287.67731 
 J23f 
 
 James Alton James. From Log School- 
 house to Church Tower {First Methodist 
 
 Church, Evanston, Illinois] (1945) 
 
ILLINOIS HISTORICAL SURVEY! 
 
H ftietory of tb« first 
 JMctbodiet Cburcb 
 
 EVANSTON, ILLINOIS 
 
1 SURVEY, 
 
 ■ 
 
Ze I ■ u'i 
 
 From 
 
 Log Schoolhouse 
 to Church Tower 
 
 X 
 
 By 
 
 James lAlton 'James 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/fromlogschoolhouOOjame 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 THE founding of Northwestern University in 1851, of Evanston in 1853, 
 of Garrett Biblical Institute and of the First Methodist Church in 1854, 
 were among the important events of Middle Western history. Especially 
 noteworthy has been the close relationship between the three institutions, 
 although each of them has maintained its complete independence. 
 
 The history of the university is being rewritten in preparation for the 
 approaching centenary of its founding. On October 10, 1944, a program 
 was presented, under the auspices of the faculty, which related to the 
 development of Garrett Biblical Institute during the ninety years since its 
 founding. 
 
 Services in the First Methodist Church on Sunday, November 19, 1944, 
 pertained to the history of the church. In the church school, a pageant 
 was presented by the children, which portrayed some of the important events 
 connected with the history of the church. The program for the morning 
 worship service included special music by the chancel choir and the four 
 fellowship choirs, under the direction of Dr. Emory Leland Gallup. For his 
 sermon, Dr. Tittle used the subject, "Not Apart from Us." The selection 
 for the choral evensong at 4:30 p. m., was the famous cantata, "Rejoice, 
 Beloved Christians," which was composed by Dietrich Buxtehude (1637- 
 1707). 
 
 On the Tuesday following came the anniversary dinner and program 
 for members of the church and friends. A number of the descendants of 
 early members of First Church were introduced by Dr. Tittle. Short ad- 
 dresses were made by Dr. Hugh Elmer Brown, minister of the First Congre- 
 gational Church, representing other Evanston churches; Dr. Franklyn Bliss 
 Snyder, president, Northwestern University; Dr. Horace Greeley Smith, 
 president, Garrett Biblical Institute; and Bishop J. Ralph Magee, resident 
 bishop of the Chicago area. 
 
 The historical address was given by Dr. James Alton James, professor 
 emeritus of American history, and dean emeritus of the Graduate School 
 of Northwestern University. The subject chosen, "From Log Schoolhouse to 
 Church Tower," pertained to the development of the church before the 
 coming of Dr. Tittle as minister. As planned by the committee in charge, 
 James F. Oates, chairman, Edwin S. Mills, Ernest F. Tittle and fames A. 
 James, a definitive history of the church is to be written. 
 
From Log Schoolhouse to Church Tower 
 
 By James Alton James 
 
 STUDY of available records warrants acceptance of the statement made by 
 Frances E. Willard that: "Our First Methodist Church virtually began 
 with that kneeling group of ministers and laymen who met in Judge Grant 
 Goodrich's law office, on May 31, 1850, to take the initial steps toward 
 founding the Northwestern University." But the first quarterly conference, 
 which marks the official founding of this church, was not held until July 13, 
 1854. 
 
 Of this group, composed of nine Methodists, which met in the little law 
 office over a hardware store on Lake Street, Chicago, three were ministers of 
 the three Methodist churches. The six laymen were widely known in pro- 
 fessional, business, and church life and three of them— Dr. John Evans, Grant 
 Goodrich and Orrington Lunt— were active participants in the civic, in- 
 tellectual, and social advancement of Chicago, which boasted a population 
 of 29,963, fifty-two per cent of whom were immigrants from foreign countries. 
 
 The founding of the university and of Garrett Biblical Institute, and the 
 timely aid to these institutions during their first critical years, are to be 
 attributed primarily to these three men. Their influence was equally 
 marked as active official members in promoting the program of this church. 
 
 Attention needs to be called briefly to a few local events intimately con- 
 nected with those which have been cited. Three years after the signing of 
 the Treaty of Chicago, in 1833, the chiefs of the Pottawattomie Indians and 
 their followers, some 5,000, were removed west of the Mississippi River. 
 Pioneer settlers then patented government land along the Green Bay Trail 
 (Ridoe Avenue) and erected their log cabins scattered from the site of 
 Calvary to the present Emerson Street. In 1843 they co-operated in building 
 a one-room loo schoolhouse on 
 the northwest corner of this trail 
 and the present Greenleaf Street. 
 
 In 1846, Grosse Point, as the 
 settlement was called, was in- 
 cluded in a circuit, by the Rock 
 River Conference, to which the 
 Rev. E. D. Wheadon was as- 
 signed. He and other itinerant 
 Methodist ministers preached in 
 this schoolhouse, about once a 
 fortnight, to a small congregation 
 made up of Methodists, Baptists, 
 Episcopalians. 
 
 Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and 
 
From Log Schoolhouse 
 
 With the advance of settlement along the Ridge Road, described as little 
 improved over the former Indian trail, a pioneer from Ohio, in 1848, erected 
 a two-story structure of four rooms. It became the show place of the village 
 and was named the Buck-Eve Hotel. The site later was designated as 2241 
 Ridge Avenue. It also was the civic center of the village organized two 
 years later as the town of Ridgeville. 
 
 In this building was distributed the mail which was brought from 
 Chicago once a week bv a man on horseback. Here, too, were held elections 
 and meetings for the transaction of public business. One of the rooms, a 
 general store and bar-room, was well supplied with whiskey to meet the de- 
 mands of townsmen, and of hunters, sailors, woodsmen, and travelers and 
 on occasion, Indians returning to visit the site of their one-time village and 
 chipping station, near the present Evanston Hospital. 
 
 The form of oath administered to officers elected in the town fairly illus- 
 trates one feature of early society. "Peter Smith," it reads, "having been 
 elected clerk of the town of Ridgeville, made the following affidavit in the 
 month of April, 1853: 'I do solemnly swear that I have not fought a duel, or 
 sent or accepted a challenge to fight a duel, the probable issue of which 
 might have been the death of either party, nor in any manner aided or assisted 
 in such a duel, nor been knowingly the bearer of such challenge or acceptance 
 since the adoption of the Constitution, nor will I be during my continuance 
 in office; so help me God.' " 
 
 On June 22, 1853, the trustees elected as president of the university, 
 Dr. Clark Titus Hinman, a graduate of Weslcyan University, Middletown, 
 Connecticut, who was widely known as a successful administrator and 
 scholar. That August, three hundred and seventy-nine acres of land along 
 the lake shore, reaching from the present Dempster Street to Lincoln Street, 
 were acquired as the university site. The Rev. Philo Judson, business agent, 
 was authorized to plat a portion of this purchase and dispose of lots for a 
 prospective village, which was named Evanston in honor of Dr. Evans, 
 president of the board. 
 
 Between this new village and the one on the Ridge Road was what was 
 referred to as a wet, almost impassable swamp, during parts of the year, and 
 children from Evanston were taken to the log school on horseback. That 
 social calls between Ridge dwellers and those on Chicago Avenue, the East 
 Ridge, were strictly limited is evident from the following statement by Helen 
 Tudson, daughter of Philo Judson, who became Mrs. John L. Beveridge. 
 "When I returned the call of Mrs. John A. Pearsons," she writes, "I came in 
 a farm wagon, with mv feet laid across a board to keep them out of the water, 
 so deep was it across the flat of land on which the depots are now built." 
 
 To Mrs. Beveridge, also, we are indebted for an account of one of 
 the earliest church services, under Methodist auspices, in May, 1854. "The 
 
 first Sunday wc went to the loo-school house to Church, the congregation 
 numbered about fourteen people, young and old, men and women. My 
 mother, Mrs. John A. Pearsons, and myself, I think, were the only women 
 
To Church Tower 
 
 that had on bonnets such as ladies wear now; the rest had on large sun- 
 bonnets and were dressed in primitive style. A Methodist minister who 
 came through from Vermont on his way to Minnesota was appointed by the 
 presiding elder as pastor. His name was John G. Johnson. He was a tall, 
 lank individual, dressed in dark blue cotton overalls, with large patches of 
 new cloth on each knee, while the rest of the cloth had been washed until 
 it was almost white. He always carried a blue cotton umbrella bulged 
 in the center." 
 
 The first quarterly conference of the church was held in the same building 
 on July 13. Among those present were: The Rev. John Sinclair, presiding 
 elder; J. G. Johnson, preacher in charge; Philo Judson, traveling preacher; 
 and George W. Huntoon, class leader. Elected stewards were John L. 
 Beveridge, lawyer, who was to become governor of Illinois; James B. Colvin, 
 proprietor of the "anything and everything" store; and A. Danks, a carpenter. 
 The report of Abraham Wigelsworth, who was elected superintendent of the 
 Sunday School, showed 84 children, 13 officers and teachers and one con- 
 version. 
 
 The second conference was held in the chapel of Dempster Hall, the 
 recently dedicated building of Garrett, the first structure erected, on the 
 campus, on a site donated by the university trustees. This friendly gesture 
 is easy to understand as five of the university trustees constituted five of the 
 six trustees of the Garrett board. This group contributed, also, the $1,650 
 necessary to erect that hall. 
 
 The Rev. P. W. Wright, professor of Hebrew and Greek, in Garrett, was 
 appointed preacher, in charge, and a committee on missions was named. 
 The committee appointed to estimate the salary and table expenses of the 
 preacher recommended, and it was adopted, that $150 should be raised for 
 these purposes for the remaining one-half year. Church services were trans- 
 ferred to the attic of a building erected 
 on the northeast corner of Davis Street 
 and Orrington Avenue. Neither street 
 had been paved and no sidewalk had 
 been built. On the first floor was the 
 Colvin general store. No charge was 
 made by the owner, the Rev. Mr. Jud- 
 son, for the use of the attic room, which 
 was fitted out with rough seats to ac- 
 commodate some forty persons. Col- 
 lections for the conference year were re- 
 ported to be : for foreign missions, $9.20 
 (not $920 as stated by one accepted 
 authority), $3.20 for tracts, and $474 
 for superannuated preachers. Following 
 the dedication on November 5, 1855, of 
 "Old College," the first university build- 
 
 O 
 
 ngma 
 
 1 Coh 
 
 Stoi 
 
8 
 
 From Log Schoolhouse 
 
 ing on the northwest corner of Ilinman Avenue and Davis Street, the chapel 
 was granted for the use of church services. 
 
 Great satisfaction was expressed over the completion of the new church 
 huilding, a small frame structure painted white, which was erected on the 
 site of the present public library, and was dedicated on July 27, 1856, with 
 a sermon by Dr. John Dempster, president of Garrett, assisted by the Rev. 
 John Sinclair, pastor of the church. With seeming pride, it was declared 
 that money amounting to S2.800 for defraying all expenses had been received. 
 
