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 ^-e CHURCH 
 
 IN THE CITY 
 
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 FRFDERICKDeLANDLEETE 
 
Class 
 
 Book 
 
 Copyright ]^^_ 
 
 GOPYRJGHT DEPOSm 
 
OTHER BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR 
 
 EVERY-DAY EVANGELISM. 
 
 12mo. Net, $1.00 
 CHRISTIAN BROTHERHOODS. 
 
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THE CHURCH IN 
 THE CITY 
 
 By 
 
 FREDERICK DeLAND LEETE 
 
 Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
 
 THE ABINGDON PRESS 
 NEW YORK CINCINNATI 
 
.L35 
 
 Copyright, 1915, by 
 FREDERICK DeLAND LEETE 
 
 QEC -8l9i5 
 ©C1.A416758 
 
''E^sSex^to yap ryjv rovg ^e[i£?yi ovg e^ovaav 
 nokiv^ Yig texvtryjg xal Syjfiiovpyog 6 ©edg. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Chatteb Page 
 
 IXTRODUCTIOX 9 
 
 I. The CnrECH ix the M.^hket Place. . . 15 
 
 II. Mother CnrRCHEs 28 
 
 III. The City Latm.ix 38 
 
 IV. The Brlntk of the Crater. 59 
 
 V. The AIetropolit-^- Pastor 78 
 
 XI. The Dowxtowx Problem 102 
 
 VII. Family and Neighborhood Chtrches . . 129 
 
 VIII. Chtirch Exdotv^iext 149 
 
 IX. The Trexd toward lNSTm7Tiox-U.isM . . 175 
 
 X. Advertisixg 202 
 
 XI. Divisiox AX^D Coxsolidatiox 220 
 
 XII. The Children of the Towx 233 
 
 XIII. City ]\Ii5sioxs .an'd Suburbanites 254 
 
 XIV. The City Redeemed 279 
 
 BiBLIOGR.APHY 312 
 
 Index 314 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 If by its profound philosophy that monument 
 of genius, piety, and erudition, "The City of 
 God,'' was "the death warrant of ancient so- 
 ciety,'' it was also, despite its mystic extrava- 
 gances, the charter and vindication of the social 
 purposes and program of Christianity. Never- 
 theless, the world yet awaits the fulfillment of 
 the divine ideal in the production, through the 
 agency of the people of God, of a society adapted 
 to all the needs of man, a society that both per- 
 mits and assists his complete development in the 
 parts and qualities of his being. 
 
 Is this achievement possible of realization? 
 Not if Rousseau was correct. "We are told," he 
 says in treating the subject of civic religion, 
 "that a nation of Christians would form the 
 most perfect society conceivable. In this sup- 
 position I see only one great difficulty — that a 
 society of true Christians would be no longer a 
 society of men." Pessimism establishes its logic 
 by definitions. Schopenhauer, for example, 
 "asserts that speculation is for action, wisdom 
 for life, and then sophistically argues that we 
 should not expect a metaphysician to be a saint." 
 Christianity cannot organize society if it is itself 
 inhuman. But if the teachings of Jesus and the 
 
 9 
 
INTKODUCTION 
 
 power which he imparts to his disciples, instead 
 of making demigods or other abnormalities, 
 produce characters of virtue joined with compas- 
 sion, we may confidently expect that the result 
 of the continued progress of Christianity will 
 be the attainment of higher social values. 
 
 Who is able to study the modern city and its 
 relation to the life of rural communities and of 
 the nation without being seized with the con- 
 viction that the city is the focus of human need 
 and opportunity, and that here the future of 
 civilization is to be very largely determined? 
 The growth of cities both in size and number 
 has not only not been retarded by improved 
 methods of communication and travel, but is 
 being constantly accelerated. That this move- 
 ment will cease seems unlikely, because, however 
 attractive and healthful country residence may 
 seem, certain necessities, solid advantages, and 
 pleasures draw the masses toward the centers. 
 But the crowding together of great populations 
 into a contracted space brings to a head all the 
 issues of their conduct and relationships. Samuel 
 Johnson once exclaimed, ^The full tide of ex- 
 istence is at Charing Cross.'' That stream also 
 rolls past Trinity's new cross, and it flows from 
 town to town through all the Avenues, Strands, 
 Broadways, and Main Streets of the world. 
 
 The modern city is a vast improvement over 
 its prototypes and predecessors, but is neverthe- 
 less corrupt. It needs redemption, transforma,- 
 
 10 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 tion and development, and that for this work 
 the Church is fundamental I am evermore deeply 
 impressed. The office of the Church is to pro- 
 mote religion, which is the creator of moral 
 ideas and the foster mother of the principles of 
 self-denial and sacrifice; for it is religion which 
 empowers the mind to conquer the evil solicita- 
 tions of depraved nature and of the outer world, 
 and which expresses itself in movements for 
 social amelioration, and in representative deeds 
 of virtue and of valor. Phillips Brooks exhibited 
 a keen sense of the vital place of the Church in 
 the regeneration of the city when he said, "The 
 Church is simply the ideal world. A perfect 
 Church would be a perfect world." But the 
 Church is as yet far from the perfection which 
 it seeks. It has never been perfect. The saying 
 is true that "The Church, even in apostolic days, 
 was by no means immaculate. It was being 
 saved, not wholly sanctified ; but its very essence 
 and its inmost spirit was a life of brotherhood 
 and of practical love upon this earth." The 
 surest proof that the Church is still being saved 
 is the fact that in the most recent years it is 
 renewing its ancient devotion to mankind, and 
 is undertaking with a rekindled zeal to translate 
 into terms of human experience the social teach- 
 ings of Jesus Christ. Doubtless it will be by this 
 route that the Church will move toward the goal 
 of perfectness. 
 
 "Know thyself" is as wise a law for organiza- 
 11 
 
INTKODUCTION 
 
 tions as for individuals. The Church, conscious 
 of its incompleteness, and therefore quick and 
 powerful, looks out upon the world with compre- 
 hension and with holy intent : it should also look 
 within upon its own life and operations. The 
 Church needs to know the churches — what they 
 are doing, and for what immediate as well as 
 ultimate ends; what methods they pursue, and 
 what movements are expressed in them; what 
 agencies they possess and seek to attain in order 
 to make their work effective. A complete 
 scientific study and classification of churches has 
 never been made. Perhaps the time for this is 
 not yet ripe. Certainly, the present discussion 
 is not offered as such an achievement, but as an 
 introduction to some of the problems and issues 
 involved in the relation of the Church to the life 
 of the city. It will be understood that recog- 
 nition of the supreme crisis of the city involves 
 no disparagement of the important work of 
 country churches and pastors. Indeed, atten- 
 tion is especially called to the fact that a com- 
 petent view of the matter represents the Chris- 
 tian forces in rural districts as being engaged 
 in constructive labors for the spiritual life of 
 the town. While the severest contests of religion 
 against irreligion and wickedness take place in 
 city buildings and streets, preparations for the 
 struggle are often made in quiet places of reserve 
 and of power, and there also are produced the 
 elements which reenforce and strengthen the 
 
 12 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 armies of righteousness. Besides which, the 
 country is a land of itself, a lovely land, which 
 has its own life and problems that deserve and 
 rightly receive appropriate separate considera- 
 tion at the hands of specialists. 
 
 This book is the fruit of experience in five city 
 parishes of widely different types, of observations 
 made possible by proximity to other toilers 
 and by travel, and of much reading and corre- 
 spondence, in the course of which too many obli- 
 gations have been incurred to permit of refer- 
 ences. The thought of the writer is to offer to 
 the knowledge of church life and labors some 
 contribution which may prove to be suggestive 
 and helpful to at least a portion of those persons 
 who are engaged in the conquest of the city for 
 itself and for Christ. As to the achievement of 
 this purpose, all I would claim is the attempt. 
 Feci quod potui. 
 
 Frederick DeLand Leete. 
 
 13 
 
CHAPTER I 
 THE CHURCH IN THE MARKET PLACE 
 
 The central city church is a standing protest 
 against impiety and the devil of greed. Where 
 highways meet, and throngs crowd and push; 
 where human tigers lurk, and rush upon their 
 prey, and man-spiders weave nets of lust, trap- 
 ping the unwary and the luckless; where the 
 good are too busy to feel the sense of brother- 
 hood, and rich and poor alike struggle for perish- 
 able gain, the church tower is lifted as a symbol 
 of warning, of remonstrance, and of allurement 
 to paths of purity, justice, and peace. 
 
 The church at the center is an agent of right- 
 eousness. As the bell of the temple of God 
 rings out over marts of trade its call to prayer, 
 profane lips are suddenly hushed, and minds 
 secularized by toil and care become conscious of 
 something good and true in themselves, and in 
 the life about them. When church doors open to 
 pour upon the streets a throng of worshipers, a 
 stream of influence sweeps through the city 
 which is more cleansing in its effects than 
 hydrants emptied upon its pavements, or a 
 river's tide sweeping through its alleys. 
 
 15 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 The downtown church is a divine monitor: 
 its gray walls speak of righteousness, its open 
 doors of gospel welcomes, and its vaulted roof 
 of heavenly love and protection. The convey- 
 ance of the dead, standing before the portals of 
 the sanctuary, is a frequent preacher of mortal- 
 ity. The knowledge that a building dedicated to 
 God stands on the street corner, or just down the 
 block, and the sights and sounds which attend 
 its presence in the vortex of the city's pride 
 and shame, are a constant moral force, the more 
 potent because subtle and pervasive. 
 
 It is vindication of Christian philanthropy to 
 maintain centers of religious and ethical culture 
 in the midst of great and needy populations. To 
 be where temptations are fierce, where life is 
 raw and red, where human nature is subjected to 
 great strains, and character is swiftly made or 
 broken, is to be in the focus of opportunity to 
 serve and to save. Does the membership of the 
 Church regard men? Is it to themselves rather 
 than to theirs that it is devoted? Is its strength 
 for weakness, its comfort for striving, its healing 
 skill for souls in extremis? Then it will not 
 withdraw its forces from business districts, from 
 hotel and boarding-house neighborhoods, or from 
 the slums. In each of these localities Christian 
 intelligence and purpose will hold the ground, 
 adapting institutions and methods to such con- 
 ditions as may be developed. The surrender of 
 strategic sites for central city church work is 
 
 16 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE MAEKET PLACE 
 
 due, in part at least, to some form of selfishness ; 
 to the cowardice which runs from perils, to the 
 laziness which dreads to face new problems and 
 duties, or to avarice and pride w^hich pursue 
 and ape the rich at whatever loss of usefulness 
 and of respect. The spectacle of prosperous resi- 
 dence wards being supplied with churches more 
 and more costly, while the heart of the town is 
 served by cheap and tawdry missions, or aban- 
 doned to ungodliness, is an omen of evil to any 
 city, and seems to many, not without reason, to 
 be a startling disproof of Christian professions. 
 The well to do have a right to own and to use \ 
 good houses of worship, but Christianity should 
 never desert the common people- He who came i 
 to seek and to save that which was lost has no I 
 part in such betrayals of the common good. 
 
 The church in the market place is a triumph 
 of courage over doubt, of faith over calculation, 
 and of the spiritual over the material. Such a 
 church is not an easy achievement : it must be 
 born again when it is old, and the pangs of its 
 second birth may be severe; its living is a daily 
 dying and rising again ; its victories are not easy 
 and bloodless, but are won on crimson battle- 
 fields. The more glorious, therefore, are its con- 
 quests ! And itself is glorious, for it proves that 
 the spirit of Christ is still in the earth and that 
 Christianity cannot be overwhelmed and smoth- 
 ered, even by the smoke of a city. To men of 
 affairs, who believe in getting things done, the 
 
 17 
 
THE CHUEOH IN THE CITY 
 
 live, pulsating central church appeals strongly: 
 it begets confidence in religion and in its power 
 to grapple with modern issues ; it proves that the 
 soul has a might of its own which builds insti- 
 tutions and sustains them at all costs. 
 
 In civic matters the church in the midst of 
 the business sections often has an influence be- 
 yond that of a score of uptown societies, however 
 intelligent and prosperous they may be. The 
 church in sight is naturally better known to the 
 people and to political and social leaders; its 
 ministers are more often quoted because acces- 
 sible ; its views are usually sought and considered 
 in crises, and even concerning comparatively 
 trivial incidents of public interest. This fact 
 of itself constitutes an opportunity of a high 
 order, which the alert preacher will seize, and 
 by which the wise and strong leader will be 
 able to deeply affect the thinking and manners 
 of the people. 
 
 Throughout every city where the Church is 
 focally powerful, religious interest is well dif- 
 fused and impressively manifested. If an ex- 
 ception to this statement can be found, it is 
 certainly noteworthy. The force of the argument 
 may, however, be turned about, to the effect that 
 religious vitality is displayed in strengthening 
 the centers. Would that this were the case, but 
 as a general proposition such a putting of the 
 matter is unhistorical. Keligious leaders and 
 organizations have in some instances realized 
 
 18 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE MARKET PLACE 
 
 the imperative necessity of going to the assist- 
 ance of downtown work with labors and re- 
 sources which have given them new life and 
 respectability. But the church was in the center 
 before it was in the suburbs, and the tide which 
 flows back to it is that which first went out from 
 it, leaving it shallow and weak, and reducing 
 the common level of moral and religious influ- 
 ence. In many cities it will require heroic sacri- 
 fices and generations of service before sources 
 of religious energy once held by the Church can 
 be recovered and former effectiveness regained. 
 Fortunate indeed are the cities which do not 
 need to redig wells which once were filled and 
 overflowing. 
 
 Is Christianity winning its way to the ultimate 
 complete conquest of the American city? Statis- 
 tics upon their surface seem to bear out the 
 claim frequently made that religious ideals and 
 standards are steadily coming to a position of 
 ascendency, and into control of the thought and 
 customs of civic life. A closer study of the facts 
 does not, however, fully confirm this favorable 
 judgment. It is doubtless true that the propor- 
 tion of church members to population has in- 
 creased in the cities of the land as a whole. But 
 it must be asked how much of this increased 
 membership represents merely a transfer of 
 names from country parishes to city church rolls. 
 It must also be inquired. What part of this 
 record is due to the retention of names repre- 
 
 19 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 senting people who are but nominally in the 
 church and not closely related to its life? The 
 answers to such questions as these might greatly 
 affect the estimates made of city church growth, 
 and would doubtless give concern to the thought- 
 ful. 
 
 This much is vitally true : the city needs Jesus 
 Christ ; and if he is to control the massed multi- 
 tudes of the great municipalities, his Church 
 must be found wherever men congregate, and 
 especially where they are packed together most 
 closely. The cross should shine in the sun over 
 crowded thoroughfares, above the tides of traffic, 
 in the midst of the strife and strain of selfish 
 lust. The bell which calls to divine worship, and 
 which in strictly residence neighborhoods may 
 sometimes need to be suppressed, may effectively 
 ring insistent, suggestive, inviting notes over 
 warehouse and countingroom. From this place 
 of vantage servants of God, ministers and lay- 
 men, may march upon tenement, shop, and 
 factory. Here the hosts of the Mighty One may 
 meet and conquer the hosts of iniquity and the 
 forces of oppression. Here must and will be 
 fought the battle of the ages ; not on broad plains 
 or mountain slopes, not on desert or sea, but in 
 streets of towns, in commercial exchanges, in 
 rolling mills and slaughterhouses, in railroad 
 yards and department stores, in skyscrapers, and 
 in blocks of homes which never saw green grass. 
 How can the church desert its field in the con- 
 
 20 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE MARKET PLACE 
 
 gested center? Its presence and opportunity stir 
 all the poetry of one's nature. What a call to 
 serve, what a challenge to fearless action, what a 
 blood-red life to live, that of Christ's church in 
 the town's great heart! The response to this 
 vocation will fix the destinies of the Kingdom 
 of God. 
 
 The central church should be preserved both 
 for the work it is doing in its own distinctive 
 field, and also because it is the gateway of the 
 inner and better city. Every city dweller is 
 familiar with the fact that the town is divided 
 into inner and outer portions, though the outer 
 city is within and the inner city is very largely 
 without, in the home wards and suburbs. A 
 resident of Xew York once remarked to a person 
 who had commented on the doings of the night- 
 revellers of America's metropolis : ^'These people 
 are largely visitors. Our own citizens are mostly 
 plain folks who go to bed at reasonable hours, 
 and conduct themselves with much decency." 
 
 The stranger and the newcomer dwell down- 
 town, where the day is darkened with smoke, 
 and where the night is turned into day; where 
 distracting sounds and dazzling lights confuse 
 the mind, and where temptations of every nature 
 spread their nets openly or covertly. Every large 
 town is a devourer, especially of young life, and 
 of its better qualities. Possessed of a keen zest 
 for pleasures and novelties, young men and 
 women are impressed by whatever strong forces 
 
 21 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 they encounter. If Christianity is sanely and 
 powerfully represented in the heart of the town, 
 if its work there is done by influential people 
 operating an adequate and efficient plant, more 
 than an equal opportunity exists of conserving 
 the moral value of this too easily diverted but 
 most hopeful and necessary element of society. 
 Young people who come to the city from smaller 
 towns and from the country do not ^^just natur- 
 ally" want to go wrong. When they do this, in 
 nineteen cases out of twenty it is because the 
 strongest current which they met in the days 
 when they were floating uncertainly on the tide 
 of social life, and before their associations and 
 habits had become fixed, was misleading and 
 dangerous. 
 
 The most important needs of the outer and 
 new city, which is downtown, are not fully sup- 
 plied by auxiliary societies of Christian origin 
 and spirit, like the Young Men's and Young 
 Women's Christian Associations, settlements and 
 missions. Valuable as are many of these ad- 
 juncts of ethical and religious culture, it is the 
 Church itself which is required to stem the tide 
 of immorality in the midst of dense populations, 
 and to seize with a firm hand the youth who is 
 beginning to be carried whither he knows not. 
 The Church has beliefs, principles clear-cut, fel- 
 lowship bonds and mutual obligations, a sense 
 of duty rightfully demanded, a reputation in- 
 trusted to its members, and to be maintained. 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE MARKET PLACE 
 
 The Church furnishes mature thought and teach- 
 ing, it exhibits developed and typical characters 
 and examples of conduct, it provides sacraments 
 of the most sacred nature and power. What- 
 ever aids to goodness may be discovered, nothing 
 can take the place of the Church of Christ as a 
 maker and molder of wholesome personality. 
 
 The right kind of central church is a door 
 into good society. This statement is to be taken 
 as being true in every sense, except in the narrow 
 and restricted meaning of the term society, which 
 regards its values as being the exclusive attri- 
 bute of the exceptionally prospered or of the 
 self -elected. A good church admits to the society 
 of the good. Many people w^ho are worth know- 
 ing, whose lives are pure, and whose association 
 is profitable, are to be found in the membership 
 of such a church, and while they may not be 
 able to give much time and attention to new- 
 comers, yet they are not unapproachable, or in- 
 different, as in the case of some members in 
 churches of other types. The latest arrival is at 
 once welcomed into useful activities. Sooner 
 or later he makes his way into pleasant homes, 
 the doors of which swing open to him, not so 
 much for Avhat he is as for what he may become, 
 which the church would like him to be. The 
 value of this service is beyond question, since 
 those who are subject to the limitations and dis- 
 comforts, as well as to the positive perils of 
 hotels and boarding houses, are profited im- 
 
 23 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 measurably by being furnished an avenue of 
 approach to men and women well worth know- 
 ing, and who can admit them to the inner city 
 of respectability and of power. 
 
 It must, of course, be confessed that the above 
 statements are in part idealistic and suggestive. 
 But they are neither impractical nor unrelated 
 to reality. It is an indisputable fact that, as a 
 rule, downtown churches, even when they have 
 many persons of wealth and of distinction in 
 their membership, are more cordial and friendly 
 than are many societies, at least, which occupy 
 less cosmopolitan neighborhoods. Not all mem- 
 bers of these churches open their hearts and 
 their homes as hospitably or as frequently as 
 might wisely be the case. It nevertheless re- 
 mains true that successful churches at the center 
 present to those who are drawn into them many 
 opportunities to form desirable acquaintances, 
 and so to finally make their way into social rela- 
 tions with good citizens. It may be said that, 
 however advantageous this result may be to 
 young and to new residents of the town, it is by 
 no means an advantage to older citizens and to 
 their families. Of course all social relations 
 should be guarded with reasonable restrictions; 
 they should be entered upon carefully and con- 
 tinued with consideration. But when has the 
 good, new life coming to a town been found as 
 dangerous to those with whom it became associ- 
 ated as city relationships, even in so-called best 
 
 24 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE MARKET PLACE 
 
 families, have sometimes proved to be to that 
 life? The majority of instances of contamination 
 through such intermingling of social factors 
 have been referable to degenerate members of 
 the older class. 
 
 The downtown church is an open sesame to 
 social service. If suitably equipped, many deeds 
 of helpfulness are performed by the church 
 within its own walls, and here the recruits' 
 drill in civic knowledge and usefulness is given 
 to those who in a little time will be leaders in 
 the good work of the community. Naturally, 
 since institutions of philanthropy and of public 
 betterment are near, members of central churches 
 become easily related to their undertakings, as 
 Avell as informed concerning them, and inspired 
 by their ideals and achievements. Without 
 doubt it will be found that a large proportion, 
 if not the great majority, of effective social 
 workers have at some time or other been asso- 
 ciated with churches which by virtue of their 
 very location have been brought into close con- 
 nection with moral and economic problems, and 
 with various attempts at their solution. Friend- 
 ships of thought and of service, formed at such 
 times, have proven to be of permanent value as 
 well as of satisfaction. 
 
 "The Church," said Lacordaire, "was born 
 crucified." If any part of Christendom retains 
 more distinctively than do others the sacrificial 
 character, it is the church which acts as a gate- 
 
 25 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 way to the inner life of a city, not only to its 
 higher social and philanthropic circles, but to its 
 religious life. It is one of the chief services of 
 the downtown church that it saves and helps 
 hundreds at the time of their greatest danger and 
 need, and that when they have found themselves, 
 and have secured a social foothold, it turns them 
 over to other churches to bring to them resources 
 and strength which otherwise might be, and 
 which in many cases certainly would be, irre- 
 trievably lost. If in any city which contains a 
 strong central church a canvass were made of 
 the members of other branches of the same de- 
 nomination, it would reveal a surprisingly large 
 number of people in each organization who at 
 one time or another worshiped with the parent 
 society. This is one of the reasons why those 
 denominational bodies are relatively strongest 
 which retain their early sites, and which, even 
 at pain of much effort and expense, maintain in 
 such places well-equipped establishments. For 
 the sake of its conservations, reclamations, and 
 preparations for service elsewhere the central 
 church should have the esteem and, if necessary, 
 the protection and aid of the Christian public. 
 It cannot keep all its members, and would not do 
 so if it could, since many persons are better 
 fitted both by nature and grace for other types 
 of work than that which it is doing. Those lay- 
 men, however, who have the necessary qualities 
 for the strenuous task of seizing and impressing 
 
 2^ 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE MARKET PLACE 
 
 with Christian purpose the incoming tides of 
 population, and who are willing with their time 
 and means to support this vital undertaking, 
 should count the privilege one that is high and 
 holy, approved of God and man. 
 
 In my vision there arose before me in the city 
 the temple of God, whose walls were lofty and 
 fair, inclosing outer and inner courts of praise 
 and of loving deeds. And the Gate Beautiful of 
 this temple was the portal where waited, not only 
 the suppliant for alms, but a throng of curious 
 youths pressing eagerly into the ways of life — 
 fresh gold, to be minted with the image of Christ, 
 and to enrich his kingdom with their treasures 
 of love. And I saw, and behold, some remained 
 to tend this gate, and as the doorkeepers of 
 God's house to welcome others into its shelter 
 and joy, but many went on into the temple, and 
 gave themselves to its inner care and use, so 
 that there w^as always an easy entrance for the 
 stranger who was drawn from the vice of the 
 city into the pure atmosphere of Christian com- 
 panionship and of divine worship, and always 
 there were householders and fellow citizens who 
 dwelt together in mutual bonds of service and 
 of love. 
 
 27 
 
CHAPTER II 
 MOTHER CHURCHES 
 
 Growth is from the center outward. Without 
 a nucleus nothing germinates or spreads. Every 
 process of reproduction requires parent forms. 
 Mother churches are the fecund sources of reli- 
 gious organizations and of their progressive 
 development. 
 
 Very little observation is needed in order to 
 disclose the progenitorial value of ancient and 
 historic Christian foundations. Where the old 
 Isites have been sacrificed the consequent loss of 
 ancestral pride is usually attended by restricted 
 denominational extension, for which, in a con- 
 siderable measure, it is responsible. Another 
 [effect of abandonment of the centers is loss of 
 I organic coherence. Robbed of the sense of com- 
 mon origins, the consciousness of relationship 
 between churches of the same creed and name 
 is often greatly weakened or largely destroyed. 
 Each society lives for itself, and the law of 
 ecclesiastical effort in the community where this 
 condition exists is a struggle for prosperity, not 
 of the fittest, but of the strongest in material 
 resources, and of the most selfish. The seeming 
 
 28 
 
MOTHER CHURCHES 
 
 success of some city churches is attained, not 
 merely by accessions from the country and from 
 the evangelistic successes of other communities, 
 but by the surrender of their own former seats 
 of power. Or they drain the lifeblood of other 
 churches of the same community, w^hose mem- 
 berships and means are sometimes reduced by 
 unfair methods and at frightful cost to the king- 
 dom of God. The angels of heaven must weep 
 over these instances of piracy. Not disputing 
 the fact that downtown churches are occasion- 
 ally so badly located as to serve no useful func- 
 tion if preserved on original sites, it remains to 
 be deplored that such churches are frequently 
 given up to business, and their congregations 
 disbanded, because another organization wishes 
 the added strength of their property values, or 
 the acquisition of a few wealthy members. In 
 one case of this kind the society was composed 
 of some three hundred and fifty members, with 
 an even larger Bible school, and was situated in 
 a part of the town where courage and Christian 
 grace might have permanently secured and 
 served an extended constituency. This church 
 was sold, it was thought by many, merely to 
 bring three or Jour leading men, who for various 
 reasons easily imaginable were not unwilling, 
 into the fellowship of a far stronger group. The 
 property of the absorbed congregation was dis- 
 posed of at great loss, and much, if not most of 
 the membership was scattered whithersoever 
 
 29 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 fancy listed. The rich church secured its ends^ 
 but only eternity can reveal the full effects of 
 this dismemberment of one of the branches of 
 the body of Christ. 
 
 The mother church has a past, in which, how- 
 ever feeble its early beginnings may have been, 
 and however great the crises and vicissitudes of 
 its later experience, and, indeed, because of these 
 very matters, it possesses a rich inheritance. The 
 loyalty which inspires men to give and to serve 
 roots itself deeply in the fertile soil of tradition 
 and of memory. One reason why many new 
 churches are woefully lacking in generosity and 
 in consecration is that they have no basis of 
 comparison and of incentive except in connec- 
 tion with other similar bodies. They are un- 
 instructed by the labors and unimpelled by the 
 self-denial of Christian forbears of their own 
 organization. There is no splendid record of 
 the character and achievement of such predeces- 
 sors to be held up before them, and to which they 
 may be led to feel that they must live up, even at 
 the expenditure of much strength. 
 
 All churches cannot be expected to possess an 
 ancient history, but without the preservation in 
 vigor and in usefulness of its older organizations 
 the church societies of the community as a whole 
 are cut up from the roots of historic recollec- 
 tion and refreshment. Happy is the city which 
 has strong old parent trees of moral fruitful- 
 ness, and of Christian shelter and grace, to which 
 
 30 
 
MOTHEK CHUECHES 
 
 citizens point with pride, and from which not 
 only those who dwell beneath them and those 
 who come occasionally into their vicinity may 
 receive good, but in which other and later Chris- 
 tian plantings may rejoice as proving the vitality 
 and permanence of religious life and of its 
 institutions. 
 
 If the reciprocal relations between the mother 
 church and its offspring are normal and 
 harmonious, all the children are conscious of 
 possessing the same life, traceable to one original 
 root and bringing them into a valuable sense of 
 kinship. In the absence of living parents, family 
 feeling is usually comparatively weak or non- 
 existent. All things considered, fraternal love 
 is not as deep or useful as is that of a mother. 
 It seems to be a fact, established by many ob- 
 servations, that a strong old central church is a 
 unifying powder among organizations which have 
 groAvn out of its life, which are fed from it, and 
 which by its centripetal influences are bound to 
 one another. 
 
 It is the law of nature that parents should 
 sacrifice for their children, and the mother 
 church usually displays the maternal instinct. 
 Orphans receive no parental love or aid, and 
 children who abuse, impoverish, or destroy their 
 forbears must get on without their care. When 
 a mother church is well housed and nourished, 
 its ministries are valuable, not merely for them- 
 selves, but for their instructiveness. Teaching 
 
 31 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 and example are quite as effective in church life 
 as elsewhere. Such a church as is in mind, and 
 such a one as is known in not a few cities, is 
 constantly educative to younger churches and to 
 inexperienced laymen. The catholic spirit of its 
 members and their liberality put observers on 
 their mettle. When a central church had ex- 
 tended gifts and credit to several new organiza- 
 tions, which by this aid came speedily into a 
 condition of independent strength, the idea of 
 imitating this achievement suggested itself to 
 other churches of the same denomination. The 
 leading men of one of these societies exclaimed, 
 "We also must take a new enterprise under our 
 care, both donating and extending a line of 
 credit until success is assured." The idea caught 
 hold of the town, and its influence spread until 
 a considerable number of additional well-planted 
 churches were in existence, and were helped into 
 a prosperity to secure which unaided would at 
 least have required a long period of time. 
 
 Often all that is needed in order to seize for 
 Christ new sections of city and of country alike 
 is instruction, encouragement, and carefully con- 
 sidered and guarded credit. In this way, without 
 the gift of a dollar from outside, a comfortably 
 housed and well-sustained church was estab- 
 lished in a city where church enterprises were 
 generally difficult of inauguration. An expen- 
 sive lot was purchased wholly on security fur- 
 nished by the mother church. An attractive sign 
 
 32 
 
MOTHEK CHURCHES 
 
 was put up, a spirited canvass for members was 
 made, a building was erected by the gifts of the 
 new recruits, supplemented by a loan secured 
 through the same good offices which had obtained 
 the lot. The people of the locality, thus reen- 
 forced and sustained, rallied to the undertaking, 
 which, under such sponsorship and encourage- 
 ment, they felt from the first must surely suc- 
 ceed. In a short time the new church was 
 able to assume and to provide for all its own obli- 
 gations. When this had been gratefully accom- 
 plished, the transaction was universally approved 
 as a wholesome example of Christian manage- 
 ment. The same mother church has performed 
 a number of similar feats of sanctified business 
 strategy. In another city a downtown society, 
 by a definite system of conditional pledges and 
 loans, has promoted a score of young and thriv- 
 ing churches which are the stronger and better 
 because of the continued vigor and the splendid 
 representative deeds of the central organization. 
 The sense of responsibility and of high privi- 
 lege which leads the prosperous mother church 
 to promote new adventures in organization and 
 in housing, impels it to furnish religious and 
 financial leadership to weaker and younger so- 
 cieties. A type of layman is developed within 
 its fold who is broad in sympathies and repre- 
 sentative in his relation to church affairs. 
 Smaller and more recently established congre- 
 gations can hardly be expected to produce and 
 
 33 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 to train such men; and if they possessed them, 
 they could not easily spare their presence and 
 labors for general denominational movements. 
 These men are frequently utilized by general 
 officers of the church to aid them in connectional 
 campaigns of an evangelistic, missionary, educa- 
 tional, church-building or debt-paying character. 
 A wealthy layman of this class, resident in an 
 Eastern city, spends much of his time as an un- 
 paid evangelist. Several young business men 
 in a city of New York State proved themselves 
 to be splendid propagandists of the cause of 
 foreign missions. A Southern churchman is an 
 expert in the management of congregational 
 finances, and can teach local officers how to keep 
 the preacher paid and how to bring up the 
 general benevolences. In each case the church 
 represented by one of these experienced leaders 
 lends to his endeavors the prestige of its superior 
 achievements, by virtue of which his words of 
 counsel and of suggestion are given greatest 
 weight. 
 
 To what has been said concerning mother 
 churches may be added the recollection of their 
 long-continued offices in receiving young life, and 
 in training it for service elsewhere, and the value 
 to all the churches of having in such organiza- 
 tions objects of general respect and veneration. 
 In view of all this, it must appear that careful 
 thought should be given to the preservation in 
 unimpaired strength and activity of all well- 
 
 34 
 
MOTHEK CHURCHES 
 
 placed central churches which have not been al- 
 ready sacrificed to the idols of gold, of ease or of 
 indifference, and which wise management can 
 retain and make useful. The denomination 
 which maintains in the city's heart attractive, 
 outstanding, and generously supported temples 
 for the worship of God and for the welfare of 
 man is certain of public cognizance, esteem, and 
 power. To its own life the church which is 
 fragrant \\T.th old memories, which finds an in- 
 centive to manifold and serviceable activities 
 both in its past history and in its present en- 
 vironment, which is a fount of broad-minded and 
 gracious hospitality, which affords a suitable 
 site and spirit for union meetings and campaigns, 
 and to which the people of many churches look 
 as their mother, is a culture medium, exerting a 
 cohesive and assimilative energy, preserving 
 various interesting forms of religious character, 
 and developing and expressing unusual Christian 
 qualities. Without such sources of affectional 
 and spiritual circulation it is to be doubted 
 whether any of the great churches of Christen- 
 dom can preserve their integrity or do their 
 most effective work. Even the retention and 
 adornment of ancient churches as monuments of 
 a sacred past and as fanes of holy memory and 
 of prayer often is of great importance to reli- 
 gious life and maturity. 
 
 Christian statesmanship seems to demand at- 
 tention to this subject on the part of home mis- 
 
 35 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 sionary and church extension boards. If organ- 
 izations which control the expenditure of large 
 sums of money would make the earlier and larger 
 investments necessary for founding mother 
 churches at strategic points, less need would 
 exist for dribbling out in littles vast total sus- 
 tentation funds; and the progress of the King- 
 dom, which by the latter method is often delayed 
 or altogether prevented, would be assured and 
 much more rapid. The same wise administrators 
 might also justly give much more attention to 
 the needs of impoverished downtown city organ- 
 izations, which with intelligent cooperation and 
 leverage may be restored to a large part of their 
 pristine glory, or else so adapted to changed 
 conditions as to serve even a holier purpose than 
 that of their first years. The mission field of 
 America is fast being transferred from country 
 frontiers to the burning sands and thorny 
 thickets of the town. The devil will make his 
 last and most stubborn stand, not on desert 
 plains or on mountaintops, not beside the sea, 
 or in the fertile field, but in slimy haunts of 
 city vice, in modern Sodoms and Gomorrahs, 
 made possible by the massing of the forces of 
 iniquity and by the desertion of the Church. 
 
 I was shown a great and ancient banyan tree, 
 and I cannot soon forget the curiosity and in- 
 terest, the awe and reverence which the sight 
 elicited. Reflection presents the church in the 
 town's heart as a wide-spreading banyan. In 
 
 36 
 
MOTHEK CHUKOHES 
 
 order that its wonderful branches may ever bend 
 themselves into new soil, taking root firmly and 
 passing on to new possessions and growths, the 
 central trunk should be preserved and thickened 
 with the accretions of the years, should be shel- 
 tered by the surrounding boles, and should both 
 enrich and richly enjoy the common life of the 
 Christian community. 
 
 37 
 
CHAPTER III 
 THE CITY LAYMAN 
 
 God founded the Church, and man makes it 
 what it is. Pare down this statement, and the 
 truth which it contains will but the more cer- 
 tainly appear. Social institutions are not mere 
 shadows of human genius and labor, but are the 
 substance of the intelligences and wills which 
 sustain and develop them. However divine the 
 Church may be as to its origin, in every age and 
 locality it is conditioned in quality and achieve- 
 ments by the members of whom it is composed. 
 Not even God himself can make a great church 
 out of little men. 
 
 Men were produced before preachers: laymen 
 before pastors. One cannot reasonably consider 
 the life and labors of the Church without refer- 
 ence to the human material involved, and the 
 historical order is best. We hear much of ^'the 
 man behind the guns," of "the man in the 
 trenches." It is said that he wins the battles, 
 which is partly truth, partly exaggeration. If 
 the captain is incapable, the common soldier 
 miserably and unavailingly fights, and mayhap 
 dies. The Church needs officers of training and 
 
 38 
 
THE CITY LAYMAN 
 
 skill, and it cannot win its campaigns without 
 them : but who ever heard of an important vic- 
 tory achieved by shoulder straps, without the 
 aid of noncommissioned officers and men? 
 Moreover, back of the forces on the firing line 
 and on the field are the workers at home who 
 furnish the sinews of war, in resources and in 
 volunteers, in necessary labors and sacrifices. 
 
 Without indulging in fiattery, which is too 
 much the practice in addressing them, and with- 
 out repeating modern foolish and mischievous 
 statements which tend to make young men 
 divinely called to the Christian ministry believe 
 that they can serve God just as well by spending 
 their lives largely in mere money grubbing as 
 by preaching the gospel, it is ever more important 
 to bring to the minds of laymen a vital sense of 
 their value to the kingdom of Christ, and of 
 their consequent responsibility. Laymen cannot 
 do without preachers and pastors, and they can- 
 not do without you. The members of the churches 
 need God, but for the prosecution of his plans 
 on the earth, God needs members of the churches. 
 Who are there that are thoroughly usable, de- 
 pendable, uncalculating, and untiring, "always 
 abounding in the work of the Lord" ? These are 
 "God's fellow workers,'' through whom he is 
 building his Church. Their lives are well spent, 
 for they are invested in the interest of the 
 greatest cause known to the world, and which is- 
 steadily making its way to ultimate complete 
 
 39 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 triumpli. Rejoice, ye who are enlisted in this 
 service, "for as much as ye know that your labor 
 is not in vain in the Lord.'' 
 
 From the days of Martha and of Mary women 
 have always been ^^laymen" in the Church. 
 Recent fuller recognition of their ability and 
 usefulness does not impeach the record of long, 
 faithful, and unreserved toil and sacrifice which 
 they have given to Christian undertakings. It 
 is a pity that the English language possesses no 
 pronouns necessarily implying both sexes, and 
 few nouns expressly including in their sweep men 
 and women alike. It ought to be understood that 
 in discussions of the general work of the Church, 
 and of its members, nothing of the highest sig- 
 nificance can be said without thought of the elect 
 characters and of the many true spirits who have 
 given womanly talents to the service of Christ 
 ever since the days when the great apostle to the 
 Gentiles appealed to his "true yokefellow," that 
 he "help these women, for they labored with me 
 in the gospel." 
 
 City laymen of the first rank, as is true of a 
 j majority of leaders in finance and industry, are 
 • mainly of country origin. Repeatedly has this 
 fact been established by canvasses of the most 
 effective and prominent personages. This is the 
 point at which the country church and pastor 
 come most vitally into relation with the city 
 problem, for they furnish not merely masses of 
 young life to the centers of population, but that 
 
 40 
 
THE CITY LAYMAN 
 
 good brain and pure blood which make their way 
 to the front, and which do the larger work of the 
 town. Exceptions occur, of course, and in num- 
 bers, but it is remarkable how great a proportion 
 of the city bred reach only places of secondary 
 importance in the activities of their own locali- 
 ties. It is probably true that a better tendency, 
 due to the influence of religious societies, is at 
 present operative. The time should come when 
 city lads will be less addicted than now to trivial 
 pleasures, to enfeebling habits, to the desire for 
 ^Vhite-shirt jobs,'' and to such occupations as 
 absorb time and energy without fitting them for 
 advancement and for mastery. It is the youth 
 who is willing to roll up his sleeves, and to 
 begin if not at the bottom, wherever he can get 
 a chance, and invariably it is one who will pay 
 the price of success by readiness to serve, by 
 serious effort to accomplish, and by study of 
 present and future tasks, who finally surpasses 
 his fellows, and arrives at a place of recom- 
 pense and power. The country boy, and often 
 the alien, will meet these tests. For this reason 
 it is that the country pastor and the people 
 of the little hamlet at home or abroad fre- 
 quently rejoice in the consciousness of valu- 
 able contributions which they have been able to 
 make to city activities, including those of the 
 churches, and to the great conflict for higher 
 civilization. Representatively the country is in 
 this fight, and with a mighty influence. 
 
 41 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 The city layman, whether reared in urban or 
 rural surroundings, is energized, at least to 
 some extent, by his environment, and his facul- 
 ties are aroused and sharpened. The need is 
 for the brightest minds, able to contest the 
 subtleties of city unbelief and godlessness, and 
 the ingenuities of city vice. "A dull man," as 
 Saville insists, *^is so near a dead man that he is 
 hardly to be ranked in the list of the living : and 
 as he is not to be buried whilst he is half alive, 
 so he is as little to be employed whilst he is 
 half dead." It is a brake upon the country church 
 that, being obliged to use the best material at 
 hand, it must sometimes employ, even in official 
 capacities, the services of those who are anemic, 
 obtuse, and nonprogressive. Such persons can- 
 not greatly aid a city church, and would not 
 last long in any prominent position. A stern 
 necessity rests upon this church, for it must meet 
 a strong and twofold competition, that of the 
 seething worldliness and sinfulness about it, and 
 that of its lively and aggressive rivals. I am not 
 of those who denounce competitive schemes and 
 efforts in Christian work. Every organization 
 needs the spur which comes from the example 
 and success of others laboring in the same field, 
 and a church is no exception. The wise layman 
 understands this, and places his strength of mind 
 and might at the disposal of the pastor and 
 people with whom he is associated in the service 
 of Christ, that he may aid them to keep pace 
 
 42 
 
THE CITY LAYMAN 
 
 with modern movements, and to do their proper 
 portion of the work of God. 
 
 Two men are a grievous trial to their pastor^ — 
 the one who never agrees with him and the one 
 who never disagrees with him. It is hard to say 
 which attitude is the more unfortunate, for 
 while the first of these men is too opinionated and 
 intractable, the other is too thoughtless and un- 
 informing. In a vital sense the pastor is to be 
 regarded as a leader, and should be respected 
 as such; and just as truly the layman is a fellow 
 worker and a counselor whose advice should be 
 greatly desired ; but the Church of Christ is not 
 the place for dictators, whether of the ministry 
 or of the laity. How desirable is that intelligent, 
 reasonable study of the needs and duties of 
 organized Christianity which leads good men 
 first to differ and then to come together on a 
 program which commands the assent of a ma- 
 jority! Democracy should always be preserved 
 in church relations and management. Informa- 
 tion and suggestion from every source should be 
 made welcome. When consideration has been 
 given to varying views, and action has been 
 taken, is it not the spirit of unity and of hearty 
 cooperation with the general will which indicates 
 Christian character and which gives assurance of 
 success in Christian undertakings? 
 
 It has been wisely said that "the Christian's 
 privileges lie in pronouns; but his duty in ad- 
 verbs." That is to say, it is not merely honum 
 
 43 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 that he is to consider, but heney good accom- 
 plished skillfully. Christian experience and 
 church membership are to be heartily enjoyed, 
 but they are not to be self-consumed, lest there 
 be nothing left except the name. Society rightly 
 expects Christ's men — Christians — to act up to 
 the relationship which they hold and to the 
 power which operates through them. Even of 
 your religion the unemotional world asks, coldly, 
 "What does it do?" Consider, then, brother in 
 Christ, how you are using your faith and how 
 you are representing it to your fellow men. 
 
 The office of the pulpit is to teach, and the 
 duty of all is to live the doctrine. The life of 
 Christianity is infinitely more important than 
 its philosophy. It is not the theorist and pro- 
 fessor who is in demand outside of school and 
 church. It is right to expound principles, and 
 wise is he who drinks deeply at fountains of 
 instruction, but the doors of schoolroom and of 
 temple open upon realms of action, where it is 
 not what one has heard nor always what one 
 believes that counts. Men are still following the 
 example of those Athenians before whom came 
 two architects soliciting the opportunity of 
 erecting a public edifice. One of the candidates 
 lectured eloquently upon various types of archi- 
 tecture and upon the manner in which this 
 building should be raised. The other architect 
 contented himself with a laconic remark, "What 
 my brother has spoken I can do.'*^ The work was 
 
 44 
 
THE CITY LAYMAN 
 
 given to him, and it is said that the result was 
 satisfactory. 
 
 Are not the laymen of our churches sincere in 
 their purpose to follow Christ, and to work the 
 works of Christian thought and training? Such 
 is the conviction we hold. Relatively speaking, 
 there are not many hypocrites in the Church. 
 For every indubitable instance of this kind which 
 can be pointed out it would not be hard to name 
 a dozen cases of hypocrisy outside of church 
 membership among those who are their own 
 authority for the claim that they are "better 
 than your church members." They admit this 
 themselves : pity that so often it is undiscovered 
 elsewhere, and that even the very reverse is 
 proved to be the case. It is not denied that good 
 men are to be found among those who have 
 assumed no religious vows. These men are no 
 boasters of their own virtues ; nor do churchmen 
 make claim to infallibility, either in judgment 
 or in act ; some of them would freely confess that 
 they are much like the persons who belong to 
 an Oriental club, one of whose officers, strug- 
 gling to express himself in English, said : ''It is 
 a very good organization, except that not all the 
 members perform their performances." Never- 
 theless, the churches contain the best people in 
 the world, unnumbered thousands of whom are 
 constant in purity, in labor, and in sacrifices, 
 beyond all that the world knows or dreams. 
 Need there is of a deeper work of God in their 
 
 45 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 moral natures — desire for it, too, for many of the 
 very best Christians "hunger and thirst after 
 righteousness" above all that they have acquired. 
 The Master's blessing is on them : "they shall be 
 filled" by Him, who "is the end of the law unto 
 righteousness to every one that believeth." Why 
 should not every churchman use in their entirety 
 the means which are given for the perfecting and 
 upbuilding of Christian character, "till we all 
 attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the 
 knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full grown 
 man, unto the measure of the stature of the ful- 
 ness of Christ"? 
 
 The Christian is the world's Christ : they will 
 not look at Christ ; they look at us ; and if they see 
 Christ, it is because our lives reveal him. The 
 man of affairs and the woman of society and of 
 the home are with people daily and hourly, and 
 often in the most intimate relations. This gives 
 opportunity for personal ministry which the 
 preacher may covet but cannot so frequently and 
 unprofessionally enjoy. The preacher is an ex- 
 pert, in the pulpit and in personal work also, if 
 he be a right man of God. But as the vast total 
 of business and of manufacture is not done by 
 experts, but by laymen, by faithful workers, so 
 the world will never be won to Christ by preach- 
 ers only. Lay activity has its own expertness, 
 its own perfections. There is no need of any 
 jealousy between pulpit and pew. In his ovv^n 
 sphere each may be a master workman — the 
 
 46 
 
THE CITY LAYMAN 
 
 church member and his pastor, and the result is 
 one. But do Christians realize how eagerly 
 their friends and associates watch them, as 
 M'sieu Charley, in ^'The Eight of Way,'' watched 
 the little tailor, seeking "a sign from heaven"? 
 In the city the token of Christian faith and love 
 must be worn openly and displayed quickly. 
 Throngs are swiftly moving : they pass us in our 
 places of business, in the streets, and in temples 
 of worship and of pleasure, and they are gone. 
 ^^Whilst thou art in the way with him" give thy 
 brother the "high sign" of fellowship in Christ, 
 and if he does not respond, know and seek him as 
 one whom God would save. If the Christians of 
 America would arise in their might, and make 
 a business of winning their friends and fellow 
 citizens to the allegiance of Christ, such a social 
 revolution would take place as no nation ever 
 beheld. 
 
 It should be clearly understood, however, that 
 mere invitation and persuasion will not convert 
 the masses or transform society. We want all 
 men Christianized. Very well, let us treat them 
 like Christians. The modern "Acts of the 
 Apostles" are reasonable hours of toil, fair 
 wages, life-saving devices, sanitation, good 
 houses, faithful service, a just price, charity, 
 friendliness, fellowship, brotherhood. Who is 
 prepared for all this? The program cuts both 
 ways. Manufacturers and mine-owners' associa- 
 tions have a fine code for labor, and the labor 
 
 47 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 union makes a splendid demand npon capital. 
 Neither at Bagdad nor at Bozrah grows the lily, 
 but between extremes, at the point where men 
 meet as men, as worshipers of the one God, as 
 brothers in Christ. Do the laymen of the Church 
 see this, and are they prepared to accept the 
 logic of their own religion? The problems are 
 great, and many are perplexed as to their actual 
 duties in the relations in which they stand. Let 
 them do the best they can, as they find that which 
 they can do. It was divine wisdom on which 
 Carlyle fell back when one whom his cynical 
 attacks upon human conduct and philanthropy 
 had disheartened, exclaimed, ^'What then would 
 you have us to do?'' "Whatsoever thy hand 
 findeth to do," was the more mellow answer, "do 
 it with thy might.'' 
 
 I contend for this, that Christian men should 
 seek to understand each other's views and as- 
 pirations. A social leader reports that in a city 
 which he visited for the purpose of stating the 
 social gospel of the churches he was greeted with 
 enthusiasm by the working classes, but that the 
 business men of his own denomination gave 
 little attention to the meetings held or to the 
 themes discussed. Not right, certainly, but this 
 partiality is not of one class only. Attempt to 
 get a hearing for the claims of employers, and 
 you will be apt to find a similar lack of interest 
 among mechanics and laborers. This condition 
 will continue until churchmen come to see how 
 
 48 
 
THE CITY LAYMAN 
 
 vital to the interests of Christianity in its at- 
 tempts to save all men are the mutual respect 
 and affection of the component elements of 
 society, which may be shown not only by readi- 
 ness to counsel together but by anxiety to co- 
 operate for the common good. Superior intel- 
 ligence and strength should be first to recognize 
 the importance of this attitude, and should make 
 the first and most persistent advances in the 
 way of deeds of justice and generosity. If I 
 were to make a special appeal, it would be for 
 time and patience in the settlement of what 
 seem to be real grievances as between man and 
 man. In our highly organized society indi- 
 viduals are to a greater or less extent creatures 
 of systems and victims of circumstances. In 
 matters of wages, of hours of service, and even 
 of business equipment, individual employers and 
 corporations may be restricted within narrow 
 limits by the actions of their competitors. Simi- 
 larly, members of labor organizations are some- 
 times forced by the votes of others, and against 
 their convictions, into unjust and inconsistent 
 movements and personal conduct. It is easy to 
 preach independence, but the road is not always 
 as smooth as it looks. Again comes up that 
 ancient and much-neglected adage with which 
 Christians surely should have sympathy — "Put 
 yourself in his place." The broad-minded 
 recognition of situations that exist, and that 
 affect the judgments and deeds of men, will keep 
 
 49 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 churchmen together in spirit, even when they 
 differ outwardly, and will help them to help 
 each other into the knowledge and power which 
 will correct abuses, and which will gradually 
 transform industrial relations into harmony 
 with the Golden Eule. And some will be daring 
 enough to do right though the heavens fall, and 
 by their sacrifices, if they do not hasten the day 
 of social justice, they will at least have proven 
 their love of God and of their fellow men. 
 
