of the same day. I have never forgotten the sensations of that arrival. I stepped out on the platform at Jersey City and I gazed in astonished admiration at the scene that lay before me. I thought I had surely come to the gates of the City of God. The river was alive with lighted craft of every form and size, moving up and down, across and back, seemingly in upper space, like angels on the wing. The shores of the river were lines of light, and in their shadow, dim forms of buildings entranced the eye, the spire of Trinity rising above them all, a point of darkness in the luminous sky. I went on the ferryboat and crossed the river, rapt in won- der at the magic city beyond. But, alas, at my first step from the boat, the magic city was gone in a flash and I was in noisy, dirty New York. THE TRAIL OF DESTINY 59 I made my dangerous way over West Street to Dey Street, up Dey to Broadway, which was all alight, crowded with buses coming and going. I did not go to the Astor House, as I ought to have done, for I did not know that there was an Astor House. I strayed into a second-class hotel at the upper end of Chatham Street and went to bed, which I soon found to be possessed by permanent boarders who lived off the blood of the guests. Desiring to keep some of my blood for future use, I sat up in my chair waiting for the day, spending the long hours of the night damning my Uncle Isaac for advising me to come to such a vile place as New York. As soon as it was light I examined my clothing lest I should carry these bloodsuckers with me, washed my hands and face in dirty water, went to the office, paid a dollar for my lodging and went out to seek my fortune. I went into a restaurant in Park Row, had a breakfast of coffee, griddle cakes and sausage, then out again into the street, the lone- liest, forlornest human atom that was ever whirled about in that vast concourse of human atoms called New York. I crossed Broadway to the Astor House, now plain before my eyes, went up into the waiting-room and sat down, hav- ing all that I could do to keep from weeping aloud. As I sat there, I remembered that there was one person in all this multitude of persons whom I knew; he was a young man some three years older than I; his name was Giles, the son of the Reverend Chauncy Giles, a Sweden- borgian minister. This young man worked somewhere in the city. I looked him up in the directory, made inquiries and found him in his place of business. When he saw me he cried in amazement, ‘‘Why, Al Crapsey, where did you come from?” “I came from Washington.” ‘‘Where are you Teoiner ) Lo find \worki mae Where cin Etere vin Mewrrnlonks |). VV no) isentr voummereri yn WLy uncle: “Well, your uncle was a fool; of all places in the world, 60 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS New York is the last to come to if you are looking for work; the city 1s full of men looking for work.” So do different points of view give different opinions. But in spite of discouragement, in New York I was and in New York I must stay even if I starved, for I would not go back to Cincinnati and admit defeat. So, after talking the situation over with young Giles, we decided that the next step in my career was to find a boarding-house. I told him how much money I had, about eighty dollars. He said: ‘That won’t last long in New York, but perhaps you'll find a job before it’s all gone.” My friend recom- mended the neighbourhood of Madison Square as the best locality for boarding-houses. We took the Herald and turned to the advertisements of rooms to rent. There were columns upon columns of them; we selected a few in the region of Madison Square. I looked at the first adver- tisement in my hand and said: “Here is a room and board in Twenty-eighth Street,’ giving the number. “Is that’ all right?) es jheesaid, thatmwillydo;itakemne Broadway bus and get off at Twenty-eighth Street; that number is near Broadway.”’ I did as I was told; found the house and number, and rang the bell. The door was opened by a buxom blonde in her early thirties. I told my business, was shown a hall bedroom on the second floor front, which, with board, would cost me seven dollars a week. ‘The house seemed quiet and clean, the price reason- able. I put down my carpetbag and said, “I'll stay.” Here again my fate was leading me to my destiny. There were thousands of empty rooms in New York City; if I had not chosen this one as by hazard I would in all probability have been a business hack to this day. I went down to lunch, found it satisfactory, spent the afternoon looking about the neighbourhood and it also was satisfac- tory. At dinner when the boarders were all there, I was more than pleased with them and so went to bed feeling THE TRAIL OF DESTINY 61 that I had made a safe landing in the city of New York. Then began the hunting of the job, and the hunting of the snark was nothing to it. I had a letter of introduction from a friend of my Uncle Isaac in Washington to a drug house in Dey Street. I was received with kindness, told that I had done well in coming to New York; then, with best wishes, was dismissed. Now I began in earnest the hunt for the job. I took in the Herald and applied by letter to every likely advertisement. I went down‘ to Whitehall Street and began a systematic search for my job day after day. I went into warehouse after warehouse, store after store, looking for my job, but my job was not there. A week passed into a fortnight and still my job eluded me; my money was wasting away, and when it was gone I was gone likewise. I went out at night and saw the men and women sitting on the benches of Madison Square and I shivered with fear; in a week or two that might be my only lodging, the raw air of the night my only covering, the crust of beggary my only food. During that period there was bred in my heart that deep pity for these outcasts of humanity which has been ever since a strong moral and intellectual influence in my life. They were not so much personal failures as they were the failures of civilization. Just as I had come to my last seven dollars, | was saved from the doom of the down-and-outs. One of my many letters was answered. I was asked to call at once at the printing-office of Sackett and Mackay, at the corner of Pine and William Streets. I was there in half an hour; the building was four stories; the office on the second floor. When I entered the office and gave my name to the boy in attendance, he conducted me to an inner office in which sat the head of the firm. After a short examination I was duly inducted into the responsible position of bookkeeper and cashier in the printing-house of Sackett and Mackay. 62 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS This firm combined a stationery store on Nassau Street with their printing-house in William Street. Mr. Sackett was in charge of the printing-establishment, Mr. Mackay of the stationery store. This was fortunate for me, as Mr. Sackett came to love me while Mackay hated me as poison. It has always been so. My world has been made up of friends and enemies. I have never been the object of mere indifference. I have never been surprised at Mac- kay’s hatred, but Sackett’s love has been my wonder. He was\ to\wme)as (a father and “1 }to shim) as, \asonsee would watch over me and if I ran short of money in the middle of the week the safe was opened and five dollars was in my hand. I kept the books and ran the errands after a fashion, but that is all. ‘This job was not my real job—that was still waiting for me. When I had been on this job for a week or two, Mr. Sackett told me to take a package and carry it to such a number on Pearl Street. I had seen Pearl Street up on Broadway. I went up to Broadway till I came to Pearl; following its curve for more than half an hour. When I came to my number, I looked up and there I was within one minute’s walk from my starting-point. I said nothing to Mr. Sackett and he said nothing to me, only looked at me with a frown. In a few days I said, “Mr. Sackett, what’s the matter with Pearl Street?” He said, ‘“Why do you ask?’ I said, ‘“When you told me, the other day, to go to such a number on Pearl Street, I went up to Pearl Street on Broadway and began to walk and walk and when I came to the number I wanted, it was right down there.” Mr. Sackett laughed and he said, “That is why you were so long doing that errand—TI thought it strange.” ‘‘Yes,” I said, “that was the reason’’; and he said, ‘‘Pearl Street is an old cowpath from the ancient village of New Amster- dam to the cow pastures. The Dutchmen gradually built their houses along the path and you have the crookedest THE TRAIL OF DESTINY 63 street in the world.” I laughed and said, ‘‘Are there other crooked streets in the city?’ He said, ‘“‘Plenty.”’ I said, “The next time you tell me to go anywhere, I will ask you how to get there.” He said, “‘Correct, my lad; always ask when you don’t know; it is a good rule.” It was nearly four miles from my boarding-house to my ofice and I usually took the horse car in the morning. It was an hour’s ride at the best and might be an hour and a half or two hours. I started at about six so as tobe sure of reaching the office at eight. I used this otherwise waste time in reading. J remember one morning in the car I was reading Gibbon’s ‘“‘Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” A fine-looking man who was sitting next to me took the book from my hand, looked at it, handed it back, saying, “Young man, if you keep up such reading as this, you will amount to something in the world.” I said, “Thank you, sir; I am reading to pass the time.” The stranger said, ‘“‘Yes, I see. You read for the love of read- ing; that shows the bent of your mind. We shall hear from you in the future.” My heart glowed at this word of approval. How must the New Yorker of to-day laugh at this story! ‘This Crapsey fellow,” he will say, ‘‘is the champion liar, reading a book in the street car. Weren't there any newspapers in those old days, and how did he hang on his strap?” It does seem ridiculous, but it is true. This reading, however, had its drawback; it might be preparing me for future importance, but it was a decided hindrance to my present work. When [I should have been concentrating my attention on the column of figures before me, I was standing with Constantine on Malvian Bridge on that fatal day, when he saw in the midday sky the flaming Cross, underneath which were written the words, “By this Conquer.” When walking about the streets I often went by my destination, following in my thought the flight of the Moors as Charles Martel, the Hammerer, 64 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS drove them from the field of Tours and so saved Europe for Christianity. One day when lost in such a vision of the past, when I was listening to the shrieks of the Picts and Scots as the legions of Agricola were slaughtering them in the Cheviot Hills, Mr. Mackay came on me as I was standing at gaze, seeing nothing, and he cursed me for an idle fool. ‘“‘Damn you,” he said, ‘‘what are you standing here for? I can’t see why Sackett keeps such a lazy loon as you about the place. If I'd had my way, you'd been sacked long ago.” At this rebuke, I came out of my waking dream with a start, went up to my work, resolving never to read another page of Gibbon. But, alas, habit is habit and the reading went on. Fortunately, my affairs so shaped themselves that I was able to reconcile my reading with my duty. CHAPTER XIII THE CALL TO PREACH ‘ NY large city is a dangerous place for a young man loose on the world. Strange women on the streets offer themselves at a price for the gratification of his strongest passion. In the seventies there was no police interference, to speak of, with this traffic of women. As soon as it is dark these outcasts were parading, offering to sell their love to anyone who would buy. That I did not fall into this pit of destruction was owing to my timidity and my poverty. I had neither the courage nor the money to enter upon such a vicious course. ‘The daughter of my landlady was a temptation, not to coarse vice, but to destructive marriage. She was the sister of the buxom blonde who opened the door for me when I came looking for a room. In my loneliness I kept com- pany with this girl and was drifting into a situation that would have resulted in marriage. There would have been no harm in this had my lot lain along the lower level of business life, but for me it would have been fatal. I was unfit for that lower level of business life, where she would have held me. I should never have been able to earn a decent living with such companionship. I shudder to think Oipit. Nature saved me from this disaster by the homeopathic method. She cured me of women by woman. ‘There was in my boarding-house a woman, my senior by twelve years, who rescued me from this danger. She was an Irish wo-: man, with all the vivacity and wit of her race. She was a 65 66 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS music-teacher by profession, a pianist of rare power with a singing voice strong and melodious. As the name of this woman belongs to a sacred past, that past shall cover it. I shall call her my Mary. We had been in the house together more than two months before she so much as took notice of me. I was a hall-roomer, while Mary with a friend occupied one of the largest, best-furnished rooms in the house. In the boarding-house social ranks are main- tained as strictly as in the outer world. ‘The hall-roomers may sit up with the landlady’s daughter but not with her high-and-mightiness who sleeps in the chambre de luxe on the second floor front. It was the landlady who brought us together. She told my Mary what a nice young man I was, what a fine talker And my Mary sniffed. But for all that, her curiosity was aroused and she stopped one evening and engaged me in conversation. We were mutually attracted. She was vivacious and I was not stupid. She spoke to me the next night and the next, and then to my joy she invited me to her room and I was lost; without knowing it, I was in my first passion—that most delightful of all passions, the passion of a youth for an older woman. For some reason which I could never fathom, my landlady moved me from my hall bedroom to the hall bedroom next to the chamber of my Mary. When I came home and found myself transferred in this unauthorized way, I was very angry. I did not want my Mary, by any chance, to see my broken shoes and shabby clothing. When I stormed at the landlady’s elder daugh- ter, the buxom blonde, she said, ‘‘We had a chance to rent your room with the next room to a family, and what kick have you comin’ anyhow ?—ain’t you right next to your Mary?’ Then I blushed and was more angry than ever to think that my sacred passion was boarding-house gos- sip. The next day I went looking for another room, but could not find one to my liking. I was soon reconciled to THE CALL TO PREACH 67 my new situation, took care to hide my broken boots and shabby clothing, used my own room only for sleeping and spent my evenings in my Mary’s chamber, chaperoned by her friend, Mrs. P When Christmas came I bought a plush prayer-book, a shabby thing enough, and gave it as a Christmas gift to my Mary. She came in my room and kissed me on my forehead, and I went out and walked the streets in an ecstasy of painful joy. With this began our intimacy—an intimacy that might have been dangerous but for the prudence of my Mary. She was passionate but prudent, very prudent. She had just lost a lover and I guess that is why she lost him, and I filled the void in her heart. Such relationships are not uncommon and they are an education. From this time until I left the city my Mary and I were together when we could be together. ‘There was never any scandal, for I was only a boy and Mary a woman in her thirties, and besides, Mary was very prudent and, in her way, religious. She had been a Catholic, but was then a member of Christ Episcopal Church on Fifth Avenue and Thirty-fifth Street, and as a matter of course I went with my Mary to church and car- ried her prayer-book. Christ Church was just then the storm centre of a fierce religious controversy. Its rector was Ferdinand Cart- wright Ewer—one of the brilliant preachers of the day. He was born on Martha’s Vineyard, was graduated with distinction at Harvard, and was a disciple of Voltaire and Tom Paine. After his graduation he went to San Fran- cisco and engaged in newspaper work. ‘There he was converted to the Christian faith and became a minister in the Episcopal Church. After leaving a church in San Francisco, he accepted a call as assistant to Doctor Gal- laudet at St. Ann’s Church, New York, which church ad- ministered especially to deaf-mutes. Mr. Ewer preached to these unfortunates most eloquently with his fingers, but 68 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS he preached still more eloquently with his musical baritone voice to the hearing ear. Doctor Ewer was a born preacher. ‘Tall, slender, dark, with full beard, which grew down to his breast, he was the very picture of a Hebrew prophet; standing in his chancel in his cassock (he generally preached in his cassock), his figure captured the imagination and his voice was as the voice of a messenger of God. I have heard many preachers, but none more appealing to the emotions than Ferdinand Cartwright Ewer. When I first sat under him, Doctor Ewer was of the Broad Church school, but he was soon converted to the Anglo-Catholic conception of Christ, and the Church; he became a fierce Puseyite. He roused the religious world of America by a course of sermons on “The Failure of Protestantism.”’ His church, well filled before, was now crowded to suffocation. I listened to his unfolding of his doctrine of the church as the Ark of Salvation with avid ears. The Church that Doctor Ewer preached was not the Church of the Cata- combs; it was the Church of the Cathedrals. Doctor Ewer was swept along in that revival of medievalism which found its expression in the novels of Scott, in the poems of Keble, in the teaching of Pusey and the preaching of Newman. ‘That movement was a reaction from the bald- ness of Protestantism and the crassness of rationalism. It revived Gothic architecture and Catholic symbolism. It made captive such men as Gladstone and Hope; it revived dead Anglicanism and made the English Church once more a living Church. Its ministers became priests, its devout women, nuns. I was just of the age and temperament to be carried away by the preaching of Doctor Ewer. I became his ar- dent disciple; he lifted me up on the winds of his eloquence and carried me back into the ages of faith; he made me THE CALL TO PREACH 69 to fast with Saint Chad and to hear Saint Swithin’s bells. I felt within myself the call to preach the Gospel that Ewer preached. I was baptized by him, my witnesses being my Mary and his assistant, the Reverend Mr. Dun- ham, of whom we shall hear again. At the next visitation of the Bishop I was confirmed and on the following Sunday received my first communion. I was now utterly useless as a bookkeeper. I was in the grip of the grey man of my boyhood, who was leading me by the hand to my rightful work in the world. I went to Doctor Ewer and told him of my desire to study for the ministry; he gave kindly attention to my request and told me that I had best go to St. Stephen’s College, at Annandale on the Hudson. ‘That college has a special course for young men,” he said, “who, like you, come from the business world and at more mature age enter the min- istry.’ Doctor Ewer told me that such men were aided during their courses of study from the funds of a society known as the New York Society for the Promotion of Religion and Learning, of which Doctor McVickar, of Columbia College, was the president. Now, Doctor McVickar was a great man and scholar in his day and generation. There was a good story current in Columbia of the worthy Doctor and the doctorate. Speaking to his class one day, the Doctor said, ‘“‘Gentlemen, there are some men who honour the doctorate and some men whom the doctorate honours. If a man honours the doctorate you never give him the title. You never say Doctor Johnson; you say Johnson; but if the doctorate honours the man, be careful to give him the title.” Instantly a saucy student rose up and cried, ““McVickar, may I be excused?’ and the Doctor rose with all his stateliness and bowed and said, “Certainly,” and the class roared with laughter and the laugh was on the Doctor. It was to this stately man that Doctor Ewer gave me 70 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS a letter of introduction. When I called to see him at his house, I was told that I might wait for him in the hall as he was expected home in a few minutes. As I sat waiting, I could not but overhear the conversation of his two stately daughters who, on the floor above, were dis- cussing the arrangement of the house for coming guests. When at last guests and rooms were duly apportioned, one sister said to the other sister, ‘‘Now, where shall we put Father?’ And the answer came with brutal quick- ness, “Oh, we can put Father anywhere.” Thus did I learn that nearness dispels greatness; that Bishop Proudie is only a poor weak man to Mrs. Proudie, and King George puts off his kingship when he puts on his night-cap. When he came in the Doctor took my letter and told me to call again. To my surprise the great Doctor, like Zaccheus, was short of stature, a man whom his robust daughters could tuck in any corner they chose. In due time I called on the Doctor again and he could not see me. I called and called till he did see me and found him a very gracious gentleman. He asked my par- don for the trouble he had given me. He told me at its last meeting the Society for the Promotion of Religion and Learning had given me a scholarship for, I think it was, three hundred dollars, sufficient to pay my tuition and board at St. Stephen’s College, Annandale. As he handed me my scholarship and a letter to the warden of the college he said with a smile, “I trust, Mr. Crapsey, you will show the same zeal in the service of the Church that you have mani- fested in your determination to get the scholarship.” I thanked him and said, “I will try, sir.” When I told Mr. Sackett that I must leave his employ and that I was going to college to study for the ministry, he smiled sweetly and said, ‘Well, my boy, I’m sorry to lose you; but I guess it’s best for you and best for me. You will never make a good business man and you may THE CALL TO PREACH ai make a good preacher, while if I keep you much longer I will have to dissolve partnership with Mackay, and, tak- ing all things together, I think the business will get along better without you than it can without Mackay.” And I said, “I am sure it can, Mr. Sackett, and I want you to know how grateful I am to you for all your kindness to me.’”’ He said, patting me on the head, ‘‘My boy, I have been very fond of you. I saw there was good stuff in you, but too booky for business; a bookkeeper needs know only three books, his day-book, his journal and his ledger, and they were about the only books that you didn’t care for.” I blushed with shame and sorrow, and he said, ‘“‘Never mind, laddie, when you’re a preacher you'll have an easy time. You can button your collar behind and you needn't WeatuayShirt,(: So I left Elisha Sackett with his blessing, and I have blessed him all the days of my life. CHAPTER XIV COLLEGE LIFE ()* the first Monday in September, 1868, I bade farewell to my friends in my boarding-house, turned my back upon the secular world of business and pleasure, and entered upon my preparation for the work of a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The opening scene of this preparation was Annandale-on- Hudson, the site of St. Stephen’s College. This institution was of recent foundation; it owed its existence to one John Bard, upon whose estate it was situated. Like all great things, its beginnings were humble, as I discovered on the day of my arrival at this seat of learning. My directions were to take the morning train from New York and leave the train at a station called Barrytown. It was a slow train, stopping at every station, so that, leav- ing New York at nine, we did not get to Barrytown until nearly one. When I alighted from the train at Barrytown I looked about for St. Stephen’s College, but there was no college to be seen, only steep cliffs running up from the riverside and wooded hills above. Sorely perplexed, I asked the station-master the way to St. Stephen’s College. The man looked at me in a puzzled way for a moment, and then he said, “Oh, I guess you mean ‘Bard’s Skule’; take the road up the hill till you come to Annandale, then take the left-hand road and you'll come to the skule, a red- brick buildin’ on the hill and a stone church in the holler.” This direction puzzled me, but before I could ask further questions the station-master went up the track to look after some express. 72 COLLEGE LIFE 73 I, with my bag and travelling-case in my hand, began to climb the hill, saying to myself, ‘‘‘Bard’s Skule.’ ‘Bard’s Skule’; whatever did that man mean by talking about ‘Bard’s Skule’?”’ I learned afterward that ‘‘Bard’s Skule”’ was to St. Stephen’s College as the seed to the plant; it was in the “Skule” that the college had its origin; which was on this wise. I was at that moment walking through the estate of John Bard; the road was a public road, but the land was John Bard’s land on either side. The man himself lived in a mansion in his manor at the top of the hill. As his name makes manifest, John Bard was by blood an Englishman, by accident an American. He was a typi- cal squire and as a matter of birth was a member of the Fstablished Church; it is true that there was no Established Church in America, but a daughter of that ancient mother carried on the life and traditions of the family in the new country. This Church was known in law as the Protes- tant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, which would have been called the English Church in Amer- ica, but the successful revolt of the American Colonies against the British Crown made that impossible. This Church centres its life in its bishops; it’s from bishop to bishop that the power of God descends through Christ and Peter and all the Apostles to rule Holy Church. Without the bishop there can be no Church. Such was the English Church, with its cathedrals and bishops’ palaces. The American bishops derived their orders from the Eng- lish bishop, and so were the custodians and rulers of the only true Church in America. As the English squires and lords of the land were the natural patrons of the English Church, so were the American squires and landholders and rich merchants of English descent the natural members and patrons of the Episcopal Church. John Bard was of English descent, a large landholder and a man of wealth and per consequens a member of the Episcopal Church. 74 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS He was, moreover, a liberal patron of that Church. He had built upon his estate a beautiful Gothic church free to the neighbourhood, of which, at the time of its opening or soon after, he appointed the Reverend George F. Sey- mour to the rectorship. Mr. Seymour, afterward Doctor Seymour, Professor of History in the General Theological Seminary, and later Bishop of Quincy, Illinois, made use of his leisure time in teaching young men, whom he received into his home, Latin and Greek and mathematics, prepara- tory to their entering the theological seminary to study for the sacred ministry of the Protestant Episcopal Church, these young men coming from business life at an age which forbade their taking a full collegiate course. As these students increased in number, Mr. Seymour sug- gested to his patron, Mr. Bard, the foundation of a college to carry on this work of preparing business and profes- sional men for entrance into the study of theology. Mr. Bard received this suggestion with enthusiasm, interested various of his friends, secured a charter from the State, and so brought into being St. Stephen’s College. But long before this college was so much as thought of, Mr. Bard, in true English fashion, had established a parish school for the children of his estate and the neigh- bouring village—of this the rector of the parish, and after its foundation the warden of the college, was the superin- tendent. Now this school was known throughout the coun- try-side as ‘“Bard’s Skule,” and when the college was built the whole plant was known as “Bard’s Skule.”’ As I took the winding road up the hill to Bard’s School, I forgot my journey’s end in the intense enjoyment of the journey itself. The road wound up a hill and on either side of the road was a virgin forest of indigenous trees. Mr. Bard, as a true English gentleman, loved his trees, and there they stood as they had been standing for a hundred years and more, ancient elm and maple, spruce COLLEGE LIFE 75 and pine. The great economic sin of America has been the wanton destruction of the forest; of that sin Mr. Bard was guiltless; he cut away dead trees and branches for his fire-wood, but this was not to destroy; it was to preserve the forest. As I made my way up the hill I had glimpses of the waters of the Hudson River dancing in the sunlight and of vague shadows in the Western sky—all motionless as mountains; and mountains they were. The whole scene was that of veiled beauty seducing the soul with desire for the lifting of the veil, that the hidden beauties might be uncovered to the gaze. When I came to the top of the hill, to the village of Annandale, I turned to the North, as directed, and walked along the ridge of the hills above the trees, and the hidden beauties were revealed and I fell in love with them. There lay open to my gaze the Hudson River from Kingston to Catskill, the wavelets of the river breaking into crests of golden light; the broad bosom of the river carried with ease steamer, yacht and rowboat, the traffic and pleasure of a continent of which this river was the servant. Beyond the river the Catskill range of moun- tains lay at ease against the sky, resting its feet upon the foothills, looking down with indifference upon the pygmy hamlets and towns which the pygmy man had built to shelter him from the wrath of the mountain. [I have seen the White and the Green Mountains; I have seen the Alps and the Apennines; all these I have admired, but the Cat- skill range is my first and only love. I have seen her com- ing out of the clouds of the morning, as a housewife ready for her tasks. I have seen her glowing under the noonday heat. I have seen her at eventide, lying in languorous ease waiting for the night, that she may conceive and bring forth the children of the wood. But now I hear my impatient reader cry, why is this boy loitering along the road; why doesn’t he get on to school? 76 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS Patience, dear reader, patience. Did you ever know a boy that did not loiter on his way to school? And I was only a boy; scared out of his wits as he looked up and saw “Bard’s Skule” on the hill-side. As I stood gazing at that prison-like structure, I was startled out of my dream of love and terror by the opening of a gate near at hand. I lifted up my eyes and saw a man coming out of the gate. He looked at me and I looked at him. I do not know what he saw, but before me was a short, stout figure, with sandy hair and shaggy eyebrows; underneath the brows were light blue eyes, be- tween the eyes a short nose; under the nose a wide mouth, an iron jaw, a rounded chin. He was clothed in black, his collar was buttoned behind, and his waistcoat, which the vul- gar call a vest, was buttoned close to his collar; if he wore a shirt, it was a useless waste; he didn’t need it. As I looked at him I thought of Elisha Sackett and his prophecy. But he soon scared me out of all idle thinking; in a voice with ayrich burr yhessaidae.Who tare; you fy Ub)said qmanaean Crapsey.” ‘Where are you going?’ “I am going to st.* Stephen's College.) @* "Who. ‘sent ‘you?’ 4) Bectas MeVickar.” Puff! “Id like to know what right McVic- kar has to send a man up here without letting me know.” ‘Fle told me he would write of my coming.” ‘Well, he didn’t—the college is full, There’s no room for you.” At this I had a mixed feeling of joy and sorrow; joy at the thought that I needn’t go to “‘Bard’s Skule’—sorrow at the realization that I had nowhere else to go. As I turned away to seek my fortune once more in the wide, wide world the burring voice cried, “Stop!” I stopped. ‘Go up to the college; I will see what I can do.” I obeyed; went up to the college; the little Scotchman found room for me, and he and I made friends together. This irascible gentleman was none other than the Reverend Doctor Robert Brinkerhof Fairbairn, warden of COLLEGE LIFE "7 St. Stephen’s College. When I came to know him I found that his bark was worse than his bite. In addition to his duties as warden, he occupied the chair of logic and philoso- phy in the college. As I took the prize in Logic and honourable mention in philosophy, you may be sure that we got on together. As for him, he was my unending delight; he had a habit in class of plucking out the hairs of his shaggy eyebrows, which fascinated me. I would keep count of these pluckings and wonder when his eyes would be naked of brows. On this first day of the college the fellows were return- ing from their vacation and the newcomer was a natural object of curiosity. As they came in, they crowded around me like boys in front of a monkey cage and put me through the third degree. ‘‘What’s your name?” ‘‘Crap- Seyae nV nats yy the handles) \*Aleernon) Sidney: “Whew, some handle! Where did you come from?” eiNowe . OLKs) bee Whatyschooll?’’’ 4 ''No school.) osWhat were you doin’ before you came?’ ‘‘Keeping books.” Then, with scorn, “You’re only a Prep.” “I don’ know. Winer svat ren youn V).ell,ayou are) preensia breny ain't college.’ I must explain this conundrum by saying that the warden, Doctor Fairbairn, had made St. Stephen’s a college with its four years’ course, freshman, sophomore, junior and senior, just like Harvard or Yale. But, not to do away entirely with the original purpose of the insti- tution, he had condescended to continue a course of two years, preparatory to the theological seminary; this for such poor creatures as I who had neither the time nor the money for the full academic education. But such poverty was held in contempt, as poverty always is, and a Prep. was a low caste in the midst of the Brahmins of the school. The warden shared the contempt of the students for the Prep. As a consequence, the Preps. were few in number; only two entered in ’67, Harry Wayne 78 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS and myself. Wayne was the son of General Harry Wayne of Confederate Army fame, and grandson of Justice Wayne of the United States Supreme Court. ‘This social éclat lifted him out of the ignominy of Prepdom, but I, the son of an unknown man, had no such deliverance from my low estate. My condition was the more contemptuous because of utter ignorance of academic lore. Could I read Greek? “No.” Latin? “No.” », How far had I gone in mathe= matics? ‘“‘Up to interest and percentage.’’ ‘‘Humph, that’s not mathematics, that’s arithmetic. Know anything of jalzebrat) se No nh a) Of gcometry? iv VINO. Tania yarn in the world did you come to college?” “Because Doctor McVickar sent me.” “Did McVickar know how little you know?” “I don’t know.” ‘It seems to me you don’t know anything. We will have to place you in a junior Prep. class all by yourself.’’ So I sank to the lowest station of scholastic life. I was not only a Prep., I was a junior Prep.; worse still, my first recitations were dismal failures. JI had no power of concentration. It seemed as if I would be thrown out of the college as a fool, and I went into the woods and wept. Then I shut myself up in my room, mastered my task and began to make perfect recitations. And soon it was discovered that I was not such a ninny as I seemed. When it came to history, I made a recitation that was commended by the professor and applauded by the class. As by a miracle, I was saved from the doom of utter failure, and, as I have already informed the reader, came out a prize man. Under the guidance of Doctor Oliver, I made reason- able progress in Greek and before I left college could read it with ease, so much that when I graduated from the seminary the first job offered me was a tutorship in Greek in the college at Fairabau, Minnesota, which I declined. My success with Greek was altogether owing to the method COLLEGE LIFE 79 of the professor; he taught Greek as every language should be taught—language first and grammar afterward. The value of the letter was given, so that the combination of letters into words was natural; the combined sounds of the letters made the word. Then the meaning of the word was given in its English equivalent; then the words were formed into sentences and the sentences into paragraphs. Before one knew what one was about, one was reading Greek. I was not so fortunate with Latin. Under the guidance of Dr. Hopson, I learned the grammar, but not the language. In later years I learned to read Latin by reading it. I soon discovered, however, and the college discovered, that I had a knowledge not possessed by my fellow students and hardly by my professors. I was possessed at first hand of historical lore and philosophical thought from the masters. In history I had sat at the feet of Gibbon and Hume, Robertson and Macaulay, Macintosh and Prescott, Ranke and Thiers. I had gone to the wellsprings of phi- losophy and drunk wisdom from Hume and Berkeley, But- ler and Malbranche. In the science of human passion, my teachers had been Shakespeare and Scott, Fielding and Richardson, Sterne and Smollett, and, above all, Goldsmith. In modern thought, my masters were Carlyle, Ruskin and Emerson. There was in our college a literary society called ‘“The Eulexian,”’ in which certain meetings were set apart for the reading of anonymous papers. When I had been in col- lege some months I was appointed reader, and I read a paper of my own based on the saying of Francesco in the first scene of the first act of ‘“‘Hamlet’’: ‘‘For this relief, much thanks. ’Tis bitter cold and I am sick at heart.” I showed how in these words the poet had given expression to the bitterness of his own soul; he had carved them on the base of the noblest product of his genius, that men 80 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS might know the bitter ironies of human life. Here was the grandest intellect and heart of his own or any time able to gauge the minds of kings, unravel the secrets of the soul, and yet himself a mere strolling player, a motley to the view, subject to the proud man’s contumely; scorned by the priests and patronized by the snobs. I have since preached this as a sermon and it is a great sermon; an- other paper on Shakespeare and an essay on Mirabeau gave me my place in the college. I was no more a despised Prep. I was a college man, a member of no class but of all classes. You ask me why I boast of this? I answer, “If I did not, who would?” St. Stephen’s College, being a small college, could not be expected to produce a man of great genius, but it did in- clude in its body many interesting men and one of com- manding intellectual ability; this was James Stryker, who graduated at the head of his class and of the college in the year 1867. I have listened to many men since then, but none in my judgment superior to Stryker. I can see and hear him now standing with his college gown wrapped about him, in words simple and lucid, unravelling the per- plexities of Sir William Hamilton and making plain the obscurities of Dugald Stewart. Among the interesting men of the college were Foster, the contradiction; Thomas, the gentleman; Houghton, the enthusiast; Toy, the midget; Cole, the poet. As I think of these men, I marvel at the waste of nature. Stryker stayed on in the college as instructor in mathematics and died within the year; Foster became a Roman Catholic, renouncing the English Church as heretical, left the Roman Church an Agnostic; studied medicine, became a successful practitioner and died on the street; Houghton, a pastor without peer, died in his prime as Rector of St. Mark’s, Denver, Colorado; Thomas, the gentleman, was the pastor of John Pierpont Morgan the elder, and died in the odour COLLEGE LIFE SI of respectability. When a man reaches the age of seventy- seven he can but cry the death of his friends and say to his lonely soul, ‘““And I only am escaped alone to follptice:) The two years of my college course passed quickly into the abysm of the past and my college days were over. I did not graduate; a Prep. never does. The only notable thing I did in college was to lay the foundation of the society called Kappa Gamma Chi—the mystical meaning of these cabalistic words I dare not tell; I only know that there was a fight in the Eulexian; some of us seceded and we said, “Go to—let us found a rival society.” I said, “Tf we do, let’s make it a secret society and give an annual gunners then vit willtbera, go." Jim. Stryker gaveius the name. We gave the dinner, and lo and behold, the Kappa Gamma Chi became an institution with its Chapter House, and on its roll of honoured members are bishops and clergy without limit. At last the hour came; I ascended the platform, pro- nounced my oration on ‘““The Great Idealist,” ate the com- mencement dinner, said good-bye with tearful eyes to the boys, and went to Barrytown, and so on to New York. CHAPTER XV THE WAYS OF A SEMINARY T the conclusion of my college course I went di- vay rectly to a mining town in the coal region of Penn- sylvania, the name of which I have forgotten, but which I will call Mahoney, where I had an engagement to teach a parish school for the summer. I lived, if I remember correctly, in the village hotel and my school was in the parish house. The rector of the parish was a Mr. Washburn whose son, Louis Washburn, was for many years rector of St. Paul’s Church, Rochester, and is now the distinguished and beloved rector of Christ Church, Philadelphia. There are only two incidents in this period of my career that call for remark. The first of these incidents shows the inaptitude of the child mind for abstract propositions. I was endeavouring to convey to the minds of a class of boys and girls of the average age of twelve the abstract conception of a fraction. I told them that a fraction was a definite part of a whole. Il might as well have said to them that a fraction was a jab- berwock; my words, I soon saw, conveyed to their minds no notion whatever. So at last, to illustrate the concep- tion, I took an apple, cut it into parts and, first holding the apple as a whole before the class, I said, ‘Children, what is this?’ They shouted, ‘An apple.” Then, taking a piece of the apple and holding it up, I said, ‘‘And what is this?’ And with a louder shout they cried, ‘‘A piece of apple, sir.’ After years of experience in teaching, I am convinced that the average child cannot entertain an ab- 82 THE WAYS OF A SEMINARY 83 stract proposition before the age of sixteen and a large _ minority never acquire the power of abstraction at all. It is this psychological fact that has given such wide popu- larity to the movies and the Sunday supplements. The second incident worthy of remark during my resi- dence in Mahoney had to do with the power of Holy Church to subdue the unruly passions of sinful men. The majority of the mining population of Mahoney were from the Emerald Isle. Every Sunday morning, before the few Protestants were out of bed, could be heard the ‘‘tramp, tramp, tramp” of these Irish Catholics on their way to and from their attendance at the Mass. I used to get up and go to the window and watch these pious people, men in their high hats, women with their covered heads, in their green kirtles; a decenter lot of people never presented themselves before their God for his loving approval; the few Protestants who later in the morning went to their Bethels and Ebenezers were not to be compared with these devotees of the true Church. So the Sabbath morning passed in holy calm. But in the afternoon, presto change! the Main Street was thronged with Irishmen howling drunk and fighting mad. The Irish God was invoked, not to bless, but to damn. All along the street fists were striking; stones were flying; women, no longer in sober grey and green, but dressed in flaming reds and glaring yellows, stood along the side of the street applauding the prowess of their men, and if any woman’s man seemed to be getting the worst of it, in she would go, biting and scratching and yelling like a wild- cat. What with the cursing of the men, the screeching of the women, the crying of the children and the barking of the dogs, it was pandemonium let loose in the streets of Mahoney on a Sunday. God had the morning, but the Devil owned the town in the afternoon. But stop; God was waiting to whip the Devil round the stump. When 84 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS the pandemonium was at its raging crest and the waves of wrath submerging the reason of fighters, then look and see: behold, a black figure on a black horse came riding into the turmoil, whip in hand. He slashed to the right and to the left; the fighting ceased, the fighters fled away and Sabbath stillness settled once more upon the streets of Mahoney. Holy Church, in the person of the holy Father, had subdued the unruly passions of sinful men till come next Sunday. For so it happened on every Sunday while I lived in Mahoney. When the summer was over and gone and the maples were red on the mountains, I bade farewell to stupid chil- dren, Irish saints and Irish sinners, and made my way back to New York, in time to enter upon the study of sacred theology in the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of Amer- ica, situated in what was known as the village of Chelsea, but then and now included in the city of New York, the property of the seminary lying between Twentieth and Twenty-first Streets and Ninth and Tenth Avenues. In my day there were no such beautiful buildings as now adorn the square, the Gothic church with its spire, the Oxford Gothic students’ quarters with their quads; nothing of this grandeur, only two grey-stone houses near either end of the square, in which were recitation rooms, dining-rooms, dormitories and residences of the Professors. ‘These build- ings accommodated between eighty and a hundred students who lived together as one family. ‘The seminary course covered three years of study; the classes were the juniors, the middlemen and the seniors. When I enrolled as a junior in the seminary, I was not subjected to the humiliations that made miserable the be- ginning of my college career. I had earned my right to the respect of my teachers and my fellow students. I came to the seminary from my college as an honour man, with THE WAYS OF A SEMINARY 85 the logic prize and cum laude in philosophy. The semi- nary course included dogmatic and pastoral theology, Old Testament exegesis, including instruction in the Hebrew language; New Testament exegesis, with the reading of the Greek version, Church History and liturgiology. I do not think that there was ever an institution so inadequate to its purpose as this seminary when I was under its care. The professors were many of them clerical failures, whose friends had placed them on the seminary staff as a harbour of refuge. The professor of history did not have the historical mind; facts were nothing to him if they did not fit into his ecclesiastical, High Church theories; he was not honest with his class; in the course of his lectures he would refer his students to this and that obscure ancient authority, and I would find the substances of his lecture almost word for word in Mosheim, which was a text- book within easy reach of us all. This man was a brilliant, superficial talker, a fierce partisan and afterward a bishop. The professor of pastoral theology, an utter failure as a preacher, was set to teach us the science and art of preaching. We were kept for a year on Gresley’s ‘“T’rea- tise on Preaching,” a book which any half-way intelligent mind could have read and mastered in three hours. I was asked such questions as these: “Mr. Crapsey, should a sermon be too long?’ ‘No, Professor.” ‘Mr. Crapsey, should a sermon be too short?’ ‘‘No, Professor.’ ‘‘How should a sermon be, Mr. Crapsey?” It should be just about right, Professor.” ‘Correct, Mr. Crapsey.” I did not know then Bishop Potter’s formula for the length of a sermon which was “‘twenty minutes with a leaning to mercy.” The professor of the New Testament exegesis was a senile saint, the loveliest of all lovely old men, whose mind would go off at a tangent and meander in the most alluring 86 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS way from the subject in hand until the hour was gone and he would say, ‘Well, well, gentlemen; you may take the same lesson for to-morrow.”’ The professor of dogmatic theology was nothing if not dogmatic; with him theology was based in belief, and so based it was not and could not be a science, and yet to him it was a science. he creed was to him as provable as the first proposition of Euclid. We were set to read Pear- son on the creed, who proved the creed by the citations of irrelevant texts of Scripture which proved anything but the articles of the creed. We were given Brown on the artt- cles, a book as big as a dictionary in which the poor articles were as lost as a handful of peas in a hogshead of water. We were given that funniest of all books, Bull’s “Man before the Fall,’ which was a bull—it brought man forth, a perfected work of a perfect God, fully clothed with his divine perfections and yet such a fool that he lost all these perfections at the whisper of a serpent and the be- guilement of a woman. I did not see all this at the time, but by this dogmatist was sown in my mind the seeds that in due season produced the deadly fruit of heresy. The professor of Old Testament exegesis deserves hon- ourable mention. Doctor Seabury was an old man ripe with the wisdom of age, never dogmatic, always delightful, always instructive; more ready to listen than to lecture. One morning when we had a knotty question of Old Testa- ment exegesis before us he said, ‘‘Come, gentlemen; Saint Paul says, ‘Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness’; let us have controversy and clear up the mys- tery.’ Then with a laugh we went at it hammer and tongs. I can see the old man now crouching before his sea coal fire, his grey eyes gleaming with fun as he urged us on. I loved that old man and he loved me, but alas as we shall learn, it was through this holy man that I came to a hard fall from grace. THE WAYS OF A SEMINARY 87 To the professor of Hebrew, Doctor Hall, I am ever grateful; he taught me to learn Hebrew by reading He- brew; not that he neglected the grammar; far from it. I remember that his great passion was for the athnach—and what the athnach was and is I cannot now remember. But I did come to read the language with some ease and it was a great help. I remember with pleasure the lectures of Dr. Francis Vinton, an assistant minister of Trinity parish, on ecclesiastic law. ‘These were highly instructive and interesting. I also enjoyed the talks of Bishop Hora- tio Potter to the senior class. I can see him now shaking his head and saying, ‘‘Gentlemen, some men read a book and digest it; other men read a book and it digests them. Gentlemen, be cautious in your reading. I have known men to read themselves out of the Church.” With such sayings did the wise prelate warn us of the intellectual dangers that lay in our ministerial path. Alas, had I but heeded the good old man and abandoned the bad habit of reading and thinking! But, after all, the professor in his classroom is the lesser influence in the life of the student; it is the impact of student mind upon student mind and the power of the general environment that gives value to the years of college life. I do not remember any man in the seminary in my time who gave evidence of unusual ability. Take us for all in all, we were a mediocre lot. But though uninteresting individually, we were very interesting in the mass. The atmosphere of the seminary was seething with controversy. If one had any illusion that the gospel of Christ was a gospel of peace, he would be speedily disillusioned in the General Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church. ‘There was perpetual war- fare between the ritualists and the rationalists. The his- toric movement to Catholicize the English Church, which was inaugurated by Keble and carried forward by Pusey and Manning, was pursuing its tumultuous course; it had 88 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS captured the imagination and intellect of the Church; it had drowned out the old evangelicism; it crested in a wave of ritualism which made of the communion table an altar and clothed the ministry in the garments of the Catholic priesthood. No longer did we preach in the black gown. We ascended the pulpit in the white surplice; we chanted the psalms, sang the litany and intoned the prayers. We went up to the high altar in alb, embroidered stole and bejewelled chasuble. We were the priests of the most high God offering to Him the unbloody sacrifice for the sins of the world. We preached the celibacy of the clergy and our devout women founded sisterhoods. ‘The old High and Broad Church parties could not stand before the sweep of this ritualistic movement. But it in turn was being checked by a cross-current of rationalism. Maurice and Kingsley were preaching a reli- gion of reason and conscience. Bishop Temple was editing the ‘‘Essays and Reviews.” Colenso, the Bishop of Natal, was converted by the Zulus to a rational conception of the so-called ‘‘Books of Moses.’ All of this stress and storm of controversy was beating upon our seminary stronghold. The majority of us belonged to the ritualists, but we had to fight for our lives with the rationalists. It had all the excitement of the battlefield. It was also a part of our education to live in New York. We had the great city as our teacher. ‘The libraries and art galleries were open for our instruction. ‘The theatre and the concert allured us to sin to our advantage. I went about the city on the Sundays to listen to the great preachers. I heard Beecher and Storrs, Washburn and Dix; of these, the last was to me the ideal; Beecher was an orator; Storrs a logician; Washburn an essayist; Dix was a teacher. I can never forget the first sermon which I heard him preach. It was a louring day and I had strayed down THE WAYS OF A SEMINARY. 89 Broadway till I came to St. Paul’s at Vesey Street. I went in by the Broadway door and went up the steps into the gallery. ‘here were only about three hundred people in the church that would hold a thousand. The service was well read by a benign elderly clergyman. When it was time for the sermon a tall grave man ascended the stairway to the high pulpit; he stood for a moment in silence but uttered no invocation; then in a quiet voice he said, “Friends, I wish to speak to you on ‘Wandering Thoughts in Prayer.’’’ He gave out no text, but proceeded to give an explanation of the phenomena of wandering thoughts. Instead of censuring this condition, as most preachers would, he explained it. He showed that the human mind was so constituted that it could carry on different lines of thought at the same time. I remember that he illustrated his subject from the trial scene of Fagin in ‘Oliver ‘Twist’; he showed us Fagin sitting in the chair of the prisoner, listening with all his soul to what was going on in the courtroom and at the same time counting the nails in the floor and multiplying the cross-sections! He finished his sermon without any ascription and went down out of the pulpit leaving every hearer informed as to the natural working of his own mind and freed for ever from the fear that his wandering thoughts were displeasing to God. During my second and third seminary years I eked out my slender resources by teaching for two hours every morn- ing in Trinity School. The late Dr. Lewis Parks was also teaching in the school. Now, Dr. Parks was a very little man, only about five feet two, and slender. ‘To correct this fault he wore a tall silk hat. When we walked the streets the urchins would cry after him, “Hey, Hat, where you takin’ that boy?” Parks, ignoring their cries, went bravely on. In the seminary, we were members, for eating-purposes, of “The Commons.’ ‘The weekly cost for each of us at go THE LAST OF THE HERETICS the Commons table was four dollars and fifty cents. This Commons was managed by a committee of students. At the end of my junior year the Commons was deeply in debt. A meeting of the students was called to consider the matter. After a long discussion it was decided to abolish the committee and put the Commons in charge of a steward. I was chosen to that responsible position. At the end of the first year, we had not only maintained the table up to the old standard, but we had paid the debt and had a sur- plus that enabled me to go into the spring markets and buy all the luxuries of the season. If it be asked how this miracle came to pass, I answer, first by the abolition of privilege. ‘The members of the committee and _ their friends were in the habit of sleeping late and coming down after breakfast and ordering omelets and chops and steaks. The new steward abolished that abuse. If a fellow wanted his breakfast he must come to his breakfast when breakfast was there; else no breakfast. There was some grumbling, but the law of the breakfast was the law of the breakfast and that was the end of it, and we saved some hundreds of dollars by this abolition of privilege, which is a parable; it is because of privilege that millions starve yearly in a world of privilege. The second reform that the steward made was in the method of buying. The committee would give orders for supplies at the near-by groceries and meat markets. [he steward employed the able janitor of the seminary, Mr. Hopper, as his assistant, and went with him three times a week to Washington Market, buying goods for cash and saving the retailer’s profit; groceries were likewise bought for cash from the wholesaler. This method saved about one-third of the cost of the mainte- nance of the Commons over the old way. The steward likewise attended to his own banking and thereby formed a friendship with Mr. James DePyster, president of the Bowery Savings Bank. When the steward left the semi- THE WAYS OF A SEMINARY gI nary, he carried with him a reputation as a business man and financier, which his later life did not justify. Why, this story will tell. He received as compensation for his work as steward the remission of his board, four dollars and fifty cents a week. I served Zion Church, Rome, for two summer seasons, made a group of highly valued friends, including the rec- tor of the parish, and above all I made the acquaintance and was blessed with the friendship of the Right Reverend Frederick Dan Huntington, by far the greatest man who ever sat in the House of Bishops of the American Church. And now we come to the last sad paragraph in this eventful chapter. My room in the seminary building was next to the study of Professor Seabury. At the close of my senior year, in examination week, the evening before the examination in Old Testament exegesis, I came home about nine o'clock and, putting my hand to the knob of the door, I found a paper there. Going into my room, I opened it and read: ‘Will Mr. Crapsey please step into Dr. Seabury’s study when he comes in?’ I stepped to the door and knocked. At “come in’’ I entered the study and saw the good Doctor sitting crouched up in his chair, the picture of despair. After I was seated and a little byplay of talk passed between us, he said, “You know, Mr. Crap- sey, that Daniel VIII is one of the themes at to-morrow’s examination?” I said, ‘‘Yes, Doctor, I know it.” ‘Well, now,’ said he, “I am troubled about that theme; if some of those men get that theme, they’ll make asses of them- selves and an ass of me, and I wouldn't like it; no, I wouldn’t like that at all. Now, you know, Mr. Crapsey, I have nothing to do with the assignment of themes, but I was thinking that you might care to look over that chapter before you went to bed and consult South and Louth, so if the theme should happen to come to you, you might do it justice, as I know you can.” [I said, “Thank you, Doc- 92 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS tor’; and I rose up and he rose up; he looked at me and I looked at him, and we neither winked an eyelash. I went to my room, took up my Hebrew Bible and read that eighth chapter over and over, until Daniel himself, if there ever were a Daniel, could not have read it more fluently. I went to the library and took down South and Louth and arranged the big horns and little horns until I could play upon them in a way to shame South and Louth. When I finished with them the grey of the morning had come. I rushed to my room, undressed, put on my bath- robe, ran to the bathroom, turned on the cold shower, ran back to my room, threw myself upon the bed, fell into a deep sleep from which I was aroused by the ringing of the bell for breakfast. I rose, dressed carefully and went down to my morning meal in a blue funk. If I didn’t get that theme, I was lost as a scholar; if I did get it, I was damned as a man. When the hour arrived I went to the recitation room and saw the five examiners sitting in a row on the platform, the professor on the floor to their right. ‘The plan was for one of the examiners to select a theme at random, hand it to the chairman, who would call the name of a stu- dent and ask him to discuss the subject of the paper. The chairman was calling the names in alphabetical or- der; when he had gotten through the B’s, he was handed a theme; he looked at it, paused, looked at it again and said with a smile, “I think we will skip about a bit. Mr. Cranston, will you please take this Daniel VIII?” With sinking heart, I looked at Cranston and his face was grey as ashes. Just then Professor Seabury was taken with a fit of violent coughing, which lasted half a minute; the chairman rose up and handed him a glass of water. I saw the professor move his lips. When he returned to his seat the chairman said, ‘‘Let me see, whom was I calling— it was Mr. Crapsey, was it not? Yes, it was Mr. Crap- THE WAYS OF A SEMINARY 93 sey; Mr. Crapsey, will you kindly read for us in the He- brew Daniel VIII and give us an exegesis of that interest- ing chapter?” I looked at Cranston and he looked at me with a diabolical grin on his face. But what of that?— my hour had come. I opened the Hebrew Bible, read Daniel VIII as if I were a Jewish rabbi; then explained the meaning of the big horns and the little horns, playing upon them a trenody of judgment on a sinful world. When I sat down the class broke out into clapping of hands and cheering. ‘The chairman rose up and said: “Mr. Crapsey, permit me, on behalf of the examiners, to congratulate you on your brilliant exposition of this most dificult chapter. Your fluency in the reading of the He- brew, your sound exegesis are worthy of all praise and reflect great credit upon the learned professor under whose instruction you have attained to such excellence.” And again the class applauded. Then I turned and bowed to the professor, and the professor bowed to me, and we neither winked an eyelash. This sin has been on my conscience all these years. I have never openly confessed until now. But what could Ido? I could not let any one of my fellow students make an ass of himself, much less make an ass of my beloved professor, could I now? CHAPTER XVI A DEACON OF SORTS ITH our examination our relation as students of V\ the seminary came to an end. The seminary at that time did not confer any degree upon its graduates, nor did its examination give any right of en- trance to the ministry of the Church. ‘The power to con- fer orders was vested in the bishop, who, however, ac- cepted graduation from the seminary as evidence of our fitness for the service of the Church and confined his ex- amination to the questions in the prayer-book, the answers to which are commonly called the “ordination vows.” These vows, like marriage vows, are taken glibly, and are kept or not, as circumstances determine. Jesus being the witness, all vows are immoral. He says, Matthew v, 33, “Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, “Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths; but I say unto you, swear not at all, neither by the Heaven, for it is the Throne of God, nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of his feet, nor by Jerusalem, for it is the City of the Great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head; for thou canst not make one hair white nor black. But let your speech be yea, yea, nay, nay, for whatsoever is more than these is of the Evil One’”’ (i.e., the Devil). And yet in utter defiance of these clear words of Jesus, the Church made ordination vows necessary to all who would enter upon the work of preaching the gospel of Jesus. I wish now to confess my stupidity and my sinfulness when I took these so-called 94 A DEACON OF SORTS 95 vows. In doing so, I did violence, not only to moral, but to natural law. I vowed that I would take all my opin- ions at second hand; that I would never think for myself. The first and second of my ordination vows nullified each other. ‘The first vow was that I would teach nothing as necessary to salvation but that which J shall be persuaded may be concluded and proved by the Holy Scripture. The second vow required that I should teach the truths of Scripture, not as I found them, but only as This Church hath received the same. By these vows, I became as one of the lawyers, whom Jesus so severely condemned. I was never to seek after truth, as truth, but only to hunt for arguments to buttress received doctrine. My only excuse for my sin is the immaturity of my mind and soul at the time, my lack of moral and intellectual discipline. This is the great sin of the Church against the soul of man; because of these vows multitudes of men have lived stunted lives. For failure to keep the vows the bravest of men have been burned at the stake; because of insistence on these vows the Church has shut out from her ministry men of progressive minds and so has lost the intellectual, moral and spiritual leadership of the world. The prophet can never be bound by a vow; he must utter the word as the word comes to him; hence the everlasting conflict of the prophet and the priest. But nowadays all vows, mar- riage vows, priestly vows, vows in courts, are taken in a Pickwickian sense and in due time they will pass away with other useless lumber of the past and the teaching of Jesus will be accepted as the teaching of common sense: ‘Then we will have no more perjuries, no more divorces, and as for heresy trials, as we will see farther on, they are out- lawed already. Having made this confession of juvenile delinquency, I will go on with my personal history. My admiration and friendship for and with Bishop Huntington, of Central 96 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS New York, led to a mutual desire that I should begin my ministerial work in his diocese, and he was ready to give such work upon my graduation and ordination. But when I suggested this to Bishop Potter, of New York, he frowned and shook his hoary head at me and said, se- verely; LD think, )Mr.).Crapsey,aiiilihavevhad the;carewon your preparation I am entitled at least to the service of your diaconate.’’ I bowed and said, “Certainly, Bishop, if you have anything for me to do.” ‘To which his lord- ship responded with dignity, “I think, sir, that we can find work for you in the dioceses of New York.” But all the same when I was ready for work there was no work ready for me in the dioceses of New York. In my days of idleness I dropped in on my friend, Philip A. H. Brown, whom [| had known in the seminary. Brown had graduated a year ahead of me and was serving as deacon in St. Paul’s Chapel; he had just accepted a call to the church at Cooperstown, New York, and as a conse- quence was about to vacate his position. He said nothing to me and I nothing to him in regard to my taking his place. But in a few days, as I believe a consequence of this chance visit, I received a letter from Dr. Morgan Dix, rector of Trinity parish, offering me the position of deacon in the parish with duty at St. Paul’s Chapel, which offer I accepted at once. Some days after this acceptance, I had a letter from my bishop telling me that he thought I might safely call on Dr. Dix and say that he, the bishop, had sent me, but the bishop was days behind the fair. I did not owe this call to him, but to that “‘divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we may.’’ I went to my clerical tailor, had him make for me a suit of clerical garments. I buttoned my collar behind, my waistcoat close to my collar, but still found a shirt, if not a necessity, at least a comfort. I entered upon the duties of my diaconate on the first A DEACON OF SORTS Q7 day of September in the year 1872, in the twenty-fifth year of my age. ‘These diaconates of Trinity parish, of which there were several, served as a sort of post-graduate course to students in the seminary; the tenure was usually one year; the consequence of this was that the deacon was a deacon of sorts, good, bad, indifferent. Dr. Dix used to tell with glee of the old Irishwoman who sent him this message: ‘‘Dear Docthor Dix—Me rheumatics is thot bad, will ye plase sind me some line- ment, some red flannel and any sort a deacon you’ve got?” Hence, ‘‘the deacon of sorts.” The deacons of Trinity parish were real deacons after the manner of the primitive Church; their chief duty was to serve the poor. They sometimes read the lessons in the Church service, but only by accident did a deacon preach, and this was as it should be. ‘The young minister should be trained first to service. I count myself lucky that I had my training under a great pastor and a still greater woman. When I entered the service of Trinity parish in St. Paul’s Chapel, this church was in the last stage of a long transition. It was built before the Revolutionary War to serve the more wealthy of the parishioners of the parish who had moved up from the region of Whitehall and Wall Streets to the then more fashionable neighbourhood of Chambers Street. It was in the later years of the eight- eenth and the earlier years of the nineteenth centuries the fashionable church of the city. When the government of the United States was established, New York was the cap- ital city. When Washington was inaugurated the first President of the new Republic, prayers were said in St. Paul’s Chapel and from there the procession went down to Wall Street where Washington made his inaugural ad- dress and took the oath of office. Throughout his stay in New York the President was an attendant upon divine service at St. Paul’s. He had his pew there, which re- 98 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS mains to this day a perpetual memorial to his greatness. But the constant shifting of population in the city of New York had long before my coming carried the centre of fashion to St. John’s Square at Varick Street; then to Fifth Avenue and Washington Square, and then to Twenty- third Street. Business drove the wealthy northward and poverty came in to degrade its handsome houses to the rank of tenements. It was this region that Dr. Dix served as a pastor, com- ing to the parish as a curate, promoted before he was thirty to the rectorship; he remained for fifteen years the shepherd of this flock in the tenements. Associated with him in this work was a woman of utter devotion and rare genius. I have already written at large of these two; this man and this woman in my book, “Sarah Thorne—the Story of a Simple Life,’ which is now out of print, but which I am minded to include in a volume in preparation giving more minutely my experience in St. Paul’s Chapel under the title of “Old St. Paul’s.” JI can now do no more than acknowledge my debt of gratitude to Morgan Dix and Sarah Wisner Thorne, who initiated me into the sci- ence of that service of God which is the service of man. When I came to the chapel there was a remnant of the old congregation still loyal. For reasons which I need not specify, St. Paul’s was the rectors’ church; Dr. Francis Vin- ton was the minister in charge of Old Trinity, as it was called, although St. Paul’s, as a building, antedated it by nearly fifty years. ‘To strangers that flocked to Trinity, Dr. Vinton stood out as the great man of the parish; only occasionally did Dr. Dix preach in that pulpit. But just as I was entering upon my duties, Dr. Vinton’s failing health compelled his retirement and Dr. Dix was about to take his proper place as rector of the parish. His chief assistant at St. Paul’s was also a man well A DEACON OF SORTS 99 stricken in years, unable for full duty and wishing to retire. This state of affairs gave to the deacon of St. Paul’s duties and opportunities that were unusual. He became, indeed, locum tenens in the chapel, having the charge of the parish work and doing some of the preaching. So when the pe- riod of my diaconate came to an end and I was duly or- dered to the priesthood, Dr. Dix called me to his office and told me that the vestry desired that I should continue in the service of the parish as priest officiating until they could find someone whom they could call to the position of senior assistant, in charge of St. Paul’s Chapel, my salary to be increased from fifteen to twenty-five hundred dollars a year. I was ordained priest by Bishop Potter in Saint Chrys- ostom Chapel, Trinity parish. The sermon was preached by an African bishop, a wild man from Borneo. Of that sermon I did not recall a word, but I can see and hear the man to this day. I was presented for ordination by my immediate supe- rior in St. Paul’s Chapel, Dr. Benjamin I. Haight. Of this man I can never think without tears of gratitude. He was not by natural gift a preacher nor an administrator, but he was a soul. He had wide influence because of his kindliness, his face beamed with the light of human love. He was to me in the Church what Elisha Sackett was in the business world, my father. When on the Sunday fol- lowing my ordination to the priesthood I celebrated my first communion, Dr. Haight served as my deacon, bring- ing to me the bread and the wine to bless and the water to wash my hands. And when we came to the vesting-room he laid his hands on my head and blessed me, tears run- ning down his cheeks. “God bless you, my boy; I am going, you are coming. May you be a better, greater servant of God than I have been.” I served with Dr. IOO THE LAST OF THE HERETICS Haight for nearly a year, when he was taken from his bed to his grave; greater men than he have lived, but never a sweeter, simpler soul. So I ceased to be a “deacon of sorts’ and became a priest officiating. But while still in the diaconate [ brought about two reforms in the ritual of the Church and waked a bishop. ‘The first reform I brought to pass unbeknown to Drs. Dix and Haight and so secretly ful- filled a desire of their hearts. At that time there was a dispute whether in celebrating the Holy Communion the priests were to stand at the north and south sides of the altar or at the north and south ends of the altar. The rubric said at the north end, but the Low Church men with Low Church logic insisted that the north end meant the north side and the High and Drys agreed with the Lows, while the Catholics insisted that the north end meant the north end. Dr. Dix was a Catholic, but he had not the courage of his convictions and the hassocks upon which the priests knelt were still at the north and south sides of the altar, much to the grief of the dear rector. The young deacon, having compassion on the rector, solved the problem for him. Late one Saturday after- noon, when the church was all in readiness for the Sunday services, the deacon went in and removed the kneeling has- socks from the north and south sides to the north and south ends of the altar. When Drs. Dix and Haight came into the chancel the next morning they paused and looked at the hassocks. Dr. Dix looked at Dr. Haight and Dr. Haight looked at Dr. Dix, and then they both dropped to their knees on the hassocks as they lay at the north and south ends of the altar, and the universe went on just the same. (ihe) next {reform swas\ /moremapractical apt ae Church faces the churchyard and backs on Broadway. Most of the people came in and went out of the Broad- A DEACON OF SORTS IOI way or back doors; the consequence was that at the close of the service the congregation would immediately start for the back doors and bar the exit of the clergy from the chancel to the vesting-room, and the clergy would meekly sit and wait for the clearing of the way. As a conse- quence of this, the people formed the habit of stopping for a moment to greet the clergy on their way out. So it came to pass one Sunday morning as | was sitting waiting at the chancel rail, dear Mrs. Haight, the younger, the charming wife of the son of Dr. Haight, came and passed the time of day. I asked the usual question as to the state of her health. She answered, “Oh, I have a dreadful cold; I hardly dared to come to church.” I replied, “Oh, I know a perfect cure. for a cold, Mrs. Haight”; and she asked, “What is it? Do tell me.” I said, ‘‘When you go to bed put a hat on your bedpost and drink gin till you see two hats.” Dear Mrs. Haight clapped her hand over her mouth and went out shaking with laughter and I, coming to my senses, was shocked at my irreverence. When we came to the vesting-room I said to the rector, “Dr. Dix, don’t you think it would be more dignified, more conducive to reverence, if the clergy went out of the church at the close of the service, the people waiting for them instead of they for the people?” Dr. Dix thought a mo- ment and said, ‘‘Why, I believe it would.” So it was done. While I was still deacon at St. Paul’s and John Henry Houghton was deacon at Trinity, the champion Low Church bishop, MclIlvaine, of Ohio, died in Europe and his remains were brought over, that he might be buried in the land of his fathers. This bishop was the general- issimo of the armies of the Low Church, seeking to drive the Highs, but more especially the Ritualists, out of the Church. Candles in the church were his especial abom- 102 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS ination. When the remains of this saintly man—for he was a saintly man—arrived in this country and were landed from the steamer in New York, they were placed for the night in the chancel of St. Paul’s Chapel, and the deacon of Trinity and the deacon of St. Paul’s were ap- pointed by the rector as night watchers over the sacred relics of this servant of God. ‘These young men rever- enced a bishop. ‘They could not bear that this bishop should not be waked as a bishop ought to be waked. So they brought the candelabra with their seven-branch can- dlesticks each with its lighted candle and put them at his head and feet. ‘They went to the vesting-room, found the funeral pall with its white cross on purple ground, and with it covered the coffin, and then these young men knelt down and prayed for the repose of the soul of the bishop. When the sexton told of this the next morning and the story got abroad, irate Low-Churchmen demanded that the rector rebuke his deacons. But the rector said, ‘Not so; the bishop is now glad of it, for he is in the light of the seven golden candlesticks burning before the Throne of God.” And so did we wake the bishop. CHAPTER XVII PRIEST OFFICIATING R. DIX and Sarah Thorne had made St. Paul’s 1) Chapel the centre of a gracious ministration to the people of the neighbourhood. They were constant in their endeavours to alleviate the miseries which the landlords and the employers created; inadequate lodging, insuficient food and shabby clothing were the inevitable consequences of high rents and low wages. There was, as yet, no thought on the part of anyone that these conditions were remediable and should be remedied. The era of social reform had not yet dawned. Miss Thorne and her associate workers made and distributed thousands of garments every year. Miss Thorne came to her work every day at noon with the regularity of a business woman. Her workroom was on the second floor of the parish house; its walls were lined with shelves loaded with clothing. Women and children were con- stantly coming and going as to a public store, to receive for love and not for money decent covering to hide their nakedness and to keep them warm. In this work Miss Thorne was assisted by a group of earnest women who came on certain days to work under her direction and this work, though voluntary, was not irregular. These women served under Miss Thorne as under a taskmaster. The large reception room on the first floor was thronged every day with beggars from the street, with the pen- sioners of the parish and the private pensioners of Dr. Dix, who gave freely of his own wealth to abate as far as 103 104 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS it could the wretchedness of the poor. Dr. Dix, then in his forties, was unmarried, was living downtown in the old rectory at St. John’s Park. He was the ideal of a Christian minister; his garden was the playground of the children of the tenements and his house their playhouse. There was no lovelier sight than to see this man of God taking part in the games of the children, as one of themselves. In these works of mercy the deacon of St. Paul’s was the hands and the feet of these noble souls and minds; my promotion to the rank of priest officiating did not re- lieve me from the burden of deaconal duties. ‘Till I left the parish I was the deacon of St. Paul’s, and a busy dea- con [ was. At eleven o’clock I would come to the office and dispose of the applications for relief, paying the pen- sioners and listening to the pleas of the beggars, and a motley crew they were. They were the human refuse of the great city; the bloated drunkard and the sleek con- fidence man; the respectable widow and the cast-off of the brothel. Tales of woe to break the heart, stories of deception to beguile the wisdom of the wise; those hours from eleven to one were depressing to melancholy. It was a hateful task to sit and listen to these degraded men and women; their breath foul with vile whisky and gin; their eyes bleared, their hands shaking. ‘There was your whining beggar and your insolent beggar; your tearful woman and your leering woman. ‘To have satisfied this hungry horde would have absorbed the revenues of ‘Trinity twice over. ‘To sit and say no was to incur the hate of the best haters in the world. The most dangerous of these parasites were the con- fidence men and the sly women. One of the most adroit of the confidence men was your “relative.’’ I was sitting in my office one afternoon, after hours, when a well- appearing man came in, greeting me with the information PRIEST OFFICIATING 105 that he was my cousin, the son of my Uncle John in Chi- cago. After chatting a while, he asked me how far it was to Hartford, or rather how long it would take him to get to Hartford, and when I answered, ‘‘About two hours,” he said, ‘Oh, I don’t mean by train, I mean how long will it take me to walk?” ‘To walk? Why do you want to walk?’ ‘Then came a tale of woe, money lost on the train, and then out of my slender purse ten dollars was taken and handed over to this “relative” in distress. After he had gone I came suddenly to the realizing sense that, to my knowledge, I never had an Uncle John in Chicago. This man had hypnotized me into the possession of this uncle. Of course, the profuse promises of immediate re- turn were never fulfilled. But it behooves the deacon above all things to beware of the sly woman. She does not ask for help, only for sympathy. She has her pitiful story of betrayal; she is young and alluring; she has had to leave her home in a country village and hide herself in the great city; she can- not find work; she may soon be on the street and, with brimming eyes: “You know what that means, sir; won’t you save me from that?’ You offer money; it is refused: ‘T only want your sympathy; your friendship. Won't you come and see me? My name is Inez Smith. I have my room at such a number and street.” He is a wise deacon who escapes from the snare of Inez Smith. When the church clock strikes one, the alms-giving hour for the day is past, the office boy opens the door and the unsatisfied souls go forth to steal what they could not beg. All this work, most unscientific, most unethical, leaves the deacon with dirty hands, defiled soul, and dis- tressed mind. He can wash his hands in water; he can cleanse his soul by prayer and calm his mind by indifference. After half an hour of rest and refreshment with a bowl 106 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS of bread and milk, the deacon goes up to Miss Thorne and takes his orders for the afternoon. He is to carry liniment and red flannel to Father Lemprier; he is to take medicine and money to Mother Magrath; he is to visit Mrs. Vail, the opium-eater, and give her an antidote; and so from house to house till the afternoon passes into the night. Father Lemprier lives on the second floor of a sometime mansion, now a tenement; he is a longshoreman doubled up with rheumatism; sits all day and all night in his chair, his room foul with the exhalation of himself, a wife and a daughter, who eat and sleep in this one room without running water or sanitary closet. ‘This is the re- ward of years of labour. How much better would it have been if this man had been born a horse! We turn a worn- out horse out to pasture where he has pure air, rich grass and clean water. Yes, it is far better in this world to be a working horse than a working man. Mrs. Magrath lives in the cellar of an Old Dutch Bow- erie in Peck Slip; the first floor is a saloon, the second floor is a doss-house for men, who sleep on a doss-blanket which lets them down with a jerk in the morning. Scat- tered through the slip are the lowest of brothels for the service of sailors. Mrs. Magrath is a blind beggar and a pensioner of Trinity parish. The Vails are New Eng- land people, the father a sometime captain of a sloop, now, through drink, a stevedore, the mother a Devonshire blonde and an opium-eater, a son with a broken hip through a fall in a warehouse, one daughter, the support of these wrecks of humanity, and another daughter, study- ing to be a teacher at the high school. So the deacon goes from cellar to garret and from gar- ret to cellar with Sarah Thorne’s words of kindness and deeds of love, into this world of darkness and despair. When I received my appointment as priest officiating, I took a suite of rooms—that is, two rooms and a closet PRIEST OFFICIATING 107 —at No. 47 Church Street, where I did my eating and my sleeping, and, when time permitted, my reading. My bedroom was without light or ventilation. I had no bath, only a sink and running water. This house was over a grocery store with a barroom. It was next door to a large tenement; it had a dark unventilated closet; the neighbourhood was the home of longshoremen and la- bourers; in those days, in Greenwich Street and West Street, were saloons and brothels of the lowest order. Every Saturday night the tenement next door was alive with men and women howling drunk, who the next morn- ing went quietly to mass. For this habitation I paid thirty-five dollars a month and glad to get it. The clergy as a rule lived uptown and came down about noon to their work when it was convenient, but I have always had the feeling that a shepherd should live with his sheep. The parish building at 7 Church Street was kept in or- der, after a fashion, by the janitress, old Mary, an Irish- woman of grey hair and wrinkled face; she was kindly but querulous. She had seen so many deacons come and go that they were of no respect in her eyes. She was the humble servant of the rector, the servitor of Sarah Thorne, the equal of the assistant minister, and the stern boss of deacons. From them Mary would take no non- sense. If a poor deacon forgot his keys and had to ring the bell and call ‘“‘old Mary” down from her loft he got a wigging that made him mind his p’s and q’s, from that day to his last as a deacon. Now old Mary had a sister and she was a widow; her name was Mrs. Hill. It was always a wonder to me why the defunct Hill came to marry old Mary’s sister, but it was no mystery at all as to why he made her his widow. I employed old Mary’s sister, Mrs, Hill, as my cook and housekeeper. She was a long, lank creature with greyish- black hair, watery blue eyes, twisted nose and mouth. 108 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS When she laid my breakfast, she left her dishrag on the table, but I clung desperately to her because she could make coffee, toast scones and broil a steak. As for my bed, it was made or not, as the spirit moved old Mary’s sister, but when I came to bed I was usually so tired that I never noticed so unimportant a matter as an unmade bed. I had to live downtown near my work because the most important of that work was done after nightfall. Sarah Thorne and Dr. Dix had provided for the women and children, but no provision had been made for the men. After Sunday-school age the young men were left to drift away and so were lost to the church and too often lost to decent living. One of my first efforts after I had been made priest officiating was to get some of the young men together in a club. We had meetings once a week for social development and the promotion of goodwill. We organized for parish work; carried a course of scientific lectures through a winter in Trinity Hall. If I wanted to see these men I had to call on them or meet with them between eight o’clock and midnight, and it was often in the early hours of the morning that I made my lonely way through Church Street, sometimes followed by a police- man as a suspicious character, and stumbled up my tene- ment stairs to my unmade bed. ‘Those were great months that I would not have missed for all that has come afterward. In addition to these diaconal duties I, as priest officiat- ing, had charge of the Sunday school, which met before church in the morning; in this school I taught a Bible class of older boys and girls. As soon as Sunday school was dismissed I had to assume the direction of the public wor- ship of the chapel and often preach the sermon. Indeed, I was, during that period of interregnum, priest, deacon, office boy and errand boy all in one. CHAPTER XVIII JUNIOR ASSISTANT MINISTER LL through the summer and fall of 1873 I was A virtually in charge of St. Paul’s Chapel. All the parish work devolved on me, in which I had the aid and advice of Sarah Thorne; I had charge of the church services and did about half of the preaching. Dr. Haight was still able for an occasional sermon and Dr. Dix would come up about once a month from Old Trinity. Meanwhile, the vestry was looking high and low for a man equal to the charge of St. Paul’s Chapel. He must be a preacher of parts who could attract and hold a con- gregation; he must have organizing ability and social power. Only such a prodigy could revive the declining life of this sometime fashionable and prosperous church. The morning congregation, as already noted, numbered among its members some two hundred elderly men and women who came from uptown to this church of their fathers and of their own early years. These men and women did not see and could not see that the St. Paul’s of their fathers and of their youth was gone, never to re- turn. ‘The building was there but the neighbourhood was changed beyond recognition. When St. Paul’s was in its prime, it was the centre of fashion, wealth and culture; its parishioners were bankers, merchants and lawyers; King’s, afterward Columbia, College was in the neighbourhood. But with the last quarter of a century all that had passed away never to return. The vestry had replaced the primitive frame building at the head of Wall | 109 110 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS Street with the present Gothic structure and ‘Trinity Church was, at the time of my service, the centre of attraction for the wealth of the parish and for the curious stranger visiting the city. Beside this down- town competition, St. Paul’s lost the best of its people to Trinity Chapel in Twenty-fifth Street, which had just been erected by the vestry for the accommodation of the up- town members of the parish. Had the realities of the situation been recognized, St. Paul’s would have been torn down, the dead in its church- yard removed, and the immensely valuable property de- voted to business purposes; or if this seemed a desecration, then wisdom would have suggested that it be made a mis- sion chapel under the direct supervision of the rector. But the older members of the congregation would not think of such degradation, nor did it occur to the rector or the vestry. Trinity parish is not only unlike any other parish in the United States, but it is unique among the ecclesiastical or- ganizations of the world. It is an institution of vast wealth and proportionate influence. This wealth and in- fluence is the direct result of what is known as the “Queen Ann Donation.” This queen, it seems, was possessed, presumably by right of conquest, of a large tract of land lying along the shore of the Hudson River. This tract, known as ‘“The Queen’s Farm,” was conveyed by her Ma- jesty to a recently established corporation, known in law as “The Rector-Wardens and Vestrymen of Trinity Church.”’ This corporation was created for the purpose of providing the members of the Established Church of England with opportunities for divine worship. Trinity Church was at that time, and for a long period following, the only parish of the Episcopal Church in the city. It was from the beginning the church of the ruling class. It gradually attracted to itself the wealthier of the old JUNIOR ASSISTANT MINISTER de Dutch families and reduced the Dutch Church to a posi- tion of inferiority. At the time of the Queen Ann Donation the land so donated was of comparatively little value, but with the in- crease of population there was a corresponding increase in the value of this tract and by its sale and rental Trinity parish was able to carry on an extensive religious work, not only in the city, but also in the Province of New York. During the earlier period of its history it gave freely of its property for the endowment of rural churches, colleges and schools. For some time after the Revolution the rec- tor of Trinity was usually the bishop of the diocese of New York. As Trinity Church was thus for a long time the only parish in New York, it built in various parts of the city Chapels of Ease for the convenience of its people. St. Paul’s Chapel was the first of these Chapels of Ease. It was under the spiritual jurisdiction of the rector and was served by an assistant minister, appointed upon the nom- ination of the rector, by the vestry. The position of senior assistant minister of Trinity parish carried in my day a salary of ten thousand dollars a year, twice that of the Governor of the State and of a Senator of the United States. For such a sum the vestry of Trinity felt that it had the right to the services of a man of first-rate ability, a preacher learned and eloquent, an organizer prudent and efficient, a pastor spiritual and sympathetic. There were at the time not fifty men on the list of the clergy of the Episcopal Church who came within sight of these require- ments, and these men usually preferred the headship of a large city church to any position that Trinity vestry could offer unless it were the rectorship. Man after man was canvassed, but this one declined to consider and that one was lacking in this or that qualification; either he was too high or too low, too broad or too narrow, for not only AS ed THE LAST OF THE HERETICS must the man’s personal characteristics be adequate, but he must be of that peculiar type of churchmanship which was approved by the parish. Meanwhile the priest officiating was proceeding to or- ganize the work of the Chapel as its necessities suggested. He was becoming more and more the pastor of the neigh- bourhood; his society of young men under his direction was doing the work of half a dozen deacons; he was or- ganizing the older men into a mutual benefit society, gather- ing in the longshoremen and the teamsters from the river- side, the mechanics and the clerks from the tenements. He was celebrating the Holy Communion at seven every Sunday morning, superintending the Sunday school and teaching his Bible class from nine-thirty to ten-thirty, con- ducting divine worship and sometimes preaching from eleven to twelve-thirty, conducting children’s service once a month at three in the afternoon and service every Sun- day evening at seven. This priest officiating was reading history, theology and philosophy from eight to eleven, was in his office disposing of from twenty to thirty cases from eleven to one every day, visiting the sick and the poor from two to six in the afternoon and on call in the evening till midnight. He was with his workingmen’s club and his young men’s club on appointed evenings. All this he was doing as a day’s work contentedly, happily, for two thousand five hundred dollars a year. Mean- while, Trinity vestry was scouring the American Church to find a man who would consent to do part of this work for ten thousand dollars a year—but such is the way of vestries. After passing under survey the prominent clergy of the Episcopal Church the choice of the vestry fell upon a gen- tleman of whom it is not unjust to say that he did not quite come up to specifications. He was not a St. Chryso- stom in the pulpit, nor a St. Gregory in the pastoral office, JUNIOR ASSISTANT MINISTER Lt nor did he have the social charm of Giovanni de Medici, Pope Leo X. He was an ordinary clergyman of the sec- ond class. He was a man who had gone from parish to parish, serving each for about five years and always most highly recommended by the parish he was leaving. He had been called from the fashionable church of a small Western town. He was without experience or aptitude for the work of St. Paul’s Chapel. He might, and did, minister to the few old men and women who lived uptown, but they had, for the most part, reached that point in their spiritual cateer that called only for the offices of the visitation of the sick and the burial of the dead. This good man had ten thousand dollars to spend and it re- quired time and thought to accomplish the task. He rented a two-thousand-dollar house uptown. For the sake of his health he would walk from his house in the Twenties to his office at Vesey Street, a journey of from an hour and a half to two hours; would stay in his office an hour and return to his home for early dinner. On Sundays he would preach a sermon carefully selected from his barrel, a sermon safe and sound, too long for a nap, not long enough for a slumber. ‘The vestry were not long in discovering that, whatever else he might be, he was not an energetic parish worker, and there was work to be done in St. Paul’s. To meet this condition the vestry did a very unwise thing, as you may see. After this gentleman had been at the head of St. Paul’s Chapel for about three months, the rector came to my room of a Tuesday morning, his face aglow, and told me that at its meeting on the previous evening the vestry of Trinity Church had placed me on the permanent staff of the parish as junior assistant minister, at a salary of four thousand dollars a year, and that he would assign me to duty at St. Paul’s Chapel. ‘This was a startling thing for me and most remarkable for the parish. 114 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS Here was I, only twenty months out of the seminary, less than three months a priest, and here was the rector of Trinity handing me one of the plums of the clerical pro- fession. I was fixed for life, a prelate of the Church; all that I had to do was to do nothing out of the way, and in due time I would be senior assistant minister with a salary of ten thousand a year, with the possibility of the rectorship of the parish and a bishopric always in sight. At once I became an important man, much talked of in the Church—my people at home were, of course, proud of me and my Uncle Isaac took all the credit to himself, see- ing that he had recommended me to go to New York. But nevertheless it was an unjust, unwise thing for the vestry to do and dangerous for me. It was really an in- sult to the senior assistant minister; it was done without consulting him and, in effect, took the direction of the work out of his hands, and he knew it. It placed me in an impossible situation and ministered to my pride and vanity. But I did not see these consequences until later, and assumed at once the dignities and emoluments of my new office. This action of the vestry of Trinity parish was the con- sequence of radical changes in the life of the rector, which altered his relations to St. Paul’s, and to the parish work in general. The vestry had a few years before sold St. John’s Park to the New York Central Railroad, which had built its freight depot on the site. The neighbourhood had changed so that it was no longer tenable as a home for the rector. The old rectory had been set apart as an in- firmary and hospital under the care of the Sisters of Saint Mary. A new rectory had been purchased on Twenty- fifth street, next to Trinity Chapel. To his great grief, Dr. Dix was compelled by the vestry to leave his home among the masses and take up his abode with the classes. Soon after his removal from the old to the new rectory, JUNIOR ASSISTANT MINISTER I15 I had occasion to visit him in his brownstone front on Twenty-fifth Street. The butler answered my ring, ush- ered me into the drawing-room, where I found the rector sitting alone and desolate; he rose, greeted me and sat down again, and, sighing deeply, he said, “Mr. Crapsey, this is lonely magnificence’’—and it was. To relieve the loneliness and set off the magnificence, the rector married a young, charming, beautiful woman. Somehow, the Dr. Dix of the new rectory was never quite like the Dr.. Dix of the old rectory. He put me in St. Paul’s to keep alive his work among the people of the Chapel. Following the example of my rector, on the second of June, 1875, I was married to Adelaide Trowbridge, daughter of Marcus Henry and Harriet Gunn Trowbridge, of Catskill, New York. CHAPTER XIX A LODGING-HOUSE HEN Dr. Dix called at my rooms to give me W my commission as junior assistant minister, he informed me that the vestry would be pleased if I could find lodgings in some neighbourhood where there would be less noise, less dirt and better air. I sent my thanks to the vestry for their suggestion and assured them that I would give the matter consideration. But disinclination to change kept me where I was until mar- riage compelled me to follow the advice of the vestry. It was all very well for a man to sleep in a dark bedroom, to be without bath or kitchen, but for a woman this way of living was not to be thought of. In anticipation of this necessary change in my mode of life, I had rented a house in Van Dam Street, near Hudson. This was a quiet, old-fashioned neighbourhood, lying between the ex- tremes of poverty and riches. It was the home of clerks and small professional men, the rental being well within my means, especially as my friend, Philip Brown, junior assistant minister of St. John’s Chapel, had consented to share the house and the expense with me. My home was within half an hour’s walk of my office and there was no change in the order of my daily life. I spent my morning in my study; was at my desk at eleven to hear and dispose of applications for relief; had my lunch in the neighbourhood and gave up my afternoons to the visitation of the sick and the needy; dined at home at six-thirty and was back at the parish house at eight, having 116 A LODGING-HOUSE 117 two or sometimes three nights a week to court the affec- tions of my wife and receive my friends. As if this ordinary parish work were not sufficient, Dr. Dix must find for me a new job to keep me from that idleness which is the Devil's opportunity. In 1873 the United States was the scene of a terrible commercial dis- aster; the sudden contraction of the currency consequent upon the retirement of a considerable portion of the legal tender notes, known as greenbacks, together with the vast and, for the time being, profitless investment in Western railways, had thrown the financial world into disorder; caused the failure of banks and commercial houses and had thrown multitudes of men out of employment, who thronged the streets, having neither food nor lodging. In the fall of 1876 this industrial and commercial depression was at its lowest; the people were idle and starving and there was fear of an uprising of the unemployed, which might bring the city to ruin. One day, in this time of distress, Dr. Dix came to my office, bringing with him a Mr. Herman H. Cammann, then a young man, later controller of Trinity parish. Dr. Dix, presenting this gentleman, said, “Mr. Crapsey, Mr. Cammann tells me that he has in Centre Street an empty building which he thinks the parish might use as a lodging- house, and for other relief work. Will you please go with Mr. Cammann, look over the building and see if we can use it?’ I bowed and went with Mr. Cammann until we came to his building, which was on a corner of a cross street opposite the prison called the “Tombs.” After sur- veying the building, which was four stories with a base- ment, I returned and reported to Dr. Dix. I said to the Rector, ‘“This house will give us lodgings for about three hundred men; playrooms for children, a rest room for women and a restaurant in the basement.” “Quite an extensive plan, Mr. Crapsey. What will it cost to get it 118 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS under way?’ “About ten thousand dollars.” The Rec- tor gasped, ‘But how can we get ten thousand dollars?” “Ask for it.’ The Rector gave a grim smile and said, ‘And who will do the asking?’ ‘With your permission, I will.’ “How?” “I will make a brief statement of the case, asking for contributions, have it printed and placed in the pews of Trinity and St. Paul’s on Sunday’’—this was Friday—‘and start the work as soon as I get five thousand dollars. May I do it?’ ‘You may.” I im- mediately made out my statement, signing it with my own name, ‘‘By the Order of the Rector.”’ The sextons placed these circulars in the pews of Trinity and St. Paul’s. No attention was called to them by the clergy, and by Wednes- day noon I had seven thousand five hundred dollars. Among these returns was a large check from John Jacob Astor, a warden of the parish, expressing his gratification that Trinity Church was going to do or try to do some real work downtown. He said it was high time. I ap- pointed George Coit treasurer of the fund. We fitted out the building with two hundred beds, equipped a res- taurant and within ten days were ready for business. We charged ten cents for lodging and ten cents for a meal. We put in shower baths which were free. We soon found that the demand for lodgings was so great that all thought of a rest room for women and a playroom for children must be put aside. I gave as much of my time as I could spare from my regular duties to this work. We had a man in charge of the lodgings and cooks in the kitchen. We ran at an expense of from two to three thousand dollars a month beyond our income from meals and beds. And we never failed to have the money in hand as needed. The men who patronized our establishment were re- spectable workingmen and clerks. We rigidly excluded the professional beggar and the drunkards. For the first A LODGING-HOUSE 119 time I had brought home to my mind the direful results that follow a breakdown in the machinery of what we call civilization. Here were hundreds upon hundreds of men forced to idleness, reduced to want, while all around them was land waiting for cultivation, grains ready for the reap- ing and fruits for ingathering; but because the machinery of exchange was out of gear, the men stood helpless in the presence of idle land, withering grain and rotting fruit. I was ashamed to see these men, able and willing to work, waiting in rows for a bit of bread and soup to stay their hunger, and a common cot upon which to sleep. I had many talks with them and they were as puzzled as I at the plight in which they found themselves. We had many curious experiences with crooks and cranks; of these I will instance one. I was keeping my usual hour in my office in Church Street when a young fel- low of about twenty applied for relief; he was above the usual type of such men, and explained that he was of a good family in New Haven, but had gone wrong, lost his job and was down and out; would I help him? Surely; he could go down to our lodging-house, get a bed and breakfast. For how much? ‘Twenty cents. But where was he to get the twenty cents? Earn it. How? If in no other way, he could wash dishes in the restaurant. Very well. He went out and I followed him, watched, saw that he was a handy fellow and gave him a permanent position at the desk. We printed tickets for meals and lodgings, which were purchased by merchants and others to give to applicants for relief. My friend George counterfeited these tickets and through his pals peddled them about the city. When this was discovered I had to advertise the fact in the papers and call in all tickets, offering to redeem them at cost. George came to see me, professed contrition and, to pre- vent his arrest, I took him to my room; in the night he 120 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS stole Mr. Brown’s overcoat, my unabridged dictionary and other small articles, pawned them, and very kindly mailed me the pawn tickets. J redeemed the articles; the police picked up the thief, but I declined to make a charge against him. ‘This went on time after time, but I believed there was the root of goodness in the young man and gave him his chance; of which he finally availed himself. When I last saw him, he was in an honest way of living, supporting a wife and children, proving the wisdom of the rule, which Jesus laid down, of forgiving not only till seven times, but until seventy times seven. As a consequence of this work in Centre Street, the men of Trinity and St. Paul’s organized the Trinity Church Association which ever since has carried on a relief and educational work in the lower part of the city. This work has its own buildings which are owned and supported by the association by voluntary offerings. This work, when I last knew of it, was under the supervision of the Sisters of Saint Mary. Of these women I cannot speak without sincere admira- tlon, reverence and affection. One of the results of the Catholic movement in the Church of England and in the Episcopal Church in the United States was the revival of the religious orders both of men and women, those of women being by far the more numerous and vigorous; And of these the Order of the Sisters of Saint Mary was first in number, quality, wealth and influence. This order was founded by Harriet Starr Cannon, a woman of a strong mind, warm heart and devoted spirit. Because of the death of a sister, she very early in life re- nounced the world and devoted herself to a life of self- denial and service. She was by birth and training attached to the Episcopal Church and began her career under the guidance of the saintly Dr. Muhlenberg of the Church of the Holy Communion. But she soon passed beyond A LODGING-HOUSE 1 the teaching of this holy man and embraced the doctrines and practices of the Catholic school in the Anglican Church. Gathering a few kindred souls, she took with them the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and the Order of the Sisters of Saint Mary came into being. This order grew rapidly in number, influence and wealth. The convent was located at Peekskill, and from there the Sis- ters went out upon their various works of mercy. When the old rectory at St. John’s Park was given over to the uses of an infirmary, it was placed in the charge of these Sisters of Saint Mary, where it was my high privilege to serve with them in our common work. [I visited the sick in the hospital, celebrated the sacrament in the chapel and chatted with the Sisters in the office. These women in all their relations were simple-hearted women, no nonsense about them. Sister Eleanor, who was in charge, was a woman of common sense, could talk easily on any subject and laugh at the laughable with the best. My marriage did not change their attitude; they became the sponsors and the educators of my children. I might say in closing that it was at my suggestion that the meeting of men was called which resulted in the forma- tion of the Trinity Church Association. And with that meeting I closed my relations with the work of Trinity parish. CHAPTER XX MY DREAM COMES TRUE HEN I reached my thirtieth year I awakened \) \) to the fact that I was drifting with the currents of life. So far my ministerial career had been a series of seemingly fortunate accidents. I had not shaped my destiny from within; it was the result of the play of external forces. As matters stood, my way lay plain before me. I would hold my job as junior assistant minister of Trinity parish until the senior assistant died or was retired on a pension; that he should resign was not within the range of possibilities. I could look forward to at least twenty years of subordination, when my waning energies would unfit me for new and constructive work. My relations with my immediate superior were becoming more and more difficult with each succeeding day. If I consulted him he was sure to frustrate any plan that I had in mind; if I did not consult him he was naturally of- fended. ‘This painful situation was the outcome of our characters and history. I was his junior in age and rank, but his senior in the work of Trinity parish. Before he came I had the work of St. Paul’s Chapel well in hand and this gentleman had not the energy to seize control and reduce me to a position of subordination. But even if this unfortunate condition had not existed, there were other considerations that made my continuance in Trinity parish undesirable. It was the call to preach that determined my entrance into the ministry of the Church. A junior assistant of Trinity parish preached 122 MY DREAM COMES TRUE 123 only twice a month and that at the evening service of the various chapels. ‘This circumstance forbade his exercising any intellectual or spiritual influence over the minds and souls of the people and it bred in the man, himself, intel- lectual and spiritual sloth. One sermon would serve him for his round of the chapels. “Twelve sermons would be sufhcient for the year. This was starvation to the man who felt the call to preach. From the very first, even before I went to college, I had a vision of the future in store for me. I saw myself en- tering upon a work in a growing city of the second class. This was to be my work from the beginning; as the out- lines of my vision cleared I saw it as a church, free and open, situate in the working-class district. It was my thought to build that church into the community, to make it a centre of social activities, the preaching and the wor- ship to be the drawing and the driving power of this ma- chine. I do not say that this vision was constant and clear. It was often blurred by a mirage of a rich and fashionable parish, with a palatial rectory, the rector and the rectoress served by a staff of men-servants and maid- servants, with the mitre of the bishop as the crowning glory of this prosperous career. Such distinction had come to others; why not to me? But this vision would fade and I would see myself as the simple pastor of a simple folk, with whom I would work, not as a master, but as a servant. When I was thirty-two years of age, such an opportun- ity came to me in its extremest, most dangerous form. I had a friend in the seminary, Mr. George William Douglas, the son of a wealthy retired banker, who was at that time living in the city of Rochester, New York. Rochester was then a growing city of about fifty thousand people; it was and is in the centre of a country of great fertility and natural beauty. It was settled by people 124 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS from New England who came to escape the rigour of their climate and the harshness of their soil, and also by men and women from Maryland who wished to get rid of the ineficiency and immorality of slave labour; there was also a foreign element, English, German and Irish, that gave to the city a highly intelligent and efficient labour force. The high fertility of the land and the water power fur- nished by the falls of the Genesee River made this a milling-centre and Genesee flour was known the world over. It was in this city that Mr. William Bradley Douglas had made his home. He was an earnest churchman and a devout man. He had become interested in a mission of the Episcopal Church in the Southern section of the city. He had been instrumental in developing this mission into the status of a parish, and it was finally so organized under the name of Saint Clement’s Church, which had a short and disastrous history. Differences had arisen between Mr. Douglas and Mr. Bonar, the rector of the parish, which came to an open break; Mr. Douglas withdrew his support and foreclosed a mortgage which he had placed on the land of the parish. The night before this foreclosure, Mr. Bonar and his friends removed the small frame build- ing from the land of Mr. Douglas to a near-by lot and the parish of St. Clement’s dragged on a feeble existence for over a year. Prior to this sad quarrel, Mr. Douglas had built a brick rectory and chapel, which was his private property. When Saint Clement’s Church died out, Mr. Douglas organized a new parish which he called Saint Andrew’s. It was this parish to which Mr. George William Douglas, then a junior assistant minister, assigned to Trinity Church, called my attention. He drew a graphic picture of this parish, with its grounds, its building, its endow- ment, and, as it fell in with my dream, I gave it considera- MY DREAM COMES TRUE 12¢ tion. At the instance of the son, I had an interview with the father and was impressed with his piety and intelli- gence. I consulted Dr. Dix, who simply said that the affairs at St. Paul’s Chapel were not satisfactory and left me to draw my own conclusion. I visited Mr. Douglas in Rochester, saw the property and talked with him as to his desires. But I did not do what any sane person ought to have done—I did not go out into the city, visit the clergy and make any inquiries as to the reason of the fail- ure of St. Clement’s and the general prospects of the church in that neighbourhood. When I returned to New York and the fact of my prob- able resignation became public, General John A. Dix, the controller of the parish, called me to his office and urged me not to think of leaving the parish; he intimated that the vestry were very dissatisfied with conditions at St. ‘Paul’s and were contemplating radical action, and he wished that I would delay any action on my part until the vestry could decide what was best to be done. But I told the General that my chief reason for considering any call for work outside of the parish were the unsatisfactory conditions at St. Paul’s Chapel. I did not feel that the situation was fair either to myself or to the senior minis- ter, and if changes were to be made I did not want to be there to profit by them. General Dix saw the justice of that decision. When Bishop Potter, of New York, heard of my contemplated action, he wrote a letter of warning, in spite of which I went on to my doom. I resigned my position as junior assistant minister of Trinity parish at a salary of four thousand dollars a year, paid the first of every month by check on the Chemical National Bank, and accepted the rectorship of St. An- drew’s Church, Rochester, at a salary of fifteen hundred a year, which, when paid at all, was in the pennies of the collection. ‘This action ruined my professional career. 126 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS It was naturally concluded that there must be some dis- graceful reason for such a foolish step. I learned later that I was given just one year to stay in the parish and the city, if so long. JI began my ministry on the first of June, Whitsunday, 1879. The chapel, which would seat about eighty people, was half full. It was trimmed with flow- ers in honour of the new rector. ‘The congregation con- sisted of a little group of English people who were more or less related. I left my wife and children with Mr. Trowbridge at Catskill. JI made my home in the rectory, taking my meals with Mr. William Dove, who happened to be my twin, born the same day of the same year. When my wife joined me on the first of July she was utterly cast down; the conditions seemed hopeless. ‘The rectory had been neglected; there was no bath, nor proper sanitary provisions; in nothing was my stupidity more manifest than in the fact that I had not seen this state of affairs and made its remedy a condition of my coming. If retreat had been possible, our stay in that parish would not have lasted a year or a month, or a day. But there we were and there we made our home for twenty-eight years. It was my first and only pastorate in the Episcopal Church. In spite of its untoward beginnings, this was in reality the fulfilment of my dream. I was pastor of a free and open church in a working-class district and it was for me to reduce my ideal to reality. Soon after my arrival in Rochester I received from Dr. Dix the following letter: “New York, June 13, 1879. “My DEAR Mr. Crapsey: “It will give you pleasure to know that at a meeting of the Vestry of ‘Trinity Church held on Monday last, the 9th inst., it was resolved that your salary should be paid to the 1st day of September next en- suing, although your resignation takes effect the 1st of July. This MY DREAM COMES TRUE ia order was made in view of the high appreciation of your valuable service in this parish since the time when you entered on your duties here. ‘The seven years would have been completed had you re- mained with us until the 1st of next September. “Tt gives me great pleasure to inform you of this action on the part of the Vestry, to assure you of the general esteem and regard in which you are held in this Parish and to add to these expressions my own best wishes and the testimony to my entire confidence in you as a faithful priest and a man without reproach among us in the order of your life. “Believe me to remain, “Very truly and faithfully yours, “Morcan Dix. “The Rev. A. S. Crapsey.” CHAPTER XXI BEGINNINGS ARE HARD HE despondency of which I have just made note was owing to that sad faculty of the genus homo which permits him to see before and after, so that his days are days of anticipation and days of regret; he thinks of what he has had, of what he will have, but seldom of what he has. When we came to Rochester we were full of what we had had, the busy days, the interesting people, the personal consideration—that was the harvest of our past and we had reaped it. We did not think that with the seed of that past we were to sow our present and in due time reap our future. When we were preparing to remove from New York to Rochester, I had in view the welcome which awaited our arrival. I had a vision of the people crowding to see and hear the distinguished man who had condescended to undertake the task of enlightening the dark places of the little city of Rochester, bringing to it the wisdom which he had acquired in the largest parish of the largest city in America. I was cast down when I saw my little chapel with only twoscore sheep to wait on the ministra- tion of the newly arrived shepherd. But I did my best. Following upon the stir of our life in New York, our new life was as a graveyard to a ballroom; we were lit- erally buried alive. Our nearest neighbours were Roman Catholics; Mr. Maloney was to the front of us; Mr. Daugherty was to the rear of us; Mr. Kehoe was to the 128 BEGINNINGS ARE HARD 129 right of us; these good souls who belonged to the True Church; Saint Mary’s or Saint Boniface’s, with their con- gregations thronging by the thousands to the mass every Sunday morning, looked upon us and our little handful of people with compassion. As neighbours they gave us a kindly welcome. ‘They expected for us the fate of our predecessors: Mr. Flack had gone, Mr. Bonar had gone and we, too, would go. When my wife came to her new home, she was crushed by its utter loneliness. “The church was on a side street where the passage of a wagon was an event; there was no coming and going. Our ten families were busy; the men with their work in the shops, the women with their house- hold duties. ‘These people had no time for sociability, nor were they greatly interested in their church; in fact, they did not think of it as their church; it was Mr. Doug- las’ church; he had built it; he supported it; he appointed and dismissed the ministers. ‘This attitude of the people was the attitude of the church at large and of the city. The rector of St. Andrew’s is in a trap and let him get outofit it he can: But the day brought its duties. The children must be cared for; breakfast, dinner and supper must be prepared and eaten; tables laid and cleared away; beds made; rooms set in order; the few people in the parish must be visited; the sermon made ready for the coming Sunday; the mere routine of life saved us from the utter loss of our courage. Day followed day, each bringing its changes. Little by little the people of the neighbourhood came to know that the rectory doors were open to any need of body or soul. Our warden, Mr. Douglas, attentive to our comfort, had us to dinner now and then. I fell back on my habit of reading to while away the time. Strangers from various parts of the city would drop into our chapel of a Sunday morning, and they who came once were apt to come again, 130 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS until at last the room was well filled and on high days and holidays it was overcrowded. Before the first year had passed, all thought of loneli- ness was lost in the stimulating stir of our new work. My wife and I soon recognized that this loneliness had been our salvation. If we had entered at once the social life of the city, going here and there and everywhere, we should never have entered into the lives of our people and made ourselves their servants as we were compelled to do in order to escape from the loneliness of our own situation. The slow but constant increase of the attendance upon the Sunday morning worship at St. Andrew’s Chapel de- manded additional accommodation. It was distressing for men and women to come from various parts of the city and find no welcome in this House of God. To remedy this state of affairs, in the spring and sum- mer of 1880 Mr. Douglas caused the completion of the church by the building of the nave, aisles and tower. ‘The nave was some eighty feet long; the choir and chancel were thirty feet, making the length of the church, as a whole, one hundred and ten feet. ‘The chapel, extending west- ward from the choir and chancel, was about sixty feet in length. ‘The rectory adjoining the chapel was a little more than fifty feet in width, facing Ashland Street. This group of buildings when completed were not only com- modious, but of singular beauty. ‘The architect was the younger Upjohn, who, following the lines of his father, the elder Upjohn, architect of Trinity Church, New York, revived the Gothic form of architecture in this country. It is true that St. Andrew’s Church was not pure Gothic as the clerestory was wanting, but this omission did not mar the general effect of the structure. When, as soon happened, my wife had laid out the grounds in front of the rectory and to the side of the church, planting a hedge- row between the street and the rectory grounds, placing /BEGINNINGS ARE HARD 131 flowering shrubs along the side of the church with a white spruce in the centre of the lawn and the green sward all around, one could travel far and not find a lovelier sight; it was very English. Standing at gaze, one might imagine oneself in Surrey and think of English parsons and squires, ladies of quality and dames of high degree. As soon as this building was completed, it was conse- crated by the bishop and we emptied our congregation of sixty into this church which would hold five hundred, but what of that? If forty could become sixty, could not sixty become five hundred? Which it did in the course of three years, not that we had a congregation of five hundred every Sunday, but we had need of an auditorium accom- modating this number, and more, on high days, holidays and to welcome the Bishop. As the years went on, the work of St. Andrew’s parish increased, of which a full description will follow this chapter, until the sometime lonely corner of Ashland Street and Averill Avenue became one of the liveliest cor- ners in the city. It did not quite come up to State and Main Streets in its activity, but there was no outlying cor- ner that could rival it. We had our parish house, now our schoolhouse, on Hickory Street; we built a new parish house on Averill Avenue opposite the church. CHAPTER XXII THE PREACHER from loneliness to activity, we shall find that the primary cause was the preaching of the gospel. When Ezra, returning from Babylon to Jerusalem, set up his pulpit in the open street and began to expound the writings of the prophets in the ears of the people that surrounded him, he instituted a movement which changed the destiny of mankind, which destroyed empires and created civilizations. No power in this world is so great as the power of human speech, and this power of speech increases in efficiency with momentum. If a doctrine is preached and preached and preached, it will finally prevail. John P. Altgeldt, in his brochure on oratory, tells us that oratory is the greatest of all the arts because it compre- hends all the arts. ‘To be an orator one must be an archi- tect; he must be able to lay out the plan of his intellectual structure and build according to plan. No one who builds a house desires to have the front door of that house open directly upon the street. He desires a stairway leading from the street to the porch, and upon the beauty of this entrance lies very largely the attractiveness of the house. And so it is with oratory: no true orator ever plunges at once into the midst of his subject; he leads up to the en- trance door of his theme by a stairway and a portico, and upon the appropriateness of this introduction lies the charm of the speech. A wonderful instance of this archi- tectural feature of oratory is seen in Webster’s introduc- 132 [ we examine scientifically into the causes of this change THE PREACHER 133 tion to his reply to Hayne. If the reader is not familiar with that great bit of work, let him by all means look up that oration and read that introduction. It is the perfec- tion of architectural construction. But if the porch is all and there is a shabby structure behind it, then the intro- duction hurts rather than helps what follows. The intel- lectual architect must have arranged his halls, his drawing- rooms, his dining-rooms and more especially his stairways so as to make them attractive to the eye and pleasing to the mind. They must have a logical relation, one to the other, and he must pay special attention to his conclusion, which is the roof of his intellectual architectural structure. When he has accomplished his task, then the orator has created a lasting building; a great speech lives for ever; it is carried on from generation to generation; it is the mightiest product of the mind of man, and in its propor- tion such every speech should be, be it made on felathon or in pulpit. But not only must the speaker be an architect, he must also be a painter; he must adorn the friezes of his archi- traves with the figures of majestic horses and still more majestic men; his walls must not be barren, but orna- mented by the skill of the artist. It is customary on the part of some critics to condemn what they call “flowers of speech.” I wonder if these wiseacres have ever taken thought of the purpose the flower serves. Is it not true and evident to the eye that the flower serves the Goddess of Beauty? Without the flower, we could never give proper expression to our grief or to our love. We send flowers to the wedding and we send flowers to the funeral, but not only do flowers thus gratify our love of the beauti- ful and so express our feelings of joy and grief, but they have a purpose of their own far more important than any service to ourselves. Without the flower, there would be no more flowers. The beauty of the flower, and espe- 134 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS cially the fragrance, attracts the bees, and the bees, plung- ing into the flower in search of its sweetness, incidentally impregnate the stamen with the pollen of the pistils, and lo and behold, the flower becomes fruit; the fruit becomes seed; the seed becomes flower again, and so on from gen- eration to generation. ‘The flowers of speech serve the same purpose as do the flowers of the plant. ‘They at- tract attention. When Mr. Bryan, at the Democratic Convention, made his famous cross-of-gold speech, he, by that flower of speech, attracted the attention of the crowd before him and the attention of the whole world. It gave Mr. Bryan the leadership of the Democratic party for twelve years and changed the entire trend of the political life of the United States. But if an orator were merely an artist, his work would not have the supreme value which it possesses. The ora- tor, indeed every speaker, performs a miracle with each utterance. He bridges the seen and the unseen, the ma- terial and the spiritual. No one can know what is in my mind until I speak my mind. Every orator must be a philosopher, a lover of wisdom; he must have stored his mind with the rich material of the thought world round about him. No man can be a great speaker who is not a constant reader; nor does it matter much what he reads if he has the power within him to transform that reading into thought. He will, of course, be the greater mind ac- cording to the greatness of his reading, and hence it is that every successful orator takes care to gather his honey from the most magnificent of flowers. The poverty of the preacher cannot be hidden from the congregation. Every scribe instructed in the Kingdom of Heaven brings out of his treasures things new and old; mere repetition is not the work of a man, but of a parrot. But the nobility of oratory lies in its purpose, which is to build the Truth into the lives of men; hence it is that THE PREACHER 135 the prophet is also a seer, and each prophet must tell what he sees, no more, no less. No prophet can ever see the whole, but every prophet sees an important part. The task of the prophet is to destroy and to build. Before you can build a city, you must destroy the wilderness. It is mere ignorance that says, “I will not destroy; I will only build.”” You cannot so much as lay the foundation of a house until you have destroyed the surface of the soil. When Jehovah gave His commission to the prophet Jere- miah, He said, “I have set thee to pluck up, to root out, to overthrow, to destroy, to plant, and to build”; four words for destruction, two for construction; the destruc- tive work is always the more important at the beginning; the constructive follows hard upon it. I have presumed to give this long dissertation upon the principles of oratory because it was by means of this great power that we built up, primarily, the congregation of St. Andrew’s parish. The orator is primarily a speaker, not a reader. No man can ever do his best work with a pub- lic audience who reads from a manuscript; he must always be eye to eye with his congregation. He must hold their attention, not only by the power of his words, but by the force of his will; the dual mind, the subjective and the objective, must be constantly at work. The subjective under the control of the objective; if this relation is once lost, the speaker is gone. Remembering the advice of Bishop Potter, my Sunday morning sermon was twenty minutes, with a leaning to mercy. I prepared these sermons after a manner of my own. In the early part of the week I would choose my subject and find for it the proper text. I would store these away in the subjective mind, and that mind would mull over the theme during the week; I paid no attention to it; but I had acquired the habit of meditation, and as [I walked about the streets of the city I would be in the pos- 136 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS session of my subjective rather than my objective mind. I formed a habit of walking with my eyes fixed about twenty feet in front of me on the ground; a most per- nicious habit. Because of it I failed to cultivate the habit of recognizing faces on the street, a serious defect in a clergyman. When Sunday morning came I went into my church for about an hour before the service and arranged the struc- ture of the sermon, its introduction, its body, its conclusion. My sermons were pastoral in their nature; they were in- tended to give my people food for thought during the week, which thought would naturally influence their lives. The sermons were always spoken. When I left the pulpit I left with my people my sermon. By me it was instantly forgotten or else stored down in the depths of my subcon- scious mind. It was these sermons that primarily gave to St. Andrew’s its place in the city, but if we had been content with sermons alone our church would not have had the influence which it came to exercise over the life of the city, and of the world at large. CHAPTER XXIII THE PASTOR HE Jewish Synagogue evolved the great office of the preacher; the Christian Church developed the functions of the pastor; the office of the preacher has to do with the intelligence primarily; he instructs his people in the principles of right living and he also inspires the heart with the desire to do the things that the preacher has commanded. ‘The office of the pastor is to minister to the temporal and spiritual needs of the individual; the preacher deals with congregations, with crowds; he iso- lates himself, standing above his hearers; he reaches them by the power of his voice. ‘The pastor deals with indi- viduals and the hand is the symbol of his office; he must give to his flock not only instructions, but material aid and comfort. This brings him in contact with the deeper life of the people; the personal griefs and sins are made known to him in order that he may apply the proper rem- edies for the cure of the evil. The work of the preacher is in the church; that of the pastor in the home and the street. It was by the exercise of this office of the pastor that St. Andrew’s Church acquired the influence which it ex- ercised over the life of the individual and of the commu- nity. It was our thought that we were the ministers—that is, the servants—of the people, and that it was our duty to give to them the best that we had, even to our life. Every worker must assume the risk of his work; if he be a soldier, he must face the cannon; his life must not be held 137 138 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS dearly by him; he must be ready to throw it away. A pastor must in the same way be ready to go into any house, no matter if at the time it be the home of pestilence. If, as in a given case, there is diphtheria in a home, the pas- tor of the church must go there, not only to make a formal visit, but, if need be, to enter into the sick chamber and assist in the care of the patient. When I first went to the city of Rochester the sanitary conditions in our neighbour- hood were wretched and the disease of diphtheria was prevalent. I recall one instance where I went to the home of one of my parishioners, a widower, and found him struggling with three children who were under the power of this dread disease. I did not hesitate to stay with that man day and night until that trouble was overcome. The three children died, but we were able, by using proper methods, to save the rest of the family; nor in doing such a thing as this did I go beyond my simple duty as a pastor; the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. It might be said that while the pastor has the right to risk his own life, it is not incumbent upon him to entail the like risk upon his wife and children, but in the case of the pastor, as of the physician, the family must take the risks of the head of the household. To illustrate this principle, I will use the legend of the “overcoat.” It is a little out of order, but we will anticipate events and make use of a scene in my heresy trial. In the course of that trial, one of my counsel, in order to gain the favour of the court on the plea of good character, told the court that at one time I had taken off my overcoat and had given it to a poor, shivering man upon the street. This argument was played up by all the newspapers and made an im- pression upon the community, marking me as one who would give his overcoat to a stranger. ‘This legend has grown with time, as all legends do, until now I am pretty well known throughout the world as a giver of overcoats. THE PASTOR 139 In an account of my life published in a Boston magazine, itis said: “It was told of him that he had such a way of giving his overcoat to any unfortunate man whom he saw cold and shivering in the blasts of winter that the precinct police captain notified his men to be on the watch, and if they saw ‘the little Father,’ as he was familiarly called, bestowing his ulster on some pretending rascal, they were to rescue it and secretly return it to the rectory.” This illustrates the law of the growth of legends. The little seed produces the plant. If this story were true to the letter, the bestower of the overcoats must either have unlimited wealth to purchase overcoats, or else he must have the power to multiply overcoats as the Lord multi- plied the loaves and the fishes. Neither of these condi- tions existed in the case under consideration. I never had but one overcoat at any given time, and if I were to give that away there would be some difficulty in replacing it, and I certainly could not go the next day and give an over- coat to another man, nor did I possess any miraculous power of calling overcoats into existence by the waving of the wizard’s wand. A third version of this story has within the few days of this writing been published in a little periodical in the city of Rochester. This new ver- sion is as follows: ‘Dr. Crapsey met upon the street one night a poor fellow shivering with the cold, who told a poor-luck story, how he was out of work and wanted to get home to his people, that he lived about a hundred miles away, and the little rector took off his overcoat and put it on the shivering rascal, took him into a lunchroom, gave him his meal, went down to the railroad and bought him his ticket, and sent him home.” Now, all this might pos- sibly be true, but the person of whom it is told has no recollection of it. I am not aware that I ever took off my overcoat and gave it to a person on the street; my wife tells me that I did and that, as a consequence, I had 140 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS typhoid pneumonia and was near unto death. I use this as a parable to illustrate the character of the true pastor. If I had done all of these things, I should simply have been following the teaching and the example of my Great Master, who not only gave His overcoat, but gave His life for the people. It was my bounden duty to share all that I had with those that were in need; that I did do it is another matter. JI make no such claim. I never did any more than, probably not half so much as, every pastor ought to do for his people, but we did so serve the people that we won their affection. I always considered it my duty to visit the prisons, the asylum, and to minister as far as possible to the needs of the people in those institutions. We were organized for that purpose. I often made of my church a sanctuary; some poor man or woman who had transgressed the law, usually the law against property, being hunted by the po- lice, would come to our church and take sanctuary, and they would have refuge there until we could examine into the case and if possible secure its settlement without any pub- lic exposure of the offender. I am convinced by long ex- perience that we could almost abolish our present penal system if we would have our courts administer charity in- stead of justice. It has been well said that if justice were strictly administered no man would escape a whipping, and very few of us would keep out of jail. The men who are caught are the men who suffer, and when once a man is in the grasp of the penal system he seldom escapes it. Mr. Osborne has well said that ‘‘Every criminal sentence is a sentence for life.” In the pastoral work of the Protestant minister, the wife exercises the virtues and the duties of the Sister of Mercy. The pastoral work of St. Andrew’s Church had its inspira- tion not so much in the heart of the rector as in that of the rector’s wife. She was so constituted that she could de- THE PASTOR 141 tect, as a hound detects, almost by smelling, the needs of our people. Her work was organized for the purpose of supplying these wants that she thus discovered. She al- ways had on hand the garments that might be called for in any crisis. She had layettes ready for the unborn children. She had clothing for the growing child; dresses for the women and second-hand, but well-repaired, garments for the men. If there was any giving away of overcoats, I was sure that it was from this treasure-house that they were taken, and this ingrained habit has followed this woman throughout her lite. The ministration to the spiritual needs of the individual is a duty of the pastor, but of that he can never speak. It is a great mistake to suppose that the habit of confes- sion is confined to the Catholic Church and is made only to the priests in the confessional. Confession is a necessity of the soul and it is given by the penitent to the person whom that penitent can trust. As a High Churchman, I believed in the priestly power to forgive sins and heard many formal confessions, almost entirely from women, and I soon discovered that these formal confessions were of very little value. It was a confession, not really of sin, but of virtue. It had to do with inner feelings rather than with outward acts, and it was a mere formal matter. The confession was made; penance and absolution were given, and that was the end of it. Real confessions are made under the stress of danger; the man or the woman has committed a sin and the consequences of that sin are upon him or her, and the confession is made for the purpose of receiving counsel that will enable the penitent to escape from the immediate peril. Sometimes confessions are made simply to ease the conscience. Such confessions will be told in the way of casual conversation. A clergyman once told me that he heard a confession of adultery which involved the suicide of the wronged husband, and this reve- 142 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS .ation was made to him at a reception. ‘The sinner came and sat down beside him and in a low tone, as if she were gossiping with him, laid bare to him this inner secret of her heart. The office of confessor is a necessary one, but I doubt if it has any great value when it is exercised in a merely formal manner. The Christian ministry has al- ways exercised this office and it will be a great loss to the world should there be no established order of men to whom can be confided the secrets of the soul. The man who exercises this office must command the confidence of the people. If he has no reserve, is a tittle-tattle, no one will ever whisper in his ear the secret things of the soul. It was in the exercise of this office that the best of my work was done. My preaching, I hope, brought light to the intelligence and fervour to the heart. My pastoral of- fice, I trust, has brought peace to many a soul, and it was in the exercise of this pastoral office that the influence of St. Andrew’s parish was gained over the lives of individ- uals and affected the condition of the city at large. CHAPTER XXIV THE PRIEST HE minister of the Protestant Episcopal Church combines in his personality the three offices of prophet, priest and king. The prophet pro- claims to the people the Word of God; the king rules the people with his pastoral staff; the priest guides the people in the worship of God; and of these three functions that of the priest is by far the most ancient and, in the history of religion, the most important. As far back as we can trace the presence of mankind on the earth, so far can we trace the institution of the priesthood. In the lowest form of savagery the priest ap- pears as the wizard and the medicine man. In those days there were no insane asylums because those whom we now call insane were reckoned to be the special servants of the gods; the voices which the clairaudient heard were the voices of the gods. In the ancient family the father was prophet, priest and king. It was the duty of the father before each meal to offer libations to the gods of the house; it was his function year by year to walk the bounds of his lands and, by the sacrifice of the lamb or the he-goat, to propitiate the gods of the land; when he entered the bridal chamber he, as the high priest of the house, called down the blessings of the gods on the bridal bed. When the family evolved into the State, the priesthood devolved on the magistrate. Cesar’s first important political success was his election to the high-priesthood. 143 144 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS In the earliest period of Hebrew history the priesthood of the father was the rule. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob each offered sacrifices to Jehovah. When the children of Abraham evolved into the ten tribes of Israel, the priest- hood vested in the elders of Israel; when the religion was established in law and custom with its temple and rites, then a single tribe was chosen to the office of the priest- hood and the offices of king and prophet were exercised independently of the priesthood. When the Christian Church emerged from the Jewish Synagogue, it established the priesthood in the people; every Christian was a priest, and as St. Gregory says, “His only altar was his own heart, his only sacrifice his good deeds.” ‘The worship of the primitive Church was not sacrificial; it called for no priest. Justin Martyr, describ- ing these meetings of the early Christians, says, “‘When they came together the leader, or bishop, presided; some- one appointed for the occasion read from the memoirs of Christ; some elder preached from this Scripture and at the close the bishop blessed and distributed to the people bread and wine in commemoration of the last supper of Jesus and His Disciples.” When the primitive Church evolved into the Catholic Church, it partially paganized Christianity; its ministers became priests, its sacrifice of the mass was a refined imi- tation of the sacrifice of animals on the pagan altar; its priests were set apart from the people; they were the holy men standing between the sinful people and a holy God. The worship of God was no longer centred in the human heart offering its own contritions and aspirations, it was a highly elaborated ceremonial with procession, lights and music, with priest robed in bejewelled chasuble with acolyte going before, carrying the cross, and acolyte following after, bearing the train of the priest. This form of pa- ganized Christianity culminated in the twelfth century in THE PRIEST 145 the supremacy of the Pope and the building of the cathedrals. It was this form of paganized Christianity that was revived by Keble, Pusey and Newman in the middle of the nineteenth century. It was this form of paganized Chris- tianity that captured my youthful imagination and carried me along in the sweep of its enthusiasm. Let the reader remember that this was paganized Christianity. The Christian conception of life, of God, of man, was still there, only disguised by these pagan robes. The great leaders of the movement were profoundly Christian; it was only in the next generation that the robes were mag- nified above the life. When I entered upon my pastorate at St. Andrew’s Church, I was, I trust, ruled primarily by the Christian conception of religion as defined by St. James, who tells us that true religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and the widow in their afflic- tion and to keep himself unspotted from the world. ‘This saint defines religion in terms of social service and personal integrity, and in my heart of hearts, so did I, but I also loved the pagan beauty—and why not? ‘They are not irreconcilable. As a Catholic Christian, I observed the fasts and the feasts, dressed the church in the colours of the seasons, had low mass in the morning and high mass at noon. At first, these ceremonials were lacking in the essential of good music. We had a cabinet organ and our singers were untrained. My friend, Mr. Henry Crabb, did the best he could with the assistance of my wife, with the mate- rial at hand, but that best did not go far. In the second year of my incumbency, Mr. Henry Brookes Ellwanger became a member of the parish and volunteered to under- take the combined work of organist and choirmaster. With this event, our church entered upon that development 146 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS of the musical and ritualistic phase of its life that was a strong factor in attracting and holding a congregation. The one great drawback to a boy choir is the boy. Dear reader, did you ever know a bad boy? Well, take that boy, multiply him by x, and you have a faint approach to achoir boy. ‘These boys drove me to swearing and my wife to tears; they drove the neighbourhood to distraction. In the course of our history a large fraction of the male population of our city passed through our choir. As I see them to-day, judges of courts, professors in colleges, physi- cians of renown, I am lost in wonder that out of such be- ginnings such endings should come. Let me say here that I loved my worship as I loved my preaching and my pas- toral work. I have no apology to offer for any of these and I love them still. CHAPTER XXV THE CONGREGATION Pr “Qu Catholic and the Protestant Churches differ es- sentially in the composition of their congrega- tions. The Catholic Church has for ages been an imperial democracy. ‘The priests rule the church, but the priests are taken directly from the people; a peasant may and often has become a Pope. Because of this, you see the people, the rich and the poor, thronging the Cath- olic churches. It is their church and they love it. The Protestant Churches have from the beginning been aristocratic and middle-class republics. “The Reformation was primarily the work of the princes of North Germany. Luther was the spokesman of the princes. When the peasants of Germany asked for a share in the new free- dom, the princes turned upon them and slaughtered them by the thousands, and Luther blessed the princely butchers. Because of this the Protestant denominations are the reli- gious expression of class distinctions. The Episcopal, Presbyterian and Lutheran denominations comprise the ruling class in Germany, England, Scotland and America; the Baptists and Methodists, the middle class; the work- ing class never has, does not now, and never will become an important element in the Protestant denominations. In this respect, St. Andrew’s Church, in Rochester, was a Catholic and not a Protestant Church; it came in time to comprehend in its membership all social classes from the highest to the lowest; the rich and the poor on equal terms. ‘The church, itself, was free and open; no one had 147 148 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS any right to any special seat; the first comer could sit where he willed and the later comers had to respect his right of possession. If in a special case a seat came to be set apart for special persons, that was by the courtesy of the congregation; the occupant never secured a right to a seat. I was once told that when I was under consideration as a possible rector for a vacant parish, it was remarked, “Don’t talk with Crapsey, he will never come here, he sees millions walking up his aisles every Sunday’’; which was true and not true. We did have in our congregation men and women of high social standing and great wealth, but when they came under the roof-tree of St. Andrew’s Church, neither their social standing nor their wealth counted. ‘The richest and the highest were only as one of the people and they loved to have it so. ‘The only dif- ference between these and the others was their greater power of service, and even here we were careful to keep our expenses within the limits of the least of the people. In the heyday of our history, when we were the fourth parish in number of communicants in the diocese of west- ern New York, our budget was only $7500. Of this $3000 went to the rector with his rectory; $1000 to the curate with his lodging; $2000 to the choir; $800 to the sexton; $700 for expenses. But this did not limit the generosity of the people; they gave freely in support of the works of the parish and of the Church at large; they built a parish house; they sup- plemented the salaries of the rector and the curate by gen- erous and constant gifts, and they lavished their wealth upon the adornment of their house of worship. I had a great advantage in St. Andrew's Church in that I called the people; they did not call me. With the exception of twenty-five or thirty persons, who were members of the congregation on the day that I assumed charge of the parish, every attendant upon our worship and worker in THE CONGREGATION 149 our church had come to the church after the date of my arrival. There could be no dissatisfaction, for a dissatis- fied person need not come. There were no pew rentals, no pledges, no one ever owed the church a cent. The church might, and frequently did, owe the rector, but the rector had no security whatever for that debt. If after attending a while upon the ministrations of St. Andrew’s Church, one did not care for such ministrations, all one had to do was to stay away; that was the end of the whole matter. It was never my custom to rush out immediately after the close of divine worship and give to the departing congregation the ‘‘glad hand.” ‘That would have seemed to me then, as it does now, a very cheap way of endeavour- ing to ingratiate oneself into the goodwill of the attendants at the church. ‘They ought to be left to depart with the blessing of the church upon their heads, with the teachings of the church in their hearts. The intrusion of the person- ality of the minister at that time was an impertinence; he had done his part, now let God do the rest. In the course of six years we had a communicant list of over five hundred and a membership list of nearly one thousand including the children, and the clergy always had enough to do taking care of those who were glad of their ministrations. We did not have to coax; we compelled the people to come in, CHAPTER XXVI OUR INSTITUTIONS copal Church began to emerge from its sabbatical seclusion and its social exclusion and to interest itself in what was going on during the six days of the week down in the slums of the city. When it did wake up, it found itself living in the midst of a seething mass of poverty, ignorance and wickedness; all calling, if not for absolute cure, at least for grave alleviation, if the Church were to survive and civilization to endure. To meet this situation, the Institutional Church came into existence and a new type of clergyman was evolved. He was no longer the pale student of the study; he was the alert business man of the office; he did not button his collar behind, he jerked it round in front, left his waist- coat unbuttoned and went to work. The avatar of this revolution was Dr. William R. Rains- ford, rector of St. George’s Church, New York. Rains- ford was an Englishman who was imported to New York from Toronto, Canada. St. George’s was one of the wealthiest churches in the city. Among its parishioners were such men as John Pierpont Morgan and Seth Low; these men saw that their church was dying of dry rot. They called Rainsford to remedy this evil; he came and made of St. George’s a beehive of industry. He had or- ganizations without number; he made his church free and open seven days in the week; he had societies for men and boys, for women and girls, for study and singing, for 150 [° the last quarter of the nineteenth century the Epis- OUR INSTITUTIONS I$! work and play. He was a Broad-Churchman and his broadness included humanity. This conception of the Church, however, was not confined to the Broad Church school; it was embraced with religious ardour by the high- est of the Ritualists. When I came to Rochester, I not only had a free and open church but I also possessed a free and open field for work. I was without a congregation, Sunday school or any other instrument for parochial work, and this was in my favour. During my first summer, having nothing else to do, I gathered the children together on Saturday after- noons in my chapel for nature study; I taught them the function of the root and the leaf and the power of the seed; we went out into the fields and gathered the various plants and studied their structure. I remember distinctly that one afternoon when I was engaged in this work a clergyman called upon me to welcome me to the diocese. I afterward learned from this same clergyman that he was greatly offended because I did not leave my class and visit with him, but in my business training I learned this much at least: work in worktime; play in playtime. When the fall came and the congregation began to gather, I organized, as a matter of course, the Sunday school, and God forgive me for doing so. Of all institu- tions devised by the foolishness of man, the modern Sun- day school is the most foolish and futile. It attempts the impossible; it accomplishes the immoral; it tries to teach to little children the most abstract philosophic proposi- tions that the human mind can entertain. It speaks to its little ones of Unities and Trinities, Incarnations and Eternities. Now, these words, like the word ‘‘fraction,” convey to the mind of the child no thought whatever; it is simply a sound, but this is the lesser sin. The Church dares to take these little minds and teach to them its opin- ions for absolute Truth; it says to the little ones, ‘“‘You 152 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS must believe without wavering, and throughout your whole life, these things that I am now teaching; never mind whether you understand them or not, you must believe them.’”’ Once a Catholic priest asked from his class a definition of faith. A little girl answered, ‘‘Faith is that gift of God whereby we believe things that are not so.” Not all children, nor even grown folks, have the wit of this Catholic child; what they have learned at that vener- able institution, the mother’s knee, they think a religious duty to hold to for the rest of their lives. - OUR SCHOOLS But I was sufficiently the disciple of Kingsley, Maurice and Rainsford to know that the Sunday school was not the ultimate source of knowledge in all that pertained to the well-being of human life. When Mr. Douglas had built his parish house, he established there a Dames’ School and he employed two lovely ancient ladies to teach that school, but there was no call for such an institution in our time or vicinity. ‘The public schools were taking children at the earliest possible school age and deforming their intelligence by attempting to teach them to read and to spell, so within the year the Dames’ School died an early and a peaceful death. In the following year I secured the services of an accomplished kindergartner, Katherine Whitehead by name, and we set up in our parish building a kindergarten and a training-school for kindergartners. In this enterprise we were a long step ahead of our time and place. Rochester had then but one very feeble kin- dergarten instructed by a half-trained teacher. Within a year, owing to the genius of Mrs. Whitehead, our school had a class of about a dozen young women in training and we had so many applications for pupils that we had to occupy the whole building upstairs and down. We car- ried on this work for about twelve years, when the com- OUR INSTITUTIONS 153 munity caught up to us and the Board of Education estab- lished kindergartens in various parts of the city and opened a free class for the training of kindergartners. As we supported our work by the fees that the pupil-teachers paid for their training, we were compelled to abandon our en- terprise. Our commencement exercises were always an event in the city; the mayor of the city, or some equally prominent person, would make the address, and the church would be crowded with the friends of the pupils and of the school. Our last commencement was a very sad occasion. I think the mayor made the address, or if he did not, it was some equally important person, and the speaker con- gratulated the city on the fact that this institution had blazed the way in educational science and practice, which way the city had wisely followed. With many tears, we closed with the blessing of God, and now the city of Rochester has no superior in this field of work. Besides our kindergarten, we had evening schools with paid teachers in the mechanical arts; we taught the girls sewing and embroidering, also knitting; the boys, wood- carving, carpentry and engraving on brass. ‘These schools were held in the parish house in the evening, and they were very useful to the community and largely patronized by the neighbourhood. Many and many a boy had his start in our night school, from which he went forth to become an engraver, a carpenter, a painter. The boys and the girls were, as a matter of course, together in the school during the school hours. Our teacher, having a nice sense of propriety, dismissed the girls about fifteen minutes be- fore he dismissed the boys. He continued this for a time until one of the boys said to him, “Mr. Robinson, I think this is a dandy school, but there is one thing I don’t like about it.” Mr. Robinson inquired, “And what is that?” The boy replied with a question, “Don’t you think, Mr. Robinson, that the boys are better able to stand out in 154: THE LAST OF THE HERETICS the cold for fifteen minutes than the girls?’ Mr. Rob- inson thought a moment and he said, “I believe they are.” And from that time the boys and the girls went out to- gether, and Cupid laughed. OUR WORK As a matter of course, we had the usual, ordinary insti- tutions of a parish: ‘The chief of these was St. Hilda’s Guild. I suppose it can be said of every parish that in it is a small group of women who are unfailing in their ef- fort to uphold the rector in his work. St. Andrew’s was no exception to this rule. From July 1st, 1879—the morning we reached Rochester and found a delicious breakfast prepared for us in the rectory and fresh flowers planted in the garden—until the time came for us to be separated from them, our parish women were loyal and splendid in bearing the burden of parish work, carrying out our plans and caring for the church. St. Hilda’s Guild did what the old-fashioned ‘Dorcas Society” did in days gone by. Clothing was made and sent out in case of sickness or distress. ‘The meetings were held once a week and for many years were guided by the rector’s wife. Later on, Miss Louise Olmstead carried on much the same work under the name of ‘Mothers’ Meetings.” A short time after we started the work among the women, Mrs. Crapsey, judging by her own busy nursery that any help or encouragement given young mothers would be invaluable to the mother and of great comfort to the baby, began sending out little garments as they were needed. St. Hilda’s Guild made the clothing and they were arranged in a box, and many a tired mother was heartened up by the little act of love. The first person outside of the guild to appreciate the value of our maternity work was Marie Louise Atkinson, then a young girl. In later years she has done many lovely acts OUR INSTITUTIONS 166 both in public and private, but the spirit that prompted the sending of a basket beautifully covered with chintz, in which she laid a knitted blanket made by her own hands, was quite unusual on the part of a young woman who knew nothing about the weariness of getting ready for the new baby. This basket was sent to the rectory and in it St. Hilda’s Guild laid their offering of little garments and then it was given the mother. That work went on for years and even after the Church had closed its doors against us. A simple work, but full of love; and a factory that now is giving work to a group of women day after day owes its life to the little seed that was planted by loving hands in St. Andrew’s. OUR BROTHERHOOD Every minister knows that it is much easier to organize the women than it is the men. The women are naturally subservient; for ages they have been taught obedience. They are taught it at the mother’s knee; they are taught it at the altar and, so trained, they are naturally easy to command. Let him who has not tried it, try it. It is this fact that makes the church so dependent upon its women. This difficulty met me at the threshold of my work at St. Andrew’s parish. I had the women in order, but the men were still footloose. There are two motives that appeal strongly to men; the social motive and the economic. Men love to get together to eat and drink and smoke, and they also must keep an eye on finance because the man has to pay. I early grasped this thought and saw if I were to organize my men, I must do so upon these fundamental principles; I must give the organization a base in sociability and economy, and so I set about to establish a Mutual Benefit Society, which I called the St. Andrew’s Brotherhood. ‘The conception was not orig- inal; nothing is ever original; all anyone can do is to apply 156 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS an old conception to a new situation. [ had already or- ganized such a society and left it behind me in St. Paul’s Chapel, New York. I proposed it to my men and they said, “Oh, yes.” And when’ I\called a meeting; ‘about three men came. We resolved to form such a society and adjourned until a following day. That day was in melon time and out of my slender purse I bought a certain num- ber of watermelons and sent out a postal to about fifty men of my own church and others and invited them to a melon feast; about forty-five of them came. We then and there renewed our resolve to found the St. Andrew’s Brotherhood. The membership in that Brotherhood was not to be limited to the membership of St. Andrew’s or any other church; it was not to be based in religious belief, but in human brotherhood. Every man who would be a brother, could be a brother. We called it St. Andrew’s Brotherhood because, as you may call to mind, when St. Andrew found Jesus he went and found his brother Simon and brought him to Jesus. All we asked of the men was that they should have the brotherly heart; we based it upon the mutual benefit principle; every man was to pay into the treasury ten cents a week and out of that treasury he was to receive, in case of sickness, five dollars a week; in case of his death, his widow was to receive fifty dol- lars, and in case of the death of his wife, the member was to receive twenty-five dollars. Later, for practical rea- sons, the benefit for the first week was limited to one dol- lar and after that the benefit was five dollars for thirteen weeks and two dollars and a half thereafter. We re- solved not to pay any money out in benefits until we had accumulated one hundred dollars in our treasury. It took us three years to gather together that sum. ‘Then we be- gan the payment of benefits according to rule and we have continued to pay them ever since. St. Andrew’s Brotherhood still exists as one of the lead- OUR INSTITUTIONS 1$7 ing institutions of its kind in the city of Rochester. I do not know the exact sum which it has paid out in benefits during this forty-two years of its existence, but I am quite sure that it is somewhere between seventy and one hundred thousand dollars, and I know that it has to date between eight and nine thousand dollars in its treasury. St. An- drew’s Brotherhood did not confine its beneficial work to its membership; it constantly contributed to the needs of the community; to any object that commended itself to ‘its approval. It is to-day a great power for good in the city of Rochester. Although it was the child of what was once known as a ritualistic church, it has no ornate ritual of its own; its initiation ceremonies are very simple. ‘The rec- tor of St. Andrew’s Church is, ex officio, chaplain of the Brotherhood, but he exercises no other authority. The Brotherhood rules itself, elects its own officers, adminis- ters its own affairs. It has been indebted through all these years to St. Andrew’s parish for its meeting hall, and it in turn has made St. Andrew’s parish known in every corner of the city of Rochester. CHAPTER XXVII RETREATS AND QUIET DAYS s I was then a member of the Catholic school in aN the Church, I was invited by the Mother Superior of the Sisters of St. Mary to conduct a retreat for the associates of the Order in the Convent of the Sister- hood at Peekskill, New York. I accepted this invitation as a call to a new and higher order of work. A recent sickness seemed to me a preparation for this sacred duty. The retreat has always been a discipline of the Catholic Church. Before young men are admitted into holy or- ders they are called into retreat, that by the practice of silence, meditation and confession they may search their hearts and see whether or not they are ready to give them- selves to the service of God and man in the Church. ‘The priesthood is not a profession; it is a calling. A man en- ters it, not to gain a livelihood, but as a way of service. He is to minister to the people of the things of God. This should be the underlying principle of all callings; the law- yer should minister to the people of the things of justice; the physician of the things of health; the merchant of the goods of life; but only in the priesthood is the ministry recognized as the primary motive. ‘The clergyman is a minister. The retreat follows immediately upon the graduation from the seminary that by self-examination the neophyte may know his own soul; by confession may dis- cover his sins, and by absolution may be loosed from his bonds. Not only does the priest enjoy this discipline at the time of his ordination, but he makes use of the retreat 158 RETREATS AND QUIET DAYS 159 throughout his priesthood for the refreshment and recrea- tion of his soul. The retreat is the privilege of the women as well as the men, of the laity as well as of the priesthood. Everyone needs from time to time to withdraw from the world; to enter into the silence and take account of stock, and this is especially the need of our modern life, with its worry and hurry, rushing us through life without giving us leisure to know what life is. The revival of this practice in -the Episcopal Church was one of the blessings of the Catholic movement in that Church. When one enters into retreat he enters as far as possible into the seclusion of his own soul. Silence is the law of the retreat. Silence as one lies down and as one rises up; silence at table and silence in the house. ‘The only voice the retreatant hears is the voice of the conductor, and the voice of the conductor is to the retreatant the voice of God. The value of a retreat lies with the conductor; if he has within him the sevenfold Spirit of God, the spirit of wis- dom, and knowledge and ghostly strength, then his spirit will rule the retreat to the profit of those who are in re- treat. The conductor exercises his functions by means of the eucharist, the instruction, the mediation and the ad- dress, all of which are given in public to the whole body of the retreatants. It is also his duty to meet each re- treatant in private for confession, consultation, absolution and advice. In the celebration of the eucharist, the conductor exer- cises the purely priestly function; he is mediating between God and man, praying to the Lord God to forgive the sins of His people and to admit them into His holy presence. The power of prayer can never be destroyed; it inheres in the universe. ‘Ask and ye shall receive’; a man who does not pray is a man who does not live in any true sense of 160 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS the term. Prayer is the breath of the soul. We breathe in the necessities of the spiritual life, and out of the spirit- ual life proceed all the issues of life and death, so that in offering the oblation upon the altar, the minister is seek- ing to clear the way for the union of the individual soul with the oversoul. In his instruction the conductor of the retreat is exer- cising the intelligence both of himself and his hearers; he is thinking and he is compelling them to think. The value of his instruction depends upon the contents of his thought; if he has no thought, he cannot make others think; if he merely repeats what he has heard, if his intelligence adds nothing to the common intelligence, then he fails in the ofice of conductor. As the Lord says, “The Scribe in- structed in the Kingdom of God brings forth things new and old.” Every speaker should stir up antagonism in the minds of his hearers; it is by conflict that growth comes. He who seeks simply to please will in the end displease; the hearer will come away weary instead of strengthened. The art of meditation is of difficult practice; it is an ex- ercise pure and simple of the soul. When the conductor sits in his chair, he is in a passive state; he is ready to yield himself to the influences of the spirit. All he takes with him is a vague notion of the truth that he wants to see and make others see; then he keeps his will in abeyance; he does not strive for any effect; he does not search for any thought; he leaves his soul free to receive and to impart; he does not know, for the most part, what he is saying as he says it; his words come from a higher source than that of his own mind; it is the Great Spirit that is moving his spirit as the winds move the surface of the sea. ‘The art of meditation comes with exercise, but the genius for it must be inborn; no man can meditate in public who is not constantly meditating in private; unless the soul is per- RETREATS AND QUIET DAYS 161 petually steeped in the oversoul, it cannot give forth the inspiration of the oversoul. In his address, the speaker is hortatory; he is using his will primarily to compel his hearers to accept and to apply the truths which have been imparted to them in the in- struction and the inspirations which have come to them in the meditation. Now, to exercise this office of a conduc- tor, one must be an all-round spiritual athlete; he must be able to run, to stop, to hold and to run again. If we are to have a true ministry to the spirit, we must make pro- vision for the training of men for that purpose. ‘The great Catholic Church does this, and that is one of the secrets of its continuing power, but if the Catholic Church is to retain the spiritual leadership or to regain it, it must adjust its teaching to the eternal truth; it must accept with- out equivocation the modern conception of the universe. As for the Protestant clergy, it is for them to get rid en- tirely of their theologies which are outworn and make themselves familiar with that which is nearest, namely, their own souls, if they have any. But the value of the retreat lies in the ministration of the conductor to the personal soul. Each soul is a per- sona, not a mere individual, but a persona, an actor, hay- ing its own part to play in the comedy of human life. It is this fact that finds expression in Dante’s “Divine Com- edy” and the human comedy of Balzac. When such a comedian comes into the presence of the conductor of a retreat, it is to confess its errors and failures, not that it may be free to err and fail again, but that it may be in- structed and cleansed and go out of that closet to play more nobly its part on the stage of life. Confession and absolution do not free a penitent from the penalty of sin. No power in the universe can avoid that penalty. ‘The best that confession and absolution can do is to break the 162 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS habit of sin. ‘To be a physician of souls demands a knowl- edge and a wisdom equal at least to that of a physician of the body. When I think of the time I wasted in trying to fathom the nature of God while I was ignorant of the first elements of the nature of man, I hang my head in shame. The experience of this retreat inspired me with a desire to know the soul, that I might instruct in the powers of the soul, teaching the method whereby the soul can resist evil and acquire virtue. It was, therefore, of vast impor- tance to my spiritual life that I was compelled to study this great subject in order that I might apply what little knowledge I could acquire to the specific cases that were submitted to my judgment as a conductor of a retreat. That I did not fail entirely in this first effort follows from the fact that I was called again and again to perform the same service for the Sisters of St. Mary. I must have con- ducted at least five retreats for them in the course of my history, and the report of those retreats must have gone forth into the world and given me work of like character to be done elsewhere. Among the most notable of these efforts was a retreat which I conducted at the request of the Right Reverend William Croswell Doane for the clergy of Albany. This retreat was held in the chapel of the Cathedral of All Saints, Albany, during the vacation of the cathedral schools where the retreatants were accommodated during their stay. The rule of the retreat was the same as that which prevailed with the Sisters of St. Mary. ‘The con- ductor had complete charge; he gave his instruction, his meditation, his address, and he was at the call of the re- treatants for spiritual counsel and advice. This retreat was followed by others of like character for the clergy and also by “quiet days” for both clergy and laity. A ‘“‘quiet day” is a retreat in little; the same pro- iti i —— RETREATS AND QUIET DAYS 163 gram is followed as that of the longer retreat; a day is set apart for prayer and meditation. The conductor of the day celebrates the communion, gives his instruction, meditation and address. I was frequently called to this duty in various parts of the country. CHAPTER XXVIII A MISSIONER bones of Episcopalianism. It was felt by the leaders of that cult that they were losing ground and that if they were to maintain their standing as an active working body they must wake up. ‘The consequence was that they determined to cast aside their dignity for the time being and to adopt Methodistic methods of religious work; in other words, they determined to have a great revival in the city of New York. In this movement High Church, Low Church and Broad Church united. In order to save their dignity, they did not call this action a revival, but they adopted the Catholic term of “mission.” ‘The leader of the enterprise was the great Broad-Churchman of the country, Dr. William S. Rainsford. Certain churches in the city were selected as the places where the work was to be carried on. Men of reputation as preachers and spir- itual guides were selected to do the work. It was my high honour to be one of those so chosen. I was asked to take the mission at St. Philip’s Church in Mulberry Street. Now, as the reader is aware, St. Philip was of African descent and the churches called by this name were patronized by his people, so that I became the missioner to the coloured Episcopalians of the city of New York. When I left home I was accompanied by my friend, Mr. Paul Rochester, a son of John Rochester. The mission was to be opened on a certain Wednesday evening. On the morning of that day Mr. Rochester and 164 fe the year 1892 there was a stirring among the dry A MISSIONER 165 myself went to the church to meet the wardens in order that we might make the proper arrangements for what was to come. When we reached the vestry room we found the two wardens waiting for us. ‘The senior warden was a Mr. White, a West Indian Negro, as fine-looking a man as one would care to see in a day’s journey; regular fea- tures, bronze complexion, tall and slender; he was a gentle- man every inch of him. He was a free man and always had been a free man. ‘The junior warden, if I recollect correctly, was a Mr. Prince; he was an American Negro and had about him the air of a man who had always been subjected to control. As soon as we greeted one another, Mr. White said to me, “Mr. Crapsey, if you and your friend will kindly follow us, Mr. Prince and I will lead you to the hotel where we have your rooms engaged.” In- stinctively and without a moment’s hesitation, I stepped forward and laid my hand on the arm of Mr. White and said, ‘‘Mr. White, with your permission, I will walk with you and Mr. Rochester will walk with Mr. Prince; we can talk together as we go along.’ I saw at once a flash in the eye of this man; he seemed surprised and gratified, and so we walked together through the streets of the city until we came to our hotel. It was this instinctive act, which came without any thought whatever, that was the cause of the great success of my work among these people. Mr. White said to me afterward, speaking of this incident, “Mr. Crapsey, no white man in America ever acted in such a manner toward me as you did on the morning of your arrival.” That is, no white man had ever been a gentleman in his relations with this coloured gentleman, and that is the reason why we have the Negro question and will always have the Negro question with us until the white man recognizes the fact that he is nothing but a man and every other man is his equal and that the colour of the skin is an indifferent matter. 166 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS The mission opened in the evening with a congregation of coloured people sprinkled with whites that about half filled the church building. In conducting a mission, I de- parted from the ordinary custom of preaching a set sermon. I began with an instruction on some Christian doctrine or practice, and after speaking for about fifteen or twenty minutes, [ interrupted myself and called upon the choir to sing a hymn. At the conclusion of the hymn I applied the principles that. I had laid down in my instruc- tion to practical life, exhorting the people to practise what I had just preached to them. ‘This exhortation was fol- lowed by another hymn and this by a meditation which I delivered from my chair. In this way I was able to hold the attention of these people for about an hour, and to keep them all the time at a high tension of interest. ‘This is the method which I followed as a missioner as long as I exercised that office. The program for the day began with an early celebra- tion of the Holy Communion and a short meditation at 7 o'clock. At this service, only the faithful few were gathered around the altar. At 9 o'clock I gave a lecture in theology, taking up the great fundamentals of Christian doctrines. During my mission at St. Philip’s I had only one auditor at these lectures; this was Brother Fisher, a very intelligent, educated man, and we had what was really a conference. As I went along, I would appeal to Brother Fisher as to his opinion in the matter under consideration. Brother Fisher would nod gravely his assent and I would go on. I never regretted the time that I devoted to the education of Brother Fisher; he enjoyed it; I enjoyed it and, by this practice, became more proficient in my office as a teacher of theology. During the whole of my career as a preacher [I have never slurred over my work because there were only two or three present; some of the very best work that I have ever done in my life has been in the A MISSIONER 167 presence of a mete handful of people. In the afternoon there was an instruction for women at about 3 o’clock, and at half past four service for children, and in the evening the great mission service. This mission in St. Philip’s Church attracted wide attention, not only on the part of the coloured people, but also of the whites and the yel- lows. We had not been under way more than two or three days when all our meetings in the afternoons and evenings tested the capacity of the church. I had among my auditors more than once the bishop of the diocese and my old friend the Rector of Trinity Church. At the close of the mission the vestry asked me to meet with them and some of the principal members of the con- gregation, in the vestry room. ‘They begged me to sit for a photograph which they might have to place in their church. ‘They presented me with a purse of some value; and one of the enthusiastic gentlemen exclaimed, “Why suh, we didn’t know dat dare was in a little city like Rochester a little man what could make such a big noise.” I bowed graciously to this compliment and resigned my of- fice as missioner into the hands of the senior warden, there being no rector at the church at the time, and was the richer for a great experience. From this time out I was an accredited missioner of the Episcopal Church in the United States and Canada. I conducted in all more than twenty such missions. [I will instance only four. In the following year, 1893, I was asked to conduct a mission in the city of Omaha, Nebraska. The work of this mission was carried on, under the supervision of the bishop, in the cathedral church, and all the clergy of the city participated in the enterprise. We opened this mis- sion with a day’s retreat for the clergy. I gave medita- tions on the prophetical priestly and kingly offices of the clergy. The mission was opened the following evening, the bishop presiding, and there was a formal transfer of 168 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS the spiritual authority of the parish and the diocese to the missioner during the period of the mission. He was then the master of the situation; not even the bishop could call his word or action in question. The method followed was that already outlined as governing the mission in St. Philip’s, New York: the Holy Communion at 7; the in- struction in theology at 10; the address to women at 3; the instruction for children at half past four, and the great mission service in the evening. In addition to these regu- lar offices, we had in Omaha, as in all larger places, an ad- dress for business men at 12:30. This meeting was held in the heart of the business portion of the city, in a large vacant store, and my pulpit was a great box. It may be seen that the missioner had little time for idleness; an hour’s rest in the afternoon was all he could hope for, and the intensity of the day’s work found him so nervously awake in the night that sleep was well-nigh impossible. After the last service, I used to take long walks through the city and so I came to know something about the red- light district; the traffic in women in Omaha, as in other Western cities, was a licensed traffic. “These women were lodged, the better class of them, in magnificent houses built for that special use, and the lower class in long lines of one-story buildings in the segregated district. Returning from this digression to the account of my work, I found that there was some dissatisfaction on the part of the women as to the arrangement of the program. The very High Churchman of the city said to me in public meeting, ‘Mr. Crapsey, the ladies of my congregation, and of other congregations as well, desire me to ask you if you cannot change the order of your program so as to give the instruction in theology in the afternoon instead of the morning. Many of these ladies cannot get out in the morning and they do want to hear something about religion.’ At this I laughed very heartily. In the morn- A MISSIONER 169 ing I was giving instruction in the doctrine of grace, ex- plaining the difference between sacramental and prevenient grace; in the afternoon, I was giving advice as to the prac- tical duties of the mother, the daughter, the wife, and the woman in the world. Bless their dear hearts, these la- dies thought that my morning instruction had to do with religion, and they never dreamed that it was the afternoon advice that was vital to the religious life. In the morn- ing it was the so-called science of religion that occupied our thoughts; in the afternoon it was the practice of religion. I had a great deal of fun with my High Church friend and his High Church ladies and I told them the story of Madamoiselle X, in which the employer of this disguised Russian Princess is describing her to her friend. Her friend is very anxious to know if this governess were re- ligious. ‘The lady of the house describes her in terms of morality; her neatness, her readiness to serve, her fine manners and the like, whereupon her friend exclaims, ‘But what has all this to do with religion?’ Before I had fin- ished I had captured the hearts of my hearers and they laughed as heartily as I did over their question. During this mission the church was crowded night after night to its full capacity. I shall never forget the last night; it was intended that we should have a procession of choir and clergy coming from the outside and proceeding up the cen- tre of the church. At about 7 o'clock I had a telephone message from Mr. Gardner, the rector of the parish, tell- ing me that they would have to abandon the procession; to my question, ‘“Why?” he said, ‘There isn’t an inch of space in the church at this moment, and I don’t know how we are to get you in.” When the time arrived, I went out of the rectory and as soon as I came on to the street I saw it crowded for blocks in both directions and the cross streets likewise. I had.to make the greatest effort to work my way through that dense mass into the church 170 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS and up to the chancel. Not only were the seats taken, but every inch of standing-room. ‘The clergy had to stand along the wall of the chancel. I conducted the service as usual and it was really like a day of Pentecost. The Omaha World-Herald had the following editorial on the morning after the close of the mission: “THE LATE EPISCOPALIAN MISSION “During the last two weeks we have had in our midst a remark- able man who has done, or begun, a remarkable work. Rev. Dr. Crapsey, the Episcopalian clergyman from Rochester, has made a deep impression upon all who have come within hearing of his musical voice during his short mission in this city. His influence has reached all classes and moved all ages. His preaching has aroused the sloth- ful in the church and set those to thinking who are outside. He has taught, not only the theory, but the practice of religion, and he has ventured into the privacies of life, which most preachers carefully avoid. ‘The power of this missioner is not the result of oratory, although at times he is eloquent in a simple way. Sincerity, sympathy and fervour are the qualities which give the extraordinary effect to his thoughtful and practical discourses. ‘““The most apparent outcome of Mr. Crapsey’s work in Omaha is the movement which he inspired and which is already undertaken, to establish in the ‘burnt district’ of this city a chapel for the worship of God by those who feel cut off, by the lives they lead, from the up- town churches. Incidentally also it is proposed to have an experi- enced matron always accessible in this chapel ready to aid any unfor- tunate woman who may sincerely desire to take the first and most dificult step of reformation. “This is ‘practical’ Christianity. "The World-Herald realizes that Mr. Crapsey has done much else that is practical during his short so- journ here, but if that were all, it would be a great deal. “Rev. John Williams of St. Barnabas’ is the treasurer of the new chapel enterprise and the World-Herald hopes that all who hate vice or who believe in redeeming unfortunate women and giving them an- other chance in the world will send their contributions to him.” A MISSIONER 171 In the summer of 1894 I had a call to conduct a mission in St. George’s Church, the parish of Paget, in the Island of Bermuda. I accepted this call with alacrity, not only because it offered me a field of usefulness, but also an op- portunity to see the island, and also on this occasion to give my wife the advantage and pleasure of the sea voyage and the visit to the semi-tropics. My friend, Mr. John Rochester, went with us. He and Mrs. Crapsey had their quarters at the Hamilton Hotel; I lived with the rector of the parish, during my stay, in his vicarage. The Paget parish was rural in its character, beautifully situated on the island. I opened the mission on a Sunday morning with, as us- ual, a comparatively small congregation. I noticed that there were two rows of pews midway in the church which seemed to be shunned by both whites and blacks. When we returned to the vicarage, I asked the younger Mr. Lough, the curate of the parish, to explain to me why it was that these seats in the church were taboo. He answered, ‘Oh, that’s the colour line; the blacks do not come beyond that line and no white man sits back of it.” I said to him, ‘Lough, I think that to-night we will abolish that colour line.’’ He said, ‘‘How will you do it?” I said, “‘Come and see.’ When we went to the church in the evening we found that there was no colour line there, nor did such a line exist during all the rest of the mission. It was not long before we had the whites and the blacks sitting in the same seats, standing shoulder to shoulder and singing from the same hymn books. ‘The method of con- ducting the mission was that which I have already out- lined and the attendance at all of the services tested the capacity of the church, and the night services crowded it almost beyond its capacity. The last night of the mission repeated the experience of Omaha. The vicarage was about half a mile from the church. I was accustomed to 172 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS walk that distance every time we had services in the church and on each night I would find the road pretty well oc- cupied with those who were going to the church. On the last night I remained behind a little later than usual and made my way down the road alone, and it literally was alone; there was not a human being in sight, and I said to myself we have had five services to-day, all of them largely attended; doubtless the people have had enough of church- going and we shall have a small gathering to-night. I had hardly formulated this thought in my mind before I made the turn in the road that brought me in sight of the church- yard, and then I was amazed. Just outside the church- yard, filling the field beyond, was every sort of vehicle from the donkey cart to the barouche, and the churchyard itself was crowded with people. When I tried to reach the church I found it impossible and at last someone rec- ognized the missioner and cried, ‘Here is the little man, we must get him in’’; and so they picked me up and passed me along to the church door. When I came into the ves- try room, I found the bishop of the diocese there, together with the rector and the curate, and I said to Dr. Lough, the rector of the parish, “My dear Doctor, how are we going to get in?’ And he exclaimed, ‘‘Never fear, I will get you in!’ Now, Lough Senior was a very little man and it was quite amusing to see him force his way through that almost impenetrable crowd, crying in a stentorian voice, ‘‘Make way for the bishop and the missioner.” We did at last succeed in reaching the chancel. The bishop made a very brief address, highly commending the work of the mission and speaking kindly of the missioner. ‘The principal paper of Hamilton summed up the character and effect of the mission in a leading article as follows: “Mr. Crapsey strikes us as a man of quite extraordinary power and ability. His gift of memory and arrangement is unlike anything A MISSIONER 173 that we have ever known before. He uses no notes, and though he delivers four or five addresses each day, every one of them is as lucid and clear as a map. He exhibits no signs of weariness, though we should imagine, with such earnestness, his work must be peculiarly exhausting. Within the church a large platform has been erected near the pulpit, from which the missioner delivers most of his addresses. At night, at 7:30, comes thé great mission service. Mr. Crapsey’s method is to divide his address into three portions, interspersed with hymns and prayers. He takes a subject for fifteen minutes; he gives an instruction upon that subject; then there is a break; then for fifteen minutes he gives an exhortation upon it; another break; then for ten minutes a meditation, which he delivers sitting down, and which is always an application of the cross to what has gone before. ‘The continuity of thought running through the three is most striking.” When we took the steamer for home, we were given a farewell by a large crowd of people who came to the dock and watched us until we passed out of sight. Our voyage home was disastrous; we encountered the greatest storm in the experience of the captain; at least, that is what he told us. We were blown two hundred miles and more out of our course. My wife, who was subject to seasickness in the calmest weather, suffered extremely in this teriffic storm. Our friend, Mr. Rochester, came one morning to visit us in our cabin, to which both Mrs. Crapsey and my- self were confined, and on his return, as he entered the saloon, the ship lurched and he was thrown clear across the room against the wainscoting and suffered a severe wound over the eye from which he never fully recovered. For the rest of the voyage he was in great distress and danger, and we began to fear that we shouldn’t get him home alive. When we reached New York we had an exhibition of the brutality of the New York customs administration. I went to the customs officer and told him the circumstances and asked permission to take Mr. Rochester immediately 174. THE LAST OF THE HERETICS from the ship. This request was brusquely refused and we had to sit for more than an hour waiting our turn. On leaving the steamer, we went immediately to Rochester and for a time Mr. Rochester’s life hung in the balance. He did recover sufficiently to be about again, but never was he the same man afterward. It is needless to say that Mrs. Crapsey never went to sea again. I will close this long chapter with a simple reference to a mission which I held some year or two later in St. Luke’s Church, Washington. ‘This mission was remarkable only because it exhibited in a striking way the evil attitude of the white toward the black and of the black toward the white. St. Luke’s was the church of the higher-class col- oured people in the city of Washington. Its rector was a negroid and nearly white as to his complexion. Among his parishioners were the Treasurer of the United States, judges of courts and other high officials, together with men and women of education and wealth. In preaching to these people, I told them that one of the fundamental prin- ciples of life was that every man should maintain the in- tegrity of his personality. He should assert his right to think and his right to act and speak within the law of reason. I called attention to the fact that if any man surrendered these liberties under threat of violence, he not only was a traitor to himself, but he betrayed the whole human race. I preached to them the doctrine of passive resistance. I told them how the Christian Church was established by the passive resistance of the martyrs. I told them that it was their duty, not to kill, but, if neces- sary, to be killed in the maintenance of their liberties. At the close of the mission I received an invitation from the leading coloured people of the city to speak for and to them on a Sunday afternoon in the African Methodist Church. ‘This building seated about three thousand peo- ple. At the time of this meeting it was crowded to suf- A MISSIONER 175 focation. The presiding officer of the occasion was Sena- tor Cullum, of Illinois; the pastor of the church, the Rev- erend Mr. Lee, a very giant of a man, gave out the hymn, “My Country, Tis of Thee.” When he had given these words to the people, he said, ‘‘My brothers, I hope that I may some time give out this hymn knowing that I have a country.” In my address to this vast audience I repeated the instruction which I had given to the congregation of St. Luke’s Church. I said to them that if they tamely sur- rendered their rights, they betrayed mine. I told them that it was the duty of every coloured citizen of the United States to cast his vote at every election. If in doing so he were to lose his life, his life would be well lost. I urged upon them the fact that if one million of Negroes were so to sacrifice themselves, the question of the politi- cal equality of the race would be settled for ever; and if they said that this was asking too much of them, I an- swered that we white people had laid down more than a million lives to secure their freedom. I was mildly rebuked by my dear friend, Mr. Sanford, the editor then of Harper's Weekly, for these utterances. He held up the policy of Booker Washington as that which was to be followed, rather than my teaching. The Negroes were to forgo their political rights and content themselves with industrial rights, but I maintained that political rights are necessary to the protection of industrial rights. A man without a vote is helpless in a voting community. During all the time of my stay in Washington, not a single white clergyman of the Episcopal Church gave me the slightest attention. J went with the rector to call upon the bishop and he was just leaving his palace as we came to the door, and he said, ‘‘How do you do?” and ‘‘Good- bye,” and that was all. After my return home I had a let- ter from him rebuking me for having preached as I had in 176 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS his diocese. ‘This, it seems to me, is sufficient condemna- tion of the present attitude of the Church, not only toward the Negro, but toward the working class in general. The Negroes are a great working class of the South. They need the franchise to protect their interests. When we deny the franchise to them, we violate the fundamental principle underlying our political existence, and the whole nation is to-day losing its political liberty because, among other reasons, it is denying this political liberty to the working class of the South. CHAPTER XXIX DANGEROUS READING URING all the period of my ministerial life, I 1) kept to my habit of general reading; in fact, it was my only recreation. I not only continued my historical studies, but I was intensely interested in the subjects which were at that time engaging the attention of the world. No period of history was more alive than that in which I passed my adult life. The rapidity of in- tellectual change made one dizzy. I entered the ministry under the impulse of the roman- ticist movement of the early nineteenth century. My mas- ters were the poets, the historians and the philosophers of that age; the Bible was my handbook which I read as the Word of God. I studied the great Anglican divines; I was inspired by the sermons of Newman and the poetry of Keble. I was living in a world of’ my own creating, a moral and spiritual world, but I was woefully ignorant of that external world of force and form which science was then creating for the mind of man to live in. I was roused to the consideration of the scientific world by the Darwinian discussion which was storming the very citadel of my theology and threatening to sweep it from its foundations. J heard Huxley’s lectures on Genesis and Tyndall's lectures on sound. ‘Take him for all and all, I think Tyndall the perfection of the platform speaker; in figure, voice and form no man whom I have ever heard has equalled him. Huxley was a splendid fighter, but the in- tensity of his passion marred his delivery. ‘Tyndall was 177 178 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS as impassionate as science itself. Not only did | have the privilege of listening to these warriors of the New Faith; I also had access to their thought by means of the printed page. I read Tyndall on “Light and Heat’; Huxley’s ‘Essays’; Darwin’s ‘‘Descent of Man’’; Argyle’s “Reign of Law’—a work of the highest merit—I read Lyell’s “Geology,” and as many others as came to my hand which could tell me anything about the wonderful world which I had just discovered. I never became a scientist, but I did become a lover of science. My lack in mathematics pre- vented my entering into the deeper mysteries of natural law, but I could master the reasoning of the great teachers and make their conclusions my own. Without knowing it, I had assimilated the principles of evolution and the con- servation of energy, and, strange to say, these new doc- trines did not jostle the old. I still believed, or thought I believed, in the doctrines of the fall of man, redemp- tion by grace, in the miraculous birth, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, and in this I was not peculiar; three- fourths of the Christian world was then and is now in the same perilous condition: holding with equal tenacity con- tradictory propositions. It was my misfortune to stumble into another pit of knowledge from which it was not so easy to get out. When the Anti-Nicean Library was published by the Uni- versity of Oxford, I began a new reading of the Fathers of the Church under the guidance of these English schol- ars. As I was reading Clement, Polycarp, the ‘Epistle to Diognetus,” the ‘Pastor of Hermes,’ I remarked to my astonishment the utter absence of any reference to the story of the miraculous birth of Jesus. In two of these works—the ‘Epistle to Diognetus,”’ which is a letter from the writer to a friend explaining the Christian belief, and the “Pastor of Hermes,” which is a story of early Chris- tian life, full of the miraculous—this omission of any DANGEROUS READING 79 reference to the birth stories was most significant; had the story been a part of the then Christian tradition, it must have been referred to by these writers. Startled by this strange omission, I reread the Apostolic writings and, to my further astonishment, found the same significant silence. Paul not only does not affirm, he expressly denies this story; he affirms that Jesus was of the seed of David, according to the flesh. To be Messiah, Jesus must be the son of David. His descent from David was traced through the male line to Joseph; if Joseph were not his father, then Jesus had no claim to the Messiahship; for nowhere is it asserted that Mary, his mother, was of the tribe of Judah. When I turned from the Epistles to the Gospels, I found a condition now familiar to every intelligent reader, but then unknown except to a few scholars; being hidden by a cloud of myth and legend. I discovered that Mark’s Gospel, which is the earliest form of the Christian tradi- tion, knows nothing of the birth stories. This Gospel ex- pressly affirms that Jesus was the son of Joseph, and that Nazareth was his birthplace. John’s Gospel, which is the last of the series, agrees with Mark; if the writer of this Gospel had ever heard of the birth stories, he rejected them. ‘The stories as found in Matthew and Luke are clearly a later addition to these Gospels. In both these narratives the life of Jesus begins with the baptism; in the body of both of these histories, it is asserted over and over again that Jesus was the son of Joseph and was a native of Nazareth in Galilee. Besides all this, these stories differ so essentially from one another that if one is true the other cannot be. It is plain, therefore, that we are dealing, when we read these stories, not with sober history but with myth and legend; more with legend than with myth. This is now the merest commonplace of New Testament criticism. But it was not commonplace when I made the 180 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS discovery; for it was a discovery; it did not come to me at second hand; it was the result of my own analysis of the original documents. I became in this way unintentionally a Higher Critic, and as will be shown further on I was the first man in this country to publicly apply the principles of the Higher Criticism to the New Testament stories. This event stimulated my curiosity and I became a close student of the Higher Criticism. I read Robertson Smith’s arti- cles in the “Encyclopedia Britannica’’; I read Keim’s “Jesu Von Nazara’”’ and Strauss’ “Leben Jesu,’’ and Renan’s “Vie de Jésus.’ After this reading, Jesus became to me the Son of God in a far higher sense than He had ever been before; He was the Son of God, not by divine mir- acle, but by divine law; He was the Son of the Father be- cause He was the life of the Father manifested in the world. It must not be supposed that as soon as I made this dis- covery I rushed into the pulpit and proclaimed it to my people; far from it; it was years before I dared to acknowl- edge to myself that what my intelligence told me was so, was really so. It was not until my secret became an al- most open secret that I spoke of it in public, and then it was an accident. My conscience did from time to time trouble me, but I stilled its voice by the din of my prac- tical work. I did, however, after a period begin to teach the natural birth to my confirmation classes and spoke in the pulpit of the birth stories as legends created by the natural desire of the Christians to magnify their Lord. But what I did in this way of explanation made no stir; what my people wanted from me and what they got was the teaching and life of Jesus after he was born; what hap- pened to Him before that did not concern them. It is a commonplace of religious history that the priests have one doctrine for themselves and another for the peo- ple. Just before I suffered the full penalty of my dan- DANGEROUS READING ISI gerous reading, I had an experience of this. I was dining with a company of clergymen, who were invited to meet two ministers recently arrived from the South to take up their residence in Rochester. This company included a high dignitary of the Catholic Church, and the leading clergymen of the various denominations. Now, to my astonishment, every one of these men, together with the host of the evening, who was a layman of high standing in one of the Churches, with the exception of the two Baptist ministers from the South, had rejected the birth stories, and not only believed but knew scientifically that Jesus was the son of Joseph. | When I came out from that company I was startled; I said to myself, ‘“Are we, as the priests of Egypt, believing one thing ourselves and teaching its opposite to the people and taking pay from the people in exchange for this fraud- ulent instruction?” And I was afraid, CHAPTER XXX ILLUSION that brought me to the gates of the grave, hovering for many days between life and death. I was the ob- ject of many prayers. My people, in order that my health might be established on a sure foundation, made up a purse to pay the expenses of a sea voyage and to give me the recreation of a visit to Europe; as both time and purse were limited, I was obliged to confine my visit to England, and it was my purpose to make a tour of the cathedrals. When I left home, I was still in a state of nervous prostration, hardly equal to the discomforts of life on shipboard. ‘The steamer on which I sailed belonged to an American line and lacked the space and speed and comfort of the Cunard or the White Star ships; my room was next to the kitchen; it was noisy, foul and overrun with roaches. Because of this I spent as much of my time as possible on deck. For the first two days, I was in the throes of seasickness and my life was a misery, and the heaving within was like unto the heaving of the sea. By and by this illness passed, but I was still very miserable and looked forward with distress to the many days that must pass before I could be at home again in the care of my wife. In fact, I was so far down in the depths that I should have been glad to go down deeper with the ship to the bottom of the sea. We had been out three days and I had not spoken a word to a human. I was alone in my room and so far had not gone to the table. 182 T the year 1889 I was the victim of a severe illness ILLUSION 183 It was no marvel that I cursed the day when I left my com- fortable home to submit myself to the restless waves and the kind attention of the cockroaches. But succour was at hand. On the fourth morning of the voyage out, as I was leaning against the rail looking at the heaving of the waves, wondering if they could never be still for a moment, my attention was arrested by the ap- proach of aman. As I looked at him I almost hated him. He was all that I was not. I was a weak, sickly speci- men of humanity, scarcely five feet six, weighing hardly 120; this stranger bearing down upon me was a veritable son of Anak; he was at least six feet two in his stockings, he weighed over two hundred pounds; his face was covered with a full reddish beard; his eyes were grey speckled with red; in form and feature he was a berserker of a man. When he spoke to me, as he did, his rich full voice was all the more attractive because of a slight Scottish burr. I do not remember how he opened the conversation; doubtless it was some casual remark about the weather; but whatever it was, it instantly carried me out of myself into the puri- fying atmosphere of human companionship. ‘The conver- sation thus casually entered upon continued with intermis- sions for twenty-eight years. It was a sad day in my life when, in the fall of 1916, word came to me that Donald Kennedy was dead. This chance meeting on shipboard ripened into a friendship which greatly enriched my life. Donald Kennedy was an Edinburgh merchant, the head of the large business of Charles Jenner, the leading draper establishment, or, as we should call it, dry-goods store, of Scotland; he did not have the mien of an American busi- ness man; one could not think of him as standing behind a counter waiting upon the whims of women, but rather as a Highland Chief with naked knees, leading his warriors against his Lowland foes. Donald Kennedy was return- ing with his wife from a visit of pleasure to Canada and 184. THE LAST OF THE HERETICS the States. I afterward learned that it was Mrs. Ken- nedy who, seeing me so forlorn, alone and miserable, said to her husband, “Do go and speak to that young man; he seems so unhappy.” Bless her dear heart! Before leav- ing the ship, I had an invitation to visit the Kennedys at their home, Kirton Lodge, Murrayfield—which I did many times. Of these visits, I shall have much to say as I come to them in the course of this history. I can never to this day understand my friendship with Kennedy, ex- cept that it was the attraction of opposites; Donald was big, I was little; Donald was rich, I was poor; Donald was practical, I a dreamer—but what then? It was a great friendship. In ten days our voyage came to an end and we landed early in the afternoon at Greenock, where we entrained for Glasgow, which was as far as our ticket carried us. The Kennedys travelled first class, I third, and promising to visit them before my return to the States, I bade them good-bye. From Glasgow, I went on immediately to Edinburgh, reaching there in the early evening. I gave the address of my hotel on Princess Street to the cabby, who touched his hat, drove briskly out of the station, and in half a minute we were at my hotel, and bang! went a shilling and sixpence. How much of our wealth we might save if we could only look for a single moment into our future; but I laughed and said to cabby, ‘“Easy money,”’ and gave him his tip. I went immediately to my room, washed away the stains of travel, put on a clean collar and went down to dinner, and a good dinner it was; I do not recall the dishes, but I remember that they were washed down with good old Scotch ale. After dinner I went out from the hotel on to the Street and had the thrill of my life; with my back to the hotel, I was face to face with my beloved Middle Ages. Princess Street, Edinburgh, runs along the edge of the deep and wide ravine that separates ILLUSION 185 the old town from the new. What I saw was the old town with its ancient buildings, shouldering each other up the hill-side; [ saw the castle with its flag flying, and was car- ried back to the days of Wallace and Bruce; I heard the pibroch, its weird music lamenting the dying day; I heard the cannon salute the setting sun; I saw the flag flutter down its stafl—my heart was ali aglow with joy; here was I home at last, in the land of my dreams. All through the long twilight, I walked up and down Princess Street, under the spell of the past. I repeated the lines, “Scots, wha hae wi’ Wallace bled.” I hid with Bruce in his cave and learned with him perseverance from the spider; I fought with him at Bannockburn and gave to Scotland its freedom. As the darkness closed in, I carried away with me to my bed the world of my imagination and I dreamed of it all the night long. I was at this time, though not conscious of it, in the last stage of medievalism; my early reading and thinking were still in control; I worshipped the Church as the embodi- ment of the medieval age; its priesthoods and its theolo- gies, its cathedrals and its worship were to me the out- ward manifestations in this world of the Kingdom of God. The next morning I went over to the Castle and saw it in the light of day; the glamour of night was dissipated; the soldiers were only men smoking their pipes; children were playing in the streets, and I was out once more in the modern world. I spent the day walking out to Arthur’s Seat, visiting Holyrood and suchlike places. The next morning I went on to Durham. CHAPTER XXXI DISILLUSION EAVING Edinburgh after breakfast, I reached Dur- ham in time for lunch, which I had at the Red Lion Inn. Throughout my visit in England I affected the old-fashioned inn rather than the modern hotel. My lunch at the Red Lion Inn was ‘“Dickensish.”” It con- sisted of bread and cheese and bitter. Thus refreshed, I made my way up the hill from which the cathedral looks down on the city. When I came near and my vision com- prehended this ancient building as a whole, I was conscious of a chill of disappointment. JI was not so much im- pressed by the beauty and the grandeur of the structure as by its bigness. I wondered what gargantuan god it was that sprawled his immensity in the wide spaces enclosed by this wilderness of stone. When I entered this house, my feeling of disappointment was tinged with anger; I was not permitted to wander at my will and study; I was met at the door by a verger who seized upon me, compelling me to see the cathedral, not with my own eyes, but with his. He insisted on showing me this chapel and that, built, not to the glory of any god, but to the glory of this bishop and that; he made me look at the vestments of the priests embroidered and bejewelled, for which I cared nothing. He took me into the chapel of the nine altars and showed me the relics of St. Cuthbert; I followed him into the library and looked at illuminated missals of the tenth century. All this sightseeing was to the accompaniment of the 186 DISILLUSION 187 ceaseless drivel of the guide; wearied and bored to distrac- tion, I gave him a ten-shilling piece and escaped. I wan- dered about and saw the bishop’s palace, the dean’s house, the snug homes of the canons, major and minor, and I saw the castle of the Lord. In a moment, as by a flash from the sky, I suffered an instant and complete disillusion; my medievalism shrivelled up and dropped from me as a burn- ing garment. I asked myself, ‘What has all this pride and pomp to do with the religion of Jesus of Nazareth?” By and by the bells chimed for evensong, and I went in and saw choir and clergy come out of the chantry and make procession up the church. I knelt down to worship and stood up to hear. ‘The performance from the artistic point of view was faultless; the singing of the canticles and the intonation of the prayers charmed the spirit into a quiet ecstasy; it was the perfection of sensuous devotion. When the Scriptures were duly read and the prayers were offered, the clergy and the choir returned to their robing- room, divested themselves of their sacred garments and went home to tea; fully convinced that they had been well employed in the service of God. I do not think it is pos- sible for anyone to have suffered so complete, and to me so disastrous, a change of view as came over me that after- noon. I looked at all these buildings and listened to this elaborate worship, not from the ecclesiastical, but from the economic angle of vision; it was a complete conver- sion. Being a poor man myself and having all my life carried the burdens of the poor, I could not help asking myself, “Who pays for all this?’ If God pays, where does God get the money? These buildings—cathedrals, castle, palace, clergy houses—must have cost a vast sum of labour in the past. Were the labourers of the past duly paid for their labour? The maintenance of these buildings must cost a vast sum of labour in the present; these bishops and clergy, these singers and vergers do not 188 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS serve God for naught; the bishops and the higher clergy are clothed in purple and fine linen and fare sumptuously every day; when at home, butlers and maids stand behind their chairs to serve them at table; there are cooks in their kitchens and grooms in their stables. When men speak to the bishop, they call him “My Lord.” So the reader may see that the English bishop is a costly prop- osition, and of these bishops the Bishop of Durham was among the most expensive. The See of Durham was long the richest bishopric in England; the total revenue of the dean and chapter during the seven years ending in 1834 was £36,937 ($184,685) a year. At the death of the reigning bishop in 1836, the income of his successors was fixed at £8,000 ($40,000) a year, a very tidy income even then. All this indicates the vast expense of these establish- ments to the people of England. ‘‘Who pays for it?” The next day I went on to York and encountered the same economic problem on a vaster scale. York Minster gives the impression of vastness beyond that of any of the English cathedrals; it is one of the greatest buildings in the world; it is said that Cromwell stabled his horses in the nave of this House of God. ‘To Cromwell’s way of thinking, this was no sacred enclosure; it was only empty space convenient to his cavalry. While visiting this min- ster, I was accidentally locked in the chapter house during the lunch hour. This was a circular building and part of the cathedral. ‘The ribs running from the roof of the room ended in grotesque human faces, eyes astare, nose twisted, chin and nose meeting, thumb in mouth drawing the face awry. It seemed as though the monkish carvers of these grotesques were making a mock of their own folly. When I considered that at the time these cathedrals were in building, the workers of England were living in wattle huts without chimneys, without windows, eating a morsel of bread to keep them alive, brutish in their igno- DISILLUSION 189 rance, foul in their clothing, my anger was kindled against these priests that built so magnificently for themselves and for their gods, leaving the people to perish in their poverty. As I went from cathedral to cathedral, seeing the same sight everywhere, gods and bishops living in splendour, lording it over a degraded people, I lost what little respect I had for bishops and no longer admired cathedrals. When I came at last to London, then my indignation passed the boiling-point. I visited the great cathedral of St. Paul’s and the Chapel, so called, of Westminster, and was present at their magnificent offices of worship; and then went out into the regions of Shoreditch and Mile End Road and saw thousands upon thousands of idle men lean- ing against the wall, hungry and hopeless; saw bedraggled women nursing children at empty breasts, the children themselves playing in the streets, having the faces of angels, which I knew would soon be transformed into the faces of these degraded men and women who had brought them into the world. At night I went out and saw other thousands sleeping in the parks and under the arches of the bridges, and I despaired of Christianity. I visited the then most celebrated preacher in England, Canon Liddon. In the course of my conversation with him, he had occasion to mention the difficulty that had arisen in regard to one of the palaces of the Bishop of London. I remarked, ‘Does the Bishop of London need a palace?’ With some surprise he answered, ‘Without a palace, the Bishop of London would lose his essential dignity.”” When I heard that, I had heard all that was necessary to account for the decadence of the Church of England. On the following Sunday I listened to an eloquent sermon delivered by the great Canon to a con- gregation which crowded St. Paul’s Cathedral, and, of all things in the world, he preached of the Virgin Mary! That was enough for me. I went to no more cathedrals. 190 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS I studied as well as I could some of the phases of the London poor; I went back to Edinburgh, paid a short visit to my friend, Donald Kennedy, and then returned to my country, my parish and my home, a wiser and a sadder man. CHAPTER XXXII A REVULSION OF FEELING 1) URING the early and middle periods of my ministry there was no day in the Christian year to which I looked forward more eagerly than to Good Friday. This day was a greater day to me than Christmas or Easter. The reason for this preference was that Good Friday offered me the opportunity for the exercise of my peculiar gift of meditation. There is in human history no series of events more dra- matic than the arrest, the trial, the conviction and the death of Jesus. The writers who have recorded these transactions for us were unconscious dramatists; simple men using simple language, they were story-tellers of the highest merit. The death of Jesus was more to them than the death of a man; it was the death of the Messiah; it was not to them a human, it was a cosmic event; the day that it happened was to these Galilean peasants a day of doom. When Jesus perished, the hopes and expectation of the Hebrews perished with Him. So charged are these narratives with terror and grief that they terrify us and break our hearts even to this day. So vivid is their story that we, their readers, are with them as the tragedy un- folds itself before their eyes. We sit with them at the Last Supper; we go forth with them into the dark and chill of the night; we walk with them out of the gates of the city and up the hill to the Garden of Gethsemane. There we stand and watch while the Master withdraws to enter into His agony; we are struck with terror as the 191 192 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS soldiers come and lay hold of the Master and take Him away. With Peter we follow afar off, hide ourselves with the servants in the Hall of Caiaphas and deny the Master. With Peter we hear the cock crow and go out and weep. In the grey of the morning we press forward with the crowd that surges after Jesus as He is taken from the Hall of Caiaphas to the Roman Pretorium. We see Pilate washing his hands; we see Jesus scourged and crowned with thorns; we go after Jesus as He passes out of the gate of the city and up the Mount of Calvary. We see Jesus nailed to the Cross, and, sitting down, we watch Him there. At the ninth hour we shudder at the cry of despair that rends the air; the cry of Eli Eli Lama Sabacthani: ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” And then with Peter we turn and flee away into Galilee. Since the world began, millions and millions of men have perished by violence in agony of soul and none of them is remembered as this man, because none of them has had such story-tellers to tell his story as this man had. In my early ministry I looked forward to the coming of this day as one might look forward to the coming of Booth in ‘‘Hamlet.”’ On that day we set our house in order as if there were someone dead in the house. The closed shutters shut out the light of the day. The chil- dren were confined to the nursery; no food was cooked that day. The lights on the altar were taken away and the Cross on the altar was veiled in black. We had what is called the dry communion, no bread was broken, no wine was blessed. When Death himself was present we needed no symbol of death. When the sixth hour came, according to the ancient reckoning, the people came and filled the church. The acolytes came in bearing the crape-veiled cross. There was no singing, only the organ played softly in the minor key. Then I, the minister, came in and, sitting in a chair A REVULSION OF FEELING 193 on the topmost step of the chancel, gave seven meditations on the seven sayings from the Cross. After each medita- tion there was silence for a space, with the organ sobbing softly as mourners at a funeral. So it went on year after year. We looked forward to it with eagerness. On every Good Friday we indulged ourselves in the luxury of grief. As soon as the sun set on Good Friday, we were as people coming home from a funeral: ‘The shutters were opened to the light of day; the children were released from the nursery; the table was laid for dinner and life went on as usual. The Saturday after Good Friday was a busy day preparing for Easter. Easter came with the church thronged; the women in their new frocks and spring bon- nets, the men in garments fresh from the tailor. After His brief life on earth and His three hours of mortal agony, the Lord had risen indeed and had entered into His eternal glory. As I came to the middle period of life, this system of worship began to pall upon me. Good Friday came but the emotions of Good Friday did not come with it. I did not know why, but my heart was cold to the suffer- ings and the death of Jesus. I had ceased to believe, with- out knowing it, that these sufferings and death had any relation to my daily life. I could no longer think that Jesus by His agony in the Garden and His death on the Cross had appeased for me the wrath of God. That wrathful God no longer had a place in my thoughts. The story of the Garden of Eden and the Fall of Man had resolved itself into an ancient myth. ‘The sufferings and the death of Jesus were no longer isolated from the suffer- ings and the death of mankind. He was but one among the millions who have suffered pain and death since the world began. While I was indulging myself in the luxury of grief over One who had died more than two thousand years ago, I was callous to the sufferings and the dyings IQ4. THE LAST OF THE HERETICS which were going on all around me. While Jesus suffered agony for three hours upon the Cross, I have known men and women who have suffered for twice as many years. As I write these lines I am thinking of a woman who for seven years has never known an hour without pain: pain that has twisted her limbs out of shape. Day and night, waking and sleeping, pain is always with her. She prays to die and she cannot die. What has this woman done that she should suffer to this extremity? Nothing but to be a good woman, a faithful wife and a loving mother. What are the six hours of Jesus on the Cross to the seven years of agony of this woman? In the presence of this awful fact I refuse any longer to concern myself with what happened on Calvary two thousand years ago. I can only bemoan my wasted years that leave me helpless in the presence of this horror. I can only go and sit for a few minutes at the bedside of this woman, and by smoothing her hair and holding her hand and reading to her in a low voice from the poems of Oscar Wilde, beguile her for a few moments from the consciousness of her pain. There never was a sadder man than I when the clerical scales fell from my eyes and I saw the world just as it is, a world of sin, sickness, sorrow and death: a world of war, pestilence and famine, just as it was before Jesus died; just as it will be until men cease to worship Jesus as a God and begin to care for one another as He cared for the sinful, the sick and the sorrowing while He was yet alive. CHAPTER XXXIII A STARTLING DISCOVERY N the year 1898, the year of the Spanish-American War —a war in which decadent Spain brought about the decadence of the Republic of the United States, chang- ing the character of the democratic Republic of Washing- ton and Lincoln to the imperial Republic of McKinley and Roosevelt; in the summer of this fatal year, while the war was still in progress, I was invited to occupy the chair of dogmatic theology in a summer school which was organ- ized by the Canadian clergy and was in session during the months of July and August. The location of this temporary seat of learning was the lake region of Southern Ontario, in the vicinity of Peterborough; than which there can be no more charming spot in the world for the wearied parson to renew his strength and refresh his soul. In all there were about fifty clergymen as scholars in the school. Herbert Symonds, dean of the Cathedral of Montreal, was there with a con- tingent of the clergy from the Province of Quebec. Pro- fessor Clark, of the Theological Seminary of ‘Toronto, came with a following from the Province of Ontario and there were a few men from the States, including Charles H. Brent, the present distinguished and beloved Bishop of Western New York, himself a Canadian. The order of the day was to rise at six in the morning, attend the cele- bration of the eucharist, then to breakfast, and after break- fast the morning walk; the school was in session from nine to one. ‘There were classes in history, dogmatics, 195 196 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS exegesis of the Old and New Testaments, liturgiology, pastoral care and the like. As stated above, I occupied the chair of dogmatics. I had as my pupils not raw youth from the schools, but mature men, holding high positions in the Church. It was to such men as Dean Symonds and Professor Clark that I was daring to unravel the ravelled skein of Christian dogma. ‘This dogma was the product of centuries of controversy. The doctrine of the Trinity, before it was established, had torn to fragments the seam- less robe of Christian charity, so that the saying of the pagans, ‘‘See how these Christians love one another,” was changed to the sneer, ‘‘See how these Christians hate one another.” ‘[he doctrine of grace, formulated by the genius of Augustine of Hippo, remained an undigestible mass in the system of the Church until it produced the burning fevers of the reformation period, caused the dis- ruption of Protestantism and came to its hard, cold for- malism in the doctrine of Calvin. Already the modern historical critic was undermining the foundations of the whole dogmatic system, and science was displacing dogma as the explanation of the universe. And who was I that I should presume to reconcile the contradictions of Christian dogma and arrest the process of its decay? In order to make reasonable the unreasonable, I used the Butlerian method of analogy. In illustration of the dogma of the Trinity I cited the age-long analogy of the father, the mother and the child. The father is one; but as long as he is in this isolated unity he is barren. It is not until his unity is merged with the unity of the woman and these two become one that the third member of the Trinity emerges from the union of the two; this is the eternal triad. I instanced also the triangle as the union of three in one. When I came to the explanation of the doctrine of grace I used the analogy, the air and the lung. Theologians speak of the grace of God, which A STARTLING DISCOVERY 197 is the power of God, as prevenient grace and sacramental grace. Grace that goes before and grace that follows after. Thus, before a man can breathe the air, the air must be there to breathe: ‘The air is always there waiting on life; but before a man can appropriate the air, he must have a breathing-apparatus, and his lungs are that device; they take in the air and transform it into blood. The air goes before and follows after the act of breathing. This is an analogy of the theological doctrine of grace, preven- lent and sacramental. When it came to the doctrine of the Incarnation, I used the analogy of the thought and brain. The thought is purely spiritual; it has neither form nor colour; neither length, breadth nor thickness; it is soundless. It is not until this spiritual essence incarnates itself in the fleshly matter of the brain that it can make itself known and do its work in the universe of sight and sound. During all these mornings, as I was speaking from my chair, I noticed that Professor Clark was restless in his seat; he twisted and turned. I was fascinated by fear as I watched him. When I came to my explanation of the dogma of the Incarnation he could stand it no longer; he rose to his feet, his face red with anger, and said, ‘‘Gentle- men, I can no longer sit still and listen to such teaching as we have been obliged to hear from the chair of dog- matics.” Of course, I was taken aback as any teacher would be if a scholar were to rise up and challenge his teaching. In an ordinary school the teacher could send this audacious scholar to the dark room and ferule him after school; but I could not do this to a grave professor of theology who was my senior by ten years. I was flabbergasted. I could see all the members of the class grinning at me. So I meekly said, “I’m sorry, Professor. What’s wrong with my teaching?” 198 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS ‘“What’s wrong? what’s wrong?” he cried, anger ring- ing in his voice and flashing from his eyes; ‘‘what’s wrong? It’s all wrong!” ‘Professor, pardon my ignorance, but just what is wrong?” “Tt’s all wrong, all wrong; you are not basing your dogma on the infallible authority of the Church, but on your own fallible reason. Iwas told that you were a High- Churchman, a ritualist, but you are not a High-Churchman, you are not a ritualist; you are a rationalist. You are rationalizing theology.” At this I could hear all my class snicker and I was red with shame; and I said, my voice charged with fear and anger, ‘I beg pardon, Professor; but if the human brain must appropriate Christian dogma, must not the human mind explain it?” “Sir,” he cried, ‘“‘such teaching as yours has no place in the Church! You are worse than a Ritschlian.”’ Now all the class roared with laughter; but I could not laugh. I was alarmed: I had never heard of a Ritschlian before; I did not know the beast. I humbled myself before my ignorance and I said, “I beg pardon, Professor, but what is a Ritschlian? I never heard of it before’; and all the class rocked in its seats and roared with laughter. alte etre ’’ cried the raging professor. “Do you mean to tell me that you sit in that chair of dogmatic theology and do not know what a Ritschlian is, and call him ‘it’ ?” “I’m awfully sorry, Professor; I know I have no right to sit in this seat and to dare to instruct such wisdom as yours. Won't you pardon me and pity my ignorance and tell me what a Ritschlian is?’ And all the class stamped its feet and shouted with glee, and the professor went away in a rage. I offered then and there to resign my chair of A STARTLING DISCOVERY 199 dogmatic theology but the class would not have it so, and they pushed me back in my seat, saying of all the profes- sors they had ever had I was the most amusing, and an amusing professor was too rare a bird to be killed. I will not say that this description is an exact reproduction of this scene, but it is as it reproduces itself in my memory. And now, dear reader, what is a Ritschlian? It is not, as I feared, some antediluvian dragon with wings and claws; it was only a new species of Christian heretic. It seems that on the 21st of March, 1822, in the town of Breslau there was born to one Papa Ritschl and to one Mama Ritschl a man-child and they called his name Albrecht. And Albrecht grew up as German men-children will until he came to man’s estate. In the process of grow- ing up, this German man-child was sent to the Real-school, the Gymnasium and the University. In the University this Albrecht specialized in theology, and, running true to type, he became a man of vast theological learning; he mastered all the theologies of all the theologians, and, like the true German that he was, he could find none to his mind and must needs make a theology of his own and upon that the- ology found a school. And it seems that I, without even so much as having heard his name, was a member of his school; I was a Ritschlian. These were hard lines: To this day I have not so much as seen one of his books, nor read a line therein. All that I-know of Ritschl I have got- ten from an article in the “Encyclopedia Britannica,” and this is what I read: ‘His [ Ritschl’s] limitation of The- ological knowledge to the bounds of human need might, if logically pressed run perilously near to phenomenalism, and his Epistomology [we only know things in their activities | does not cover this weakness. In seeking ultimate reality in the circle of active consciousness, he rules out all meta- physic [Thank God for Ritschl!], indeed much that is a part of normal Christian faith, i.e., the Eternity of the 200 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS Son is passed over as beyond the range of Method.” (“Encyclopedia Britannica,’ Vol. XXII, tenth edition, page 248). After reading this account of Ritschlianism I made the startling discovery that I was a Ritschlian. Like this learned German I had come to think that all the theology of worth to man was theology brought down to human need. Whether Jesus were the Eternal Son of God or not was of no consequence; it was the human Jesus, with His human insight into human life, that mattered. Thus it came to pass that I, who in my callow youth had despised rational- ism, had all along been myself a rationalist. And of this the ritualistic school in the Church was always suspicious; it never trusted me. But to this day I cannot see why a rationalist may not also be a ritualist. Is not the master mind of the universe both rational and ritualistic? Does it not order the movement of the earth in its annual jour- ney round the sun according to the strictest law of reason? Is it not all mathematical, a matter of weight and line, of square and distance, and yet is not this rationalism the cause of the most wonderfully beautiful ritualism? Does it not give us the ritual of the rising and the setting of the sun and the ritual of the rotation of the seasons? Because of this I have come to think of the war between the rationalist and ritualist within the Church as a useless war; wasteful of spiritual energy; destructive of Christian charity. CHAPTER XXXIV THE RATIONALIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY HEN I reached the middle period of my ministry, W I came to have a depressing sense of the failure, not only of my own ministry, but also of the ministry of the Christian Church as a whole. I gave ex- pression to this depression in a sermon which I preached in the Third Presbyterian Church in the city of Rochester. My preaching in this church was a breach of church dis- cipline and significant of the fact that I was no longer a High-Churchman, holding that the Episcopal Church was the only church, the Episcopal ministry the only ministry of Christ in the city of Rochester. I was beginning to blush in my heart that I had ever held so presumptuous, so absurd a position. But this is the position held, practi- cally, to this day by the clergy of the Episcopal Church. They will fellowship neither with the ancient Catholic Church nor with the modern Protestant denominations: They look upon the Catholic Church as hopelessly corrupt and the Protestant denominations as schismatical and heretical. When it came to the ears of my bishop that I was pur- posing to preach in a Presbyterian church, he made post- haste to my rectory to forbid such profanation of my min- istry. But I told the bishop that the Third Presbyterian Church was within the confines of my parish and if these, my parishioners, were in the darkness of error it was my duty to dispel that darkness by the light of truth. I did not convince my bishop, but I preached my sermon in spite of his command forbidding such action, 201 202 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS I chose as my text the passage written in the ninth chap- ter of the Gospel according to Matthew at the 36th verse —‘‘But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them because they fainted and were scat- tered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.” In my sermon I called attention to the fact that when Jesus uttered this complaint there was in all Jewry, in Palestine and in every land where the Jews were scattered abroad, a vast and elaborate machinery for doing the very work which Jesus said was so sadly neglected. In Jeru- salem there was the Temple of Jehovah with its attendant priests and Levites offering the morning and evening sacri- fice; while in Jerusalem itself, and in every city of the Gentiles where the Jews were resident, there were syna- gogues with their rabbis and their rulers to shepherd the people of God. But when Jesus came He found all this elaborate machin- ery a failure. In the Temple the priests and the Levites were enriching themselves and their friends by the sale of lambs and doves, at exorbitant prices, to the worshippers of Jehovah who came from far to sacrifice at the altar of their God; and the money-changers were asking high profit for the shekel of the Temple. Because of all this, Jesus said to these priests, Levites and money-changers, “It is written my House shall be called the House of Prayer but ye have made it a den of thieves.”’ In the synagogues the rabbis, the scribes and the lawyers were not teaching the people the way of love and truth and peace, but were sitting in the high places of the syna- gogue, well fed and richly clothed, lording it over the people and wrangling with one another as to which was the greatest commandment of the law. Then I made the assertion that the Christian Church, in all its branches, was open to the censure of Jesus far more than the Temple and the Synagogue of His time. THE RATIONALIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY 203 While the Catholic Church was keeping the people entranced by a beautiful and sensuous worship—holding them in subjection by the fear of a literal purgatory of fire, out of which their beloved dead could only be de- livered by the sacrifice of the mass, for which a goodly price in coin was demanded—the Protestants were divid- ing and subdividing into little quarrelling sects, leaving the people a prey to the wolves of the business world. I said the vast, organized costly machinery of religion in the modern world was producing no adequate result. The Episcopal Church was, in fact, ministering to the rich and leaving the poor to perish in ignorance and poverty, and in this respect the Presbyterians were hardly second to the Episcopalians: The expensive churches of these denominations, with their high-salaried clergy and expensive choirs, lined the uptown avenues while they had only shabby chapels, if anything, in the poverty-stricken regions of the East Side. In fact, I declared that this whole vast machinery of Christianity in the Western world had broken down and was wearing itself out by friction, not grinding out the flour wherewith to make the bread of life, but only its own rust to poison the souls of men. The main reason for this failure of Christianity, es- pecially of Protestant Christianity, in my judgment, was the rationalization of the religion of Jesus—changing it from a mode of life into a form of doctrine. This process of rationalization began when the religion of Jesus, leav- ing its native heath of Galilee, entered the Greek-Roman world and was adapted to the uses of that world by the philosophers of Greece and the Roman lawyers. These men were won to the religion of Jesus by the purity of its life and the equality of its membership, adopt- ing with ardour its teachings of communism and pacifism, becoming its saints and its martyrs. They were, however, not content to leave it as they found it, but must forsooth 204 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS recast it in the forms of Greek rationalism and Roman legalism. The Greek philosopher could not embrace the Galilean creed in its simplicity, but must explain that creed by the reasoning of the Greek dialectic, and so began that process of rationalizing the religion of Jesus until it ceased to be a religion and became a theology. This theologizing eventuated in the great conflict of the fourth century be- tween Arius the champion of primitive Christianity, and Athanasius, the champion of dogmatism, which ended in the destruction of the primitive communistic, pacifistic Church and the establishment of the rationalistic, impe- rialistic Catholic Church. And in that victory the Church and the world were made friends together and they have, in the main, been friends ever since. In the primitive age the scene of the triumph of Christ and His Church was to be on this earth. In the fullness of time Jesus was to return, descending even as He had ascended: he was to put down the mighty from their seat and exalt the humble and meek; He was to fill the hungry with good things and send the rich empty away. It was this hope that buoyed up the heart of the followers of Jesus for four hundred years; it is this hope that has lin- gered on, growing ever more and more feeble until now it has ceased to have any power over the mind and heart of mankind and man is supposed to pass at once from death to judgment, his fate to be determined not primarily by his moral character, but by his theological belief, and as the- ological belief decays, spiritual life decays with it. In the present capitalistic, militaristic age the teachings of Jesus can find no place, and the Christian Church, cut off from its rootage, is not only dying: it is dead. CHAPTER XXXV THE RITUALIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY religion of Jesus had suffered from the rationalizing process, to which it had been subjected by the Grecian philosophers, it had met with a greater disaster by its ritualization at the hands of the Roman lawyers. Religion in Italy had from the earliest period been an external religion. The Roman people were not gifted as were the Athenians with the power of ratiocination; they were not poetic nor philosophic; they were always prac- tical. Walter Pater says of their religion that it was not something to believe, nor yet something to be loved: it was something to be done at a certain time, in a certain place, in a certain way. The power of the Roman Church lies not in its creed, nor even in its worship properly so called, but in its ritual: it is by means of its ritual that it main- tains its ascendancy over its people. ‘These people are taught from their earliest years that their salvation depends upon their strict observance of the ritual of the Church. From the first the Roman Church has been a legalistic, ritualistic organization. This Church had little or nothing to do with the development and formulation of Christian doctrine; it received its theology ready-made from the East. The communistic-pacifistic way of life was also of Eastern origin. The Christian society in Rome at the first was not Roman but Jewish. It is to the Jews that the Christian Church owes, primarily, its communistic and pacifistic principles: these principles were laid down by the 205 | WENT on in my sermon to say that grievously as the 206 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS great Hebrew prophets, Isaiah, Amos and Micah. ‘They were made fundamental by Jesus in His doctrine of the Kingdom of God. ‘The Christian society for the first four hundred years of its existence was true to these funda- mental teachings. The practical genius of Rome gave such efficiency to this mode of life that the Christian com- munity, in time, became so rich and powerful that it com- pelled the submission of the Empire to the Church. After this ascendancy of the Church its ministry became a priesthood and its ritual a law. From this period dates the domination of the priesthood over the people in the Roman Church. Never was there a more ingenuous sys- tem of tyranny invented by man. Salvation from eternal death was made to depend upon the observance of the ritual, and the ritual covered every essential of human life; it was necessary at the baptism of the new-born child and was essential at the burial of the dead: a child dying with- out baptism suffered eternal loss of the presence of God; an unblessed grave was the prey of devils. It was by means of the ritual that the priesthood kept mankind at a standstill for a thousand years. The cathedrals were the creation of the ritual for its proper and stately perform- ance. Attendance on the mass in the churches was obligatory. Certain prayers said before a certain shrine had special eficacy. Certain words said in a certain way were a safeguard against the chill and fever. This ritualistic system put in the hands of the priests and the Pope a power over the people such as was not wielded by the Magistrate or the King. The Magistrate could send a man to prison; the King could send him to the block; but these punishments were temporal, while the priests and the Pope held in their hands not only the keys of the dungeon and of death, but also the keys of purgatory and of hell. ‘The priests by the act of excommunication could deprive a man of all the benefits and blessings of the THE RITUALIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY 207 ritual; the Pope by the interdict could desolate a nation. We of to-day can have no adequate conception of the times when the ritual ruled the world. It is still potent in the Catholic Church and it lingers out its dying life in the Protestant bodies. We still baptize our children and call on the ministers to bury our dead. In the second decade of the nineteenth century, just after the close of the Napoleonic wars, there was a great revival of the ritual in Western Europe. The Catholic Church furbished its rusty armour. lLecordaire roused in France an enthusiasm for Neo-Catholicism, while Keble, Newman, and Pusey attempted the catholicizing of the English Church. Enthusiastic young men and women were carried backward by this reactionary movement into the Middle Ages. Long-lost ritual was revived in the churches and Gothic architecture was used in the restoration of the old and in the building of new churches. The vital questions in those stirring times among the clergy were not concerned with doctrine nor conduct; they were questions of ritual. It was just at this time that England and the Western world were entering upon the industrial era: when men and women and children were working twelve hours a day, under conditions destructive of decency and life, in the factories and the mines, while the English clergy were so enmeshed in their ritualistic revival that they could not see, much less remedy, these growing evils. Ritualistic precision was carried to such a degree that a woman might with more safety commit a breach of the seventh Command- ment than a clergyman omit a prescription of the ritual. In this Catholic movement Christianity ceased more and more to be a way of life and degenerated into a ceremonial form. When I preached this sermon I naturally became in the eyes of my High Church brethren a traitor to my party. CHAPTER XXXVI THE SOCIALIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY A s from my place in the pulpit I looked on the up- turned faces of the people who crowded the pews of the Third Presbyterian Church on the occasion of my preaching, I was conscious of that elation which comes to every preacher in the presence of his audience. ‘There is in this elation not only an exalted sense of power, but also a sinful feeling of personal pride; my heart swelled with the vain thought that all these people had come to church to hear me preach. This is the besetting sin of the preacher which, unless he can lose it in the flow of his thought and the fervour of his preaching, ruins him as a preacher. A self-conscious preacher is a failure in the pulpit, and this is a disaster which neither the minister nor the church can long survive. In the Catholic Church the altar is the heart of the life of the church. When the priest is at the altar, God is in his hands and all the people are drawn to the altar by the presence of God. In the Protestant Church it is the preacher in his pulpit who proclaims that power of God which 1s the salvation of the world. ‘There can be no more august office than this to employ the energies of man; it is either profane as- sumption or divine audacity which permits a man to stand before his fellow men and say, ‘‘Thus saith the Lord.” A speaker to be effective must speak in the tongue of his hearers: If the language is foreign to the thought of the people the preaching is but as sounding brass and tinkling cymbal, a noise and not a word. As I looked down 208 THE SOCIALIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY 209 on my congregation, it was my desire to tell them of the Lord Jesus and of His religion; to do this I must use words which came within their comprehension. It is my custom in preaching to pick out one man in the congrega- tion and watch his face and attitude as a gauge of the power of my speech to reach the heart and stir the mind of my congregation. On this night in the Third Presbyterian Church there was in the line of my vision a lawyer of high standing in his profession because of his native ability and great learn- ing. As I watched the face of this man I saw in it atten- tion, but not comprehension: he heard but he did not understand. ‘The reason for this—as I know too well— was that he did not understand the language of the Chris- tian Church: this language was evolved to describe the facts and express the thought of the Christian life. But this life was no longer lived; it was in all its essential as foreign to the modern world as the life of the man in the moon. Let us take one of the fundamental words of Christianity—the word “charity,” so nobly described by Paul in I Corinthians, xiii. When we hear the word “charity” it does not attract, it repels us. To be an object of charity is to suffer the last shame and degradation that can befall us: we think of asylums for old men and, as one New York institution has it, “homes for decayed gentlewomen.” ‘‘Charity,’’ in its modern significance, is a divisive word; it separates the rich from the poor: the rich bestow, the poor receive, charity. When a preacher uses the word ‘“‘charity” he calls up the vision of poor old Betsy curtsying to my Lady Bountiful, who brings her flannel and soup from the Great House. But in the language of Christianity the word “charity” has an entirely different meaning; it is not a divisive, it is a uniting word: it does not separate the Christian com- munity into the rich and the poor, the high and the low, 210 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS but it unites them; it levels up and it levels down; it puts down the mighty from their seat and exalts the humble and meek. As Isaiah taught the Kings of Israel, the State exists for the sake of its weakest members. ‘The sublimest forces of the household gather about the cradle and the sick-bed. Every member of the household has the right to his seat at the family table. And there is the corollary principle that