 
 - 
 
 The increase in the personnel of the first quarterly conference for the 
 year is indicative of the growth of the church. Listed among the members 
 were: Dr. Dempster, W. D. Godman, professor of Greek in the university, 
 Philo Judson, seven local preachers, six exhorters, two stewards, J. L. 
 Beveridge and H. S. Noyes, professor of mathematics and acting president, 
 seven leaders of classes, two superintendents of Evanston Sunday Schools, 
 one superintendent from Glencoe and one from Lake Bluff, the two latter 
 communities having been included in the Evanston circuit. 
 
 The pastor's salary, including table expenses and fuel, was increased 
 to $800, and an ultra modern note was included, for the stewards were 
 instructed to circulate a plus subscription paper immediately to provide 
 for the deficiency of the minister's claim the year preceding. Within 
 the year a remedy was introduced through the introduction of the system 
 of pew renting. A collector was appointed, and in consideration for this 
 service he was to have his own pew rental free. Students were seated 
 promiscuously in the pews, as were other persons who did not rent seats. 
 The collector of unpaid subscriptions was directed to present for trial 
 those persons who in his judgment can but will not pay the amounts sub- 
 scribed. A collection w 7 as ordered to be taken every Sabbath in both morning 
 and evening services. A special committee was appointed to attend to chang- 
 ing of the lamps in order to provide for the use of kerosene oil. 
 
To Church Tower 
 
 On Friday evening, September 25, occurred the first of the recorded 
 leaders' meetings, with the Rev. A. L. Cooper, minister, presiding, and with 
 four leaders and three stewards in attendance. 
 
 With the organization of the church, the leaders' and stewards' meetings 
 became, subject to the quarterly conference, the controlling body of the 
 society. So prominent were these leaders and so much importance was at- 
 tached to the conduct of the organized classes that the earlier meetings were 
 called leaders' meetings, although the stewards were always present and 
 participated in the discussions. Later, emphasis was placed on the financial 
 and other interests and the meetings came to be called leaders' and stewards' 
 meetings, and then meetings of the Official Board. 
 
 At these meetings the regular disciplinary questions were asked: "Are 
 any sick?" "Do any require temporal aid?" "Do any walk disorderly and 
 will not be reformed?" "Are any changes needed in the classes?" The 
 records of the meetings pertain primarily to discussions on attendance of 
 members at church services, at class meetings, six classes having been formed, 
 and on the observance of other articles to be found in the Discipline of the 
 Church. As a preface to the Discipline for 1856, is the collective 
 address of the seven bishops constituting the Council of Bishops. "We wish," 
 it states, "to see this little publication in the house of every Methodist, and 
 the more so as it contains the articles of religion maintained more or less, in 
 part or in whole, by every reformed church in the world. Far from wishing 
 you to be ignorant of any of our doctrines or any part of our Discipline, we 
 desire you to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the whole. You ought 
 next to the Word of God to procure the articles and canons of the church 
 to which you belong." 
 
 How literally this injunction was enforced by the leaders of the con- 
 stituted classes is testified to by the secretary. On the condition of class Num- 
 ber One, Leader Clifford reported that all members were in attendance with 
 one exception, "that P. G. (name in full) had been visited and labored with, 
 with no effect produced." Leader Stewart in his report for class Number Six 
 declared that most of his class were students and live at a distance and for a 
 season were at their homes during vacation. Instances of the transfer of 
 members from one class to another may possibly be accounted for through 
 the liberality shown in some of the reports of leaders of classes four and Inc. 
 No names of the class members were publicized. Leader Clough reported 
 that in Number Four nearly all were in attendance and none were absent 
 habitually." For class five, Leader Vane stated, "Some do not attend their 
 class and have not been visited." That opportunity for class attendance bv 
 absentees might be provided, it was decreed that a general class should be 
 
 organized for meetings on the first Sunday of each month at 3:30 p. m., 
 following the session of the Sunday School. Personal difficulties with a 
 neighbor as a plea for non attendance upon class and church services by 
 Mr. and Mrs. W. were not deemed acceptable alibis. I here were Instances 
 of the trial and expulsion of members for a breach of rules. At subsequent 
 
10 From Log Schoolhouse 
 
 meetings, other social problems were scrutinized with care. Two members 
 were considered disorderly by having engaged in dancing and the motion was 
 carried that thev should acknowledge their fault and do so no more. Card 
 playing by members was also prohibited. On investigation, it was shown 
 that a member had been strictly conscientious in all his business transactions 
 and that there was no cause for the complaint cited against him. 
 
 There were other events of interest relating to the church and the com- 
 munity prior to 1860. The first train on the then Chicago and Milwaukee 
 Railroad arrived in Evanston December 19, 1854. This was the first station 
 on the single track line between Chicago and Waukegan, and the schedule 
 called for one train a day to and from Chicago. 
 
 At Chicago Avenue and Davis Street a two-story building was erected 
 through the enterprise of the Sunday School superintendent and was known 
 as Dank's hotel. So rapid was the coming of newcomers to the town that a 
 visitor in that year reported that he found every room taken and people 
 sleeping on the dining-room tables and on shakedowns under them. 
 
 A noteworthy amendment to the charter of the university was granted 
 bv the State legislature, in 1855, through the influence of Dr. Nathan Smith 
 Davis and Dr. Evans. Dr. Davis, a steward of this church, was an eminent 
 Chicago physician, the founder of the American Medical Society, and a 
 leader in the promotion of higher educational qualifications for students of 
 medicine. He was one of the earliest of the university trustees and later dean 
 of the Northwestern School of Medicine. He was one of the founders of the 
 Chicago Historical Society and of the Chicago Academy of Sciences. 
 
 This amendment provided : "that no spiritous, vinous, or other fermented 
 liquors shall be sold under license or otherwise within four miles of the loca- 
 tion of said university except for medicinal, mechanical, or sacramental pur- 
 poses under a penalty of twenty-five dollars for each offense." A rider to 
 the amendment which was conceded to its opponents in the legislature, and 
 which was forgotten for over three-quarters of a century, provided: "that so 
 much of this act as relates to the sale of intoxicating drinks, within four miles 
 of the main university building, may be repealed by the General Assembly 
 whenever they may think proper." * 
 
 In 1857, the name Evanston, through legislative enactment, was made to 
 include the town of Evanston and the town of Ridgeville. 
 
 In rapid succession, four ministers came to First Church between 1857 
 and 1861, none of them serving the full term of three years as permitted by the 
 Discipline. The Rev. A. L. Cooper, a Garrett student, served for one year. 
 The coming of the Rev. C. P. Bragdon and his family, one of whom was to 
 become the distinguished Dr. Merritt C. Bragdon, is referred to as a notable 
 event in the history of Evanston. After two years, he was forced to retire 
 because of ill-health. He was succeeded bv the Rev. R. K. Bibbins, who 
 was followed bv the Rev. T. R. Goodrich, each serving for one vear. 
 
 'The purpose of the amendment was neutralized by a general law, passed by the legislature, 
 in 1934. But under the organized leadership of committees from the several churches, the citizens of 
 Evanston, by a vote of nearly three to one, sustained the original interpretation of the amendment. 
 
To Church Tower 1 1 
 
 While the cordial, co-operative relationship which obtained between the 
 several denominations continued, the organization of the Baptist Church was 
 held in the university chapel in April of 1858. The recognition service was 
 held in the First Methodist Church. St. Mark's Episcopal Church was organ- 
 ized, in 1864, in a meeting held in First Church. In 1868, the First Presby 
 terian Church was organized. The Congregational Church was formally 
 organized in a meeting in the university chapel on December 8 of the follow- 
 ing year. Each was granted a site for a building by the university trustees. 
 In 1860, the first Des Plaines camp meeting was held, which was made pos- 
 sible through the combined effort of Methodist leaders of Chicago and 
 Evanston. 
 
 Meantime, First Church was greatly strengthened and the town enriched 
 through the coming of a number of other men and women, to establish 
 homes, whose names would receive honorable mention in any communitv 
 at any time. Among them were A. J. Brown, a fourth member of the group 
 which founded the university, Judge Harvey B. Hurd, widely known Chicago 
 lawyer, editor of Illinois statutes, who was elected a steward and then was 
 appointed a superintendent of the Sunday School. Dr. Randolph Sinks 
 Foster, following successful pastorates in Cincinnati and New York City, 
 came as president of Northwestern in 1856, remaining for four years. He 
 was referred to as a man of unusual personality, noted scholar and preacher 
 and on frequent occasions when he preached in First Church, we are told, 
 there were no vacant pews. In 1872 he was elected a bishop. 
 
 Garrett faculty was greatly strengthened through the coming in 1856 and 
 1857 of Dr. Daniel P. Kidder, Dr. Henry Bannister and Dr. Francis Hemen- 
 way, whose influence is referred to in the minister's report at a meeting of 
 the quarterly conference as follows: "I feel that it should be written on our 
 official records that the brethren of the Biblical Institute have been engaged 
 first, last and all of the time energetically. They are a band of men whose 
 hearts the Lord has touched. " 
 
 Daniel Bonbright came to the university as professor of Latin language 
 and literature following his graduation with honors from Yale, and two years 
 of graduate study under a number of celebrated German scholars. Upon 
 his arrival, in 1858, he became recognized as a leader in the church, and 
 his influence in the university for fifty-four years was more all pervasive than 
 that of any of his contemporaries. 
 
 The selection of Evanston as his place of residence by Bishop Matthew 
 Simpson, in 1859, was an event of major importance. Prior to his election to 
 the episcopacy he had served as professor of science in Allegheny College 
 and as president of De Pauw University. Through his preaching and his 
 influence, Dr. John Evans had become a Methodist and by his counsel deter- 
 mined to lend assistance in the establishment of Christian institutions, col 
 leges, churches, and hospitals. 
 
 Bishop Simpson was conceded to he the most progressive bishop of his 
 time and was Famous for his thrilling eloquence and far sighted statesmanship. 
 
12 From Log Schoolhouse 
 
 For the nearly four years that he made his home here, he served as president 
 of Garrett, and for six years his name was listed as a member of the board of 
 trustees of the university. He is said to have given thirty addresses during 
 these years, most of them from the pulpit of First Church. 
 
 The Wreck of the Lady Elgin 
 
 One of the greatest disasters recorded in the annals of lake-faring craft, 
 the wreck of the Lady Elgin, occurred off the Winnetka shore on September 
 8, 1860. This was a catastrophe in which an example of heroism on the 
 part of a student has never been surpassed. 
 