 It is complained, and with some show of truth, 
 that Christians fail to do their duty in politics, 
 and that thus the baser elements of the com- 
 munity are enabled to govern the cities. It is 
 not surprising that many men of character, who 
 have made some essay into the realm of personal 
 self-seeking and of partisan pettifogging and 
 strife which seem to make up the greater part 
 of the conduct of those who are active in civic 
 affairs, become quickly discouraged, and refuse 
 to have any further connection with such asso- 
 ciations and doings. Much the same experience 
 comes to many even in the broader relations of 
 State and national politics. Others are deterred 
 from serious thought of participating in the 
 direction and management of public interests by 
 observation of its cost in personal comfort and 
 expense. With the fear of still greater losses 
 and dangers than those of means and of con- 
 venience one must often deeply sympathize. An 
 exceedingly able jurist, of a family distinguished 
 
 50 
 
THE CITY LAYMAN 
 
 for statecraft, confessed to the writer that his 
 lifelong ambition had been to share in the execu- 
 tive work of the country, "But/' said he, "I 
 simply will not submit to the processes necessary 
 in order to election to office.'' The few years 
 which have elapsed since this statement of self- 
 renunciation for the sake of moral principle was 
 made have weakened the grip of the saloon 
 upon the machinery of parties. In many in- 
 stances the beginnings of a political career, even 
 in the commonwealth in which this learned judge 
 resides, may be laid without the prostitution of 
 manhood before the gods of intemperance, lust, 
 and greed. 
 
 It is one thing to go into politics for the 
 sake of office and honor, and it is quite a dif- 
 ferent matter to seek to attain power for the 
 public good. Men of intellect, social standing, 
 and means may, if they will, put their hands 
 upon levers which will affect righteously the 
 whole life of the town. Often this influence may 
 be exerted personally and quietly. The man may 
 be unknown, save to the few, but the work will 
 be done. The methods which "bosses" use for 
 their own pockets may in part be employed by 
 patriotic citizens for the right's sake. It is a 
 shame that by reason of the pernicious activity of 
 the one and the indifference of the other the man 
 of the brewery or dive sometimes has more power 
 in his little finger than the church leader pos- 
 sesses in his loins. Is a better state of affairs com- 
 
 51 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 ing? It must be confessed that, despite the mar- 
 velous sweep of the prohibition movement, sur- 
 face indications are not altogether favorable to 
 faith in immediate political purity. In several 
 recent instances whole groups of city officers, in- 
 cluding mayors and judges, have been found to be 
 corruptors of the electorate, and well-nigh whole 
 communities have been proven purchasable. 
 These cases are, indeed, extreme and exceptional. 
 Some of them represent the last desperate 
 struggle of the rum traffic to preserve its life, and 
 some are mere reversions to type on the part of 
 degenerate bodies. Over against these undoubted 
 and sad evidences of delinquency and evil doing 
 are tendencies toward a new civic conscientious- 
 ness, which is seen in stricter laws and more 
 rigid enforcement, and which brings to places of 
 public usefulness young men of the new order, 
 out of whom selfishness and sordidness, which 
 often attend age, have not choked idealism, and 
 the determination to make a better world. It is 
 putting it mildly to say that the outcome of the 
 latter movement depends very largely upon the 
 attitude taken by men of the churches. Brothers, 
 it is Christ's battle. ^'Follow !" cries the Captain 
 of the good fight. The Church echoes the call, 
 but can do nothing except through the action of 
 its members. The less words, the more deeds. 
 Some pastors and members of Preachers' Meet- 
 ings and of other church bodies become exceed- 
 ingly weary of resolutions on all sorts of sub- 
 
 52 
 
THE CITY LAYMAN 
 
 jects, at times with little knowledge or consider- 
 ation of the facts in particular cases which are in 
 hand. The Church depends too much on resolv- 
 ing. It is to be noted that resolvers are often 
 dissolvers when the time for doing comes. Would 
 that the fact were realized that laymen in action 
 are the Church in action. The word of command 
 has been given — the word of justice, of honor, of 
 God's will — the word whose obedience would 
 remake our cities, and bring purity, prosperity, 
 and happiness to the lives of the poor. "Be ye 
 doers of the word, and not hearers only." 
 
 As to work which is to be done by laymen 
 within the Church itself, and in the circle of its 
 associations, much is said throughout the 
 chapters of this book, and no topic treated is 
 without thought of them and of their needs and 
 duties. Has it been sufficiently considered that a 
 better ministry is impossible without a better 
 laity? The saying is too strong? It cannot be 
 taken back. The Christian ministry needs gener- 
 ous recruiting, and from the ranks of the ablest 
 young men, but this will never be without a 
 higher estimate of the office and Avork of the 
 preacher on the part of men and women of the 
 Church. The Layman's valuation of the pulpit, 
 and of pastoral labors ; his respect for the person 
 and counsel of Christ's representative; his con- 
 versations concerning sermons and the conduct 
 of preachers, as well as about all church matters, 
 increase or diminish the supply of candidates for 
 
 53 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 holy orders. Do not blame the boys for not be- 
 coming preachers of the gospel if their parents 
 have little respect, not for the cloth, surely, but 
 for the man clothed with a divine call and with 
 a holy responsibility. If the ambitions of 
 fathers, and especially of mothers, are for those 
 attainments whose value is set by the dollar 
 mark, how can a vocation whose emoluments are 
 mainly spiritual and eternal reach the imagina- 
 tion and obtain the devotion of youth? That a 
 larger supply of strong and sturdy material for 
 prophets unto men and priests unto God may be 
 secured, let churchmen consider their own words, 
 actions, and chief desires for their children. 
 Nevertheless, the need is not for man-made min- 
 isters. Pressure of parental authority should 
 never force reluctant men into a task which of all 
 others demands the prerequisite and the con- 
 stantly sustaining force of personal conviction. 
 
 The preacher, like his fellows, is an improvable 
 being, unless, as sometimes occurs, his manhood 
 has been swallowed up in the formalities of his 
 profession. Make the preacher better by giving 
 him a better hearing. Flattery spoils a preacher, 
 and compliments are exercises for his grace, but 
 eager listening, the sensible expression of ap- 
 proval, and occasional wise suggestion of new 
 thoughts, or of improved methods, put the pulpit 
 on its metal. The wise layman learns to help 
 without hurting, and to stand by the pastor who 
 is doing his best. The error of estimating preach- 
 
 54 
 
THE CITY LAYMAN 
 
 ing and ministries by their own tastes and re- 
 quirements rather than by those of congregations 
 as a whole, is a sin into which the best churchmen 
 do not fall. Is not "the greatest good to the 
 greatest number" the rule of wisdom with refer- 
 ence to the valuation of Christian w^ork? By 
 using this standard of measurement unhappy dif- 
 ferences and frequent changes of leadership are 
 avoided, and a result is attained which, on the 
 whole, is more constructive. It is often better 
 to bear "the ills we have" than to "fly to others 
 that we know not of." It can be demonstrated 
 to the satisfaction of fair-minded persons that 
 some churches always have better preachers than 
 do others, although the pulpit be at times in the 
 hands of very ordinary men. This is because 
 the laymen of those churches are more apprecia- 
 tive, more inspiring, and more worthy of the best 
 and of all that a preacher can do. 
 
 The business ability of men of affairs is what 
 the Church depends upon in order that its busi- 
 ness may be done in a way to command the re- 
 spect of communities, and that the measure of 
 success may be obtained which the situation re- 
 quires and which God w^ants. This also has 
 been considered in our discussion of city work, 
 as have been matters of stewardship and of rela- 
 tionship to general movements, not merely of 
 special organizations, but of denominations and 
 of Christianity. What lover of the Church is not 
 jealous of the time and of the intelligent pur- 
 
 55 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 posive application to religious affairs of the 
 minds of men of superior talent and experience? 
 Preoccupation with vast material concerns and 
 association in business with men of larger caliber 
 tend to make average church transactions look 
 small and to render great laymen impatient with 
 the views and methods of common church offi- 
 cials. Men of this type should learn to look upon 
 their experiences in Christian work with refer- 
 ence to the deep significance which they hold. 
 Little details of church finance may determine 
 most necessary and desirable events. Eternal 
 issues often swing on small hinges, and as for offi- 
 cial boards of churches they should be looked 
 upon as training schools for future greater deeds. 
 So clearly were these truths realized by one of the 
 strongest laymen I have ever known, that no 
 board or committee meeting was too small in its 
 apparent importance to command his attendance 
 until the business had been completed. It may be 
 added that it is a sin to do business when there is 
 none to do, or after it has been done. 
 
 I visited a distinguished churchman who was 
 upon what proved to be his dying bed. He was 
 found reading one of the earlier historical records 
 of his denomination, and he entertained his caller 
 with a splendid review of his researches in a field 
 of investigation in which he had evidently spent 
 much time. If all Christian men were students 
 of church history, and systematic readers of 
 church literature, more of them would become, 
 
 56 
 
THE CITY LAYMAN 
 
 like this splendid layman, invaluable to the work 
 of Christ. Busy men are not too busy to do some 
 reading. If they will keep on hand a few choice 
 books on Christian faith and practice, and on 
 ecclesiastical organization and government, if 
 they will take a few church papers, including at 
 least one standard journal of some denomination 
 other than that to which they belong, and if they 
 will dip into this literature at seasons of oppor- 
 tunity, even though they can give but brief mo- 
 ments to such an exercise, in the course of years 
 they mil be developed in their knowledge of the 
 kingdom of God, as well as in their interest 
 therein, and they will greatly enlarge their 
 capacity for Christian usefulness. What is 
 better than this? Is it better to be the possessor 
 of increasing wealth or to become a more efficient 
 helper of God in the work of saving humanity? 
 And in eternity which will the more avail, to 
 leave behind one a list of business organizations 
 and of secular fraternities with which he was 
 identified and to which he gave his strength, or 
 to possess forever a record of wise and devoted 
 service to the interests of Christ's kingdom 
 among men? 
 
 It is left with the laymen ! And the preachers 
 and the whole Church are left with the laymen, 
 for their thought and action : as they go, we go, 
 forward or backward, up or down. Of course 
 individual salvation may be wrought out as a 
 purely personal matter, and equally certain is it 
 
 57 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 that unaided one may accomplisli some good 
 and valuable service, but for the highest results 
 in Christian work "we are members one of an- 
 other.'' Therefore, as Saint Paul nobly charges, 
 "having gifts differing, according to the grace 
 that was given to us, whether prophecy, let us 
 prophesy according to the proportion of our 
 faith; or ministry, let us give ourselves to our 
 ministry; or he that teacheth, to his teaching; 
 or he that exhorteth, to his exhorting; he that 
 giveth, let him do it with liberality ; he that rul- 
 eth, with diligence ; he that showeth mercy, with 
 cheerfulness. Let love be without hypocrisy. 
 Abhor that which is evil ; cleave to that which is 
 good. In love of the brethren be tenderly affec- 
 tioned one to another; in honor preferring one 
 another; in diligence not slothful; fervent in 
 spirit; serving the Lord.'' 
 
 68 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE BRINK OF THE CRATER 
 
 An unusually thrilling photograph of Vesuvius 
 shows a sky line of spectators standing fearfully 
 upon the brim of the great orifice of the volcano, 
 an opening three thousand feet in circumference 
 and eight hundred in diameter. A portion of the 
 floor of the crater is also seen, with smoke-filled 
 depths unrevealed and threatening. This real- 
 istic picture has a powerful effect upon the 
 imagination, even of the most intrepid. The 
 mind is impressed with a sense of awe, and of 
 foreboding, and with the hope that some one 
 will advise venturesome spirits to beware of risk- 
 ing their lives too near such a frightful abyss. 
 This office, as all travelers know, is fulfilled by 
 the Italian guides, and especially by scientists 
 who dwell in the observatory far up the slopes of 
 the mountain, and whose duty it is to record 
 changes in volcanic conditions, and to warn of 
 impending eruptions and perils. Their work is 
 performed at much hazard, and it has not been 
 unattended by casualties. In 1872 a wave of 
 lava encircled the observatory with a sea of fire. 
 
 59 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 Several persons who had gathered near the place 
 lost their lives, but the director, Palmieri, was 
 preserved. "Would you remain through another 
 such eruption ?" he was asked. "Certainly,'' said 
 he, "my life belongs to science. If the observ- 
 atory falls, I wish to fall with it." The work 
 of Professor Matteucci, and of the eminent Amer- 
 ican volcanologist, F. A. Perret, is well known. 
 These men have often periled themselves for the 
 sake of their researches. In 1906 the observatory 
 was bombarded for many hours from above and 
 below by lava and earthquakes, the house rocking 
 so violently that its inhabitants could cross the 
 room only by steadying themselves with their 
 hands against the walls. The top of the moun- 
 tain was covered with darkness for eight black 
 days. In 1914 it was announced in press dis- 
 patches that Mr. Perret had been killed by fall- 
 ing lava while investigating the eruption of that 
 year, but he was later found to have escaped 
 death by the fraction of a second. In every 
 great period of volcanic activity in Italy through- 
 out many years, and once in Japan when Sakure- 
 shima was in the throes of violence, Mr. Perret 
 gathered materials which enabled him to foretell, 
 sometimes months in advance, when an eruption 
 would occur, and even to determine and announce 
 the length of time for the continuance of a par- 
 oxysm. Variations in intensity of eruptions have 
 been noted which it is said will ultimately save 
 thousands of lives of persons who may thus be 
 
 60 
 
THE BRINK OP THE CRATER 
 
 warned at seasons of danger, and early enough to 
 enable them to seek places of refuge. 
 
 At one time or another almost every one has 
 visited the crater's edge which yawns in the 
 center of the city. It is the verge of the pit which 
 is bottomless, and which burns with fire and 
 brimstone. Shelley's well known lines declare: 
 
 Hell is a city much like London, 
 
 A populous and a smoky city. 
 There are all sorts of people undone, 
 And there is little or no fun done — 
 
 Small justice shown, and still less pity. 
 
 This passage, if not very poetical in its concep- 
 tion and imagery, is certainly truthful in its 
 description of certain parts of the world's great 
 metropolis. But hell is not confined to London. 
 In all its unfathomableness and hideousness it 
 exists in every municipality, even the smallest, 
 and its fumes and forked flames, which are to 
 some an idle jest, are death- dealing to others. 
 The presence of the city's Inferno is not to be 
 ignored by wisdom and goodness. Not for idle 
 pleasure, however, should any haunt its environs. 
 The habit of going slumming is both despicable 
 and perilous. Those w^ho, without worthy ade- 
 quate purpose, seek the sight of evil are in danger 
 of being attracted and deceived by its novelty 
 and brilliancy, by the increasing curiosity which 
 it arouses, and by their own latent unsuspected 
 depravity. They "first endure, then pity, then 
 
 61 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 embrace.'' Angels have fallen by going to see the 
 devil. 
 
 In order to seek their improvement, some one 
 must study civic conditions, and many must know 
 enough about the hazardous places in society to 
 conduct those whose desire for information will 
 not otherwise be satisfied to and from the place 
 of understanding in safety. Good men and 
 women of the churches act as guides and helpers 
 to their younger and simpler associates. They 
 do not accompany the weak into the depths of 
 iniquity, lest they should lose them from their 
 very sides through some hot fissure, suddenly 
 widening beneath their feet. By their counsels 
 and descriptions they take their children, friends, 
 and comrades in toil up the mount of vision, 
 showing them the frightful dangers of vice, and 
 seeking to bring them away with an indelible 
 and salutary knowledge of what they have es- 
 caped. This work ought to be better and more 
 faithfully done. If she had been forewarned, 
 the young girl would have died rather than enter 
 the saloon where she was drugged and wronged. 
 If he had known what wickedness he might meet, 
 the lad whom the depraved woman invited into 
 her house as he was passing on his way to school 
 would have escaped loathsome and ultimately 
 fatal poison. If some one had made him realize 
 the end of the gambler, the trusted employee of 
 a noted business house might have kept out of 
 prison and might have saved his friends from 
 
 62 
 
THE BRINK OF THE CRATER 
 
 broken hearts. If — but the list is almost endless. 
 What need of moral guidance the city presents I 
 And where shall it be found if not among those 
 whom Christ has appointed to be the light of the 
 world? 
 
 The city preacher is a scientific expert. The 
 college professor lives in a quiet university town, 
 or passes much of his time in the calm precincts 
 of libraries and of laboratories. He may study 
 sociology and write valuable books. He per- 
 forms the inestimable service of preparing select 
 youth for the battle and service of life. He rarely 
 lives, like the city pastor, upon the shoulder of 
 the volcano of seething human struggle and sin. 
 The preacher daily hears the rumble and groans 
 of earthly passions, he smells the sulphurous 
 gases of temptation, he feels the heat of internal 
 destructions, he has a confessional, to which come 
 the bruised and scarred whom he may yet help to 
 save from death. His function is that of watcher, 
 warner, and friend of humanity in all its forms 
 and states of good and of evil. 
 
 The requirement for city preachers is a strong, 
 fearless, intelligent, sympathetic manhood. This 
 is a high standard, and one which is not always 
 realized, but w^herever it is actually met a man 
 is "as a covert from a tempest," even of lava 
 and scoria. He guides the guides, who are them- 
 selves sometimes drawn into close association 
 with evil. The preacher makes a serious mistake 
 to be always warning. The pulpit which deals 
 
 63 
 
THE CHUECH IN THE CITY 
 
 carefully but courageously with public matters, 
 only denouncing when the fitting time has come, 
 or when wisdom and righteousness are exasper- 
 ated beyond measure, will exert unexpected and 
 availing power. It was a modest city pastor in 
 a relatively unimportant church who wrought 
 a reform in the customs of a civic body by an- 
 nouncing indignantly to his people, ^^The 
 Chamber of Commerce is about to go on its 
 annual drunk.'' The sentence was too good to 
 keep, and the rebuke was so keen and truthful 
 that it pierced the conscience of the better busi- 
 ness element. "Annual drunks" were elimi- 
 nated. Another city preacher effectively rebuked 
 the school board, which had hired a saloonkeeper 
 as a night-school teacher. The woman's clubs 
 and civic leagues protested. The preacher at- 
 tended the meeting of the board at which the 
 contest was to be heard. The next Sunday morn- 
 ing he described the meeting, the language used, 
 and the spirit which was shown, and he declared 
 that that school board was the kind of body 
 which might be expected to do the sort of work 
 then going on. One of the sentences of this dis- 
 course was made the headline of a leading daily 
 paper next morning. "The School Board Exhibit 
 A in Contest Against Appointment." The article 
 which followed was widely read, and on Tuesday 
 night the board rescinded its action and dis- 
 missed the rumseller. In achieving this result 
 the work of various public organizations was 
 
 64 
 
THE BRINK OF THE CRATER 
 
 effective, the newspapers deserved praise, but, in 
 the opinion of many people, it was the sermon 
 reported which was the deciding factor in mak- 
 ing the appointment too difficult to be sustained. 
 Vice bulletins prepared by still another city 
 preacher for the use of a reform organization 
 were so effectively done as to lead to the obliter- 
 ation of a deadly red-light area. None of these 
 preachers were known as sensationalists. Two 
 of them had considerable reputation for conserv- 
 atism. When careful men speak carefully but 
 unsparingly about grievous wrongs they some- 
 times furnish the precise word needed in order to 
 move that most influential, but uncertain force, 
 public sentiment, which always, when sufficiently 
 aroused, gets its way; but the constant agitator 
 and exploiter of himself and of his views very 
 rarely moves the mass or achieves any definite 
 result. 
 
 Such incidents as have just been described, 
 however necessary and fruitful, are of little im- 
 portance in comparison with the steady work of 
 moral instruction which the average city pulpit 
 maintains. Both the social life and the business 
 of every town owe a debt of gratitude to its 
 preachers of righteousness for services whose full 
 extent are doubtless as invaluable as they are 
 immeasurable. Worship is cleansing, and every 
 message which lifts the minds of men to the con- 
 templation of wisdom, holiness, and love is a 
 virtuous force. Every city preacher should be a 
 
 65 
 
THE CHUECH IN THE CITY 
 
 mystic, with a daily sense of God. He will avail 
 little, if in the rush and roar which deafen and 
 deaden he does not hear ^'sl still small voice" 
 speaking words of life. He must pray for spir- 
 itual faith and sanctuary in the fine rapture of 
 Matthew Arnold 
 
 Calm soul of all things! Make it mine 
 
 To feel, amid the city's jar, 
 That there abides a place of thine, 
 
 Man did not make, and cannot mar. 
 
 This Christ-called man, who is both prophet 
 and seer, both dreamer and doer, both earthly 
 saint and divine messenger, has a place in the 
 world worthy of heavenly inspiration, and full of 
 values. The Christian pulpit is not a throne, 
 which is something that is passing; it is not a 
 platform or a stage for orators and actors; it 
 is a power-house, creating activities, present 
 and remote, and throwing light into darkened 
 places. 
 
 It is necessary to resist the pressure of those 
 who would have the preacher always condemning 
 I sin, and who, providing he is not too personal in 
 the case of members of his own congregation, 
 very much admire him for muckraking. His 
 "thrillers'' will be applauded, but he must keep 
 on thrilling, or the result is ennui. There is a 
 time for all things, but most of the preacher's 
 labor in the pulpit should be given to teaching, 
 and the timeless lessons of scriptural doctrine 
 and deeds and the age-long wisdom of Christian 
 
 66 
 
THE BKINK OF THE CKATER 
 
 principles and practices are the substance of 
 good preaching. If those who hear can forget the 
 preacher, so mnch the better. In a sense the man 
 is the message, but art or eccentricity may 
 swallow up both. Given a man who forgets him- 
 self in order to bring to the people divine truth, 
 and many surrender other objects of desire that 
 they may possess this wisdom. Light, heat, and 
 actinism are all needed in city pulpits, but none 
 of these in a vacuum. The great city preachers 
 have been men of moving — Chalmers, Guthrie, 
 Whyte; Spurgeon, Maclaren, Hugh Price 
 Hughes; Beecher, Hall, Taylor; Cuyler, New- 
 man, Phillips Brooks. These men preached the 
 marrow of the gospel, as do all the preachers 
 worth "listening after.'' It was their life, and 
 they breathed lightnings and thundered, but not 
 with mere noise. God gave them a word, and they 
 served it warm — not lukewarm, to be rejected. 
 They orbed themselves and fused God into it. 
 Therefore they were heard and heeded. As the 
 voice of Fra Girolamo floated out from the 
 Duomo and stirred Florence, so the warnings, 
 entreaties, the prayers and challenges of the 
 sincere preacher make their way through the 
 twentieth-century city. It is never a lifeless town 
 which has a Savonarola in it. But what the 
 world needs is not one high pulpit ^T.th a sublime 
 prophet, but many low pulpits T^ith great, true 
 souls on the level, men who are in close contact 
 with city life, and who work together, like the 
 
 67 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 pipes of an organ, to attain divine symphonies 
 of thought and action. 
 
 Cold type can never take the place of a white- 
 hot preacher. The printed page has an abiding, 
 place in teaching, but there is needed the tremolo 
 of a voice, a flashing eye, an uplifted hand. 
 Cities have grown so large that single personal- 
 ities are swallowed up. A few, and not always 
 the right ones, stand out above the throng, but 
 the others are not lost. They are down there in 
 the multitude breaking the bread of life and 
 feeding miraculous fishes to famishing souls. 
 They are busy and useful, and never were men 
 more gifted and powerful. No single human in- 
 fluence is greater than that of Christian min- 
 isters. They are believed, if they are not always 
 followed. Better that books should be burned 
 up and newspapers forgotten than that preachers 
 should cease to proclaim, "Thus saith the Lord." 
 
 But the ethical influence of the minister of 
 Christ is by no means confined to the sacred desk 
 and to the Lord's Day. As an adviser of men of 
 affairs, especially with reference to questions of 
 right and wrong, he is often highly valued and 
 much consulted. If he is a deeply conscientious 
 as well as a courageous man, he sometimes ven- 
 tures to volunteer his counsel, even to men upon 
 whose good will his position and success largely 
 depend. The representative of Jesus Christ 
 ought always to be kindly and courteous in his 
 dealings with individuals, but if he is not will- 
 
 68 
 
THE BRINK OF THE CKATER 
 
 ing to risk Ms own interests to encourage justice 
 and purity, and to rebuke evil in the conduct 
 of Ms officials and members, lie is not worthy of 
 his calling, or true to Him who requireth judg- 
 ment and righteousness as well as love. There is 
 nothing much meaner or more hateful than is the 
 attitude of the preacher who is always baiting ^ 
 and bullying men whose responsibilities and ! 
 problems are deeper than his comprehension or / 
 broader than his sympathy. In some commu- 
 nities it is a popular task to belittle, or even to 
 abuse, men of large affairs and of complicated 
 and difficult duties and relationships. This is 
 going to an extreme which is not less disastrous 
 to the public than is fawning flattery in the pres- 
 ence of moral obliquity. Demagogues in broad- 
 cloth have sometimes driven or kept out of the 
 church those to whom they might have become 
 prophets of righteousness, and through whom 
 they could have served the interests of thousands 
 of their fellowmen. It requires divine grace to 
 become a monitor of conscience to the strong. 
 To seize the reins of a powerful man's conduct, 
 and to guide his course to Avise and benevolent 
 ends, is not merely a "man's job," it is the work 
 of a "man of God" without partiality and with- 
 out hypocrisy. Capitalists, labor leaders, states- 
 men, journalists, and financial magnates are not 
 beyond the reach of preachers of the gospel in 
 whom they can and do believe. If the history of 
 the human soul could be written, a very consid- 
 
 69 
 
THE CHUECH IN THE CITY 
 
 erable weight of influence tending toward the 
 amelioration of human woes, and toward the 
 creation of social values, would be seen to have 
 proceeded from the personal ministries of wise 
 and trusted Christian seers, who have studied 
 men and measures from an unselfish and nonpar- 
 tisan viewpoint, and who exude sage counsel 
 when the opportunity is given or can be justly 
 made. 
 
 I am sorry for the preacher who does not have 
 moral weaklings and dependents hanging about 
 him, or who fails to recognize and to have com- 
 passion for them as such. These also are "little 
 ones" whose Father is not willing that they 
 should perish, and to make whom to olfend is 
 worse than to have a millstone hanged about the 
 neck and to be cast into the sea. Jesus was sur- 
 rounded by the simple, the obtuse, the frail, the 
 maimed and crooked, the diseased and fallen, the 
 mentally and spiritually insane. What a drain 
 upon his vital forces these imperfect and unlovely 
 I creatures must have been ! No wonder he some- 
 I times sent the multitudes away from him, not 
 • because he was tired of them, but because his 
 human nature was exhausted, and needed to be 
 replenished by meditation and by communion 
 with the Father. Withdrawal from the responsi- 
 |bilities of strength is often necessary, and Jesus 
 thus teaches, both by his example and by the 
 counsel to his disciples when they had done 
 enough : "Come ye apart into a desert place and 
 
 70 
 
THE BEINK OF THE CKATER 
 
 rest awhile.'' But always he was pitiful and 
 tolerant. Before and after his brief seasons of 
 refreshment he suffered the needy and the un- 
 wholesome to come near him, he patiently bore 
 with their complaints and with their folly, and 
 he gave himself to their relief. 
 
 The man who is on the brink of the crater must 
 listen to many a sorrowful tale, and he must be 
 reason and principle for many thoughtless and 
 unprincipled. Why they come to him he often 
 wonders. That is because he does not compre- 
 hend how w^eak and helpless human nature often 
 is. In his confessional he becomes, like the 
 family physician, but often with reference to 
 more vital matters than physical maladies, the 
 repository of secrets. Some come to him smell- 
 ing of the pit's mouth w^here they have been 
 loitering, and he finds that some are sadly 
 singed and burned by the flames of hell. The 
 preacher at the heart of the town learns to be sur- 
 prised at nothing, and to be ready promptly to 
 give "first aid." The young lad comes in the 
 horror of his deed and of himself to acknowledge 
 impurity. The thief confides to Christ's min- 
 ister his defalcation, and desires advice as to 
 confession, repayment, and restoration of char- 
 acter. The gambler comes, and the drunkard, 
 often seeking but the price of further indulgence, 
 and not to be trusted with the means of new sins. 
 Parents come pleading for help for wayward 
 children. Business men reveal facts connected 
 
 71 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 with intimate partnership relations, and ask for 
 prayer and encouragement. Politicians come, 
 craftily or sincerely seeking friendship. Worried 
 widows, and worse than widows, request counsel 
 concerning financial affairs. Victims of swind- 
 lers, of legal and medical shysters, of loan sharks, 
 and of false employers, relate bitter experiences. 
 Frauds and failures, criminals and insane, and 
 the woman of shame come to the office of the 
 downtown preacher, and they go away again 
 better for their interview with the keeper of con- 
 sciences, the friend of the people, the one man of 
 importance who will give himself and his time 
 to the neediest, and to the least interesting or 
 hopeful, without pay. It is a great adventure. 
 The man who does this work, to use the figure of 
 an interesting writer, is in the business of drains, 
 and he will sometimes find his task as unpleas- 
 ant and dangerous as that which Mr. Kennedy's 
 significant drama represents Robert as having 
 found for his brother as well as for himself : 
 
 Robert. "Muck, ma'am! Just look at my 'ands! — Aint 
 that pretty? Talk abaht bee-utiful! That bit was on'y an 
 ash-pan! Look 'ere, ma'am, I got the loveliest little job 
 on as ever yer soiled yer 'ands in! Talk abaht corfins an' 
 shrouds an' bones an' dead men gone to rot, they wasn't in 
 it. I never thought there could be such a lot o' muck an' 
 dead things all in one place before! It was a fair treat, 
 it was, I tek my oath! Why — why, it may cost a man 'is 
 LIFE to deal with that little job." 
 
 Vicar. My God, the thing's impossible! 
 
 Robert. Impossible! means a bit of work that's all! 
 
 Vicar. Why, no one would ever dare — 
 72 
 
THE BRINK OF THE CRATER 
 
 Robert. Dare! Why, wot d'you think I come 'ere for? 
 
 Vicar. You! 
 
 Robert. Yus — makin' myself unpleasant . . , 
 
 Vicar. Do you mean ... Do I understand . . . 
 
 Robert. I mean as I've found my place, or I don't know 
 a good thing when I see it. 
 
 Vicar. Then — you mean to go? 
 
 Robert. By 'Eaven, yus! 
 
 Vicar. Then, by all the powers of grace, you shall not 
 go alone. Now, if you're ready, comrade: you and I to- 
 gether! 
 
 The dual character of the task of the central 
 city preacher increases both his responsibility 
 and his interest. The man closest to the crater's 
 edge has the support of pastors and people in the 
 farther, safer, cleaner city, and he helps to keep 
 the people of the town safe and clean. His work 
 is conservative as w^ell as redemptive, and each 
 end of the field is made useful to the other. As a 
 trained observer he reports perils to be shunned, 
 and he directs movements of moral guidance. 
 No other arrangement could be so helpful or so 
 far-reaching in its value to society. The expe- 
 rience which this man gains gives him a sure hold 
 upon the know^ledge of human nature and of the 
 motives by which it is influenced. From his 
 vantage-point he sees afar, above the multitudes 
 and across the valleys of life. Truth becomes 
 clarified and universal in its sweep. The sea of 
 destiny stretches away to ^dde horizons, dotted 
 with blue islands of hope, which are touched by 
 the prows of adventurous ships. The vision lifts 
 the seer to new heights of understanding and of 
 
 73 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 interpretation, and it enlarges Mm to new 
 statures of power. He is the more able to bear 
 responsibilities of human confidence and need the 
 longer he abides at the edge of the crater with the 
 fear of God and the love of men in his heart. 
 
 Yet the prophet may lose his gift. Some have 
 dwelt so long in the presence of danger and of 
 evil that they have lost the sense of their reality. 
 When the man of God no longer shudders at the 
 sinfulness of sin, and when he loses moral con- 
 cern, accompanied by interest in individual 
 crises, his tongue cleaves to the roof of his mouth, 
 his arm of strength is withered and blasted, and 
 virtue has departed from him. It were better that 
 the side of the crater open, and engulf that false 
 and useless watchman of the Lord who warns 
 not the people. His blood shall be upon him, as 
 the Scripture declares : ^'If thou warn the wicked, 
 and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from 
 his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but 
 thou hast delivered thy soul. Again, when a 
 righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, 
 and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumbling-block 
 before him, he shall die: because thou hast not 
 given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and 
 his righteousness which he hath done shall not 
 be remembered; but his blood will I require at 
 thine hand." 
 
 That the side of the crater does sometimes open 
 and swallow the observer some who have wit- 
 nessed these disasters have cause to know. The 
 
 74 
 
THE BRINK OF THE CRATER 
 
 strain of downtown ministry is terrible, and 
 sometimes weakens the mind and will. Ministers 
 of the gospel have become deranged by reason of 
 the weight of the burdens and confidences re- 
 posed upon them for continual years. Others 
 have lost their courage for the fight against 
 iniquity, and have become time servers, not last- 
 ing long in the heart of the town, however, for 
 your city people soon detect the hollow tone of 
 such prophets, and will not tolerate them. Still 
 others shrink and crumble in manliness under the 
 double pressure and associations of their task, 
 and at length fall to pieces in moral ruin. These 
 tragedies, while they should inspire the greater 
 hatred of wickedness, and loathing of the influ- 
 ences which bring it about, nevertheless call for 
 profound pity and sorrow of heart. Alas, that one 
 should turn traitor to himself, and thus to God 
 and man ; that he should strike down at a blow, 
 or at all, the fair fabric of good life and labor; 
 that he should turn backward the current of his 
 years, and defeat the noblest aims and struggles 
 of his soul ! Tread softly by the graves of these 
 sad failures, and mourn them. 
 
 What of the preacher who is carried down to 
 failure and to shame by the malice and sin of 
 others? The edge of the crater is sometimes a 
 place of disaster to a pure heart and a spotless 
 name, and that Tvdthout indiscretion or fault of 
 the victim. In not a few instances friends of the 
 saloon, exasperated by some aggressive attack 
 
 75 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 upon their unrighteous and unlawful behavior, 
 have conspired to destroy an intrepid opponent. 
 Sometimes he has been assaulted and arrested, 
 and in some cases he has been slain. But far 
 more awful are the infamous slanders by which 
 the best of men have been overwhelmed and de- 
 stroyed. Burning lava is not hotter or more 
 malicious than is the tongue of malice. The 
 infamy of the author of lies which assail char- 
 acters and despoil reputations is not lessened by 
 the charge that the victim has not been wise in 
 the method of his contest against intemperance 
 and lawbreaking. The possibility of such an out- 
 come as part of the price we pay to dethrone pow- 
 ers which are pernicious and deadly, and must be 
 reckoned with by every zealous spirit. It is a 
 man's duty to be discreet, and not to incur un- 
 necessary and fruitless enmities, but it is a 
 craven coward who strikes no blow against in- 
 stitutions and individuals whose conduct and 
 contagion are toppling whole Herculaneums and 
 Pompeiis into perdition. 
 
 Corrupt politicians, whose treachery and con- 
 nivance with licentiousness and crime he has de- 
 nounced, have more than once contrived to silence 
 an honest and determined preacher. Women of 
 the tenderloin Avere actually induced to accuse 
 of impurity a minister who had publicly criti- 
 cized a corrupt police administration. Another 
 preacher was informed that a mass of trumped-up 
 evidence had been prepared and buttressed with 
 
 76 
 
THE BRINK OF THE CRATER 
 
 affidavits connecting him with a crime of such 
 a nature that he preferred to resign rather than 
 to subject his family to a most unpleasant 
 scandal. The struggle for civic decency has had 
 its martyrs as well as its victims. Moreover, 
 city pastors have sometimes been made the prey 
 of mere blackmailers, who seeing how easy it is 
 to rob a preacher of his one great asset, a good 
 name, have threatened or assailed him for their 
 own profit. God knows the heart, and those who 
 are persecuted for righteousness' sake, or who go 
 down in the strife for human goodness, have 
 their reward. They are blood brothers of Him 
 who, sinless, took upon himself the sins of others, 
 and was shamefully crucified. Christ arose from 
 the grave of a malefactor, and from its infamy, 
 and is crowned in glory. And the modern martyr 
 will shine with his Lord in the city which hath 
 foundations in justice and holiness, which is 
 without curse, and whose commendations and 
 satisfactions are eternal. 
 
 77 
 
CHAPTER V 
 THE METROPOLITAN PASTOR 
 
 The pulpit work of city ministers, however 
 striking and important it may be, represents but 
 one phase of their useful activity, and that one 
 not the most intimate and personal. Whether the 
 city be a bustling little county seat of ten or 
 fifteen thousand population, a swollen town of 
 two or three hundred thousand, or a municipality 
 running into millions of inhabitants, the preacher 
 in its heart is a kind of metropolitan bishop and 
 shepherd of souls. In this office he has a distinct 
 place and function in the community and one 
 which is of the highest value. Some further dis- 
 cussion of city pastoral labor may prove to be 
 suggestive and timely. 
 
 The time of the metropolitan pastor is con- 
 gested with engagements which are very exacting. 
 Many of his tasks and appointments are made 
 for him, whether he wills or not. He is liable to 
 all kind of interruptions, justified and inexcus- 
 able. He is subject to the telephone and to the 
 doorbell, which must be answered, however im- 
 portant may be his immediate occupation, unless 
 he is willing to incur the risk of making an 
 enemy or of failing to get some valuable oppor- 
 
 78 
 
THE METROPOLITAN PASTOE 
 
 tunity to be of service. One of the busiest of city 
 preachers had great difficulty to control his ex- 
 pression when a rather intelligent looking busi- 
 ness man from a neighboring town sauntered into 
 his office on one of his most strenuous mornings, 
 sank into a chair, and remarked, ^^I have a half 
 hour before my train, and I thought I would 
 drop in and visit with you.'' The pastor was 
 sorry that the railway station was so near, but 
 he courteously and pardonably composed his 
 features into a semblance of delight, and entered 
 upon an expenditure of sorely needed time, from 
 which, try as he might, he was able to extract 
 little, either in the way of information received 
 or of good accomplished. The regular bore comes 
 also at frequent periods, saying : "I have a matter 
 to talk to you about which requires an hour. A 
 few minutes will not do." Since he cannot kill 
 this creature by kindness, and may not properly 
 slay him outright, the hour is sacrificed to idle 
 gossip, or to the discussion of some impractical 
 theory. Comes the book agent, fertile in devices 
 for getting in and for getting the minister in ; the 
 insurance man also and the promoter, who seems 
 to have a sixth sense to tell him when the pastor's 
 salary has been raised. The applicant for aid, 
 often but not always an arrant humbug; the 
 solicitor of indorsements and recommendations, 
 frequently undeserved; the vender of subscrip- 
 tion lists, the organizer of new societies for ex- 
 ploiting a charitable public, together with a 
 
 79 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 multitude of worthy and pressing persons and 
 interests, seek the metropolitan pireacher, call 
 him on the telephone, write him at length, wire 
 him to meet them at inconvenient times and 
 places, use up his time and distract his mind in 
 an endless variety of ways. 
 
 The city pastor must prepare sermons, deliver 
 addresses, speak at banquets, conduct funerals, 
 and give unexceptionable interviews to the news- 
 papers, when they consult him suddenly on the 
 happenings of the day. What a burden is the list 
 of committees on which he is appointed by his 
 denomination, and by various religious and civic 
 bodies, and which are often composed of those 
 very composed individuals who come late, talk 
 leisurely about everything except the matter in 
 hand, and are well satisfied to continue meeting 
 until the next hunger spell. If business firms 
 did business as average church, philanthropic, 
 and reform committees conduct their affairs, 
 they would never get into much competition with 
 each other. It is, of course, impossible to refuse 
 to serve on committees and boards for certain 
 purposes, however unbusinesslike may be their 
 management ; but these duties may become great 
 time-losers, as may be also banquets, lectures, and 
 other offices of entertainment, or, at best, of in- 
 struction. Exceptions must be made because of 
 special needs and relations, but the preacher 
 who does much of the latter kind of thing is 
 thereby advertising the fact that he is not a very 
 
 80 
 
THE METKOPOLITAN PASTOR 
 
 busy man in the real work of the ministry. Al- 
 most invariably such a man is a poor organizer 
 and executive, and rarely does he approach effec- 
 tiveness as a pastor. 
 
 A very vital error in the case of any minister 
 of Christ is to suppose that his pastoral duties 
 are unimportant, and that their discharge con- 
 stitutes a concession to public opinion and to 
 long-established custom. The metropolitan 
 preacher is especially liable to this fallacious con- 
 ception of the matter, and this is one of the most 
 frequent causes of failure in the ministry. For 
 a time an unusually brilliant pulpit and platform 
 man may make an apparent success without 
 kno^^ing his own people, or seeking to become 
 acquainted with others. In exceptional localities 
 a church may be kept thriving by the tourist 
 trade. Show pulpits exist in some of the very 
 largest cities. They are supported mainly by 
 country attendants and accessions, and they 
 doubtless sometimes perform a teaching func- 
 tion of value. The press gives these pulpits 
 especial attention, and their incumbents bear 
 household names. They are enriched by great 
 salaries with unusual perquisites and by the 
 addition of large sums for special addresses 
 and lectures, for such preachers are free to go 
 where they like, except for reasonably regular 
 appearances on Sunday during the popular sea- 
 son. By their writings and interviews these 
 metropolitans affect the public mind concern- 
 
 81 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 ing matters of general interest, and thus do a 
 good service, which is counterbalanced, if not 
 outweighed, by the fact that the majority of 
 such men seem to be erratic and unreliable, while 
 some of them are exceedingly unsafe theolog- 
 ically and socially. The truth is that almost 
 invariably the most independent, constructive, 
 and useful ministers, even of cities of the first 
 class, are those less widely known and quieter 
 men who are workers as well as talkers and 
 writers, and who are even more eminent in the 
 minds of those who know them in personal pas- 
 toral relations than are others in the view of the 
 populace. 
 
 The preacher who wishes, at whatever cost to 
 himself, to do the greatest measure of good among 
 his fellow men, will never surrender his pastoral 
 office, even to a capable assistant. The latter 
 is a very hard man to find, and when he is discov- 
 ered, whole ranges of pastoral opportunities and 
 relationships are beyond his reach as an assist- 
 ant to another man, from whom the people feel 
 that they have a right to expect service of this 
 nature, and to whom they look as being the head 
 of the parish. Assistants are invaluable when 
 used as labor-savers and helpers, and to so con- 
 serve the time of the minister that he need not 
 neglect those functions of intimate personal serv- 
 ice which are his highest use. 
 
 It requires determination and system to enable 
 one who has so many interruptions and claims 
 
 82 
 
THE METROPOLITAN PASTOE 
 
 upon time as has the city pastor to remain a stu- 
 dent, and also to become a good friend and care- 
 taker to the people. Fortunate indeed is the 
 preacher who does not come into the wear and 
 tear of exceptional responsibility until he has 
 accumulated a good stock of sermonic material, 
 not in the form of outlines and manuscripts 
 merely, although these rightly adapted have their 
 place, but in much study and thought, in a well- 
 marked library, and in an assemblage of books, 
 and of citations, quotations, and fragmentary 
 ideas gleaned from many hours of reading and of 
 reflection. Such a man has a reservoir for every 
 emergency, and the discipline he has attained 
 also aids him to concentrate, and to prepare well 
 quickly from new sources, or from collections of 
 the past. Such men are like swift bees in the 
 exercise of their mental faculties: they gather 
 honey rapidly, as they dart from page to page, or 
 from thought to thought, and in many instances 
 they produce as efficiently as do others who work 
 with the utmost deliberateness. 
 
 A few hours for morning study, a few for after- 
 noon visitation, and a few for evening meetings 
 and for leisure is the rough outline of a faithful 
 ministerial life. But into this monotony what 
 splendid deeds may be injected, what errands of 
 love and sympathy, what visitations of the sick 
 and of the poor, what intelligent charities and 
 encouragements of the struggling and of the 
 aspiring, what moral strivings, what religious 
 
 83 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 instructions, what recruitings for the service of 
 Christ, and for undertakings of hutnan love ! It 
 is a work surpassing all others in its thrilling 
 interest, and in the complicated qualities of mind 
 and of heart which it elicits and employs. It is 
 also an exhausting task, especially that portion 
 of it which requires hand to hand work with the 
 evils which afflict the human spirit, and which 
 demand the skill of the Christian pathologist and 
 therapist. Physical weariness is nothing as 
 compared with the effects of nervous tension, 
 and with the expenditure of vital force, which 
 accompanies the attempt to give out strength, 
 and to lift dead weights of weakness, which 
 pastoral visitation requires. No wonder so many 
 preachers suffer from neuralgia, neuritis, in- 
 somnia, and heart failure. Like their great 
 Master, they are men of sorrows and acquainted 
 with grief, they bear the afflictions and sins of 
 many, and they give themselves an offering for 
 the needy, for the oppressed, and even for trans- 
 gressors. Who that has spent much time in the 
 homes of men, and in their places of toil, and who 
 has inspired sufficient confidence in his character 
 and in his knowledge to become a trusted coun- 
 selor of the people, but has had hours of over- 
 whelming fatigue, and even of such shock and 
 dismay as came to Henry Drummond as the 
 result of his interviews and correspondence with 
 students, and as the fruit of his experience in 
 the work of dealing with individual weaknesses 
 
 84 
 
THE METROPOLITAN PASTOR 
 
 at the hour of spiritual awakening? Dr. George 
 Adam Smith, the biographer of this remarkable 
 Christian leader, makes this statement: ^'It is 
 safe to say that no man in our generation can 
 have heard confession more constantly than 
 Drummond did. And this responsibility, about 
 which he was ever as silent as about his own 
 inner struggles, was a heavy burden and a sore 
 grief to him. If some of the letters he received 
 be specimens of the confidence poured into his 
 ears, we can understand him saying, as he did to 
 one friend, ^Such tales of woe I've heard in 
 Moody's inquiry room that I felt I must go and 
 change my very clothes after the contact' ; or to 
 another, when he had come from talking privately 
 with some students : 'O, I am sick with the sins of 
 these men! How can God bear it?' " It is the 
 glory of God that he does bear the sins of men, 
 and the suffering of contact and of intimate con- 
 versation with erring, sinful, vicious mortals for 
 their good is one of the ways in which men 
 become ''God's fellow workers." 
 
 No rule of exact time and treatment can be 
 sensibly applied to the cure of souls. For be it 
 understood that the servant of Christ goes not to 
 places of contact with human conditions and 
 problems as an idle caller, to gossip, and to waste 
 time, or even to visit parishioners, neighbors, and 
 fellow-citizens as a personal friend and well- 
 wisher. He goes as a representative of the Divine 
 Teacher, Healer, and Helper, or he goes not 
 
 85 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 wisely and well. He has, it is true, as Jesus had, 
 a ministry for the body, and for the temporal life. 
 A good pastor often gives such sound advice, 
 such shrewd suggestions, or such proffers of per- 
 sonal aid as prove to be of great material worth. 
 One preacher showed a business man an oppor- 
 tunity he was letting slip, and by accepting which 
 he enriched himself and his family. Another 
 good counselor taught a medical practitioner 
 without patients how he might make his way to 
 the front in his profession. A third saved a 
 woman's life by a suggestion which her doctor 
 had overlooked. This was so wisely done that the 
 medical man was not offended. In numerous 
 other cases children of the household have been 
 encouraged, and aided to secure education or 
 position, the indolent and careless have been 
 taught to make their homes clean and healthful, 
 and the discouraged, the selfish, and the helpless 
 have been lifted to new places of vantage and of 
 power. 
 
 All of this is, however, introductory or 
 supplementary to the attainment of those moral 
 ends which are of chief value to human life, and 
 which it is the office of the Christian minister 
 to seek. Whatever word or deed gives to him 
 some deeper leverage of respect and of affection 
 to be applied to the work of character production 
 and development, as well as of moral redemption, 
 will be sought and used by the effective pastor. 
 He will not spare himself, either in proving his 
 
THE METROPOLITAN PASTOR 
 
 ability and friendship, or in using these qualities 
 for the good of his charges. 
 
 A city preacher boasted that he could make 
 an enormous number of parochial visits in a brief 
 period of time, and thus get that uncomfortable 
 duty out of the way speedily, and for some 
 months at least. He also declared that he could 
 make his calls within the space of three minutes 
 from sidewalk to sidewalk. Other men of this 
 type have secured conveyances, and have com- 
 pleted a year's task in a month or two. If a 
 physician did his work in that way, he would be 
 apt to kill as often as he cured. The skilled and 
 busy practitioner of medicine or of surgery does 
 not, of course, throw away precious hours, or 
 even moments, but if true to his profession and 
 to his patients, he does not arbitrarily determine 
 the length of his visits and of his treatments, or 
 scamp his work by narrowly scanning Ms watch. 
 The good physician, especially in the country, 
 sometimes remains all night beside the bed of 
 disease and pain, or he may simply say a cheery 
 word of assurance and depart, leaving behind 
 him still better doctors — cheerfulness and hope. 
 How can he who practices the science of Chris- 
 tian faith and ethics know in advance what symp- 
 toms his cases will present? How can he do 
 much good by treating all people alike, and 
 hastily? How can he, any more than the family 
 doctor, do up his work in advance, and then cease 
 visiting? The preacher who can conduct his 
 
 87 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 labors in such a fashion, and in the spirit which 
 prompts it, puts a low but probably an appro- 
 priate valuation upon his personal ministries. 
 As to the high and splendid nature of the service 
 itself, its perception has never even impinged 
 upon his faculties : he is dead to the matter. 
 
 The first thing necessary in order to a good 
 pastoral relationship is a feeling of confidence 
 on the part of the people of the parish. A metro- 
 politan pastor cannot usually visit the whole 
 membership of his church several times a year, 
 as a country or residence district preacher may 
 do. If the people not only believe in the man 
 himself to whom they look for spiritual guidance, 
 but are convinced that he is anxious to be helpful, 
 and that he will quickly respond to important 
 demands, when these are made upon him, they 
 will wait in patience until he gets around to 
 them, they will save time by coming at once to 
 the point at which both are driving when he 
 arrives, or they will stoutly declare that the rea- 
 son he does not come is because he is more greatly 
 needed somewhere else. It is not really difficult 
 to satisfy the pastoral requirements of even a 
 very large membership if the aged, the sick, and 
 applicants for immediate attention are reason- 
 ably well looked after. These, together with the 
 humbler, poorer members of the church, are the 
 first objects of care on the part of an experienced 
 and wise new incumbent of parochial responsi- 
 bilities. A good beginning made here will extend 
 
 88 
 
THE METROPOLITAN PASTOR 
 
 its influence to the limits of the field, for all sen- 
 sible persons connected with a Christian society 
 desire that these classes be especially consid- 
 ered. On the other hand, complaints of neglect 
 of such proper dependents upon sympathy and 
 counsel will at length prove disastrous to the 
 recreant minister, however instant may be his 
 courtesies to the strong and to the well to do. 
 The failure of one who professes to follow in the 
 footsteps of Jesus, to be kind to the common 
 people, who had such good reason to hear Christ 
 gladly, subtly communicates itself to the minds 
 of all, and even persons who desire first attention 
 for themselves, and who are by no means always 
 just to those whom they regard as being inferior 
 in station, will disapprove and resent this in- 
 consistency. Many brilliant preachers have been 
 wrecked on the rock of partiality in the per- 
 formance of the popular functions of their office. 
 A good well-kept and well-thumbed pastoral 
 record is one of the proofs of the minister's fidel- 
 ity to his vocation. By this aid he knows the prog- 
 ress he is making in "getting 'round.'' Dates, 
 carefully set down on the occasions, show the 
 lapses of time between various parochial visits. 
 Notes about conditions in the family serve to 
 indicate the frequency of future service required 
 and the nature of good ends to be attained. Par- 
 ticular attention will be given such matters as 
 health, church membership, baptism, and other 
 marks of possible special care. The introduction 
 
 89 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 of Jesus Christ and of his worship into the home 
 and the acceptance of Christ as- a personal 
 Saviour and leader on the part of every member 
 of the family, are the great objects sought. To the 
 end of home religion, effort is made to see that 
 good copies of the Scriptures and of wholesome 
 and attractive Christian literature are to be 
 found in each household. The recommendation 
 and even the sale of valuable books and church 
 papers is as fitting a part of personal ministry as 
 is prayer. 
 