everyone who eats at the table must, accord- ing to his ability, furnish the table. “There must be in the Christian community no idle rich, no overworked poor. Now, all this is so foreign to our modern, so-called Christian civilization that it is set down as criminal; he who preaches it is a fool and a madman. And this was the doctrine which I was trying to preach to the learned lawyer. I was insisting that Christianity was not prima- rily a doctrine nor a ritual; it was a social order. And a social order cannot be orderly as long as it is composed of conflicting elements. Slavery is fatal to the social order be- cause of the necessary conflict between the master and the slave. Poverty and riches cannot live in peace together. The arrogance of the rich will for ever excite the envious hatred of the poor—landlordism and tenancy make posses- sion of the land an ugly bone of contention. That great Master of social science, Jesus of Nazareth, saw this truth with the clear vision of His prophetic soul. He saw that human society must be a society of equals. Each man must have his place in that social order as his right; each man must have his work in that social order as his duty. ‘There must be political equality. A society divided into classes of rulers and subjects, nobles and serfs, producers and consumers, cannot bring peace to mankind; the struggle of these classes has been the tragedy of the world. As I preached this doctrine from the pulpit of the Third Presbyterian Church, I could see by his face that it was entirely beyond the comprehension of the lawyer THE SOCIALIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY 201 in his pew. His mind was not scientific; it was legalistic; his thought was governed, not by the eternal laws of God, but by the passing laws of men. And so it was with that great congregation. The almost unanimous verdict passed upon the sermon was that it was not practical. Poverty was practical, crime was practical, starvation was practical, extravagance and waste were practical, the arrogance of the rich and the cringing of the poor were practical: The Devil was a very practical gentleman, and Hell had all the requirements of a popular social resort. But economic comfort for all was not practical; forgiveness for sins was not practical; sobriety and continence were not practical. Equality of economic condition was not practical; God was a failure and heaven an illusion. Such, I was made to feel, was the judgment of my hearers upon my sermon. We were not living in the same country nor speaking the same language. Religion to them was the lip-service of God. Religion to me was the hand-service of man. Religion to them was a privilege. Religion to me was a responsibility; not that I was better or wiser than they, but I had been in a country which they had never visited, and had learned a language which was to them an unknown tongue. So far as I know, only one man was able to comprehend my message, and he told me that it was to him as if the roof of the church were lifted away and he saw the sun in the sky with all the planets moving each in its order about this centre of light and heat, the sun serving the planets and the planets holding the sun in its place. ‘This man became my friend and my disciple; held up my hands in the day of my battle and gave me and mine a roof to cover us when we were exiled from our home in the Church. CHAPTER XXXVII A DECADENT CHRISTENDOM i the summer of 1896, through the kindness of my parishioners, I went abroad and made the “grand tour” of Europe. The voyage over was very delight- ful; I had become a hardened sailor and every hour upon the sea was a joy to my soul. I reached Antwerp in safety after a ten days’ sail. Nothing was more charming in all my journey through Europe than the passage up the Scheldt; here the shores are lower than the river, which is diked to keep the waters from flooding the land. It is not my purpose to give a detailed account of my visit to the various cities of Europe (my time was spent chiefly in the cities), but only to re- marked those things which I saw that do not come under the purview of the ordinary traveller. Everyone sees not only with his own eyes, but also with his own mind. He interprets what comes within the range of his vision by his previous thoughts. Antwerp was interesting to me be- cause it was the first Catholic city which I had ever visited. I went to the cathedral and was charmed and excited by its architecture and by Rubens’ “Descent from the Cross.” I spent hours sitting in that building and meditating upon that picture. I also went to other churches, and every- where I saw that the people were very devout. The women thronged the various places of worship, bringing their votive candles and placing them before the various saints. I perceived that the Catholic Church was still in its medi- eval period in this Belgian city; modern thought had not 212 A DECADENT CHRISTENDOM 213 disturbed the minds of these simple Belgian peasants. The Protestant Reformation had swept over the land and left it more Catholic than it was before. I was able to study me- dizvalism at first hand in this city. Among other things, I saw in all the churches a box for alms, which was labelled: ‘For your friends in purgatory’’; and the people were con- tinually dropping money into these boxes. “They must have been a source of considerable revenue to the Church. This troubled me sorely; it presented a problem which I could not solve. Purgatory is a place in which the souls of men suffer purification from their earthly sins. They are obliged to stay there until the justice of God is satisfied; it would seem, then, that all human effort to relieve them from their sad state were vain. The justice of God in the nature of things cannot be purchased with money. ‘The doctrine of Indulgences had ruined the Church in the fifteenth century; it was because of this doctrine that Luther thundered and the great Catholic Church was dis- rupted, but the older portion of that Church still clung tenaciously to the ancient custom; it was too profitable to be abandoned. The poor of Catholic countries were still paying millions into the coffers of the Church to buy the pardon of their suffering relatives; it was not until the pontificate of Pius X that this pernicious custom was finally abandoned. I dwell upon this first experience in Catholic Europe because it is the underlying cause of the two great evils that have destroyed Western civilization. I will now carry my reader, as it were, by aeroplane from Antwerp to Naples. When I came to this city, I had, as a tourist, to make the visit to Mt. Vesuvius, which was then in eruption; that visit is always made in the night. By the time that I had come near the crater, I was so overcome that I did not dare to look down very long into the burning mass below, but returned almost immediately to the hotel on 214 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS the mountain, where we spent the night. In the grey of the morning, we returned by stage to Naples, and then I experienced a shock which affected decidedly my attitude toward the Church. Italy and especially Southern Italy, is crowded with churches, overrun with priests and nuns. There is a long street running from the foot of Vesuvius to the heart of the city. As we went through the streets, I saw the people preparing for the coming day; they were the poverty-stricken population of the country; they were out there in the open and mothers were cleaning lice out of the hair of their children. They were washing their rags and putting them on. ‘They had no sense of shame; the dignity of human nature was lost to them; never had so repulsive a sight sickened my soul, and I said to myself, if one tithe of the money that is spent to maintain the mul- titude of churches that throng the land and to support the multitude of priests and nuns that live upon the churches, were spent in the physical redemption of these people, this disgrace would never afflict the eye of the traveller who came to delight his soul in the marvellous beauty with which the great God had clothed the Italian land. I perceived at once that this poverty was the product of superstition. From Naples we will fly to London, and we will not visit any of the usual places that are the haunt of the tourist. We will simply go to Piccadilly Circus and walk the streets of that vicinity and we will see a sight that will make the bitter tears flow from our hearts, if not from our eyes. Piccadilly Circus, after eight o’clock at night, is Lon- don’s open market in the traffic in women. There women by the hundreds offer themselves for sale, and there men by the hundreds buy them. ‘The scene, itself, is not obnox- ious; the women are well dressed; to look at them you would suppose that they were of good quality. It is only when you are aware of what is going on that you class them where they belong. Nowhere in the world is that traffic so A DECADENT CHRISTENDOM 215 open and unashamed as it was in the region of Piccadilly and Regent Street, in the year 1896. ‘The prostitution of woman was as much a part of the life of the city of London as the buying and selling of cotton goods. We will now take our plane and fly to Edinburgh and we will be the guests of my dear friend Donald Kennedy, and the reader is very fortunate to be the guest of so de- lightful a host, and hostess; he will have to be an iron man as to energy and strong-headed as to sobriety, for the Scotch are hard workers and drinkers and eaters. The hospitality begins at breakfast, which is none of your little Continental breakfasts of coffee and rolls, but a substantial meal of cold joints, toast, eggs and marmalade and such coffee as is never tasted on this side of the water. After breakfast your host and hostess carry you away to some of the interesting sights that make Edinburgh the wonder- ful city that it is. About one o’clock you are home to luncheon; this again is a very substantial feast. After luncheon you take your siesta; then you go out with Don- ald to the golf links and spend the afternoon. You come home, go to your room, rest awhile and then are called to afternoon tea. You are at liberty to do as you please until it is time to dress for dinner. Being a clergyman, I was always dressed for dinner; that is one advantage of the clerical profession. And a Scotch dinner is a dinner! You have your soups, your fish and meat and entrée, your desserts and your wines, all of which is made more palat- able by the delightful conversation that leaves you not a moment to think of what you are eating and drinking, and so you are present at an intellectual rather than a material feast. If you are visiting of a Saturday night, perhaps Donald will say to you, if you are a clergyman, “I wish you would take off that uniform of yours and put on these Scotch tweeds.’”? Which you obediently do. Then Don- ald hands you a big stick and you go down with him 216 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS through the ravine and up the hill-side into the Old Town, till you come to the Haymarket and the Canongate, and there you see what will remain with you till the end of your days. On Saturday night all of the Old Town gives way to a debauch; that night I saw at least ten thousand men, women and children lying dead drunk in the streets. There was one lodging-house in which the men were so close together that we had to step on them to get through the room. A more appalling sight than this I have never seen; human degradation in that city of light, religious and secular, reached the lowest point possible for human nature. The next morning being the Sabbath day, you and Don- ald will, of course, go to church and hear a sermon by some distinguished Protestant divine. In that sermon you will not hear the slightest allusion to the sinfulness which frightened you the night before. The minister will dis- course learnedly of some theological doctrine. At dinner you and Donald will discuss the problem presented to you by the drunkenness and degradation of Saturday night and the piety and respectability of Sunday morning, and you will conclude that there is no present solution of that prob- lem. Donald will say that it is the outcome of human nature; you will afirm that it is the product of social organization. I have given my reader no details of the “grand tour”; he has doubtless made that tour himself and has seen all the usual sights. What I saw was a society afflicted with a fatal disease; a disease manifesting itself in superstition, poverty, prostitution and drunkenness. I came away with the firm conviction that unless Christian civilization re- pented and applied a remedy for these evils, Christian civ- ilization was doomed, and in our day this doom has fallen upon it. CHAPTER XXXVIII A CHALLENGE TO THE CHURCHES HEN the “grand tour’ was over and I was home \) \ again face to face once more, not with the prob- lems of Europe, but with the sin and sorrow of my own land, the first thing I did was to clear up my desk. Among the matters awaiting my attention was an invita- tion from the Canadian Society of Christian Unity to address that society at their annual meeting which was to be held in the city of Toronto in the near future. My sub- ject was left to my own choosing, except that it was to deal with the problem of Christian Unity, to the securing of which this society was devoting its energies. The mem- bership of this association embraced Protestantism in all its varieties. Catholicism had its own remedy for a di- vided Christendom, which was submission to the Pope as the head of the Church. The Protestant bodies were not ready to accept this easy solution of the problem; nor was I. In the interval between my acceptance of this invitation and the meeting of the society, I gave to the subject severe study and intense thought. Calling to mind the prayer of Jesus on the night of His betrayal, as it is written in the Gospel of St. John, in the seventeenth chapter, where the Lord, after praying espe- cially for His disciples, with whom He was eating the Pass- over, said, ‘‘Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe in me through their word: That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in me and [ in Thee: That they also may be one inus: That the world 217 218 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS may believe that Thou has sent me’—I say, recalling this prayer and then beholding the wretched divisions of Chris- tendom, I was moved with compassion for the Lord and chose for the subject of my lecture: ‘The Disappoint- ment of Jesus Christ.” Contrary to my usual custom, this lecture was carefully written out and I read it in the ears of the people in the Lord’s House as Baruch the Scribe, in his day, read the word of the prophet Jeremiah in the ears of the people in the Lord’s House on the Fasting-Day, and my scripture had somewhat the same reception as that of the ancient prophet—it made too great a demand on the faith and love of the hearers! When I reached home I published this lecture as a tract, under its title, and sent it out to the press: It immediately attracted attention and roused discussion. The Ascension Parish Record describes it as follows: “THE DISAPPOINTMENT OF JESUS CHRIST “Under this title, the Rev. Algernon S. Crapsey, Rector of St. Andrew’s Church, Rochester, N.Y., has published a notable essay on the subject of Church Unity. The disappointment of our Lord Jesus Christ, Mr. Crapsey argues, 1s because His great prayer for the oneness of His chosen people has not been answered. ‘The condition of the world in our Lord’s time was one of discord and disunion. His plan was to unify men in God and in one another. ‘This plan was successful so far as the Early Church was concerned, and in the production of our historic Christian civilization. Yet in the Church itself, since the fourth century it has been attended with comparative failure by reason of divisions. Mr. Crapsey points as the causes of this failure in unity two false and inadequate theories of unification; first, that the unity of the Church centres in her own official organi- zation; second, that it centres in her own formal doctrine. ‘The rem- edy is to return to Jesus’ plan, and unify the Church in God and in humanity. “We commend this pamphlet (published by the author at twenty A CHALLENGE TO THE CHURCHES 219 cents per copy) to the careful perusal of all who can obtain it. If it does not elicit our agreement, it will at least provoke thought. We cannot refrain from extracting in full the Appendix, in which the lines along which the author looks for progress in unification are stated with unusual clearness and force. They are as follows: “First. The subordination of the official organization of the Church, from the highest to the lowest of its members to the Church itself, as practised in the Primitive Church, as decreed by the Western Church in the Council of Constance, and as affirmed by the principles of the Protestant Reformation. “Second. The pastoral rather than the priestly conception of the ministry. It is the office of the ministry to bring the people to God, rather than to be to the people instead of God. “Third. ‘The statement of Christian Doctrine so that it will be in accord with the facts of the visible universe, as these are discovered and formulated by the processes of inductive thought. The earth’s form and motion, man’s place in the earth, his past history and pres- ent condition, are matters for scientific investigation and settlement. “Fourth. ‘The statement of Christian Doctrine so that it will not conflict with the great primal instincts of the human heart; the in- stinct for justice, mercy and truth. No man will be compelled to believe such a doctrine as that of everlasting punishment as taught by St. Augustine in ‘The City of God,’ or the doctrine of predestination as taught in “The Institutes of Calvin.’ “Fifth. Absolute intellectual freedom within the Church, so that every opinion shall have a hearing, and be taken for what it is worth; to have the force of its author’s personal character, learning and wis- dom; and to establish itself by its own truthfulness or not at all. “Sixth. The submission of the entire content of Christian tradi- tion, both oral and written, to the trained intelligence, that the con- tent, meaning and value of the whole and of each part may be ascer- tained, correctly estimated and set forth. “That those things which are not shaken may remain.’ “Seventh. ‘The restoration of the Church’s moral discipline as the only true basis of her spiritual life.” The Reverend Percy Stickney Grant is the rector of the parish of the Church of the Ascension, New York. 220 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS The Literary Digest of December 16, 1899, carried the following comments: “An argument for church unity of unusual quality and compre- hensiveness comes from the Rev. Algernon S. Crapsey, Rector of a Protestant Episcopal Church in Rochester, N. Y., who has been iden- tified with a somewhat advanced school of Anglo-Catholicism. Fol- lowing the same lines as those laid down in an article quoted in these columns from the Outlook (See the Literary Digest, June 17), he holds that the coming century will witness a great unification of Christendom, but that it will not be doctrinal or ecclesiastical in its basis. Christ’s prayer was for the unity of all His followers, says Dr. Crapsey (in an address before the Canadian Society of Christian Unity at Toronto), and ‘the disappointment of our Lord Jesus Christ because His great prayer has not been answered, His own chosen peo- ple are not one,’ may well make us pause and think. Dr. Crapsey’s opinion of the present religious condition of the world is quite dif- ferent from that of Count Tolstoy. ‘The world is, in a certain true sense, Christian, he thinks: “The great fact of present history is the domination of Christendom over the rest of the world.’ ‘It is not the world over which our Lord is at the present moment grieving—with the world at large He has every reason to be satisfied; it is the Church which has disappointed Him.’ “The Church is no longer a centre of unity to the world because it has no unity in itself.’ “To-day the Christian religion seems to be the one disintegrating force in the world.’ The Evangelist (Presb., November 23) thus comments on Dr. Crapsey’s address: ‘“““These somewhat unexpected propositions are supported by a rather striking historic argument, in the course of which Mr. Crapsey shows that the disunion of Christendom is the outgrowth of two erro- neous assumptions: ‘That the Church’s unity centres in her own official organization, an error shared alike by Papal, Episcopal, and Presbyterian Churches, and that the unity of the Church centres in her own formal doctrine. The two theories are themselves harmo- nious and both have worked together to disintegrate the Church and to disappoint the Lord. ‘The second principle has, however, been far more disintegrating in its tendency than the first. ““*The historic argument is briefly this. In the first four Chris- A CHALLENGE TO THE CHURCHES 221 tian centuries the Church was really one; Christian unity was a fact because the main purpose of the Church was a moral purpose—to discipline life, to make men pure and just and kind. In this she succeeded marvellously; the moral renovation of society during these centuries is something beyond all else that the history of civilization has to show. But since that time “the main purpose of the Church has been to discipline intellect,’ and here again the disintegrating process; the unity of the Church was gone. “ “Tt would be too long to follow Mr. Crapsey through his study of the progress of the attempt to discipline the human intellect through the ever more and more precise formulation of doctrine,. and of the revolt of the intellect against this discipline. “That revolt has been successful since the Renaissance in the realm of art and letters, and since the dawn of science in the realm of physical fact. There still remains that realm of thought which has to do with man’s rela- tion to God and to the world to come, and here the official organiza- tion of the Church, whatever its form or name, is still dominant, and here, therefore, the revolt is still active. ‘Iwo consequences follow. A certain number of men question, and the official organization con- demns them and casts them out; the vast unthinking mass do not question, and to them the statements are as dead letters, they are re- ceived but they are not assimilated.” Up to this time the reply of the Church to this revolt has been a new attempt to control the intellect, by a more elaborate and accurate definition of the articles of faith.’ “The Evangelist remarks that this thought has much suggestiveness for Presbyterians, whose General Assembly has twice within a few years restated and more closely defined the doctrines of Presbyterian- ism, yet ‘its tendency was just so far divisive as its statements were more precise or more sweeping than the creed it professed to interpret.’ The Evangelist continues: “ “But though there is no hope of centring the Church in her own intellectual statements, there is still a hope of the unity of the Church in a love of truth and in a realization of God. (Already there is a great unity in which all Christians are one. It is a “union in God.”’) To this unity two elements must co-operate: ‘‘Absolute intellectual freedom within the Church” and “the restoration of the Church’s moral discipline as the only true basis of her spiritual life.” ‘“‘*How this moral discipline is to be exercised Mr. Crapsey does 222 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS not say, but he would doubtless refer us to the example of the early Church for his reply. It was the flashing of moral light into the human soul that drove out moral darkness, and with this went the stern refusal to fellowship with those who were not in fellowship with Christ in pure and honest and upright living. “ “Tt would be difficult to imagine what Christendom would be like if a great zeal of morality of life should suddenly displace the present zeal for conformity to doctrinal standards; whereof no man should be called to suffer for his opinions, but every man should be held to strict account for his conduct; if the right to investigate, to ascertain and correctly estimate ‘‘the entire content of Christian tradition, both oral and written,” should be recognized, but no man of dubious mor- als or of questionable integrity should be reckoned a brother. Society would be as much transformed as it was in the early centuries when the Christian religion wrought so marvellous a change.’ ” William R. Huntington, of Grace Church, sent me the following letter which shows the hopelessness of the cleri- cal mind: | “Dictated. “Grace Church Rectory “New York “November 6th, 1899. “DEAR Mr. CRAPSEY: “To the seven articles of the Appendix to your ‘Tractate,’ I yield not only entire assent but enthusiastic adhesion. If you are right in thinking that ‘High-Churchmen’ throughout the country are ready to stand by this summary of principles (than which I have never seen a better), a bright day has dawned for Christian Unity in the United States. You can do in that direction vastly more than I. Although I have championed these principles now these thirty years last past, and championed them on the ground of their being the highest of all High -Church principles, the High-Churchmen have steadily given me the cold shoulder, partly, I suppose, because of my having been ‘born out of due time,’ before the wave of Anglo-Catholicism had crested, as it is now doing, and partly because the plainness of my taste in matters of ritual has been an offence in the eyes of those who A CHALLENGE TO THE CHURCHES 22% cared much for candles and colours. Having been under suspicion of Puritanism, my words have fallen largely upon deaf ears. It will not be so with yours in that direction. “The only point on which I find myself disposed to criticize the contents of your Tractate is under the doctrinal head. It appears to me, I confess, that your waiver of creed-forms is a little too sweeping. I know you do not mean your words to apply to the baptismal symbol, but I am greatly afraid that by the casual reader they will be under- stood as doing so. Of ‘systems’ we have had enough and too many, but surely there must be a minimum statement of the things commonly believed among us, if we are not to be all at sea. How can we, for instance, rally around the person of the Saviour, as you exhort us to do, unless we have the word-image of Him which the Apostles’ Creed provides? Of course, you intended your strictures to apply to ‘con- fessions,’ the thirty-nine articles, and the like, but they will be mis- interpreted as ruling out even the most elementary forms of faith. “* “Who shall show thee words,’ said the angel, ‘whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved?’ ‘Words’ of that sort we certainly are bound to conserve in tolerably clear-cut shape. “Kindly send me by express (paid here) one hundred copies of the “Tractate,’ for which I enclose a cheque. “Tf there is any way in which IJ can help the cause in your direction, do not fail to command me. “With hearty sympathy, I am, “Faithfully yours, “W. R. HuNTINGTON.” The secular press entered into the discussion both by editorial and by letters to the press. I followed up the original tract by a tract on each of the seven points. The tract on the second point was called ‘““The Answer to Pi- late.’ Of this the New York Tribune wrote as follows: mURU LHOAND AU THOR ERY ‘““A few weeks ago we noted the appearance of a remarkable trac- tate by an Episcopal clergyman of Rochester, the Rev. Algernon S. Crapsey, in which he contended that the office-bearers in the Church 224. THE LAST OF THE HERETICS —that is, the clergy—have no right to identify the Church with them- selves, and controverted the theory that Christian unity can be at- tained by insisting on an absolute uniformity of belief. He now fol- lows this with another tractate, entitled “The Answer to Pilate,’ which, coming from a representative High Church Episcopalian, will doubtless excite widespread discussion. His general proposition is that Christian doctrine to-day needs to be restated in such a way that it will be in accord with the facts of the visible universe, as ascer- tained by scientific investigation. “There are two ways in which such a restatement might be made. First, it might be gathered from the utterances of individual religious thinkers who feel themselves in- spired to proclaim some truth to the world. The credential of any such utterance is the truth it contains. Its reward to those who ac- cept it is that they shall have the truth; its penalty, if they reject it, that they shall lose it. “Or, the proposed restatement might be formulated by some syn- odical body duly representing the ecclesiastical organization. A creed so formulated does not rest, of course, on its own inherent truthful- ness, but must be enforced by a power external to itself. And men are called upon to believe it, not necessarily because it is true, but because it has been promulgated by a given authority. As between these two sources of religious belief, Mr. Crapsey declares for the former. “To it,’ he says, “we owe the whole body of religious truth which we have in the world. No council ever added to the sum of truth; all that it has ever claimed to do is to arrange and interpret the truth already in existence.’ In other words, ‘truth is never discovered in committee.’ When the medieval Church became cor- rupt the attempt was made to reform it by corporate action, but it failed; and it was left for an individual first to formulate the beliefs that have revolutionized the world.” Seth Low, then president of Columbia College, and a warden of St. George’s Church, not only became an ardent disciple of my teaching, but also a warm personal friend; a relationship that continued to the day of his death. Ad- hesions came in from every quarter and at first it seemed as if we were on the eve of the reunion of Christendom. But it was not to be; it could not be! If nothing else; the A CHALLENGE TO THE CHURCHES PaaS vested interests of the clergy in their spiritualities and tem- poralities forbade it. Because Dr. Huntington loved the creed more than he desired unity, he fell away and was one of the judges who finally condemned me as a heretic. As a consequence of this a divided Christendom was help- less in the presence of its enemies and has suffered a com- plete overthrow. CHAPTER XXXIX SPIRITUAL SOIL AND SUNLIGHT P “HE publication of the tracts on the subject of Chris- tian Unity expelled me automatically from the High Church party in the Episcopal Church and cast me with the extreme Broads. ‘The consequence was that I had invitations to speak before various bodies of liberal Christians without regard to denomination. Among these invitations was one from the New York State Con- gress of Religions which was to meet in the city of New York at a given date. I accepted this invitation. The subject assigned me was “The Unorganized Forces of Re- ligion.”’ JI laid this invitation aside, went about my busi- ness and forgot all about it. Looking over my files one morning, I was astounded to find that the meeting in New York was to take place in four days and I had not made the slightest preparation to meet this engagement. I sat down at my desk, gazed at the title of my subject and it conveyed to me no meaning whatever. I searched my mind and found that I had not the slightest conception of what the unorganized forces of religion were. Leaving my desk, I went out and walked for several hours trying to find some clue that would lead into the matter with which I had to deal; but nothing came to me. I spent the next day in the same hopeless condition. I took the night train to New York, reaching that city the day before the meeting of the congress, hoping that in the great city I might find a hint that would indicate what these unorgan- ized forces were. I was not disappointed. As I was 226 SPIRITUAL SOIL AND SUNLIGHT 22/7 walking idly along the streets, I watched the street-cleaners at work; I saw them gathering the refuse of the street into piles; then throwing that refuse into carts, and upon inves- tigation I found that this refuse was carried down to the bay where it was unloaded into scows, then taken to the lower bay and dumped. As soon as I saw this operation, I slapped my thigh and said to myself, ‘““My puzzle is in the way of solution.” In the night, as I was walking up Fifth Avenue, a well-dressed woman approached me and offered me the hospitality of her room for the night. I was obliged politely to decline. Before I reached. my hotel, I had similar offers from various women, and [ said to myself, “Behold the unorganized forces of religion!” The next day, having no time in which to prepare a written paper, I was obliged to make notes and these notes were not made on paper. I first bought me a glass, then a napkin; then I went into a flower store and bought a couple of daisies; then I bought me two apples. I filled my glass with refuse from the streets; I wrapped this glass in my napkin; I cut one apple and took out the seed, leav- ing the other apple whole; then I put all of these into my little handbag and, so equipped, made my way to the hall in which the State Congress of Religions was to assemble. I listened to the various papers which were read before the congress; they were all of them very learned and ab- stract; there were two papers on each subject; my mate was Dr. Dole, of Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. In his opening paragraph he gave up the problem. He said: “T cannot really find any unorganized forces of religion. Force is a form of life; and it seems to be everywhere the nature of force to move in the lines of order, to construct, to work out organization. Here, for example, is the vast and mysterious force of electricity. Do we think of it as an amorphous mass, a mere reservoir from which we draw supplies for our dynamos? No. It exists in or- derly motion. Gravitation itself is not more truly involved in the 228 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS very organization of the universe. I shall assume, then, that when we speak of the unorganized forces of religion, we really mean those religious forces which we do not happen to have installed upon our various ecclesiastical dynamos. ‘They are the forces which exist apart from or outside of churches; they simply do not fall under the conventional or traditional names of religion.” When my name was called, I ascended the platform, placed my bag on the table before me and said to the audi- ence that I was at great loss as to the manner in which I might treat the subject assigned to me; it was difficult to know what the unorganized forces of religion were. I had not been able to prepare a written paper, but I had made notes and should speak to them from the notes; I then opened my bag and took out the various articles which it contained, placing them upon the desk before me. Un- covering the glass, I told my audience that I had gathered the contents of it from the gutters of the street, that I had seen the scavengers of the city gathering this refuse and carting it down to the bay where it was put in scows, which carried it to the lower bay, where it was dumped into the water. These scavengers and the city at large were under the impression that they were getting rid of this refuse, but they were sadly mistaken; they could not get rid, finally, of one single particle of it; their manner of disposing of it was making of it a greater danger to the city than if it had been left to rot in the streets of the city. The heavier portions of it were filling up the lower bay and preventing ocean steamers from coming to their wharves in the city. The lighter portion of it was floating out to sea and was carried around to Coney Island and destroying the value of the watering-places along the coast of Long Island. The folly of this method of disposing of these street sweep- ings was intensified by the fact that these wiseacres were throwing away immense values; this refuse contained the unorganized forces of life. If it were carried into the SPIRITUAL SOIL AND SUNLIGHT 229 country and scattered over the ploughed fields, it would enrich the ground in which the husbandman, sowing his seed, would ensure an abundant harvest, and I said to them, ‘This which I have shown you is a parable.” I then told them of the experience that I had had in the streets of their city the night before; how I had been ap- proached by various women with offers of hospitality, and I said to them that I had read in the morning paper that there was a raid being made upon these women under the leadership of the Episcopal Bishop of New York to drive them out of the city, but this effort did not get rid of a single one of these women; it only changed their place. A certain clergyman once said to me, “Mr. Crapsey, there isn’t a single woman of ill fame left in the Tenth Ward; I have gotten rid of every one of them.” I said, ‘‘What have you done with them?” He answered, “I have driven them all over into the Eighteenth Ward’; at which I smiled. You may ask me, “What has all this to do with the unorganized forces of religion?’ I answer, ‘These are the Unorganized Forces of Religion.” Religion or- ganizes the great primal passions of man; lust and avarice, fear and hate and love are the forces that create all re- ligion. These passions not only create religion, but they lie at the base of life itself and are the cause of all its manifestations. The harlot and the thief and the mur- derer are moved by exactly the same passions that influence the lives of the saints. The stately matron in all her pride is ruled by the same primal desires that her sister in the street sells to the passer-by. The one effectual way of removing this menace from society is to convert these primal passions to their proper uses; if instead of making a raid to drive them out of the streets, the good Bishop of New York had gathered these women into his churches and provided first for their mate- rial wants, then, by sowing in their hearts the seed of 230 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS righteousness and watering that seed with the rain of hu- man sympathy, he would have converted their evil into good. Those women would no longer have been women of the streets, but they would have been saints of God. And so should we deal with all this refuse of humanity. If religion is to grow, it must be planted deep in the soil of the primal passions of mankind. It must take account of lust and avarice, fear and hate; it must live with these in order to convert them. This is what Jesus did. I love to think of Him as sitting in what we would call a saloon, drinking His glass of wine and eating His morsel of bread; and as the harlots and drunkards of the time gathered about Him, I would hear Him telling them the lovely story of the Prodigal Son, not preaching at them, but winning them by the glory of His face and the lovingness of His words, to become His disciples. It was from such as these that the early Christian Church gathered its membership. Jesus made of the harlot Magdalene a saint of God, a saint that has been worshipped by Christians ever since, and the first to enter the new kingdom established by the Cross was a thief. I pointed out that the failure of the Churches lay in the fact that they had not their roots in these primal passions. The Protestant Churches especially had withdrawn entirely from the muck of humanity and planted themselves in the arid soil of its respectability. Fifth Avenue was lined with churches of the Episcopal denomination and there was not one in Pell Street. “The Catholic Church flourished be: cause it still ministered to the outcasts of humanity and had its home in the midst of the sinners, but the Catholic Church was failing because its windows were not open to receive the pure air of heaven, nor did it allow the sunlight of truth to fall upon the lives of its people. This is equally true of the Protestants; there are three things nec- essary to life: first, the soil; second, the seed, and then SPIRITUAL SOIL AND SUNLIGHT 221 the ministry of heaven sending its sunlight and its rain. I spoke for about an hour. When I had finished and was gathering together my notes, I was conscious of a stillness in the room; there had been no response to my talk from the beginning to the end; my method had evi- dently taken my hearers by surprise. But after an in- stant’s silence, the audience gave expression to their feeling in a wild clapping of hands that lasted for many minutes. The next morning the New York Sun gave a full account of my address that went throughout the country. This event in my life brought to me a group of friends who, from that day to this, have enriched my life. The report of the New York Sun was widely copied; an extract from it found its way into a little paper published in one of the Southern States; this paper spelled my name ‘““Champney” and gave my residence as Brooklyn, N.Y. It fell into the hands of Mr. George Foster Peabody. Mr. Peabody was deeply interested in the thought; on reaching his home in Brooklyn, he asked his rector, Dr. McConnell, of Trinity Church, Brooklyn, if he knew any person by the name of Champney. Dr. McConnell knew no such person, but when Mr. Peabody made known his reason for wanting to find the man, Dr. McConnell told him that the person he was looking for was Dr. Algernon S. Crapsey, of Rochester, N.Y. Mr. Peabody at once wrote me a highly appreciative letter, and that was the beginning of a friendship which still endures and will en- dure as long as we are both upon the earth. Through Mr. Peabody, I came to know intimately Mr. Edward M. Shepard, Mr. Spencer Trask and that wonderful woman, his wife, known to the literary world as Katrina Trask. I lost the friendship of Dr. Dix and made Bishop Potter my enemy. CHAPTER XL TIME PASSES HEN I entered upon the rectorship of St. An- W drew’s parish on the first day of June, 1879, it was, as I have said, prophesied that I would not stay there a year. I myself did not think that I could make it my life-work. It had many of the conditions that I desired, but the hindrances were so great that I felt that it might not be within my power to overcome them. But day after day my wife and I went on with our work, and days became years, until at last we had filled out our quar- ter of a century. By that time, we had so worked our own lives into the life of the community, of which we were a part, that any change would have been disastrous. ‘The reason for our constancy was that we had nowhere else to go; I was not the kind of man that the rich and fashionable congregations desired, nor had I the qualities that win for a man the bishopric. I did, indeed, once come under the shadow of that high office, but feeling myself unequal to it, I instantly withdrew my name from the body that had it under consideration. When the day and the year came round that marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of our arrival, the parish cele- brated it for a week. The anniversary sermon was preached by my friend, the Reverend Doctor Elwood Wor- cester, then and now rector of Emmanuel Church, Boston. Doctor Worcester was a child of St. Andrew’s; he went from us to Columbia College and from there to the semi- nary and finished his education in Germany. He has for 232 TIME PASSES 233 years been among the most eminent divines of the Episco- pal Church; he is the leader of the Emmanuel Movement and a profound student of psychic phenomena. In his sermon he naturally eulogized the subject of his discourse and compared him to Luther and Savonarola, and we all jeered. The rector of St. Andrew’s is quite sure that he cannot in any wise be compared with the great Saint of Florence. As to Luther, he is not so sure; he is quite as pugnacious as that reformer and quite as self-assertive. The week following the Sunday celebration was one of parish festivities. My friend, George Foster Peabody, came up from New York to join in our celebration. ‘The parish came together on a given evening, presented the rector with a letter of commendation; with a loving-cup containing coins of gold and silver, and one parishioner bestowed upon him a check amounting to $100 for each of the years that he had served the parish. This was not only a parochial, it was a city affair; congratulations came in from the clergy of the city, not only of the Episcopal Church but of all the churches, including the Catholic. The thought of the city was summed up by a short editorial in the Evening Times, headed ‘Doctor Crapsey’s Anni- versary’: ‘There is one simple thing to be said on the anniversary of Dr. Crapsey’s coming to Rochester. He has been a power for good in the community for twenty-five years. He has preached strongly; he has sympathized strongly and he has wrought strongly; and he has influenced the private and public life of the city without going be- yond his sphere as a clergyman. He has kept clear of political entanglements and movements for reform by the mere agitation of the surface of things, but day by day the circle of his personal power has been widening here and elsewhere. He is a bold man and a positive man, but it may be said that his personality has been a source of religious peace; for even where he entered into con- troversy, it was in the cause of liberality, and he has ever been 234. THE LAST OF THE HERETICS disposed to welcome him as a brother who works sincerely toward the betterment of the individual and of society.” At the conclusion of these festivities, accompanied by my friend, John Warrant Castleman, I went by the Cana- dian Line to England to spend my vacation walking through Wales, and this period was of great educational value. Mr. Castleman was a man of high intelligence and at that time devoted to the liberal view of religion and pol- itics. He desired earnestly a reformation both in Church and State, and our discussions were helpful to me, as they enabled me to formulate thoughts that had been floating in my mind; and if, soon after our return to Rochester, I fell into bad ways, my friend Mr. Castleman was much to blame, for he had urged me on. But our walk through Wales had a higher import than anything that could come from the human mind. In this wonderful country we were in the presence of the divinities. Take it for all in all, of the various countries which I had visited, Wales is the most entrancing; it is impossible to describe it. I remember vividly our walk across the great moor. We left Denbigh early in the morning and spent the day on the moor. The sky was louring, which added to the mystery of the scene; the treeless moor, stretching on every side, seemed an in- finity of desolation. There was a slight drizzle of rain from time to time, which, while it made for our discom- fort, did not at all take away from the pleasure of our journey. It was toward nightfall that we reached the end of our journey and came to the village of Penthrea Voilas and found ourselves at home in the Voilas Arms. We were greeted by the hostess of the inn as if we had been friends of a lifetime. We were shown at once to a bath, a rare thing in an English inn, and after we had made our- selves ready, we sat down to a dinner fit for the gods. We had mountain lamb and green peas, vegetables of various kinds, and all this was served, not by a waiter standing be. TIME PASSES 235 hind our chair, but by the hostess herself, who would insist upon our taking this little tit-bit and that little tit-bit, until I loved Mother Roberts as if she were, indeed, my mother, and I determined if ever I came to Europe again I would surely spend a part of my time at Penthrea Voilas. In the morning we continued our journey and we walked through the most picturesque region of the country, the names of which I will not dare to write. We made a wrong turning about ten o'clock in the morning and had to come back on our way, so that by nightfall we were ready to rest; at least, Mr. Castleman was. He stopped at Bettys-Coed; I went on, he promising to take the stage and follow. I walked as far as Penny Pass, which I reached at about ten o'clock in the evening. About an hour later, Mr. Castleman came on in the stage; when he inquired if such a person as I had arrived, the hostess answered in the affirmative and she added, “I think he has gone out for a bit of a walk.” This amazed Castleman. I had already walked between thirty and forty miles that day, and if I were still walking I must be a superman. But I was found safely asleep in my bed, and the next morning we ascended Snowdon, expecting to have a vision of the country from the top of the mountain, but we saw nothing that day be- cause of the fog. The next morning was clear and we did have the joy of seeing the mountains of Wales from this higher peak. We came down from the mountain, contin- ued our journey through Wales and the West of England, went to Liverpool, and so came home. CHAPTER XLI THE PHILIPPINE EPISCOPATE HE conquest of the Philippine Islands was a by- product of the Spanish-American War. The United States intervened by force of arms to de- liver the Cubans from the misrule of the Government of Spain and, as an accident of that conflict, subjected the peo- ple of these Eastern islands to the rule of the Government of the United States. “This seemed to me then, as it seems to me now, one of the saddest miscarriages of history. The Filipinos were at that time in rebellion against the misrule of Spain and, if they had been let alone, would have accomplished their independence. ‘The war of the United States against Spain was professedly altruistic. The Federal Government was seeking no territorial nor other material advantage. By resolution of the Congress Cuba was assured of independence. ‘The great American Republic was to use its irresistible force to deliver a neigh- bouring people from intolerable bondage; it was to sweep away the last vestige of European rule from the Western continent. ‘This resolution of the Congress signed by the President thrilled the American heart; it marked a new era in history; it was the application of Christian principle to political action. The strong were to protect and de- liver the weak. Every American held up his head and walked proudly as befitted a benefactor of mankind. But this pride went before a fall. War is a dangerous thing to play with, even altruistically. When the news of Dewey’s victory in Manila Bay swept over the land it car- ried away all the noble altruism upon which the American 236 THE PHILIPPINE EPISCOPATE PoBeTi people had prided themselves. They saw in that victory not another opportunity to deliver an oppressed people from the rule of Spain—not at all; it was America’s op- portunity to plant the Stars and Stripes in the East. It is reported that Mark Hanna cried in exultation, ‘“Where the American flag goes up it must never come down!” The American business man saw in this triumph of the American Navy more business; not content with the ex- ploitation of the American continent, he would exploit the islands of the Sea. And, sadder still, every Protestant sect saw in this naval victory an opening for the preaching of its peculiar type of Christian doctrine. The Philippine Islands were Christian and had been Christian for centu- ries. Devout Spanish friars had carried to them the Gos- pel of Jesus, and Saint Francis and for centuries the people had been cradled in that Gospel and they loved it: they sacredly kept its feasts and fasts. However they might deplore Spanish rule, they loved their Catholic Church and they love it to this day. Soon after the establishment of American rule over the Philippine Islands, the General Convention of the Protes- tant Episcopal Church met in the city of San Francisco and, looking westward, determined to have its share of the booty of the victory of Manila Bay. It made provision for the establishment of a diocese of the Protestant Episcopal ‘Church in the Philippine Islands: at the instance of John Pierpont Morgan and other leaders of the Church, it chose my friend Charles H. Brent as bishop of that diocese. All along I had bitterly deplored the action of the United States Government in relation to the Filipinos. It seemed to me a reversal of the altruistic policy upon which the war against Spain had been waged. When that war against Spain for the freedom of Cuba degenerated into a war against the Filipinos for the conquest of their coun- try, my indignation waxed hot against these betrayers of 238 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS American principles. And when a friend of mine was chosen to make my Church a co-partner in this act of spoli- ation and oppression, I could no longer hold my peace. Before his consecration I wrote an open letter to Bishop- elect Brent deploring the action of the United States gov- ernment in