 The Lady Elgin was the largest and finest of the steamboats plying be- 
 tween Chicago and the upper Great Lakes. On the evening of September 6, 
 this vessel, with three hundred and fifty passengers, left Milwaukee, arriving 
 in Chicago the next morning. Following a day spent in sight-seeing, with 
 one hundred additional passengers on board, the return trip was begun. 
 Upon reaching the open lake a storm was encountered, with a terrific gale 
 from the northeast. A few miles north of Evanston, at two-thirty o'clock 
 next morning, the schooner Augusta, which had been forced out of its course, 
 collided with the Lady Elgin, causing a hole in her side. The fires were put 
 out by the rush of water, the boat began to break up, and within a half hour 
 sank. Life preservers consisted only of short planks and the passengers seized 
 any movable object which might enable them to save their lives. The great 
 loss of life took place when the wreckage, with persons clinging to it, reached 
 the line of the breakers and the undertow. 
 
 There was no coast guard at this time, and rescue work was dependent 
 upon volunteers. News of the disaster reached Evanston and the names of 
 twelve Northwestern and Garrett students were recorded among those who 
 gave assistance. Of this number, nine were members of First Church. Two 
 of them, Charles H. Fowler, a Garrett student, and Edward Spencer, a junior 
 in the university, who was also registered for one course in Garrett, performed 
 outstanding service. But Spencer, leader of a class composed of twenty 
 students in the church, was especially noted for his skill as a swimmer. Before 
 entering college he assisted his father in running a ferry-boat on the Missis- 
 sippi River between Rock Island and Davenport. His brother, William A. 
 Spencer, a senior in the university, said that Edward, 'although frail in body 
 had learned to swim and dive until he was almost as much at home in the 
 water as on the land." 
 
 Edward saw that it would be necessary to swim out, seize persons strug- 
 gling in the water and bring them through the surf. With a rope tied 
 around his waist, so that assistance might be given in case of an accident, he 
 continued to battle with the breakers for six hours. So great was the strain 
 upon him that at the end of the first hour he was forced, with each rescue, to 
 lie before a blazing fire covered with blankets to revive his strength. 
 
 After saving fifteen lives, it was seen that he was in a state of exhaustion. 
 "Cost what it may, I will save that man or die in the attempt," he replied 
 
To Church Tower 
 
 to friends endeavoring to dissuade him from further effort. Upon reaching 
 the raft, he found a man clinging to it and at the same time endeavoring to 
 
 (DO O 
 
 save his wife. In a last desperate effort, Spencer brought them both to shore. 
 Completely exhausted, he was taken to his room where, in a state of delirium, 
 he repeated over and again to his brother: "Tell me the truth, Will; every- 
 body praises me. Tell me the truth. Did I do my bestr" Of the ninety-five 
 persons who were survivors of the wrecked steamer, Edward Spencer saved 
 seventeen. 
 
 The newspapers of the period, American and foreign, in their accounts of 
 the catastrophe, stressed the heroism displayed by him and the other students. 
 The citizens of Evanston presented him with a gold watch. Writing of the 
 event, some years later, his brother William stated: "This one day's battle 
 cost my brother his life work and largely his life's opportunity. He was com- 
 pelled to give up his studies. He was forced to give up the Christian min- 
 istry for which he was preparing. The price he paid for that day's work 
 was the health and strength of a lifetime, but he saved seventeen lives." 
 
 No other incident connected with the university exercises of Commence- 
 ment day, in 1909, was received with as much approval by the great audience 
 as the conferring of the degree Bachelor of Arts, as of the Class of 1862, 
 upon Edward Spencer. He was brought to the platform in a wheel chair, 
 for during the forty-nine years since he had left the campus his life had been 
 that of a semi-invalid. 
 
 At the entrance to the university gymnasium is a bronze tablet, which 
 bears the following inscription : 
 
 To Commemorate the Heroic Endeavors of 
 
 Edward W. Spencer 
 
 First Northwestern Student Life Saver 
 
 This Tablet Is Erected by the Class of 1898. 
 
 At the Wreck of the Lady Elgin, Off Winnetka, Sept. 8, 1860, 
 
 Spencer Swam Through the Heavy Surf Sixteen Timi s, 
 
 Rescuing Seventeen Persons in All. In the 
 
 Delirium of Exhaustion Which Followed, 
 
 His Oft-Repeated Question Was: 
 
 "Did I Do My Best?" 
 
 Following the wreck of the Ladv Elgin, demands on the federal govern 
 ment were persistent that life-boat stations should be established along the 
 western shore of the lake, as had been done on the Atlantic coast. The United 
 States Navy, in 1871, presented a life-boat to the university, on condition th.it 
 there should be assigned an officer and crew from the student body; and 
 that they should train themselves to do their best in case of an emergency 
 to assist any craft in danger on the coast near the university. 
 
14 From Log Schoolhouse 
 
 The first volunteer crew was composed of a captain and five other students. 
 By an order of General John A. Logan, Secretary of War, a first grade Coast 
 Guard Station was erected on the campus in 1877. To the members of the 
 crew, who were selected by a committee of the faculty, were assigned responsi- 
 bilities defined by the government. Each of them was to receive forty dollars 
 a month. Within a year, the report submitted by a supervisor stated, 
 "This crew was the best organized, drilled, and equipped on the lake." Five 
 of the number were students in the university and one was in the preparatory 
 school. All of them were listed as members of First Church, and five were 
 graduated from the university and from Garrett. 
 
 In 1880, Lawrence O. Lawson, who was not a student, because of his 
 superior skill as a seaman, was made captain of the crew. Students who 
 served from one to five years composed the other personnel of the crews for 
 nearly forty years. Through their efforts four hundred and eighty-one per- 
 sons were rescued from peril between 1883, the date of the earliest record, 
 and 1904. Among the widely known names of students, on these crews, who 
 were members of this church were Edson B. Fowler, John E. George, William 
 T. Hobart, John M. Springer, and George H. Tomlinson. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln Visits Evanstnn 
 
 Another epochal date in Evanston was April 5, 1860, for Abraham Lin- 
 coln came that afternoon to the village and was a guest for the night in the 
 home of Julius White, prominent Chicago merchant, a member of the 
 Congregational church. 
 
 On the train from Chicago, he was accompanied by Judge Harvey B. 
 Hurd, who wrote: "On the train, Mr. Lincoln and I occupied the same seat 
 in the railway car, that next the stove. Putting his long legs up behind the 
 stove and leaning down toward me, he related to me some of the amusing 
 episodes in his New England tour. The way he impressed me at that time 
 was well summed up by a country man, "Not that he knew it all and that I 
 knew little or nothing, but that he and I were good fellows, well met, and 
 that between us we knew lots.' " 
 
 The great majority of Evanston's eight hundred citizens were present, on 
 invitation, to hear the honored guest. They had been thrilled by his House 
 Divided Against Itself speech, by his seven debates with Senator Stephen A. 
 Douglas, his Cooper Union speech, and by reports of his receptions through- 
 out New England, for he then was spoken of as a probable candidate for 
 President of the United States. 
 
 Following the election, South Carolina and six other states of the South, 
 in convention, February 8, 1861, declared that the union under the name 
 of the United States of America is hereby dissolved, and formed the Con- 
 federate States of America. 
 
 President Lincoln, in the closing words of his inaugural address, made 
 his final appeal for union, saying in one of his most telling messages: "If it 
 
To Church Tower 15 
 
 were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in this dispute, 
 there still is no good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, 
 Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this 
 favored land are still competent to adjust in the best way all our present 
 difficulty. . . . We must not be enemies. . . . The mystic chords of memory, 
 stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and 
 hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, 
 when again touched, as they surely will be, by the better angels of our 
 nature." 
 
 Then came the attack on Fort Sumter, followed by the call of the Presi- 
 dent for 75,000 troops. The spirit of patriotism, in Evanston, became imme- 
 diately manifest. Bishop Simpson, who was to become a trusted adviser of the 
 President, Dr. Evans, Judge Hurd and Grant Goodrich had been outstanding 
 leaders in the anti-slavery cause. On the Sunday morning, following the 
 surrender of Fort Sumter, the bishop preached in the Methodist church. 
 The following account of the service was given by Frances Willard, who was 
 present. "He enters the pulpit, kneels in prayer, and a few minutes later is 
 leading the whole congregation to such an assault upon heaven for the over- 
 throw of human bondage as no soul among us ever thought to hear from 
 human lips." 
 
 Following the defeat at Bull Run, the President called for the enlistment 
 of 500,000 men and Evanston citizens assembled for a war meeting in the 
 Methodist church, with Dr. Evans presiding. After patriotic appeals and 
 stirring songs the muster roll was signed by a number of representative men 
 of the town, among them John L. Beveridge, William Gamble, and Julius 
 White. All three were to become generals. The first two were stewards in 
 First Church. The Evanston company, which was raised by Major Beveridge, 
 became a unit of the Eighth Illinois Cavalry, the regiment which opened the 
 battle of Gettysburg. The roster of this regiment included twenty-three 
 names of Evanstonians among them, Harry A. Pearsons, William A. Spencer, 
 and Philo Judson, Jr., Northwestern students who were active members of 
 this church. 
 
 In many ways, Methodist women co-operated with others in their support 
 of the soldiers— preparing hospital supplies— bandages, garments, bedding, and 
 giving assistance in two great fairs, which originated in Chicago. Through 
 these fairs, half a million dollars were raised for aiding sick and wounded 
 soldiers and for giving assistance to their families. 
 
 At the close of the war, a floor was placed over the pews of the chinch 
 and "a great banquet" was held, with a number of addresses, in honor of the 
 returning soldiers. The bronze tablet on the boulder placed at the Avenue 
 of Elms on the north campus of the university bears the names of one 
 instructor and six students whose lives were sacrificed, and is a reminder <>l 
 these four critical years in the life of our nation. 
 
16 From Log Schoolhouse 
 
 Church Development 
 
 During the period of the war and years following, down to September 
 24, 1871, a notable Sunday marked by the dedication of the basement lecture 
 room of the new church, there were a number of events which serve to portray 
 life within the church society. In a stewards' meeting, September, 1860, by 
 unanimous vote, Frances, "red-headed Frank Willard" as she was called by 
 her companions, having passed the required six months' probationary period, 
 was admitted into full connection and continued as an active member 
 throughout her life— a relationship to which she referred as outstanding among 
 her many honors. 
 
 A significant loss in the leadership came through the resignation of Dr. 
 Evans in order to accept his appointment by President Lincoln, on June 2, 
 1862, as the first governor of the Territory of Colorado. After taking up 
 his duties in what was described as a shanty-town of 1,200, Denver, he 
 continued to serve as president of the board of trustees of Northwestern 
 University, and was called upon for advice on First Church problems. His 
 activities as a pioneer on the new frontier were not unlike those to which he 
 had been accustomed. With Bishop Simpson still serving as his coun- 
 selor, he became the founder of a Methodist academy, which, with his 
 assistance, developed into the University of Denver. Toward the erection of 
 any new church, within the territory, he subscribed one hundred dollars, and 
 generous sums were also contributed by him to numerous other Christian 
 institutions. It is not surprising that the name, Mt. Evans, as a tribute to 
 him, was given to a majestic snow-capped peak by the legislature of Colorado. 
 