 In the sick-room it is rare that devotional and 
 intercessory exercises are not welcome. A few 
 well-chosen verses from the Book of books, and 
 an earnest supplication of divine grace, and the 
 place is hallowed, leaving behind the retiring 
 visitor the conscious presence of a greater and 
 more loving Minister, who is able to heal both 
 mind and body. The right use of prayer and 
 Scripture is a great gift, to be coveted and to be 
 sought earnestly, and to be employed at fitting 
 times for the profit of the young and strong as 
 well as of the infirm and the aged. It should 
 never become a perfunctory and conventional 
 service, lest the true spirit be lost. Tact as to 
 occasions and circumstances of religious exer- 
 cises is part of a good pastor's equipment, and 
 he will neither offend, nor fail to do his full duty, 
 in their application to discovered needs. 
 
 Whatever he says and does in seasons of inter- 
 course with his people in their own houses, the 
 
 90 
 
THE METROPOLITAN PASTOR 
 
 conscientious preacher always lias an earnest 
 purpose, and lie so conducts himself as to con- 
 vince them that he is seriously addressing his 
 efforts to their spiritual welfare. He is whole- 
 some and happy, avoiding so far as possible every 
 aspect which is unnatural and unattractive ; but 
 he is never frivolous, trivial, nor aimless. He is 
 known and he acts as an ambassador for Christ. 
 He is not intolerant of weakness, or tolerant of 
 weaknesses, if they may be corrected by sugges- 
 tion, by reproof or by inspiration. The easy 
 optimism of the world with reference to char- 
 acter and manners which is phrased by Rudyard 
 Kipling is not for the man who is set to be an 
 instructor and guide, and who is, if possible, to 
 become an expert in teaching human improve- 
 ment: 
 
 For as they come and as they go, whatever grade they be, 
 The people. Lord — thy people! — are good enough for me! 
 
 The possessive pronoun is often misleading, and 
 the reference of all people to God as being re- 
 sponsible for their acts is, of course, however 
 pitiful, most irreverent and false. Tranquil satis- 
 faction with conditions which are, is a deep ditch, 
 in which mankind has too much wallowed. 
 Laissez faire is the end of progress upward, and 
 the certainty of deterioration. Evil ignored, or 
 willingly permitted, spreads destruction. The 
 good physician never says, ^^The people — Thy 
 people — are well enough for me," and the good 
 
 n 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 pastor seeks the betterment of men, and Avill not 
 rest until sins are repented of, pardoned, and 
 conquered, and virtue is seen, loved, and at- 
 tained. 
 
 It is not a merely negative office, this relation 
 of God-called men to the people of God's choice. 
 The true and trained minister sets men and 
 women at the higher tasks of life; he suspects 
 latent talents and tempts their investment in 
 good deeds; he demands righteousness in living, 
 in giving, and in personal labor ; he arouses Chris- 
 tian ambitions, and discovers ways by which fine 
 traits of character and special gifts may be util- 
 ized in the unpaid ministries of Christian love; 
 he is a light, a fire, a kindling spirit; he is a 
 potter, a recruiter, an outfitter, a tutor, an engi- 
 neer of the mind and of the affections. Under 
 God's hand he makes manhood, and produces 
 servants of society. Most soldiers of the com- 
 mon good — sociologists, reformers, philanthro- 
 pists — owe more to ministerial influence than 
 they have acknowledged or perhaps perceived. 
 
 In coming into close relations with the lives in 
 Ms care, every Christian leader must be ^^first 
 pure, then peaceable." In this connection it is 
 not permitted to forget that wolves put on sheep's 
 clothing that they may the more easily gratify 
 their wolfish nature, nor can the fact be ignored 
 that the strong places of life are often filled by 
 the frail, who, although they are set to uphold 
 others, are themselves among the first to fall. 
 
 92 
 
THE METROPOLITAN PASTOR 
 
 Would that the Christian ministry could be 
 purged from all just accusations of evil, and that 
 its every representative entered the homes of 
 city or of country to elevate the character and 
 the ideals of their inmates. This is a holy priv- 
 ilege — to be trusted with the intimacies of many 
 households, and to go in and out of them, not 
 only without sullying the minds or tarnishing 
 the natures of any, but bringing power to virtue, 
 fidelity to chaste and hallowed relations, and 
 energy to selfless resolutions and purposes. The 
 good pastor is a mender of household manners, 
 and a saviour from martial and family ship- 
 wrecks. He is apparently the best foe of divorce, 
 and as a peacemaker he is more active and suc- 
 cessful than the public will ever know. ^'How 
 long shall I bear it?" asked a man who had con- 
 sulted his pastor about his duty toward an un- 
 congenial and intractable wife. No scriptural 
 ground for separation was presented, and he had 
 taken her ^^for better or for worse." ^^Till the 
 end," was the reply. ^'I will," said the ques- 
 tioner, and another family was kept together, 
 and finally brought into peace, by the steadiness 
 of a strong and convincing personality, known to 
 be devoted to righteous and disinterested ends. 
 It was a preacher who followed a runaway wife, 
 whose partner had been unwise and unkind, and 
 brought her back to a home far happier than it 
 could have been made by permanent separation. 
 The pastor who has not had to listen to the most 
 
 93 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 personal and sacred information, and to give 
 counsel which would determine the future of a 
 household, has not been much trusted. His work 
 in family relationships has been imperfect if, 
 after much patient listening, and some stern but 
 loving instruction, backed by a "Hear what the 
 Lord saith," he has not seen husbands and wives 
 make up in his presence, to the honor of God and 
 to the great good of society. Such service as this 
 requires a higher degree of skill than does the 
 setting of broken bones or the curing of typhus. 
 It is a master's work and the beauty of it lies 
 in the fact that no fee is charged and no public 
 credit is possible. "He that seeth in secret" knows 
 how to give satisfactory rew^ard for the pains, 
 risks, and loyalties of the pastoral practitioner. 
 Many other human relations are oiled in the 
 bearings by the shrewd and considerate interven- 
 tion of the man of God who is also a fellow^ man. 
 Affairs of partnerships, of the duties of em- 
 ployers and of employees, of official responsibil- 
 ities on the part of public servants, of parents 
 and children, of pupils and teachers, of creditors 
 and debtors, of buyers and sellers, of physicians 
 and patients, of lawyers and clients, of lovers 
 and friends — indeed, all possible interminglings 
 of interests and obligations come before him as 
 being one w^ho is in a sense an observer apart, 
 or they are brought before him as an arbiter, 
 counselor or judge. The city pastor has need of 
 every form of knowledge and of every scrap of 
 
 94 
 
THE METROPOLITAN PASTOR 
 
 experience he has acquired. If he is not inter- 
 ested, he must become interested in all that takes 
 place in the lives of his people and not only in 
 that which is directly referred to him. By no 
 means is he a licensed meddler, yet he must at 
 times have courage to volunteer his resources 
 and skill. With all he must be kind, and above 
 all he must put the Christ, holding him before 
 the eyes of men as their one supreme need. To 
 bring those of his parishioners who have not sur- 
 rendered their lives to the divine workmanship 
 to a realization of their sinfulness and folly in 
 striving to do without God, and at length to 
 acknowledge their error, making public confes- 
 sion of Christian faith, is a sublime task and 
 achievement. All prejudices to the contrary, 
 there is reason to believe that at least in the 
 case of mature and thoughtful persons this work 
 can be accomplished more intelligently and 
 surely by individual contact and treatment than 
 by general addresses upon the subject. Great 
 churches are usually built by the hand-to-hand 
 methods of slow, plodding, but spiritually adept 
 pastors, whose work may be supplemented or 
 brought to view by the medium of revivals, of 
 which it is the undercurrent and tidal power. 
 The work of noted evangelists, even the ablest, 
 would amount to little without the constant 
 preaching and the personal persuasion of these 
 men. 
 
 Pastoral evangelism is an art which is not 
 
 95 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 mastered in a day. The spirit which produces 
 it may be suddenly inborn, but time and expe- 
 rience, together with psychological and spiritual 
 information, laboriously sought and acquired, 
 are necessary factors in the production of an 
 expert in the task of redemption. Too much 
 thought and effort cannot be put into prepara- 
 tion of mind and of heart, or into experimental 
 essays in the undertaking itself. How may sec- 
 ular and worldly-ambitious men and women be 
 brought into a condition of spiritual appetency? 
 How may they be led up to the crisis upon whose 
 decisions turn spiritual life or death? How may 
 the soul struggling to enter upon eternal life be 
 delivered out of the earthly and sinful body? 
 None of these events would be possible were it 
 not for the power and wisdom of the Holy Spirit, 
 but the Spirit of God must usually attain access 
 to human minds, and influence over their atti- 
 tudes, by the use of human agencies. God often 
 employs the humblest and simplest of willing 
 and eager instruments to effect the conversion of 
 the strong and stubborn. But is it not reasonable 
 and scriptural to suppose, and is there not much 
 proof for this in records of religious labors, that 
 the divine power uses the best tools at hand for 
 whatever work needs to be done, and especially 
 to turn backward, or at least into new channels, 
 the currents of human operations, ambitions, and 
 purposes? If only the most ready Christian 
 workers were the most skilled! Or if those per- 
 
 96 
 
THE METROPOLITAN PASTOR 
 
 sons of greatest human and scientiiie knowledge 
 were possessed of vital concern for the irreligious 
 and for victims of the evil world and spirit ! The 
 pastor who goes not about to seek and to save 
 the lost has missed his calling. Whoever en- 
 gage upon such duties in a frame of mind so light, 
 so self-confident, or so depreciative of the judg- 
 ment of others that they neglect intellectual and 
 spiritual training for their endeavors, will not 
 often return from evangelistic journeys saying, 
 ^^Lord, even the very devils were subject unto 
 us through thy name." 
 
 Much that is here said applies to all pastors 
 everywhere, but the metropolitan pastor, espe- 
 cially in central locations, has a special field of 
 vantage and of opportunity. In the heart of the 
 city are the masses unchurched. Go to the ^'aris- 
 tocratic ward,'' and you will find that almost 
 everyone is at least nominally affiliated with 
 some religious society, and the pity is that these 
 good church people are so largely withdrawn 
 from service to the city's sins and woes. Down- 
 town are throngs who know no religious bond; 
 who think themselves too poor, too wise, too sin- 
 ful, too proud to join a church, or who just swim 
 along with the stream of pleasure-seekers and 
 utter worldlings without any especial thought of 
 spiritual realities and needs. Who is to care for 
 these? He will do it who shares the spirit of One 
 who "when he saw the multitude, was moved with 
 compassion on them because they fainted, and 
 
 97 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shep- 
 herd." He will seek the good of those who dwell 
 in dense districts along crowded w^ays who re- 
 members that his Lord when "he beheld the city, 
 sobbed over it, saying. If thou hadst known, 
 even thou, at least in this thy day, the things 
 which belong unto thy peace! but now they are 
 hid from thine eyes.'' He will do this work who 
 has attained some share of the moral passion of 
 Jesus which gave vent to the exclamation, "O 
 Jerusalem, Jerusalem !" 
 
 Pastoral care has been too much confined to 
 the good sheep of the fold, and has been too little 
 exercised upon wanderers and aliens. Even the 
 wild beast occasionally requires help, and he 
 has sometimes been tamed by love. It is the 
 giorj of a good minister's life that he has seen 
 the wolf come to dwell in peace with the lamb, 
 and that he has led the tiger into the life of love. 
 Few natures are as inaccessible to divine grace 
 or to Christian teaching and power as some of 
 them seem to be. God's right men can reach 
 them and turn them to goodness. "The field is 
 the world I" No man is set to be the pastor of 
 a church : he is pastor of the Lord's flock, present 
 and possible, scattered or near. Whoever needs 
 him has a claim upon his talents, xlnd what 
 satisfaction, to use another figure, to go into the 
 forest of ungodliness, and hew out pillars, and 
 cut beams and rafters for the temple of God! 
 What toil is more manly? The minister of Christ 
 
 98 
 
THE METKOPOLITAN PASTOR 
 
 should hold his head erect, and with all humility 
 should remember that the deeds of his hands 
 are most honorable: good men and women ap- 
 prove his labors : the angels of heaven know what 
 he is doing, and await the joy of beholding peni- 
 tence replace indifference or hardness of heart 
 as the result of his influence ; the Master's eye is 
 upon him, and his smile is the prize of victory. 
 In this work honest effort is success : the only 
 failure is that of him who strives not to T^^n. At 
 the last no one can be coerced into religion : the 
 minister of Christ is not set to do this : he is to 
 lead, and if no one will follow, he is still a leader, 
 crowned by his fidelity. 
 
 The outreach of city work is broad and gener- 
 ous. Every city pastor is a foreign missionary, 
 not only by reason of raising a little money to 
 send abroad and by virtue of sermons which he 
 preaches, but by his location in the midst of 
 foreigners of many types of thought and of habit. 
 "But they are not of my pastorate!" No, but 
 their care is yours, for they are neighbors in 
 need. But how poorly done is this work of in- 
 structing and of assimilating into the Christian 
 body men whom God has brought from afar into 
 our very midst, and who are exceedingly open to 
 kind words and to fraternal acts. Every Chris- 
 tian church should have an alien welfare society, 
 unless the whole organization is such. Ministers 
 of Christ should teach their people to be friendly 
 and generous with the banana man, with the 
 
 99 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 peddler, with the petty tradesman, mechanic, 
 or servant with an unpronounceable name. And 
 should not the preacher himself take occasion 
 of poverty, sickness, and death to get himself 
 sympathetically and usefully into the homes 
 of "strangers and foreigners" to whom he can 
 speak enough common words of any tongue, 
 or to whom he can make sufficiently intelligible 
 signs, to be recognized as having a beneficent 
 purpose? If he wishes to make them fellow 
 citizens with the saints and of the household 
 of Christ, need he even wait for such events 
 as these? May he not strike up acquaintance 
 with the laborer in the street, with the boy who 
 blacks his shoes, and with the little shopman, 
 finally getting to the house where he lives, to 
 be gladly recognized and received? It will be 
 pleaded that the busy pastor has no time for such 
 undertakings, and that they do not pay. A little 
 time, is there not? And who can say in advance 
 which will prove of greater value, effort ex- 
 pended upon one's own kind of people, or that 
 done for "the stranger that is within our gates'' ? 
 "In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening 
 withhold not thine hand: for thou knowest not 
 whether shall prosper, either this or that, or 
 whether they both shall be alike good." 
 
 It is an interesting thing sometimes to set out 
 with no definite destination or plan, seeking 
 adventures. The sailor who explores an un- 
 charted sea, the prospector who goes into an 
 
 100 
 
THE METROPOLITAN PASTOE 
 
 unknown wilderness, will not find greater sur- 
 prises or meet with more profitable discoveries 
 than will be the experience of the city preacher 
 who makes occasional pastoral journeys of this 
 kind. If one is surfeited with commonplaces, or 
 affected with the flatness and staleness of soul 
 which sometimes attends too close application 
 to the usual and to the necessary, let him fare 
 forth as a spiritual pilgrim, as a religious path- 
 finder and crusader, as a Christian buccaneer, if 
 you will, and see what will happen. City streets 
 are full of strange sights ; city centers are full of 
 unique characters, some of whom rarely come out 
 into public view ; city homes contain the neediest, 
 most repulsive, most attractive, dearest people, 
 who are not what they wish they were, who 
 would they might go where they have never gone, 
 and do what they have never done, who are eager 
 to hear what is unheard, and who are treasure- 
 trove beyond the dreams of the merchantman, 
 the miner, the fisherman, the gambler, the pri- 
 vateersman, the capitalist, or of any argonaut or 
 conqueror. 
 
 101 
 
CHAPTEE VI 
 
 THE DOWNTOWN PROBLEM 
 
 The downtown problem is the life or death 
 struggle which the growth of cities and conse- 
 quent changes of environment brings upon 
 churches situated in the older portions of the 
 town. The issue may come in one or in a number 
 of localities, for modern cities often have several 
 nuclei, in each of which the pressure of altered 
 conditions may be felt. The theme is part of a 
 still larger subject affecting the interest of 
 churches generally, namely, arrested development 
 and degeneration. The shortcomings of the 
 "Stickit Minister" and the pathos of his humil- 
 iation have been eloquently described by S. R. 
 Crockett, but who has done justice to the condi- 
 tion and trials of the Stickit Church? This em- 
 barrassed institution is sometimes of the country, 
 and careful studies of rural church problems 
 ha\e been laid before the Christian community. 
 For dwarfed, hidebound, diseased country 
 churches some excellent remedies have been sug- 
 gested which have wrought remarkable cures. In 
 the city the Stickit Church too often sticks until 
 it passes gradually or suddenly away, at least as 
 
 102 
 
THE DOWNTOWN PROBLEM 
 
 a separate body. A writer in The City Four- 
 square says : "The ideal condition for the down- 
 town church would be to have the City Mission- 
 ary Society so strong that it could put funds into 
 these centers adequate to their needs and suffi- 
 cient to employ all the workers necessary, and 
 relieve the pastor from financial burdens and set 
 him free to the great work of ministry to the 
 people in their sorrow, to inspire them in their 
 struggles and guide them in their temptations — 
 free to preach — yes, preach, for that is his chief 
 task and the mightiest enginery for pulling 
 down the strongholds of sin and Satan. This is 
 undoubtedly what we will have to come to sooner 
 or later in every church in the crowded centers 
 of the city.'' 
 
 With much that is implied in this statement 
 all thinking persons must agree. But would it 
 really be ideal to conduct all central city work 
 as missionary propositions, even if City Societies 
 were adequately financed for such a responsi- 
 bility? And is it to be expected that a general 
 fund, however large, is likely to equal all the 
 demands of downtown church work? The wiser 
 practice would seem to be to study and, if pos- 
 sible, to resolve the difficulties which a^ttQud 
 church work situated in the midst of vast mul- 
 titudes of people, developing the resources and 
 strength of individual congregations so that they 
 may retain their independence, self-respect, and 
 power to serve the society of which they are a 
 
 103 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 part. If the right and timely steps are taken, 
 strong foundations may be thus established, 
 which may endure indefinitely. There will al- 
 ways be enough failures to busy the City Mission- 
 ary Society, and to absorb all its funds. 
 
 What then, let it first of all be asked, is the 
 matter with the embarrassed church? How 
 shall it be saved, and how may other organ- 
 izations be kept from similar discouragements? 
 A slight change of location would sometimes 
 make all the difference between failure and suc- 
 cess. Churches are like department stores : they 
 need to be in sight. Noise and crowding are to 
 be courted, if they mean larger acquaintance on 
 the part of the people. The church which is daily 
 passed by throngs who fill the walks, or the 
 street cars, advertises itself, and does not require 
 the same amount of newspaper advertising, or 
 of other forms of publicity as would otherwise 
 be the case. If signs are employed to announce 
 the activities of such a church, they are read 
 hourly. The mere name upon the building be- 
 comes a familiar term, and the use of the struc- 
 ture as a landmark enlarges the circle of persons 
 who may be brought within the influence of the 
 congregation. In an Eastern city a well-known 
 society had a chance to secure at a reasonable 
 price a corner lot about two hundred feet away 
 from its cross-street location; but ultraconserv- 
 ative people objected because of the noise on the 
 main avenue, and everything remains quiet 
 
 104 
 
THE DOWNTOWN PROBLEM 
 
 enough both without and within the edifice which 
 its members occupy. Although able ministers 
 have succeeded each other in the pastorate, the 
 organization has not increased in size or mate- 
 rially changed for the better in twenty-five years. 
 It is a Stickit Church. 
 
 Often it is impossible, because of the high 
 price of land, to better the site of a church which 
 was poorly placed, but churches which were 
 well located to begin with have failed because 
 they refused to improve their holdings of real 
 estate at the right moment. As a result of this 
 shortsighted policy they could not extend their 
 plant in order to keep it up with the times, or 
 objectionable uses were made of adjoining prop- 
 erty, and the house of worship became untenable. 
 God loves dirt — in the right place. He made 
 plenty of it, but church boards are often nig- 
 gardly when they are securing a piece of it for 
 divine uses. Because of a difference of a single 
 thousand dollars in each case two separate city 
 churches in New York State were greatly in- 
 jured. One was shut out of sight by adjoining 
 buildings, and finally died. The other lost the 
 symmetry of its property, and the beauty of its 
 environment, which is marred by a coarse, poorly 
 painted business structure. Extra land is almost 
 certain to be needed by a city church, and if not 
 required by its own uses, it frequently becomes 
 the basis of an endowment which could or would 
 not otherwise be obtained. It is a sad com- 
 ics 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 mentarj on the business management of some 
 societies that they have actually sold land for 
 little or nothing, and that without necessity, for 
 the lack of which they were later forced out of 
 existence. A good rule is, Buy land, plenty of it, 
 and keep it. The world, the flesh, and the devil 
 have too much city soil. Let Christianity be a 
 landholder, not certainly for commercial profit, 
 but for self -protection, for self-preservation, and 
 for advancement. 
 
 An unfortunate pastorate does not necessarily 
 involve the affairs of a church in irretrievable 
 difficulties, but in denominations which install 
 the minister are there not many illustrations of 
 permanently static conditions? Long incum- 
 bency of the same pulpit is certainly the ideal 
 ministerial career, and where relations between 
 pastor and people are continuously profitable 
 and pleasant they are honorable to both parties. 
 A good pastor often becomes not only increas- 
 ingly desirable with the progress of years, but 
 because of deep and tender ties formed between 
 the community and himself he comes to be both 
 a moral and a material asset of the highest value 
 to the organization which supports him and 
 whose undertakings he leads. The other side of 
 this picture is that of the good man who has lost 
 his power but holds tenaciously to his place. 
 Perhaps he has ceased improving mentally or, 
 what is worse, spiritually. Occasionally a 
 preacher by far outgrows his people; but if he 
 
 106 
 
THE DOWNTOWN PROBLEM 
 
 retains humanity and sympathy, such a develop- 
 ment will deepen and enrich his ministry, tend- 
 ing to make him in advanced age an object of 
 veneration, and to assure him a holier, and at the 
 same time, a nearer and dearer regard, on the 
 part of his congregation. 
 
 When a long pastorate becomes a menace and 
 finally a positive injury to a church, it is not 
 likely that the fault is wholly on one side. 
 Thoughtless criticisms, and disloyalties of church 
 members often contribute more painfully than 
 do pulpit and ministerial delinquencies to put a 
 period to an era of prosperity and of progress 
 which might have been continued almost indefi- 
 nitely. Some congregations have seasons of rest- 
 lessness under any administration, even the best. 
 At such times it is a fortunate church which 
 numbers among its leading members and officials 
 a few wise, cool heads who allay turbulence, and 
 by their poise and steadiness hold things together 
 until the tide of feeling turns and brings back a 
 fuller and lasting success. The church and pas- 
 torate are strengthened by passing through such 
 an experience, for all learn thereby the unwisdom 
 of hasty judgments. The withdrawal of intract- 
 able or loosely affiliated members who separate 
 themselves from the society at such a time proves 
 to be a gain rather than a loss. The result is 
 mutual understanding and solidarity. 
 
 When he is himself conscious that his ministry 
 in the field which he is tilling is a complete fail- 
 
 107 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 ure, or when the best counselors whom he can 
 secure advise him that he cannot further add to 
 the work which he has accomplished, is a pastor 
 justified in holding his place? Certainly, it is 
 right that he should desire a little extension of 
 employment, an opportunity to turn himself, and 
 to protect the interests of his family. The church 
 which is unreasonable enough not to grant such 
 a time and privilege is less just than are many 
 secular institutions, to say nothing of the better 
 class of individual employers. But there is a 
 limit to proper sufferance of unsatisfactory con- 
 ditions. When he has been given six months, a 
 year, or perhaps on the part of an unusually con- 
 siderate and Christian congregation, an even 
 longer space for making an adjustment, is it not 
 inexcusable on the part of a minister of the gospel 
 to strive for the continuance of relations which 
 are manifestly ineffective or worse? One who 
 has dedicated his life to the task of extending 
 the kingdom of Christ can never consistently be- 
 come the deliberate cause of permanent or even 
 of long-continued and, therefore, dangerous weak- 
 ness and lack of growth on the part of the church 
 which he is serving. Such conduct would defeat 
 the avowed purpose of his ministry. To prevent 
 cases of this kind it is needful not merely to 
 cultivate a conscientious spirit but to invent and 
 perfect convenient methods of pastoral changes, 
 ways of helping good men with heavy home 
 responsibilities to let go, and ways of aiding dis- 
 
 108 
 
THE DOWNTOWN PKOBLEM 
 
 tressed churches to find good men. By many 
 illustrations it can be proven that the man whose 
 pastorate is at least a relative failure in one city, 
 or section of a city, may become a remarkable 
 leader of victories in another locality. This 
 happens so often that preachers may well hope 
 for such an ending of difficulties when a change 
 seems necessary. Of course as men of God they 
 properly exercise a large degree of confidence in 
 that Supreme Power which operates in the 
 Church. 
 
 A changing environment and a stubborn and 
 unchanging policy of management is the unfor- 
 tunate combination of conditions which creates 
 many Stickit Churches. In one of the cities of 
 the Middle West a little society, at the center 
 of which is a group of set and resolute minds, 
 inhabits a fine temple in a downtown district 
 from which every glory has departed save that of 
 the opportunity of service to a tempted, strug- 
 gling, and imperfect mass of humanity. This 
 church, however, will neither attempt, nor per- 
 mit any pastor to inaugurate, the kind of work 
 by which a vitally important office to the city 
 might easily be discharged. In vain do expert 
 observers declare that it would bring throngs, 
 resources, usefulness, and high honor if the or- 
 ganization would permit itself to become modern- 
 ized and adapted to its field, and to its plain 
 duty. The leaders "stand pat,'' and herein is 
 one of the greatest evils which may result from 
 
 109 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 failure to endow a downtown church. Such a 
 society is often compelled by reason of the death 
 or removal of many of its prosperous members 
 to become dependent upon the few strong finan- 
 cial backers who remain. The will and whims of 
 this handful of dictators are imposed upon the 
 whole company. In the instance cited the church 
 governors will not permit any change of pro- 
 gram from that of former days. They advertise 
 their services, but only in a set manner, and in 
 methods of work they follow the customs of the 
 most conservative societies in residence wards 
 and in the suburbs. In this manner the affairs 
 of the church have been conducted for years with- 
 out substantial improvement of any kind. The 
 well to do officials manage to keep the building in 
 repair. They also maintain a preacher, who fol- 
 lows a long succession of predecessors who were 
 dismissed as unsatisfactory, or more often threw 
 up the task with great dissatisfaction as soon as 
 they discovered the inexorable fixity of the ideas 
 which obsess the minds of the leaders. A 
 preacher who will consent to remain permanently 
 in a situation of this kind, where progress is arbi- 
 trarily estopped, is a mere hireling. It is to the 
 credit of the ministry that few men are willing to 
 accept, if they know it in advance, or to continue 
 to occupy when they find out the truth, a position 
 so utterly dominated and hopeless. 
 
 The outlook for a church which will not re- 
 spond to its environment is extinction. This 
 
 110 
 
THE DOWNTOWN PROBLEM 
 
 event may be deferred for a long, barren, heart- 
 breaking period of time, but can only be escaped 
 by the uprising of the younger element, by the 
 incoming of new blood of an effusion so powerful 
 as to overcome the sluggishness in the veins of 
 the body, or by a few first-class funerals, occur- 
 ring quickly enough to permit a change of policy 
 while sufficient life remains to be recuperated. 
 One of the most vigorous central churches of the 
 country, well known by reputation, entered upon 
 a period of coma in which gains were scarcely 
 equal to losses incurred, and slow dissolution, 
 apparent even to shrewd observers on the out- 
 side, began to take place. A young layman of 
 promise was given an official position in this 
 church. He was forceful, aggressive, and suc- 
 cessful in his own business. When he turned his 
 attention to the affairs of the society which had 
 honored him with office he soon discovered the 
 cause of trouble, namely, the "stop-the-clock" 
 conservatism of the hold-overs in the church 
 board. It happened that part of these men were 
 intelligent enough to be impressed by the vision 
 of a younger and more resourceful leader. With 
 this group the new officer associated some 
 of his friends among the young people of the 
 church in an effort to overturn the unprogres- 
 sive majority of the leading board of manage- 
 ment, not on the ground of age or disability, 
 but because of its closure against new con- 
 ceptions of duty. The result surprised every- 
 
 111 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 body. A number of excellent officials were tri- 
 umphantly elected, and when the old church took 
 on life and began to acquire a place of assured 
 power in the affairs of the town, and of prom- 
 inence among its Christian societies, even the 
 decapitated leaders were forced to acknowledge 
 the improvement, and were lost between pain 
 and admiration. 
 
 _^ Lack of daring, and not merely conservatism, 
 is a frequent cause of immobility, and of ulti- 
 mate deterioration in church life. Timidity in 
 handling central church problems is certainly 
 safer than recklessness, especially with reference 
 to matters of grave importance in policy, or in 
 the disposition and handling of property. But is 
 it reasonable to expect that religious corpora- 
 tions can altogether escape the risks incident 
 to the transaction of business by associations in 
 general? "Nothing venture, nothing have" is 
 one of the fallible maxims whose blind obedience 
 has ruined many individuals and societies. 
 "Nothing venture, and success is certain" is quite 
 as deceitful philosophy. Debt is feared by some 
 church leaders with an intensity of feeling which 
 inspires the thought that their alarm is for their 
 OYviL pockets rather than for the interests of 
 Christianity. Few fortunes are made without 
 the use of credit, and while it is never good to 
 plunge hastily and deeply into obligations which 
 may embarrass the future, a reasonable anticipa- 
 tion of coming needs or a sensible investment in 
 
 112 
 
THE DOWNTOWN PROBLEM 
 
 expectation of later profits is often the highest 
 wisdom. 
 
 Those Christian denominations which have 
 centralized the titles of their property and have 
 vested the authority of their management in the 
 hands of experienced and proved high officials 
 are often able by acts thus made possible to pre- 
 vent the increase of Stickit Churches. Individual 
 church ownership is not only rarely willing to 
 take the slightest risk for the common good, but 
 frequently, as we have seen, stands firmly in the 
 way of its own best interest. It will sometimes 
 allow the institution to die rather than incur 
 debt, and it often plants itself firmly against 
 timely improvements and investments. For the 
 sum of thirty-five hundred dollars, which might 
 easily have been raised, or carried temporarily 
 on interest, a prominent church might have pur- 
 chased in the rear of its site a usable plot of 
 gTound, which after a time became worth a half 
 million. In the same city another church was 
 offered the balance of the block frontage adjoin- 
 ing its building, but timorous or selfish officials 
 refused to consent to the purchase. When the 
 well-nigh imperative need of this land became 
 evident a few months later a certified check for 
 much more than twice the former price was 
 promptly declined by the owners. In this, as in 
 many similar instances, lack of vision, of gen- 
 erosity, or of the faith which gives courage have 
 robbed later generations of the opportunity of 
 
 113 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 advancement, or of large sums of money, which 
 will be required in order to assure the fortunes of 
 the society. 
 
 A city church in a semicentral section of its 
 community was restrained from vital progress by 
 the lack of one of the fundamental qualities of 
 Christianity— democracy. ^'All we want is a 
 few more people of the same kind/' is said to have 
 been a representative statement of the feeling 
 of this society. The good sense of the community 
 did not respond to such an attitude, and the 
 church languished, as it deserved. Jesus Christ 
 had compassion on the multitude; he ate and 
 drank with publicans and sinners, and he sought 
 them for the kingdom which he came to establish. 
 When a church becomes exclusive it is little 
 better, save possibly in some moral characters, 
 than a club. It has lost the spirit of its Lord. 
 To such a church evangelism is a dead issue, and 
 fear of revivals takes the place of passion for 
 souls. Social meetings become anything but 
 social, and the atmosphere of the house of God 
 is made unfriendly and uncomfortable to the sons 
 of men. If such an institution cannot be re- 
 formed and transformed, it might better die, and 
 when it dies nothing much has happened. 
 
 Hyper-aestheticism and pseudo-culture some- 
 times cloroform a city church into lethargy and 
 inefficiency. This is more liable to occur in resi- 
 dence sections, but occasionally a family church 
 which has become a central problem is thus 
 
 114 
 
THE DOWNTOWN PROBLEM 
 
 afflicted. The "cultivated'' insipid leaders of 
 such a society will not accept or support a "red- 
 blooded" preacher, with the ability to save the 
 situation. A church of this kind, heavily burdened 
 with debt, has struggled on for years at a poor 
 dying rate, trying one listless administration 
 after another, each more hopeless than the last. 
 If it were endowed, instead of being indebted, 
 it might persist indefinitely in spite of consump- 
 tive tendencies, which fact is an exception to be 
 made to sayings elsewhere in this volume with 
 reference to the value of permanent funds. 
 Under a strict appointive system a similar church 
 was saved from extinction, or from an even more 
 calamitous living death, by the power which 
 placed in control of its destinies a pastor of the 
 sort needed though not wanted. Within a few 
 months the work was reorganized, reinvigorated, 
 and made thoroughly creditable. New strong- 
 members poured in, and were assimilated by the 
 now wholesome life of the society, and a church 
 rated as a negligible factor in the life of the city 
 was made, and has since remained, a center of 
 religious strength. 
 
 The Stickit Church is seldom, if ever, beyond 
 the reach of sufficient purpose, faith, and devo- 
 tion. Prayer and work will save it, even from 
 itself. The officers of a church which needed a 
 spurring up formed themselves into a Sunday 
 night force, and by dividing the work both 
 manned and advertised the service which is most 
 
 115 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 apt to draw strangers and newcomers, particu- 
 larly from the younger classes of society. The 
 result was a replenished membership, a growing 
 Bible school, enlarged resources, and a redeemed 
 institution. In another instance it was a group 
 of determined and cheerful young lads, scarcely 
 out of boyhood, who ^'boomed" their failing old 
 church into a regular beehive of industry, and 
 made it a glowing success. The adaptation of a 
 downtown society to a sensible scheme of com- 
 munity betterment performed another miracle of 
 this kind. Whatever Christian service puts idle 
 hands at work increases the interest of the mind 
 and arouses the heart's love. Get people to think- 
 ing of others and not of themselves, to helping a 
 cause and not merely enjoying a ministry, and a 
 tide of new life flows into the Church, and days 
 of hesitation, of helplessness and of unfruitful- 
 ness are over. This is the Master's wish. "A 
 certain man had a fig tree planted in his vine- 
 yard ; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and 
 found none. Then said he unto the dresser of his 
 vineyard. Behold, these three years I come seek- 
 ing fruit on this fig tree, and find none; cut it 
 down; why cumbereth it the ground? And he 
 answering said unto him. Lord, let it alone this 
 year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it : 
 and if it bear fruit, well : and if not, then after 
 that thou shalt cut it down.'' Nevertheless, not 
 even the patience of the Lord of the vineyard can 
 save the tree which the dresser insists upon spoil- 
 
 116 
 
THE DOWNTOWN PROBLEM 
 
 ing, and a church may be ruined by bad handling. 
 Destruction is, indeed, easier than skillful train- 
 ing and development, and the result of care- 
 lessness is even more certain than is that of labor 
 and affection. 
 
 It is difficult to imagine a more melancholy 
 spectacle than is presented in the death struggle 
 of a once powerful church. An instance of the 
 kind, which mil never be forgotten by those Avho 
 beheld it, abounded in typical and instructive 
 incidents. A fine old building of impressive 
 churchly architecture, a neighborhood once fash- 
 ionable and still highly respectable, numbering 
 within its borders many families of culture and 
 of means, but now approached on one side, 
 though not very nearly, by the best business dis- 
 trict of the city, a membership still large and 
 financially strong but perhaps needing some infu- 
 sion of more vigorous life — such was the oppor- 
 tunity and environment to which a new pastor 
 was called who proved to be the most notorious 
 as well as the last incumbent of a pulpit which 
 had been gTaced by a long line of distinguished 
 men. A serious problem was encountered by 
 this new leader, certainly, but one not essentially 
 different from those which have been met by 
 other and successful men. By no means was it 
 beyond solving, nor did it necessarily portend a 
 serious crisis. A good average administration of 
 affairs, together with reasonable pastoral and 
 pulpit effort, ought to have assured a needed and 
 
 117 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 reputable society many years of life and of use- 
 fulness. Much more than this was, also possible 
 to spiritual purpose and power. If the church 
 had been held to its high and holy obligations of 
 Christian faith and service, and if its members 
 had been aroused to a sense of the importance of 
 the organization to the life of the community, 
 funds could easily have been obtained, not only 
 to sustain an immediate aggressive policy, but to 
 maintain upon the old foundations a permanent 
 and representative work. 
 
 The adage, "Man proposes, but God disposes,'' 
 seems sometimes obversely true — God proposes 
 and man disposes. Without a doubt many a 
 divine plan has been shattered by human per- 
 versity. How far advanced in judgment and in 
 righteousness the world would be if the divine 
 purpose had never been opposed no one can im- 
 agine. It would seem as if the thought of the 
 Almighty in planting a church in a place where 
 it might have had a social influence increasing 
 with the years, must have been that it should 
 adapt itself to new issues and grow strong in 
 good deeds. To this program and event a man 
 said "No!'' thus showing at the same time his 
 royalty and his folly. 
 
 "Like priest, like people" is a tendency which 
 has its peril as well as its virtue. New pastors 
 ought to be put on probation, though not on sus- 
 picion. It would have been far better if the offl- 
 cials and leading members of the church of this 
 
 118 
 
THE DOWNTOWN PKOBLEM 
 
 narrative had followed the man they chose for 
 leader with discretion, and not blindly, as the 
 majority did follow him. By the time the true 
 end of his counsels appeared it was too late to 
 avoid disaster. Efforts to escape the final calam- 
 ity were indeed made, but not until inevitable 
 doom impended, when, of course, they proved 
 futile. 
 
 The first symptom in this pastorate of ten- 
 dencies which should have seemed disquieting, 
 and which did disturb the minds of a few persons 
 of quality, was a rather unspiritual, not to say 
 secular, note in the conduct of public worship. 
 The same characteristic, in a form not less pro- 
 nounced, was recognized in the private ministra- 
 tions of the pastor. Younger and more thought- 
 less members of the congregation were delighted, 
 taking flippancy to be a sign of modernity, and 
 of intellectual acuteness. They praised the 
 preacher, and as the mind is made by what it 
 feeds upon, the flattered man became still more 
 shallow and irreverent. It was not many weeks 
 before the effects of a spirit which always de- 
 vitalizes religion began to be felt in the social 
 meetings of the church. Prayer meetings grew 
 less lifelike. An unreality, quickly shading into 
 indifference, took possession of attendants, who 
 began to be irregular in coming to these services. 
 Hungry souls will not long frequent a lean table ; 
 they look up another source of food. Devout 
 members of the society, of whom it has been 
 
 119 
 
THE CHUECH IN THE CITY 
 
 stated that there were a considerable number, 
 became increasingly restless and uncomfortable. 
 The Sunday school shared the experience of the 
 midweek meeting, becoming not so quickly, but 
 just as certainly, and even more painfully, dis- 
 affected. A very considerable degree of spiritual 
 energy and efficiency is required in order to pro- 
 duce and to keep in constant action a corps of 
 suitable officers and teachers for a Bible school. 
 Aberration from religion departs ever more 
 widely from the path of wisdom. One step after 
 another, and each one more easily taken than 
 the latest, led to unforeseen denouements. 
 Neither this pastor nor the majority of his people 
 realized whither their acts were tending. About 
 this time some of the older substantial members 
 of the church died, and their places were filled 
 by parishioners who enjoyed hearing the preacher 
 attack the creed, and who did not consider it a 
 serious matter that the name of Christ was more 
 and more frequently omitted even from the pray- 
 ers which were offered from the sacred desk. 
 Several conservative and strong families were, 
 however, so much distressed by these and by 
 similar acts that they asked for letters of dis- 
 missal to churches where conditions were more 
 satisfactory. They went away sadly and quietly, 
 after the manner of responsible persons when 
 they are wounded too deeply for speech. "Let 
 them go," cried the new members and the "ad- 
 vanced" pastor. "We have plenty of more pro- 
 
 120 
 
THE DOWNTOWN PROBLEM 
 
 gressive people to take their places.'' So they 
 had, for the pastor and his up-to-date methods 
 were drawing, surely enough. The ever alert 
 and busy man had now embraced and was ex- 
 ploiting Socialism of a type neither sociological 
 nor Christian. Very soon he had outgrown or 
 outrun some of the usual conventions of morality, 
 but as he was a skilled rhetorician, and was 
 possessed of no little animal and mental magnet- 
 ism, and because his auditorium was crowded 
 and easily accessible to reporters, the press of 
 the city gave him attention out of all reasonable 
 proportion to the space given to men who were 
 plowing deeper soil and reaping permanent har- 
 vests. 
 
 After a time the prayer meeting, having lost 
 the Spirit, ceased to exist. Literary and social 
 clubs — ^valuable enough in their proper place, 
 but not much more satisfactory substitutes for 
 religious nutrition than ^^the husks which the 
 swine did eat" — were conducted zealously. The 
 midweek religious service was followed into 
 oblivion by the Sunday school. The chapel, 
 which had been refloored for dancing, became a 
 popular rendezvous, but not for worship or for 
 any kind of useful service. The more nimbly its 
 young people danced, the more completely, it 
 seemed, did religious interest and Christian pur- 
 pose die out of their hearts, until no one was left 
 to teach the Bible or to lead in public prayer. 
 A Scriptureless, prayerless church! Not far 
 
 121 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 from death, one would think. Dying uncon- 
 sciously: mistaking numbers and social excite- 
 ment for life and power. 
 
 The finances of the society, strangely enough, 
 considering the throngs and the praises of the 
 people, began to give concern. It is, after all, 
 those who pray who remain to pay. Liberalism 
 in preaching and in teaching attracts and pro- 
 duces libertines in character and in conduct, 
 who do as they please, and who pay for other 
 things aside from their pleasures only when they 
 feel like it. Liberals are sadly lacking in liber- 
 ality, unless it may be in bequests given by rea- 
 son of remorse when they cannot longer use the 
 money themselves. Exceptions to these state- 
 ments are not numerous enough to meet the bills 
 of many churches, while the law that Christians 
 pay is too nearly invariable to prevent the pros- 
 perity of any really religious body. To put it 
 plainly, although congregations were still large 
 and members many, funds were constantly 
 shrinking. Plate collections will never run a 
 church. People who throw into offerings at 
 public services an occasional clanging coin think 
 that they are generous supporters of the gospel, 
 but it is the quiet conscientious envelope for each 
 Sunday in the year, and the silent unobtrusive 
 check mailed to the treasurer, which count for a 
 total sufficient to keep salaries paid, repairs and 
 improvements made, and heat and light con- 
 stantly supplied. The church that is run for the 
 
 122 
 
THE DOWNTOWN PROBLEM 
 
 loose collections soon runs into the ground, and 
 so it was found in the instance which is under 
 consideration. The pastor was in arrears on 
 salary. A great to-do was made, once, again, and 
 still again. Relief proved to be but temporary. 
 Pressure for finances instantly affected the 
 crowds, who were there to be entertained, excited, 
 and thrilled, and not to be disturbed by the paltry 
 question of ways and means. 
 
 Why prolong the tale? The pastor resigned. 
 What else could he do, with such a thankless con- 
 gregation? He had piped unto them, and they 
 had danced, to be sure, but they w^ould not pay 
 the piper. And that kind of pipers, pied pipers 
 who lead astray children of God, are among the 
 most sensitive to financial conditions. Hundreds 
 of preachers of the gospel work for next to 
 nothing, starving themselves and their families, 
 or supplementing the resources of their faithful 
 ministry by private incomes or by lucrative avo- 
 cations, but these men are believers, often of a 
 very narrow but always of a conscientious type. 
 Who has found broad-gauge and worldly minded 
 shepherds persistently minding the sheep of God 
 through seasons of peril from opposition, unpopu- 
 larity, poverty? When it no longer pays him to 
 preach, the hireling fleeth. The unpaid pied 
 piper lays down his pipe, and turns to the plat- 
 form, to literature, to politics, to the world. And 
 what of his church? Dead now was the church 
 that had listened to the piping of the pied piper. 
 
 123 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 The children never came back home. But for a 
 season, however paradoxical may seem the impli- 
 cation that a body from which life had departed 
 ought to know its condition, the company which 
 had been led into the wilderness to perish was 
 unconscious of its spiritual dissolution. Physical 
 decay was gradual. The church officials could 
 not secure a more worthy leader to follow the 
 author of their distresses. Even if a strong 
 Christian pastor could have been induced to serve 
 a congregation from whom evangelical faith and, 
 consequently, ethical soundness had gone, dis- 
 position to secure such a man, and ability to give 
 him physical and spiritual support were lacking. 
 Attempts to attract permanent leadership of any 
 kind signally failed. The ruling element at 
 length decided that a Sunday lectureship was the 
 true solution of the problem before the church, 
 and it was felt that an original and valuable 
 demonstration of pulpit possibilities for the New 
 Age could thus be made. Celebrities were em- 
 ployed to discuss topics of the day. For several 
 months the edifice was again thronged with curi- 
 ous and curiously assorted hearers, who listened 
 with apparent interest to addresses on the high- 
 est themes in art, philosophy, social science, 
 politics, and comparative and positive religions. 
 Whatever incidental good may have been accom- 
 plished by these orations, they achieved nothing 
 in restoring power to an organization which only 
 a miracle could have redeemed. Logic, eloquence, 
 
 124 
 
THE DOWNTOWN PROBLEM 
 
 and poetry were alike in vain. Despite strong 
 appeals, collections did not meet lecture fees, to 
 say little of expensive music, lighting, heating, 
 and other incidentals, which, after all, have to 
 be considered. Always came deficits, and the 
 necessity of making up, largely to be borne by 
 the officers themselves, since they were held al- 
 most entirely responsible by a membership 
 unwilling to make sacrifices. This became 
 monotonous, as was also the church performance 
 as a whole. 
 
 The one eternally vital and perpetually inter- 
 esting theme is Christ and Christianity, and there 
 is no other. Lecture courses must always be 
 brief, or else they will dwindle and drivel in sub- 
 stance and in sustenance. The church which 
 gives over preaching Christ and his gospel is 
 moribund. "Ichabod'' is written on its walls; 
 the glory of the Lord no longer fills the house, or 
 appears to its worshipers ; God is dead within the 
 hearts of his people; let the end come speedily, 
 and let burial be hastened, lest corruption breed 
 disease and spread death. The church building 
 of our narrative was sold under the sheriff's 
 hammer, I believe. One more institution which 
 had once been a moral asset to the city, and 
 which might have remained for generations a 
 center of Christian activity and influence, be- 
 came a memory of ancient virtue and of modern 
 crime. * 
 
 It will be affirmed, and justly, that the deplor- 
 
 125 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 able occurrence above outlined was exceptional. 
 Fortunately so, but the loss of downtown 
 churclies is not unusual, and a by no means infre- 
 quent cause of such catastrophes is decline of 
 piety, due to a kind of modernism which substi- 
 tutes materialism for Christian prophecy, intel- 
 lectual and social culture for religion, or, at best, 
 moral eugenics for spiritual life. Under this 
 blight another church, hundreds of miles dis- 
 tant from the one whose death struggle has been 
 related, was for a time given a mere simulacrum 
 of life by sensational advertising, and by the 
 discussion of bizarre topics, and it finally yielded 
 some salvage through absorption by a neighbor- 
 ing central society. When a church, finding 
 itself slipping somewhat from its former pros- 
 perity, appeals to the very worldliness which it is 
 set to counteract, it makes a fatal blunder. 
 Sometimes the difficulty is one which needs the 
 aid of vested or benevolent funds. Or, as has 
 also been stated previously, it may be that adap- 
 tation to new and different circumstances is the 
 treatment required in order to restoration of 
 strength. More often the need is to bring the 
 life of the church into vital relation with the 
 claims of the surrounding community, and espe- 
 cially to direct the ministry of the pulpit at the 
 hearts of the people. Not even the most valuable 
 ethical prophylaxy, whose elements may wisely 
 be included within the scope of gospel preach- 
 ing, is able to satisfy and to hold the regard of 
 
 126 
 
THE DOWNTOWN PROBLEM 
 
 men and women who daily battle with the world. 
 Living as they do in the atmosphere of the com- 
 monplace, of the sordid, and of the nnclean, they 
 need the "food of the mighty. '' Hunger and 
 thirst for Christian righteousness and for the 
 inspiration and comfort of Christian experience 
 are often subconscious, or are but faintly real- 
 ized, but these passions are present in every liv- 
 ing soul. The appeal to them is imperative, and 
 the ministry which supplies the demands of the 
 inner spirit acquires lasting power. 
 
 Every minister of Christ should occasionally 
 receive such a message as that which came to a 
 preacher who on the previous Sunday had dis- 
 coursed somewhat abstractly, and mayhap ab- 
 stractedly, on temptation. "The tempted one 
 was in the audience," was the information anony- 
 mously received. Not only the tempted, but the 
 sinful, burdened, sorrowing, well-nigh over- 
 whelmed are in church audiences. No frothy 
 food, flavored paganism, philosophy of the age, 
 frigid ethics, smug sentimentality, vapid formal- 
 ism should be given them. Jesus Christ, the 
 crucified, risen, living and all-powerful Saviour 
 of tried, aspiring, dully hopeful humanity, is the 
 heart's desire, and the strength of life. And 
 where Christ is preached fully and fearlessly, the 
 church does not die; it lives, and grows, and 
 finds a way to develop, and to do the work of 
 God. Even when such a church is betrayed, 
 sinned against, or sold out and removed from the 
 
 127 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 place where its candlestick should be per- 
 manently fixed, its spirit and good works persist 
 in the memory and deeds of those whom it has 
 taught the way of life, and has trained to fulfill 
 divine behests. 
 