making conquest of the Philippine Islands and the action of the Episcopal Church in introducing to those islands the religious confusion of the United States. ‘This letter attracted wide attention and roused controversy. It was approved as a matter of course by Roman Catholics and condemned by Protestants, and it drove another nail into my ecclesiastical cofin. As an Episcopalian I was dead and ready for burial. In spite of the protest of Wil- liam Jennings Bryan and other true Americans, the war of conquest against the Filipinos went on to its ruthless end. ‘The power of the great Western democracy crushed the democratic aspirations of this nascent Eastern democ- racy and the shadow on the dial of human progress was turned ten degrees backward. I can never think of the betrayal and capture of Agui- naldo without a surge of shameful blood rushing from my heart to my face, and when I saw my old friend Brent standing upon a hill in the Philippine Islands between two soldiers, and this in the pages of the Spirit of Missions, then my heart wept bitter tears of shame and sorrow. I know they will tell me what America has done for the Filipinos in the way of sanitation, education and the like, yes; but the Americans have taken away from the Filipinos the one thing which their hearts desire; that is their lib- erty, their inborn right to rule themselves. By this action the character of the American Govern- ment was changed from that of a democratic to an imperial republic, and this evil example of imperialism followed fourteen years later by the German Kaiser has been the ruin of the world. CHAPTER XLII AN EMPTY CHURCH T is the custom of the Episcopal Church to have morn- ing and evening prayer upon every Lord’s Day. These two forms of worship are essentially the same and consist of the reading of the Scriptures, of prayers and hymns and a sermon by the minister. It is true, in the morning the celebration of the Holy Communion may fol- low the office of morning prayer. But only a few of the worshippers remain for that service, so that to all intents and purposes the evening service is a repetition of the morning. As a consequence of this, evening prayer is very slightly attended; it was so in St. Andrew’s Church. Sunday night after Sunday night I would follow my choir into the church; we would go through the elaborate musi- cal service and there would be to assist us in that office only two or three worshippers. “There were two who were faithful and could be counted on every night; these two, of course, were sisters, not brothers, of the church; their names were Mary Montgomery and Elizabeth Taylor. Although I was very fond of these two sisters, their pres- ence did not console me for the emptiness of my church. I looked upon the evening service as a waste of effort. This condition was not peculiar to St. Andrew’s Church, but it was common to all churches. I cast about in my mind to find some remedy for this evil and, after consid- : erable thought, in the fall of 1903 I determined to try the experiment of giving the people something that would at- tract them to the evening worship. I decided that I would omit evening prayer, reading that office in the afternoon, 239 240 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS and would devote the evening to a series of lecture sermons. It so happened that the year 1903 was remarkable in the history of the Episcopal Church in America because of the visitation made to it by the Right Reverend the Archbishop of Canterbury; this was the first time that such an archbishop had visited the American Church and con- sequently it was a notable event. The archbishop was received with all honours; he was the guest of the Presi- dent of the United States and of John Pierpont Morgan, and other high and mighty men of the nation. Consider- ing the importance to religious history of the coming of the archbishop, and recalling to my mind that he was a high dignitary, not only of the Church but also of the State, I decided to give a course of lectures on the subject of ‘The Relation of the Church to the State,” giving to the course the general title of “Religion and Politics.” When I announced this course of sermon lectures, I had not in mind any definite outline as to what that course would be. My study of history had made me familiar with and interested in the matter and I felt that I could treat it in a way that would interest my people; I had not in mind the faintest notion that I would say anything that would disturb the peace of the Church. I did not even go so far as to lay out the course in detail; I depended upon one subject to suggest another. [he mere announcement in the church and in the daily press of this course of lec- tures was sufficient to attract a fair audience on the first night. I began the course with a lecture upon the Roman Empire, in which the Christian Church had its origin; the Roman Empire was the State with which the Church came into conflict as soon as it was organized. I outlined the history of the Roman State from its beginning down to the time of the entrance of Christianity into its economy. This lecture was followed by one on ‘The Attitude of AN EMPTY CHURCH 241 Jesus to the State.” I pointed out that this attitude was one of bitter hostility, that while Jesus did not in direct terms assail the Roman power, He was in passive resist- ance to it from the beginning to the end of His public career. [he existing State was to Him the enemy of His God; the existing State was tyrannical, oppressing the peo- ple, while His conception of government was one of justice, wherein the weakest of the people were protected from the aggressions of the strong. From first to last, Jesus refused to recognize the jurisdiction of the State; He would not submit to the command of Herod, nor plead before Pontius Pilate. The next lecture in course treated of the foundation of the Church as a government within the territory of the Roman Empire. The Church, as its name implies, was the calling together of the people who had neither part nor lot in the privileges of the Roman Government; they were simply its subjects and its slaves, ground under the iron heel of its despotism. These were organized into an heavenly State as over against the earthly power of the Roman State. The fourth lecture described ‘Jesus’ Method of Gov- ernment”; in this it was shown that Jesus laid down the fundamental principle that physical violence was to have no place in the new establishment; it was to have no army, no navy, no courts of law, no prisons, no gallows; its gov- ernment was to be the government of love in which hate could find no place. ‘This lecture was afterward published separately by one of the peace societies and given a wide circulation. The fifth lecture in the course had to do with “The Im- perialization of the Church,” showing that the Church as it spread through the Roman Empire gradually moulded itself into a form of imperial government. As it increased in power and influence, its officers, the bishop and clergy, 242 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS gradually assumed to themselves the government of the Church and lorded it over God’s heritage as if they were emperors and kings of the earth. The sixth lecture showed the bitter consequence of this assumption of power by the official organization. This organization, wearying of persecution, made peace with the Empire; Christianity was recognized as the official re- ligion and the bishops of the Church became the princes of the Empire. The consequence of this was the subjection of the Church to imperial rule. ‘The Emperor became the High Priest of the Church. Theodosius fixed the rule of faith, and the Church in the East became at last a mere adjunct to the State. The seventh lecture made clear the reasons for the su- premacy of the Church in the West. The fall of the Em- pire and the withdrawal of the seat of government from Rome to Constantinople gave to the bishops of Rome their opportunity, which they used to such good purpose that these bishops, under the title of Pope, became the supreme rulers of Europe for many centuries. The eighth lecture was concerned with the fall of the medieval Church, which came to ruin through the assump- tion on the part of the papacy of political dominion over all Europe, not in the interest of humanity nor to the glory of God, but in the interest of the papacy and to the glory of the Pope. ‘This lecture brought us down to the beginning of modern times. The ninth lecture spoke of the rise of national Churches which followed upon the fall of the Catholic Church. It treated of the reformation as conducted by Luther and made special reference to the establishment of the Church of England. This course of sermon lectures attracted wide attention; by the time we had reached the third in the course, the Church was full to its capacity; in the congregation were AN EMPTY CHURCH 243 to be seen professors of the university, judges of the courts and people of all sorts and conditions in life. ‘The news- papers gave to them wide publicity, not only in Rochester, but in New York and elsewhere. Up to this time there had been no adverse criticism. The lectures were consid- ered from the point of view of history and they had not yet touched upon the history of the Church in more recent times, nor had they treated of its present condition. Nor had I in my mind any notion whatever of stirring up the authorities of the Church and bringing about a con- troversy that might end seriously for myself and for the Church. My method of preparing these lectures was hazardous in the extreme. As I have already declared, it has been my custom never to speak from notes, but in this case I made an exception to the rule; an exception, how- ever, which was one more of form than of principle; as composed, these lectures were as truly extempore as if I had spoken them without notes from the pulpit. What I did was to mull over the lecture during the week. On Sat- urday morning I would go to my study and break into the subject, writing the introduction; then I would go about my business and at about nine o'clock in the evening go to my desk again and finish the lecture. ‘This I did for the most part without lifting pen from paper, except to dip it in the ink. I would then throw the sheets aside, go home and go to bed. The next morning being Sunday, I would have my early celebration of the Holy Communion, my morning service, preach my sermon; in the afternoon have my Sunday school; then I would go to my study and arrange the sheets of my lecture for the evening reading. It can be seen how foolish this method was. I did not know what was in these lectures until I read them from the pul- pit. All went well until I came to the lectures treating of the Church in present times, and then I suffered the con- sequences of my method. CHAPTER XLIII THE AMERICAN CHURCH-STATE P AHE tenth lecture in this course told of the relation of Church and State in the United States of _ America. I called attention to the fact that in New England an effort was made to establish a Church which should subordinate to itself the powers of the State. The settlement of New England by the Puritans was re- ligious in its character. ‘These men and women left their native land, braved the ocean and the perils of the wilder- ness, that they might worship their God according to the dictates of their own conscience. ‘The leaders of this movement were both clergymen and laymen, but the lay- men were in a sense themselves clergymen. ‘The Puritans had the primitive conception of the Church: every member of the Church was a priest; his heart was his altar and his good deeds his sacrifices. The official priesthood was taken directly from the laity and assigned by the congre- gation to the special duty of conducting divine worship, but, as in the primitive Church, these officers held their position for life; they gradually assumed an authority over the people which was the consequence of their long tenure in office. Not only the religious but also the political life of the people was in the control of the clergy. Brooks Adams, in his history of Massachusetts, has given a vivid account of the consequence of this subordina- tion of the State of the Church. New England repeated the history of the Church in Europe during the domina- tion of priestly supremacy. ‘There was the same inquisi- 244 — THE AMERICAN CHURCH-STATE 245 tion into the private life and intellectual beliefs of the peo- ple; the same persecution of the heretic; the same hanging of witches and the attempt to arrest the progress of thought. The Bible, as interpreted by the clergy, was the rule, not only of faith, but of knowledge. This tyranny prevailed down to the time of the Revolution and was not completely overthrown until the first quarter of the nine- teenth century; it suffered defeat at the hands of the lead- ers of the Unitarian movement. Emerson and Parker, themselves of Puritan origin, destroyed the foundations of the Puritan religion. If the reader desires fuller informa- tion on this subject, let him by all means read Brooks Adams’ history of Massachusetts. This phase of the re- ligious life of America was not confined to Massachusetts, but it influenced through migration the great Northwest. Although we may deplore the evils of this puritanic conception, we cannot deny that its influence has not been altogether harmful. As I say in my lecture, it is easy to speak scoffingly of the bigotry and narrowness of the Puri- tan, to tell lurid stories of the whipping of heretics, the hanging of women, but it is not so easy to measure the moral value and the spiritual potency of that conception of the State which looks upon it as the instrument of di- vine justice; which teaches that officers of the State are the vicegerents of God. Such a conception is the only one that can make the State other than a merciless ma- chine. If the State is not divine, it is brutal. The Middle Atlantic States were settled largely for commercial reasons; it was the canny Hollander intent on gain that cast anchor on the shores of Manhattan Island, and the canny Hollander reigns there still. “The Southern States were settled by the younger sons of the English no- bility; these men left their native land that they might carve out for themselves great estates in the Western Con- tinent. They brought with them the instincts of the land- 246 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS lord; they subjected labour to the dominion of the em- ployer in a more stringent manner than was possible even in England; they bought their labour in Africa and it was separated from the master class by the difference of colour. The Negro could never aspire to the possession of land nor even to the ownership of his own body; he could have no wife, no children. Naturally, the religion of this region was that of the domination of the Church by the State. The great land- lords were the patrons of the Church and the clergy were necessarily subservient to the landlord class. ‘The estab- lished Church of England became the established Church of these Southern Colonies. At the present time this relation of the Church to the State prevails throughout the country. [he State dominates the Church; it looks to the Church to sustain it by preaching the sacredness of the State as it now exists and so persuading the people that they shall not in any wise disturb the peace of the State. ‘The feebleness of the Church is the consequence of its divisions. We have now in the United States about thirty-five millions of enrolled Christians officered by about one hundred twenty thousand men; if this were a united Church, it would, as a matter of course, control the politi- cal and social life of the country as despotically as the Catholic Church ruled the political and social life of the Middle Ages. | But, as we are all aware, the Christian Church no longer exists; it is not a great planetary body controlling its own movements by its own inherent power; it is a shattered group of asteroids whirling madly in space. ‘They are without perceptible influence. It is because of this weak- ness of the religious element that we are in our present sad estate; that we are in the hand of the political spoiler; that our cities are reeking with impurity; that our politics THE AMERICAN CHURCH-STATE 247 are our shame and reproach; that our society is a society of broken homes and childless women; that the weak are crying for succour, and the sinner dying for want of pardon. The eleventh lecture had for its subject “The Commer- cialized Church in the Commercialized State.” The week before the composition and delivery of this lecture, the Honourable James G. Cutler, then mayor of the city of Rochester, addressed the Protestant clergy of the city. In the course of that address he told us that city was subject to an extra political power; this power was embodied in a system known as the “boss system,” which system was maintained in the interests of the commercial element of the community. This commercialism dominated politics, and the reason of his telling this secret to the clergy was that he desired their assistance in the effort he was making to free the political government from this commercial domination. But alas, the poor clergy were under the hand of this same sinister influence. “The Church was even more com- mercialized than the State. The clergy were the hired men of the churches and the Protestant churches were in the grip of commercialism; they were supported by the commercial classes. The merchants were the chief ofh- cers of the churches, and woe betide that clergyman who dared to lift his voice against the system that prevailed in the world of business. A leading merchant told me that Jesus, if He were alive to-day, would teach the competi- tive system. If that were so, then the Jesus of to-day would have to contradict every word that the Jesus of history had spoken, for if the Jesus of history taught any- thing, it was the co-operative system as against the competitive. This sermon lecture on “The Commercialized Church 248 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS in the Commercialized State” gave great offence to the commercial classes. My own people were not disturbed by it because I had taught them these fundamental prin- ciples of the Christian religion, which they had gladly re- ceived and which they practised so far as the present state of the world permitted. CHAPTER XLIV A WORD THAT WENT ROUND THE WORLD hk evening of the eighteenth of February, 1905, was eventful in my own history and important to the history of the world. On that evening I fin- ished the twelfth in my series of lectures on religion and politics; the title of that lecture was ‘“The Present State of the Churches.’’ In his address to us, the mayor of Rochester had said that we, the clergy, could have any city government that we wished to have. In saying this, I presume the mayor looked upon the clergy as the cus- todians of the spiritual and moral interests of the com- munity, and as these interests ought to be paramount, the clergy, as a matter of course, should control the lower political and commercial interests. ‘There was a time when the clergy did this. Gregory the Great and Inno- cent III controlled the governments of Europe in the in- terests of the people of Europe; the Puritan clergy of New England dominated the political and mercantile ele- ments in the interests of righteousness. But alas, the clergy of the present day were not per- mitted to have any part or lot in the general affairs of mankind; they were expected to confine themselves strictly to religious matters, and the term “religion’’ was supposed to have reference only to the next world. It was the busi- ness of the clergy to preach salvation—salvation not from the ills afflicting mankind in this miserable world of ours, but a salvation from the wrath of God which was to be visited upon sinners in the fires of a future hell, The 249 250 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS clergy were debarred from the discussion of things of vital interest to the man of the street and the woman of the home. Not so long ago the clergy had been in control of the education of the people; they had been the presidents of colleges, the principals of academies, and largely the teaching-force of these institutions, but with the establish- ment of the public school system the divisions of Christen- dom had made it necessary to exclude the clergy from the teaching-ofhce of this system. ‘The public schools were not only non-sectarian so far as Christianity was con- cerned, they were open to every sect of Christians and to Jews, Turks, infidels and heretics. The colleges and private institutions had soon to follow the pattern of the public school and the clergy were no longer sought for as presidents and principals of educational institutions. This revolution in the educational policy of the country was disastrous to clerical influence. The reason for this was that the Church was no longer the moulding power of the community. In seeking the cause for this downfall of the Church, I found it in the fact that the Church was no longer in har- mony with its environment. ‘To-day the world was demo- cratic; the Church was imperial and aristocratic. ‘The world was scientific; the Church was dogmatic. The world based its knowledge on observation and experiment; the Church rested upon what it called a “divine revela- tion’ as interpreted by its own officers. The world was becoming increasingly socialistic, while the Church was based in privilege; the clergy were a privileged body in the Church. The bishops were a privileged class ruling the lower clergy. The Pope possessed the highest privi- lege of all: he was God on earth. When I sat down to write out my sermon lecture on this subject, ‘“The Present State of the Churches,’ I had no notion of how I should express my thought. I followed A WORD THAT WENT ROUND THE WORLD 251 my usual habit on the Saturday morning of the eighteenth of February, 1905: I went to my study soon after break- fast and broke into the subject, writing the introduction. I then went about my business, and came back to my study after supper and sat down at my desk and completed my work. As I remember, I did not take my pen from my paper except to dip it in the ink, until the last word was written. ‘This intellectual edifice, which I thus built up, was already in my mind before I gave it outward existence. When it was completed, my mind was made known to my- self and to the world. On finishing the task, I left my sheets in disorder on my desk and went home and to bed, sleeping soundly till I was wakened by the bell for the morning communion. I conducted the morning prayer, preached my sermon, celebrated what we Catholics called the High Mass, had my dinner, rested for an hour, then went back to my study, gathered my sheets together and arranged them for the evening reading. I did not so much as look them over. When I went up into the pulpit, my objective mind was as ignorant of the contents of that sermon lecture as anyone in my audience; it was the ex- pression of my subjective mind. My objective mind lis- tened to it with great interest, but was not sufficiently alert to take in the full import of what I was saying. I was declaring that the weakness of the Church lay in the fact that it was living in a past that had gone for ever and was oblivious of the present; that it was dogmatic in a scien- tific world, privileged in a socialistic world, and imperialis- tic in a democratic world. I challenged the Church to be- come scientific, democratic and socialistic. In dealing with the scientific element, I made use of the following words: “In the light of scientific research, the Founder of Christianity, Jesus the son of Joseph, no longer stands apart from the common destiny of man in life and death, but He is in all things physical like as we are, born as we 252 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS are born, dying as we die, and both in life and death in the keeping of that same Divine Power, that heavenly Fatherhood, which delivers us from the womb and carries us down to the grave. When we come to know Jesus in His historical relations, we see that miracle is not a help, it is a hindrance, to an intelligent comprehension of His per- son, His character and His mission. We are not alarmed, we are relieved when scientific history proves to us that the fact of His miraculous birth was unknown to Himself, unknown to His mother, and unknown to the whole Chris- tian community of the first generation.” After each of these lectures, Mrs. Crapsey was kind enough to prepare for me a supper to which she invited various men who were interested in this line of talk. Among the guests on the night of the delivery of this twelfth lecture in the course, were Warrant Castleman, Howard Mosher and Judge Sutherland of the Supreme Court. In the course of the conversation, Judge Suther- Jand said, ‘“We have just been listening to a very wonder- ful discourse. If any trouble comes to Dr. Crapsey be- cause of its delivery, we must all stand behind him.” This was the first intimation that had come to me that trouble could arise from this utterance. It was so much a part of my mental and spiritual equipment that I sup- posed it to be equally the possession of all thinking minds, but I had, without knowing it, taken a decided step in ad- vance of the general Christian thought of the time. Highly educated men and women, presidents of colleges, and the like, were still under the spell of the Christmas legend. They had long since applied the principles of the Higher Criticism to the Old Testament; had discarded the stories of Creation; had refused to listen to Balaam’s ass, nor would they credit the power of Joshua to stay the course of the sun, but these men had not applied this scien- tific principle to the first chapters of the Gospels of St. A WORD THAT WENT ROUND THE WORLD 253 Matthew and St. Luke. I was the very first man in the English-speaking world so to apply in public the Higher Criticism, and I suffered the consequences of the pioneer. The Rochester papers had given large space to these sermon lectures and on the morning following its delivery the Democrat and Chronicle published this in full. As may be well believed, it caused a sensation. It was re- produced in whole or in part by nearly every paper in the United States, with editorial comment. It was tele- graphed almost in full to England and reproduced in the leading journals of Great Britain. As an evidence of the tremendous power of the spoken word, an echo of it came to me within a few months from the Qadian District, Gurdaspur, India, in a letter dated July 4, 1905, which runs as follows: “I have just read an extract from your lecture in which you have dealt upon the subject of inerrancy of the Bible and the manhood of Jesus, the son of Joseph, ‘born as we are born, dying as we die.’ I am glad to know that the churchmen in Europe and America do now come forward to speak their hearts with such a liberty. Have you got any lectures of yours published? If so, I shall be obliged to you if you can send me a copy of it by post. Under a separate cover, I send you an interesting literature and shall be glad to send you more on hearing from you. ian, “Yours very truly, “MAHAMMAD SADIG.” The consequence of this explosion on my part was a great disturbance of the theological atmosphere; it was followed by a terrific storm, and the storm was not long in coming. It began to cover the skies on the following day: Tuesday, the twentieth of February, 1905, dates the beginning of a contention that occupied the attention of the world for nearly two years. CHAPTER XLV NO CAUSE FOR ACTION HE morning papers of Tuesday, February 21st, 1905, carried from two to three columns of com- ments by the various ministers of the city on my sermon lecture of the nineteenth. Many of these comments were commendatory, especially that of Dr. Nelson Millard, a retired Presbyterian minister, and a man of high intelli- gence and well esteemed by the community. The clergy in charge of churches were naturally very cautious, except those who came out in unqualified condemnation of my position. “The one who most severely censured me was the Reverend Andrew J. Graham, of Christ Church, who was sustained by the Reverend Louis Washburn, of St. Paul’s Church. ‘The bishop made an immediate demand upon me that I should either repudiate what had been pub- lished as my utterance in the daily papers, or I should make a formal retraction. As the bishop had no right whatever to make such a demand, and as compliance would stultify me, I naturally refused to accede to his re- quest. He called a meeting of the clergy of the city and discussed the matter with them in secret. Nothing came of this, as there was a very decided division among the clergy as to whether any action should be taken in the mat- ter at all. In due season, a number of the clergy signed a paper accusing me of teaching false doctrines. In accordance with the law of the Church, the bishop appointed a committee of five to investigate and report as to whether there was any cause for action on the part of the authorities of the diocese. ‘This committee in due 254 NO CAUSE FOR ACTION 255 time invited me to meet with them and discuss the matter in hand. This invitation I declined and the committee called upon me at my house. I had with me as my assessor the Reverend Amos Skeele, rector of the Church of the Epiphany, of Rochester. Mr. Philip Mosher, the chair- man of the committee, said to me, ‘‘Dr. Crapsey, we know that different persons put different interpretations upon va- rious texts of Holy Scriptures; one man will give to a passage this meaning, and another man that. Now taking this fact of various interpretations into consideration, do you believe that the Holy Scriptures are the Word of God?” I answered, ‘“‘Certainly if I may, as I must, apply this principle of interpretation, I hold and preach that in the Bible is to be found divine revelation.” Mr. Mosher then said, “Applying this same principle of interpretation to the Creed, do you hold that the Apostles’ Creed is the true Creed of the Church and contains the essentials of salvation?’ ‘To this I again responded, ‘‘Certainly, if we may, as we must, interpret the Apostles’ Creed in the light of history, I hold and teach that it declares the true faith, and liso preach,’ When these questions and answers had duly passed be- tween us, Mr. Mosher and the other members of the com- mittee declared themselves satisfied with my orthodoxy. We then ceased to be a court and a defendant, and became at once simply friends again. We spent an hour or two in converse. If I remember correctly, Mrs. Crapsey served refreshments and the committee went their way; and Dr. Skeele said to me with great satisfaction, ‘“There will be no trial.” In a very few days I had a letter from Mr. Mosher telling me that the committee was entirely satisfied with my statement and wished to embody it in their report to the bishop, asking my permission to do so. I answered that I would grant that permission if the ques- tions and answers were given as we had stated them to 266 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS each other in our conference. Mr. Mosher consented to this and invited me to come up to Niagara Falls that we might properly prepare the paper. I accepted his invita- tion and we together prepared a document for submission to the bishop which, if it had been submitted as prepared, would not only have made impossible my trial, but any trial for heresy in the future. What we did was by a series of questions and answers to grant the principle of interpretation, both in relation to the Creed and the Holy Scriptures. If this had been submitted to the bishop and at the same time published to the world, it would have been impossible for the bishop to have rejected it, because the whole world would at once have approved of this solu- tion of the diffculty and both the clergy and the laity would have been released from slavish obedience to the letter of both Creed and Scripture. But it was not so submitted. The bishop interfered with the free action of the committee; the majority of the committee refused to present me for trial, but instead of giving that clear-cut reason for it, they fumbled the whole matter, tried and condemned me themselves, not for being a heretic, but for being a fool. ‘They claimed that I did not know what I was talking about and, therefore, was not to be held responsible. ‘They said, among other things, that I preached eloquently that which for the time being I believed to be true, but they declared that there was not sufficient evidence in either my sermons or other writings to warrant a presentation. Three of the com- mittee signed the majority report, and two the minority report, which affirmed that there was sufficient cause for my trial to be found in my utterances. This ought to have settled the matter and, in the judgment of the world, it did put an end to any legal action, so that I was still a minister in good standing in my Church. But while le- gally this brought to a close the controversy, that contro- NO CAUSE FOR ACTION 257 versy still went on in the Church and secular press. I was assailed as a man false to my position by many of the clergy. One of these was the Reverend Dr. Edward Ab- bott, who accused me of being a traitor to the cause that I had sworn to support. I replied to Dr. Abbott and this contention between us was very ably summed up in the Pacific Churchman of October 15th, 1905, under the head- ing, “Honour among Clergymen”’: “What is a clergyman to do who finds as the years go on that his belief has changed greatly from that of his earlier years, and dif- fers widely from that which is commonly held in the Church? Dr. A. S. Crapsey has recently discussed the question in the Outlook, and has replied to a letter of criticism by Dr. Edward Abbott. The Outlook has commented editorially upon the positions of the two writers and thrown the question out for general consideration. “Dr. Crapsey’s position is essentially this: "That the Church stands for the fundamental verities of Christ’s teaching, which he defines, somewhat strangely, as the summary of the Law, the Lord’s Prayer, and the five Laws of Righteousness of the Sermon on the Mount; that for the man who holds these verities, but has other- wise greatly departed from the current belief of the Church, there are only three possible lines of action—stultification, silence, or frank statement of his position, and a clinging to his office in the Church. ‘The fourth possibility, that of leaving the Church, he declines to entertain. ‘The only reasonable and Christian course is the third. ‘A clergyman belongs to his Church; it is his spiritual city. ‘By withdrawing from his place he loses his power.’ It is, of course, upon the question of withdrawing that the controversy hinges. Dr. Abbott meets these points by an insistence in the form of questions addressed to Dr. Crapsey, upon the language of the formularies and the ordinal of the Church. He is a strict con- structionist. “The Outlook sums up with a criticism of Dr. Crap- sey’s definition of the fundamental verities, but a general sympathy with his point of view.” The Pacific Churchman goes on to apply the principle of interpretation to the creeds. It declares the impossi- 258 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS bility of believing the creeds in their original sense. ‘The creeds were formulated in the pre-scientific age of the world. Men then believed in the three-compartment uni- verse: heaven, earth and hell; and the creed is governed by that conception. Jesus lived on earth, descended into hell and ascended into heaven. ‘That conception is no longer possible to an intelligent man. The descent into hell and the ascent into heaven must either be discarded or interpreted. Paul interpreted the ascension as a passing from the lower life of the flesh to the higher life of the spirit. The conclusion of the Pacific Churchman is that I was entirely right in my contention and ought not to be placed on trial. During that summer I published through the house of Whittaker, in New York, my lectures in full, under the title of “Religion and Politics.” This book commanded wide attention and, for the most part, favourable notice. The Pacific Churchman in the same issue of October 15th reviewed this book, saying: “However widely we may differ from some of the positions laid down in this very able book, it is infinitely refreshing to find a man who has the tempered courage of deep convictions on vital questions touching very nearly the interests of the whole State, as well as the interests of the Church. We distinctly disagree with him on more than one point, notably on his views of the genesis of the Church. But he says so much, and says it so well, on purity, cleanliness, in all things affecting the corporate life of the community of the States, as well as the corporate life of the Church, that one can at least pass over for the time what, from our point of view, we take to be radical errors. “There is a very able, terse summary of the growth of the Roman State, and its prevailing conditions when our Lord came, and the Church began her work. ‘Then he traces the relations of Religion and Politics down to these days, necessarily in very ab- breviated terms, still with much lucidity, and in a way that holds attention. And at the close of the book, in sharp-pointed words, whose keen edge is not blunted by the slightest hesitating regard for NO CAUSE FOR ACTION 259 any one’s susceptibilities, he arraigns the corrupt and shameless con- ditions of American life as a whole. For instance, ‘We have vast, fabulous wealth at one end of the social scale, and bare subsistence at the other. The forms of law are used to divert the earnings of the industrious into the purse of the dishonest and of the idle. Widows and orphans are beguiled into buying undigested securi- ties, which prove to be indigestible, and which rob the widows and fatherless of their all. To correct these abuses, and to call the na- tion back to its high and holy calling as a Church-State, whose duty it is to promote the general welfare, to secure domestic tranquillity, and, above and before all, to establish justice, is the task to which the American people must set itself without delay.’ And there are plainer words still, and wholesome ones, for the individual: ‘If the primary of your heart be clean, then you can think of cleansing the City, the State, the Nation. Go to the primary of your home and bring up your children in the belief that man is more than money, and that property rights are always to be subject to personal rights. Then go to the primary of your ward, insist that the meeting shall be open and free, speak for order and decency and open discussion, demand of your alderman the same unblemished personal char- acter you would demand of your minister, let the man you send to a convention represent you, and not some outside sinister influence, make your primaries political schools for the discussion of National and State politics.’ ”’ This book was immediately placed on the Index by both Protestant and Catholic Churches. Pressure was brought to bear upon the house of Whittaker, and by them, so far as possible, it was withdrawn from the market. I offered it to the Baker-Taylor Company, and they refused to han- dle it. It has been in demand from that day to this; the original edition has been exhausted and I can no longer supply the demand. It is my purpose to reissue the work, if possible, in the near future. I have not one word of it to retract; it is, of course, an inadequate treatment of the subject but, so far as it goes, it was true sixteen years ago and it is true to-day. CHAPTER XLVI GUILTY AS CHARGED N Wednesday, the eighteenth day of April, in the year 1906, accompanied by my daughter Adelaide and the Honourable James Breck Perkins, my senior counsel, I left my home in Rochester and entrained for the town of Batavia where I was to undergo a trial for the crime of heresy. This was a crime not known to the law of the land: it was peculiar to the Church of Christ. Ignoring the action of the Special Committee the Standing Committee of the Diocese had indicted me for heresy. : After the establishment of Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire, the Emperor Theodosius made any departure from the settled creed a crime against the State. From that time down to the year 1906, heresy trials have been a part of the history of Christendom. In the earlier period of Christianity, down through the Middle Ages, and even into the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a heresy trial was a serious matter for the heretic. His trial meant his condemnation, and his condemnation a cruel death. In these, our days, heresy trials are matters of news, excite the attention of the public while they are in progress, and generally change the ecclesiastical standing of the heretic. Heresy is no longer a crime against the State. The Church has no power to visit physical punish- ment upon its criminals; it can only exclude them from its communion. If I had declined to attend upon the sessions of this 260 GUILTY AS CHARGED 261 court, no power could have compelled me to do so. I was constrained to this action only by my own desire to submit the question at issue between myself and my accusers to the decision of the organization of which I was a member. There was no excitement attending the opening of this court, the sessions of which were to attract such wide at- tention and to be productive of such far-reaching results. When Mr. Perkins, my daughter and I alighted from the train at Batavia, we encountered the quiet of a country town. No one was there to greet us, nor did we attract attention as we walked from the station to the parish house of Saint James’ Church. The room in which the court was to sit was described by a reporter for the press in these words: ‘The sitting of an ecclesiastical court might by a lay person be supposed to be an occasion of much ceremonial dignity. But it was not. The court- room itself was the downstairs front room of the parish- house hall, formerly an old-fashioned double parlour from which the partitions had been torn away. ‘The walls were dull, the floor was bare and gave proof of long use. There was a low railing separating the room in half. As one entered there were perhaps twenty chairs to the right of the doorway for the use of others than those connected with the court who might wish to witness the proceedings; chairs set close together until the occupants more than rubbed elbows were provided for the press. The table was covered with clean cardboard. Beyond the railing, which enclosed about a third of the room, was space for the court. There were two tables behind the railing, over which a green cloth had been thrown for the use of the five members of the court; the other with slits through which a man’s hand could pass was the table for the coun- sel, at which sat Dr. Crapsey with his counsel, the Honour- able James Breck Perkins. Ranged against the side of the wall was the prosecutor, John Lord O’Brian, of Buf- 262 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS falo, with his assistants, the Honourable John H. Stiness, of Providence, Rhode Island, and Dr. Francis J. Hall, Professor of Dogmatic Theology in the Newton Theologi- cal Seminary, Ecclesiastical Counsel for the Standing Committee, the accusers in the case.’’ Such were the hum- ble settings of the opening of the last heresy trial that will ever be held in the history of the world. After courteous greetings had passed between the prose- cution and the defence, the company sat in silence await- ing the entrance of the court; this court had been consti- tuted for the occasion. The diocese, as the unit of or- ganization of the Episcopal Church, has its judicial system for the discipline of its clergy. The modern Church, Catholic or Protestant, does not discipline its laity. The court in each diocese usually consists of five clergymen elected for one year by the annual convention of such diocese. In this particular court there was at the time of the opening of the trial one vacancy to which the bishop, by right of his office, had the appointment. On the orig- inal court were two clergymen of high standing, Dr. Hayes, of the Delancy Divinity School, and Dr. Sills, rector of Trinity Church, Geneva. ‘These two gentlemen had openly and frequently condemned me and my position in the pulpit and in the press and they were naturally chal- lenged by my counsel. ‘This left two additional vacancies to be filled by the bishop, who was my chief accuser. A court so constituted made a fair trial impossible. The court, as finally organized, consisted of Walter C. Roberts, of Corning; Charles H. Boynton, of Geneseo; Francis H. Dunham, of Albion; G. Sherman Burrows, of Tonawanda, and John M. Gilbert, of Phelps. None of these gentle- men had had any judicial experience; they were country clergymen, far removed from the influences that were dis- turbing the intellectual life of the Church in the greater centres. When the trial opened and Mr. John Lord GUILTY AS CHARGED 263 O’Brian moved the trial of the defendant on the indict- ment, the president of the court gazed round the audience and asked, ‘Does anyone second the motion?” There was a titter in the courtroom and Mr. O’Brian had to ex- plain to the president that no second was necessary. Mr. James Breck Perkins, counsel for the accused, moved an adjournment on the plea that neither himself nor his as- sociate counsel, Mr. Edward M. Shepard, had had time to prepare the case. This motion was peremptorily denied. Whereupon Mr. Perkins said he would take his client out of the court. Upon this action, the court grudgingly granted a week’s delay. When the court reassembled, after the adjournment, it was, by the courtesy of Judge Sanford North, the assessor of the court, permitted to hold its sessions in the county courthouse. ‘This was a very dignified building and the courtroom was spacious enough partly to accommodate those who sought admittance to the trial room. During the time of this trial, the town of Batavia was crowded with visitors. Clergymen and laymen came from all parts of the country to be present at what was considered to be the most important event in the history of religion in the past twenty years; an event that would influence the his- tory of religion for all time to come. The city of Boston sent two large delegations, the High-Churchmen under the leadership of Dr. Van Alan, of the Church of the Advent; the Broad Church contingent was under the command of Dr. Elwood Worcester, of Emmanuel Church; these two delegations sat opposite each other and glared their mutual hostility. I, myself, was simply a looker-on in this ‘Vienna’; never in my life had I such a feeling of detach- ment as possessed me throughout this trial. The trial was opened by the reading of the indictment and the plea of the defendant. This, however, occurred at the first ses- sion of the court in the parish house. The reopening of 204. THE LAST OF THE HERETICS the trial in the courtroom was made by the leader of the Buffalo bar, whose name I have unfortunately forgotten, a venerable man and a Presbyterian, who stood beside me, laid his hand on my head, and said, “All we hear of this defendant is most lovely and Christlike, but that makes his crime all the greater. He, an officer of his Church, in his official capacity, denies the fundamental doctrines of his Church; in his pulpit he denies the Creed. For this of- fence, we demand from this court a verdict of guilty with the consequences that follow.” With this opening, the court proceeded with the case; it offered in evidence my sermon, my book, ‘Religion and Politics,” and it called as a witness my assistant, Mr. Alexander, who testified that on a given evening I had said that Jesus was born of middle-class parentage and that the doctrine of the later Church, which removed Him from the sphere of humanity by denying His natural birth, was the great disaster of Christendom. My counsel, Mr. Perkins, put this witness through a severe cross-examination, in which it was brought out that Mr. Alexander had applied to the vestry for the rectorship of St. Andrew’s Church in case of my conviction. The next day was the great day of the trial. It was the day when the counsel met and battled with each other in the theological field of contest. Mr. Shepard, my junior counsel, was one of the leaders of the bar in the United States; Mr. Perkins, my senior counsel, was the Representative of the city of Rochester in the Congress of the United States; he was not only a lawyer of high repute, but an author of wide reputation. On the other side was Mr. John Lord O'Brian, one of the leaders of the Buf- falo bar; Judge Stiness, of Providence, Rhode Island. Besides this legal counsel, each side was supported by theological counsel. Dr. Francis Hall, of the Chicago Theological Seminary, argued the theological question for GUILTY AS CHARGED 205 the prosecution; the defence was represented by Drs. EI- wood Worcester and Samuel McComb, of Emmanuel Church, Boston. The argument was opened by the senior counsel for the prosecution, whose contention was that every clergyman of the Church was bound to teach the Creed in the same sense that had been placed upon it by the Church from the beginning; in other words, every clergyman must live in the three-compartment universe; he must believe in the heaven, the earth and the hell of the primitive age. He was bound by the action of the Protestant Episcopal Church as it expressed its doctrine in its first convention in this country. Mr. O’Brian argued his side very ably. He was followed by Mr. Perkins for the defence. Mr. Perkins argued eloquently for the principle of interpreta- tion, showing that it was utterly impossible for the modern mind to express its religious belief in the conceptions of the fourth century. During the progress of the trial, there were various arguments on questions of the admis- sion of evidence; one of these was made by Mr. Shepard and brought out an amusing instance of the ignorance of the layman in matters of Church doctrine and history. The name of Athanasius was cited and Mr. Shepard pre- sumed that Athanasius was the author of the Creed that goes by his name, and he exclaimed dramatically, ““Who is Athanasius, that we should submit our intelligence to his?” This called forth a laugh among the clergy, and Mr. O’Brian politely informed Mr. Shepard that Athanasius was not the author of that Creed, but some unknown monk in the Middle Ages. At this Mr. Shepard recovered him- self and said, ‘“Then who is this unknown monk who is to fix for us our belief for all times?” The legal argument was followed by the theological. Dr. Hall spoke for the prosecution; this gentleman was very learned and very deaf; he opened his plea by giving 266 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS to the court the history of the English Privy Council; his intention being to show that that council had no authority in the determination of Church doctrines. He wandered on and on and on until he utterly lost the court and the audience. I, myself, went to sleep and my daughter Adelaide, who was in great distress lest I should disturb the court, asked one of the reporters to waken me, which he did to the amusement of the spectators. The weary court became restless and another amusing incident oc- curred. Mr. Boynton, one of the judges, interrupted the proceedings and addressed Judge Roberts, saying, ‘Judge North wishes very much to hear Mr. Shepard.” At this there was a ‘‘sh—sh—sh”’ on the part of the au- dience in general. Poor Dr. Hall, not knowing what was happening, stopped and stammered and Judge North arose and disclaimed any wish on his part to interrupt the learned argument of the counsel. Dr. Hall did at last conclude and he left the court and the audience in a state of utter confusion. No one knew nor cared what the jurisdiction of the English Privy Council might be. Mr. Shepard followed Dr. Hall in a convincing argu- ment for comprehension. He showed the utter impossi- bility of holding a growing body in the swathing-bands of its infancy; he spoke for about an hour and electrified his audience. Dr. Worcester then made the strong argument for the defence, agreeing in substance with Mr. Shepard and fortifying his position by his great learning; he showed how the creeds had changed from time to time in interpretation and how they must change. In the course of his argument, making a plea on behalf of the defendant on the ground of good character, he told the story of the overcoat as it is related in an earlier part of this history. I had never heard this story until then and I smiled with incredulity. In my heart I accused my reverend counsel of playing to the gallery. Dr. Worcester was followed GUILTY AS CHARGED 267 in his argument by his colleague, Dr. Samuel McComb, who, being an Irishman, was the comedian of the occasion. On occasion he cried, ‘If it plase the court, we are in the prisence of three alternatives.’’ At this someone in the courtroom cried, “‘He’s an Irishman!” and the heavy atmosphere of the courtroom was refreshed by a gale of laughter. At one period in these proceedings, I myself made a statement of my position to the court, in which I explained and maintained the principle of interpretation, showing how utterly impossible it was for any sane intelligence to hold the creeds literally at the present time and under pres- ent conditions of thought. This statement was published in full in the Democrat and Chronicle of the next morning, and I sent a copy of this declaration together with the re- port of the argument of Mr. Shepard to Andrew D. White, at Cornell University. Upon these documents I received from Dr. White the following comment: “My pEAR Doctor CRAPSEY: “T gave last evening until midnight to Mr. Shepard’s argument and the accompanying documents, especially your own statement before the Church Court, and I have rarely been as much moved by any reading whatever. “The whole statement of facts, the argument, and your own state- ment have put the whole question on a higher plane than any upon which it has been presented to the world hitherto. It is all most nobly done and it has aroused my most enthusiastic admiration. I cannot believe it possible that it will not end the whole matter fa- vourably to yourself and to the large body of men whose thoughts take the same direction as your own. ‘To disregard the considera- tions presented by yourself, by Mr. Shepard, and by Professor Nash, would be almost a crime against humanity. It would certainly in- flict a blow upon the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States from which it would, probably, never recover.” The trial court had this case under consideration for a 268 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS week; its sessions were in secret, but the proceedings of the court leaked out and the reporters of the newspapers were able to anticipate their decision. It was reported that the court was standing four to one for conviction. Francis H. Dunham, of Albion, was the dissenting judge. Mr. Dunham was my sponsor in baptism; he was the as- sistant minister of Christ Church, New York, at the time of my baptism and had a natural prejudice in favour of his spiritual child. He contended that while I might be judged as having denied the deity of Jesus, I did not deny His divinity, and he argued that there might be a distinc- tion between deity and divinity, that the deity might be confined to the Father while the divinity was ascribed to the three persons of the Godhead. The reporters were able to say that this argument of Mr. Dunham, who was the oldest member of the Church, was answered by Mr. Gilbert, the youngest member of the court. Looking out of the window, Mr. Gilbert pointed and said, “There is no more divinity in Crapsey’s Christ than there is in that telegraph pole”; and with Mr. Gilbert the majority of the court agreed. ‘This court was organized to convict and it convicted. CHAPTER XLVII THE CHURCH SHUTS THE DOOR HE decision of the Batavian court was not final. An appeal lay to a Court of Review which had been constituted for the purpose of correcting the legal errors that might be made in diocesan courts. The lower court consisted entirely of clergymen, and clergymen know nothing of the technicalities of the law. Prior to the establishment of the Court of Review, each diocese was a law unto itself and the bishop was its ab- solute ruler; it was to remedy, in a measure, this state of affairs that the Court of Review was set up. ‘This court, however, was limited as to its jurisdiction; it could take knowledge only of purely legal errors; it could not discuss nor decide any questions relating to faith, discipline or worship. [hese questions were reserved to a Court of Appeal which was to be set up whenever the Church in general convention should act. My counsel, notwithstanding this limitation, decided to appeal from the Batavian court to the Court of Review and the appeal was filed in due time with the president of that court, the Right Reverend John Scarborough, Bishop of New Jersey. This court assembled for the purpose of hearing this appeal on September 4th in the parish house of the diocese of New York. ‘The court consisted of the president, Dr. William R. Huntington, Rector of Grace Church, New York, Reverend Alfred B. Baker D.D., Rec- tor of Trinity Church, Princeton, New Jersey, The Very Reverend John Robert Moses, M.A., Dean of the Cathe- 269 270 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS dral of the Incarnation, Garden City, Long Island, The Honorable Charles Andrews, lately Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals of the State of New York, The Honor- able Frederick Adams, Judge of the Circuit Court of New Jersey, The Honorable James Parker of Perth Amboy, New Jersey. The room in which this court assembled was one befitting the occasion. ‘The building was Gothic in its architecture; this room was spacious, lofty and lighted with windows of coloured glass. When the court entered this room and took their seats, it had all the appearance of a courtroom. ‘There was no gathering of curiosity-seekers; the only persons present were those who were there to par- ticipate in the proceedings. ‘The press was represented by reporters, the appellant was there with his son and two daughters, and a few of the clergy came to listen to the proceedings. Bishop Scarborough opened the court with an address upon the importance and solemnity of the occasion. He assured those present, and through them the world at large, that the court was deeply impressed with the impor- tance of the duty that had been laid upon them; their de- cision would affect not only the appellant, but it would have serious bearing upon every clergyman in the Church and would affect the future history of the Church itself. At the conclusion of the bishop’s remarks, Mr. O’Brian, counsel for the respondent, moved the dismissal of the ap- peal; the court took this motion under advisement. The Honourable James Breck Perkins then argued the case for the appellant, dwelling mainly upon the technicalities. His argument occupied the time of the court until the noon recess. When the court reassembled, Mr. Shepard ad- dressed the court, taking up the argument where Mr. Perkins had left off. It was conceded by all that the ar- gument of Mr. Shepard was powerful and brilliant. Mr. Shepard, after dismissing the merely technical errors of THE CHURCH SHUTS THE DOOR ag the lower court, entered upon a discussion of the principle of interpretation as applying not only to the creeds of the Church, but to all historical documents; as, for instance, to the Constitution of the United States. In the interim between the first and second trials, Mr. Shepard had given careful study to the history of the creeds of the Christian Church and their interpretations, and especially to the de- cisions of English courts bearing upon the subject. He spoke for nearly three hours and when he concluded he was congratulated most warmly by Judge Andrews and other members of the court; he published this argument in pamphlet form. Had Mr. Shepard delivered such an ora- tion before an English court or any other audience capable of comprehending and appreciating his matter, he would have ranked with Edmund Burke as a master of the art of reasoning and of the use of the English language. I pos- sess a copy of this pamphlet and am sorry that it is not in every law library in the country. Mr. O'Brian followed Mr. Shepard’s argument and confined himself to the tech- nicalities, as in the lower court he laid down the principle that the clergy of the Episcopal Church had no right to any liberty of interpretation in regard to the creeds. ‘They must take them in the sense in which they had been held by the convention that organized the Episcopal Church in America just after the Revolution. His argument was about this: if a man is a member of a club or association and sees defects in its constitution and by-laws, he must not disturb the peace of the club by moving any amend- ments within the club itself, but go out on the sidewalk and throw stones through the club windows. The principle advocated by Mr. O’Brian would render impossible the ad- ministration of any law; no law can be so made as to cover particular cases; hence it is that we have courts to inter- pret the laws. ‘This principle applies to creeds established by Churches as well as to laws enacted by legislatures. A 272 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS creed is necessarily limited as to time. What men be- lieve at one period they cannot believe at another. As Dr. Rainsford said, “Creeds are opinions, and opinions change.” Not a judge upon the bench of that court, not a lawyer pleading before that bench, did or could hold the Christian creeds as they were held by the primitive Chris- tian any more than he could profess the astronomy of Ptolemy. At the conclusion of Mr. O’Brian’s argument, the court took the case under advisement, but it was plain to me that they had already decided. I heard Judge Adams remark that ‘‘We cannot permit a clergyman to use the pulpit of the church to defame the Creed of the Church,” and this was before Judge Adams had heard the argument of Mr. Shepard. The court rendered its de- cision within ten days and it simply confirmed the action of the court in Batavia. That this judgment of the court was powerless to arrest the progress of thought is evident from this letter which I received immediately after the adjournment of the court and while it had the matter still under advisement: ‘Union THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY “Tuesday, 20 November, 1906. “Rey. ALGERNON S. Crapsgey, D.D., “Rochester, N. Y. “DEAR Dr. CRapSEY: “We should be false to our highest ideals if we failed to show you the hearty sympathy with which we have watched you fight your good fight. We sympathize with you because you exalt truth above ecclesiastical authority. We admire you because you dare to express unequivocally the truth you exalt. We see in you a spirit quite akin to Jesus of Nazareth, who dared to differ with the tra- ditional religious dogmas of the Jews. We theological students of several denominations wish you to know our sympathy and ad- miration. “FRANK DIEHL. “JoHn P. HeErRING. “Cart F. Crue. “RAYMAN Forest FRITz. THE CHURCH SHUTS THE DOOR 273 “CuHas. H. Fisuer. “S. M. Omikura. “Jas. G. Barey. “E. F. HorrMire. “A. S. BEALE. “Puitie L. SCHENK. “Beny. W. Rosinson. “D. Roy FREEMAN.” “ALFRED J. WILSON. I trust that the publication of this letter, which was not written in confidence, will not at this late day bring trouble to any of the signers. I publish it in order that my read- ers may see how entirely the decision of the court in my case was made in ignorance of the living thought of -the Christian Church in all its branches. The Church itself had no Court of Appeal to consider the great principles at stake in this case. It hoped in this way to prevent changes in religious belief. ‘That it failed in this purpose is clearly seen from the above letter. I do not know to what denominations these gentlemen belong, but I had hun- dreds of letters of similar import from the clergy of the Episcopal Church. The Court of Review rendered its decision and served it upon me by the hand of the clerk of the court, the Reverend Dr. Anstice. When I took it from his hand, I was then, so far as the courts could determine, suspended from the performance of the spiritual ministrations in my parish. I could not celebrate before my altar, nor preach from my pulpit. It did not deprive me of my rectorship. I could have devolved upon an assistant the spiritual duties and still administer the temporalities of the parish and vis- ited my people, but such action on my part was impossible. The action of the court was in effect my dismissal from the ministry of the Church. I so understood it. Imme- diately after the departure of Dr. Anstice from the rec- tory, | went into my church, walked up and down the aisle mourning the death of my ministerial life. My wife came in and kissed me. I knew and she knew that the end had come to our mutual work in that church, a work that had 27 4. THE LAST OF THE HERETICS occupied our lives for twenty-seven years, in which we had won the love of our people. My wife was not responsible for my crime but she suffered its consequences. When the decision of the Court of Review was made public, Life, in that week’s issue, had a wonderful car- toon; it pictured a bishop shutting the door of a great Church out of which had gone the figure of a man stripped of his clothing; this man was walking into the light. The bishop was shutting the light out of the Church and enclos- ing the darkness. This was the effect of the decision of the Court of Review. So far as that decision was con- cerned, the door of the Church was closed against modern thought. ‘Those within the Church were deprived of the growing light of the coming day. The effect of that de- cision was to drive away from the ministry of the Church all forward-looking men. No one can help remarking the difference between the clergy of the present and the clergy of the past. There are still in the Church able men who are holding over; they were in the Church at the time of that decision and, acting upon my advice, they remained in the Church. Men such as Dr. Mellish and Dr. Bartlett still keep the fine tradition; but the Church has not to-day, and it will never have again, such men as Phillips Brooks | and Morgan Dix. This decision inflicted, as Andrew D. White said it would, a permanent injury upon the Epis- copal Church, from which it can never recover. CHAPTER XLVIII RENUNCIATION MMEDIATELY after the decision of the Court of Re- | view, I went to New York to consult with Mr. Shep- ard; not that I was in doubt as to what I should do; it was clear to me that I must renounce the ministry of my church; but all the more I wanted Mr. Shepard’s advice. When I sat down to write my letter of renunciation to the bishop, I was in a state of mind that made this writing a difficult task. After many failures, I gave myself up to the spirit of wisdom, and the spirit of wisdom, not I, guided my pen. When I had finished my letter, of which I did not change a word, I went from my hotel down to Mr. Shepard’s of- fice at Broadway and Pine Street and submitted it to him. While he was reading I was looking out of the window down into Trinity Churchyard. After Mr. Shepard had ceased to turn the pages of my letter, I was conscious of a silence that filled the room. I turned and saw that the eyes of Mr. Shepard were moist with tears. He said, “Mr. Crapsey, it is worth all the pain and sorrow of the trial to give this letter to the world.’”’ We sent for Mr. Peabody, and we went over the letter with meticulous care and we added only one word. Had I expressed the surface thoughts of my own mind, this letter would have been mad folly; but as I went be- yond my own mind into the mind of the spirit of wisdom, I gave to the world what the Rochester Evening Post called a spiritual classic. This letter is as follows: 275 276 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS “St. ANDREW’s REcTorRY, “ROCHESTER, “November 26, 1906. “My pEAR BIsHoP: “Under existing conditions I deem it my duty to make a formal and final renunciation of the ministry of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and in consequence I ask that you will, for reasons as to time already given, not earlier than the third, not later than the sixth of December, take order under Canon 31 of the General Canons of the Church to accomplish my deposition from the Priesthood. | “T am certain that you will be glad to acknowledge that I am not compelled to this action by anything that reflects upon my moral integrity or calls in question my faithfulness as a pastor. My sole difficulty lies in the fact that a long, careful, conscientious study of the Holy Scriptures has compelled me to come to certain conclu- sions concerning the prenatal history of Jesus which are not in physical accord with the letter of the Creeds, and hence have com- pelled me in order to hold the Creeds to give to certain articles an interpretation that will harmonize them with the truth as I find that truth in the teaching of the Holy Scriptures. But recent ju- dicial decisions have declared that any such harmonizing of the Creed with my own convictions of the truth is not permissible in the Protestant Episcopal Church. In my own case I recognize the right of the constituted authorities of the Church to define the limits of interpretation and in order to hold fast to the truth must let go of the Creed as now interpreted by the Courts. I am not now and never have been conscious of any insincerity in giving such inter- pretation to the various articles of the Creed as are demanded by present conditions of thought and the present state of knowledge, any more than I am conscious of insincerity when I say the sun rises and sets, though as a matter of fact the sun does nothing of the kind. If I am to hold the Creed at all I must give to certain, if not all, of its articles a spiritual rather than a literally physical interpreta- tion. When I say of Jesus that He ascended into heaven I do not mean and cannot mean that with His physical body of flesh, blood and bones He floated into space and has for two thousand years been existing, somewhere in the sky, in that very physical body of RENUNCIATION 379 flesh, blood and bones. Such an existence would seem to me not glorious but horrible, and such a conception is to me not only un- believable, it is unthinkable. What I do mean by this phrase is that Jesus, having accomplished His work in the flesh, ascended into the higher life of the spirit. Also when I say of Jesus that He was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, I do not mean that the great and living God in order to get into His world had to violate His wonderful law of human generation, break into the sanctities of marriage and cause a Son of Man to be born without a human father. Such a notion is most repugnant to my ideal of a wise and holy God. I was not therefore alarmed, I was relieved when a careful study of the Holy Scriptures con- vinced me that this notion of the origin of Jesus was without foun- dation in history. Jesus was not lessened in my worship. He was ennobled by this discovery. When I reached the conclusion, as I did some years ago, that the infancy stories were not historical, I did not cease to believe in Jesus. I believed in Him all the more, and I gave to the words ‘conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary,’ an interpretation that harmonized with my knowl- edge of the facts. He was a Child of the holy seed, sanctified from His mother’s womb. A Son of God all the more, in my esti- mation, because He was the Son of Man. ‘Then I saw for the first time into the meaning of those words of John when he said, “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory as the glory of the only-begotten of the Father full of grace and truth,’ and I could understand how in the same chapter Philip could say of this incarnate Word, ‘We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and the prophets did write, Jesus of ‘Nazareth, the Son of Joseph.’ “Now this conception of Jesus based upon a careful study of Holy Scriptures is of the very warp and woof of my intellectual and spir- itual life, and it is not probable that it will ever change. I will carry it with me into that spiritual world where I shall see Jesus face to face. But I am told by judicial decision that this concep- tion is not permissible in the mind of a minister of the Protestant Episcopal Church. I bow to that decision. I cannot change my mind—I therefore leave the Church. I do not blame my judges; they acted according to their light—let not them blame me if I 278 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS follow my light, which is lightening me to the everlasting day. But whether they blame or not, I cannot do other than I do—I must obey God rather than men. “But while I thus feel that their decision is final for me, I am equally certain that it is not final for the Church. I have reason to know that there are hundreds of clergymen and thousands of lay- men in the Protestant Episcopal Church who have reached the same conclusion that I have, and, Sir, I beg to say to them in this letter to you, that their position in the Church is just as tenable as it ever was. ‘This judgment affects no person except myself. Let no one be dismayed. Let every man stand in his place—speak his mind boldly, and the truth will soon have such a multitude of witnesses that all in the Church must hear. So confident am I of the truth as it is in Jesus that I appeal from those in places of authority in the Church to the Church itself, to the great body of the people, secure in their wise, sane, serene possession of the truth. Again I exhort my brethren of like belief to stay where they are. I am about to carry our case to the high Court of the free intelligence and the enlightened conscience of the world, and if I win it there, I will win it for every Church and every soul in Christendom. If I fail before that Court, it will be because I am wrong in my conception of truth; and then I will be glad to fail, for my contention is not for my conception, but for the eternal truth of God. Let my breth- ren within the Church abide the issue of this trial. For when the Great Tribunal of Free Thought has decided this contention, the men who administer the Church on earth will conform to this de- cision. It is to this work of showing that God is in Man and Man is in God that I consecrate the rest of my life. “In asking my dismissal from the Church of my life-long devo- tion, I do so with the deepest gratitude for the opportunities of wor- ship, of preaching and of service which have been the privileges of my office. To pray before the altar of my church has been my daily habit. ‘To preach the gospel of Jesus from the pulpit of my church has been my weekly delight. But far dearer to my soul than all ministry within the walls of the church has been the oppor- tunity that has come to me as the glorious privilege of my pastoral office of being of daily service to my people in all the changes and chances of their mortal lives. If I seem to have unduly contended RENUNCIATION 2°79 for my ministry, let my pardon be that I value my ministry above everything except my integrity and deemed it due to others as well as myself and above all to the Church itself to have an authoritative and deliberate decision. “Tt is to me more than meat and drink to have the right to be with my people in every critical hour of their lives, to give them in the name of the living God courage to live and courage to die. My conviction that we need no miracle to account for Jesus of Nazareth is confirmed by my daily contact with the lives of the people. In these men and women of my charge who go forth to their work and to their labour until the evening, who bear the world’s burden without receiving the world’s reward, many of whom endure suf- ferings unspeakable and privations that are often appalling, who with all their faults, are yet heroic in their patience, whose daily toil is the support of the world; in these men and women, I say, I see not the cursed seed of any Adam, but the blood brothers and sisters of Jesus of Nazareth. To leave this daily ministry to such a people is to break my heart. But better a broken heart than a life made false and loathsome by cowardly retraction. “In leaving the organized Church, so far as its ministry is con- cerned, I feel that I can take with me the best that the Church has given me; the fasts and the feasts, the vigils and the tears of the Church have become mine by right of possession, and not all the courts and Bishops of the Church could take them away. I shall watch in Advent, be merry at Christmas, fast in Lent, weep on Good Friday, rejoice at Easter, even though the Church’s servants shut its doors upon me. Yes, all the more because they have shut its doors upon me, driven from the earthly tabernacle, I shall have to take refuge in that tabernacle not made with hands, which is the tabernacle where God dwells with all His saints and angels. “And if I seem to have lost my hold upon some of the traditional and physical interpretations of the creed, let it not be thought on that account that I have lost my hold on the Gospel of Christ. Nay, rather because I have let go these temporary and unstable in- terpretations of the creed, I find strength to hold more firmly than ever to the gospel. [I believe as never before that to love the Lord my God with all my soul and all my mind and all my strength, and to love my neighbour as myself, is not only more than the law and 280 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS the prophets, but is also more than the creeds and the Churches. I see more clearly than ever that the five negative laws of righteous- ness laid down by Jesus, which laws command us not to be angry, not to lust, not to take any oath or vow, not to resist evil, not to hate the stranger though he be an enemy, I see, I say, more clearly than ever that these laws are the hedges of that straight and narrow way that leadeth unto life. To walk in that way has been and will be the constant labour of my soul. “Let no one think for a moment that I do not love the Lord Jesus Christ and would not have served him to the last in this Church, which is to me the historic Church of the great English-speaking race, if only its men in authority had let me. All I asked of them was tolerance. But they have refused to extend tolerance to such as I, and I must, with a grief which only my own heart knows, ac- cept my dismissal from the service of the Church. But though cast down, I do not despair. As I have been true to God, so I believe God will be true to me. I believe He has work for me to do and that is His way of calling me to that work. In His Name, there- fore, Right Reverend Sir, I beseech you to forgive me my offences and let me go. “Assuring you that I go without the slightest animosity to any that I leave behind, and with love unspeakable to that host of men and women within the Church who have comforted me in my tribu- lation and, most of all, with a gratitude that will never die to four men who have done for me what men can seldom do for another— to Seth Low and George Foster Peabody, to James Breck Perkins and Edward Morse Shepard—to these men I leave my undying gratitude, and with contrition to the Church for all the faults and failings of my ministry, I remain, Right Reverend and dear sir, “Your servant in the Lord Jesus Christ, ““ALGERNON 9S. CRAPSEY. “Rr, Rey. WittiAm Davin Watxer, S.T.D., “Bishop of Western New York.” My letter was mailed to the bishop and given to the press on Saturday afternoon; it was sent out by the Asso- ciated Press and the United Press in full to every paper in the United States and Canada. It was cabled to Eng- RENUNCIATION 281 land, and on Sunday morning it had millions of readers. Its reaction was hundreds of letters of commendation from all parts of the country, of which I give the following: “HARVARD UNIVERSITY, ““CAMBRIDGE, Mass. “Nov. 28, 1906. “My pEAR Dr. Crapsey: “YT had the honour of meeting you at Hampton some years ago with our mutual and dear friend George Foster Peabody, and this passing acquaintance may, I hope, justify me in expressing to you the profound appreciation with which I have just read your letter to your Bishop. I have not been able to concur with you or witn Mr. Peabody, with whom I have talked on the subject, concerning the adaptation and flexibility of the historic creeds. My own train- ing in another way of thought makes me perhaps incapable of sym- pathy with this process of spiritual adjustment. Now, however, that the ecclesiastical question is determined, I cannot deny myself the satisfaction of expressing my sense of your candour, straightfor- wardness and Christian charity. ‘There are, of course, many per- sons who will feel that the interpretation of a creed is of the essen- tials of Christian faith, but there is an enormously greater number of American citizens who regard this question as entirely subordi- nate to the problems of Christian character and Christian purpose; and who will find in your honest mind and unswerving discipleship a better testimony to the nature of the Christian religion than any ecclesiastical Court can make. I congratulate you on the tranquil bearing of your own burden, and on the privilege which is given to you, through the bearing of others’ burdens, to fulfil the law of Christ. “Respectfully yours, “Francis G. Prazopy.” “THE RECTORY ‘““ANDOVER, MaAss. “My prar Dr, Crapsey: “T cannot refrain from presuming on the acquaintance which I made with you one evening at the Trinity Club in Boston, to ex- 282 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS press to you the great interest and deep admiration I felt in reading your noble Letter of Resignation. “While I greatly regret the result of the trial, unwise, as it seems to me, unjust, and without warrant by the Standards of our Church, I cannot but think it will be for the Church’s benefit. ‘The views you have been condemned for holding would in any case have be- come the rightful property of the Church in half a century. But you have hastened the time, so that in half a dozen years such opinions will be recognized as legitimate, as fully as the modern views of the first chapters of Genesis now are. And one may al- most envy you the opportunity of pouring out blood for that. “Yet the dominance of any opinions is, it seems to me, the less important result of this trial. It is of far more importance that the community has had exhibited to it that Christian Spirit which has characterized you through all the proceedings, and which espe- cially shines forth so nobly in your Letter. ‘To have embodied the spirit of Christ so that men recognize with certainty and joy its authenticity, is not only preaching Christ to men but renewing for them His Incarnation. And what could a Christian minister de- sire more! “The sufferer must often bitterly ask, ‘What profit is there in my blood if I go down into the pit?’ Let me assure you that some of us can discern already in this hard sorrow which has come to you, great profit not only to the intellectual life of all branches of the Christian Church, but to the world through the revelation to it of the spirit of Christ; especially its extension into that field where it is too often grievously lacking—theological discussion of polemics. “With great respect, I am, “Sincerely yours, “FREDERICK PALMER, “ANDOVER, Mass., “Dec. 5, 1900.” “No. 29 BUCKINGHAM STREET, “CAMBRIDGE “Dec. 5, 1906. “DeEAR Dr. Crapsey: ‘Allow an old Transcendentalist of the Emerson School to thank RENUNCIATION 283 you from his heart for your Letter of Renunciaton. ‘Almost thou persuadest me’ to be a Churchman. “Most Cordially, “THomMAS WENTWORTH HIccINSON.” CHAPTER XLIX ABIIT AD PLURES s the reader will remark, I had requested the A bishop to accomplish my deposition not earlier than the third nor later than the sixth of Decem- ber of that year—1906. ‘The reason for this limitation was that I might have a Sunday in which to preach to my people for the last time and to give them my final blessing from the altar. The story of that day has been told bet- ter than I can tell it in a letter from one of my parishioners to a friend in the village of Catskill. The Catskill Ex- aminer published that letter with comments as follows: “The formal deposition of the Rev. Algernon S. Crapsey, of Rochester, from the ministry of the Protestant Episcopal Church, was pronounced by Bishop Walker, of the diocese of Western New York, at Buffalo on Tuesday. Dr. Crapsey held his final service in St. Andrew’s Church, Rochester, on Sunday morning, that edifice being filled to the doors by a congregation that was plainly in sym- pathy with the clergyman and much affected by the necessity of parting from him. In his sermon Dr. Crapsey made no reference to the close of his ministry, as he had made a farewell address to his parishioners on the previous Wednesday evening. A member of St. Andrew’s Church wrote to a friend in this village: “*T want to tell you about yesterday at St. Andrews. It was a “oreat” day and yet one of the saddest days in the history of Roches- ter and the church. A noble man and the father of many spiritual children was turned out of his home and his children are left sor- rowing. The services began with the Holy Communion at 7:30 in the morning, and the church was filled with St. Andrew’s com- municants tc receive the last sacrament from their loved pastor’s 284 ABIIT AD PLURES 285 hands. We have never had so large a number out for an early Easter communion. As the people came back from the altar their faces were stained with tears, even the children. It must have been a trying ordeal for Dr. Crapsey and I was afraid he wouldn’t be able to speak aloud at the 11 o’clock service, as he had no one to help him in the service. At 11 o’clock the church was simply packed; men and women stood during the whole time. Some even sat on the steps of altar, in the transept and close up to the pulpit and reading-desk, besides the crowd in the chapel. I be- lieve many were turned away who couldn’t get in at all. There was an unusual number of men in the church, rich and poor,. high and low, all seemed anxious to show their sympathy and love for the rector. ““At the beginning of the hymn “Blest be the tie that binds,” there was deep emotion shown and people could not sing for weep- ing. Then the sermon followed, which was very strong and in- spiring. I am sure we all felt that what was true of Jesus was true of Dr. Crapsey; he certainly is following in the footsteps of the Master, and his persecutors ‘know not what they do.” Dr. Crap- sey looked worn and as if he were endeavouring to suppress his emotion, but spoke in a strong, impressive way. “The crowd was so silent and attentive you could almost hear the silence. ‘The col- lection had been taken before the sermon, so immediately after Dr. Crapsey had stopped speaking the choir formed and he walked out of the church, down the middle aisle in deathlike stillness (there was no music), broken by the sobs of the people to whom he has ministered so long and faithfully. It was heart-rending to us all. Everything was done so quietly and without any dramatic effect, but the deep and real sorrow was so evident. It is too soon to tell what the future of the church will be, but I feel sure that Dr. Crapsey’s work for the cause of freedom is just begun, and that he and his brave wife will have the strength they need. On Thanksgiving Day also the church was crowded and Dr. Crapsey gave us a beautiful sermon on “Joy.” The evening before (Wednesday) was held the meeting of the parish. Every seat was filled and the rector spoke his farewell to his people. In some re- spects that was the most solemn time of all. I suppose you have read his very touching words to us.’ ” 286 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS On Tuesday, the fifth of December, 1906, I was formally deposed from the ministry of the Episcopal Church by Bishop Walker, in St. John’s Chapel, Buffalo. I was not present at that ceremony, nor did I receive any written notice of it. When a Roman died, the Latins said of him Abiit ad plures—he has gone over to the majority; so it was with me; the day I ceased to be a minister, I became one of the people, freed from all restraining vows; I was at liberty to speak my mind without fear or favour. I ceased to be a priest and became a prophet. By the courtesy of the vestry of Saint Andrew’s Church, we were allowed to remain in the rectory until we could find a home elsewhere. We decided not to leave Rochester. We had in that city a following and an in- fluence, the consequence of our more than a quarter of a century of work, which would be lost to us if we went else- where. In due time, we rented a house near the Univer- sity and removed to it. This removal was the most tragic of all the tragic events in the disruption of our official relations to the Church. Our rectory had been our home for twenty-seven years; in it six of our children had been born and two of them had died; it was thus sanctified to us by our joys and our sorrows. My wife had made it a centre of ministration to the people. She planted its door- yard with trees and shrubs and bordered its walk with flowers. It was her home and she could never hope for another like it; thus realizing the adage, “The woman pays.” CHAPTER L THE BISHOP ERRS N the early stages of the heresy agitation, Bishop Walker went to Saint Andrew’s rectory to serve a legal paper upon the rector. The rector not being at home, the bishop asked the rector’s wife to take this paper from his hand and serve it upon her husband. ‘This the rector’s wife, naturally, declined to do; she had no desire to become, even for an hour, an officer of the Ec- clesiastical Court which was to try her husband upon the charge of violating his ordination vows. The bishop dur- ing the interview expressed his profound sorrow that, be- cause of her husband’s heresy, his wife and her children were to lose their home, to live as best they might, with no certain means of support. ‘This sorrow of the bishop reminded me, grimly, of the sorrow of D’Ailly and the clergy at the Council of Constance, who, after the trial and condemnation of John Huss, delivered him sorrow- fully into the power of the Emperor Sigismund to be burned at the stake. That the bishop’s grief was well founded cannot be denied. There is no more pitiable object in the world than an unfrocked priest. If he be a Catholic priest, without force or genius, he is condemned to a life of pov- erty and loneliness; if he be an Anglican priest or a Prot- estant minister and is a married man, his is the sadder fate; he does not suffer alone; those who are dearer to him than life suffer with him; indeed, his wife and chil- dren are the greater sufferers; he has the glory of his 287 288 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS martyrdom; they suffer in silence and obscurity the conse- quences of that martyrdom. Such a dismissed clergyman is as helpless in the world as a new-born babe; he has been trained to give and not to get and is the easy prey of the getting world. Bishop Walker was in the right when he warned the wife of the rector of Saint Andrews of her coming sorrow; it came with the loss of her home and the loss of her work and while she has had another home and other work, yet that does not do away with the pain and grief of parting with loving friends and familiar scenes, which was the consequence of the husband’s and the father’s heresy. But while we did suffer the penalty of banishment from the Church of our livelong devotion and were shut out from the worship which was the habit of our souls, we did not sink down into that slough of poverty which the bishop foresaw as our fate. ‘The bishop erred because he did not reckon with the new age nor with the great heart of William Rossiter Seward, who by his kindly ac- tion put to naught the gloomy prognostications of William David Walker. ‘There was no reason in the world why William Rossiter Seward should have delivered me and my family from un- der the power of the curse of the bishop. I had not the slightest claim upon him. When he first came to my res- cue he was not a member of my church, nor even my per- sonal friend. I knew of him, but did not know him. This miracle of kindness by which our lives were made intimate, was the outcome of my deliverer’s history and character. Mr. Seward was attracted by the preaching of the rec- tor of Saint Andrew’s Church and expressed his approval, as he always does, in a very practical way. When one of my birthdays came around, Mr. Seward sent me a check for a liberal sum, saying it was a thank-offering for the THE BISHOP ERRS 289 fact of my birth. When the bishop and the standing com- mittee turned me and my family out of our rectory on to the street, Mr. Seward made haste to plan a house for us to live in. ‘This house was completed in January, 1908, and we removed to it on the ninth day of that month, having lived meanwhile in our own hired house. This house, with its beautiful garden, has been our home for more than sixteen years. We live here as the guests of Mr. William Rossiter Seward. We are in what was once his cornfield. We are now in the heart of a city with all the advantages of the country. Mr. Seward, in his ninety-first year, is still our neighbour and our friend. Now, the reader can understand why we said the bishop erred when he declared that we would be on the street with no roof to cover us. We are on the same street with our former church; we have a roof over our heads and a house of surpassing loveliness. The bishop erred because he did not know the God of light and love, who dwelt in the heart of William Seward and made him pitiful to give shelter to the outcast priest with his wife and his children. This house has served both as a residence and a parish house: It was built with a view to such uses. For more than eight years after my deposition from the ministry of the Episcopal Church, I continued to exercise my functions as preacher and pastor, speaking every Sunday night in one of the theatres of the city, either in person or by repre- sentative: My pastoral work did not decrease; it increased after my expulsion from the Church—in all of these enter- prises I was sustained by a band of men and women or- ganied as a Brotherhood. My wife continued her Sewing-Guild in the Brotherhood House until her work evolved into a commercial enterprise now employing more than fifty women, together with an of- fice staff, which enterprise is now serving the whole coun- try. The workers in this establishment call themselves 290 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS “The Factory Family”; of this ‘‘family,” Mrs. Crapsey is the mother; the workers are her children; the spirit of the Church and the Brotherhood pervades the factory. This commercial Establishment is known to the trade as The Adelaide T. Crapsey Co. Inc. CHAPTER LI THE DIVINITY OF A TELEGRAPH POLE ‘ ) y HEN God appointed Adam to the task of nam- ing the various animals of the earth, He as- signed him to a useful and necessary work. Without names it would be difficult, if not impossible, to carry forward human life. Not only must men have per- sonal names, but the different functions of their life must be classified and labelled. It is more than a matter of convenience that men belong to political parties, to Churches and denominations. If a man is to make his way easily through life he must politically be a member of his party, be a Democrat or a Republican; in religion he must belong to his Church or his denomination, be a Catholic or a Protestant, an Episcopalian or a Methodist. To be labelled in this way saves a man a vast deal of trou- ble; he need not explain his politics or define his religion; he has but to say, “I am a Republican and a Presbyterian,” and go his way. No further questions are asked; he need not go behind the name to the thing. Unfortunately for me, my religious tag was consumed in the fires of my heresy trial. Now when men ask me what my religion is, I find it dificult to answer their inquiry in a single word or phrase. I am as badly off as a name- less man. I cannot do business in the religious world. Apparently, I am nothing and belong nowhere. One who has not experienced this isolation can have no notion of what it means. It is well called excommunication. Such a forlorn person can no longer communicate with his fel- 291 292 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS lows; he walks alone; he must think for himself and talk to himself; his religion is an inchoate nameless thing; he cannot explain it to others; he can hardly define it to him- self. When I am asked in these days what my religion is, I hesitate and stumble, and men go away thinking that I have no religion. But I have a religion and if asked to give it a name I should say I am a Pantheistic Humanist, and if one were to ask, ‘‘What is a Pantheistic Humanist?” I should say one who believes in the divinity of a telegraph pole. I am indebted for this definition of my religious belief to the Reverend John Mills Gilbert, the youngest of my judges in my heresy trial. My reader will recall that when my judges were debating my case Mr. Dunham, the eldest of my judges, said that ‘“‘While Dr. Crapsey may not believe in the deity of Christ, he evidently does believe in the divinity of Christ.” At this young Gilbert, pointing through the window, said, ‘“There is no more divinity in Crapsey’s Christ than there is in that telegraph pole.” I have always been grateful to Judge Gilbert for this re- mark; it gave me the clue to the discovery of my religion of Pantheistic Humanism. Ever after that as I walked along the highways I used to study the telegraph poles; their gaunt, naked, weather-stained forms haunted my soul. What were they? Whence came they? What were they doing? As I looked at them I saw that they were the trunks of trees stripped of their branches; they were weather- scarred and there was no beauty in them that we should desire them; lifting their nakedness toward the sky, they were a blemish on the landscape. As one saw them one could not but pity them; each one of them standing alone, in summer’s heat and winter’s cold, no longer feeling the flow of the sap in the springtime, nor the breaking-out of THE DIVINITY OF A TELEGRAPH POLE 293 the leaves in the month of May. Nothing divine there, only hopeless desolation and endless death. Whence came they? Each of them came from the for- est which was their home where it had lived out its won- derful life history. Its beginning was a seed, which a man could hold between his forefinger and thumb; that seed had fallen to the ground and the earth had: covered it. By its own inherent power the life of that seed had thrust itself upward into the air; it had taken from the air the elements of its growth. Year after year it had in- creased in substance and in power, sending its roots deeper and deeper into the earth and its branches higher and wider into the air; the birds made their nests in its branches; the cattle rested in its shadow from the noonday heat and its fruitage furnished forth the tables of men. When it was in all the fullness and joy of its life, the woodmen came and cut it down and made of it a telegraph pole. What is a telegraph pole? It is this tree of the forest, cut from its roots, stripped of its branches, planted firmly in the ground, with outstretched arms nailed to its trunk, and on these arms are placed the wires that carry mes- sages of joy and sorrow, of gain and loss, from man to man all round the world. When I thought on these things I said if my Christ has in Him the divinity of a telegraph pole, then He is divine enough for me, and if I can share in that divinity I am content. Is not the telegraph pole the aptest symbol of my Master? Did He not begin as a human seed, invisible to the eye of man? Did not that seed bury itself deep in the substance of humanity? Did it not by its own inherent strength break out from its hiding-place into the light and air of the earth? Did it not take of that light and air and change it into the flesh and blood and wisdom of a 294. THE LAST OF THE HERETICS man? Did not that man become a man among men, with His relationships of son and brother, of friend and enemy? Did He not go out among His fellows speaking to them words of wisdom and comforting them in their sorrows? And when He was in the prime and glory of His manhood, was He not cut down by the ax of hate, stripped down to His nakedness and made, as it were, into a telegraph pole with outstretched arms to send out His messages of warn- ing and encouragement, of love and peace, all around the world? And to this day is not the Cross the symbol of salvation to mankind? Now, my reader will say these are the words of a preacher; they are well enough in the pulpit, but they mean nothing in the street and the market-place; which is true. It was because these words, which I had heard in the se- cret chamber of the Mansion of Life, did mean something to me that there was a conflict between my pulpit and the forces of the street and the market-place, and these forces of the street and the market-place prevailed and drove me out of my pulpit. I was accused of denying the divinity of Christ because I asserted the humanity of Jesus, and I still assert that it is in the humanity of Jesus that we find the divinity of the Christ. The street and the market- place think that they can beguile the Christ into the sav- ing of their souls by building for Him grandiose churches, by hiring men and women and boys to sing His praises and by calling Him Lord and God; thus will they hoodwink the Christ while they are busy buying, selling and getting gain, scanting the wages of the widow. ‘They may be able to fool the Christ, for the Christ is the creation of the theologians, but they will never be able to deceive Jesus, for He was a workingman, a carpenter and a mason, and knows the ways of the business world. To speak in simple language, I am a heretic because I THE DIVINITY OF A TELEGRAPH POLE 295 believe in the teaching of Jesus and do not believe in the doctrine of the Christ. I have long since lost all desire for the salvation by the blood of Christ, which the Church holds out to me. I do not want to be only a message; I want to be a pole that carries the message. Paul says that if in this life only we have hope, we are of all men most miserable. I do not think so; if I in this life can serve the purposes of the greater life, I am content. I have no desire for a heaven of robe and crown and harp and wine and song celebrating things accomplished. I do not know how it may be with others, but, as for me, I feel that I have had my full portion at the table of life. Every day for me the sun has come up and the sun has gone down. Every night for me the stars have come out into the sky and the moon in her seasons has silvered the earth. For me the snows have covered the ground in the winter to keep it warm and the frost has prepared ice for me against the time of heat. For me the clouds have come with their cleansing waters and the winds with their cool- ing breath. Birds have nested in my garden and made my home vocal with their music. For me the flowers have bloomed, the trees fruited and the grapes have been pur- ple in the cluster. I have known a father’s companion- ship and a mother’s love. I have grown up in the com- pany of brothers and sisters; I have been enriched by the affection of wife and children; I have had friends who have loved me beyond my deserving and enemies whom I have learned to love. I have been the heir of the ages. The wisdom of the wise has been mine and the song of the poet; my vision has been enlightened by the genius of the artist and my hearing attuned by the skill of the mu- sician. It has been my lot to encourage the living and to comfort the dying. I have known the inspiration of joy and the discipline of sorrow. i= a WR 296 THE LAST OF THE HERETICS And besides all this, for nearly fourscore years it has been my high privilege to stand at the wayside of Life and see the Gods go by. It is enough. , And now am I come to the uttermost marge of the shores of time: Standing on its sands, looking out over the ocean of Eternity, the waters of which are cold on my feet, | am watching the Sun go down; I am content. If, however, there is toil and care for me in the Great Beyond, I do not wish to shirk it. “Have I my work, out yonder Where silence reigns supreme; Have I my task, I wonder, To pull against the stream? “Am I to do God’s thinking, With Him to work and plan; From toil nor sorrow shrinking As we build the soul of man? “Ts my task in His vineyard To dig and plant and prune; To weigh upon His steelyard His grapes in heat of noon? “Am I to fetch and carry To workmen on His wall; And will the task I marry My energy enthrall? “Is there a God, out yonder, Sore troubled and beset; In waters doth He flounder, Is He faint, cold and wet? THE DIVINITY OF A TELEGRAPH POLE “Doth He cry to me for aid Across the seas of doubt; Must I Death’s waters wade, That I may help Him out? “Is there a God who needs me? Then let Him tell me so, When from this flesh Death frees me, I’m His for weal and woe. “I care not for His heaven, I do not fear His hell; But if to me is given His work, then all is well.” SELAH 297 Date Due | <——t z | i w |e me 7 u fue 3 St es contin ae > be 4, a 4 2 =" < cs +e Pee ace) See CP IDET we wot Pe pore aro S Ee va RT SS oti Sere S ay ae Wada HS