 In the Northwestern University faculty list are two professorships which 
 he endowed, and the religious activities of the university are now centered 
 in the John Evans Student Center for Religious and Social Service, situated 
 on the lot on which his house stood. 
 
 William P. Jones, a steward, principal of the Northwestern Female Col- 
 lege, which he founded in 1855, was appointed, by President Lincoln, consul 
 at Canton, China, in 1862, where he remained for six years. With a 
 membership of 175, in 1863, the church was enlarged by the building of a 
 sixty-four by twenty-one foot transept. With this addition, it was possible 
 to provide for seating an audience of six hundred. The pastor who was 
 constituted a committee of one, for raising the required $1,250 by subscrip- 
 tions for this improvement was Dr. O. H. Tiffany, who served as minister 
 from 1862 to 1865, and is referred to as a man of culture and eloquence. 
 There was evidence that appeals by the pastor were being substituted for the 
 dictation of class leaders, for in a minute of the meeting of the official board 
 it is stated that Dr. Tiffany exhorted leaders and stewards to greater faithful- 
 ness in attendance upon the prayer and class meetings of the church. 
 
 Following the three years of Dr. Tiffany's service, as minister, the com- 
 mittee in choosing his successor succeeded in persuading Dr. Miner Raymond 
 to accept the appointment. In the one year that he had served as professor 
 
To Church Tower 17 
 
 of systematic theology, in Garrett, he had become recognized as an outstand- 
 ing original thinker. For thirty-one years, he was a member of the Garrett 
 faculty, and for three years he served as the minister of First Church. It was 
 Dr. Milton S. Terry, one of his colleagues, who summarized the qualities 
 which made Dr. Raymond, as he said: "A great power among church leaders. 
 A well-balanced philosophical habit of mind, clearness and force of expression, 
 practical sagacity, an imperious will, and a constitutional optimism." 
 
 The new parsonage, near the southwest corner of Hinman Avenue and 
 Church Street, was to be occupied first by the Raymond family in May, 1865. 
 Judged by a paragraph in Mrs. Raymond's diary she too was possessed of 
 clearness of expression and essential optimism. For she writes: "Carpenters 
 and painters all over the house. Only two doors hung down stairs— no fasten- 
 ings on them— plastering not dry— cistern not done— windows not all in. First 
 visitor in the parsonage, Sunday three days later, Mrs. Harris of Aurora, 
 secretary of American and Foreign Christian Union." 
 
 There were evidences during these pastorates that the church might still 
 be used as a model for "the church in the wildwood," for the duty assigned 
 one of the stewards was to grub out the road to the church. By papering 
 the walls the interior of the church was relieved of its bareness. Another 
 member of the board was directed to take the melodeon to Chicago for tuning. 
 The committee of two members on church music was instructed to request 
 the director of singing to be more punctual in his leading. Possibly the 
 tuning fork had been mislaid. Frances Willard recalls that the choir in which 
 she sang alto occupied the right amen corner of the old church among the 
 trees. Fifty dollars a year were assigned the committee with which to 
 procure a suitable person to play the melodeon and "a boy to pump." It was 
 voted, in 1869, that the committee should be as economical as possible in the 
 expenditure of $35 which was to be raised by subscription for procuring a 
 choir leader. The congregation was summoned to gather on Saturday nights 
 for instruction in singing hvmns. Permission was granted by the university 
 trustees for the church janitor to ring the bell in the cupola of the universit) 
 building three blocks away, for church services, on Sunday. 
 
 To Oliver Marcy, who came to the university in 1862, was assigned the 
 customary task of filling two or more professorships, although his special field 
 was geology. Notwithstanding his undertaking of this program, he led a class 
 composed of students and citizens in the study of the Bible in the Sunday 
 School and became a member of the board of stewards and later a trustee. 
 The following description of the Sunday School is selected from a letter to 
 his brother in Massachusetts. "Our superintendent," he writes, "is a lawyer, 
 Harvey B. Hurd, our assistant, a senior in college— brought up in the Cin 
 cinnati Sunday Schools. He sings with a gusto. Our melodeon is played 
 and fifteen minutes are devoted to singing— more sometimes. Then prayer 
 by the superintendent, calling the roll of officers by the secretary, departure 
 of the infant class from the body of the church, teachers hear their classes. 
 Then all rise and either the preacher or superintendent leads while all repeat 
 the Apostles' Creed. The school then is catechized by the preacher. If 
 
18 From Log Schoolhouse 
 
 distinguished strangers are present, they address the school. A collection is 
 taken. A report from the secretary of numbers present and amount of col- 
 lection is given, singing and dismissal. Slates are distributed by the librarians 
 
 in the first fifteen minutes and during the singing the scholars write the 
 
 & so 
 
 number of the book they wish on the slates. Librarians select the books 
 during the recitation and distribute them at the close. The school numbers 
 about 175. 
 
 "Our church sends two members to the General Conference— Dr. Demp- 
 ster and Dr. Bannister. They are the two best men in the West. Dr. Tiffany 
 wants preachers returned as long as the people ask for them. He wants 
 book agents and theological professors members of the General Conference 
 ex officio so that a full quota may be elected from the ranks." 
 
 Possibly the revelation, in another letter, of this plain speaking scientist 
 and layman ought not to be referred to. "But," he writes, giving full names, 
 "T. doesn't accept his appointment. I guess that the Chicago Junto calculate 
 on giving him a place on or before the General Conference. E. is pulling 
 every wire for the bishopric and promising spoils to all who help him. 
 Whether T. is in for the presidency of Northwestern or the editorship of 
 the Northwestern Christian Advocate I have no means at present of deter- 
 mining but one or 'tother I guess." 
 
 W. A. Spencer served as Sunday School superintendent in 1865. He was 
 a graduate of the university and of Garrett, served in the Civil War, became 
 widely known as a minister, and was elected secretary of the Church Exten- 
 sion Society of the Methodist Church. 
 
 Lyman J. Gage was, for a number of years, a member of the board of 
 stewards, and was elected, in 1866, Sunday School superintendent. Through 
 his leadership as trustee and treasurer the completion of the new church 
 building was made possible. 
 
 His formal education was completed at the age of fourteen. Coming to 
 Chicago when he was nineteen, he became a clerk in a lumber yard, then a 
 bookkeeper and later a cashier in a Merchant's Saving Company. In 1868, 
 he accepted the position of cashier with the First National Bank of Chicago, 
 becoming vice-president and executive officer in 1882, and president in 1891. 
 He was president of the board of trustees of the World's Columbian Exposi- 
 tion in 1893, and its success was in a large measure due to his tact and wise 
 counsel. As one of the nation's outstanding authorities on finance, he ac- 
 cepted the office of Secretary of the Treasury in the administration of Presi- 
 dent William McKinley. It was his claim through life that he was an old- 
 fashioned Methodist. 
 
 Edward Eggleston succeeded Mr. Gage as superintendent of the Sunday 
 School in 1867, and continued in office during the three years he lived in 
 Evanston. He came here in order to become editor of The Little Corporal, 
 a popular magazine for young people, of which Alfred L. Sewell, a member 
 of the board of stewards, was the publisher. Because of ill-health, young 
 Eggleston had been unable to attend even a common school in his Indiana 
 
To Church Tower 19 
 
 home town, for any length of time, but at sixteen, according to his sister, 
 Mrs. Jane Zimmerman, who, for many years, was a member of First Church, 
 he became thoroughly versed in the writings of Wordsworth, Coleridge, 
 Shelley, Keats and of American authors. Nine years spent on the frontier 
 of Minnesota, at first as a driver of a yoke of oxen in prairie breaking, served 
 in part to restore his health. He then became a Bible agent and preached 
 in small churches. 
 
 During his residence in Evanston, he was not alone an editor, a superin- 
 tendent of the Sunday School and teacher of a Bible class. Having studied 
 the methods of Froebel, he built a cottage in his own yard for the training 
 of his children and those of the community. The two teachers in this, 
 Evanston's earliest kindergarten, were trained by him and for their use he 
 translated a number of German songs and plays suitable for children. 
 
 For his further outreach, we are indebted to one of the pupils of the 
 Sunday School, Dr. Henry B. Hemenway, who wrote as follows in describing 
 Mr. Eggleston as the real founder of the Evanston public library. "While 
 superintendent of the First Methodist Sunday School, he formed a class of 
 boys who met at his home. This class, which was not confined to boys of 
 any one church, held a brief religious meeting, followed by a social hour. . . . 
 My mental picture shows him in the half hour after the meeting. He sits in 
 a large easy chair, his heavy brown hair pushed back and his face lit up as he 
 looks first to one, then to another of his hearers. A boy sits on each knee, 
 another on each arm of the chair, one or two hang on his back, while the 
 rest get close to his feet on the floor, or on low stools. Then he told us stories 
 of his boyhood or of the frontier. Before we parted, he took us into the little 
 library and helped us to select books for one week's reading. He did not 
 object to books of adventure, for spice, but I remember that he tried to instil 
 in our minds a taste for books of more value, such as Abbott's histories. The 
 class grew, until he had to move it into the kindergarten building. He added 
 to the library, but it was too small. Then he began to appeal to some of our 
 old citizens, L. L. Greenleaf among others, for the forming of a public library." 
 
 At the same time, he was recognized as a contributor to all the leading 
 juvenile periodicals in the United States. For a year he served as Western 
 correspondent of the Independent, widely known religious periodical of the 
 time, and in 1870 he was made its managing editor and took up his residence 
 in Brooklyn. A year later he became editor-in-chief of Hearth and J Ionic, 
 and this marks the beginning of his career as a popular novelist, for the 
 chapters of The Hoosier Schoolmaster were published in this magazine. I his 
 was followed by the Circuit Rider, The Hoosier School Boy, and The Gray 
 sons. Following the writing of a number of articles on American I listor\ , he 
 turned from fiction to history, with the ambition of writing a history of life 
 in the United States. Two volumes only were completed, The Beginners of 
 a Nation, and The Transit of Civilization, but these volumes were to serve 
 as models for the then new approach that the ideal lor historical writing is 
 in large part not a mere record of politics, of government, ol wars, ol diplo 
 macy, but is primarily a record of the culture of a people. 
 
20 From Log Schoolhouse 
 
 It is of interest to learn that the plan of Edward Eggleston to provide for 
 a public library was matured through the efforts of William T. Shepherd, 
 who had served with him as assistant superintendent of the Sunday School, 
 and was elected his successor. Following a number of preliminary meetings 
 of a small group of men invited to his home, a meeting was held in First 
 Church, October 18, 1867. Dr. E. O. Haven, president of the university, who 
 had been present at the earlier meetings, was elected chairman and E. S. 
 Taylor, superintendent of the Sunday School, secretary. 
 