 128 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 FAMILY AND NEIGHBORHOOD 
 CHURCHES 
 
 A QUESTIONNAIRE directed to eminent Chris- 
 tian leaders in over one hundred cities of the 
 United States, and including all the largest 
 centers, has revealed the fact that eighty-six 
 per cent of these places still contain strong down- 
 town family churches, or at least churches which 
 have a representative family nucleus. Not a 
 little credit for this fortunate state of affairs 
 must be given to the automobile. Central 
 churches which two or three decades ago were in 
 the first stages of decay began to come back when 
 young families at a distance found themselves 
 able to get to the old place of worship without 
 being subjected to the annoyances and delays 
 incident to the use of street cars. The strong 
 appeal which history and memory unite in mak- 
 ing in behalf of long-established churches leads 
 many to accept every aid to permanent relations 
 with their membership. It is evident that under 
 present conditions it is possible in w^ell-central- 
 ized cities up to a population of even half a 
 million or more to preserve, in part at least, the 
 
 129 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 family character of the best of the downtown 
 churches. The high social value of this relation- 
 ship of the town's most intelligent life with its 
 greatest problems needs no argument beyond that 
 which has been already considered. 
 
 Justly is a protest raised against the disposi- 
 tion to laud mission churches and settlements as 
 if they were the only important religious under- 
 takings of the city, ''to lay so much emphasis here 
 that our people lose interest in the larger and 
 more permanent work that is being accomplished 
 in our many downtown churches." 
 
 Despite the foregoing paragraph, the general 
 testimony is that the larger a city becomes the 
 greater is the difficulty of maintaining the mem- 
 bership of the older churches. Even though a 
 strong group of permanent families are retained 
 in their fellowship, the constant movement of 
 people of large cities from one town to another 
 and from one part to another of the same town 
 puts the leaders of such churches on their mettle 
 to keep track of unsettled members, and to fill 
 the places of those who go away. If the hopper 
 is not kept full of newcomers, the mill will soon 
 be empty. City churches often lose, by removal 
 and by the few deaths which occur, from five to 
 twenty per cent of their members a year. Only 
 earnest work can even the list, to say nothing of 
 making an advance. The downtown pastor, if 
 he wishes his church to be prosperous, must of 
 necessity give special attention to his most dis- 
 
 130 
 
FAMILY CHURCHES 
 
 tant members. It is as true as it is ungenerous — 
 not to use a stronger word — that these members 
 of bis church are subject to constant solicitation, 
 as well as temptation, to unite with churches of 
 other denominations, and even of the same de- 
 nomination nearer their homes. Of this later. 
 But, now, why not let these people go? Because 
 sometimes they will not be made as much at 
 home, and may be lost out of the work; because 
 sometimes they will not be as well taught or cared 
 for spiritually in the new location as in the old ; 
 because often they are by no means as much 
 needed in the Christian neighborhood where they 
 live as in the city's heart, where the church 
 which has nurtured them is situated. It is not 
 necessary to stress this matter. The instinct of 
 self-preservation is strong in good churches and 
 pastors. Members at a distance are kept near 
 by reasonably frequent visits, by responsibilities 
 laid upon them, by appreciation of their labors 
 and of themselves, and by the esprit de corps and 
 loyalty inculcated in the whole body. This is 
 not a work of selfishness but of Christian and 
 civic service. The families of a town which are 
 called "good'' families ought not to be allowed to 
 herd together in exclusive and self-centered so- 
 cieties, but should remain distributed among all 
 the city churches, so far as this ideal may be real- 
 ized, and especially in places where their pres- 
 ence helps to leaven the masses. The personal 
 columns of the church paper, and the ties of vari- 
 
 131 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 ous societies within the organization are wisely 
 used to help hold the remote membership, and 
 thus to preserve some family character to the 
 downtown church. 
 
 The easiest and hardest city work is that of 
 the newer and more prosperous residence dis- 
 tricts. There both pastors and people can be 
 lazier and more worthless to the kingdom of 
 Christ than anywhere else in town or in country. 
 No great trouble to get new members is neces- 
 sary, as people of the same denomination are 
 constantly moving in, and many of them, with 
 precious little effort, will make their way into the 
 fold. No severe financial problem is presented. 
 The people of such neighborhoods are mainly of 
 the successful class, and while they are often 
 pretty selfish, they are usually willing, out of 
 relatively large incomes, to give to the support of 
 the church w^hat is small for them, but would 
 seem princely giving in other parts of the town. 
 Therefore the work is easy. Under such condi- 
 tions the church may be kept up to date in all 
 its appointments without serious pressure, and 
 the pastor gets a large salary, and can take fre- 
 quent and long vacations. This portion of Zion 
 may rest in peace and smile at misfortune — that 
 is, if consciences are not too tender, and if out- 
 side pressure is not too severe. But if it is felt 
 that real Christian work ought to be done for 
 and with those persons who, by reason of educa- 
 tion, position, and wealth, have largest potential- 
 
 132 
 
FAMILY CHUKCHES 
 
 ity for good or for evil, a definite and difficult 
 task begins to appear. One of the hardest classes 
 to make useful to Christianity is that of the 
 newly rich. It is a self-admiring, purse-proud 
 people, bent upon show and pleasure. The 
 successful pastor of a community composed of 
 citizens of this type must have some kinship 
 to his constituency, or he does not stay long, 
 and he must have marked individuality, and 
 pronounced Christian convictions and purposes, 
 or he accomplishes little good. The aid of older 
 families of wealth and of recognized social 
 standing, who have also spirituality, may be 
 enlisted in the task of maturing new accessions 
 from the world of fashion and of folly into a 
 sensible, substantial, and considerate church 
 membership. Fortunate is the aristocratic 
 church, so called and often falsely, which 
 also contains a few quiet, unobtrusive persons 
 approved and accepted by its fellowship gener- 
 ally, not for what they have, but for what years 
 of association and of service have proved them 
 to be. With these latter elements as a nucleus, 
 and by the aid of their prayers and endeavors, a 
 pastor of high resolution who is Spirit-led and 
 strengthened often is able to witness in his con- 
 gregation miracles of transformation which are 
 of great moral and social significance. 
 
 A wealthy church conforms its pastor to itself, 
 or is gradually mastered by the principles which 
 control his life. How fierce is the temptation 
 
 133 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 which assails the young man suddenly called into 
 responsibility for a parish that is full of worldli- 
 ness, with its attendant vices. The persons whom 
 he meets are surprisingly free from scruples, 
 confident and self-assertive. Amid such sur- 
 roundings the foundations of piety, and even of 
 morality, seem to tremble beneath the feet. It 
 is fortunate that elect souls pray for pastors, 
 especially for new pastors. Many a man at the 
 head of an important church goes through Geth- 
 semane, if not at the beginning of his incum- 
 bency of office, at least by the time the actual 
 spiritual state of his people dawns upon his con- 
 sciousness, and places a sense of awful respon- 
 ibility upon his conscience. The man in peril, 
 however, is not the preacher who, in agony of 
 spirit over the indifference, selfishness, and sin- 
 fulness of his people, contemplates a possible 
 Golgotha. He will probably neither die nor fail. 
 Jesus was crucified once for all : few of his dis- 
 ciples suffer pain or death for their righteous- 
 ness, or for their fidelity to the interests of others. 
 Some, however, who have assumed obligations of 
 Christian leadership have endured much from 
 their own cowardice, or have been self -immolated 
 upon altars of backsliding and unfaithfulness. 
 
 No Christian pastor should apologize for ask- 
 ing the wealthy to give to good causes liberally. 
 A brusque but wise layman said bluntly to one 
 who was guilty of this error, "Rich men don't 
 give too much money." He was right. Most men 
 
 134 
 
FAMILY CHUKCHES 
 
 of financial ability give hardly enough to keep 
 the fountains of their generosity from becoming 
 clogged. Noteworthy improvement in this 
 matter is in evidence here and there, but the law 
 still holds good. Not merely to give, but to give 
 intelligently, systematically, liberally, is a stand- 
 ard not yet widely attained. Therefore the 
 church, for this is the business of the whole com- 
 munity, and not of the pastor only, has yet far 
 to go in the matter of financial teaching and 
 inspiration. It is a sin to allow men only to give. 
 They should be led to think as well as pay in 
 Christian terms. They must not be allowed to 
 contribute rather than serve, lest they should 
 sell their own souls. It is not money distribu- 
 tion, but Christian distributors of money which 
 the Church should seek to produce. Moreover, 
 our age is clairvoyant to the fact that sharers 
 and not mere givers of the world's resources is 
 the human need. The church which ministers 
 to employers of labor falls far short of its duty 
 unless it preaches effectively the gospel of good 
 wages. Tenement owners must hear much con- 
 cerning good housing from the sources of Chris- 
 tian instruction and influence. It is important 
 to impress the buying class with the religious 
 duty of a fair price. All this, even before 
 lessons of charity, of missionary contributions, 
 and of philanthropies so called, is Christ's pro- 
 gram for the twentieth century. Indeed, when 
 was it ever not his plan? 
 
 135 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 Will a man make Ms own work hard or easy? 
 That depends upon whether he will raise mush- 
 rooms and squash, or oaks and maples, sturdy 
 boles of righteousness, and "trees of the Lord, 
 full of sap." Preachers and churches in the best 
 sections of the city are often bitterly assailed. 
 I have even heard pulpit demagogues soundly 
 denounce them, and not unjustly in those in- 
 stances in which pride, luxury, and disregard of 
 social obligations are allowed to continue unre- 
 buked and unchecked. But an unbiased study 
 of the facts would convince even a committee 
 from the labor union that no influences are doing 
 more for the amelioration of physical conditions 
 among the masses than is being accomplished by 
 the attitude of many churches and pastors of 
 the rich. That some preachers pander to wealth 
 and to social injustice, and that certain churches 
 are undemocratic and opposed to humanitarian 
 progress is no disproof of the above statement. 
 
 It is said that society must be lifted by putting 
 the lever under the lower strata. But what is the 
 lever that will lift these masses, if not Christian 
 character and Christian love applied by the re- 
 deemed of God from all walks of life? Therefore 
 it is the business of Christianity to save men, but 
 not simply the poor, the ignorant, and the lowly. 
 Learned, rich, and powerful men and women 
 should be brought to Christ, both for their own 
 sakes and for the good of many. A mission to 
 the upper classes is greatly needed. They should 
 
 136 
 
FAMILY CHURCHES 
 
 be shown their iniquity, their failures, their 
 responsibility, not merely as a whole but individ- 
 ually. Who can do this if not the church in the 
 exclusive neighborhood and the pastor of the 
 rich? Wining and dining in great houses, gossip- 
 ing and sporting with fashionable and leisurely 
 bodies, flattery and obsequiousness will not do 
 this hard work. It will be accomplished only by 
 princely men and women who know how to be 
 both gracious and fearless, and whose own attain- 
 ments and character enable them to speak and to 
 act with force. The cure of society's evils is in 
 the Christian Church, in its leaders and moral 
 products. 
 
 Another trying field is that occupied by the 
 church in the older residence sections of the city, 
 portions of the town which are completely built 
 up, in which most of the property is degenerating 
 or at best barely holding its own, out of which 
 people who are prospered are slowly moving, 
 leaving their houses to less successful people or 
 to renters. A static physical environment is not 
 an easy place in which to do aggressive work, or 
 even to prevent churches thus situated from slip- 
 ping backward. The law of life here is adapta- 
 tion. Increased democracy and spirituality 
 assure a service to the community which may 
 benefit as many lives, and may effect as great 
 results potentially, as if larger salaries could be 
 paid and greater sums expended on the acces- 
 sories of worship. This work is vicarious, and its 
 
 137 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 value, as is also the case with that of downtown 
 labors, ought to be repaid with greater considera- 
 tion, especially with reference to removals of 
 membership. These ought never to be solicited 
 by churches elsewhere, except upon request from 
 pastors and societies affected, or at least with 
 their knowledge and permission. 
 
 A pet sin of some city pastors and church mem- 
 berships is proselyting. This takes place, not 
 only when vital differences of creed make it 
 seem at least consistent, as in the case of ortho- 
 dox and unorthodox, or of Protestant and Roman 
 communions, but it occurs between denomina- 
 tions of the same essential faith, and even be- 
 tween sister churches of the same ecclesiastical 
 connection. It is the cause of much dissatisfac- 
 tion, and of great injustice to the weaker or to 
 the most vulnerable churches. All are not guilty 
 of this despicable practice, but some preachers 
 and many laymen seem to have never acquired a 
 clear distinction between meum and tuum as 
 applied to church members. Ministers of the 
 gospel who are supposed to know the eighth com- 
 mandment perfectly, and who would not think of 
 taking a dollar from another without permission, 
 sometimes exhaust many expedients to entice 
 from a brother preacher supporters on whom he 
 depends for many dollars with which to conduct 
 his work. "Like priest like people" in this re- 
 spect also, even more like in some cases. 
 
 "Thou shalt not steal!" "But we need mem- 
 
 13S 
 
FAMILY CHURCHES 
 
 bers." So does the other church. "But these 
 people are nearer to us." Another man's purse 
 happens to be nearer my hand than his, but it is 
 not mine therefore. ''But they would come 
 oftener, and get more good in our church." Who 
 knows this? Anyway, it is not your business, nor 
 can it be made such by any artful or circuitous 
 methods. ''But they attend our church part of 
 the time now." Naturally, and some of your 
 people occasionally^ or more or less regularly, 
 drop into other churches, where they like the 
 preacher, or the music, or where it is convenient 
 when they feel too weary to go to their accus- 
 tomed place of worship. It is all in vain to make 
 excuses ; the practice is wrong. In cities, church 
 members cannot be divided off by blocks. Their 
 relationship is not a matter of geography. A 
 church is a living body of which its societies are 
 the organs, and its members the atoms, or even 
 the bones, muscles, and sinews. City people are 
 constantly moving — at least large numbers of 
 them are very restless. Their membership would 
 never be vital if they changed it as often as they 
 go from house to house. It takes time to orien- 
 tate oneself in a church, to form valuable friend- 
 ships, to obtain not only opportunities for use- 
 fulness, but that personal acquaintanceship 
 and influence which give power to personality. 
 Good church members in one place may prove to 
 be but nominal adherents or relatively unim- 
 portant factors in another society. It is taking 
 
 139 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 a considerable responsibility to advise a change 
 in church relations even when one's opinion is 
 asked. Certainly, it is not a matter to be can- 
 vassed like insurance, though even in so sordid 
 a matter as fire and life policies the best agents 
 do not, as some church people do, seek to discredit 
 their competitors in order to get business away 
 from them. 
 
 Theological seminaries should have a chair of 
 amenities, and of fraternity, and city preach- 
 ers' meetings at least once a season should have a 
 discussion of ministerial relations and courtesies. 
 Pastors should instruct their people that, while 
 all visitors should be made welcome, and while 
 members of other churches voluntarily seeking 
 their fellowship are to be received with all kind- 
 ness, they are to seek the increase of their mem- 
 bership by conversion from the Sunday school or 
 from the unchurched. Among the latter are 
 people who have been for some length of time in 
 the city, but who, although they are members 
 elsewhere, have never connected themselves with 
 any church in town. Some say, ^'Find out such 
 cases and report them to the pastor of the church 
 which they would naturally join." Such an act 
 is very gracious, and is usually appreciated, tend- 
 ing toward a genuine Christian fraternity. If 
 the notice is given, and is not acted upon, then it 
 would seem to be a Christian duty, considering 
 city temptations, to get the persons involved into 
 one's own church if possible. The reason for 
 
 140 
 
FAMILY CHUKCHES 
 
 laying emphasis upon this subject is that it is 
 a real cause of friction and of injury to church 
 work, and the fault, so far as preachers are con- 
 cerned, is not alone with pastors ne^^iy coming 
 from the country, and ignorant of town condi- 
 tions, but with some preachers and laymen also 
 who seem to be habitually, if not constitutionally, 
 inclined to consider their own interests before all 
 others. May they be born anew ! It is necessary, 
 however, to suggest that false accusations of 
 proselyting may be made against the innocent. 
 Members asking for letters sometimes say, 
 "Doctor Doe wishes me to unite with his church,'' 
 when at most all the good man ever had to do 
 with the matter was to reply in a not unfriendly 
 manner to their advances. 
 
 One of the special problems to be noted in this 
 connection is that of the university church, 
 whether it be located in the city or in the country. 
 School communities are proverbially critical, 
 and the combination of town and gown in the 
 same church society is one which it requires 
 Christian love and tact to bridge. The one 
 recipe for a successful pastorate in a college 
 church is to know no man after the mind. It is 
 said that it was Galusha Anderson whose son, 
 when called to minister to professors and stu- 
 dents, asked him what he should preach to men 
 who knew so many sciences, philosophies, and 
 literatures. "Preach the gospel; they probably 
 know very little of that," was the oft quoted, 
 
 141 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 eminently wise retort. In the college church it 
 is just as true as elsewhere that the preacher who 
 appeals to the hired girl and the serving man, 
 if he is also possessed of respectable scholarship, 
 reaches the trustee, the dean, and the president. 
 But the trouble with most college churches is 
 that they do not have sufficient outlet for their 
 energy. They are spiritually stuffed and dyspep- 
 tic. If it is a sin, as President Eliot contended, 
 to arouse emotion without giving it a chance for 
 useful expression, it is not less reprehensible to 
 add to knowledge without providing for action. 
 College churches should inaugurate evangelistic 
 movements, institute reforms, undertake local as 
 well as support foreign missions, and reach out 
 into the life of student body, community, and 
 adjacent territory Christian powers and policies. 
 The importance of college churches to their de- 
 nominations is only beginning to be adequately 
 recognized. Some of the churches are not only 
 giving greater care to pulpit selections for these 
 strategic places, but they are erecting suitable 
 buildings for Christian education under de- 
 nominational auspices, and for institutional 
 work of the type needed by students away from 
 home. Universities are showing an encouraging 
 hospitality to undertakings of this nature. They 
 offer to give credit for biblical and other suitable 
 courses of study pursued under church instruc- 
 tion. The movement is relatively new, and is 
 capable of large development, which seems likely 
 
 142 
 
FAMILY CHUKCHES 
 
 to result in gTeater religious intelligence and loy- 
 alty on the part of both students and members 
 of faculties, as well as to counteract the material- 
 istic tendencies often associated ^ith the pursuit 
 of higher education. Pastoral assistants who are 
 yirtuallY student i^astors are now connected Tsi.th 
 many college churches. Sometimes they are par- 
 tially or wholly supported by general denomina- 
 tional funds. The youthfulness and the athletic 
 and social interest of these men permit them to 
 get into close contact with individual students, 
 and to bring their principal pastors into a nearer 
 relation with undergraduate life than would 
 otherwise be possible. 
 
 Something ought to be said concerning memo- 
 rial churches, which are of increasing occurrence. 
 In some instances it is merely the desire to 
 honor a leader of the church which prefixes his 
 name to that of the society. The gift of a very 
 small sum of money, or a legacy may occasion the 
 grateful use of a personal title. Xow and then 
 a church is built and paid for outright as a trib- 
 ute to the memory of a loved friend or relative. 
 It is difficult to show why these deeds should not 
 be performed, provided that the names given are 
 honorable, and are not in themselves ridiculous 
 or offensive. But if it means exclusive ownership 
 or dictatorship of a family or of individuals 
 better that the sums be refused, and the churches 
 not built. Memorials in churches is another sub- 
 ject, and one which receives considerable atten- 
 
 143 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 tion from institutions of a history worth com- 
 memorating, and into whose life has gone the 
 service of distinguished and admirable person- 
 ages. To the minds of many Westminster Abbeys 
 are better than cemeteries, and the house of God 
 is honored by the recognition of divine goodness 
 in raising up strong men and women to serve the 
 causes of religion and of philanthropy. City 
 churches should preserve their history, and by 
 memorial windows, tablets, efiflgies, and various 
 adjuncts of worship they may at once impress 
 the lesson of honorable antecedents upon succeed- 
 ing generations, and teach their members to emu- 
 late the illustrious examples of the past. In cap- 
 ital cities, especially, each denomination might 
 wisely establish a Pantheon, or in the houses of 
 worship of these cities generally the historic and 
 memorial spirit might well be cultivated. As the 
 country grows older instances of such a tendency 
 as that indicated are increasing in number and 
 in significance. 
 
 The family church in the city shares one great 
 sphere of privilege and of duty in common with 
 the country church : it may be a nursery of home 
 religion, than which no higher office is possible 
 to any religious body. Sermons on the home lose 
 a good part of their effect in boarding-house 
 neighborhoods. Exhortations concerning the 
 maintenance of family altars seem relatively out 
 of place in far downtown churches, although 
 there is moral value in occasional references 
 
 144 
 
FAMILY CHURCHES 
 
 which apply directly to but a portion of the con- 
 gregation. The home idea and the Christian 
 ideal for the home must be presented everywhere 
 if civilization is not to be destroyed, or its chief 
 values lost. But the pastor of families has a 
 supreme opportunity to minister in the produc- 
 tion of household faith and goodness. It is the 
 habit of some persons to sneer at continuous 
 rounds of parochial visits, as if they possessed no 
 practical value. Everything depends upon what 
 is undertaken during the progress of such calls. 
 There can be little doubt that, as a rule, the best- 
 trained Christians come out of homes represented 
 in the smaller city family churches or in the 
 country. More time for instruction is available. 
 The impact of one Christian family upon another 
 is also more powerful and constant. The church 
 bulks more largely in family conversation and 
 experience. Quiet and unobtrusive as is the work 
 done under these circumstances, and intensive 
 rather than extensive as its volume may be, the 
 Christian social product is very gratifying. 
 Moreover, it seems fair to say that in their total 
 service to the community and to the world, it is 
 not to spectacular churches of the institutional, 
 tourist, or missionary type that largest credit 
 must at present be given, but to the multitudes of 
 ordinary churches of the quieter kind, in whose 
 unobtrusive and worshipful services are matured 
 sturdy resolutions and virtues, and from whose 
 life come forth the characters and resources 
 
 145 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 which sustain the chief institutions of civiliza- 
 tion and of Christianity. Without these 
 churches, Christian education would perish and 
 the glory of Christian missions would fade away. 
 Without them Christian philanthropists, states- 
 men and reformers would disappear, and the 
 noblest movements for civic and national better- 
 ment and for human redemption and happiness 
 would fail. 
 
 It is frequently charged that there are too 
 many churches in the residence districts of cities. 
 This may be relatively, but is rarely, if ever, 
 absolutely, true. The criticism is based upon the 
 fact that churches are sometimes grouped closely 
 together, and the idea is maintained that they 
 ought to be scattered around where they could 
 be reached more conveniently. Experience 
 seems to many to prove the very reverse of this, 
 for while it is doubtless true that invalids and 
 elderly people are sometimes troubled by the dis- 
 tances which they have to go in order to reach a 
 place of worship, this fact is overbalanced by 
 the greater interest and attendance, especially of 
 young people, which result from the location of 
 churches upon trunk thoroughfares. Moreover, 
 the assembling together of church buildings upon 
 adjacent properties or blocks tends to create 
 tides and centers of attendance which add to the 
 popularity of all the societies involved. Of 
 course there is a possibility that an ineffective 
 preacher or a lethargic congregation may lose 
 
 146 
 
FAMILY CHURCHES 
 
 out in comparison with more vigorous institu- 
 tions, services, and personalities. But a dead 
 institution is no more alive for being set apart 
 by itself, while by proximity to going concerns it 
 is very likely to be inspired and instructed into 
 successful ways of managing its services and 
 work. Cities like Rochester, Detroit, Des Moines, 
 Columbus, and Atlanta, for example, where 
 churches in central or neighborhood sections, or 
 in both, are well grouped, are among the best 
 churchgoing cities in the land, while larger towns 
 and smaller alike may be cited in which church 
 edifices are more widely distributed without pro- 
 ducing as large a proportion of church atten- 
 dance. 
 
 For the present, at least, most churches in 
 foreign settlements are to be classed among mis- 
 sions, and are being managed as such. One of 
 the most interesting types of the city neighbor- 
 hood church is that in the mill or factory district. 
 Here the Church and labor lock arms and walk 
 together. There is no difficulty about this when 
 the matter is handled properly, for Jesus Christ 
 is the workingman's best friend. But he must be 
 presented with all his qualities of strength and 
 of helpfulness, if men who toil are to be mastered 
 by his precepts and to be led into his obedience. 
 The demand of the day is that the church serve 
 the needs of the community, and not simply live 
 off its resources. It is a just demand, and work- 
 ing people's churches succeed largely only as they 
 
 147 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 are made hives of Christian helpfulness and 
 centers of plain and vital instruction. The writer 
 knows from experience that no community re- 
 sponds more generally and generously to a pro- 
 gram of understanding, sympathy, and affection 
 than does a mill people. It is expected in such 
 a locality that preachers will put on few frills, 
 either in the pulpit or out of it. They are to 
 call a mule a mule, to change the usual figure, 
 and a lathe a lathe. They are to be no respecters 
 of owners, of bosses, or of other persons, except 
 for their character and good works. They are to 
 be friends and big brothers to everybody. They 
 are to waylay the mill boy on his way to work, 
 to visit the stricken home of the machinist, and 
 to enter the offices of the company without servil- 
 ity or fear. They are to be peacemakers, and 
 justice-getters on all sides of the labor problem. 
 They must know the strength and weakness of 
 socialism, the salvation and sin of the labor union, 
 the mission and folly of capital. No worthier 
 sphere of usefulness exists on earth than that of 
 pastor of wage-earners in an industrial center. 
 It is to be hoped that the spirit of Christian 
 democracy which is represented in the great 
 Brotherhood halls and churches of England will 
 in time enter more largely into Christian work 
 in the United States, and that our better-paid 
 and more liberally educated workingmen will be 
 more fully recognized in all the plans and coun- 
 sels of the Church. 
 
 148 
 
CHAPTER YIII 
 CHURCH ENDOWMENT 
 
 The argument for the endowed church is the 
 unendowed church. In the earlier years of their 
 history, and in prosperous residence districts of 
 city or of country, the establishment of perma- 
 nent protective and sustaining funds for churches 
 may seem unnecessary, but for the church at the 
 center of a municipality of great size, or of one 
 which is destined to become very populous, it is 
 imperative. "In the big cities all over the 
 country," says a student of this subject, "it has 
 been realized more and more keenly that these 
 churches are needed more than ever in the 
 crowded sections, and yet cannot be adequately 
 supported by the neighborhood.'' 
 
 A famous instance of alleged mismanagement 
 of funds of a wealthy church corporation has 
 done much to create prejudice against religious 
 endowments. The argument is very partial and 
 unfair. It is earnestly contended that the society 
 referred to has been misrepresented. If, how- 
 ever, trustees of such moneys have once, or a 
 score of times, proven themselves selfish or venial, 
 if they have misused or misappropriated the 
 
 149 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 sacred sums committed to their care, and if they 
 have handled the real estate of their corporations 
 in wfiys unworthy or corrupt, these cases have 
 been exceptional, and they are not without paral- 
 lels of greater number and discredit on the part 
 of secular boards and committees. As a matter 
 of record, how many instances of such malfeas- 
 ance on the part of custodians of church funds 
 have been known to have anywhere occurred? 
 
 In any city whose residence districts become 
 too far removed the unendowed downtown church 
 deteriorates or dies. One or the other of these 
 events is just as certain to occur as the sun is 
 sure to rise and set. Hundreds of such institu- 
 tions, which once throbbed with life and with 
 power, and which might be still serving the in- 
 terests of teeming multitudes in metropolitan 
 towns, have died outright of starvation, or have 
 been forced from the places of their largest op- 
 portunity to become commonplace parishes of 
 inferior service to God and to man. If, in the 
 time of their prosperity, wealthy members, who 
 might so easily have provided for their future, 
 had placed behind these churches a reasonable 
 portion of the sums which they left to less worthy 
 causes, or to heirs good and bad, wise and foolish, 
 they would still be instinct with life, and the 
 cities of the land would be less diseased in vital 
 organs than we find them to-day. Many men of 
 financial ability would gladly have given to 
 assure the permanence of the work which loved 
 
 150 
 
CHUECH ENDOWMENT 
 
 them, and which they loved, but they were unin- 
 formed, or were misled with reference to the 
 need, and their hour, and that of the church, 
 passed together into history. 
 
 The culpable negligence and the prejudice 
 against church endowment which have already 
 robbed the centers of so many cities of their 
 temples of worship, leaving worldliness in full 
 possession of the ground, are still in evidence. 
 What are the arguments used against the crea- 
 tion of Christian strongholds by the establish- 
 ment of permanent funds? It is claimed that the 
 endowment of a church robs its members of in- 
 centives to generosity, or at least of the necessity 
 for self-denial, leaving them to an easy and self- 
 indulgent Christian experience. This might be 
 true, if the growing needs of church life and work 
 in the city did not demand ever greater expend- 
 itures, in sums far beyond the resources of the 
 average congregation. Let it be conceded that in 
 a small town with a fixed population an en- 
 dowment fund might rather paralyze religious 
 zeal than inspire activity and sacrifice. It may 
 also be admitted that in some city residence and 
 suburban districts the need for larger sums than 
 can be provided by current receipts is not at 
 present apparent. The case is wholly different 
 with church work located in business portions 
 of large cities, in mission territory, and in local- 
 ities filled up with habitants, but decadent in 
 property values. In these situations at least, 
 
 151 
 
THE CHUECH IN THE CITY 
 
 though not in these only, the money needed to do 
 an adequate work cannot be realized permanently 
 from the local constituency, nor is the field of 
 service so limited in scope that any probable en- 
 dowment will either overmeet the need or relieve 
 the people who cooperate of the requirement to 
 give as well as to toil. Acquaintance with several 
 churches having some financial reserve has shown 
 their members and adherents doing fully as much 
 per capita in the way of material support as is 
 done by other societies of similar resources. 
 
 Another objection to church endowment is that 
 the funds might not be wisely handled by the 
 boards of officers to whose care they were com- 
 mitted. This criticism is not based on actual 
 instances of infidelity to trust, or of inefficient 
 management, but is merely hypothetical and pre- 
 dictive. Why is not a church board as able to 
 care for money as are the directors of a school, 
 hospital, or Young Men's Christian Association? 
 The position of any who think that churches are 
 incapable of preserving and of properly admin- 
 istering trust funds is indefensible. As a matter 
 of fact, many such responsibilities are now being 
 discharged, and as successfully as any bank or 
 trust company conducts its business. And why 
 not? Since when did the Church lack financial 
 ability equal to great and important undertak- 
 ings, and when has the Church been without a 
 commercial reliability which would compare 
 favorably with that of other public institutions? 
 
 152 
 
CHURCH ENDOWMENT 
 
 Finally, it is said, ''The Church doesn^t need 
 the money.'- Doesn't need it? Certainly, organ- 
 izations which have perished from lack of provi- 
 sion for times of stress no longer need money. 
 But churches which desire to escape a like fate 
 must somewhere find wise and generous friends 
 who will prepare them for the emergencies of 
 the future. 
 
 City churches, as a rule, have fallen behind 
 other institutions in point of organization and of 
 adaptation to the life of the age. Churches in 
 central locations, as has been said elsewhere, 
 cannot work in ancient ways, and without 
 modern facilities and a suflflcient force of helpers, 
 and expect to accomplish the ends which intelli- 
 gence and a spirit of progress desire. For the 
 lack of sufficient funds many such societies have 
 become second-rate affairs, offering to the public 
 a cheap service and limited privileges of any 
 kind. Poor preaching, wretched music, bare 
 and dingy auditoriums and social rooms, and 
 the absence of attractive institutional features 
 will not enable churches to compete with pal- 
 aces of sin and with resorts of doubtful amuse- 
 ment by which in some cases they are surrounded. 
 Hundreds of downtown churches are capable 
 of being made bright and popular, and if the 
 sums which their members can give were sup- 
 plemented Avith sufficient interest incomes to 
 render them places of beauty and of interest- 
 ing activity, they would capture thousands of 
 
 153 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 young people who are now crowding the well- 
 furnished and busy temples of the world. 
 
 Let it be repeated that churches, with few ex- 
 ceptions, are insufficiently manned, defectively 
 organized, and inadequately equipped for the 
 greatest usefulness. Roman churches have the 
 more numerous forces of workers, whom they are 
 able to secure at small cost. The great expend- 
 itures of the Church have been going to educa- 
 tion, to missions, and to philanthropies independ- 
 ently controlled. Vast sums, both current and 
 endowment, are given to colleges, to hospitals, to 
 rescue and to foreign missions, and to inter- 
 denominational Christian associations. It is no 
 disparagement of these worthy benevolences to 
 say that for their sake the source from which 
 they derive sustenance ought not to be impover- 
 ished and w^eakened. Why should a Young Men's 
 Christian Association be able to open splendid 
 parlors and gymnasiums, and to employ a dozen 
 or twenty officers, or even more, while a church 
 as eligibly located to do good, and having a con- 
 stituency, including members and adherents, 
 larger than that of the Association, is confined 
 to old buildings, and to two or three workers, 
 including the sexton? The Church, if made effec- 
 tive, stands more closely related both to family 
 and to personal life than is possible in the case of 
 any interdenominational society. - Hospitals re- 
 quire increasing outlays of enormous sums that 
 they may possess the most costly plants and 
 
 154 
 
CHUECH ENDOWMENT 
 
 apparatus. Nothing is too mucli for the heal- 
 ing of the body. Is it, then, of no importance 
 that the centers of our cities are filled with the 
 spiritually crippled and diseased, who with 
 proper effort and outlay might be restored to 
 soundness of heart? Is it not, rather, the fact 
 that moral wholeness and wholesomeness are 
 worthy of far greater care and expenditure of 
 labor and of means than are physical restoration 
 and health? The Church should claim the sup- 
 port necessary to place it abreast of the age, and 
 equal to the mighty task of redemption, and of 
 the development of character, which is laid upon 
 it. 
 
 The work of the school is of undeniable value. 
 But what avails it to sharpen the wits and to 
 train the hands of those whose hearts are evil? 
 The time approaches, and it is brought nearer by 
 the great progress of the state school, when the 
 millions of Christian philanthropy now lavished 
 upon denominational colleges will need to be de- 
 voted to the task of Christianizing the whole edu- 
 cational system through the strengthening and 
 development of the Church and of church insti- 
 tutions at all seats of learning. Religion has a 
 poor chance of respect and of power when the 
 school is far more handsomely housed than is the 
 Church, and when its instructors are more 
 numerous, better trained for their tasks, and 
 more adequately remunerated than are the lead- 
 ers of the Church. 
 
 155 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 The cause of missions is worthy of most zealous 
 regard, but it ought to be possible for a city 
 church to pay as good salaries, and thus to secure 
 as good men to assist the pastor, and to learn 
 the great offices of the Christian ministry, as are 
 given to raw graduates who go to foreign lands. 
 American municipalities are among the greatest 
 mission fields on earth. They have whole cities 
 of foreigners in their heart. But the old- 
 fashioned church, with its overburdened pastor, 
 who rarely has more than one or two helpers, and 
 those poorly paid, is not equipped, manned, or or- 
 ganized to reach these people. This is the tragedy 
 of the city, the peril of the nation, and the menace 
 of the Christian faith. Christianity must capture 
 the city, and it must reach the alien, as well as 
 the native elements in the city, or the battle of 
 religion is lost. 
 
 It is by no means the purpose of this discussion 
 to attack Christian philanthropy in any of its 
 forms. The thought is, rather, to call attention 
 to the great development which has taken place 
 in the machinery and manning of auxiliary Chris- 
 tian institutions, while the Church itself has been 
 allowed to stand still, or to fall behind, in its 
 power to meet modern demands. A visitor to 
 New York city, being asked what he thought of 
 the Christian organization of the immense town, 
 after some reflection replied, "I confess that 
 when I put your churches and their force of 
 workers over against the men and means em- 
 
 156 
 
CHURCH ENDOWMENT 
 
 ployed here by the world, the flesh, and the devil, 
 it seems to me like attempting to dip out the 
 ocean with a teaspoon. '^ Vast regions in the 
 congested cosmopolitan heart of New York were 
 years since deserted by the Church. The few 
 societies left to cope with the most desperate 
 situations are usually established in buildings 
 dark and foul, and some of them are furnished 
 with little or nothing in the way of attractions 
 for the throng. Endowments, placed long ago in 
 days of opportunity, would not only have kept 
 the churches where they are most needed, but 
 would have given to intelligence and to piety the 
 means of maintaining these plants in a high state 
 of efficiency, with progressive adaptations to the 
 changing conditions and to the varied life sur- 
 rounding them. 
 
 Every Christian society with a growing field 
 may wisely encourage its prosperous members to 
 perpetuate their labors and influence by benefac- 
 tions and legacies to the church, and not only to 
 their own institution, but to downtown work. 
 The church of the greatest problems and oppor- 
 tunities should receive the consideration and the 
 benefactions of all the churches. Christianity 
 should have the wisdom to centralize in the 
 center. Good generalship demands that organ- 
 izations on the firing line be maintained in vigor 
 by the resources of the organization as a whole. 
 This work is to some extent being done through 
 city missionary societies, perhaps called church 
 
 157 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 extension societies, and which are sometimes 
 under excellent local management. Serious prob- 
 lems confront those who are engaged in such 
 organizations, and arise out of them. One of 
 the difficulties is to secure continuous represen- 
 tative membership for the necessary boards. 
 Another is the old problem of capable execu- 
 tives. A third relates itself to the control of 
 properties. A number of denominations vest 
 all titles in the general Church, or in a bishop 
 as the local chief officer. Great extension 
 value is found in this arrangement, since it is 
 thus made easy to handle wise changes of site 
 and of buildings, and the entire credit value of 
 the lands and improvements so held may be util- 
 ized for the good of the denomination in the city 
 as a whole. In the year 1906 it was reported by 
 authority of the government that more than one 
 half of all city church debts were on properties of 
 the Roman Catholics. This in part accounts for 
 the phenomenal extensions made by Romanism 
 during recent years. More commonly each local 
 church is independent, and in this case it is rarely 
 found that a sufficiently strong connectional 
 bond is recognized, nor is such a church willing 
 to make concessions or changes of the kind 
 needed for the general development of the cause 
 which it is supposed to represent. In many in- 
 stances the local missionary or church extension 
 societies hold the titles to the properties which 
 they have helped secure, or which they have sub- 
 
 158 
 
CHUECH ENDOWMENT 
 
 stantially aided, or they possess mortgage secur- 
 ities for moneys which they have advanced or 
 permanently invested. The officers of such socie- 
 ties are inclined to take a conservative attitude 
 with reference to* funds intrusted to individual 
 church societies. The secretary of one of these 
 bodies in America's leading city says that it is 
 coming to be the generally accepted opinion that 
 it is not wise to endow churches. He says that 
 results in the case of the most conspicuous ex- 
 ample of a locally endowed church of his own 
 denomination have not justified the wisdom of 
 this procedure. "A general holding institution 
 such as the City Missionary Society/' he declares, 
 "should have the control of such endowments to 
 provide for the administration of the work. If 
 not the City Missionary Society, then some other 
 broadly representative board of trustees should 
 be thus empowered." 
 
 While, of course, matters of great present and 
 potential value should not be decided by refer- 
 ence to single instances of success or failure, a 
 great deal is to be said in favor of the represen- 
 tative general holding of real estate and endow- 
 ments of city churches, preferably not by the 
 same body whose business is chiefly that of 
 administration, but by a strong and unprejudiced 
 board of trustees, headed in the case of episcopal 
 churches by the bishop in charge, and before 
 whom both the City Missionary or Church Exten- 
 sion Society and the individual church might 
 
 159 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 p" 
 
 appear with facts germane to any issue involvin 
 the future of valuable properties and vested 
 funds. Weight is lent to this argument by the 
 admission of a prominent city society ofScial who 
 says : "Apropos of selling out churches, it seems 
 to me that some new legislation is required to 
 conserve the resources of our denomination in 
 our cities. City societies, under their State 
 charters, may mortgage and sell church prop- 
 erties in their possession without reference to 
 congregation, Conference, or official board, a vote 
 of their own boards being all that is necessary. 
 The history of the past reveals the fact that much 
 money realized from the sale of church properties 
 has been expended none too wisely by our city 
 societies. Had the equity realized from the sale 
 of church properties been retained as a trust 
 fund, several of our city societies would now be 
 in possession of so large an endowment that the 
 interest therefrom would be greater than their 
 present income.'^ 
 
 Meanwhile few cities except those of the first 
 or second grades have either missionary or exten- 
 sion societies, or any general trustee boards. 
 Endowments cannot await the days of great 
 municipal growth without running the risk of 
 becoming impossible by reason of the death or 
 removal of those who can furnish them. Prob- 
 ably the wisest plan is not to discourage the 
 foundation of trust funds, but to see that future 
 interests are safeguarded by suitable clauses in 
 
 160 
 
CHURCH ENDOWMENT 
 
 the instruments by which they are devised, giving 
 final authority in certain named or generally sug- 
 gested events to responsible Conference, synod- 
 ical, or diocesan bodies. Indeed, such a provi- 
 sion is so evidently and so eminently wise that 
 all pastors and laymen whose advice may be 
 sought by intending benefactors ought to give 
 this matter careful consideration. 
 
 The tendency to endow various branches of 
 service within the organization, as well as the 
 local church itself, is increasingly apparent. A 
 typical illustration is the old First Church of 
 Christ in Hartford, in whose burial plot is the 
 grave of the first American ancestor of the author 
 of this book. Some years ago the pastor preached 
 an informing sermon on the "Duty of this Gener- 
 ation to this Church," in the course of which he 
 took the position that endowments and their in- 
 comes arising from "unearned increments'' are 
 seldom of real service to any church. One may be 
 in hearty sympathy with protests made against 
 swollen fortunes, due to increases in land values 
 and acquired without personal effort or sacrifice, 
 but it is surely better that such funds, if in- 
 herited by any, should be in the hands of societies 
 serving the needs of the public. While it would 
 not be just to suppose that the preacher's view 
 might have been different had not a land fund 
 once possessed by his parish been alienated, it is 
 easier to follow him in the advices which he 
 gives his people to deal generously with their 
 
 161 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 historic church in gifts and legacies. This is one 
 of the sacred duties of Christian devotion, and in 
 urging it upon his congregation the pastor pro- 
 ceeded to describe a fund begun by small contri- 
 butions made in 1802 and which has produced 
 most excellent results in the care and mainte- 
 nance of the church plant. Another endowment 
 acquired by the same society from various 
 sources assists the poor of the parish. Still 
 another is for the work of the chapel, another 
 for a Teachers' Library, to which funds for the 
 care of the communion service and for home 
 and foreign missions have been added. These 
 endowments and others have grown, as may be 
 discovered from the statistics of the Congrega- 
 tional Year Book, which also discloses the fact 
 that at present invested funds of Congregational 
 churches in America amount to some ten mil- 
 lions of dollars. Speaking of central and down- 
 town churches generally, the field secretary of the 
 Congregational Church Building Society says, 
 "Churches of this character are more and more 
 calling for endowments, and I am of the opinion 
 that more of such work must be done in centers 
 of our rapidly changing cities. Churches must be 
 anchored, and made free, as Dr. Rainsford used 
 to argue." The pastor of Pilgrim Church, Cleve- 
 land, which has a substantial invested fund, says, 
 "We are urging all churches to accumulate some 
 endowment," and also, "I favor endowment to 
 meet necessary fixed charges and repairs, en- 
 
 162 
 
CHURCH ENDOWMENT 
 
 abling the living people to do missionary work." 
 The two above suggestions, that permanent fixed 
 incomes tend to free the house of God for the use 
 of the people, and also enable the present genera- 
 tion to consider matters of greater human impor- 
 tance than the question of their own subsistence, 
 are worthy of much respect. Broadway Taber- 
 nacle, New York; New First Church, Chicago; 
 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland; Second Church and 
 Windsor Avenue, Hartford; First Church, 
 Columbus; First Church, Fall River; People's 
 Church, Saint Paul, are possessed of respectable 
 investments. Park Street, Boston, has a good- 
 sized income from rentals. 
 
 The Protestant Episcopal Church has given 
 much attention to endowments. These are for 
 the main plant, and for various parochial uses. 
 For example, Christ Church Cathedral, Louis- 
 ville, Kentucky, has both Choir and Auxiliary 
 Choir Funds, a Deanery Fund, and a Fund for 
 the Sick Poor, the Cathedral endowment being 
 the main establishment. Saint George's Church, 
 Stuyvesant Square, New York city, has a Christ- 
 mas Fund, Deaconess House Endowment, a 
 Danne Bequest for the Church Cottages for 
 Summer Relief, and a Camp Rainsford Endow- 
 ment. Among other leading endowed churches 
 whose success may be studied through their own 
 Year Books, are the Cathedral, Boston, which 
 also owns real estate in the heart of the city from 
 whose rental it is chiefly supported ; the Church 
 
 163 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 of the Advent, Boston, distinguished, says the 
 rector, as the first free church in New England ; 
 Grace, Manchester; Church of the Epiphany, 
 Washington; Saint Paul's, Buffalo; Trinity, 
 Pittsburgh; Christ Church Cathedral, Saint 
 Louis; and many others. The most conspicuous 
 example of a rich church corporation in America 
 is, of course. Trinity Church, New York city. Of 
 the income of this noted parish and its expend- 
 iture the rector states : "The total amount avail- 
 able for church purposes from our endowments 
 last year was |425,952. This, as you will see, 
 was all expended in the maintenance of nine 
 churches in the city of New York, most of them 
 in the poorest and most difficult parts of the city, 
 all of them ministering in overwhelming propor- 
 tion to the poor and those of limited income, and 
 also in maintaining our educational and chari- 
 table work, etc. Our balance sheet at the end of 
 the year showed a large deficit, as it has for 
 several years past, resulting from the fact that 
 while our income is large our work and, above 
 all, our opportunity for work is immeasurably 
 larger. It may interest you to know that we use 
 the Duplex Envelope System throughout all the 
 churches of Trinity Parish, so that our work is 
 supported not only by endowments but by the 
 freewill offerings of our people, who are encour- 
 aged to give all that they can.'' 
 
 Another instructive statement, which is that 
 of the rector of Christ Church, Cincinnati, indi- 
 
 164 
 
CHURCH ENDOWMENT 
 
 cates at the same time a method of securing per- 
 manent funds and the beneficial effects of their 
 use. "The church took a new start. The seats 
 were thrown open to all, pew rents were abol- 
 ished, and a Parish House was built. From that 
 time on the church has grown steadily and is 
 stronger to-day than it has ever been. In 1900 
 there were about five hundred communicants, 
 and there are now over twelve hundred. There 
 was then a small endowment fund which had 
 been started a few years before, but no special 
 efforts had been made to increase it. The inter- 
 est was allowed to accumulate, and was added 
 to the principal ; but the future need of an endow- 
 ment was now becoming very apparent be- 
 cause of the steady removal of the well to do 
 people from the neighborhood to the suburbs. 
 The Christmas offering every year w^as asked for 
 the endowment fund, and |1,000 set as the 
 amount to be given. The older people were urged 
 to remember this fund in their wills, and it was 
 set before them as an appropriate object for 
 memorials. In consequence, we now have an en- 
 dowment fund of about |127,000 which we hope 
 to increase within the next few years to at least 
 1200,000 or 1250,000. This endowment is di- 
 vided into four parts. A little over |40,000 is 
 an endowment of the church proper, the income 
 being devoted to current expenses. There is an 
 endowment of between $75,000 and $80,000 on 
 the Parish House; of |5,000 on the Sunday 
 
 165 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 school, and |1,000 for the purchase of growing 
 plants to be given to the children of the Sunday- 
 school at Easter." 
 
 The Protestant Episcopal Church in the West 
 reports comparatively little success as yet with 
 reference to permanent funds. The Bishop of 
 San Francisco says: "On this coast and in this 
 diocese, owing to many causes existing in the 
 newer parts of our country, we have very few 
 endowments for our churches." The Bishop of 
 New York makes an interesting statement con- 
 cerning the churches in his care : "Quite a num- 
 ber are partially endowed, a few to a very con- 
 siderable amount, and yet none of them is 
 wholly independent of the freewill offerings of 
 the congregation, or a revenue from pew rents." 
 An even more significant fact concerning Balti- 
 more churches is contained in this testimony 
 of the rector of the Church of the Messiah: 
 "There are four or five of our churches in 
 Baltimore partially endowed — say from |100,- 
 000 to 1150,000. But so far, I am glad to say, 
 they are raising more money than ever from their 
 present membership for the work." It is evident 
 that the Protestant Episcopal Church is actively 
 enlisted in the cause of permanent incomes, and 
 is not conscious of any evils arising from expe- 
 rience in the use of such funds sufficiently serious 
 to induce the leaders to discourage the accumula- 
 tion of moneys which make them possible. 
 