 The constitution which was adopted provided that the name of the 
 organization should be: "The Evanston Library Association, and that its ob- 
 ject was to establish and maintain a public library and reading room, and in 
 connection with this by all suitable means to awaken a desire for sound 
 knowledge and a correct taste, and to provide for the gratification of the same 
 through all classes of the community." Among the officers selected were: 
 L. L. Greenleaf, president, Lyman J. Gage, treasurer and Dr. Haven, one 
 of the directors. 
 
 A year earlier President Haven had come to Evanston. Following his 
 graduation from Wesleyan, he became a teacher in a Methodist Academy, 
 and then a minister in New York City churches for five years. Influenced 
 by some of his friends, he was induced to accept the professorship of 
 Latin and literature in the University of Michigan. Professor Haven, by 
 the simplicity and affability of his manners, and by his attractive public 
 discourses, contributed greatly to the revival of popular interest in the univer- 
 sity. He was notably successful before student assemblies. As an advocate 
 for the opening of the university to women, he stood alone and as he wrote: 
 "It was considered wild and insane. Not a member of either faculty ap- 
 proved, but usually it was regarded as rather a dangerous joke on my part." 
 
 "A flash of light from the East," as he called it, came, in 1850, through 
 the announcement that he had been elected editor of Zions Herald. In this 
 office which he retained for thirteen years, he became widely known for 
 his opposition to slavery and for his support of the temperance movement. 
 He was appointed a member on the State Board of Education by the governor 
 of Massachusetts and was elected to the Board of Overseers of Harvard 
 College. For two years, he served as a member of the State senate. 
 
 It is not surprising that he refused the offer of the presidency of North- 
 western in 1860, and thus be forced to forego his life of usefulness, in Boston, 
 as an editor, in which, as one of his colleagues stated: "He accomplished an 
 amount of work seldom equaled." But, in 1863, he accepted the presidency 
 of the University of Michigan, which was tendered him by the unanimous 
 vote of the regents, becoming also professor of rhetoric and English literature. 
 During the six years he remained in this position, he succeeded in creating a 
 reserve fund for the endowment of the librarv, and in raising the scientific to a 
 parity with the classical course. He organized a course in mechanical engi- 
 neering, inaugurated a school of mines, and established a university hospital, 
 
 At the end of his sixth year, "he astounded and dismayed" the supporters 
 of the university by announcing his resignation in order to accept the invita- 
 
To Church Tower 21 
 
 tion by the trustees to become president of Northwestern. "Having conquered 
 the situation at Ann Arbor/' he stated, "and feelina that I could be more useful 
 in Evanston, I consented to receive the appointment. In those days of 
 pecuniary inflation, when the atmosphere was full of hope and speculation, 
 it appeared an easy thing to command money enough near Chicago to make 
 Northwestern University equal to any in the country. Moreover, I felt a 
 strong desire to be more intimately at work in a religious institution." 
 
 During the three years of his administration, President Haven continued 
 to lead a life of great activity as a member of the board of stewards, as 
 preacher many times in First Church, and as a lecturer and a writer for 
 religious journals. "His society," as stated by Dr. Marcy, "was much sought 
 by men of opinion and influence. Each Sunday afternoon he gave an address 
 in the college chapel to which the citizens crowded to listen. He was invited 
 to lecture before educational associations, and the presidents and officers of 
 other colleges honored him with calls." 
 
 Among the addresses connected with the inaugural exercises of President 
 Haven was one by Bishop Edward Thompson, which was referred to as an 
 eloquent address. Before his election to the Episcopacy he had been for 
 fourteen years president of Ohio Wesleyan University. His home at this 
 time was in Evanston, and he was a member of the Northwestern Board 
 of Trustees. These two leaders, during the three years they continued to 
 live here, co-operated in their service to the university, to the church, and 
 to the community. On numerous occasions Bishop Thompson preached 
 in First Church, and completed, for publication, two volumes on Oriental 
 Travel and one on Evidences of Revelation. 
 
 In letters and diaries are frequent references to the social relations of 
 members, including strawberry festivals, picnics, and spelling bees. Thanks- 
 giving, in addition to church services, was set apart as a day when there was 
 to be a donations visit to the home of the pastor. Presents were brought by 
 parents to be hung on the Christmas tree in the church, to be distributed 
 to the children by a buffalo-robed Santa Claus bedecked with sleigh bells. 
 
 "Evanston is becoming noted for its sociability," writes a reporter for the 
 Chicago Evening journal, for October 19, 1867. "Church sociables, reading 
 societies, meetings are of almost nightly occurrence. A brilliant party was 
 given last evening by Dr. and Mrs. Hamline at their elegant new residence." 
 
 Henry M. Bannister, a graduate of the university and member of First 
 Church, who was twenty-one years of age, upon his ret inn after a year spent 
 in Alaskan exploration as a representative of the Smithsonian Institution, eon 
 firms this report in his diary. He writes: "February 6. In the evening went 
 to a sociable at Mrs. Bragdon's. February 10. Attended a part) .it Mr. 
 Judson's, had a good time. February 13. I went to a small party at Professor 
 Marcv's. I lad a very pleasant time. There was not too great a crowd and 
 not too much ceremony. February 14. Another invitation nut lor tomorrow 
 evening. We are getting dissipated sure. 1 enjoyed myself so well at the last 
 one though that I may accept this imitation. February IS. In the evening 
 
22 From Log Schoolhouse 
 
 we went to hear Fred Douglas. He gave us a very good lecture about two 
 hours long. February 25. Went to Church twice today, heard Dr. Raymond 
 in the morning and Mr. Eggleston in the evening." 
 
 Naturally, no mention is made by Mr. Bannister of the influence of his 
 parents in their home which was recognized as a Methodist social center. 
 "There was no home in Evanston," writes Frances Willard, "where we vouna 
 folks better loved to go." Mary Bannister is described as being versed in four 
 languages. When nine years of age Henrv studied Latin, and Greek at twelve. 
 He and Mary were in the same class, which was taught by their father, the 
 professor of Hebrew in Garrett. Mary was also an accomplished musician. 
 "When we went to visit her," Miss Willard writes further, "we always had 
 good talks of books, art, life. She seemed incapable of common-place and her 
 own bright ways, with the cordial welcome of her parents, gave to that home 
 its chief attractiveness." 
 
 "The roomy mansion" as it was called, referring to the home of Dr. and 
 Mrs. Daniel P. Kidder, the third house north of Church Street on the east 
 side of Chicago Avenue, was another center for the gathering of Methodist 
 young people. Both were known for their social graces, and their daughter 
 Kathryn ("Katie") was known as the belle of Evanston. Quoting Miss Wil- 
 lard : "It was of incalculable benefit to us whose opinions were then forming, 
 that the Kidder home with its large library lined with well-filled book cases, 
 its roomy parlors, and its broad piazza on which we delighted to promenade, 
 brought to our young hearts the conception of Christ and Christians as a 
 social force. From some of our hearts, at least, the heavenlv vision has never 
 faded and no society after the stratified regulated pattern has ever had one 
 charm for us since then." 
 
 A university and Garrett graduate, a prominent New York minister, who 
 for seven years had earned his way at the wood-pile, in the garden, and by 
 taking care of horses and cows, wrote: "Pleasant memories do I cherish of 
 those officials in the church who, with their families, fostered and furthered 
 our interests, Messrs. Haskin, Hoag, Beveridge, Pearsons, Clifford, Judson 
 and others." 
 
 The programs for social gatherings included talks on travel, with the 
 use of photographs and the stereoscope, for many of the leaders had studied 
 and traveled in Europe and some of them had visited South America and 
 Palestine. At times, there were musical selections and readings, charades, 
 tableaux, and amateur plays, games of dominoes and checkers, and in sum- 
 mer croquet and baseball. 
 
 Outstanding in its influence upon the entire community was the "Evanston 
 Philosophical Societv," which was organized in 1866. Seven of the incor- 
 porators were active members of First Church, and occasional meetings, open 
 to the public, were held in the church. 
 
 In the church were held, also, university commencement exercises, in- 
 cluding baccalaureate sermons and alumni meetings. Among public lecturers 
 were: Henry Ward Beecher, a friend of Dr. Evans; Theodore Tilton, friend 
 
To Church Tower 23 
 
 of Edward Eggleston; and John B. Gough, a temperance advocate. Edward 
 Everett Hale spoke on the subject, The Man Without a Country, title of the 
 volume of which he was the author. Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, widely known 
 as lecturer on equal suffrage and education for women, gave an address on 
 "What Shall We Do With Our Girls?" 'They should," she declared, "receive 
 better physical development and be trained in the same intellectual and 
 industrial pursuits as our sons." She cited as chief obstacles to their proper 
 physical development, tight waists, dragging trains, heavy trimmings, and 
 high-heeled shoes. 
 
 Chaplain Charles C. McCabe, who was made a prisoner at the battle of 
 Winchester while caring for the wounded, and was confined in Libby Prison, 
 became known nationally through his lecture on "The Bright Side of Life in 
 Libby Prison," and for his ability as a singer. In 1868, he was made 
 assistant corresponding secretary of the Methodist Board of Church Extension, 
 and in 1884 he was elected corresponding secretary of the Missionary Society. 
 "A million for missions," he adopted as his slogan, a goal which was exceeded. 
 In 1896 he was elected a bishop. He became well known to Evanstonians 
 through his visits at the home of his brother, R. R. McCabe, a steward in the 
 church, and for his lectures and addresses in First Church. 
 
 Prior to 1877, the resourcefulness of the women of the church had not 
 been recognized through their appointment to membership on any of the 
 official boards or committees. It is to be recalled that the status of women 
 in the plan of higher education had not been fully determined, and only a 
 few seers in those far-off days could imagine the keepers of the home fires 
 taking their places in legislative halls. However, the name of a woman 
 appeared as assistant Sunday School superintendent for a part of the year 
 1872. The experiment was tried again, five years later, when Mrs. Emily 
 Huntington Miller, known widely for her contributions to the literature for 
 young people, was appointed second assistant, with Dr. H. F. Fisk, superin- 
 tendent. Mrs. Elizabeth Marcy, having demonstrated superior ability as a 
 promoter of the cause of missions locally and throughout the nation, was 
 appointed successor to Mrs. Miller. 
 
 But the statement made by a minister at the beginning of the twentieth 
 century might as aptly be applied to the activities of the women of the seventies 
 and nineties, as to those of later decades. "One would not pass far beyond the 
 bounds of accurate statement," Dr. Timothy Prescott Frost said in 1907, "if 
 he were to say of the work of the women of this church that they are all at 
 it and always at it. Their organizations are studies in industry, persistency, 
 and efficiency in the interests of the Kingdom of God, and in behalf of 
 the organizations they severally represent they suffer no woman and no man 
 to escape." 
 
 Through the efforts of an organization known as The American Meth 
 odist Ladies Centenary .Association, the women of this church, in 1866, 
 with Mrs. Bishop I lamline president of the board, made possible the erection 
 of Heck Hall, a building of five stories, in which were located lecture rooms, 
 library, chapel and as announced "superior accommodations" lor one hundred 
 
24 From Log Schoolhouse 
 
 and twenty students. Thirty thousand dollars of the fifty-seven thousand 
 required were contrihuted through the efforts of the Centenary Association. 
 