 It seems certain that the two denominations 
 
 166 
 
CHURCH ENDOWMENT 
 
 above named are the leaders in the acquisition of 
 trust funds for the maintenance of their plants 
 and for other purposes. Probably the Presbyte- 
 rian Church ranks next, although many of the 
 greatest central societies of this faith are depend- 
 ent wholly upon current subscriptions and col- 
 lections. Indei^endent Presbyterian Church, 
 Savannah, is in the endowment column with 
 quite a sum to its credit. Several Detroit Pres- 
 byterian churches are slightly, and one is pros- 
 pectively largely, endowed. The First Churches 
 of New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore are 
 in this class, and Brick Church, Eochester, has 
 a fund encouragingly started. The Second Pres- 
 byterian Church of Newark receives a very sub- 
 stantial income from its investments, and two 
 other Presbyterian churches of the same city are 
 in the list of societies for whose continued 
 prosperity some provision has been made. Of 
 institutions thus fortunate it is said, however, 
 that ^'the percentage in the denomination is very 
 smair' — a statement borne out by statistics. 
 Among the other churches it may safely be 
 affirmed that debts are quite as numerous as are 
 endowments, which may not at all imply inferior 
 efficiency in their present work, or any certainty 
 that their future interests will not ultimately be 
 assured. The Collegiate churches in New York, 
 and occasionally such a Reformed Society as the 
 First of Albany, are financially well found. The 
 Methodist Protestant Church, Seattle, is pos- 
 
 167 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 sessed of a modest vested fund. The Methodist 
 Episcopal Church, South, has erected a large 
 building in Los Angeles, which is intended to 
 become an important income producer. Of Bap- 
 tist churches "only a few have any endowment at 
 all," although a tendency to look into this matter 
 more carefully is manifested. When the com- 
 bined First Church and hotel property at Syra- 
 cuse is paid for, its institutional features should 
 provide an excellent income for Christian work. 
 Second Baptist, Fall Kiver, receives the rental of 
 some business property. "The wisdom of endow- 
 ment," says the pastor of Calvary Church, Wash- 
 ington, "in my judgment depends on local con- 
 siderations, history, environment, locality, prob- 
 abilities." Keporting few endowments in his de- 
 nomination, the pastor of Central Church of 
 Christ, Des Moines, Iowa, adds, "My information 
 is that those that are endowed are not most suc- 
 cessful." Similarly, a New York city Methodist 
 authority says, "Eesults at Washington Square, 
 the most conspicuous example of a locally en- 
 dowed church, have not justified the wisdom of 
 this procedure." Metropolitan Temple, New 
 York, by consolidation with another Methodist 
 parish, obtained a respectable permanent fund, 
 and several similar consolidations elsewhere have 
 obtained like results, although such increments 
 have sometimes been absorbed by building enter- 
 prises and by current expenses. The historic 
 mother church of Michigan, Central of Detroit, 
 
 168 
 
CHUECH ENDOWMENT 
 
 from property adjacent to the church building, 
 and in part devoted to parish uses, receives sup- 
 port for the institution as a whole. First 
 Church, Cleveland, obtained an endowment from 
 the sale of a former site. Grand Avenue Church, 
 Kansas City, receives at present a small revenue 
 from its adjoining large office building, which 
 later is expected to provide generous sums. 
 A number of New England churches have modest 
 interest incomes for current expenses, but these 
 funds are relatively insignificant. First Meth- 
 odist Episcopal Church, Chicago, is itself an en- 
 dowment for the Methodism of Cook County, 
 Illinois. The society was formed before Chi- 
 cago had a city charter, and its location was 
 changed several times, until the present site on 
 the corner of Clark and Washington Streets was 
 secured. By the charter the property held by 
 this corporation may furnish only |2,000 a year 
 to the support of the work of First Church itself, 
 the remainder of a very considerable revenue 
 going for church building and improvement in 
 the county. ^'From 1865 to 1907 contributions 
 for this purpose were made to one hundred and 
 thirty-eight churches, and the sum of |632,583.93 
 was donated.'' The total of all church extension 
 work from this source has now amounted to 
 nearly $800,000. This instance of an endowment 
 which has proved to be productive of widespread 
 results is both interesting and suggestive. The 
 officiary of First Church, Chicago, are not 
 
 169 
 
THE CHUECH IN THE CITY 
 
 tempted to any great extravagance by the por- 
 tion of property incomes which falls into their 
 hands for use in current expenses. Dependence 
 upon strenuous efforts for self-support must still 
 be necessary, but the denomination in the second 
 city of the nation has been able to reach out into 
 places of need with initial expenditures which 
 would have seemed impossible had not such a 
 fund been accessible as that supplied by the in- 
 come of the First Church property. The propor- 
 tionate amount allowed to the work of the soci- 
 ety itself was not sufficiently generous. Had the 
 developments of the future been foreseen, the 
 plan would surely have been so changed as to 
 allow a reasonable percentage of revenues, in- 
 stead of a small flat sum, to be utilized in car- 
 ing for the local work. Intending benefactors of 
 important church foundations will act wisely, if 
 they consider carefully the possibilities of growth 
 and of necessities covering long periods of time. 
 Otherwise they may defeat the chief purpose of 
 their gifts. 
 
 The literature published by many strong 
 churches contains such expressions as the fol- 
 lowing from the Year Book of a central society 
 of the Middle West: "The time will come — it 
 may not come in our generation, but it will 
 surely come — when we will no longer have in 
 this Cathedral men of wealth, men of influence, 
 men of high position in social and commercial 
 life. When that time comes will God's work 
 
 170 
 
CHURCH ENDOWMENT 
 
 and the work of this Cathedral be ended; shall 
 our glory have departed forever? Shall that 
 come upon us that has come upon many a down- 
 town church in our cities? Shall we not, on the 
 other hand, we of this generation, we who still 
 have it in our power, so provide for the future 
 through our Endowment Fund that we can give 
 to the people of smaller means and greater needs 
 the same richness of material for worship, the 
 same breadth of opportunity for service, that we 
 so abundantly enjoy to-day? Pray God that he 
 may put it into our hearts and minds to choose 
 this better course.'' This passage offers an argu- 
 ment in behalf of permanent funds which justi- 
 fies its inclusion here, and which will doubtless 
 prove provocative of further thought in the same 
 direction. Correspondence with many city pas- 
 tors of various denominations contains frequent 
 expressions like the following: "We hope First 
 Church will be endowed — in my judgment the 
 only hope of the downtown proposition." "The 
 church of which I am pastor is now planning a 
 new office building which when constructed will 
 be in the nature of an endowment." "If the 
 church is to maintain its efficiency, it mil have to 
 have endowment in the near future." "As yet 
 only a beginning: I hope ultimately to secure 
 from $200,000 to $250,000." The pastor of a 
 church in the university area of a large city says : 
 "I am trying now to build a foundation building, 
 with dormitory facilities, which will serve as a 
 
 171 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 home for students, and incidentally give us some 
 returns of an endowment character. If this can- 
 not be done, the church will eventually have to be 
 endowed, or our work will suffer.'' On the other 
 hand, it is reported concerning a central church 
 in a city of two hundred and fifty thousand popu- 
 lation : "First Church is not endowed, nor do we 
 see the necessity for that, at present at least." 
 Two thirds of the principal cities of the United 
 States report as yet no endowment upon any of 
 their churches. 
 
 A survey of the field seems to reveal a number 
 of general facts. It is apparent that most of the 
 churches which have income-producing accumu- 
 lations or properties are in the greater cities, a 
 few only being in places of less than a hundred 
 and fifty thousand population. Invested funds 
 are mainly in the older and richer communities 
 of the East, but slight accumulations of this kind 
 being as yet found in the middle West, and al- 
 most none in the Far West or in the South. The 
 churches of greatest evangelistic energy and 
 growth are almost wholly dependent upon in- 
 comes from living members. It will be ques- 
 tioned whether the absence of endowments is the 
 cause or an effect of the religious activity of these 
 bodies of Christians, if, indeed, any relationship 
 exists between the two facts. Or is it that the 
 older denominations are very naturally those 
 which have amassed property? This seems the 
 case, however one may view the query to which 
 
 172 
 
CHURCH ENDOWMENT 
 
 reference has just been made. Another surface 
 indication, which may prove to represent a funda- 
 mental law, is that the denominations which 
 have attained greatest influence in city life seem 
 to be those, many of whose societies have strongly 
 intrenched themselves behind walls of financial 
 accumulations. The attitude to this matter 
 taken in this volume is based upon a high degree 
 of probability that church life can no more pow- 
 erfully affect vast and growing centers of popu- 
 lation without the aid of equivalent monetary 
 resources than can business corporations. It is 
 predicted that the denominations which neglect 
 to make generous provision for permanence and 
 progress in city work mil find the field slipping 
 away from them into more capable hands. It 
 may also be maintained that during late years 
 endoAved churches seem to be gaining marvel- 
 ously in democracy and in religious attack. 
 
 It should be repeated here that the failure to 
 endow" city churches, which has resulted in the 
 abandonment or the weakness of many societies, 
 is not to be attributed in any marked degree to 
 lack of confidence or of affection on the part of 
 members, but to want of thoughtfulness, to the 
 absence of information, and to false impres- 
 sions made by those whose business judgment 
 has not led them to see that in the great centers, 
 certainly, the Church of Christ has the same 
 needs and requires the same business care as that 
 which is given to other institutions. Wise use of 
 
 173 
 
THE CHUECH IN THE CITY 
 
 printer's ink, frequent announcements, and the 
 quiet advice of personal intercourse enable 
 pastors and laymen to bring to the churches 
 which they love valuable permanent acquisitions 
 which may fix them forever in seats of poAver. If 
 money works when men are sleeping, and even 
 when the grave has claimed the donors, why not 
 let it work for Christ, and directly through 
 his Church? He who loved the Church and gave 
 himself for it; who said, ^'I will build my 
 church,'' and who is himself its "chief corner 
 stone," will bless the gifts of those who conse- 
 crate their thoughts and deeds to the work of 
 establishing enduring and mighty centers of 
 divine life and of Christian activity. He who 
 commended the woman who put all her living 
 into the treasury of God cannot fail to expect 
 those of his followers who have property to devise 
 to remember first of all, or immediately after 
 they have provided reasonably for the needs of 
 the lives which are dependent upon them, the 
 interests of the organized and on the whole ef- 
 fective society which represents the kingdom of 
 Christ and carries forward its activities. The 
 disposition made of their property will possibly 
 be one of the most embarrassing questions which 
 many persons will meet in the final Judgment. 
 
 174 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE TEEND TOWAED INSTITUTION- 
 ALISM 
 
 The present key word with reference to all 
 undertakings is "efficiency." It is an idea not 
 without perils which is presented to the mind by 
 a term so frankly utilitarian. No harm will 
 result from the determination to apply to reli- 
 gious organizations and customs the pragmatic 
 test if spiritual values are taken into the ac- 
 count. But if, as some persons insist, the de- 
 mand be made that the Church vindicate its right 
 to a place in the sun solely or even primarily by 
 bread-and-butter benefactions, emphasis needs 
 to be placed upon the teaching of our Lord, "Man 
 shall not live by bread alone, but by every word 
 that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.'' 
 
 Soup kitchens, industrial classes, gymnasiums, 
 works of physical healing, social and political 
 reforms, educational and missionary offerings 
 and activities have their appropriate place in the 
 program of Christianity, but not as substitutes 
 for religion, which is motive power for the attain- 
 ment of morality and for the prosecution of phi- 
 lanthropies, and which possesses substantial 
 worth of its own. Worship has a real value be- 
 
 175 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 yond all that is tangible. Prayer is more neces- 
 sary to life than is food. Evangelism is still the 
 magnum opus of the Church, producing Chris- 
 tian character and experience and the highest 
 usefulness. The human and temporal services of 
 the Church are to be determined and weighed 
 with reference to this end, and should neither be 
 rendered nor acclaimed as constituting in them- 
 selves the object to be sought by Christian pur- 
 pose. It is materialism, not spirituality nor 
 wisdom, which exclaims, ^^Turn the church into 
 a lodging house, and set the preachers serving 
 tables." This attitude of mind is unjustified, 
 even though it represent in part a protest against 
 surviving mediaeval tendencies which seek to re- 
 move religious houses and personages from con- 
 tact with tempted and suffering humanity, and 
 which regard the true offlce and expression of 
 Christianity as being contemplative, rather than 
 practical. "We have a strict rule," says a safe 
 advocate and representative of modern methods 
 of church management, "that there shall be no 
 institutional work that is not connected in some 
 way with definite religious work." 
 
 Two thirds of the one hundred leading cities 
 of America report no institutional Protestant 
 churches in the strict definition of the term, and 
 one third of the remaining principal cities name 
 but one such plant each. It is somewhat doubt- 
 ful whether it should be claimed that Romanism 
 possesses churches of this nature, but it is evi- 
 
 176 
 
TREND TOWARD INSTITUTIONALISM 
 
 dent that the various Catholic brotherhoods and 
 orders in many cases furnish their members ^T.th 
 social facilities usually connotated with the term 
 ^"institutional." The Knights of Columbus have 
 many well-housed organizations whose members 
 enjoy advantages physical, literary, social, and 
 religious. Young Men's Institutes, insurance 
 orders, and sodalities engage upon activities of 
 the most practical nature, although these socie- 
 ties are not given space in church buildings 
 proper. In my volume on Christian Brother- 
 hoods abundant material may be found to estab- 
 lish the fact that, according to its own genius, the 
 ancient Church of Rome has established an insti- 
 tutionalism of an exceedingly broad and attrac- 
 tive nature, and with features which well repay 
 exact study. 
 
 The Protestant Episcopal Church leads its 
 sister communions in the field of endeavor 
 which is under present consideration. In the 
 Diocese of New York nearly all the parishes are 
 doing some institutional work, and many are 
 conducting great enterprises of this kind. 
 Among the latter are Saint Bartholomew's, 
 Grace, Saint George's, Saint Thomas's, Trinity, 
 Saint James's, and the Incarnation, all of which 
 are influential churches with large parish houses 
 doing important service. A perusal of the Year 
 Book of Saint George's Church in the city of New 
 York gives a typical picture of the condition of 
 affairs in a strong institutional parish. The list 
 
 177 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 of buildings consists of (1) Saint George's 
 Church, (2) Saint George's Centennial Chapel, 
 (3) Choir House, (4) Rectory, (5) Memorial 
 House (Parish Building), (6) Deaconess House, 
 (7) Boys' Industrial Trade School, (8) Seaside 
 Cottages (three) and tents (six), (9) Camp 
 Rainsford (for boys). There are Saint George's 
 scholarships in Trinity School, in the General 
 Theological Seminary and in the Educational 
 Fund. Endowed beds are at the disposal of the 
 parish in Postgraduate Hospital and Stony 
 Wood Sanitarium, and it possesses a burial plot 
 in New York Bay Cemetery. Important publica- 
 tions are the annual Year Book, the weekly Bul- 
 letin, a parish paper. The History of Saint 
 George's Church in the City of New York, and 
 The Administration of an Institutional Church, 
 the annual and paper being freely distributed, 
 and the latter works constituting elaborate 
 volumes at three dollars each. The budget of 
 the parish for a recent year totaled something 
 above |100,000, of which |28,000 was for salaries, 
 approximately |12,000 for general benevo- 
 lences, and the balance for parish work. The 
 endowment furnished a net income above |36,000, 
 the balance of the |100,000 representing various 
 subscriptions, collections, and fees. This state- 
 ment of the rector is important : "Our work here 
 is primarily spiritual. The greatest need of our 
 time is a strong emphasis upon the reality of spir- 
 itual things. So much is being done everywhere 
 
 178 
 
TREND TOWARD INSTITUTIONALISM 
 
 for the physical and social needs of people that 
 spiritual teaching is often left out of adequate 
 consideration. We have steadily insisted upon 
 doing all that is possible to be done, physically 
 and socially, and we have not left the other un- 
 done, for here at Saint George's our aim is, and 
 will ever be, to keep Christ and the gospel plainly 
 and invariably in our minds and hearts as the 
 chief and fundamental reason for all we are, and 
 all we do, and as the only guide and salvation of 
 this present human life.'' 
 
 The force used by Saint George's includes the 
 rector, Tvith six assistant clergy and as many dea- 
 conesses, a parish nurse, two organists, five secre- 
 taries, an Evening Trade School superintendent, 
 Sunday school officers, two sextons, librarian, 
 gymnasium instructor, and officers of women's 
 societies. Taken at random from the list of hours 
 of classes and meetings published in the Year 
 Book the following entries will serve to illustrate 
 the diversity of Saint George's interests: Sun- 
 day school, Men's Club, Rector's Confirmation 
 Class, Free Circulating Library, Women's Indus- 
 trial Society, Saint George's Lunch Room, Dea- 
 coness House Committee, Knights of Saint 
 George, Model Flat Classes, Boys' Club, Girls' 
 Friendly Society, Trade School, King's Daugh- 
 ters, Athletic Committee; Relief Department: 
 Sale of Clothing; Missionary Society, English 
 Class, Happy Hour Club, Married Women's 
 Society, Mothers' Meeting, Gymnasium Class for 
 
 179 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 Girls and Women, and many more. The statis- 
 tical report shows additions to membership for 
 the year, through confirmation 123, transfer 13, 
 and otherwise 168, total 304. The losses total 
 119 ; by transfer, 19 ; death, 34 ; otherwise, 66. 
 
 The Year Book and Register of the Parish of 
 Trinity Church in the city of New York is a 
 formidable volume of five hundred pages, with 
 elaborate illustrations. The cost of work in the 
 church and several chapels and properties of this 
 heavily endowed parish is stated elsewhere. 
 Among institutional topics which head the Year 
 Book reports may be mentioned: Parish Day 
 Schools, Cooking, Laundry and House Schools, 
 Trinity College Scholarships, beds at Saint 
 Luke's and Saint Mark's Hospitals, Burial Place 
 for the Poor, Work among Immigrants from Ellis 
 Island, Night School, Midday Services for Busi- 
 ness People, Church Periodical Club, Saint 
 Elizabeth's Society for the care of aged women. 
 Ladies' Employment Society (furnishes sewing 
 to the poor). Guilds for Boys, Girls and Women, 
 Young Men's Club, Boy Scouts, Noonday Club 
 for Deaf Mutes, Shut-In Society, Night Workers' 
 Services, All-Night Mission, Employment Bu- 
 reau, Singing Classes, Brotherhood of Saint 
 Andrew, Athletic Association, Vacation and Sew- 
 ing Schools, Boys' Industrial Class, Night School 
 for Italians, Military Drill, Open Air Services, 
 Seaside Home, Children's Playground, and 
 others. A valuable piece of work done by the 
 
 180 
 
TEEND TOWARD INSTITUTIONALISM 
 
 men of Trinity Church, and indicative of possi- 
 bilities elsewhere, was a social survey of the 
 Washington Street District, New York city, 
 covering housing, immigration, recreation, indus- 
 trial conditions, child welfare, delinquency, 
 health, and allied topics, printed in a book of 
 nearly one hundred pages and containing dia- 
 grams, tables, and valuable illustrative material. 
 Prominent Episcopal churches, located in 
 other cities, and of marked institutional char- 
 acter are, for example: Trinity, Brooklyn, Trin- 
 ity, Albany; Epiphany, Washington; Christ 
 Church, Cincinnati; Christ Church Cathedral, 
 Louisville. The latter church opened a special 
 School for Defective Children, w^hich proved its 
 worth and was taken over by the city Board of 
 Education. There are clubs for men and for 
 women, with bowling alleys, a Clothing Bureau, 
 the usual societies of young men and of girls, 
 gymnasium and athletics, a workshop, and other 
 undertakings. Of the Cathedral House the 
 Bishop of Kentucky says : ^^It is not an independ- 
 ent agency. Because it is a splendid nursery, 
 and is carrying on successfully its ministrations 
 to enlarge Cathedral life and objects, we are de- 
 sirous and are happy to be associated by encour- 
 agement and support with this great work." 
 "This Cathedral House," said the Dean, after 
 its use had been well tested, "stands as a living 
 force for things that are best in the whole life of 
 all the people." A considerable proportion of 
 
 X81 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 Episcopal churches have either good parish 
 houses, or some institutional features. It will 
 suffice to name as further examples, Emanuel, 
 Boston, famous for the "Emanuel Movement"; 
 Church of the Messiah and Saint PauFs, Balti- 
 more ; Saint Luke's and Epiphany, Philadelphia ; 
 Saint Luke's, Scranton ; Saint Paul's, Rochester ; 
 Saint Paul's, Buffalo; Saint John's, Detroit; 
 Church of Our Saviour, Akron. Two missions in 
 San Francisco are "engaged in distinct institu- 
 tional work." 
 
 American Methodism has evidently been too 
 busy with educational, evangelistic, and mission- 
 ary programs to devote much attention or large 
 resources to the development of highly specialized 
 city work. This is true, even in centers of de- 
 nominational activity. "We are institutionally 
 strong here," remarked a Cincinnati layman, but 
 the reference was to Book Concern and hospital 
 activities, and not to the Church itself, which 
 might conduct a much more valuable central 
 work upon several of its splendid sites had en- 
 dowments and institutionalism been provided 
 for some years since, or could these advantages 
 be now more adequately realized. In New York 
 city the East Side Parish, the People's Home 
 Church and Settlement, and Washington Square 
 represent the principal Methodist undertakings 
 of this nature, though Grace and Calvary 
 churches have some institutional features. Aside 
 from Morgan Memorial, Boston, described else- 
 
 182 
 
TREND TOWARD INSTITUTIONALISM 
 
 where, and which, like East Side Parish and 
 other similar establishments, is really a mis- 
 sion, Mathewson Street, Providence, is usually 
 cited as the unique institutional church of 
 the denomination. The building, which could 
 profitably be much larger, is wedged in between 
 business houses in the congested retail center. 
 Five stories, covering the entire lot space of sixty 
 by one hundred and twenty feet, are used for 
 various forms of religious and social service. The 
 basement houses the Central Girls' League, club 
 rooms for boys and girls, banquet room and fire- 
 proof vault. The building contains a high-grade 
 hydraulic elevator. Reception rooms and vestry 
 occupy the first floor. The church auditorium 
 and a parlor which opens into it take up the 
 second-floor space. Epworth League head- 
 quarters and the church gallery and dome ac- 
 count for the third story, and the top floor con- 
 tains gymnasium, locker room, shower baths and 
 janitors' apartments. As Providence has seven 
 thousand unmothered girls living in single rooms, 
 special attention is given to this class of down- 
 town dwellers. Among advantages offered by 
 "The Central Girls' League" are the special 
 counsel of a "Little Sister" in charge; rooming 
 and boarding house directory; employment 
 bureau; reading, rest, and lunch rooms; bath- 
 room ; classes in dressmaking, millinery, cooking, 
 physical culture, nursing, vocal and instrumental 
 music, drawing and printing and common Eng- 
 
 183 
 
THE CHUECH IN THE CITY 
 
 lish branches; lectures, entertainments, socials, 
 excursions. For use of the bathroom, and for 
 class instruction a small charge is made ; all else 
 is free. The work of Mathewson Street Church 
 is done without respect to sectarian lines. ^^ Jews, 
 Catholics, and Protestants meet here on a 
 common basis and work in perfect harmony. 
 Through this committee (Religious Work) an 
 earnest effort is made to have all the girls attend 
 service at the places of w^orship to which they 
 naturally belong.'' The auditorium is so cen- 
 trally located, and is so well equipped with com- 
 mittee rooms and with other facilities that it is 
 said to provide the most important religious 
 center in the State. The Protestant Episcopal 
 Church once held a national congress in Mathew- 
 son Street Methodist Episcopal Church, and a 
 great number of meetings and conventions of 
 various denominations and societies are accom- 
 modated there, ^ince the completion and occu- 
 pation of the present building the church mem- 
 bership has increased to nearly three times the 
 former strength. In Chicago, Grace Methodist 
 Episcopal Church does some institutional work, 
 but perhaps the main attempts of a not broadly 
 planned or generously financed movement are at 
 Halstead Street and at Lincoln Street. Broad 
 Street, Columbus, has a good Parish House 
 with some advanced social work. Patterson 
 Memorial, Baltimore, is interested in physical 
 culture, including indoor baseball, Boy Scouts, 
 
 184 
 
TREND TOWAED INSTITUTIONALISM 
 
 mothers' meetings, daily kindergarten (Satur- 
 days excepted), and moving pictures, religious, 
 educational and sociological. Other Methodist 
 churches haying at least a "squint" toward the 
 institutional, or which are making extensive 
 plans therefor, are Trinity, Springfield, Massa- 
 chusetts ; First, Saint Joseph ; First, Burlington ; 
 and First, Duluth. Central, Detroit, is able to 
 accomplish a much-needed work on the most eli- 
 gible site in the town, and with facilities of a high 
 order. The church retains, however, a marked 
 family character. Epworth Memorial, Cleveland, 
 while it has not a full equipment, has been for 
 some years doing a remarkable work, and Saint 
 Paul's, Cedar Rapids, is engaged in valuable reli- 
 gious-social undertakings. Deaconess settle- 
 ments are in various places conducting a mis- 
 sion type of institutionalism. The Methodist 
 Episcopal Church, South, is represented in this 
 work, with varying degrees of equipment and of 
 success, in Atlanta, Wesley Memorial; Norfolk, 
 Epworth ; in Kansas City, and in Los Angeles. 
 
 Bethany Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, 
 popularly known as '^John Wanamaker's 
 Church," is one of three Collegiate Churches with 
 a membership of some six thousand persons and 
 with Sunday schools probably larger. Bethany, 
 the home church, has a large and beautiful 
 Brotherhood House, a Deaconess Home, a Free 
 Dispensary, and an Industrial College vdth. fif- 
 teen hundred students, who are taught trades 
 
 185 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 and vocations. Two societies of men conduct 
 phenomenally large Bible Classes. One of the 
 regular offerings is "A Sunday Morning Free 
 Breakfast and Refuge Home, where thousands 
 of poor outcasts and friendless men are fed every 
 Sunday morning, and housed during bitter nights 
 throughout the winter.'' All of the above is 
 noted despite the saying of the pastor, ^^I would 
 hardly call Bethany an institutional church.'' 
 Brick Church and Institute, Rochester, represent 
 one of the principal modern enterprises of the 
 Presbyterian denomination. This is the outline 
 statement of social provisions : "We have a large 
 building connected by a passage way with the 
 church, sixty by one hundred and sixty feet, four 
 stories and basement high. The two top floors 
 contain eighty rooms, which we rent to un- 
 married men. The other floors have the equip- 
 ment usually found in modern Y. M. C. A. and 
 Y. W. C. A. buildings. The work carried on is a 
 very varied one, for the men, women, boys, and 
 girls of the church and neighborhood. The 
 revenue from the rooms and other membership 
 fees enables us to employ a sufficient staff of 
 expert workers. The annual budget averages 
 (for the Brick Church Institute) about |23,500. 
 It is a work which has grown up gradually since 
 1898, and is the result of a careful study of the 
 conditions to be met." Fourth Presbyterian, Chi- 
 cago, has extensive equipment for social service, 
 and First Presbyterian Church in the same city 
 
 186 
 
TEEND TOWARD INSTITUTIONALISM 
 
 is engaged in similar but not so well-established 
 undertakings. Kingshighway, Saint Louis, a 
 West-End Church, has a gymnasium, swimming 
 pool, and social and club features. Valuable 
 work of a strong conservative type is that of First 
 Presbyterian, Pittsburgh. The entire budget of 
 this church is above |100,000, more than one half 
 going to benevolences. As a preface to its Insti- 
 tutional Department the Year Book says: "The 
 First Presbyterian Church has developed large 
 institutional work, and in that w^ork it finds not 
 only a positive mission, as through it men, 
 women, and children are educated and bettered 
 and developed, but it finds a retroactive influence 
 in that it strengthens the life of the church itself. 
 It has, however, this basis upon which all the 
 institutional work is organized, namely, the re- 
 generation of the individual. There is no work, 
 however apparently secular, that does not have a 
 religious aim and object." Among items of the 
 First Presbyterian program are: Sunday after- 
 noon Clubs for Men; Boys' Clubs, including 
 Moneva for Bible Study, Mandolin and Guitar, 
 Scouts, Triangle, Honor Bright and Camp; 
 Women's Work Society, offering Social Depart- 
 ment, Seeing Society, Sewing School, Mothers' 
 Meeting, Girls' Industrial Gymnasium, Swim- 
 ming and Vacation Clubs, Noonday Meetings, 
 Bible Classes and Luncheons for Business Wo- 
 men, Milk Station for Babies, District Nurse, 
 City Missionary. The average attendance at the 
 
 187 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 Sunday Afternoon Men's Club is over two hun- 
 dred and twenty-five, and many men have been 
 converted and helped to a new start in life 
 through the work of this organization, which 
 is financed by the generosity of one member 
 of the congregation. For purposes of investi- 
 gation other names of Presbyterian churches to 
 be cited here are Second Church, Pittsburgh; 
 Fourth, Albany; Fourth, Syracuse; Calvary, 
 Buffalo; First and Third, Newark; and Third 
 Church, South, Newark; First, Bridgeport; Re- 
 formed Presbyterian, Cedar Rapids; First, 
 Seattle. Several Detroit churches, notably 
 First, Fort Street, and Jefferson Avenue, have 
 excellent parish houses, and are doing a not- 
 able work. The stated clerk of the General 
 Assembly, Presbyterian Church in the United 
 States of America, says that no list of Presbyte- 
 rian institutional churches exists. The above- 
 named instances have been observed by the 
 w^riter, or have been gathered from correspond- 
 ence. 
 
 Doubtless the best-known of all churches of the 
 type being considered is Grace Baptist Church, 
 known also as The Temple, Philadelphia, "the 
 first institutional church in America," and whose 
 long-time pastor. Dr. Russell H. Conwell, is 
 styled by his biographer "Founder of the Insti- 
 tutional Church in America." The Baptist 
 Temple w^as built in 1890, and it houses a present 
 membership of three thousand. The Temple Uni- 
 
 188 
 
TREND TOWARD INSTITUTIONALISM 
 
 versity was organized by this church, but is now 
 an independent, nonsectarian institution, in- 
 structing three thousand five hundred pupils in 
 law, arts, science, oratory, theology, medicine, 
 dentistry, pharmacy, business, engineering, peda- 
 gogy, and trades. It is a school for working 
 people, and its many courses can be pursued by 
 day or in the evening. Samaritan Hospital is 
 another philanthropy founded by Grace Church, 
 but now nonsectarian and independent. It min- 
 isters to over ten thousand afflicted men, women, 
 and children annually. A recent report shows 
 that the greatest denominational representation 
 among the patients treated is Roman Catholic. 
 Methodists and Hebrews come next on the list, 
 and Baptists hold sixth place. Among the organ- 
 izations of the Temple Church itself are Ladies' 
 Aid Society, doing a broadly missionary work; 
 Young Women's Association, Business Men's 
 League, Knights of the Temple, Young Men's 
 Association, Christian Endeavor Societies, Bible 
 Schools, Singing Clubs, Ushers' Associations, 
 Needlework Guild, King's Sons and King's 
 Daughters, Employment Bureau, Boys' Brother- 
 hood, Registered Givers' Association, Athletic 
 Clubs, and the usual church auxiliaries. The 
 Sunday school rooms of the Temple provide for 
 two thousand persons, and the church auditorium 
 has three thousand one hundred and thirty-five 
 numbered sittings. There are reading rooms, 
 committee and classrooms, kitchen and banquet 
 
 189 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 halls, and the athletic features of Temple College 
 are within easy reach. The conviction on which 
 Dr. Con well states that he began his life work, 
 and which he still holds, is that it is the duty of 
 the Church to preach, and teach and heal the 
 sick. ^^In carrying out this threefold mission, 
 Temple University, the Samaritan Hospital, and 
 the Baptist Temple have sprung up into great 
 independent organizations.'' Probably it was a 
 mistake for a single church, and especially for 
 one composed at the start almost w^holly of 
 middle-class workpeople, to suppose that they 
 could run a university and a hospital, as well as 
 a church. If so, the substantial service rendered 
 in the instance of Grace Church shows that it 
 was a sanctified mistake. That the institutions 
 of education and of physical healing grew too 
 large for the maintenance of the mother which 
 produced them is convincing evidence of the hu- 
 man needs to which they have ministered. Hos- 
 pitals are always difficult adjuncts of a single 
 church, as the Baptist Tabernacle, Atlanta, has 
 also discovered. This church, established on the 
 Conwell plan, came later into serious trials. It 
 possesses a large equipment, including a great 
 auditorium and institutional features. Built 
 around a unique personality, of somewhat er- 
 ratic ideas and methods, the congregation has 
 not been able to replace the pastor who organ- 
 ized the work, but who found it too much for his 
 strength to carry the load permanently. The 
 
 190 
 
TKEND TOWARD INSTITUTIONALISM 
 
 sphere of service open to a strictly institutional 
 central church is somewhat limited in a residence 
 town like Atlanta, and the future of both the 
 Baptist Tabernacle and of the Southern Meth- 
 odist Wesley Memorial of the same city is some- 
 what uncertain. Tremont Temple, Boston, has a 
 large, well-organized work among men, among 
 young women and boys, with special rooms and 
 some equipment, and with trained paid leader- 
 ship. The latter is a necessity in order to pro- 
 duce effective organizations on a broad scale. 
 First Baptist Church, Syracuse, besides many 
 institutional facilities, contains three floors for 
 transient and permanent roomers, a commercial 
 restaurant, and a moving-picture outfit. The 
 church auditorium is on the first floor, and has 
 not been sacrificed in any way to the social work 
 of the commodious building. The exterior is of 
 a strictly ecclesiastical type of architecture, 
 ornate and beautiful. Woodward Avenue 
 Church, Detroit, operates a modern plant in a 
 house built for the purpose. Reporting initial or 
 partial movements of a modern character are 
 Fountain Street, Grand Rapids ; First, Columbia, 
 South Carolina; First, Minneapolis; and First, 
 Denver. 
 
 Congregationalism is making some essays in 
 the direction of institutional service. Plymouth 
 Church, Brooklyn, has a plant known as the 
 Beecher Memorial. It includes a gymnasium, 
 bowling alleys, social and rest rooms, library, 
 
 191 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 picture gallery, and other adjuncts. Flatbush 
 Church, Brooklyn, offers gymnasium, baths, 
 lockers, stage for dramatics and a number of 
 such features as appeal to a residential section. 
 Nearly all the larger Congregational churches 
 of Worcester have a few institutional activities. 
 Piedmont Church has Men's Club rooms. Boy 
 Scout rooms, with gymnasium equipment, 
 kitchen, and dining room facilities, and in the 
 summer months a free daily kindergarten and 
 sewing school. Ingram Memorial, Washington, 
 is an uptown church, erected by a wealthy Wis- 
 consan in honor of his son, and is carrying on 
 social work in a specially erected building. Pil- 
 grim Congregational Church, Cleveland, is said 
 to be doing the most efficient institutional work 
 of that city. The date list of Pilgrim Institute 
 shows the following : Kindergarten, vocal lessons, 
 violin lessons, recreation rooms. Young People's 
 Society, gymnasium classes for various ages. Pil- 
 grim Orchestra, Boy Scouts, Galahads, and Sing- 
 ing Club. The Men's and Boys' Organization 
 enrolls 150; the Women's Association numbers 
 104 ; the Mother's Club, 245 ; Guild membership, 
 41 ; Scouts, 75 ; King's Daughters, 45 ; Camp Fire 
 Girls, 60. New First Congregational, and Wall- 
 ington Avenue, Chicago, should have a place in 
 this account for established and equipped work. 
 Plymouth, Lansing; Plymouth, Oakland; and 
 Plymouth, Seattle, are doing something, as is 
 Union Church, Jacksonville, Florida. 
 
 192 
 
TREND TOWARD INSTITUTIONALISM 
 
 As a rule, institutional features are a sine qua 
 non in the work of city missions and of mission 
 churches. It is found that the unchurched can 
 be drawn to hear the gospel by the use of social 
 attractions, and that without them it is often 
 impossible to make any serious inroad upon the 
 solidarity of alien neighborhoods. Therefore the 
 churches of the New York City Mission, for ex- 
 ample, are equipped for a considerable amount of 
 institutional work. DeWitt Memorial runs a 
 gymnasium which is said to have been a great 
 help in keeping the older boys in church and Sun- 
 day school. It furnishes baths, sewing classes, 
 athletic sports and many educational and social 
 clubs. Olivet, on the East side downtown, uses 
 a gymnasium, reading room, orchestra instruc- 
 tion classes, mothers' meetings, and many clubs 
 and outings, but "all of these organizations and 
 movements are subordinated to the four great 
 objects for which the church stands, namely, the 
 church services, the church prayer meetings, the 
 Sunday school, and the church visiting.'' Broome 
 Street Tabernacle offers similar privileges. 
 Charlton Street possesses a well-patronized 
 library, with an officer in charge who acts as 
 "father confessor" to the young men and boys 
 who are its patrons. The Richmond Avenue, 
 Buffalo, Church of Christ has a parish house, and 
 quite a good work is being accomplished. In 
 many smaller cities the statement is frankly 
 made, and is even printed in the literature of 
 
 193 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 churches, "Our institutional work is done by the 
 Young Men's Christian Association." The 
 Young Women's Christian Association occupies 
 a similar relation in many places, and in towns 
 where these organizations are not found, the 
 smallest cities, churches sometimes undertake a 
 general social and educational work as elaborate 
 as that attempted by stronger societies in the 
 great centers. 
 
 Institutionalism is not always successful. 
 Sometimes this may be due to the incompleteness 
 of the effort. A writer says : "There is no insti- 
 tutional church in the city whose work is on a 
 high-class basis and apparently permanent. A 
 number of churches are making a dab at it : sev- 
 eral have gymnasiums, and others are doing some 
 institutional work in part. A Congregational 
 church formerly tried it, but failed, and now they 
 have moved to a remote part of the city, and are 
 building a gymnasium in connection with their 
 new church, apparently with the idea of trying 
 it again." From a Western city comes a state- 
 ment naming a church "as the only church that 
 is trying to do institutional work." The com- 
 ment is added: "They are not succeeding very 
 well in their efforts along this line." Yet "they 
 have a splendid plant, and a reserve fund." Con- 
 cerning an institutional church in the East, a re- 
 ligious authority says: "I cannot vouch for the 
 quality of the work. It has been said that it is 
 not of the highest order." "I would not say that 
 
 194 
 
TREND TOWARD INSTITUTIONALISM 
 
 its work is strictly high class," says a Southern 
 reporter concerning a local church, "but it is 
 doing practically the only institutional work 
 done by any church in the city." "While I do not 
 presume to speak with full knowledge," similarly 
 remarked an observer in a central State concern- 
 ing a church in his city, "I think its work is lim- 
 ited in influence." On the other hand, one insti- 
 tutional church is evidently succeeding too well, 
 for an account of its work says : "They may not 
 tell you so in an inquiry sent to them, but their 
 institutional work has hurt the other churches in 
 the neighborhood," and from a perfectly inde- 
 pendent witness in a neighboring city comes the 
 statement: "The growth of this work has pre- 
 sented a problem to other churches that would 
 be interesting to investigate." It should be re- 
 marked that the person first quoted says : "They 
 are doing a splendid piece of work, however ; and 
 if it w^ere not done at the expense of the other 
 churches, it would be almost ideal." My own per- 
 sonal knowledge of the church in question, and 
 of its service to the community, leads me to feel 
 that, despite all cavil, it is accomplishing results 
 in a field from which other churches would secure 
 more if they would put in more, and without 
 which the moral life of the city would be seri- 
 ously weakened. Possibly some injustices in the 
 way of unfair competition have occurred of which 
 I am uninformed. 
 
 The rector of a well-known Eastern parish of 
 
 195 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 the Episcopal Church utters this warning: "My 
 impression is that real institutional work, as it 
 is known to-day, should not be undertaken unless 
 the church is properly situated, and is possessed 
 of abundance of means to carry it on properly. 
 There is danger of locking up a large amount of 
 capital in rooms, facilities, etc., that will really 
 do no good, after all." He names a rector of expe- 
 rience in this matter who is at the head of an 
 important parish in the Northwest, and who is 
 inclined to say, "Go slow." On the other hand, 
 the felt need in many cities is expressed in the 
 message from an important industrial center of 
 New England: "Neither have we any institu- 
 tional churches here, though there is a great field 
 for them." The sphere of opportunity for insti- 
 tutional work in most cities is undoubted, but 
 the financial and other problems are often seri- 
 ous. 
 
 The strength of the more social and service- 
 able forms of church activity is their humane- 
 ness and their democracy: their peril and occa- 
 sional complete failure result from the secularity, 
 if not vulgarity, which may accompany them and 
 defeat their higher purpose. It is true that spir- 
 ituality has been newly defined, and that it is 
 found to be not inconsistent with practical help- 
 fulness. Indeed, it is becoming ever clearer that 
 the true spirit is love, and love serves. But there 
 are amusements and practices which sometimes 
 creep into the work of Christian Associations and 
 
 196 
 
TREND TOWARD INSTITUTIONALISM 
 
 of churches which are too commonj tawdry, or 
 even sensual, to be of any real value. Moreover, 
 it is easily possible to represent incidental and 
 socially interesting undertakings as if they were 
 of far greater importance than is really the case, 
 and as constituting the sum of religious prac- 
 tice and life. The impact of the world and the 
 whir of its machinery tend to deafen and to 
 deaden the inner consciousness of the Church, 
 and the rush of external affairs leaves little time 
 or might for the cultivation of the proper char- 
 acters and qualities of Christian manhood and 
 womanhood. It ^i.11 profit little to add to these 
 nonspiritual influences by introducing them into 
 the very citadel of Christianity. The matter re- 
 quires both principle and careful guidance. The 
 socialized church must take extra pains to pre- 
 serve its Christian nature, and this fact is recog- 
 nized in the statements of its advocates when, 
 partly unawares, they confess their fears, and 
 when they express their spiritual convictions and 
 purposes in pleas for support and cooperation. 
 That the Church of God must in its future 
 labors take humanity into account was well 
 stated by Dr. F. B. Meyer, when, in Bradford, 
 England, in 1902, in an address on ^'Twentieth 
 Century Evangelism," he pleaded for ^"the insti- 
 tutional church, the wide outlook, more elastic 
 methods, greater eagerness to win outsiders, more 
 varied service on the part of Christian people, 
 that the minister of any place of worship should 
 
 197 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 become the recognized friend of the entire dis- 
 trict in which his chapel is placed.^' This is in 
 harmony with the divine commission to go into 
 all regions, and with the Christian program of 
 becoming the light of the world and the salt of 
 the earth. It is in touch with his practice who 
 was "made all things to all men'' that he might 
 save some. It is the gospel of James, that faith 
 be shown by works. Only to the end that faith 
 may be strengthened, that saving purpose and 
 effort may become more effective, that salt may 
 furnish savor and the light its divine radiance, 
 that the Church may be brought into loving 
 powerful relation to human conditions and needs, 
 should any form or method of Christian work 
 be preserved and prosecuted. 
 
 The People's Church finds strength in numbers 
 and is freed from "respect of persons." This 
 result is almost as certain as it is desirable, once 
 a congregation possesses sufficient numbers or 
 large enough endowments to loose it from the 
 necessity for great individual benefactions to 
 keep up current expenses. Then, too, the whole 
 atmosphere and habit of a social rather than 
 of a society church discourages snobbishness, 
 and brings the wealthier and more talented mem- 
 bers into actual and just fellowship with others. 
 It is due many such persons to note the fact that 
 when circumstances permit they are very unas- 
 suming, friendly, and useful. Democracy in 
 Christian relations confers benefits in both direc- 
 
 198 
 
TREND TOWARD INSTITUTIONALISM 
 
 tions, and leavens the whole lump. If institu- 
 tionalism makes for brotherhood, and for the 
 recognition of character and ability rather than 
 of accidental possessions and attainments, if it 
 resists the sway of caste, and promotes mutual 
 respect and cooperation in the work of religious 
 progress and of consequent social righteousness, 
 the Church can well afford to promote with con- 
 viction and with vigor its undertakings. 
 
 As a matter of fact, a stronger tendency than 
 ever before is moving the churches of America in 
 the direction of community service and of varied 
 social work both within and without their own 
 walls. The institutional church, as such, at least 
 professionally and with complete equipment, 
 organization and program, is not being intro- 
 duced ra]3idly. The cost is too great, and the 
 risks are many. Dr. Con well thinks that the 
 former foundations of this kind are not at the 
 present time doing very successful work. He 
 says that most of them have had this history, 
 that independent organizations for the carrying 
 on of all special phases of their work have re- 
 sulted. Nevertheless, the movement has not 
 ceased, and ambitious plans are known to exist 
 in the minds of many executives of the Church. 
 Time will add to the number of these establish- 
 ments, especially in downtown localities, and it 
 is to be hoped also in industrial and mission 
 neighborhoods. The present notable fact is that 
 city churches generally are studying their fields 
 
 199 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 with a new insight and with broad and philan- 
 thropic conceptions of duty, and as never before 
 they are engaging upon neglected works of tem- 
 porary service or of permanent usefulness 
 Many present-day churches which have no 
 thought that they are institutional are really 
 doing a more diversified social work than was 
 once accomplished by specifically institutional 
 churches. Moreover, the Church of Christ as a 
 whole is becoming a factor of ever-greater import- 
 ance in the work of inspiring, training, and guid- 
 ing community and social leaders and workers. 
 The important denominations have established 
 Departments of Social Service which are seek- 
 ing to produce a socialized Church, and to per- 
 meate the masses with Christian teaching and 
 spirit. Reform Bureaus of various kinds, and 
 the great Missionary Societies and Boards of 
 Education are taking their share in this move- 
 ment, which is one not merely of popularizing 
 Christianity but of Christianizing the institu- 
 tions, customs, and units of society. As the 
 Church proves her love for man, it becomes pos- 
 sible to convince men of the love of God. Chris- 
 tian work in the Church is representative and 
 instructive. It furnishes also motive and power. 
 The consciences of stewards are quickened; the 
 talents and the genius of servants are aroused 
 and directed to good ends; cooperation as a law 
 of living and of relationships is impressed upon 
 the mind as practicable and right, and fraternity 
 
 200 
 
TREND TOWARD INSTITUTIONALISM 
 
 as the goal of Christian striving and as the means 
 of human happiness is brought sensibly nearer. 
 If the trend toward institutionalism, which is 
 increasingly evident, means that the Church is 
 to have a greater enthusiasm for humanity and 
 one which is born of a deeper love for God ; if it 
 means that organized Christianity is to seek 
 every avenue into the hearts of men, reaching 
 them through the channels of all the senses as 
 well as by the cravings and aspirations of the 
 mind, that they may be turned to virtue and to 
 Christ; if it means that the Church is to cham- 
 pion social justice and to press the claims of the 
 weak, the maimed, and the oppressed, then this 
 modern idea and development is in harmony with 
 the revealed divine will, and moves toward the 
 fulfillment of the dreams and proclamations of 
 prophets and seers. 
 
 201 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 ADVERTISING 
 
 A CERTAIN sense of humiliation attends the 
 introduction of this much-discussed topic. One 
 instinctively feels that religion ought not to be 
 required to press its claims upon an indifferent 
 public, that the Church, being the representative 
 of the Lord of heaven and of earth, should stand 
 upon its dignity, and wait for people to come to 
 its services as they become inclined to recognize 
 the claims of divine worship, and their own deep- 
 est needs. But what if this cheapening of the 
 wares of the gospel is part of the accepted hum- 
 bling of himself which is inseparable from the 
 whole relationship of the Son of God with the 
 sons of men? Jesus did not content himself in 
 heaven, but came to earth, proclaimed himself 
 and his teachings, and taught his disciples to go 
 into all the world and spread abroad the glad 
 tidings of salvation through faith in him. It is 
 not too much to say also that during the centuries 
 it has been the aggressive disciples and churches 
 that have seemed to enjoy the blessing of God 
 and the confidence of men. It is not possible, 
 therefore, that serious criticism should be made 
 
 202 
 
ADVERTISING 
 
 upon advertising of itself : the question is con- 
 cerning methods and manners. 
 
 Reference should be made, however, to some 
 churches which make few formal newspaper or 
 circular announcements of their wares. One of 
 these churches, the Roman, is certainly success- 
 ful in obtaining poi3ular attendance at its serv- 
 ices, and it might be hastily assumed that this 
 organization draws by its dignity and reserve. 
 The logical conclusion might be that all Chris- 
 tian bodies wotild gain adherents, not as rapidly 
 perhai3S, but more permanently, and in the end 
 more ntimerously and dependably, by conserva- 
 tism with regard to public proclamations of their 
 goods. Just at this point it may be as well to 
 make the statement, which T\i.ll be amplified 
 later, that advertising does not always adver- 
 tise in the direction intended ; it may rei3el more 
 than it draws, or at least it may offend and turn 
 away elements gTeatly to be desired. It must 
 also be admitted that a proportion of churches, 
 and especially of organizations which aim to at- 
 tract selected types of persons, may measurably 
 and, according to their ideals, satisfactorily suc- 
 ceed by a policy which calls for stibtler methods 
 of publicity than are used in cases where the 
 object is more catholic. Romanism advertises 
 itself primarily to childhood, ^usely reflecting 
 that as the tT^i.g is bent the tree ^ull be inclined. 
 So great insistence has been placed by Protestant- 
 ism -upon the Sunday school as the children's 
 
 203 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 church, and so little effort, comparatively, has 
 been made to render church services attractive 
 and beneficial to the child mind, that many 
 thoughtful leaders are questioning how to cor- 
 rect customs which have almost emptied Protes- 
 tant church services of their children. Sunday 
 school experts recognize the peril of this state of 
 affairs, and they are instituting methods adapted 
 to effect closer union of church and Bible school. 
 The problem is not yet solved, and the statement 
 is sometimes made that of the two it is the duty 
 of the parents to take more pains to secure the 
 church attendance of their children than to keep 
 them in Sunday school. This matter must be 
 more seriously considered by parents, by Sunday 
 school officers, and by church officials. Upon 
 the pulpit undeniably rests a further great re- 
 sponsibility, namely, to so adapt the length, 
 variety, and character of its exercises as to make 
 them both interesting and valuable to child life. 
 It may be asked whether Romanism does not 
 depend upon spectacular and sensuous elements 
 in architecture, in the decoration of its temples 
 and in dress and ritual of its priests and choirs, 
 and upon pictures and processionals to take the 
 place in some part of other forms of advertising. 
 Appeals to eye and ear are more alluring to many 
 people than are sound doctrine, valid argument, 
 or solemn warning and exhortation. A very 
 intelligent Neapolitan with whom I conversed on 
 ecclesiastical matters, exclaimed: "Your Protes- 
 
 204 
 
ADVERTISING 
 
 tant churches and services are too plain, too bare. 
 In the Catholic churches are so many things 
 which mean something. I look at them with 
 interest. In the Protestant churches one goes 
 to sleep." It is easy to grasp such a point of view, 
 when it is so graphically and ardently presented 
 as it was by this sound and color-loving Italian, 
 who illustrated his thought by specific instances, 
 and emphasized them with Latin gestures. The 
 thought suggested itself, Have not the reformed 
 churches, in their reaction from Rome, departed 
 unnecessarily from the employment of symbol- 
 ism, beauty, harmony of form, movements, melo- 
 dies, and ornaments as aids to the spirit of 
 reverence and of devotion? 
 
 Without ignoring the dangers of barbaric emo- 
 tionalism and of sensuous pseudo-culture as fac- 
 tors of religious experience, it may be supposed 
 that the argument of history is fairly good cause 
 to believe that the love of the beautiful is as 
 instinctive and as worshipful as is the love of the 
 true and the good. The use of music, art, and 
 ritual in divine service should always, of course, 
 be subordinated to the sublime purpose of intelli- 
 gent communion with God, and of ethical teach- 
 ing, and strict adaptation should be made to the 
 condition and requirements of the people. Gos- 
 pel missions are usually distressingly plain 
 places, forbidding, in fact to almost all except 
 the very earnest or the despairing. To make 
 them centers for the exhibition of high art in 
 
 205 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 decoration and in music would be as unfortunate 
 an extreme in the contrary direction, probably 
 reducing the attendance very largely to the dully 
 wondering and to the pretending. The attrac- 
 tions of these halls may very properly, in the best 
 sense of the term, be vulgar. They should, of 
 course, have instructive and superior elements, 
 that their own proper influences may be elevat- 
 ing, but they must be apperceptive in their ap- 
 peal. The loved known and understood is the 
 door to unknown good. Nevertheless, it seems a 
 vital error to suppose that the poor and the 
 depraved are without appreciation of anything 
 save of ugliness. Many of them are, on the con- 
 trary, victims of inordinate desire for the sensu- 
 ous and the beautiful, which they strive to pos- 
 sess at any cost. Like cures like. May not a 
 proper use of the very elements whose corrupt 
 employment leads astray tend to aid the forces 
 which work for human redemption? 
 
 Variety is almost, if not quite, as important an 
 adjunct of effective religious services as are their 
 artistic features. Vaudeville artists, stump 
 demagogues, street hawkers, and all other classes 
 who make it their business to attract public at- 
 tention and interest and to hold it for certain 
 ends, are well aware of the good effect of frequent 
 changes of program. Those who wish to serve 
 the public may wisely become as proficient in the 
 knowledge and control of human nature as are 
 many of the persons who seek to exploit the 
 
 206 
 
ADVERTISING 
 
 public. Monotony kills life, in the house of God 
 as well as in the world outside. There is a golden 
 mean which, it seems proper to again point out, 
 is not to be determined by the criterion of the 
 most cultivated taste. Many preachers, and not 
 a few elect souls in the churches, have been edu- 
 cated out of sufficient correspondence with the 
 state of mind and with the unconscious or unex- 
 pressed natural desires of the people for whose 
 good they are working. "Blame your velvet 
 mouth for that. Too fine for market language," 
 was quaint old Daniel Burgess's reply to the 
 preacher who complained of his lack of success 
 in reaching the masses. Not only velvet mouths, 
 but velvet manners in the conduct and methods 
 of religious services and work have not infre- 
 quently driven away, rather than drawn to the 
 house of God, the common men and women upon 
 whom the Master had compassion because they 
 were scattered abroad unshepherded. Many of 
 the commonest, most human and natural people 
 are, however, of those who dwell in kings' houses, 
 and most of the inhabitants of the city or town 
 are children older grown. The Church is not set 
 to amuse the people, and this is certainly not the 
 function needed by an age pleasure-crazed, but is 
 it necessary to make acts of Christian worship 
 so stiff, stilted, or overrefined that they are unat- 
 tractive or repellent to healthful, vigorous, red- 
 blooded members of the community? The scat- 
 tered flocks of Jesus's love can be gathered only 
 
 207 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 by shepherds who are sons of men as well as 
 men of God. The church which is to become the 
 fold of Christ must be a home for the people as 
 well as the house of the Most High. 
 
 Not to pass by the remarkable church attend- 
 ance of Roman Catholics without just discrimina- 
 tion, it ought to be asked whether this undeniable 
 good is not in part at least obtained by somewhat 
 too liberal concessions and compromises. If 
 church-going is permitted to atone for desecra- 
 tion, at other hours, of the day of God, or if it is 
 secured at the expense of moral obligations; if 
 it is purchased, as is sometimes claimed, by indul- 
 gences of various kinds, or inspired by fear or by 
 appeal to superstition, then it is obtained at too 
 great a cost. More than likely the secret of 
 Roman fidelity to worship is to be found in the 
 home and parochial school training already re- 
 ferred to, and in the constant replenishment of 
 the memberships of Roman Catholic churches in 
 America by immigration from abroad, furnish- 
 ing a never-ending class of persons whose restric- 
 tions of language and of social opportunities 
 make them especially subservient to the wishes, 
 and thoroughly obedient to the commands, of the 
 church. It is an unfortunate truth, to be de- 
 plored by all true Christians, that so large a pro- 
 portion of Americanized and educated Romanists 
 take little interest in going to their own or to any 
 other place of worship. It may in fact, in spite 
 of the large audiences in their churches, be ques- 
 
 208 
 
ADVERTISING 
 
 tioned whether the proportion of church attend- 
 ance on the part of Roman Catholics is increasing 
 or falling. 
 
 The public announcements of Anglican 
 churches are noteworthy for conservatism, which 
 may or may not enter vitally into the matter of 
 the measure of success attained. The Protestant 
 Episcopal Church is primarily a city institution, 
 and it is growing most rapidly in certain areas of 
 great cities, where its methods have become more 
 aggressive than formerly. Both of the churches, 
 which seem to advertise relatively little in public 
 journals, have apparently acquired exceptional 
 access to the reading columns of dailies. The 
 Roman Catholic Church maintains press bureaus, 
 and educates young men for journalism, and 
 without the necessity of paid formal announce- 
 ments evidently controls in its own interests even 
 editorial utterances of many prominent papers. 
 It is undoubtedly more effective to be able to 
 command a respect which may go even to the 
 extent of the coloring or suppression of undesir- 
 able items, and which leads to frequent favorable 
 expositions of church views, and to most flatter- 
 ing compliments, than it is to publish an inch or 
 two of topics and names in advertising columns. 
 Closer acquaintance on the part of Christian 
 leaders with makers of news, and also, if neces- 
 sary, with those financially responsible for the 
 great papers, would seem to be very desirable, 
 provided the interest thus sought and attained is 
 
 209 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 acquired and used in a perfectly fair and sen- 
 sible manner. 
 
 In general, church advertising, of all classes of 
 promotion, should be ethical. It should proclaim 
 the Church and Christ, and not merely human 
 personalities and opinions. Not a few notices of 
 religious meetings are obnoxious because of the 
 pride and self-esteem displayed. The difference 
 between self-advertising and church advertising 
 may be merely in the turn of a phrase, but it is 
 hardly possible to be too particular to lift up 
 Christ, not men, in invitations and in proclama- 
 tions of religious enterprises. The teaching of 
 the Church should be. Come and worship, rather 
 than. Come and be instructed and entertained ; it 
 should be, Come and seek the truth of God, not, 
 Come and sit at the feet of learning and of elo- 
 quence. Dependence upon human reputations, 
 upon the discussion of specially interesting 
 themes, however unobjectionable in themselves, 
 as the law of congregation-building ultimately 
 prove a dismal failure. Truth is eternal, and 
 can never permanently lose its hold upon human 
 attention, but novelty in its presentation creates 
 its own demand, which requires constant renew- 
 ing, or appetite fails. Many a striking topic- 
 maker helps, more than he realizes, to increase 
 the class of religious gadabouts, whose church 
 attendance is too irregular in one place to be a 
 very valuable asset anywhere. It is the faithful, 
 always present or accounted for church member 
 
 210 
 
ADVERTISING 
 
 who is worth while, and advertising which does 
 not tend to the securing of this kind of church- 
 goers is rather unproductive, whatever be its 
 immediate effect. Similarly, the attraction of 
 audiences for a man, rather than congregations 
 for divine service, if successful, builds a human 
 and ephemeral institution, whose prosperity is 
 more largely of man than of God. It is true that 
 "the spirit of man is the candle of the Lord,'' but 
 it is the light, not the candle, which should be 
 made the object of the world's thought. Then if 
 one candle is removed another may be substi- 
 tuted without loss of confidence or defections 
 from the number of the children of light. A real 
 test of a man's ministry is the success of his 
 contemporaries and of his successors : if he draws 
 without diminishing the general average of 
 church attendance elsewhere, he tones up the 
 whole spirit of churchgoing ; and if his followers 
 in the same field, being likewise worthy men, 
 receive the support of his congregation, and can 
 labor effectively, it is the more probable that his 
 ministry has been of Christ and not of himself. 
 
 It is coming to be almost universally under- 
 stood that any announcement of wares which de- 
 preciates the goods of competitors is bad advertis- 
 ing and retroactive. Not often in these days are 
 church people guilty of publicly attacking or 
 criticizing the work of other religious institutions 
 and services than their own. At least this kind of 
 self-exploitation is mainly confined to religious 
 
 211 
 
THE CHUECH IN THE CITY 
 
 journalism, which in specific instances might be 
 improved in spirit. 
 
 A more common advertising error on the part 
 of churches as well as of business men, is exagger- 
 ation, and, sad to say, sometimes untruthfulness. 
 "Thou shalt not lie" has been adopted as a motto 
 of modern organizations of "ad. men." Churches 
 have had that rule before them from the begin- 
 ning, yet mass meetings which have little mass, 
 eloquent speakers who are very ordinary, fine 
 music which is scarcely respectable, are not un- 
 known offerings of church pages in the news- 
 papers, and of handbills and cards of invitation 
 sent out upon the street. This evil is a result of 
 the false emphasis upon human rather than upon 
 divine elements in Christian worship to which 
 reference has previously been made. Whatever 
 may be thought of the use of popular topics, sen- 
 sational or otherwise, it seems self-evident that 
 if announced they should represent the real 
 theme which is to be discussed by the preacher. 
 To draw strangers to one's church by misleading 
 and tricky notices is not only poor morals but 
 even poor policy, sure to react in reduced con- 
 fidence and attendance. To keep up a semblance 
 of success at this kind of business the boaster 
 must boast ever more boastfully, the trickster 
 must become trickier, the deceiver more decep- 
 tive. 
 
 Judgment of church notices and of advertising 
 plans should be as general and as charitable as 
 
 212 
 
ADVEKTISING 
 
 possible. The full bearings of a topic announced 
 or of a drawing scheme may have escaped the 
 perception of those responsible, or may be mis- 
 understood by the observer. Frequently a critic 
 seizes upon a thoughtless act or error and repre- 
 sents it as a common practice, either of the par- 
 ticular church or of the religious community as 
 a whole. It should be perfectly evident that 
 topics cannot always convey fully the moral 
 issues associated with them, and which it is the 
 preacher's intention to discuss. On the other 
 hand, no one will deny that some subjects are 
 purely secular and carnal, whatever the services 
 to which they invite may prove to be, while some 
 are freakish, or even puerile and ridiculous, and 
 they advertise in a way which can hardly be con- 
 sidered satisfactory to the church. 
 
 Methods of displaying the wares of Christianity 
 must vary with situations. In difficult business 
 and boardinghouse parishes, and in foreign back- 
 street and red-light neighborhoods of the largest 
 cities, plans of attracting attention may be 
 justified which would be altogether out of place 
 elsewhere. The gospel hook must be baited with 
 food which is palatable to the sort of fish which 
 are sought, but some bait draws the curiosity of 
 whole schools of fish without catching any, even 
 catfish, which, of course, as well as trout, ought 
 to be desired by Christian fishermen. If occa- 
 sionally a good fish is hooked when bad bait is 
 used, it is doubtless the hunger of the caught, 
 
 213 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 not the wisdom of the catcher, to which the result 
 is to be credited, or it is due to the labor and 
 influence of other fishermen, or to previous or 
 associated attractions rather than to the one most 
 conspicuous. In general, it is to be believed that 
 no good can come thereof, and that no sufficient 
 excuse exists for the use anywhere in Christian 
 work of advertising which is indecently sugges- 
 tive, inherently coarse, irreverent, or profane. 
 An invincible conviction is arising in many minds 
 that, taking the years together, the more discrim- 
 inative methods of presenting the claims of Chris- 
 tianity are those which are most effective. Even 
 in the slums a larger ultimate total of persons 
 can be induced to hear about heaven than about 
 hell, of which many see and hear quite enough 
 in spite of themselves. More people will be 
 attracted by stories of Jerry McAuley and of 
 Mary Magdalene than by sermons on the latest 
 pugilist and the most widely notorious adulter- 
 ess. Love will prove a more lasting drawing card 
 than denunciation of lust, of murder, or even of 
 social injustice, although there is a need and 
 place for the treatment of all these subjects, and 
 occasions arise when some of them may be prop- 
 erly announced. In sections of the cities where 
 conditions are better, and the people are of a 
 higher intellectual and moral average, and espe- 
 cially in the outstanding central churches, an 
 increasing tendency to appeal to higher motives 
 of churchgoing is noticeable. Occasionally a 
 
 214 
 
ADVERTISING 
 
 flower, a picture card or flag is promised to at- 
 tendants, which is a far better offering than a 
 smoker, or permission to sit in the house of God 
 in one's shirt-sleeves. The stereopticon is fre- 
 quently used, especially Sunday nights, but it 
 has decided limitations, and as some abuses are 
 connected with pulpit picture-shows he is fortu- 
 nate who can do without them as a device for 
 bringing people to Sabbath services. Hotel invi- 
 tations, in card or, better, in letter form, are 
 often found to be a good way to secure the atten- 
 tion of strangers, and also to make useful and 
 more interested and loyal the young men of the 
 church who live downtown. The preacher who 
 knows how wisely and timely to express himself 
 and his church members with reference to mat- 
 ters of public concern having ethical bearings 
 and relations thereby places his church before 
 the public in a way which cannot help having an 
 advertising value which is easily appreciable. 
 The attempt to do this which fails has, however, 
 a very disastrous effect, and, indeed, the effort 
 should never be made merely for the sake of pub- 
 licity. 
 
 The best forms of religious advertising are an 
 earnest, fearless Christian pulpit and ministry, 
 a social, active, and consistent church member- 
 ship, and a good church paper, which may be 
 made an exceedingly practical adjunct to an 
 important parish. This reference is not, of 
 course, to the denominational weekly, which even 
 
 215 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 when it is published in the same community, 
 though exceedingly valuable from another stand- 
 point, has small effect upon the extension work 
 of a local parish. It is the monthly paper or 
 magazine, published by the society for the double 
 purpose of unifying its members in their thoughts 
 and labors, and of exploiting its merits as a guide 
 and helper, which may be used most effectively 
 both within and without the ranks of its adher- 
 ents. The Sunday bulletin is often used in this 
 way, but its space is restricted, and the most 
 important matters cannot usually be adequately 
 treated in its columns. As a herald of Sunday 
 services, and as a reminder of immediate dates 
 the bulletin, sent through the mails or delivered 
 by hand from house to house, or, better still, by 
 members to their neighbors, has many possi- 
 bilities. But widely scattered congregations and 
 strong aggressive church organizations need a 
 larger and more comprehensive presentation of 
 their work. Many of the foremost city pastors, 
 including most of those who give their time and 
 effort primarily to their parishes, wish a suitable 
 paper at almost any cost. Some of these men 
 have said that of the two a monthly journal is to 
 be preferred before an added member of the pas- 
 toral force. The preparation of a creditable and 
 able organ of this kind requires skilled labor on 
 the part of some well-trained writer or editor. 
 Usually, if he wishes it to express to his people 
 and community the message of his ministry, and 
 
 216 
 
ADVERTISING 
 
 the broader aims as well as the details of church 
 work, the pastor finds it necessary to do this work 
 quite largely himself. Assistants, paid or un- 
 paid, may run the local columns and edit the 
 news of the various auxiliary organizations of 
 the parish, but the policy of the paper must be 
 determined, and its chief articles prepared, either 
 by the minister in person or under his careful 
 supervision. Even to a busy man the result is 
 worth the pains. The preacher who makes his 
 church his first and absorbing field of labor, and 
 who seeks for no success not based upon the 
 achievements of his own parish, will count extra 
 effort a delight which enables him to deepen and 
 to extend his teaching power, and by which he 
 may better command, coordinate and direct to 
 good ends the forces of his congregation. It is 
 well when a church paper may be independent of 
 secular advertising, in which is no evil per se^ 
 even in a religious journal. Congregations of 
 large resources cannot afford to be niggardly 
 with reference to expenses of printing, and it 
 avoids all questions of taste and of discrimina- 
 tion, and it reserves all space for church uses, to 
 publish the organ of the parish without selling 
 any part of its columns. 
 
 Every issue of a local church paper, save for 
 the rarest exceptions, should contain a compre- 
 hensive picture of the activities of the people 
 whom it represents, for this increases its value 
 as an advertiser. This is the reason why so many 
 
 217 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 of these publications carry as standing matter 
 long lists of adjunct societies and of their 
 officers. If these were omitted, the reading 
 columns in a given issue might present a very 
 defective and unbalanced account of the church 
 organization and undertakings. If the copy of 
 the paper which happened to fall under the eye 
 contained little except material relating to social 
 life, the spiritually-minded reader might receive 
 a false impression as to the chief activities and 
 emphasis of the church. If the number made no 
 reference to social engagements, young people 
 might think that this particular church would 
 prove uninteresting to them. Similar misleading 
 impressions would be apt to result from issues 
 almost wholly devoted to women's work, to the 
 Sunday school, to foreign missions, or to pastoral 
 exhortations. The ideal should be a well-rounded 
 exhibit of Christian life and labor in each copy 
 of the paper, with certainly from time to time 
 special emphasis upon departments having im- 
 minent undertakings or interests. These varied 
 contents, taken together with such a complete 
 outline of the whole work of the parish as the 
 formal list already referred to affords, give to all 
 readers the idea of a full-orbed society. If any 
 lack exists, the fact is apparent, but the broader 
 the appeal the more people are likely to become 
 interested. The teaching function of the paper 
 is utilized by the capable pastor to extend the 
 length of his pulpit into the homes of his people, 
 
 218 
 
ADVERTISING 
 
 and even to the minds of those who may read 
 what they do not come to church to hear. 
 
 Given an interesting, virile preacher of a living 
 quickening system of faith and of knowledge, 
 with Jesus Christ ever in the foreground, a 
 preacher who is worth hearing again and again, 
 and, better still, who is worth helping in the 
 tasks of his consecrated life, and the best addi- 
 tional attraction to bring people churchward and 
 Christward is a membership who try to aid the 
 man of God in his work, and in his Lord's work ; 
 who seek by kindliness, sociability, hospitality, 
 generosity. Christian purpose, noble character, 
 consistent conduct and devoted labors, to bring 
 their children, friends, neighbors, and fellow 
 citizens into the house of the Lord, and to keep 
 them there. An electric sign, inviting passers-by 
 to attend its services, may perchance be upon the 
 exterior of the temple which such a church mem- 
 bership inhabits, but the light within the sanc- 
 tuary and sent by it throughout the homes and 
 institutions of the city, consisting not merely of 
 truth but of Christian grace, is far brighter and 
 more attractive than are all other forms of church 
 publicity. Happy is the pastor whose efforts to 
 extend the kingdom of Christ are thus not merely 
 supplemented but transformed into the higher 
 tasks of religious leadership. 
 
 219 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 DIVISION AND CONSOLIDATION 
 
 It is a strange law of organizations that they 
 commonly divide more easily and more harmo- 
 niously than they unite, and that progress is 
 rarely attained by consolidation. Close study of 
 various societies reveals distinctive character per- 
 haps as strongly marked as is the case with indi- 
 viduals. Where the union of these bodies is at- 
 tempted it is found, however, that the personal 
 ties which frequently exist between units of the 
 race, and which bring them companionably and 
 permanently together, are lacking, and that con- 
 flicting attitudes of mind and habits of life re- 
 main to cause discomfort, if not serious trouble. 
 The homogeneous nation is easier to govern than 
 is one composed of different peoples, even though 
 they have been associated together, not by con- 
 quest, but by reason of mutual necessities. Vol- 
 untary associations are even less readily welded 
 into pleasurable and lasting fellowships than are 
 communities which are bound by law and gov- 
 erned by force. The Church believes in freedom 
 of will, and its external authority is the consent 
 of the governed. Church memberships must be 
 
 220 
 
DIVISION AND CONSOLIDATION 
 
 reasonably satisfied with their relations and with 
 the conduct of religious affairs, or they are 
 broken and scattered. 
 
 Too many small, weak churches indicate an 
 unwise denominational policy. It required many 
 years of struggle, attended by several calamities, 
 to undo the evil which a hasty planter of new 
 church organizations brought upon a thriving 
 city where a normal growth would have been ex- 
 ceedingly satisfactory. This predatory official 
 robbed the greater churches of their strength, 
 and in his web of weak nuclei he antedated the 
 extensions of a quarter century. Time saved 
 part of the thin red line from extinction, and 
 later conservatism redeemed the situation, but 
 many unnecessary labors and sacrifices were re- 
 quired, and not a few grievous losses and disap- 
 pointments preceded the day of better wisdom. 
 
 Good counsel is required for determining the 
 time of setting up a new church household, and 
 sound business judgment is requisite to its most 
 valuable location and equipment. Nevertheless, 
 it is often a difficult matter for denominational 
 committees or for general officers to control these 
 affairs. Large liberty must be permitted those 
 w^ho are inspired to undertake enterprises in 
 which their hearts are enlisted and for which 
 they are willing to toil and to sacrifice. Even 
 if they require outside aid, it is rarely best to 
 restrict the movements of such persons except as 
 they may be persuaded to a course which is more 
 
 221 
 
THE CHURCH IK THE CITY 
 
 suitable to their necessities. Must it not be sup- 
 posed that some part of that right to religious 
 liberty for which other generations strove still 
 inheres in the Christian community, and that its 
 exercise must be permitted, even with reference 
 to practical matters concerning which there is 
 room for difference of opinion? Quite as likely 
 is it that narrow and personal motives on the 
 part of older organizations and of interested 
 leaders will tend to discourage important sub- 
 divisions and new foundations of the Church as 
 that they will be improperly begun and unjustly 
 concluded. 
 
 The time for the Church to enter communities 
 and neighborhoods is when these sections are 
 new, when land is cheap, and when adequate 
 sites may be obtained at reasonable cost; when 
 social and business life are plastic, and when the 
 Church may be able to mold that life into con- 
 formity to its ideals. Fortunate is that body of 
 Christians which has among its general officers 
 a good land-looker and prospector, or which pos- 
 sesses a local Board of Strategy sustained with 
 the needed funds and guided by business judg- 
 ment sufficient to quickly note and to firmly 
 grasp opportunities of growth which present 
 themselves. Advancement is certain wherever 
 these agencies of progress exist, and are moved 
 by a zealous spirit. 
 
 Early large purchases of real estate tend, as 
 has been shown, to assure permanence and im- 
 
 222 
 
DIVISION AND CONSOLIDATIOK 
 
 portance to the work of the society which has 
 thus equipped and enriched itself. If the great 
 city churches do not wish to divide their mem- 
 bership too quickly, should they not, through 
 general organizations, or separately, fix upon, 
 acquire, and hold for the future such tracts of 
 land as seem sure to be needed in Christian work, 
 and sufficiently broad for the largest probable 
 developments? As it has already been intimated, 
 one great branch of Christendom seems to need 
 no counsel of this kind. By reason of its strongly 
 centralized organization and government, and 
 by use of a highly respectable worldly wisdom, 
 the Koman Church anticipates the needs of its 
 people and plants its advancing hosts in the most 
 economical and generous estates. Why the vari- 
 ous Protestant church extension boards should 
 so generally pursue a hand-to-mouth policy, min- 
 istering largely to belated and expensive neces- 
 sities, it is difficult to say. 
 
 It must be reiterated that growth is by division, 
 and not by consolidation. New lives are be- 
 gotten by older lives, but unions in advanced age 
 seldom have issue, and they are not prolific. Late 
 marriages are not always even harmonious, and 
 two churches put together rarely coalesce hap- 
 pily, at least for many years. The writer is 
 familiar with a prominent body of unusually 
 Christian people whose division into two parties 
 distinct in type, in thought, in memories, and in 
 affiliations was noticeable after a half century of 
 
 223 
 
THE CHUECH IN THE CITY 
 
 union. But more often the two societies really 
 do not come together at all, even outwardly, at 
 least for any long period of time. One or the 
 other of them is sacrificed ; its members do not go 
 over to the new site; they scatter and are dissi- 
 pated. Some find a home, it is true, in other 
 congenial churches, but many become careless in 
 religious habits, and finally they drift away 
 entirely. 
 
 It would be as idle as foolish to contend that 
 all city churches may be, or should be, preserved. 
 The heaviest endowments could not save them to 
 a life of usefulness, for their field is gone or their 
 spirit is lost. God has removed the candlestick : 
 the Shekinah has departed. This has not been 
 the case, however, with most of the city churches 
 which have been going down, one after the other, 
 during the past half century. Some of them have 
 been wisely relocated, more have deserted men 
 for money, and not a few have been consolidated 
 to death. As certain religious leaders are 
 affected by the microbe of division, others have 
 succumbed to the microbe of consolidation. They 
 have a passion for big, strong church organiza- 
 tions, but they cannot work and wait to secure 
 the results desired by natural ingestion and ac- 
 cretion; they seek to attain their ends by car- 
 pentry. Two or even three bodies of people, often 
 of the most dissimilar ways and feelings, are per- 
 suaded or compelled to join properties together, 
 only to discover in too many instances that there 
 
 224 
 
DIVISION AXD COXSOLIDATION 
 
 is no union of hearts. Where struggling churches 
 of like and congenial people are brought together 
 in a mutually convenient center, combining their 
 resources for more adequate service to the com- 
 munity, the fusion may result in homogeneity of 
 spirit and of purpose, but; inequalities before 
 union create dissatisfaction thereafter. Some- 
 times a poorer church is tempted into such an 
 experiment by the wealth and social standing of 
 another society, which is not unwilling to add a 
 little to its own strength, and which is confidently 
 assured that it can dominate the new combina- 
 tion. Sometimes the movement is the work of a 
 few leading spirits of the weaker body who crave 
 for themselves and for their families association 
 with more refined and more representative 
 people. Not infrequently ambitious leaders and 
 committees of the denomination, with the best of 
 motives or with others which are more worldly, 
 use various arts of suggestion and of diplomacy 
 to bring about an alliance Avhich will seem to 
 glorify the sect by giving it an outstanding and 
 evidently powerful society. How disastrous this 
 policy has been in too many instances a study of 
 the religious history of many centers of popula- 
 tion would incontestably prove. 
 
 Two failures put together will make a success 
 is sometimes the church-consolidation argument. 
 Two zeroes will make a hundred just as quickly, 
 two nights a day, or two corpses a living soul. 
 All life is from the living. What is needed in order 
 
 225 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 to the production of great churches? It is "not 
 by armies nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith 
 the Lord of hosts." Let the people of God look 
 to him, and not to prosperous alliances ; let them 
 gain strength by the recruiting office, rather than 
 by doubling up the commands; let them keep 
 to their fortresses, and not retreat to a few cita- 
 dels in depleted numbers as these are related to 
 the growth of city populations. Concerning the 
 work of downtown churches the efficient superin- 
 tendent of a Brooklyn and Long Island church so- 
 ciety says : "While this is a day of big business, 
 the day that believes in consolidation and com- 
 bination — the larger the better — it is our expe- 
 rience that ten small churches calling out the 
 devoted, enthusiastic interest of their congrega- 
 tions will accomplish much more for Christ and 
 the community than one central church made up 
 of those ten churches combined.'' 
 
 To cite a score of instances of church consoli- 
 dations w^hich did not consolidate, of combina- 
 tions which did not combine, of additions which 
 subtracted, would be no difficult task for anyone 
 of a fair acquaintance with Christian work in 
 cities. One of the great reasons for this was well 
 expressed in this saying of a trenchant mono- 
 graph : "A Christian church is not a commercial 
 organization, but a living organism — Christ the 
 Head, his Spirit its life. The body is not bulk 
 nor stone, nor dollars and cents, but sensitive 
 souls made of sentiment, will, conscience, motive 
 
 226 
 
DIVISION AND CONSOLIDATION 
 
 — all too sensitive to be juggled with. An out- 
 side will, separating or consolidating, is tramp- 
 ling on sacred things, and will raise an outcry.'' 
 If an outcry is not raised, all the worse ! If, as 
 in rare instances, owing to initial blunders or to 
 later exchanges of populations, they have been 
 known to do, two churches flow together in mutual 
 sympathy and with a common conviction and 
 inspiration with reference to future service, such 
 a union must be blessed of God and approved 
 by discerning men. But when altars reared by the 
 generosity of departed saints, and whose sacred 
 fires were long kept burning by the devotion of 
 their founders and successors, are unnecessarily 
 destroyed, when vast masses of poor or of alien 
 populations are deserted for cultured and well- 
 churched neighborhoods, what is this but the re- 
 appearance of the golden calf, what but the wor- 
 ship of Mammon, Minerva, Baal? And what has 
 been the outcome of this business? "It promised 
 all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of 
 them, without the slow, hard process of sacrifice, 
 prayer, and work to win success. Hundreds of 
 our city churches have yielded to this temptation, 
 taken short cuts to power and influence, killed 
 off some weaker church to get its property value, 
 sold it, appropriated the cash, built a fine struc- 
 ture to minister to denominational vanity, but 
 moved away from the people, and therefore away 
 from God, and got in exchange nothing but dis- 
 appointment, and the divine curse of sterility." 
 
 227 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 This protestant against worldly unwisdom and 
 unwise worldliness exclaims : "Is there one pros- 
 perous uptown church that was made by selling 
 the property of the poor and using the money 
 to make a finer building for the wealthy and cul- 
 tured? Is there one where two churches were 
 thrown together where the united congregation 
 was larger than one of the two before?" To this 
 query no one should reply hastily. How long has 
 the experiment been in trial? Give it the years, 
 and then, if the answer is favorable, will the case 
 be typical, or will it represent the rarest of rare 
 exceptions, establishing the law? 
 
 The power of a church and its value to the com- 
 munity cannot be measured in polls. But if 
 numbers are the test, why not get them? They 
 are all about our city churches, and wealth is 
 also all around them. Men and sufficient means 
 for Christian undertakings are to be had, but not 
 to f aintness of heart. When a church runs down, 
 what does it need? To be run out? It should 
 be run up again by the love and labors of indom- 
 itable incorruptible faith. 
 
 In the spirit there is much, do not doubt, 
 Which the world can never touch: fight it out. 
 
 Does the topic before us have a wider bearing? 
 With reference to the greater divisions of Chris- 
 tendom, it is a common saying, and a very general 
 conviction, that the policy of separation into 
 sects has been carried to an unwarrantable ex- 
 
 228 
 
DIVISION AND CONSOLIDATION 
 
 treme. Many families of Christians are founded 
 upon no sensible distinction of doctrine or of 
 practice from those of others from whose com- 
 munion they have severed. Nevertheless, as hu- 
 man nature is constituted, it is widely doubted 
 whether religious liberty can be preserved and 
 organic Christian unity be made an accomplished 
 fact. Very few denominational bodies unite, at 
 least until they reach the cooling and failing 
 stage. Wherever such amalgamations occur in a 
 free country they are counterbalanced, so far as 
 the number of separated bodies is concerned, by 
 the springing up of new societies. Modern edu- 
 cation does not seem to prevent this. Indeed, 
 thought is divisive. Intelligent men differ, and 
 form parties. Life tends to organize itself into 
 families and groups. The running stream ripples 
 and breaks; it is the stagnant pool which is 
 united and calm. The great unifying force is 
 love, but love does not exist in a void. It is 
 associated with intellects whose real needs may 
 conceivably be varied. Perhaps out of the welter 
 of life arise aspirations and demands which will 
 always be marked from each other by lines of per- 
 sonal judgment and discrimination. It may be 
 found that when all superficial and transient dif- 
 ferences have been disposed of, basic characters 
 of the spiritual nature and mind will remain 
 which will require separate consideration and 
 government. It may even appear that in the 
 total more good may be done through many or- 
 
 229 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 ganizations than could be realized by few distinct 
 and self-directing bodies. However this may be, 
 does it not seem that the practical thing to do is 
 to arise from the mechanical conception of an 
 external Christian union to the larger and more 
 vital idea of an inward and spiritual unity 
 through the experience of the sense and appro- 
 priate reactions of Christian brotherhood? This 
 is also the oneness which is more likely of attain- 
 ment, and which provides the element which only 
 could give satisfaction in human relations how- 
 ever organized. Without question, Jesus meant 
 no less than this when in his profound prayer of 
 mediation he asked the Father that those who 
 believed in him might be one, even as he is one 
 with the Father in a oneness incorporeal, spirit- 
 ual. 
 
 When the Church is one in heart, names, forms, 
 and methods will not divide it nor impede its 
 activities. Hostilities, jealousies, and recrim- 
 inations are fast disappearing from the minds of 
 those who address their prayers to the one God. 
 With the complete removal of unkindly feelings, 
 desire to compel others to conform to the reli- 
 gious rites and to accept the symbols, plans, and 
 habits of their neighbors will end in mutual tol- 
 erance, and federations will cease trying to push 
 each other out, and will devote themselves to the 
 great task for which they were originally insti- 
 tuted, namely, that of cooperation in social bet- 
 terment, and in the general propagation of Chris- 
 
 230 
 
DIVISION AND CONSOLIDATION 
 
 tianity. Much wisdom lies in the remark of 
 Bishop Doane with respect to the divisions of 
 Christendom : ^'God can use them, God can fuse 
 them, when he will. Nothing is gained by ignor- 
 ing them, no good comes out of feigned and forced 
 alliances.'' In general, is it not to be noted that 
 the best feeling exists, and that social good is be- 
 ing more quickly attained, where the churches, 
 instead of striving about rights of location and 
 of fields, are putting their shoulders together 
 against common foes : unrighteousness, injustice, 
 ignorance, unhealthfulness, and the godlessness 
 out of which these evils spring. 
 
 What a field for Christian cooperation the city 
 presents! Educational, philanthropic, and re- 
 formative undertakings which represent, not the 
 distinctive spiritual, but the resultant practical 
 activity of civic Christianity, will doubtless in 
 the end be found to be more economically and 
 effectively promoted by mutually established 
 institutions, supported in common, than by a 
 multiplicity of small plants, expensively oper- 
 ated, and draining the resources of individual 
 churches. Representatives of many societies 
 which are in agreement have especial weight with 
 municipal governments and with political lead- 
 ers. Combined efforts through the pulpits and 
 pews of various religious communions have vast 
 power to create public opinion, to arouse convic- 
 tion, and to hasten action in any matter of impor- 
 tance. To the accomplishment of such ends as 
 
 23X 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 can be sought without raising questions of eccle- 
 siastical variation, all Christian bodies may 
 wisely give their fullest approval and aid, as, 
 indeed, in most instances they are ready to do 
 whenever competent leadership is exercised. 
 The narrow spirit which seeks unity of plan and 
 of action only in order to promote partisan and 
 selfish interests is the chief hindrance to that 
 holy alliance which is needed for the redemption 
 of the city. Some day the men of Christ, without 
 surrendering their own family convictions and 
 habits, or despising those of others, will make 
 themselves one body for the cleaning up of the 
 town, for the amelioration of distress, for the 
 encouragement of social virtue, for the promotion 
 of all movements which minister to the common 
 good. When that time comes he who sobbed over 
 the ancient city will rejoice, for great good will 
 be achieved by the union of many hands and 
 hearts in the one task of Christian love, and at 
 length all the world shall see what John beheld 
 in his inspired vision: ^'The holy city, coming 
 down out of heaven from God.'' 
 
 232 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 THE CHILDREN OF THE TOWN 
 
 For child-life certainly it appears that "God 
 made the country, and man made the town," the 
 latter work haying been too narrowly and meanly 
 conceived for child cleanliness, for child activity, 
 and for child healthf ulness of body and of soul. 
 
 A great clamor of criticism was raised when 
 Tennyson wrote "Locksley Hall Sixty Years 
 After." The last days of the poet must have been 
 sadly, as they were unjustly, embittered by sense- 
 less attacks made upon productions which at all 
 events were sincere. The pessimism of the second 
 Locksley Hall was justified by social conditions 
 which came under the eye of Lord Tennyson, and 
 the honor of the man, as well as the genius of 
 the writer, were fittingly represented in his pro- 
 test against modern Slaughter of Innocents. 
 
 Is it well that while we range with science, glorying 
 
 the time, 
 City children soak and blacken soul and sense in city 
 
 slime? 
 
 Since the hour when these honest words were 
 penned the study of conditions in which children 
 live has enlisted many thoughtful minds, and 
 
 233 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 some progress has been made in bettering the 
 environment which surrounds youth. The prob- 
 lem differs in accordance with the size and type 
 of communities. 
 
 More thought should be given to the needs of 
 children in country districts and especially to the 
 moral influences by which they are affected. 
 Contact with depraved help on the farm, and 
 with worthless characters in the village, together 
 with the lack of elevating interests, often occa- 
 sions degeneracy. Not a few noted desperadoes 
 and bad characters have come from regions far 
 removed from urban temptations and incitements 
 to evil. 
 
 The city child is unnaturally old and preco- 
 cious, which is one of the best reasons for the pur- 
 chase and equipment of playgrounds on the part 
 of municipal governments and philanthropic so- 
 cieties. The more use they have of breathing and 
 exercising places, the happier, healthier and more 
 virtuous will become those who are to be future 
 citizens. Youth should be able to be joyous with- 
 out resorting to questionable haunts and amuse- 
 ments. Fresh air and clean out-of-door sports 
 are in all respects preferable to the heat and to 
 the associations of commercialized picture shows, 
 dance halls, white cities, and back alleys. The 
 Church should not merely approve wholesome 
 pleasures, but should encourage such diversions 
 as may fill the leisure hours of boys and girls with 
 opportunities of innocent, delightful recreation. 
 
 234 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE TOWN 
 
 It is a fortunate downtown church which owns 
 sufficient land to make a play spot, and Christian 
 is the congregation which would rather see merry 
 youngsters on the ground adjoining God's house 
 than to behold there green grass and an iron 
 fence. If the church which has no such field 
 adjacent to its buildings can afford to do so, it 
 very wisely secures a tract somewhere else, to be 
 used for the benefit of young people, or it utilizes 
 assistants to organize and to aid the sports to be 
 indulged upon public playgrounds and city parks. 
 The care which keeps the easily tempted out of 
 harm's way, and which busies them with enjoy- 
 able activities, is far superior in judgment and in 
 usefulness to attention deferred until redemption 
 and restoration to virtue are necessary. This 
 work, if it be done in a Christian spirit and with 
 a Christian purpose, is, in the best sense of the 
 term, religious. 
 
 The Church has no business to make athletics 
 or amusements an end in themselves, but neither 
 ought it to allow any considerable part of the 
 time and practices of the young to be without its 
 interest and guidance. It is a serious error to 
 turn over to the world the playtime of young 
 people, and lamentable and even fatal results 
 often follow this blunder and folly. Not a little 
 truth is contained in the plea made in the Church 
 and the Young Man : ^Tlay is religion's basic 
 ally, and it is high time she was marshaling all 
 her forces. Religion can never wholly take the 
 
 235 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 place of play, and should not try to win world 
 battles without its aid. Beware of a religion 
 that substitutes itself for everything ; that makes 
 monks. Seek a religion that appropriates every- 
 thing. Play is a diversion of the life-force from 
 sordid getting and possessing gratifications to 
 >something healthful and humanizing. Games 
 are the expression of that diversion. As such 
 they are handmaids to religion. A boy is a boiler 
 of playful energies. Suppress those energies and 
 there is danger of an explosion. Juvenile de- 
 pravity is lack of outlet. Supply that outlet, 
 and the result is moral salvation. Such is the 
 function of games, and the Church should utilize 
 this practical frieans of grace. The young man's 
 favorite game is the halter by which he may be 
 led, and the church that lays hold of it not only 
 leads the young man, but incidentally seizes her 
 own life preserver." 
 
 A similar argument, with special reference to 
 the exploitation (through its perfectly natural 
 love of amusement) of the other sex, is that of 
 Jane Addams in The Spirit of Youth and the 
 City Streets: "Since the soldiers of Cromwell 
 shut up the people's playhouses and destroyed 
 their pleasure fields the Anglo-Saxon city has 
 turned over the provision for public recreation 
 to the most evil-minded and the most unscrupu- 
 lous members of the community. We see thou- 
 sands of girls walking up and down the streets 
 on a pleasant evening with no chance to catch 
 
 236 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE TOWN 
 
 sight of pleasure even through a lighted window 
 save as these lurid places provide it. Apparently, 
 the modern city sees in these girls only two possi- 
 bilities, both of them commercial : first, a chance 
 to utilize by day their new and tender labor 
 power in its factories and shops, and then an- 
 other chance in the evening to extract from them 
 their petty wages by pandering to their love of 
 pleasure. It is as if our cities had not yet de- 
 veloped a sense of responsibility in regard to the 
 life of the streets, and continually forgot that 
 recreation is stronger than vice, and that recrea- 
 tion alone can stifle lust for vice." It is encour- 
 aging to note the increase of gymnasiums, of 
 playgrounds, and of recreation halls which vari- 
 ous churches are opening to city waifs in con- 
 gested neighborhoods and in foreign settlements. 
 Pitifully inadequate as yet to the needs of the 
 larger towns, these institutions greatly aid the 
 effort, which some city governments are making, 
 to direct to the best uses childhood's spare time 
 and surplus energy. That city playgrounds are 
 valued is indicated by the estimate that during 
 a single year more than a quarter of a million 
 people used a single such fresh-air privilege 
 offered by Trinity Church, New York city. 
 Within the last decade, or a little more, that 
 municipality, which long had few central city 
 breathing and recreation spots, has by public 
 and private enterprise made more than four hun- 
 dred playgrounds for children w^here not one pre- 
 
 237 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 viously existed. The influence of Christianity, 
 together with the consecration of church grounds 
 and means, is behind this wholesome movement. 
 
 The problem of the city is not only the prob- 
 lem of its boys and girls, but especially of its 
 bad boys and girls. By many good people the 
 latter class are taken for granted. Most unfor- 
 tunately, they are regarded as a necessary class 
 of incorrigibles, whose existence is not to be pre- 
 vented, and whose redemption is hardly possible 
 by any process. Interesting indeed was the pro- 
 test of Jacob Riis, who said that he was con- 
 sidered one of the "bad boys" of his day: "My 
 position on the bad boy," he says, "is very simple, 
 very emphatic, very direct. I believe with the 
 Eastern schoolmaster, who said that there were 
 different degrees of good boys, but bad boys, he 
 didn't know of any. There are, dear friends, not 
 any who are deliberately bad, but plenty whom 
 we make bad. Even then the boy would rather be 
 good than bad, as one of them said, if he were 
 given a chance. That chance is the environment 
 which it is our business to provide." Judge 
 Lindsey has also said of the so-called "bad boy" : 
 "There ain't no such thing! I accept the creed 
 of the Hoosier poet who expressed it for us 
 through the lips of a little child: 
 
 *I believe all chillun's dood, if da's only understood. 
 Even the bad 'uns, 'pears to me, is just as dood as they 
 can be.' " 
 
 Children are what adults and conditions which 
 
 238 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE TOWN 
 
 adults create compel them to be. Concerning a 
 youngster who was a pretty "bad actor" a college 
 professor remarked "That boy would be all right 
 if he had a ^sporty dad.' '' Virtuous and wise 
 parents who also possess a sense of play and of 
 humor, have few bad children. Officers of the 
 law are to a considerable extent responsible for 
 the conduct of the youngsters among whom they 
 move. "I have known a whole neighborhood to 
 be changed by changing the policeman. There 
 was a bad gang there, and the whole thing was 
 changed. We didn't change the gang. W^e 
 changed the policeman. That was all. So much 
 for the power of personality, if you please — the 
 soul-to-soul, and heart-to-heart, dealing with hu- 
 man beings, rather than with the mere things 
 they do." 
 
 Judge Lindsey, the author of the above state- 
 ment, has taught parents, society, and the 
 Church many valuable lessons in the work of 
 regeneration by such instances as the following : 
 "One of the early cases that came to my court 
 was a little gang of bedraggled, dripping boys 
 that a policeman had dragged out of the only 
 swimming pool in town, down by the railroad 
 track. Some prudish people couldn't stand it to 
 see little boys in that unfortunate state. As 1 
 gazed out of the courthouse windows I saw two 
 big fountains gurgling up their artificial showers. 
 Sporting down below were little boys of brass 
 and iron, clad in a coat of paint. It was shock- 
 
 239 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 ing, but it didn't shock any prudish people. I 
 found on investigation it cost us several thousand 
 dollars a summer to have those fountains, and I 
 said to myself, ^If this toAvn can pay several 
 thousand dollars a summer for artificial foun- 
 tains for boys of brass and iron, it can pay some- 
 thing for boys of flesh and blood.' So the judg- 
 ment of the court, in that case, was not that they 
 be sent to jail. I said, ^Kids, you better go swim- 
 ming in the fountain, since there is no SAvimming 
 pool.' You know sometimes a community needs 
 a jar and a jolt, to be waked up. Mr. Riis gave 
 it to them in New York, and he taught some of 
 us to do it in some other cities. The police did 
 not think I meant it. When they brought the 
 bedraggled, dripping little kids into court again, 
 expecting we would send them to jail, I smiled 
 into the faces of the kids and the policemen, and 
 the verdict of the court was, ^Kids, back to the 
 fountain.' The smile on the face of the kids was 
 an interesting contrast to the frown that cov- 
 ered the visage of the officer who did not under- 
 stand. But in time — when the community woke 
 up to the fact that it was not the child that ought 
 to be before the bar of justice, but the community 
 — we had seven public baths in the park, and one 
 great big, splendid public bath in the town, and 
 we didn't need to jail any more boys for that sort 
 of thing." 
 
 What about "movies," especially in the lower 
 quarters of the town? The sooner the Church 
 
 240 
 
THE CHILDKEN OF THE TOWN 
 
 furnishes free, or practically free, picture shows 
 in such districts, the more speedily vulgar 
 theaters will be elevated in tone or forced out of 
 business by a cleaner and not less interesting 
 and attractive competition. Film-makers will 
 provide the best subjects just as fast as churches, 
 Christian Associations, and schools provide a 
 market for them. The eye is an inlet to the soul, 
 as well as to the mind. Shall the memories of 
 children become galleries of lewd images, and of 
 coarse caricatures, or shall they be stored with 
 visions of purity, beauty, knowledge, and joy? 
 The picture show has come to stay, and it is a 
 great teacher and force for good and evil. The 
 layman who provides and endows a clean and up- 
 to-date "movie,^' in church management or out of 
 it, is an educator and a philanthropist. Churches 
 which have opened such agencies of mental and 
 moral instruction are cheating Satan of his prey 
 and are making conquests for wisdom and virtue. 
 Summer open-air and tent meetings for the 
 conversion and for the Christian culture of chil- 
 dren have proved to be even more effective than 
 have been those held at other seasons of the year. 
 A description of such meetings conducted in New 
 York city says : ^'Boys and girls to the number of 
 ninety-five thousand six hundred and eighty nine 
 were assembled in the various meetings held for 
 them. Some pathetic little waifs of humanity 
 drift into the tents, and incidentally into the 
 arms and hearts of loving friends ; boys who know 
 
 241 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 no other name than such epithets as ^Turkey/ 
 ^Ked/ or The Cockroach' ; girls who are running 
 wild, some of them leaders of ^gangs' as mis- 
 chievous and dreadful in their ways as those 
 formed by their brothers. Older boys, youths in 
 their teens, have been helped to cleaner ways of 
 living, to respect and regard for the laws of city 
 and state, as well as for the higher law of God. 
 Services for children and young people are al- 
 ways conducted in English.'' This represents a 
 ^'Summer School" worth talking about, doubtless 
 productive of as much good as comes out of the 
 costly enterprises of some of the greatest institu- 
 tions of learning. It has often been a matter of 
 wonder why more out-of-door work is not done 
 by village and country churches. Possibly there 
 is no novelty about the open to attract those who 
 dwell in rural neighborhoods. The empty lots 
 of cities could be utilized to great advantage as 
 centers of moral instruction and of Christian 
 influence, and to big-town dwellers these institu- 
 tions may be made exceedingly popular and ef- 
 fective. 
 
 It is often charged that Protestantism has 
 failed in the religious training of children, and 
 to a measurable extent this is true. It is, how- 
 ever, probable that an investigation would reveal 
 the fact that Romanism, while perhaps more suc- 
 cessful than are the Protestant churches in de- 
 veloping ^'Churchianity," is not more successful, 
 to put the case mildly, in producing ethical intel- 
 
 242 
 
THE CHILDKEN OF THE TOWN 
 
 ligence and fidelity. And as between loyalty to 
 the Church, to services, sacraments, and priests, 
 and loyalty to God and the right, no Christian 
 mind can hesitate for a moment as to the choice 
 which should be made. 
 
 But why not the catechism? The instructions 
 of the Church as an interpreter of the Scriptures 
 furnish a spiritual foundation for morality. 
 Doctrina^ the teaching of relationships and of 
 principles and life, with its gifts and experi- 
 ences, are to each other as cause and effect. 
 This was the mind of Washington, who pro- 
 foundly observed, "Let us with caution indulge 
 the supposition that morality can be maintained 
 without religion. Reason and experience both 
 forbid us to expect that natural morality can pre- 
 vail in exclusion of religious principle." But chil- 
 dren are too busy with their schools and with 
 their pleasures to give any time or attention to 
 such matters. No! rather pastors and church 
 members are too fully preoccupied with their 
 duties and their pleasures to teach Christianity 
 to boys and girls. The Sunday school alone can- 
 not do this adequately : its time is too short, its 
 aim must be too immediate and direct, its teach- 
 ing force is unequal to the task of simplifying 
 and illustrating ecclesiastical and theological 
 truths. This will be the case even when the 
 modern notion of paid Bible class teachers comes 
 into general vogue, if it does so arrive, and even 
 if the fear of a perfunctory professionalism is 
 
 243 
 
THE CHUECH IN THE CITY 
 
 not realized. Many facts of Christian revelation 
 or of experience which children should be taught 
 require the preparation and skill of a divinely 
 called and a thoroughly equipped tutor. If I 
 were again a pastor, I would do more of this 
 work myself, at any sacrifice of other matters, 
 and you who read these words as a minister of 
 Christ will do well to form your own resolution 
 as to so sacred a task. 
 
 Pastors, assistant pastors, deaconesses, and 
 other persons whose entire lives are given to 
 Christian labors should prove to be the best 
 teachers of religion to children. The improving 
 organization of city church service will develop 
 experts. Time can be found. The children will 
 come, if proper effort is made, both in securing 
 attendance and in keeping the work fresh and 
 interesting. To my own satisfaction, and I trust 
 to the good of a fair proportion of those who came 
 for the purpose, it was demonstrated in several 
 pastorates that classes for instruction in the rules 
 and doctrines of the Church and of the Word 
 could be formed, and maintained for reasonable 
 periods of time. I believe it would pay to put 
 labor and money into this work, combining les- 
 son-giving with various social features and 
 recreations. In the spring and summer, outings 
 and excursions may be made a lure to the accept- 
 ance of catechetical teaching and an aid to its 
 effectiveness. 
 
 The Church must be in sympathy with all 
 
 244 
 
THE CHILDKEN OF THE TOWN 
 
 movements for the culture and betterment of chil- 
 dren. It must befriend and assist all teachers. 
 It cannot properly fail to lend its faith and its 
 aid to all unselfish and genuine social workers 
 and organizations. It must be the source of in- 
 spiration which produces, recognizes, and sup- 
 ports unique characters with special missions 
 and ministries. Childhood needs a multitude of 
 citizens like, for instance, those extremes of train- 
 ing and of personality, Charles Loring Brace and 
 Jacob Haberle ; one university trained, the other 
 self-taught ; one affiliated with the higher classes 
 of society, the other a teamster, but both philan- 
 thropists and gentlemen and lovers of children. 
 The career of the author of Gesta Christi is well 
 known. He founded the Children's Aid Society 
 of New York City, incorporated in 1854, "for the 
 education of the poor, by gathering children w^ho 
 attended no school into its industrial schools, car- 
 ing and providing for children in lodging houses, 
 and procuring for them homes in rural districts 
 and in the West." The record of this society for 
 vast numbers of orphans or destitute children 
 placed in good homes, for the care of those defec- 
 tive or sick, for reading room, lodging house, 
 kindergarten, industrial school, and similar work, 
 is one of the modern miracles of humanitarian 
 labor and achievement. Were there no other 
 minute of service rendered by this organization, 
 the following statement alone would be sufficient 
 to disclose a marvelous activity and usefulness : 
 
 245 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 "The Children's Aid Society, in the last sixty 
 years, has sent seventy thousand and more boys 
 out of the slums of the cities to the Western 
 plains, where they have a chance to grow up." 
 Other items of work done are impressive. 
 
 The life of Charles Loring Brace was almost 
 wholly spent among the poor children and youth 
 of New York, but the influence of his labors 
 extended to all cities of America and of Europe. 
 The advice of this highly cultured specialist in 
 human betterment was widely sought by those 
 enlisted in philanthropic service, and his writ- 
 ings are a valuable contribution to the literature 
 of social reforms. The basis of much sociological 
 literature is closet reading and thinking, and the 
 result is a mass of academic notions and theories. 
 It is the glory of workers like Spurgeon and 
 Mtiller, Brace and Bernardo, Riis and Lindsey, 
 that their written works grew out of their deeds 
 and experiences. 
 