 Two years later the Ladies Educational Association was formed by fifteen 
 women of the church. With the problem of co-education still in the balance 
 they proposed to create an institution for the higher education of women to be 
 known as the Evanston College for Ladies, which was to have a board of 
 trustees composed of women, and a woman for president. Frances E. Willard, 
 on her return early in 1871, after two years of travel and study in Europe, 
 was selected as president and a drive for funds with which to erect a new 
 building was opened. 
 
 Here may attention be called to their plan for raising $60,000, which 
 may in some respects be thought of as constituting a precedent for "Christmas 
 Tree Lane.'' On the date selected, July 4, for laying the cornerstone of the 
 building recalled, by many generations of students, as Willard Hall, a great 
 carnival known as the Women's Fourth of July was planned. President 
 Willard tells the story, in part, as follows: 'Tor three months, I slept and 
 woke Fourth of July. Men and women rallied to my help as if it were their 
 own. Although ours was a Methodist college, Episcopal ladies were on the 
 committee; Presbyterians bore the battle's brunt; Congregationalists cheered 
 on the battalions, and did not a little of the fighting; while Baptists were out- 
 done by nobody, and Methodists headed by Mary F. Haskin, president of the 
 board, were at it and all at it intent on making the Women's Fourth of July 
 celebration what it was, the most complete ever known in the Northwest 
 and the most unique ever held upon the continent." Thousands of persons, 
 estimated at ten thousand from Chicago and vicinity, were present for the 
 celebration on the university campus. After the procession, led by a brass 
 band, the program included reading of the Declaration of Independence by 
 Professor Robert McLean Cumnock, an oration by Senator J. R. Doolittle, 
 United States Senator from Wisconsin, and an address by Dr. Haven. 
 Luther L. Greenleaf served as chairman, and General John L. Beveridge as 
 marshal. A fee was collected for viewing military drills by the celebrated Ells- 
 worth Zouaves. Admission was charged for entrance to an amateur play pre- 
 sented by young society people. The ladies served three thousand dollars worth 
 of dinners. There were boat races with a prize for winners, and a baseball 
 match between a team selected from the girls in the Ladies' College and one 
 made up of university men. The score reported, number of innings not 
 designated, was 56 to 4, in favor of the university. 
 
 The cornerstone was laid with much ceremony. Twenty-five thousand 
 dollars, including $10,000 by Dr. Evans and numerous smaller amounts, 
 were subscribed. Gifts of $10,000 each had previously been made by Luther 
 Greenleaf and O. Huse. With a faculty composed of nine women, the 
 college was opened in the building of the Northwestern Female College, 
 with an attendance of two hundred and thirty-six in all departments. 
 
 Beginning with 1868, for fourteen years, the leading topic for conversa- 
 tion and debate pertained to the erection of a new church building, and 
 
To Church Tower 
 
 25 
 
 the financial obligations connected with it. That these discussions became 
 somewhat heated may be surmised from reading the incomplete records, for 
 on April 13 of that year it became evident in a meeting of the stewards that 
 a marked difference in judgment on the problems existed. Unanimously 
 carried was the motion that steps should be taken to build a church com- 
 mensurate with the size of the town. But a ten to five vote in favor of 
 locating the church on the lot partly occupied by the parsonage marked the 
 opening of a controversy which continued for seventeen months. Meantime, 
 nine trustees were elected at a called meeting of the congregation and building 
 plans were committed to their keeping. In their first meeting, it was stipulated 
 that brick should be used in the erection of the building, which was to cost 
 not less than $40,000 and be large enough to seat a congregation of one 
 thousand. Arguments were advanced in a number of subsequent meetings 
 for the location of the church on the site of the old church, on Hinman 
 Avenue and Grove Street, and on Hinman Avenue and Church Street. For 
 a time there was the possibility of the erection of two buildings, but finally 
 an agreement was effected in the choice of the parsonage lot, the present site. 
 Instruction was given the building committee to obtain estimates for the erec- 
 tion of the basement or lecture room. The contemplated chapel was to consti- 
 tute a separate unit. On July 4, 1870, the cornerstone was laid. Dr. W. C. 
 Dandy, then presiding elder, who had been the minister in charge of the 
 planning, was succeeded by Dr. James Baume, a former missionary to India. 
 
 On a memorable Sunday, Sep- 
 tember 24, 1871, the lecture room was 
 dedicated. The debt, amounting to 
 $18,000, was secured by a mortgage 
 on the church. Under the persuasive 
 appeal of a celebrated debt extin- 
 guisher, Dr. B. I. Ives, subscriptions 
 amounting to $20,599 were received. 
 
 Then came the devastating influ- 
 ence of the Chicago fire on October 9, 
 1871. Among the heavy losers by the 
 fire was Orrington Lunt, whose home 
 and place of business were destroyed. 
 Realizing that his office was in the 
 path of the flames, he took from the 
 vault records of the university and of 
 Garrett, and after depositing them in 
 a safe place, returned to save his own 
 papers. With others, he gave his best 
 energies to the rebuilding of Chicago 
 and served for eighteen months as a 
 member of the special relief com 
 mittee. Meantime, the Lunt family 
 
 The Church With the Spire 
 
26 From Log Schoolhouse 
 
 came to Evanston to make their home and became active members of First 
 Church. 
 
 Responses to the appeals of President Haven and other leaders throughout 
 the nation gave assistance in rebuilding destroyed churches and prevented 
 the closing of Garrett. 
 
 "The great fire," wrote Professor Marcy, secretary of the church board of 
 trustees, "has taken much of the wealth from our church, but we hope it will 
 only delay transactions. Our debt will be postponed but paid." Lyman 
 Gage, treasurer, was instructed and he succeeded in obtaining an extension 
 of time on the debt. 
 
 Then, in the summer of 1873, a financial crisis swept the nation, which 
 seriously affected plans for local institutions, and especially those for the 
 Ladies' College. Through the resignation of President Haven the college had 
 lost its chief adviser. In June, 1872, he accepted the office, recently created, 
 of secretary of the Methodist Board of Education. <l It is only because I have 
 high hopes that the Board of Education will be useful to the entire church," 
 he wrote in his letter to the university trustees, "that having been called to 
 engage in its work, it is my duty to do so that I consent." In 1880 he was 
 elected and ordained a bishop. 
 
 By agreement between the trustees of the Ladies' College and those of the 
 university the college became the Woman's College of the university, on 
 June 25, 1873. Five of the women were made members of the university 
 board of trustees, and Frances Willard became the first dean of women and 
 member of the university facultv, with the title professor of aesthetics and 
 English. 
 
 Notwithstanding financial uncertainties, the contract for the construction 
 of the main auditorium of the church was let on September 22, 1873, and on 
 the following July 27, with Dr. M. C. Briggs, the pastor, in charge, it was 
 dedicated. New subscriptions to the amount of SI 4,566 were made, and $7,750 
 was still due on old subscriptions. The cost of the new building, including 
 interest at eight per cent and insurance, was $63,838. 
 
 In October, two years later, there was still an indebtedness of $18,000 
 and a floating debt of $10,000. There were unpaid subscriptions of $17,010. 
 A debt on the parsonage amounting to $3,500 had been paid in 1873, but on 
 the organ, which cost $4,500, there was $2,731 still due. For this sum, the 
 builders of the organ brought suit against the church, but out of collections 
 on unpaid subscriptions enough money was brought in to cover this amount. 
 The records show vigorous and painful consideration of liabilities and of 
 subscriptions still unpaid. 
 
 At this critical time, the women, as usual, came to the rescue. They 
 accepted a plan which was submitted by a steward, Dr. H. F. Fisk, and had 
 been adopted by the congregation. There were those among the members, 
 he stated, who made no subscriptions, and others who neglected to pay the 
 amounts subscribed. If, as premised in the plan, ten cents a week was col- 
 
To Church Tower 27 
 
 lected from each member, $5,000 a year could be obtained on the floating 
 debt. 
 
 Mrs. Oliver Marey was appointed chairman of the "corps of lady col- 
 lectors." To each of her assistants, among whom were Mrs. Dr. Bannister, 
 Mrs. Robert Hatfield, and Mrs. T. C. Hoag, was assigned a group of names 
 to see that weekly payments were made. In introducing Mrs. Marcy at a 
 session of the Rock River Conference, Bishop William L. Harris said: "Here's 
 the woman who sat three years in the vestibule of Evanston church and 
 wouldn't let any of us in unless we paid." Beyond the weekly collections, 
 the women raised additional sums by festivals, concerts, and a restaurant in 
 the University Grove, on their pre-empted day, the Fourth of July. By the 
 end of three years, they had obtained eight thousands dollars on the floating 
 debt. 
 
 Meantime Dr. M. C. Briggs, who had served three years as minister, 
 accepted the call to a California pastorate. For one year he was succeeded 
 by Dr. J. B. Wentworth, and in 1875 came Dr. Robert Hatfield for three years. 
 
 An invitation was extended by the trustees and the pastor, Dr. Amos W. 
 Patten, to attend a church supper on September 28, 1882, for the purpose of 
 considering the funded church debt. With two hundred and sixty members 
 present, $14,200 was subscribed, and there were conditional subscriptions 
 of $1,500. Again, on October 22, the subject was brought before a church 
 gathering and the balance was secured. Payments were made on principal 
 and interest, of what was known as the everlasting debt, until September 6, 
 1884, when final payments of principal and interest were made. The church 
 spire was completed in 1887. 
 
 The period which may be designated as the modern period of the church 
 really extended from the day of dedication, in 1872, until April, 1909, when 
 a committee submitted to the board of trustees the report of advisory engineers, 
 in which it was shown that because of a defect in design there was a sagging of 
 the roof and spreading of the north and south walls, and that the strain on 
 the timbers of the roof construction was so great that if, under any condition, 
 one piece gave way the whole roof would fall in and cany with it everything 
 in the auditorium into the basement. The building was immediately closed, 
 orders were issued for its demolition, and plans for a new structure were 
 
 inaugurated. 
 
 What then can be said, by way of an incomplete summarv, of the advances 
 made by ministers and laymen of this period for the promotion of Christian 
 ideals throughout the world? The ministers who served as successors to 
 Dr. Patten were: Drs. Lewis Curts, Henry B. Ridgaway, president ol Garrett, 
 Sylvester F. Jones, W. S. Studley, Charles J. Little, president of Garrett, 
 Frank Bristol, graduate of the university and of Garrett, later elected a bishop, 
 Charles J. Little, William Macafee and Timothy Prescott Frost. 
 