 At the very extreme from Charles Loring Brace 
 was Jacob Haberle, of Cincinnati, organizer of a 
 Teamsters' Union, who had to teach himself to 
 read, who never earned over eleven dollars a 
 week, but whose brief career left an ineffaceable 
 impression upon a town where many great per- 
 sonages have accomplished exceedingly little 
 toward the improvement of human life. This 
 "common Dutchman," as he called himself, found 
 that teamsters, when compelled to water their 
 horses at troughs owned by saloon keepers, were 
 
 246 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE TOWN 
 
 made uncomfortable if they did not patronize the 
 bar. He canvassed the preachers, teachers, and 
 leading business men of the city, and aroused 
 such an interest in the matter of public drinking 
 places for animals that on a day appointed the 
 Cincinnati Common Council was literally bom- 
 barded with letters and petitions on this subject. 
 Taken by surprise, and off its guard, this body 
 immediately made a very handsome appropria- 
 tion to inaugurate a much-needed system of 
 relief for man and beast. 
 
 Haberle was a sweatshop and white-plague 
 fighter of the first order. It was by his efforts 
 that the city's hack-drivers, grave-diggers, and 
 preachers of the gospel were relieved from the 
 burden of Sunday funerals. But Haberle's great- 
 est service was done for children. This big- 
 hearted workingman, who said he had no spirit 
 in him to ask any woman to share his pittance of 
 wages, and to try to make them keep up a home, 
 and who by reason of this fine sense of honor 
 never had a child of his own, opened his heart to 
 all the children of his own town and of the land. 
 Finding that many families of his acquaintance 
 were oppressed by the high cost of textbooks, he 
 reasoned and agitated until free books were 
 furnished all the boys and girls of the Cincinnati 
 public schools. And this man who lacked early 
 education, and who was self-instructed in his 
 mature age, edited, largely wrote, and published 
 one of the earliest anti-child-labor organs. The 
 
 247 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 career of Haberle is one of the romances of city 
 philanthropy. 
 
 Fortunately, every great community has some 
 "Soldiers of the Common Good," civic patriots, 
 friends of man, protectors and rescuers of chil- 
 dren. The Church should properly estimate and 
 prize these valuable members of society, over- 
 looking their faults, if they have them, and if 
 they cannot help to correct them, and cooperat- 
 ing with their wise and progressive undertak- 
 ings. And out of religious centers should come 
 doctrines and personalities highly charged with 
 the spirit of Him who drew to himself the atten- 
 tion and the love of children just as naturally, 
 as certainly, and as helpfully as the sun turns to 
 its heart the faces of the flowers and transforms 
 them into the image of its own loveliness. 
 
 One of the most interesting religious phe- 
 nomena of recent times is the marvelous develop- 
 ment of the Sunday or Bible school, as it is com- 
 ing to be called. If little is said here upon this 
 subject, it is because its literature is already so 
 voluminous and effective. The most distinctive 
 features of Bible school progress are the organ- 
 ized adult classes, and the modern kindergartens. 
 Present emphasis is laid upon the need of better 
 instruction, and improved helps and teacher- 
 training classes are in evidence to meet this 
 want. It hardly seems probable that paid peda- 
 gogues will soon become general, since their em- 
 ployment is costly, and the danger of profession- 
 
 248 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE TOWN 
 
 alism so apparent and dreaded. The belief seems 
 justified that voluntary service contains in itself 
 a valuable lesson, and that often a more represen- 
 tative group of characters are to be found in 
 the teaching force of a good Sunday school under 
 the system now widespread than could be induced 
 to serve for money. Personality is instruction, 
 and example is more effective than theory, but it 
 may appear later that the younger classes may 
 be wisely intrusted to experienced tutors. 
 
 It appears certain that despite criticism, the 
 Sunday school is the most effective and reliable 
 of all the evangelistic agencies of the Church. 
 If methods of Bible teaching may be improved, 
 so much the better, but the main business of the 
 school is achieved if Christ is attractively pre- 
 sented and goodness successfully taught. Better 
 the most old-fashioned Bible teachers and teach- 
 ing than scientific formalism and religious shal- 
 lowness. The mind goes back to a teacher who 
 broke many grammatical rules, and who knew 
 nothing much concerning the literary and his- 
 torical problems of the divine writings, but who 
 had "a daily beauty in his life," and a personal 
 acquaintance with the Son of God which were 
 beyond "criticism." If the gold can be preserved, 
 let the molds be improved, but do not add to the 
 secularization of the public schools an artificial- 
 izing of the institution which alone brings the 
 Holy Scriptures within the reach of childhood. 
 
 The new interest in Bible study which modern 
 
 249 
 
THE CHUECH IN THE CITY 
 
 research has created gives to the Sunday school 
 a great opportunity. Because of a better under- 
 standing of Old Testament characters and ideals 
 it has become much easier to make plain the truth 
 to bright-minded boys and girls. A deep sense of 
 gratitude should be given to scholars who have 
 freed us from the necessity of believing in the 
 Jews when their spirits and acts were anti- Chris- 
 tian. But the sense of obligation should, after 
 all, be chiefly exercised because of a deeper 
 emphasis upon the moral and spiritual elements 
 in biblical narratives and maxims, and because 
 of a quickened consciousness of the relativity of 
 the Scriptures to present thought and experience. 
 The results of these achievements are subtly 
 imparted to children. 
 
 It must be protested that not enough expend- 
 iture of means as well as of thought is made upon 
 Sunday school equipment and undertakings. In 
 some instances the law of nature is reversed, and 
 the children of the Church are made to contribute 
 to the support of the work of their elders. A 
 growing disposition to put reasonable appro- 
 priations into the instruction and discipline of 
 boys and girls is in harmony with the best inter- 
 ests of Christianity and of society alike. Modern 
 Bible school buildings are making teaching more 
 convenient and effective and learning more de- 
 lightful. City churches which do not have 
 new and well-arranged structures of this kind, 
 as a rule, are making earnest efforts to secure 
 
 250 
 
THE CHILDEEN OF THE TOWN 
 
 them. The prosperity of the twentieth-century 
 Sunday school is a source of gratification to 
 Christian workers, and it is one of the most pro- 
 phetic signs of coming days of virtue and peace. 
 Can it be doubted that the stupendous prohibi- 
 tion movement which is taking place before our 
 eyes has been greatly aided by the long-continued 
 teaching of children in the Sunday school, to 
 which in later years have been added the discus- 
 sions of adult classes of men and women com- 
 prising in the aggregate hundreds of thousands 
 of people influential in the communities in which 
 they dwell? 
 
 The Church is taking an ever-Avidening part in 
 ministry to child life, not merely within its own 
 walls but everywhere. Attention is being given, 
 not alone to religious instruction, but to physical 
 and social conditions of all types. This is ex- 
 ceeding well. If any truth is contained in the 
 statement that "the nineteenth century redis- 
 covered the child," it may be added that it re- 
 mains for the twentieth century to devise ade- 
 quate means for meeting the practical needs of 
 city children, particularly of the poorer classes. 
 It was a great step forward when Christianity 
 decided to care for dependent children. "The 
 God that answereth by orphanages," nobly ex- 
 claimed Spurgeon, "let him be God." The God 
 that answereth by homes, hospitals, and schools 
 is in truth a mighty and a loving God I And he 
 is now answering by institutions that care not 
 
 251 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 only for the parentless, but for dwellers in tene- 
 ments and closes, so that health, culture, and 
 gladness are being placed within the reach of 
 thousands of little lives which would otherwise 
 be condemned to dirt, disease, vice, and gloom. 
 In every such work divine grace is charmingly 
 exhibited, and those who cooperate with God in 
 his task as Father of the neediest may be sure of 
 the value of their undertakings and of the ap- 
 proval of Him with whom they toil. When the 
 Children's Settlement of Morgan Memorial Meth- 
 odist Episcopal Church, Boston, was dedicated, 
 a hymn written for the occasion voiced supplica- 
 tions which heaven must surely grant in all in- 
 stances of vital ministry to the needs of boys and 
 girls. 
 
 Consecrate us. Holy Spirit, 
 
 While we dedicate to God 
 Halls for play and work and worship 
 
 To the children of Christ's love 
 Blessed Jesus! Blessed Jesus! 
 
 Every child by thee is loved. 
 
 In these halls for recreation 
 
 Which we dedicate to thee, 
 Manifest thy great salvation; 
 
 Make thy children's bodies free. 
 Blessed Jesus! Blessed Jesus! 
 
 Prom all sickness keep them free. 
 
 In these halls for art and music 
 
 May heav'ns harmonies be found: 
 In the creche and kindergarten 
 May Christ's love in all abound. 
 Blessed Jesus! BlessM Jesus! 
 May thy love in all abound. 
 252 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE TOWN 
 
 In these halls where we shall worship 
 
 May thy Spirit ever stay. 
 May we know that Christ is with us — 
 
 Will go with us all the way. 
 Blessed Jesus! Blessed Jesus! 
 
 Do thou lead us every day. 
 
 253 
 
CHAPTEE XIII 
 
 CITY MISSIONS AND SUBUKBANITES 
 
 Okganized missionary effort in cities may be 
 divided into secular and religious, the first of 
 these divisions including various clubs, societies, 
 and settlements, which are really a product of 
 Christian thinking and philanthropy, but which 
 primarily aim at education and improved en- 
 vironment rather than at regeneration. In the 
 list of religious missions are Christian Associa- 
 tions, interdenominational rescue societies, 
 church missions, and mission churches. The 
 Church mission and the mission church claim 
 most of our attention in this chapter, but no 
 helpful institution should be without the inter- 
 est of Christian intelligence and sympathy. Fol- 
 lowers of Christ should "sow beside all waters," 
 or if they cannot do this individually, they should 
 rejoice in the good work of others. Moreover, a 
 little leavening of the organizations which seek 
 social betterment, through the appreciation and 
 cooperation of church leaders and people, is a 
 fine antidote for materialism. Whenever an 
 opening occurs the Church should accept repre- 
 sentation on the executive boards of societies 
 
 254 
 
CITY MISSIONS AND SUBUKBANITES 
 
 which have a worthy civic purpose. Pastoral 
 care is wisely devoted to the matter of suitable 
 appointments to these places, and to delegated 
 attendance at important functions of the parent 
 bodies. While it is a truism that the Church 
 itself is the minister's first care if his work is to 
 have intensity and quality, yet it is a very Chris- 
 tian society w^hich receives with pleasure such re- 
 ports as the following : "True to the traditions of 
 the First Church, its pastor continues to be one of 
 these to whom those engaged in the larger move- 
 ments for the betterment of the world can look 
 for help and encouragement as needed. These 
 increased responsibilities upon our pastor place 
 increased responsibility upon the membership of 
 this church, which, as in the past, so now, will 
 be met." It may be that community movements 
 and the w^ork of secular societies are not larger, 
 but smaller, in scope and in probable results, 
 than are many avowedly religious undertakings, 
 but they should not therefore be neglected. 
 Every effort to attain good and every form of 
 service from the newsboys' club to Socialism, and 
 from the juvenile court to the university settle- 
 ment, should be made to feel the thoughtful inter- 
 est and the fellowship in labor of the Christian 
 Church. It should be remembered that even the 
 poorest institution of all that seek to minister 
 to humanity is a "broken light" which reflects the 
 influence of the Son of God, and which, both for 
 that reason, and because to some it is a mirror of 
 
 255 
 
THE CHUECH IN THE CITY 
 
 truth and of righteousness, should share in the 
 consideration of organized and broad-minded 
 Christianity. 
 
 Christian associations and rescue missions are 
 what the churches make them, and even the Sal- 
 vation Army draws most of its force of w^orkers 
 from the Church. In a very peculiar sense these 
 organizations are the Church serving the needs of 
 special classes, and this fact is fully recognized 
 by many of their leaders. They welcome the at- 
 tention of pastors and of church people, for they 
 feel that they need their aid and counsel. If it 
 were not for the life of the parent stem thrown 
 into these branches of Christian endeavor they 
 would deteriorate and perish. They ought to be 
 kept up to the mark of their greatest possible 
 usefulness. The Church loses more by their 
 weakness than it costs to maintain and to develop 
 them into a high state of efficiency. 
 
 No adjunct or associate agency of Christian 
 influence can take the place of the Church itself 
 in its divinely appointed offices of evangelism, 
 teaching, and healing. The Church has no right 
 to delegate to others any form of work which it 
 can competently perform in propria persona. 
 There will always be room for independent or 
 loosely affiliated societies seeking to do reform- 
 atory and religious service, but the Church itself 
 must be vitally related to every type of redemp- 
 tive effort, and must have its own missions of 
 every useful nature. 
 
 256 
 
CITY MISSIONS AND SUBURBANITES 
 
 Church missions are of four classes: mission 
 halls, weak churches for poor and alien peoples 
 supported by stronger societies or by groups of 
 societies through a missionary board, or City 
 Society, denominational or interdenominational, 
 new organizations formed and aided in a sim- 
 ilar way until on their feet, and mission churches, 
 which are also institutional in their methods and 
 more or less independent in their support. It is 
 possible within reasonable space merely to men- 
 tion a few typical instances of such institutions. 
 The Hadley Rescue Mission, of New York, is 
 under Methodist Episcopal management. The 
 class of persons to which this famous mother- 
 house of "twice-born'' men ministers is habitues 
 of ^'the underworld." Wesley House is a settle- 
 ment connected with Madison Avenue Church, 
 New York city. Four workers are in residence 
 and many volunteers are used. Daily kinder- 
 garten, branch of penny bank, hours for games, 
 gymnasium classes, sewing and millinery classes, 
 domestic science, debating clubs, mothers' talks, 
 a "First Aid" room, and gospel meetings are 
 among the principal undertakings. To the same 
 denomination belongs Hull Street Settlement, 
 Boston, a medical mission with daily clinics and 
 dispensary service, whose physicians and sur- 
 geons reside in a district largely Italian, and 
 treat between fifteen and twenty thousand pa- 
 tients annually. Clubs and classes are also main- 
 tained. The New York, Brooklyn, and Chicago 
 
 257 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 Home Missionary and Church Extension Soci- 
 eties of the Methodist Episcopal Church are large 
 organizations doing almost every type of Church 
 work. The Chicago society holds property and 
 endowments worth in the neighborhood of half a 
 million dollars. In Sioux City, Iowa, Methodism 
 has the Wall Street and Helping Hand Missions, 
 which together practically cover the kind of serv- 
 ice w^hich they offer for the whole city. Helping 
 Hand has a Free Kest Koom, Free Employment 
 Bureau, Free Dispensary, Eescue Home for Girls, 
 Lodging for Men, Reading Eoom, and nightly 
 Gospel Meetings. Wall Street is an industrial 
 and social center. It has clubs for men, young 
 men, boys, women, and girls. It possesses a 
 library, day nursery, savings bank, medical dis- 
 pensary, children's clinics, legal aid, employ- 
 ment bureau, and shower baths. It conducts 
 classes in manual training, cooking, sewing, gym- 
 nastics, music, dressmaking, kindergarten work, 
 and other subjects. It has regular church serv- 
 ices of all kinds, including cottage and open-air 
 meetings, and its summer work includes Bible 
 school, camps, playground, outings, and neigh- 
 borhood survey. Fort Street Mission and Till- 
 man Settlement, Detroit, are engaged in neigh- 
 borhood and foreign rather than rescue mission 
 undertakings, the former being sustained by the 
 Methodist City Union and the latter by the 
 Woman's Home Missionary Society. The Pro- 
 testant Episcopal and Methodist Episcopal 
 
 258 
 
CITY MISSIONS AND SUBURBANITES 
 
 Churches have city missions in Philadelphia. 
 Second Presbyterian Church, Newark, supports 
 a fine mission with institutional features. First 
 Congregational Church, Columbus, sustains a 
 settlement in another part of the town, and Inde- 
 pendent Presbyterian Church, Savannah, sup- 
 ports two missions, as do also the Episcopal 
 Cathedral of San Francisco and the Lafayette 
 Avenue Presbyterian, Brooklyn. "The Baptist 
 denomination has no doubt developed the most 
 efficient city mission work in Cleveland.'' First 
 Presbyterian, Saint Joseph, supports a mission 
 church, as do the First Presbyterian churches of 
 Topeka and Wheeling. 
 
 Most of the leading denominations have prom- 
 ising work among peoples of foreign birth. The 
 Congregational Church reports a dozen or more 
 missions for Orientals. The Boston City Mis- 
 sionary Society is a Congregational body which 
 finds that in recent years it has gathered into 
 churches, Sunday schools, and under missionary 
 instruction representatives of twenty-seven dif- 
 ferent nationalities, the greater number being 
 Swedish, German, Danish, Irish, Norwegian, 
 Italian, Armenian, French, Finn, Russian, and 
 Greek. Twenty-five missionaries are employed. 
 During the past year these agents visited about 
 seventeen thousand different families, and dis- 
 tributed over thirty thousand pieces of Chris- 
 tian literature. The Methodist Episcopal Church 
 has upward of forty missions and mission 
 
 259 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 churches among the Italians. As stated else- 
 where, Bethany Collegiate Presbyterian Churchy 
 Philadelphia, supports a Sunday Morning Free 
 Breakfast and Refuge Home, where outcasts 
 are lioused in the winter and fed every Sunday 
 morning. ■ The Presbyterian Church renders a 
 broad service for aliens, among its charges 
 being Italians, Chinese, Frenchmen, and Slavs. 
 The Baptist Hungarian Mission of Cincinnati 
 is largely supported by Episcopalians. In Mil- 
 waukee are two Polish missions — one Baptist 
 and one Methodist — and in the same city the 
 Evangelical Association has an excellent Italian 
 mission. In Rochester the Baptists, Presbyte- 
 rians, and Methodists each have an Italian work. 
 Akron Baptists have a Roumanian mission, and 
 the Reformed Church works among Hungarians. 
 Sacramento possesses a Japanese Presbyterian 
 mission and Congregational, Methodist and Bap- 
 tist missions for Chinese. Wisely the amount of 
 this service is increasing. Experience proves that 
 the effort to reach alien races in America with 
 Christian teaching is both expensive and difficult, 
 but it must be done at any cost. The year books 
 of various denominations reveal the present con- 
 dition of the work, and its numerical results. 
 The remarkable thing about these reports is the 
 evidence given of the comparatively trivial ex- 
 penditures made upon an undertaking of the 
 greatest consequence to both Church and nation. 
 Both for the sake of the United States of Amer- 
 
 260 
 
CITY MISSIONS AND SUBURBANITES 
 
 ica, and because of the far-reaching effects upon 
 the problem of the world's redemption, this form 
 of city missionary endeavor must be taken more 
 seriously. 
 
 With reference to new organizations, called 
 missions until they become self-supporting or 
 until they arrive at the point of efficiency and 
 dignity, little needs to be said except that these 
 experiments are not always well-timed or well- 
 planned, and that commonly they are more costly 
 by far than would be the case if they were begun 
 with more initial outlay. Cheap sites are chosen, 
 mean in location and niggardly in size, and inade- 
 quate plants are erected. It has seemed neces- 
 sary to make a number of references to the wiser 
 practice of Romanism. A shrewd Protestant 
 layman says, "The Catholic Church, by use of the 
 combined credits of its properties, enabling it to 
 borrow at the most advantageous rate, is able to 
 anticipate the needs of neighborhoods which it 
 wishes to enter, and to build institutions to which 
 the membership must grow, and for which, 
 indeed, they must in the end pay, but they do not 
 have to put up three or four successive churches 
 in order to get one that is permanently useful." 
 
 The Ninth Street Baptist Church, of Cincin- 
 nati, with its various "Stations,'' presents a 
 unique and interesting grouping of city work, 
 which is also decidedly suggestive. In 1888, to 
 the Rev. Johnston Myers, then pastor, a layman 
 of another denomination declared the need of 
 
 261 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 carrying the gospel to portions of the city not 
 properly covered by church work. This idea took 
 such firm possession of the mind of the hearer 
 that he assembled his official supporters to a 
 council about a table on which was spread a map 
 of Cincinnati. The study was convincing, and 
 within a few days a mission on Gilbert Avenue, 
 known as Station A, was opened to the public, 
 and proved to be an immediate success. Since 
 that time five other permanent stations have been 
 established, the properties of most of them being 
 owned by Ninth Street Church, which operates 
 them all as branches of one work. Very recently 
 First Baptist Church was merged into the Ninth 
 Street, which maintains services at First Church 
 as at its other stations. This work is not en- 
 dowed, and the main church has only of late 
 acquired suitable property for diversified parish 
 activity. The pastor has several assistants asso- 
 ciated with him in the management of the mis- 
 sions, and a missionary pastor and wife are also 
 employed. Industrial schools, benevolent soci- 
 eties and ministry to homes afflicted by disease 
 and other troubles are pronounced activities of 
 the Ninth Street Chapels. 
 
 Considering the needs of American cities, it is 
 simply astonishing that so few full-fiedged mis- 
 sion churches are to be found. Indeed, less than 
 one third of the large cities of America report the 
 churches as conducting local mission work of any 
 nature, except through auxiliary societies. Of 
 
 262 
 
CITY MISSIONS AND SUBUEBANITES 
 
 churches of the mission type perhaps none is 
 more distinctive and well adapted to modern con- 
 ditions than is Morgan Memorial Methodist Epis- 
 copal Church of Boston, which is described as a 
 religious social-service institution of four main 
 departments. First of all is a church for English- 
 speaking worship, with branches for different na- 
 tionalities. The Morgan Memorial is frankly 
 a church, which fact is no necessary bar to the 
 best ministry to the people. An authority on 
 Methodist Episcopal city work lays emphasis 
 upon this method of approach : ^'We maintain 
 churches, while they [certain other denomina- 
 tions] organize and maintain missions." The 
 claim is made that the result is greater perma- 
 nence in downtown districts. The Morgan Memo- 
 rial Children's Settlement is provided with 
 recreational, philanthropic, and educational priv- 
 ileges which are exceedingly popular. The Settle- 
 ment House is located in Boston, and the mission 
 possesses also a fresh-air plantation elsewhere. 
 Boys, girls, and babies are cared for in wooden 
 camps of good quality. A model rescue work is 
 conducted, and every effort is made to reach vic- 
 tims of evil habits, and those classes which are 
 dangerous to their associates. The industrial de- 
 partment has a large, well-equipped building in 
 the city, and at South Athol, Massachusetts, are 
 located its rug factory, blacksmith shop, bakery, 
 men's camp and training school, and women's 
 camp. Every effort is made to relieve the desti- 
 
 263 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 tute by methods which preserve self-respect, and 
 attention is given both to temporary relief and 
 to permanent industrial and social betterment. 
 It is apparent that Morgan Memorial represents 
 a much-needed form of church service in the 
 great cities, while it is not, of course, to be classed 
 with ordinary institutional churches whose field 
 is among the so-called better classes of society. 
 This church really represents a highly evolved 
 and improved type of rescue mission, one which 
 combines valuable ecclesiastical and spiritual 
 elements with the most practical and democratic 
 application of Christian love to human needs. 
 Another valuable mission church of a different 
 variety is the Mariners' Baptist of Boston. 
 
 Of undenominational societies working in the 
 field of city missions the oldest and largest is the 
 New York City Mission and Tract Society, which 
 is rapidly approaching the end of a hundred years 
 of history. This organization began as a volun- 
 teer corps of visitors seeking churchless peoples 
 and inviting them to the house of God. The 
 distribution of religious literature was one of 
 the methods of evangelism extensively employed. 
 The society was established in 1827, was incor- 
 porated in 1866, and has used paid agents since 
 1833. A force of some seventy persons is now in 
 the field, principally composed of women, as it 
 has been found that they have superior means of 
 access to the homes of tenement dwellers, and 
 that they can render services which men cannot 
 
 264 
 
CITY MISSIONS AND SUBURBANITES 
 
 accomplish. The City Mission has acquired prop- 
 erties worth over |600,000, and including several 
 churches, the first of which was founded in 1867 
 in a congested part of town. In these churches 
 preaching and teaching are carried on in English, 
 German, Italian, Yiddish, and Spanish. The 
 churches of the society have, as is noted else- 
 where, a strongly developed institution alism. 
 German, Italian, and English churches govern 
 themselves in all spiritual concerns, but the Mis- 
 sion retains a veto power, which it has not been 
 necessary to exercise. Of course it also holds the 
 property titles. The only prescribed basis of 
 church organization is the Apostles' Creed. 
 Sacraments are administered by regularly or- 
 dained clergymen. Women missionaries live in 
 a Christian workers' home. About |50,000 annu- 
 ally is expended, perhaps half of this from endow- 
 ments and investments. 
 
 The Brooklyn City Mission and Tract Society 
 receives much of its sustenance from Congrega- 
 tional and Episcopalian sources, although its 
 president is a Methodist, and a few years since 
 a layman of the latter Church left the organiza- 
 tion a legacy of |T5,000. A considerable hold has 
 been gained upon Italians. A unique feature is 
 a home for men in the depths as the result of 
 crime or sin. Much literature is distributed. 
 
 It is not within the intended scope and purpose 
 of this volume to develop at any length the ac- 
 count of Christian work in foreign cities. It may 
 
 265 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 be said, however, in connection with the discus- 
 sion of the present topic that in England the Wes- 
 leyan Methodist Church has combined the 
 strength of all its societies to build up in the 
 cities commanding popular organizations, whose 
 central pulpits are manned by the ablest pulpit 
 and spiritual leaders. Supported by the denom- 
 ination as a whole, and furnished such forces of 
 workers as the community demands, these preach- 
 ers are able to secure a hearing and a following 
 which is remarkable. It is said that on Sun- 
 day evenings they address two, three, or even 
 five thousand persons. The effect of this on the 
 regular Sunday night work of the chapels is a 
 matter worth considering, but conditions in Eng- 
 lish cities doubtless justify the movement, or it 
 would not retain the hearty support of the church 
 public. Those who are interested in city mis- 
 sions abroad should also study the work insti- 
 tuted in Glasgow in 1826 by David Nasmith, 
 called ^'the originator of city missions,'' and who 
 as secretary of various Christian societies com- 
 bined them in the employment of missionaries 
 independent of individual congregations. Lord 
 Shaftesbury countenanced a like movement in 
 London in 1835. From 1848 Germany was en- 
 rolled in the list of countries with a city mission- 
 ary propaganda. "The Hamburg Society for the 
 Inner Mission" was planned by J. H. Wichern, 
 who drew his inspiration from the London City 
 Mission. Among items of work attempted were 
 
 266 
 
CITY MISSIONS AND SUBUKBANITES 
 
 visitation of the poor, care of needy artisans, 
 journeymen, and apprentices, circulation of good 
 literature, union of young merchants, and sup- 
 pression of public immorality. Die Berliner 
 Stadt Mission^ which began work in 1874, by the 
 year 1906, had come to operate a force consist- 
 ing of six theological inspectors and sixty-two 
 city missionaries. Of the latter, in contrast with 
 the practice of the New York City Mission, but 
 eight were women. In a single year of the work 
 of this society 95,000 visits were made, of which 
 it was reported that 4,677 had reference to the 
 needs of unbaptized children, 3,539 to the condi- 
 tion of couples living together without marriage, 
 and 959 to cases of children arrested for acts of 
 lawlessness. Sixty-nine Sunday schools enrolled 
 3,300 pupils, and twenty-four religious services 
 were maintained. Nearly one hundred other 
 cities followed the example of Hamburg and 
 Berlin in establishing city missions. The mis- 
 sionaries of these organizations devoted them- 
 selves largely to evangelizing especially those 
 who were compelled to labor Sundays, and per- 
 sons without permanent homes, as seamen, fisher- 
 men, inmates of prisons, and the unemployed. 
 Other undertakings were to combat drunkenness 
 and immorality, to circulate Christian tracts, and 
 to harmonize social relations by lectures on suit- 
 able topics. In Berlin a City Committee for the 
 Inner Mission was erected in 1899. In 1888 the 
 "Evangelical Church Aid Society" was estab- 
 
 267 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 lislied under imperial patronage, and devoted 
 itself to the assistance of efforts for the eradica- 
 tion of irreligion and immorality in the cities and 
 industrial centers of Germany. 
 
 We now turn our thought to the relation 
 between city evangelization and suburban re- 
 sources. City churches, and especially downtown 
 churches, are recruiting stations for parishes 
 in the suburbs. Canvass the church members in 
 Montclair and Yonkers, and discover how many 
 of them or of their parents were once connected 
 with church life in Manhattan and the Bronx. 
 Similar conditions will be found in Germantown, 
 Grosse Pointe, Avondale, Evanston, and Oak- 
 land. Eventually the removal of well-to-do mem- 
 bers means missionary support, or the extinction 
 of unendowed central city churches. 
 
 It has been shown elsewhere that as towns en- 
 large church membershii3S withdraAV toward their 
 circumferences, so that the older churches are 
 gateways to the newer organizations. It is the 
 improvement of facilities of transportation which 
 has caused this movement to go much farther. 
 Tubes, trolleys, and motor cars enable those who 
 do business in the big town to live comfortably 
 many miles away from even the city limits. This 
 is sending former supporters of downtown Chris- 
 tian work into other municipalities and centers, 
 and in some cases into other States. Yet these 
 people make their living in the great city, and 
 look to it for a continuation of their prosperity. 
 
 26S 
 
CITY MISSIONS AND SUBURBANITES 
 
 Not alone the old families, but new converts of 
 city churches are poured into suburban villages. 
 It is a well-known fact that the conversion of the 
 poor awakens in them a desire for better things 
 of every kind, material and spiritual. Chris- 
 tianity prospers them, especially if they are 
 young and vigorous. They do well, and soon, 
 perhaps before they have formed very strong at- 
 tachments, they seek more favorable living con- 
 ditions. In this way a vigorous central church, 
 which made a remarkable record for accessions, 
 in the same year gave letters to about two thirds 
 as many people as it received, and the instance 
 is not exceptional. Many cases occur in which 
 the city church actually loses while its altars are 
 being filled with converts. A great deal is said, 
 and justly, about the contributions of members 
 which country churches are compelled to make 
 to the city. This is not true of towns which are 
 proximate to metropolitan places : they are debt- 
 ors for a great stream of younger and more suc- 
 cessful city dwellers which is poured into their 
 community life, filling their Christian organiza- 
 tions vrith easy gains. Many great pastors, pas- 
 torates, and church societies are made in this 
 way. 
 
 Their debt to the city is not sufliciently recog- 
 nized by dwellers in suburbs. They are able with 
 little effort or sacrifice to build ornate churches, 
 to pay large ministerial salaries, to support 
 costly choirs, and to make respectable contribu- 
 
 269 
 
THE CHUECH IN THE CITY 
 
 tions to the cause of foreign missions, now made 
 popular by the "parish abroad", arrangement. 
 All of this would be well if our home mission 
 fields, and especially the centers and alien quar- 
 ters of our great cities, were not left so largely to 
 godlessness, intemperance, licentiousness, and 
 crime. 
 
 City missionary work cannot be adequately 
 supported on the field. This might have been the 
 case had the older properties been endowed, as 
 were a few only of the number. If a sufficient 
 permanent fund had been secured for even the 
 maintenance, renewal, and improvement of the 
 physical properties used, many organizations in 
 the heart of things might be locally sustained. 
 Others of more strictly missionary or foreign 
 neighborhoods can never meet their own ex- 
 penses, yet are greatly needed. Each denomina- 
 tional Board of Home Missions has a tremendous 
 and growing responsibility for the evangelization 
 and Christian development of the city. This 
 frontier, this seat of ignorance and vice, this 
 heathen land must be explored, claimed and won 
 for God. Little driblets of appropriations will 
 not do the work. Wise and strategic investments 
 of a size proportionate to the task, and to the 
 nature and importance of the municipality, must 
 be put into any movement to capture the city 
 which is worthy of Christian faith and purpose. 
 Those who are thinking in terms of hundreds 
 must think in thousands. Those who propose 
 
 270 
 
CITY MISSIONS AND SUBUKBANITES 
 
 planting thousands in so holy an adventure must 
 plan in hundreds of thousands, and even in mil- 
 lions. Is this wild speech? All who have strug- 
 gled with the problems and oppositions which 
 the gospel meets in city life know that the state- 
 ment is moderate. 
 
 But general boards, and city societies also, con- 
 fess themselves unable to meet the issues of the 
 task of city redemption. Their funds, which in 
 the aggregate seem large, are in reality very lim- 
 ited when the demands are considered. For this 
 reason institutionalism, at least on a broad basis, 
 as well as adequate charities which could be made 
 to serve a double and saving purpose, are practi- 
 cally out of the question. Thus an officer of a 
 fairly strong organization in one of the principal 
 centers is moved to exclaim : "It seems to me that 
 the logic of events tv^II prove that it is a mistake 
 for the city society to burden itself with any very 
 extended humanitarian or institutional work. 
 Such work should be cared for and managed by 
 a board of its own, making possible, as such an 
 arrangement does, the endowment of the work, 
 so that its continuance or development would not 
 be dependent upon the rather uncertain financial 
 career of a city society." To the city missionary 
 societies all backward regions, all alien races, 
 all weak societies utter raucous cries for help. 
 Hundreds of cities contest for small sums whose 
 donation is impossible. What is the remedy? 
 
 If churches would do more to help one an- 
 
 271 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 other, a long step forward in the work of making 
 Christ the ruler of the city could at once be taken. 
 And why should not the strong, rich congregation 
 on Lordly Avenue put supporting arms about the 
 struggling society on Front Street or on Przemysl 
 Square? Why should not aid be extended to 
 the weak as a fraternal act, and not as a charity? 
 What is needed is not so much missions, in the 
 sense of experimental or feeble institutions, as 
 churches assisted in getting upon their feet, and 
 in doing a worthy and successful work, by the 
 cooperation of others. Help should be given to 
 the older downtown churches, when they require 
 it, as a just recognition of service rendered, and 
 newer settlements should be fostered because of 
 their purpose and of the future contributions 
 which they are certain to make to the welfare of 
 society. 
 
 It is an individual obligation which those who 
 go down to do business in the city owe to its 
 moral life. This sentence approves itself to my 
 judgment, "The city work can never be ade- 
 quately financed until the suburbanite assumes 
 his responsibility for city missions.'' What right 
 have the town's best money-makers to take their 
 wealth away with them, and wrap themselves 
 and their families up in it, while the dense popu- 
 lations whose pressure they have escaped go un- 
 churched and unsaved? I suggest an associate or 
 fraternal membership in needy city churches to 
 be assumed by suburbanites as a matter of grati- 
 
 272 
 
CITY MISSIONS AND SUBURBANITES 
 
 tude for benefits whicli they have received from 
 such a church, and for the good which in many 
 ways they obtain even through their business be- 
 cause Christianity leavens the town. Another 
 worthy motive for such a relationship, to be made 
 in part both active and sustaining, is the desire 
 to help in civic betterment. Christ is the city's 
 Redeemer ! Christianity is fundamental to civil- 
 ization and to righteousness. If the follower of 
 Christ believes this, let him not withdraw him- 
 self into the congenial fellowship and mutual 
 worship of his own kind, but let him ally himself 
 with the forces which are working in hard places, 
 and which are inspired by the vision of a City of 
 God which they hope to make real. 
 
 The buried talents of suburbanite Christians 
 may be restored to civic usefulness if the effort is 
 made. Pastors and city missionary societies will 
 have little difficulty in persuading reasonable 
 men of Christian character that in addition to 
 the responsibilities of their home churches they 
 may also become contributing members and 
 advisers of churches in town. When members 
 of central societies move to the rim of the city, 
 or beyond it, let it be considered the rule for 
 them to preserve an attachment of some definite 
 and helpful nature with the old organization. 
 If needed they should also serve on boards and 
 committees which have midday meetings. In this 
 way the terrible losses of city churches may be 
 escaped in part, and men of means and of intel- 
 
 273 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 lectual might may be made a permanent asset to 
 the religious life of the metropolis. 
 
 The one thing that stands in the way of sub- 
 urbanite interest and cooperation in the effort 
 to Christianize the city is selfishness. It is not 
 likely that many pastors of near-metropolitan 
 parishes would discourage leading members from 
 assuming personal and financial obligations in 
 the big town. A few may be narrow enough to 
 be jealous of any division of allegiance and of 
 support. The real difficulty is to get the country 
 dweller to feel the seriousness of existing condi- 
 tions, and the responsibility Avhich modern rela- 
 tionships place upon persons of power who live 
 just beyond the city limits. Moreover, to make 
 an effective plan for the utilization of suburban- 
 ite strength, and to get those who are satisfied 
 with their comfortable homes and churches to co- 
 operate actively in any such scheme, is work for 
 a genius and an executive of the highest order. 
 
 I am now about to preach a hard doctrine. 
 Ministers of the gospel possessed of private 
 means ought in many cases to accept hard central 
 and semicentral city fields, or work located in 
 alien settlements, without reference to financial 
 compensation for such services, and substantial 
 laymen whose freedom from family complications 
 permits this to be done safely may fittingly regard 
 it as a divine vocation to live near and to put 
 their lives into churches which are vital to the 
 health of the town. Why move away from the 
 
 274 
 
CITY MISSIONS AND SUBURBANITES 
 
 place where of all on earth one can do most good? 
 Why not deliberately move into the neighborhood 
 of a struggling Christian undertaking which only 
 needs a few families of ability and of means to 
 make it an important success? Or why not, O 
 pastor to the cultivated, Christianized, well- 
 bedded suburb, if God has blessed you Tsi-th a 
 competency, go back to the hot streets and strug- 
 gling peoples of the city, and spend the years of 
 your strength where your personality is most 
 needed? 
 
 I said, "Let me walk in the fields." 
 
 He said, "No; walk in the town." 
 I said, "There are no flowers there." 
 
 He said, "No flowers, but a crown." 
 
 I said, "But the skies are black; 
 
 There is nothing but noise and din." 
 And He wept as He sent me back — 
 
 "There is more," He said; "there is sin." 
 
 I said, "I shall miss the light; 
 
 And friends will miss me, they say." 
 He answered, "Choose to-night 
 
 If I am to miss you, or they." 
 
 I pleaded for time to be given. 
 
 He said: "Is it hard to decide? 
 It will not be hard in heaven 
 
 To have followed the steps of your Guide." 
 
 Then into His hand went mine; 
 
 And into my heart came He; 
 And I walk in a light divine 
 
 The path I had feared to see. 
 275 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 We are living in an age when some have caught 
 the vision of a New City to be. established in 
 wastes and marshes made by sin. But the foun- 
 dations of new and beautiful cities are not laid 
 without sacrifice, without labor, pain, and death. 
 Where the Neva pours its waters into the Gulf 
 of Finland, Peter the Great desired to build a 
 window through which he might look out upon 
 civilized Europe. Upon a wretched swamp, half 
 submerged in the waves of stream and gulf, and 
 which possessed no stones, clay, wood, or build- 
 ing material of any kind, a mighty capital was 
 to be reared. The few struggling denizens of 
 the place had little faith in the success of such 
 an effort. They pointed to an old tree, on which 
 a mark indicated how alarmingly and danger- 
 ously high the waters sometimes were lifted. The 
 reply of Peter was an order to cut the tree down. 
 The suburbanites were brought in. Russians, 
 Tartars, Cossacks, Finns were imported for the 
 task, and were put to work, with tools if they had 
 them, otherwise with their hands. Actually, the 
 soil was sometimes dug with sticks, or bare- 
 handed, and caps and aprons carried away the 
 earth. Thirty thousand houses were built in one 
 year. Beneath them lay the bones of nearly one 
 hundred thousand toilers who from hunger and 
 exposure were stricken during the first twelve 
 months of labor. "One must break eggs to make 
 an omelet," said the monarch who sought a 
 strategic and satisfactory city. When the 
 
 276 
 
CITY MISSIONS AND SUBURBANITES 
 
 foundations had been laid, merchants and arti- 
 sans and wealthy families were summoned to 
 dwell in this place, summer and winter, and to 
 make it great. Every boat that entered the 
 harbor had to bring in a quantity of unhewn 
 stones, every man that could help was required 
 to put himself and his best gifts at the disposal 
 of the kingdom. Thus arose splendid Petrograd, 
 to become the seat of one of the most powerful 
 empires of the earth. 
 
 What the Czar of the Russias did by cruel, 
 unrelenting force the King of heaven and of earth 
 would do by love. A far nobler task he sets 
 before the minds of His subjects and followers. 
 He will cause to rise above the waves of want 
 and sorrow, of sin and shame, of distress and 
 crime, capitals and centers of justice, of right- 
 eousness, of comfort, and of intellectual and 
 spiritual splendor. The work has begun, and 
 substantial progress has been made, but not with- 
 out struggles and losses. The pure, strong. Chris- 
 tian city has already claimed its victims. Not a 
 few have given their very lives to the task set 
 before them. Others are toiling with empty hands, 
 and with the crudest and scarcest of materials. 
 Stone, brick, cement, wood, iron are badly 
 needed, but, after all, cities are not built of these 
 things, but of men, of genius, and of character. 
 The need is help in flesh and blood, in brain and 
 muscle, in thought and feeling, as well as in gold. 
 Bring up the reserves ! Pour back into the city 
 
 277 
 
THE CHUECH IN TfiE CITY 
 
 the life fluids, the human goodness, and the vari- 
 ous treasures of skill and of coin which have been 
 drawn out of it. Put into new places of power 
 and of vantage the strength of Christ's kingdom. 
 Then will arise a window from which the Lord 
 of Life may look out upon future civilizations 
 whose development, as he watches, his City will 
 inspire and control in harmony with ideals that 
 are pure and true. 
 
 278 
 
CHAPTEE XIV 
 
 THE CITY KEDEEMED 
 
 The origin of cities is lost in the buried records 
 of antiquity. Beneath the remains of one ruined 
 city the spade of the archaeologist has often dis- 
 covered the relics of another older center of popu- 
 lation possessed of many institutions and treas- 
 ures which fond ignorance supposed modern. 
 The mild climates of the East gave first oppor- 
 tunity for city growth. Along the valleys of the 
 Euphrates and the Tigris, beside the sacred Nile 
 and the rivers of India, on Peruvian and Mexican 
 plains were primitive settlements into whose his- 
 tory we cannot go. Among existing cities of 
 Europe, Athens is the earliest foundation, and 
 is at least four fifths of a thousand years older 
 than ^^the Eternal City,'' although London and 
 Paris were but mud huts, occupied by rude and 
 uncivilized aborigines, when, seven hundred 
 years after her own planting, Rome sent the 
 legions of Csesar to subdue the peoples of Britain 
 and Gaul. Jerusalem, which was a Jebusite city 
 in the days of Abraham, claims a lifetime a thou- 
 sand years or so longer than that of Peking, and 
 four or five centuries in advance of that of the 
 city of Pericles. Back of the beginnings of 
 David's capital, however, stretch several other 
 
 279 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 long centuries to the date which, if it were known, 
 would mark the origin of Damascus, most ancient 
 of all living cities. Whatever may be thought 
 of the tradition that the metropolis of Syria was 
 founded by a great-grandson of Noah, it seems 
 assured that it has persisted throughout the 
 space of some forty-two hundred years. 
 
 During the course of history the status of 
 cities has several times altered. In the beginning 
 they were probably mere aggregations of individ- 
 uals with few civic institutions, at first patriar- 
 chal in government, but later ruled by a despot 
 or by a priestly or lordly oligarchy. To Greece 
 is attributed the early development of a corporate 
 unity, which attained democratic relationships 
 and privileges. Throughout Europe the term 
 "city'' came to have two meanings — one civil, the 
 other ecclesiastical. The civil city, as distin- 
 guished from a town, was an independent com- 
 munity possessing sovereign authority, and in- 
 cluding parts of surrounding territory whose 
 inhabitants possessed the rights of citizenship. 
 As a body supreme and self-governing, the city 
 made treaties, waged war, dominated surround- 
 ing country, and conducted multiplied activities, 
 including those of religion, of art, of pleasure, 
 and of instruction, as well as those of agricul- 
 ture, mining, industry, and commerce. The 
 glory of such a city was the intelligence and 
 prosperity of its free men : its sin and ultimate 
 downfall was slavery. Athens, for example, at 
 
 280 
 
THE CITY KEDEEMED 
 
 one time numbered seven times as many slaves as 
 male citizens. The ecclesiastical sense of the 
 term "city" implied a town which was the see of 
 a bishop, which significance still has a belated 
 importance in England, where, as is now almost 
 universally the case, the modern notion has 
 come to be merely that of a town which by growth 
 of population has become a leading place in the 
 community in which it exists. 
 
 In the end the wickedness of the early Roman 
 city, and especially the oppression at its heart, 
 cost it sovereignty, and in the first period of the 
 Middle Ages the towns were overwhelmed by 
 feudal lords and by robber knights. But in 
 South France and along the Adriatic coast, on 
 the Rhine and beside the Northern seas feudalism 
 was held at bay by individual communities, and 
 later by leagues of cities. The civic republics of 
 Italy, the Flemish and English cities, and the 
 Hanseatic League, despite their internal weak- 
 nesses and corruptions, and their bloody strifes, 
 tended to develop the rule of the trader rather 
 than that of the war lord or the aristocrat. Their 
 wealth and power increased, and as they became 
 sensible of the need they improved their legal 
 systems and their political administrations. The 
 guilds which they created became in time their 
 masters, and at length the rise of national 
 governments took away the independence of 
 cities, which became merged in the larger groups 
 of the various states, in whose legislative bodies 
 
 281 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 they were represented, and in which they natu- 
 rally exerted a profound influence. The modern 
 city is in some respects a return to the Roman 
 idea. It is a creature of the state, and has no 
 sovereign and little corporate power, except as 
 the same is granted by the legislatures of com- 
 monwealths and of the nation. But, of course, 
 the large masses of the central places have 
 immense weight in shaping public thought and 
 in determining the conduct of rulers. 
 
 The growth of modern cities is nothing short 
 of marvelous. The phenomenon is not confined 
 to one country, but is general, the most remark- 
 able increases before the European war being in 
 Germany. In France the centralization of popu- 
 lation has been a constantly increasing expe- 
 rience. Between 1850 and 1914 the population of 
 Paris grew from slightly over one million to 
 2,888,110. A quarter of a century ago Mistral 
 complained that "all the intelligence of the 
 country gathers in Paris, without returning to 
 the provinces.'' In Holland and the United 
 Kingdom the change from rural to urban popula- 
 tions has been revolutionary. That the tendency 
 is still manifest is seen in the single fact that 
 London entire, including the metropolitan and 
 city police districts grew in the twenty years — 
 from 1891 to 1911— from 5,633,806 to 7,252,963 
 inhabitants. During thirty years of the latter 
 part of the nineteenth century Rome and Milan 
 doubled their size, and the other chief Italian 
 
 282 
 
THE CITY REDEEMED 
 
 cities increased from fifty to seventy per cent 
 each. In Canada thirty-four principal towns 
 grew from a total population for 1901 of 1,063,- 
 521 to 1,918,443, reported in 1911. This increase 
 represents a gain of forty-four and one half per 
 cent in a single decade, and is disproportional 
 with the statistics for the country. When the 
 census of 1790 was taken, the United States of 
 America had but thirteen cities of over 5,000 
 inhabitants and none of more than 40,000. To- 
 day there are more than sixty places having over 
 100,000 residents each. 
 
 It is a significant fact that of the ten largest 
 cities in the United States, but four — New York, 
 Philadelphia, Baltimore and New Orleans — were 
 municipalities in 1820. At this moment our total 
 urban population is more than five times as great 
 as the total of all inhabitants in city and country 
 in 1810. The ascending ratio of town residence 
 as compared with country dwelling runs this 
 way. In 1790 the percentage of people in places 
 of 8,000 or more inhabitants was three and a 
 third. In 1830 the figure is six and seven tenths 
 per cent; 1850, twelve and a half; 1870, twenty 
 and nine tenths; 1890, twenty-nine and twelve 
 one hundredths; in 1910, thirty-eight and eight 
 tenths per cent. The proportion appears more 
 striking when it is seen that while a hundred 
 years ago barely one in thirty persons in our 
 land could be called a city dweller, now more 
 than one in three are listed in this class, and 
 
 283 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 there is a strong movement toward the largest 
 cities. In 1880 but one and nine tenths per cent 
 of the people were in places containing from fifty 
 to one hundred thousand inhabitants: in 1910 
 the proportion in towns of this particular grade 
 had become four and one half per cent. In 1880 
 our one city of over a million population com- 
 prised within its borders two and four tenths per 
 cent of Americans, but at the present time we 
 have three metropolitan centers containing from 
 one and three quarters to nearly six millions of 
 people each, or a total equal to more than ten per 
 cent of the entire citizenship of the country. 
 What is to be the end of this growth who can 
 foresee? One thing is certain, namely, that be- 
 cause of their centralization of the masses and 
 of a great proportion of leading minds cities are 
 bound to exert a dominant influence upon the 
 thought and character of the nation. 
 
 Every "good strategist must see," said the ob- 
 server in a metropolitan Tower Eyrie, "that the 
 city is the vantage ground for attacking the 
 foreign problem. New York city is the best place 
 in America, and, indeed, the best spot on earth, 
 from which to evangelize Europe.'' Would that 
 the great Missionary Boards located in that city 
 of aliens fully comprehended the truth of this 
 saying. The Christian City, a publication of the 
 New York City Society of the Methodist Epis- 
 copal Church, very properly published the article 
 containing the above statement, and the further 
 
 284 
 
THE CITY KEDEEMED 
 
 important sentences: "The foreign problem is 
 largely a city problem. A study of the foreign- 
 born population of the United States shows that 
 the cities of all sections have a higher percentage 
 of foreign-born than the States in which they are 
 located — that the foreign-born are largely aggre- 
 gated in cities ; for example : forty-three per cent 
 of the foreign-born of Kentucky is in Louisville, 
 seventy-four per cent of the foreign-born of Mary- 
 land is in Baltimore, forty-two per cent of the 
 foreign-born of Oregon is in Portland, sixty-four 
 per cent of the foreign-born of IlUnois is in 
 Chicago, seventy-eight per cent of the foreign- 
 born of Delaware is in Wilmington, seventy 
 per cent of the foreign-born of New York is in 
 New York city. All this is preeminently true of 
 New York city, for it is the neck of the bottle 
 through which the alien passes. More than twice 
 as many people of foreign birth settled in this 
 one city from 1900-1910 as in all the States West 
 of the Mississippi, save Washington and Cali- 
 fornia." 
 
 Very much has been said and written concern- 
 ing the effects of urban life upon human char- 
 acter and progress. Facts which have been cited 
 in the preceding chapters, and other equally 
 indubitable matters, have often given rise to pes- 
 simism. Thus Canon Henson characterized city 
 life as made up in good part of frivolity, cynical 
 skepticism, and sensuality, and Bruyere ex- 
 claimed : '^If you suppress the exorbitant love of 
 
 285 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 pleasure and money, idle curiosity, iniquitous 
 purpose, and wanton mirth, what a stillness 
 would there be in the greatest cities !" Bunyan, 
 in his immortal allegory, characterized the world 
 as the City of Destruction. Not love of nature 
 only, but also knowledge of the labor and misery 
 of the town, the suffering of the poor, the com- 
 monness and sordidness of middle-class expe- 
 riences, and the bestiality of the demi-monde has 
 often inspired such an attitude as that expressed 
 in the words of Byron : 
 
 Higli«inountains are a feeling, but the hum 
 Of human cities torture. 
 