 Dr. Frost, who came in 1903, served as minister for fourteen years. I ive 
 years after his coming, on a day when he seemed to have some doubts about 
 the tangible results of his ministry, he evidently gained new assurance For he 
 
28 From Log Schoolhouse 
 
 concludes: "Some compensating and comforting thoughts come from the fact 
 that the mission of our church appears to be more inspirational than institu- 
 tional or even evangelistic in the technical meaning of that term. This is 
 due to several factors, among them, I should say, being our close connection 
 with Northwestern University and its allied schools, and the occupation of 
 many of our men and women where they exert a potent, if not controlling, 
 influence upon important concerns of the Kingdom of God. 
 
 "Persons in our membership and congregation both prospectively and 
 actually touch with power centers of power in the regenerative, educational, 
 informative, and industrial operation of a worldwide life. This church is 
 a source of radiating influences which literally go out through all the earth. 
 And the best results from the action of such forces do not submit themselves 
 to columns of statistics or hard and fast statements. Yet gratifying testi- 
 monies to the fruitful work of First Methodist Church, Evanston, in the 
 spiritual life of men and women, come back to us from the remotest regions of 
 our own land, from South America, Europe, Africa and the islands of the sea/' 
 
 Doubtless Dr. Frost knew personally many of the men and women who 
 had accepted the challenge of the foreign fields for their life work. According 
 to an investigation made by Dr. Patten in 1905, there were in that year 124 
 graduates of the university and of Garrett on the foreign mission fields of 
 the Methodist Church, and numbers representing other denominations. Dr. 
 Thomas Nicholson, an alumnus also of both institutions, while secretary of the 
 Board of Education, stated that to his surprise, for the period of the previous 
 five years included in his study, Northwestern University had given the church 
 more missionary recruits than any other college or university of Methodism. 
 
 In the long list of persons, all members of First Church, who served in 
 foreign mission fields, were: The Rev. and Mrs. Spencer Lewis, the Rev. and 
 Mrs. William T. Hobart, the Rev. and Mrs. Arthur J. Bowen, the Rev. and 
 Mrs. William A. Main, the Rev. and Mrs. William Johnson, Dr. Ida Kahn 
 and Dr. Anna Gloss, in China; the Rev. and Mrs. Harvey R. Calkins, Mr. 
 and Mrs. Benjamin Barber, Mr. and Mrs. George Briggs, Inez Mason, Jessie 
 Peters, and Bertha Creek in India; Mr. and Mrs. Burton St. John and Jane 
 Scott in Japan; the Rev. and Mrs. John R. Denyes, Mr. and Mrs. Kingsley 
 Pease in Malaysia; the Rev. Edwin F. Lee, later bishop, and Mrs. Lee in 
 Malaysia and the Philippine Islands; Bishop Joseph L. Hartzell, the Rev. John 
 Springer, later a bishop, and Mrs. Springer, in Africa; the Rev. and Mrs. 
 Almon W. Greenman, and Miss Emily Greenman, and the Rev. and Mrs. 
 George P. Howard in South America. 
 
 Bishop William F. McDowell and Mrs. McDowell made their home in 
 Evanston for thirteen years. Twelve of these years he served as president 
 of the university board of trustees. In a letter to President Harris from 
 China, visited by the McDowells in a trip around the world, in 1911, the 
 Bishop writes: "I have been enabled to see and think of Northwestern at 
 long range. . . . Our men and women are all over the Orient. They are 
 more than individual units; they are vital and creative forces. . . . They are 
 
To Church Tower 29 
 
 affecting education, medical practice and medical education, the public health 
 and public welfare, political service and international relations. . . . Counting 
 the Garrett men as belonging to the university, the whole number is exerting 
 an enormous influence in all realms of life and thought in all this East." 
 
 In the Ladies' Aid Society, the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, the 
 Woman's Home Missionary Society, the Young People's League, the Young 
 Ladies' Missionary Society, as well as in the Sunday school and Epworth 
 League, the dominant theme was the cause of missions. 1 Crandon School 
 for Girls in Rome and Crandon Institute in Montevideo recall the name of 
 a noted promoter of the cause of foreign missions, Mrs. Frank P. Crandon. 
 
 Many other members were at the forefront in the establishment and 
 promotion of institutions, Christian, philanthropic, and reformatory, within 
 the Chicago area. For ten years Mrs. John L. Beveridge served as president 
 of the "Illinois Industrial School for Girls," in Evanston, of which she was one 
 of the organizers in 1877. 
 
 The resignation of Frances E. Willard, on June 13, 1874, as a member of 
 the university faculty, was accepted by the trustees "with profound regrets." 
 Notwithstanding other tempting offers, she decided to take up the cause 
 of temperance for her life work, becoming in 1879 president of the National 
 Woman's Christian Temperance Union. But her efforts in behalf of tern 
 peranee ought not to overshadow her ceaseless advocacy for other reforms, 
 such as for the general equality of women with men, including the right 
 of suffrage; for social purity; for an eight hour day and a living wage for 
 labor; and for international courts of conciliation and arbitration. "If this 
 true story of my life has any force at all," she says in the last lines of her 
 well-known volume, Glimpses of Fifty Years, "I pray that it may help to 
 hasten the coming of Christ's kingdom whose visible token is universal 
 brotherhood." 
 
 From 1892 to 1896 Miss Willard served as a member of the university 
 board of trustees. Her statue, placed in Statuary- Hall, Washington, by vote 
 of the Illinois legislature, is the only one of a woman there. 
 
 In a district which was called "the crime center of Chicago," there was 
 dedicated, in 1896, a three story brick building on a corner of Maxwell Street 
 and Newberry Avenue. This center was appropriately named the Elizabeth 
 E. Marcy Home. It was made possible through the efforts of Mrs. Oliver 
 Marcy, who represented the Woman's Home Missionary Society. Educa- 
 tional, social and evangelistic programs were there organized for children 
 and adults. 
 
 The founding and success of the Northwestern University Settlement 
 
 'In a very incomplete list of the names of women who were contributing to the promotion "t" 
 these societies were those of Mrs. Frank Bradley, Miss Ella Bradley, Mrs. M. ('. Bragdon, Mrs. 
 Solon C. Bronson, Mrs. Frank Dyche, Mrs. I. K. Embree, Mrs. T. P. Frost, Mrs. A. C. Fry, 
 Mrs. S. W. Goss, Mrs. U. S. Grant, Miss Mary Harris, Mrs. Thomas F. Kolgate, Mrs. Alfred 
 Lindsey, Mrs. R. R. McCabe, Mrs. James F. Oates, Mrs. Amos Patten, Mrs. Henrj Price, Mrs. 
 Fred Raymond, Mrs. Lucy J. Rowe, Mrs. ('. \. Stevens, Mrs. L. C. Tallmadge, Mis. Milton Terry, 
 Miss Minnie Terry, Mrs. 1). I). Thompson, Miss Edith Thompson, Mis. A. |\ Townsend, Miss 
 Ada Townsend, Mrs. I'.. F. Traxler, Mrs. E. L. Wagner, Mrs. Hugh Wilson, Miss Marj Wilson, 
 and Miss Maude Wyckoff. 
 
30 From Log Schoolhouse 
 
 on the corner of Noble and Augusta Streets, Chicago, was due to the tire- 
 less efforts of Mrs. Henry Wade Rogers, wife of President Rogers, and of 
 Charles Zeublin, College of Liberal Arts, 1887. This was the first social 
 settlement in Chicago under the distinct patronage of a university. The 
 Settlement Association included a number of representatives of the univer- 
 sity trustees, faculties, and alumni, and members of First Church. The work 
 of the settlement comprised a kindergarten, clubs for boys and girls, and 
 additional social clubs for women and men. Patriotic celebrations, musicales, 
 and entertainments were provided by groups of students from the campus, 
 and choral classes for children and for adults under the direction of Professor 
 Peter C. Lutkin, dean of the School of Music. The building for this work, 
 given anonymously, was one of the many contributions made by Milton H. 
 Wilson. His name, assigned to the lower campus of the university, recalls 
 only in part his generosity to the university. His personal interest in and 
 benefactions to the causes represented by this church were alike noteworthy, 
 as were those of his brother, Hugh Wilson. To Mrs. Rogers, also, with the 
 assistance of Miss Cornelia Gray Lunt, was due the founding of the Uni- 
 versity Guild. 
 
 The founding of the University of Chicago Settlement, "back of the 
 yards," was made possible through the leadership and devotion of Miss 
 Mary E. McDowell, as head resident, a former resident of the Northwestern 
 University Settlement, and member of First Church. She was known among 
 the twenty nationalities of that neighborhood as the "Duchess of Bubbly 
 Creek" and "the Garbage Lady." A resident of this settlement, for some 
 months, Dr. Alice Masaryk, daughter of President Masaryk, upon returning 
 to Czechoslovakia founded a social settlement in Prague. 
 
 It was Dr. Charles J. Little, president of Garrett Biblical Institute, noted 
 scholar and teacher, who originated the plan for an Italian Protestant Center 
 in Chicago, a plan which was promoted by Mr. and Mrs. Robert W. 
 Campbell. Through their leadership, with the first staff of officers and 
 teachers coming from First Church, and with generous financial assistance 
 from the church and individuals to the budget, the success of that project was 
 made possible. 
 
 The leadership of Mrs. John A. Pearsons, whose name is commemorated 
 in "Pearsons Hall," contributed to the higher education of hundreds of young 
 women in the university. 
 
 To William Deering, who came in the early seventies to make his home 
 in Evanston, much credit is to be ascribed for his life-time loyalty to the 
 church, as teacher of a class of young women in the Sunday School, as a 
 steward and trustee, as one of the founders of Wesley Hospital and of the 
 Lake Bluff Orphanage, and for his generous support of city and foreign 
 missions. In an evaluation of his services to the university by President Henry 
 Wade Rogers, it was said of Mr. Deering, who served for thirty-seven years 
 on the board of trustees, nine years as president : "This modest, retiring man 
 of culture has accumulated riches, but he finds in their possession the man- 
 
To Church Tower 31 
 
 date of duty. As a community and as teachers and students we arc all his 
 debtors. So will be the generation which shall follow us and the good that 
 he has done will live long after he has gone." : 
 
 When Covenant, Wheadon, Hemenway, and Emmanuel Churches, of 
 Evanston, celebrate their founding, praise will be given to individual mem- 
 bers of the Garrett faculty who served them, on occasion, as ministers. Due 
 credit will be expressed, also, for the generous financial assistance granted 
 by the official board of First Church, which enabled them, at critical times, 
 to meet their obligations. 
 
 In the congregation of the Church with the Spire, and at meetings of 
 church boards and committees were the following leaders in addition to those 
 previously mentioned: Charles H. Fowler, later a bishop; Joseph Cummings, 
 Edmund J. James, A. W. Harris, presidents of the university, and Thomas F. 
 Holgate, president ad interim; W. X. Ninde, later a bishop; H. B. Ridgawa) . 
 