 That there is another side to the case against 
 the city is apparent to all who recall the fact that 
 the ancient municipalities were the centers of 
 art and of literature, that the first Christians 
 were urban brotherhoods, and that it is where 
 populations are massed that democracy arises, 
 social order with liberty is maintained, and the 
 institutions of education and philanthropy are 
 organized and developed. As to the power for 
 good or for evil which inheres in centers of popu- 
 lation, much may be said in defense of McPher- 
 son's claim that "The city has always been the 
 decisive battleground of civilization and religion. 
 It intensifies all the natural tendencies of man. 
 From its fomented energies, as well as from its 
 greater weight of numbers, the city controls. 
 Ancient civilizations rose and fell with their lead- 
 
 286 
 
THE CITY REDEEMED 
 
 ing cities. In modern times it is not too mucli to 
 say, ^As goes the city, so goes the world.' '' It 
 is a well-known fact that not only the develop- 
 ment of democracy during the Middle Ages, but 
 the Reformation and the Renaissance were 
 largely products of the cities. Thomas Guthrie 
 fell in love with the town. "I bless God for 
 cities," he declared. "They have been a lamp of 
 life along the pathways of humanity and reli- 
 gion. Within them science has given birth to her 
 noblest discoveries. Behind their walls freedom 
 has fought her noblest battles. They have stood 
 on the surface of the earth like great break- 
 waters, rolling back and turning aside the swell- 
 ing tide of oppression. Cities, indeed, have been 
 the cradles of human liberty. They have been 
 the active sentries of almost all church and state 
 reformation. '' If in this discussion the whole 
 truth is, as usual, neither with accusant nor with 
 panegyrist, it is indisputable that with its dual 
 nature, its contradictory and warring members, 
 and its Jekyll-and-Hyde conduct the city is on 
 our hands as a vast and increasing problem of 
 management and of redemption. 
 
 The charge of Mr. Bryce in his American 
 Commonwealth that "the government of cities is 
 the one conspicuous failure of the United States,'' 
 is only relatively important, for other nations 
 and times present the picture of but partial suc- 
 cesses in this field of effort. Corruption for the 
 sake of financial profit, for example, is perhaps 
 
 287 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 the harder to eradicate because it has been so 
 long known. It is said that in ancient days the 
 City of the Seven Hills had its architects and 
 artificers who furnished bad materials for big 
 money. Against the evils of graft and intrenched 
 municipal vices mighty uprisings of the people 
 occurred, and then, like modern reformatory 
 movements, subsided. After one such virtuous 
 spasm an incident took place which has left its 
 seal upon the language of succeeding ages. The 
 contractors had put into costly public buildings 
 cracked marble columns, the openings being filled 
 with skillfully tinted wax. Shortly, the elements 
 dissolved the wax, and the gaping crevices and 
 arrant deceit became known. After the sham 
 columns had been pulled down, and the guilty 
 punished, and this was probably done vigorously 
 if not barbarously, contracts made in Eome were 
 obliged to contain the phrase ^^sine cera/^ with- 
 out wax, whence comes the term which all de- 
 voutly wish should represent dealings with them- 
 selves — sincere, without fraud or false pretenses. 
 To this ideal, however, it would be useless to 
 claim that American city governments have as 
 yet fully attained. 
 
 The greatest need of the city is a powerful and 
 effective religion, one that will lay hold of its 
 masses and its problems, and master them for 
 good. Hence the place and function of the Chris- 
 tian Church. The Church is not incidental to 
 city life, but it is necessary to its highest welfare, 
 
 288 
 
THE CITY KEDEEMED 
 
 representing indeed, though doubtless in a more 
 modern and all-inclusive sense, that Civitas Dei 
 of which Saint Augustine so ably and charm- 
 ingly wrote, as the ^'pilgrim city of the King 
 Christ." Municipal Leagues, reform bureaus, 
 housing associations, and similar societies which 
 seek to improve political and physical conditions 
 among town-dwellers, draw inspiration from 
 centers of religious intelligence and righteous- 
 ness. They depend upon Christian leaders and 
 forces to publish and indorse their principles and 
 to furnish their undertakings cooperation with 
 men, means, and sentiment. The Church is the 
 conscience of the city, its soul, which is moral 
 concern quickened by human love and conse- 
 crated to a ministry of redemption by the Spirit 
 of God. Take the Church out of the city, and it 
 would soon become a putrid corpse. 
 
 The modern city is redeemable, and its con- 
 quest for health, for purity, for intelligence and 
 for obedience to human and divine law is the 
 chief Christian business. The Church must go 
 into politics, not meanly, or in a partisan way, 
 but for the common weal, as a supporter of good 
 officials and administrations, and as a terror to 
 evildoers. The Church must demand cleanliness. 
 It is said that in the mediaeval city there was 
 often infection in the wells, and frequent 
 "plagues'' swept the unclean centers, but "the 
 science of sanitation being undiscovered, these 
 things were accepted piously as inscrutable visi- 
 
 289 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 tations of God." "The times of ignorance God 
 overlooked; but now he commandeth men that 
 thej should all everywhere repentl" Our follies 
 and their consequences in disease and sufferings 
 are to be attributed to sin and not to God, and 
 Christianity must give much care to teaching the 
 arts of wholesome living, and to healing. The 
 work of public commissions, of health ofl&cers, 
 physicians, and nurses, and the encouragement of 
 hospitals are matters of no indifference to the 
 city church, but in order that these and all other 
 needed physical undertakings may be promoted 
 and brought to efficiency the main effort of the 
 Church must be ethical and spiritual. Without 
 morality and divine purpose rulers are a menace, 
 and physicians and hospitals become panderers 
 to vice. An irreligious civilization is its own 
 worst enemy. A social order unchristianized is 
 attended with injustice and licentiousness, and is 
 prey to epidemics of foul diseases and crimes. 
 Without a doubt the more modern and partly 
 Christian cities of the West are as a class cleaner 
 and more healthful and virtuous, and their in- 
 habitants generally are more prosperous than has 
 ever been the case with large numbers of towns 
 in any other part of the world or period of time ; 
 but the end of desire and of need is not attained. 
 Painful effects of intemperance, lust, selfishness, 
 and corruption are still seen, and the remedy is 
 Christian instruction, example, labor, and power. 
 It is a mixed condition of opposing institutions 
 
 290 
 
THE CITY REDEEMED 
 
 and forces which city life presents. The familiar 
 four corners of Toronto, Canada, on which for 
 years typical buildings were said to represent 
 education, legislation, salvation, and damnation, 
 were only exceptional in the closer juxtaposition 
 than usual of school, political center, church, and 
 rumshop. A similar complication of mutually 
 antagonistic principles produces in most cities 
 opposing centers which are not far removed from 
 one another and which struggle to control the 
 ground. It seems at times as if the forces of evil 
 were almost invincible. "Mne tenths of Christian 
 effort,'^ exclaimed a metropolitan preacher, "is 
 neutralized by the saloon." Educators, the better 
 class of civic administrators, and managers of 
 business enterprises of a legitimate and useful 
 nature, make bitter complaints of conditions 
 which they meet in the social and political life 
 of the town. The Church does not create these 
 evils and difficulties : no one so charges. They 
 are at most, so far as the responsibility of the 
 Church is concerned, the result of its weakness 
 and lack of aggressiveness. An increasing de- 
 mand is laid upon Christianity by public senti- 
 ment, to the effect that it take hold of existing 
 wrongs and seek their correction, or the elimina- 
 tion of their causes, not alone by instruction but 
 by the use of its undoubted power in combination 
 with all forces of civic righteousness. 
 
 The great branches of the Christian family 
 are not represented in the leading cities of the 
 
 291 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 United States by equal proportions of their mem- 
 bership. In cities of twenty-five thousand per- 
 sons or more fifty-three per cent of the Roman 
 Catholics of the nation are located. The Protes- 
 tant Episcopal Church has fifty-one per cent of 
 its people in these cities ; the Unitarian Church, 
 forty-seven per cent; German Evangelical, forty- 
 two per cent ; Congregational Church, thirty-two ; 
 Reformed Churches, thirty-one; Presbyterian, 
 twenty-eight; Lutheran, twenty-five; Methodist, 
 fifteen ; Baptist, thirteen ; Friends and Disciples, 
 twelve each. The record of actual numbers in 
 each case is, of course, very different. Such large 
 churches as the Methodist and Baptist, for ex- 
 ample, while the bulk of their following is in the 
 smaller towns and in the country, have a vastly 
 greater big city membership than do small 
 denominations which stand high up in the above 
 list of figures. It is, however, a matter for grave 
 concern on the part of some leading Churches 
 whether their methods in handling city problems, 
 including matters of property, endowment, adap- 
 tation to environment and the like, have not pre- 
 vented greater growth of members and of power 
 in metropolitan places. 
 
 As to actual leadership in various cities, sta- 
 tistics show that in twenty-three out of thirty- 
 eight greatest cities of the United States Roman 
 Catholics exceed in numbers the total Protestant 
 memberships, the reverse being the case in thir- 
 teen cities. When it is remembered that Roman- 
 
 292 
 
THE CITY REDEEMED 
 
 ism recruits almost wholly by immigration, and 
 that the cities are the dwelling places of the great 
 bulk of alien populations, the above facts are 
 better understood. Another factor which enters 
 into this account is the well-known reckoning of 
 entire Catholic families in the statistics of their 
 churches, Protestants numbering only actual 
 voluntary communicants. It is interesting to 
 note that of the Protestant denominations Meth- 
 odism has the lead in its census in Baltimore, 
 Cincinnati, Denver, Indianapolis, Kansas City, 
 and Saint Louis, and has second Protestant place 
 in Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Louisville, Mil- 
 waukee, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York, 
 Newark, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Saint Paul, 
 San Francisco, and Washington. The Lutherans 
 are the most numerous Protestant body in Chi- 
 cago, Cleveland, Detroit, Jersey City, Milwaukee, 
 Minneapolis and Saint Paul, and are second in 
 Buffalo and Saint Louis. Baptist memberships 
 lead in Louisville, New Orleans, Providence, and 
 Washington, and are second in Baltimore, 
 Boston, Indianapolis, and Kansas City. The 
 Protestant Episcopal Church heads the list in 
 New York, and is second in Jersey City and 
 Providence. Presbyterians have the largest Prot- 
 estant communion in Newark, Philadelphia, 
 Pittsburgh, and San Francisco, and the second 
 in size in Cincinnati and Denver. The thirteen 
 cities in which Protestantism is superior in num- 
 bers to Romanism are Baltimore, Cleveland; 
 
 293 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 Columbus, Denver, Indianapolis, Kansas City, 
 Memphis, Minneapolis, Omaha, Philadelphia, 
 Rochester, Toledo, Washington. 
 
 The larger the number of cities included 
 in such a statement as the above the better 
 the relative position which must be given to 
 the Protestant churches, which during years of 
 more restricted immigration make large pro- 
 portionate gains throughout the country. Of 
 course responsibility for city life and for its 
 institutions increases with the strength of the 
 churches as a whole, and of each particular 
 denomination. Enumeration of church com- 
 municants in one hundred and sixty cities of 
 twenty-five thousand population and over shows 
 a percentage of forty-six and nine tenths per 
 cent of all the people, which is seven and eight 
 tenths above the percentage of church member- 
 ship in the United States as a whole. In ten 
 years city church memberships increased ninety 
 per one thousand of the population, while the 
 gain throughout the entire country was fifty-one 
 per one thousand. 
 
 The modern divorce between Church and state 
 has not been an unmixed blessing in its effect 
 upon municipal life. The mediaeval Church 
 conducted charities the responsibility for which 
 when thrown upon city governments they were 
 not prepared to accept. To this day necessary 
 public services are often left to a fitful or even 
 eccentric private philanthropy. It is the duty of 
 
 294 
 
THE CITY KEDEEMED 
 
 the Church not to assume public functions of a 
 useful nature unless forced to do so by neglect 
 or refusal of constituted authorities to meet the 
 needs of the people, but to agitate, educate, and, 
 if necessary, to illustrate work which ought to 
 be accomplished. An attempt on the part of the 
 Church to cling to survivals of public service 
 which conditions once required it to assume may 
 be to weaken itself for the discharge of present 
 duties, and any thought of assuming the general 
 educational, eleemosynary, or more essentially 
 political responsibilities of the city is prepos- 
 terous, as tending toward materialism, and as 
 being certain to break the strength of religious 
 organizations. The Church, like its great Master, 
 must be servant of all, but its best service is that 
 of enlightenment, suggestion, inspiration, encour- 
 agement, fellowship, and social intercourse. All 
 else should be strictly works of necessity — 
 instant mercy, first aid to the injured, symbolical 
 and representative acts of human sympathy and 
 love. This is a high office, with a wide sphere of 
 conservative and redemptive action. History 
 shows that Thomson's dark picture of the City 
 of Dreadful Night, however extravagant as a 
 description of human existence, is none too pes- 
 simistic and black to serve as a portrait of life 
 in the cities of the world's history which were 
 untouched by the spirit of a holy religion. Even 
 now it is doubtful whether civilization, despite 
 its proved and surpassing values, would outlive 
 
 295 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 the briefest space if its walls should cease to be 
 supported by Christian faith. 
 
 The perfect city is one of the most important 
 and necessary objects of Christian aspiration, but 
 this concept needs to be clearly visualized. The 
 Calabrian monk Campanella, in his ideal City of 
 the Sun, pictured a community in which the in- 
 habitants individually seek the perfecting of body 
 and soul, and collectively labor for the good of 
 all. The worship of God and the care of young 
 children are each person's duty. The ablest and 
 wisest become the administrators of city govern- 
 ment. The essences of life are equality, self- 
 sacrifice in the interest of the community, and 
 the conquest of egotism. Power, Wisdom, and 
 Love order all the life of the city. It is interest- 
 ing to note that this romance of the early seven- 
 teenth century represents the law of eugenics as 
 being applied to the production of offspring. The 
 virtues of the inhabitants are magnanimity, forti- 
 tude, chastity, liberality, justice, comfort, truth, 
 kindness, gratitude, cheerfulness, exercise, so- 
 briety. "Both sexes are instructed in all the arts 
 together." "They consider him the more noble 
 and renowned who has dedicated himself to the 
 study of the most arts, and knows how to prac- 
 tice them wisely. Wherefore they laugh at us 
 in that we consider our workmen ignoble." "The 
 rich and the poor together make up the com- 
 munity. They are rich because they want 
 nothing, poor because they possess nothing, and 
 
 290 
 
THE CITY REDEEMED 
 
 consequently they are not slaves to circum- 
 stances, but circumstances serve them. And on 
 this point they strongly recommend the religion 
 of the Christians, and especially the life of the 
 apostles." The mind of the Dominican is seen in 
 the compact organization of the Civitas Solis^ in 
 its rigorous discipline and in its prescribed 
 labors. The Utopian image which Campanella 
 sets before the mind is marred by communism, 
 including that of wives as well as of goods, by 
 defense of war against religious and other en- 
 emies, and by ecclesiastical ceremonialism, but 
 it breathes love for the beautiful, for wisdom, 
 and for kindliness, and teaches the lesson of the 
 perfect city. 
 
 Others have attempted with varying degrees of 
 skill and success to limn the image of civic good- 
 ness and glory, but, however sublime the revela- 
 tion, it should be remembered that it is not within 
 the possibilities to make offhand a new and ideal 
 city. The affair is one of restoration, of redemp- 
 tion. Whence shall come the City Redeemed? 
 I repeat — the Church will have to do this work. 
 Government will not do it, nor commerce, nor 
 science. Philosophy will dream it: poetry will 
 depict it: love alone can bring it to pass. The 
 labor is not of an hour, but of long, slowly pass- 
 ing years, perchance of centuries. It is toil worth 
 doing, because each day may mark some slight 
 improvement, each season draw on the time when 
 no longer it shall be said, 
 
 297 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 Thy voice is a complaint, O crowned city, 
 
 The blue sky covering thee, like God's great pity. 
 
 It is my own conviction that the salvation of 
 society is a work which lies upon the threshold 
 of the old Church — the old orthodox Church, if 
 this must be said, and if it may be understood in 
 a sane and Christian manner — and not in any 
 artificial church created out of hand as a civic 
 redeemer. The preachments of reasonable social 
 masters like Professors Rauschenbusch and Pea- 
 body have received a hearing on the part of Chris- 
 tendom so sympathetic and encouraging as to 
 arouse the expectation that the ideals of prim- 
 itive Christianity will soon renew their hold upon 
 the Church, which is now established, not by fiat 
 of the state, but by the adherence and allegiance 
 of millions of conscientious and devout persons. 
 The succeeding generation of apostles of social 
 righteousness, in inaugurating quickening cam- 
 paigns within the memberships of religious 
 bodies, have also met with much respect and sup- 
 port, Stelzle, Ward, Lovejoy, and others. There 
 appears no need, therefore, to seek to form a Civic 
 Church after such a model as that proposed by 
 the late Mr. W. T. Stead, although his presenta- 
 tions and outline of services to be rendered by 
 such an organization should be vastly informing 
 and suggestive to the student of church activities. 
 The thought of the distinguished publicist and 
 reformer was the association and cooperation of 
 
 298 
 
THE CITY REDEEMED 
 
 all philanthropic workers in every community, 
 an idea which was either too inclusive, or which 
 ignored the smaller but more necessary acts of 
 good will and of mutual helpfulness which make 
 up by far the greater bulk of services rendered to 
 humanity and to good causes. "The great want 
 of the age,'' said the inventor of the Civic Church, 
 "is a church — a church which will not be a mere 
 sect, but a real church, a working church, a 
 church coextensive with the community in which 
 it exists ; a church which, like the old Church, has 
 the power of excommunication, and exercises it; 
 a church which embraces the whole range of hu- 
 man life, and which influences all the affairs of 
 life, alike in personal conduct, and in affairs of 
 municipal and national government. Until we 
 can constitute a church which will somehow or 
 other do the things which the old Church used 
 to do, and which the modern Church largely 
 shirks doing, we shall never get the key of the 
 social problem.'' The Civic Church was to be a 
 fellowship of intellects and of fraternal spirits 
 bent on making men and things better. No one 
 was to be excluded from membership on the 
 ground of credal or philosophical views, however 
 variant from those of their comrades. The 
 example and teaching of Jesus Christ were to be 
 authoritative, and there was to be no necessary 
 antagonism of present churches. The relation 
 to them of the new church would be that which 
 "the main drain of a city bears to washbasins of 
 
 299 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 private houses.'' Every member would be ex- 
 pected to be useful to the community, and to 
 assist in movements for the benefit of all. The 
 whole life of man as touching that of his brother 
 would be taken into the account. Representa- 
 tives and delegates of all the churches would be 
 comprised in the organization, and the Civic 
 Church would keep all moral forces in touch with 
 each other, and would both unify and energize 
 them. This church is described as an electoral 
 center, a moral caucus seeking to place con- 
 science at the head of the municipality, as a spir- 
 itual counterpart of the town council, to be estab- 
 lished in cities universally on the principle, ^^One 
 town, one Church.'' The effect of such an insti- 
 tution was to be the reconstitution of society on 
 the basis of brotherhood and mutual service. 
 
 So much in Mr. Stead's Civic Church idea is 
 of value that it seems unfortunate that the prop- 
 osition was not for a clearing house of the 
 churches, rather than for the formation of a new 
 church, without theological foundations, and 
 therefore possessing no sacraments, and unable 
 to command the necessary assensus and con- 
 sensus of the Christian public. It is a matter 
 for exceeding regret that the attention of Fed- 
 erations of Churches, which, as a rule, were 
 started with the idea of cooperation for civic 
 betterment and for social reform, has been so 
 largely diverted into an attack upon denomina- 
 tionalism, however extreme some of the mani- 
 
 300 
 
THE CITY REDEEMED 
 
 festations of tlie divisional propensity of Chris- 
 tian people may seem to be, and into an effort on 
 the part of the churches to prevent each other's 
 extension into fields of opportunity, and even of 
 need. The formation of religious trusts, seeking 
 to stifle competition in the interests of the exist- 
 ing and more powerful religious bodies, is as 
 dangerous a conception as Christianity, v^^hose 
 very life depends upon freedom and unrestricted 
 growth, and even upon the reasonable and whole- 
 some oppositions of ideas and methods, could pos- 
 sibly be called upon to meet. On the other hand, 
 great profit would certainly result from a correla- 
 tion and combination of Christian intelligences 
 and organizations to perform those duties to 
 society and to individuals upon which they could 
 generally agree and effectively center their 
 forces. The only practical outcome of the Stead 
 proposal, aside from its suggestiveness to insti- 
 tutional church leaders and to social reformers, 
 is to be discovered in its influence upon the Eng- 
 lish Labor Church movement, originated in Man- 
 chester in 1891 by John Trevor, and introduced 
 in New England in 1894. Mr. Trevor's explana- 
 tion is : ^The Labor Church originated in the con- 
 viction that the labor movement, far from being 
 the mischievous and godless thing it was com- 
 monly supposed to be, was really the most ad- 
 vanced point at which the divine energy was 
 operating in the higher evolution of man. Be- 
 hind this conviction lay another, which preceded 
 
 301 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 it and made it possible, namely, that God was 
 not to be found in the traditions of the historic 
 churches, but in the individual soul and in the 
 progressive development of life in our own 
 time. And the relation of the historic churches 
 to the Labor Church, as I understand it, is 
 this: that the former indicate where God has 
 been in past ages, while the latter attempts to 
 indicate where God is to be found to-day; and 
 that, therefore, the former seek to bring the 
 labor movement round to their religion (so far 
 as they have any real interest in it), while the 
 latter attempts to develop into self-conscious- 
 ness the religion already present in the labor 
 movement itself." The Labor Church was very 
 naturally undertaken as a city institution, and 
 the principles first adopted are an interesting ex- 
 pression of the ineradicable religiousness of the 
 thoughtful conscientious mind, even in a dis- 
 tinctively materialistic and class environment. 
 It was affirmed " ( 1 ) That the labor movement is 
 a religious movement; (2) that the religion of 
 the labor movement is not a class religion, but 
 unites members of all classes in working for the 
 abolition of commercial slavery; (3) that the 
 religion of the labor movement is not sectarian 
 or dogmatic, but free religion, leaving each man 
 free to develop his own relations with the power 
 that brought him into being ; ( 4 ) that the eman- 
 cipation of labor can only be realized, so far 
 as men learn both the economic and moral laws 
 
 302 
 
THE CITY REDEEMED 
 
 of God, and heartily endeavor to obey them; (5) 
 that the development of personal character and 
 the improvement of social conditions are both 
 essential to man's emancipation from moral and 
 social bondage." Most of these statements all 
 churches would heartily indorse. The weakness 
 of the plan was its lack of the very Christian 
 doctrine so lightly regarded by its advocates, and 
 of some form of sufficiently true and powerful 
 order and discipline. The movement spread to 
 various centers, including some in America, but 
 the author of the Labor Church invention soon 
 found it necessary to form a union of the soci- 
 eties with a constitution made necessary by "the 
 development of difficulties which could only be 
 satisfactorily dealt with by a properly consti- 
 tuted authority." In some cases he found the 
 Labor Church becoming "little more than the 
 Sunday meeting of the local branch of the Labor 
 Party, conducted on Labor Church lines, often 
 with the prayer omitted." "The difficulty of the 
 Labor Church," he says, "is the difficulty that 
 lies in the way of all progress — that men and 
 movements can seldom work out two ideas at the 
 same time." "We are attempting to transplant 
 religion to a richer and more fruitful soil, but 
 it withers somewhat in the process." So do 
 most of the attempts to found new religions 
 wither and die. There is doubtless room for 
 new churches, and as long as life is careless of 
 old forms, impatient of restraints, and protean 
 
 303 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 in its manifestations, we may expect frequent 
 branches, if not originations, of religious bodies. 
 Those only will persist to do a wide and fruitful 
 work which are based upon strong and irrefrag- 
 ible foundations of Christian faith and practice. 
 
 The Christian churches, some day working to- 
 gether, let us hope, in a closer and more deter- 
 mined coalition of forces, are the Church by 
 which the city shall be redeemed. Sin is not in- 
 vincible, either in urban or in rural districts. It 
 is conquerable by faith, by consecration of means, 
 of talents and of determined efforts, and by obe- 
 dience to the laws and leadership of the "Strong 
 Son of God, Immortal Love.'' I am tempted to 
 emphasize the giving of money, and to quote ex- 
 amples like that of the banker who, by his broad- 
 minded liberality, so greatly inspired the Protes- 
 tant Episcopal Bishop of New York, and of the 
 Methodist Episcopal layman of whom I have just 
 learned that, in order to encourage the smaller 
 churches of his city to pay off their debts, and 
 thus to free themselves for greater usefulness, he 
 has offered to give one fourth of each obligation 
 which such assistance will enable the members of 
 a particular congregation to discharge. Divine 
 stewards! Christian financiers and statesmen! 
 Patriots of the Kingdom of Him who expects sup- 
 port in voluntary taxation, in free-will offerings 
 of the incomes and accumulated capital of His 
 people ! It is a well-known fact that states can- 
 not live without revenues. Sadly the world has 
 
 304 
 
THE CITY REDEEMED 
 
 learned how great is the cost of making war. 
 For the building of the Christian city, for the 
 extension of the power of Christ's Capital, for the 
 erection of a Home Town of Purity, Plenty, and 
 Peace, "Bring ye all the tithes into the store- 
 house." "Give, and it shall be given unto you." 
 Toil and give, and as you pay and labor, pray to 
 Him who holds the results and all their values in 
 his own hand. "Except Jehovah build the house, 
 they labor in vain that build it : except Jehovah 
 keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain." 
 What shall be looked for in a City Redeemed? 
 What shall the forces of Christianity and of the 
 Church of God be rallied and directed to attain? 
 The Christianization of the people of the city is 
 the one great need, in order to assure the radical 
 solution of civic problems and the destruction 
 and future prevention of the evils which attend 
 city life. Man is at the bottom of all : we cannot 
 redeem the city without redeeming man. A new 
 manhood means everything new and better, in- 
 cluding a new and better city. But the matter 
 works both ways. Environment has much to do 
 with character. People and circumstances have 
 mutually influential relations. Satan works 
 through evil institutions as well as through bad 
 men, and to conquer him the attack must be made 
 both front and rear. The devil is surrounded 
 when the surroundings of human life are puri- 
 fied, and are made pleasant and uplifting. The 
 particular items of the process must, of course, 
 
 305 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 receive the attention of specialists, but all should 
 be interested in the entire program. The Church 
 must encourage both specialists and plodders, 
 and must itself be the Ideal Citizen, with a mind 
 for every needed task and with a heart that re- 
 sponds to every demand for sympathy and for 
 assistance. What we need is not a labor church, 
 but a laboring church, with understanding and 
 appreciation of all work and workers, increas- 
 ing the number of idealists who dream, and cheer- 
 ing engineers and mechanics who create temples 
 of arts and crafts, and institutions of education, 
 of useful business, of comfort, and of recreation. 
 Every city should have a beautiful body. The 
 ugliness of not a few American cities is by no 
 means a permanent necessity, but it will be 
 removed only by such sacrifices as that which the 
 government is making for the embellishment of 
 Washington, as Chicago made for its scheme of 
 water-front adornment, as Greater Boston and 
 Detroit have put into their park systems and 
 drives. Commercial exploitation and the lust for 
 gain have all but ruined the natural advantages 
 and glories of many towns. Some of these are, 
 with comparative ease, improvable, like the 
 Scotchman, because they can still be caught 
 young enough. New places which will yet be 
 centers of population may learn by the mistakes 
 of their predecessors. The chief concern of the 
 Christian city-builder will, however, be not so 
 much physical beauty and material grandeur as 
 
 306 
 
THE CITY REDEEMED 
 
 the safety, convenience, and satisfaction of the 
 average citizen, for whose good the municipality 
 will increasingly control public utilities and ad- 
 minister the affairs of government. The protec- 
 tion of life and limb in the streets, the safeguard- 
 ing of homes at night, the reduction of the death 
 rate by scientific sanitation, by healthful hous- 
 ing, by the care of persons afflicted with con- 
 tagious and infectious disease, by the regulation 
 and reduction in cost of wholesome food supplies, 
 the abolition of close alleys, sweatshops, and 
 centers of lawlessness, will receive powerful, de- 
 termined, and intelligent care in the City Re- 
 deemed. Especially childhood will be protected, 
 from bad milk, from the need to exercise, if at all, 
 in foul areas and dusty streets, from organized 
 vice, from godless instruction and example, from 
 profanity, lewdness, and greed. 
 
 The author of a noble paper entitled ^'A City 
 with a Soul,'' opens up a rich channel of thought 
 when he says: ^'It is the fine and self -forgetful 
 things done in the spirit of brotherhood and civic 
 zeal, that belong to the soul of a city. It is the 
 elimination of the great tragedy of metropolitan 
 life, which is its cold-heartedness, man's aloof- 
 ness from his fellows. It is the infusion of the 
 warmth of human sympathy and neighborliness 
 where now there is selfishness and coldness. 
 Bear in mind that the majority of people who 
 come to swell urban populations hail from 
 smaller communities where they have been 
 
 307 
 
THE CHURCH IN THE CITY 
 
 cheered by friendly contact with their fellows, 
 where the greeting by name is the common and 
 heartening incident of the highway, where social 
 intimacies bind all together. The city with a 
 soul will seek the continuance of this fellowship 
 to the largest possible degree. It will strive to 
 make the transition of the big city less forlorn 
 and heartbreaking. Henry W. Grady, the elo- 
 quent spokesman of the New South, gave up a 
 newspaper career in New York and returned to 
 Georgia because nobody could tell him about the 
 little white casket that was being carried down 
 the stairs of his apartment one morning when he 
 was going to work. A city with a soul will re- 
 duce coldness and sordidness to the minimum." 
 
 In the new and better city life unclean partisan 
 politics will no longer be the bane of education, 
 the menace of honest business, and the despair of 
 moral progress. Citizens will be citizens, not 
 partisans, and certainly not self-exploiters or 
 grafters. Men of wealth and culture will devote 
 their lives to unselfish service of the community, 
 and wise methods of examination, together with 
 the investigation of character, experience, and 
 achievements, will assure honor, promotion, and 
 increased usefulness to all servants of the public. 
 In our days the idea of organizing national life 
 and industry upon a military model, as was pro- 
 posed by Edward Bellamy, may seem peculiarly 
 unattractive, but that the mutual services of 
 the community may be systematized, and espe- 
 
 308 
 
THE CITY REDEEMED 
 
 cially that the chief incitements to toil and to the 
 exercise of skill may come to be, not money, but 
 praise and advancement to higher stations and 
 opportunities in the civic army, is a conception 
 not beyond the possibility of at least partial ful- 
 fillment. 
 
 The City of Light for which we are looking will 
 be without sanctioned vice or protected crime. 
 It will have parks, playgrounds, museums, art 
 galleries, public halls and temples, but it will 
 banish the bawdy cabaret, the obscene theater, 
 the drinking, politically conniving, and law- 
 breaking saloon, the gilded liquor and gambling 
 club, the dope-selling drug store, the taxed and 
 defended redlight district, and the house of ill 
 fame. This cleaning up will take place even if 
 necessary against such misguided protests as 
 was that of the club women of Cleveland, who, 
 because of an alleged fear of the scattering of 
 objectionable persons throughout the city, com- 
 plained to the chief of police against the enforce- 
 ment of his order closing the segregated quarter. 
 A similar opposition, partly sincere and partly 
 hypocritical, was encountered under like circum- 
 stances in Atlanta. The daily papers and the 
 ballgrounds of the future city will contain no 
 beer and whiskey advertisements. Its moving 
 pictures and billboards will be sanely but strictly 
 censored. Its places of business will keep short 
 hours, and its factories will be clean, light, well 
 ventilated, and pure. Blasphemy will not be 
 
 3Q9 
 
THE CHUKCH IN THE CITY 
 
 heard upon its streets, and courtesy, kindness, 
 and reverence will characterize the manners of 
 its citizens. It will be a place of which to be 
 proud, and to whose fealty to make oath in the 
 spirit of the sons of Athens, who nobly vowed, 
 ^^I will never bring dishonor or disgrace upon my 
 city, nor desert my suffering comrades in the 
 ranks. I will fight for the sacred ideals and 
 standards of my city, both alone or with many. 
 I will respect and obey her laws and seek to 
 impose a like obedience and respect upon the part 
 of those above us who are prone to annul them or 
 set them aside. Thus in all ways will I seek to 
 transmit my city, not only not less but greater, 
 more beautiful and better than it was trans- 
 mitted to us.'' 
 
 The value of life in a city is not to be estimated 
 by its bank balances but by the virtue and com- 
 fort of its inhabitants. Plato, speaking of the 
 true aim of the legislator, says that it "is not to 
 make the city as rich or as mighty as possible, 
 but the best and the happiest." Is it too much to 
 expect that a day will come when such concep- 
 tions as this will fill the minds and thrill the 
 hearts of city dwellers, causing them to select 
 rulers and to follow civic leaders who seek the 
 highest welfare of the people? Is it too much 
 to believe that some day Christ will come into 
 his own in the city? He who loved Jerusalem, 
 and who not only wept over it but wrought in it 
 works of purification and of healing, is still a 
 
 310 
 
THE CITY REDEEMED 
 
 friend and lover of throngs, and has now, as of 
 old, compassion for multitudes engrossed with 
 earthly pleasures and pursuits, restless and un- 
 happy, or "sadly contented with a show of 
 things." The Man of childhood's affection, of 
 poverty's solace, of simplicity's wisdom, of sin's 
 cure, of weakness's strength, and of sorrow's joy 
 is the hope of the race and the Morning Star of 
 Progress. In the very centers of life, upon the 
 rock of faith, of righteousness and of fidelity, He 
 will build his Church, which is to convert selfish- 
 ness, wickedness and pride into humility, purity 
 and sacrificial service. And through the labors 
 of a consecrated people there shall at length arise 
 in might the walls of a City of Victory. 
 
 A city that shall stand, 
 
 A light upon a nation's hill, 
 
 A Voice that evil cannot still, 
 A source of blessing to the land: 
 Its strength not brick, nor stone, nor wood, 
 But Justice, Love, and Brotherhood. 
 
 311 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 In the nature of the case, most of the facts concerning 
 present-day churches must he ohtained at first hand, through 
 acquaintance with churches, pastors, and contemporaneous 
 publications in newspaper and pamphlet form. In general, 
 recent works concerning the Church, the ministry, the 
 laity, sociology, and special problems of city life are the 
 books to be consulted. The following brief list of titles is 
 named as Indicative of sources of useful information some- 
 what related to the topics proposed in this volume. 
 
 Better New York, The, Tollman. 
 
 Boyhood and Lawlessness — the Neglected Girl, Goldmark 
 and True, 
 
 Brotherhood and Democracy, Ward, William. 
 
 Child Welfare, Problems of. Mangold. 
 
 Children in Bondage, Marlcham, Lindsey, and Creel. 
 
 Children of the Poor, Riis. 
 
 Children of the Tenements, Riis. 
 
 Church, The and the Changing Order, M'Gonnell, 8. D. 
 
 Church, The Institutional, Judson. 
 
 Church Work, Modern Methods of. Mead. 
 
 Church Publicity, Reisner. 
 
 Church, The Socialized, Tippy. 
 
 Church, The Christian Pastor and the Working, Gladden. 
 
 Church, The, and the Young Man, 
 
 Church, The, and Young Men, Cressey. 
 
 Churches, Social Creed of. Ward, H. F. 
 
 Christi, Gesta, Brace. 
 
 Christianity Practically Applied, Rainsford. 
 
 Christian Brotherhoods, Leete. 
 
 Cities, Modern and the Religious Problem, Lummis. 
 
 City, Challenge of the. Strong. 
 
 City, The Christian, Magazine, New York City Society, 
 Methodist Episcopal Church. 
 
 312 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 City, The Foursquare, Magazine, Chicago City Society, 
 Methodist Episcopal Church. 
 
 City Streets, The Spirit of Youth and, Addams. 
 
 City of the Sun, Campanella. 
 
 City, The Twentieth Century, Strong. 
 
 Civitas Dei, Augustine. 
 
 Conwell, Russell H., The Man and the Work, Burr. 
 
 Drummond, Life of Henry, Smith. 
 
 How the Other Half Lives, Riis. 
 
 If Christ Came to Chicago, Stead. 
 
 Laymen In Action, Quayle. 
 
 Looking Backward, Bellamy. 
 
 Mission, Leitfaden der Inneren, Schafer. 
 
 Missionary Societies, Publications of Home. 
 
 Morgan Memorial, the Present and Future, Buss. 
 
 Nasmith, Memoirs of David, Campbell. 
 
 Politics, Jesus and. Shepherd. 
 
 Race Betterment, Proceedings of National Conference on. 
 
 Religion, Social Applications, Stelzle, et al. 
 
 Religious Institutions, Social Applications of, Earp. 
 
 Slum, Battle with, Riis. 
 
 Social Aspects of Christianity, Ely. 
 
 Social Betterment, Religious Movements for. Strong. 
 
 Social Ministry, Ward, H. F. 
 
 Social Order, Christianizing the, Rauscheniusch. 
 
 Social Question, Jesus Christ and the, Peahody. 
 
 Social Substitutes for the Saloon, Calkins, R. 
 
 Social Survey of the Washington District, New York, 
 Trinity Church Men's Committee. 
 
 Stadtmission, Die, Lehrmann. 
 
 Stadtmission, Die Berliner, Evers. 
 
 Stadtmission, Die Evangelische, Kayser. 
 
 These Fifty Years, London, Weyhland. 
 
 Town Church, Problems of. Miller. 
 
 Utopias, Especially Plato's Republic and Campanella, 
 op. cit. 
 
 Wonder- Workers, Wade. 
 
 Year Books of Leading Denominations, and of Prominent 
 Churches. 
 
 Young Man, The, and the Church, Bok. 
 313 
 
INDEX 
 
 Acts, modem of Apostles, 47, 
 142, 178ff. 
 
 Advertising, 115, 126 
 
 Aliens, care of, 99, 259fif., 271, 
 284 
 
 Amenities, Christian, 140 
 
 Augustine, 9 
 
 BeUamy, E., 308 
 
 Berlin Mission, 267 
 
 Bethany Presbyterian, Phila., 
 185 
 
 Brace, Chas. Loring, 245, et seq. 
 
 Brick Presbyterian, Rochester, 
 167, 186 ' 
 
 Brooklyn City Mission, 265 
 
 Brooks, Bishop Phillips, 11 
 
 Brotherhood, Christian, 177, 
 199, 307 
 
 Business Church, 32, 55, 149, 
 152 
 
 Central Methodist Church, 
 Detroit, 168, 185 
 
 Children at church, 203 
 
 Christ, spirit, 17, 202; city 
 need, 20; and weakness, 70; 
 concern for city, 98; democ- 
 racy, 114; one theme, 125, 
 127; first, 210, 219; city re- 
 deemer, 273; the one hope, 
 311 
 
 Christ Episcopal Church, Cin- 
 cinnati, 164 
 
 Christ Episcopal Church, 
 Louisville, 163, 181 
 
 Christian Associations, 22, 254 
 
 Christianity, produces social 
 values, 10, 273; and com- 
 mon people, 17; and cities, 
 19, 286; to be studied, 43; 
 Hved, 44; land-holder, 106; 
 to save all, 136; pure, 107; 
 teaching, 290 ^ 
 
 Christians, how judged, 44, 47; 
 world's Christ, 46; social 
 justice, 49; trained, 145; co- 
 operation, 231, 272; the first, 
 286 
 
 Christian unity, 228ff. 
 
 Church, fundamental to city 
 character, 11, 15, 22, 156, 
 288ff.; seK-knowledge, 12; 
 the country, 12; central 
 city, 15, 18, 24, 26, 31, 36, 
 42, 103, 129, 150, 153, 157, 
 162, 269, 272; exists for men, 
 16, 99, 197, 208; surrender 
 of sites, 17, 19, 28; member- 
 ship, 19, 32, 130, 139, 210, 
 219, 273; values, 22; door 
 to society, 23; piracy, 29 
 promotion, 32; women, 40 
 churchmen, 45; and poUtics! 
 52; preachers, 44; aliens and 
 99, 259ff.; architecture, 204 
 stickit, 102ff.; management! 
 109, 113, 122; redemption 
 111, 115, 228; debts, 112 
 titles, 113, 158; activity, 116 
 destruction, 117£f.; program 
 121, 195; liberahsm, 122 
 worldliness, 126, 134, 196 
 208, 225ff.; life, 127, 226 
 papers, 131, 215ff.; and 
 home, 144; grouping, 146 
 attendance, 147, 203ff.; 214 
 250; and labor, 148, 301 
 boards, 152; workers, 154, 
 179; forms, 205; services! 
 206; and press, 209; congre- 
 gation-building, 210; invita- 
 tion, 215; and city redemp- 
 tion, 297; federations, 300 
 
 Churches, not classified, 12; 
 downtown 24; relations, 26, 
 28, 31, 195, 211, 271; his- 
 toric, 30, 35; mutual aid, 32; 
 members make, 39, 45, 219; 
 location, 104ff., 261; adapta- 
 tion, 108, 116, 126; use of 
 credit, 112; democratic, 114 
 college, 141; memorial, 143 
 tourist, 145; factory, 147£f. 
 control, 159; selling, 160 
 powerful, 173; union, 220flf. 
 
 314 
 
INDEX 
 
 failures, 225; small, 226; pic- 
 tures, 240; open air work, 
 241; new, 303; cooperation, 
 304 
 
 Cities, growth, 10, 282ff.; bat- 
 tle-ground, 12, 20, 286; puri- 
 fied, 15, 309; people of, 21; 
 abandoned centers, 28; evils 
 at heart, 61, 88, 285, 291, 
 307; sacrifice for, 277; origin, 
 279; history, 288ff.; mediae- 
 val, 281; power, 287; Amer- 
 ican, 287; western, 290; 
 value of Hfe in, 310 
 
 Citizen, the ideal, 306, 308 
 
 City, modern, 10; regeneration, 
 11, 297, 309; Christianity in, 
 19, 288, 292; inner and outer, 
 21; devourer, 21, 61, 309; mis- 
 sions, 36, 99, 103; debt to 
 country, 40; needs strong 
 men, 42, 275; poKtics, 50; 
 study of, 62; preachers, 63, 
 68, 97; centers, 101; child, 
 234fe.; play-grounds, 235, 
 et seq.; debt of wealth to, 
 269; new, 276; oldest, 280; 
 life and character, 285; 
 church memberships, 292ff.; 
 perfect, 296, 309; Christian, 
 305; beauty, 306; health, 
 307; soul, 307; fellowship, 
 308; virtues, 309 
 
 City Missions in Europe, 265ff . 
 
 City of God, 9 
 
 City of Light, 309 
 
 City of the Sun, 296 
 
 Civic Church, 298ff. 
 
 Civic ReHgion, Rousseau on, 9; 
 needed, 288 
 
 Civilization, peril of irreHgious, 
 290, 295, 299 
 
 Confessional, 71 
 
 ConweU, RusseU H., 188ff ., 199 
 
 Country church, 12; produces 
 city laymen, 40 
 
 Crockett, S. R., 102 
 
 Democracy, in the church, 43, 
 114, 137, 148, 196, 198; in 
 cities, 286 
 
 Denominationalism, 229ff. 
 
 Downtown problems, 36, 97, 
 129, 153, 157, 162, 197, 269 
 
 Drummond, Henry, 84 
 
 Education, church and, 142; 
 Christian, 155 
 
 Endowments of chm-ches, 115, 
 224 
 
 Evangelism, by good conduct, 
 47; adventures, 100; demo- 
 cratic, 114; and endow- 
 ments, 172; importance, 176; 
 church, 256; Sunday-school, 
 249; r e s p o nsibihty, 270; 
 through cities, 284 
 
 Federation of churches, 300 
 
 First Baptist Church, Syra- 
 cuse, 168, 191 
 
 First Congregational, Hart- 
 ford, 161 
 
 First Methodist, Chicago, 169 
 
 First Presbyterian, Pittsburgh, 
 187 
 
 Fraternity, 140 
 
 Fort Street Mission, Detroit, 
 258 
 
 Grace Baptist Temple, Phila., 
 188fif. 
 
 Grand Ave. Methodist, Kan- 
 sas City, 169 
 
 Greer, Bishop David H., 166, 
 304 
 
 Gospel, 67, 141 
 
 Haberle, Jacob, 246ff. 
 
 Hadley Mission, New York, 
 257 
 
 Helping Hand IVlission, Sioux 
 City, 258 
 
 Hull Street Settlement, Bos- 
 ton, 257 
 
 Institutional churches, 145; 
 opinions, 194ff . ; independ- 
 ence, 271 
 
 Johnson, Samuel, 10 
 
 Labor Church, 301, et seq. 
 
 Labor movement, 302 
 
 Laymen, city, 33, 38, 274; 
 women, 40; kiad needed, 43, 
 107, 116; sincere, 45, 46; 
 relations with world, 48; and 
 preachers, 53; intelligent, 56; 
 unprogressive, 10 9, 113; 
 
 315 
 
INDEX 
 
 timid, 112; aggressive, 115; 
 blindly led, 118 
 
 Leaders, developed, 33; hinder- 
 ers, 110; effective. 111 
 
 Leete, W. W., on congrega- 
 tional endowments, 162 
 
 Lindsey, B. B., 238ff. 
 
 London Mission, 266 
 
 Mathewson Street Methodist, 
 Providence, 183ff. 
 
 Memorial Chm-ches, 35, 143 
 
 Men, and church business, 34, 
 43, 55; make churches, 38, 
 118; and society, 305 
 
 Meyer, F. B., 197 
 
 Ministry, importance, 39, 86; 
 to neediest, 88; to sick, 90; 
 honor, 98; equipment, 116; 
 test, 211 
 
 Missions City, 36; to foreign- 
 ers, 99, 103, 130; classes, 136, 
 156; properties, 160; New- 
 York, 193; institutional, 196, 
 199 
 
 Moody, 85 
 
 Morality, product rehgion, 11, 
 22, 23, 243; pulpit teaching, 
 65; home, 86, 93; no sub- 
 stitute for religion, 125, 135; 
 value, 155 
 
 Morgan Memorial, Methodist, 
 Boston, 182, 252, 263 
 
 Nasmith, David, 266 
 
 New York City Mission, 264 
 
 New York City Society, Meth- 
 odist, 284 
 
 Ninth Street Baptist, Cincin- 
 nati, 261 
 
 Pastors, work of, important, 
 81ff., 92, 94, seq.; assistants, 
 82, 217; visits, 85, 87, 90; 
 advisers, 86; confidence in, 
 88; beginnings, 88; failures, 
 89; records, 89; chief busi- 
 ness, 90; seriousness, 91; 
 purity, 92; wisdom, 94; prep- 
 aration, 97; field, 98ff., 255, 
 274; terms, 106, et seq., 110; 
 changes, 108, 115, seq.; suc- 
 cess, 109; influence, 118; dis- 
 tant members, 131; of rich, 
 
 133ff.; prayer for, 134; 
 temptations, 138ff.; college, 
 143; and children, 243 
 
 Philanthropy, church and, 16, 
 200, 251, 254ff., 294; not 
 substitute for rehgion, 175 
 
 Pilgrim Congregational 
 Church, Cleveland, 162, 192 
 
 Plato, 310, 313 
 
 Plymouth Congrega tional 
 Church, Brooklyn, 191 
 
 Preachers, central, 18, 20, 97; 
 need of, 39, 53; meetings of, 
 52; quahty of, 54; experts, 
 46, 63, 69; influence of, 64, 
 68, 133; debt to, 65; great, 
 67; confessors of, 71, 84; 
 relations of, 73, 138; perils 
 of, 74ff.; time of, 78, 83, 85; 
 duties of, 80; most useful, 
 82; weariness of, 84; failures 
 of, 107, 123; fidelity of, 135, 
 217; labor of, 148; test of, 
 211 
 
 Preaching, value of, 64, 68, 
 103; gospel, 67; sensational, 
 66, 121, 212; wise, 141; pop- 
 ular, 207, 213; topics, 212, 
 214 
 
 Prophets, mav lose gift, 74 
 
 Proselyting, 138ff. 
 
 Protestant memberships, in 
 cities, 293 
 
 PoHtics, Christians in, 50; out- 
 look of, 52 
 
 Pulpit, power of, 67, 69; fail- 
 ures of, 81, 89; demagogues 
 in, 136; and children, 204; 
 extension of, 218 
 
 Rainsford, W. S., 162, et seq. 
 
 Rauschenbusch, W., 298 
 
 Reform Bureaus, 200, 289 
 
 Religion, creates morals, 11, 
 243; focalized, 18; needs 
 church, 22; recruits, 53; vi- 
 tal, 119, 289; and philan- 
 thropy, 175ff.; and play, 
 235ff.; new, a failure, 303 
 
 Riis, Jacob, 238 
 
 Romanism, debts, 158; insti- 
 tutions of, 177; church at- 
 
 316 
 
INDEX 
 
 tendance, 203ff . ; home train- 
 ing of, 208; growth and de- 
 sertions of, 208; extension 
 of, 223, 261; city member- 
 ships of, 292. 
 
 Saint George's Episcopal 
 Church, New York, 163, 
 177ff. 
 
 Savonarola, 67 
 
 Service, the highest, 57, 70, 72, 
 85, 93ff., 98, 148 
 
 Stead, W. T., 298ff. 
 
 Stewardship, 55, 135, 150, 
 155, 170, 174, 244, 269ff., 
 304 
 
 Social justice, good evangel- 
 ism, 47; difficulties, 49 
 
 Social service. Church and, 25, 
 72, 135, 199, 251, 294; 
 perils, 76; departments, 200 
 
 Social values, Christianity 
 and, 10 
 
 Social workers, Church trains, 
 25, 200; reception, 48; en- 
 couragement, 254 
 
 Society, door, 23, 45; mutual 
 respect, 49; debt to preach- 
 ers, 65, 70; cure for evils, 
 137, 298 
 
 Sunday school, endowment of, 
 165; equipment of, 189; im- 
 portance of, 193; church 
 attendance of, 203, et seq.; 
 effectiveness and needs of, 
 248ff. 
 
 Teaching, pulpit, 66 
 
 Tennyson, on childhood, 233 
 
 Trinity Episcopal Church, 
 New York, 164, 180, 237 
 
 Utopia, 297 
 
 Wall Street Mission, Sioux 
 City, 258 
 
 Wesley House, New York, 257 
 
 Wichern, J. H., 266 
 
 Woman, work in church, 40 
 
 Worship, value of, 176; appeal, 
 of, 212 
 
 Youth, in the city, 21, 22; 
 associations of church, 23; 
 ambitions of, 54 
 
 317 
 
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