 C. J. Little, Charles M. Stuart, presidents of Garrett; C. B. Atwell, Robert 
 Baird, H. S. Carhart, George A. Coe, U. S. Grant, J. A. James, and Henry S. 
 White, members of the university faculty; Charles W. Bennett, Charles F. 
 Bradley, Solon C. Bronson, Charles Horswell, D. A. Hayes, W. D. Schermer- 
 horn, W. J. Davidson and Frederick C. Eiselen, later president, professors 
 of Garrett. 
 
 Other leaders who attended, who were connected with the general offices of 
 the Methodist boards, were Dr. Edgar Blake, later a bishop, Drs. David 
 Downey, David D. Thompson, Stephen J. Herben, and J. B. Hingeley. 
 
 The Church With the Tower 
 
 Following nearly two years of wandering in Fisk Hall and Music Hall, 
 assigned for their use by the university trustees, Dr. Frost and the members 
 returned for services in the new auditorium and Sunday School room, known 
 as the church with the tower, which has been spoken of as the best attempt 
 to adapt the beauty of the Gothic to modern demands. This beautiful 
 building, together with the chapel, erected later, and the auditorium of the 
 First Congregational Church, constitute three of the masterpieces of our own 
 Thomas E. Tallmadge, the architect. We knew him, not alone as a leader 
 among the architects, who assisted in the restoration of colonial Williams- 
 burg, but also as an artist. Recognized as an author, he succeeded in pre- 
 senting in a single volume, The History of English Architecture, and in a 
 second volume, The History of American Architecture. 
 
 The services of dedication of the present auditorium, continued during 
 October 15-20, 1911, under the direction of Bishop William F. McDowell. 
 Among others taking part in the programs were: Bishop Frank M. Bristol 
 
 To the list of lay members who were officially connected with the church should be added the 
 names, among others, of R. E. Barrett, 1. A. Burhans, ('. I'.. Congdon, Mark de Coudres, Dr. 
 David R. Dyche, William A. Dyche, Simeon Farwell, George F. Foster, II. II. Gage, I. R. Ilitt. 
 T. C. Hoag, R. P. Hollett, Janus S. Kirk, John It. Kirk, II II C. Miller, Henr> Price. Fred 
 
 D. Raymond, ('. X. Stevens. George Sargent, |bhn C. Shaffer, W. A. Vawter. Joseph Waul. W II 
 Whitehead, and W. M. Wyckoff. 
 
32 From Lex; Schoolhouse 
 
 and Bishop Edgar Blake, President Abram W. Harris, Drs. T. P. Frost, 
 Amos W. Patten, and Charles M. Stuart, and Mr. Frank P. Crandon. 
 
 Dr. Frost, upon retiring from active relationship as a minister, on Septem- 
 ber 27, 1917, reviewed some of the results attained during the fourteen years 
 of his ministry. The membership numbering 1,066 was an increase during 
 this period of 240. In the Sunday School, there was an enrollment of 766, 
 which was a gain of 485. The pastor and the janitor were the only paid 
 workers, in 1903. An assistant pastor, an office secretary and a janitor were 
 added. 1 
 
 The Sunday School was departmentalized and progressive ideas and 
 methods were introduced, "to such a degree," as stated by Dr. Frost, "that 
 the Board of Sunday Schools of our denomination now cites different features 
 in the organization and work of the school as affording examples of what 
 the modern Sunday School should be and do." 2 
 
 The Community School of Religious Education which was conducted in 
 this church, on Monday evenings, was referred to "as an institution in which 
 Methodists and Methodist forces abound. In this school our church is not 
 only reaping benefits but is also serving the community." 
 
 With the opening of the Conference year, 1916, the Men's Union took 
 the place of the Men's Club and provided for a more extended program of 
 activities. 3 Especially noteworthy was the organization of the men's class, 
 for Bible studv, which met durino the Sundav School hour under the 
 direction of Robert W. Campbell. Of the success of this experiment, Dr. 
 Frost wrote: "Mr. Campbell is putting time, thought, energy and life into 
 the work of teaching this class, and the men are responding in a gratifying 
 way." 
 
 The Sunday evening services, under the auspices of the Union, included 
 a series of lectures during three months of the winter. Among the lecturers 
 were Bishop Luther B. Wilson, Lyman Abbott, Wilfred T. Grenfell and 
 Alfred Noyes. "Large and responsive audiences," Dr. Frost writes, "have 
 been in attendance. The deliverances judged by any test, oratorical, intel- 
 lectual, ethical, or spiritual, have been of high order." 4 
 
 The Social Service Committee assisted with the Italian Church program 
 and co-operated with other agencies in the promotion of social movements 
 in Evanston. The Social Activities Committee sponsored several "get-together 
 
 nings." 
 
 With no precedent for guidance, a comprehensive plan was adopted 
 
 ^he Rev. Hugh H. Harris became the first assistant to the pastor, assuming his duties in 
 1908. The Rev. H. H. Frost was appointed his successor in 1915, and retained this relationship 
 until 1917. 
 
 2 William H. Dunham, Dr. Thomas F. Holgate. Alfred Lindsey and George H. Tomlinson were 
 among the members who served as superintendents. Edna Dean Baker was in charge of the 
 kindergarten, Elizabeth Bragdon of the primary, Mrs. J. E. Lukey of the juniors, Louise White- 
 head of the intermediates, and J. E. Edworthy of the seniors. Professor C. D. Hardy was super- 
 intendent of the university student section which had an enrollment of 325. 
 
 3 The first president of the Men's Union was James F. Oates. He was succeeded by Henry Price 
 and Dean James A. Tames. Among other members who also served on church committees were: 
 H. L. Davis, Wilbur Helm, W. D. Murdock, F. G. Potter, C. W. Spofford, W. E. Watt, H. B. 
 Williams, and Carl Williams. 
 
 4 Edwin S. Mills was chairman of this committee. 
 
To Church Tower 33 
 
 in 1917 for the co-ordination of the activities within the women's groups of 
 the church. This new organization, named the Woman's Union, provided 
 for the promotion and support of the work of the Ladies' Aid Society, the 
 Woman's Foreign Missionary Society and Woman's Home Missionary So- 
 ciety, and the Service Guild. Every woman who was a member of the church 
 or congregation was eligible for membership. So successful was the experi- 
 ment, that within a year there was a membership of over four hundred. 
 The Woman's Union became permanent and the plan was adopted in many 
 other churches throughout the United States. 1 
 
 By the close of the year 1917, subscriptions were in hand to cover the 
 bonded indebtedness of $11,000 on the church property, which was valued 
 at $260,000. The total amount paid on the disciplinary benevolences, in 
 1903, was $4, 462— exclusive of a bequest to the Woman's Home Missionary 
 Societv amounting to $8,600. The sum collected for the same causes, in 
 1917, was $13,290. 
 
 The budget for current expenses was $22,740. Five thousand dollars 
 was allocated for the salary of the minister and $4,500 to the committee on 
 music for the salaries of the organist and the quartet. It was anticipated 
 that $12,000 would be obtained from the rental of pews, $1,700 from the 
 basket collections, and the balance from individual subscriptions. 
 
 In concluding his statement, Dr. Frost wrote: "Here is a large congrega- 
 tion of Christians, gloriously housed, with ample material resources, unusual 
 mental equipment, a spirit of harmonv prevailing in their councils and labors 
 and with the purpose of loyalty to Christ the Lord. From this center, radiat- 
 ing lines of influence reach forth into all the earth. . . . There is no greater 
 opportunity for usefulness in the pastorate of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
 than the opportunity which lies before my successor. May the Lord of Hosts 
 make his ministry here a mightier power for the Kingdom of God than the 
 ministry of any man who has preceded him." 
 
 Dr. Harris Franklin Rail and Dr. Lynn Harold Hough, professors in 
 Garrett, agreed to serve as ministers until the successor to Dr. Frost should 
 be secured. 
 
 Following an extended investigation, the committee appointed bv the 
 official board recommended, on May 13, 1917, that a call to become the 
 minister of this church should be given to Dr. Ernest Fremont Tittle of the 
 Broad Street Methodist Church, Columbus, Ohio. The report was adopted 
 unanimously. 
 
 In his acceptance, subject to the sanction of Bishop Thomas Nicholson, of 
 the Rock River Conference and of Bishop Frank Bristol of the Ohio Confer- 
 
 x The first officers elected were, Mr^. James A. Janus, president, Mrs. William C. KiiJ>>, first 
 vice-president. Airs. Arthur K. Swanson, second vice-president, Mis. Fames I.. Lardner, third 
 vice-president, Mrs. I). A. Hayes, fourth vice-president. Mis. [. I-'.. Wing, recording secretary. 
 Mrs. George H. Tomlinson, corresponding secretary, and Mrs. William A. Dyche, treasurer. The 
 following persons, amonq others, served ni) Standing Committees: Mrs. \\ s. Grant, Mrs J. 
 M. Barnes, Mis. W. I). Murdock, Mrs. F. (). Potter, Mrs. Clyde De Witt: and mi other committees; 
 Mrs. W. C. Gilbert, M.s. \v. ('. Watt. Mrs. W. C. Hanson, Mrs. Edwin S. Mills. M rs . \\ 
 Spofford, Mrs. M. L. Norris, Airs. W. I). Warrick. Mrs. Horaci Ford, Mis. Edgar Blake, Miss 
 Emily Watt, Mrs. T. P. Grier. Mrs. II. I.. Davis, Miss Zella Marshall. Mis |\ || Sheets. Mis 
 Carl Williams, Mrs. II. H. Williams, and Mis. Alma I). Schaub. 
 
34 From Log Schoolhouse 
 
 ence. Dr. Tittle proposed that he should be granted permission to enter upon 
 war service in France, for six months, as a secretary of the Young Men's 
 Christian Association. This condition was approved. 
 
 The Church in Wartime 
 
 Early in June, 1917, a special offering was taken which was to be applied 
 toward S250,000— the goal agreed upon, for work in army camps by the 
 Home Missionary and Church Extension Society of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church. By action of the official board, a committee was appointed to send 
 greetings "to our boys at the front and in the camps." It was voted that a 
 roll of honor should be placed in the vestibule of the church which would 
 include the names of members who were engaged in armv, navv, hospital, 
 and Y.M.C.A. military service. During the period of the war, the church 
 bulletin was to be forwarded each week to all members of the church and 
 congregation who were engaged in anv branch of national service. 
 
 A committee representing the Woman's Union and the Men's Union was 
 appointed to welcome to the community and church life men on the campus 
 who were here for military training, and the use of the parsonage was granted 
 for informal parties. Letters were sent bv the Epworth League to their 
 members in service. A committee of the League assisted in religious and 
 patriotic programs for the sailors at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station. 
 The use of the auditorium was granted for a mass meeting held under the 
 auspices of the Chicago Inter-Church War Committee. 
 
 "Was there ever such a day! From three-thirty in the morning until late 
 in the evening, one grand and glorious string of thrills." This language of 
 the student paper fails to express fully the outburst of joy throughout the 
 nation upon the announcement, November 11, 1918, that an armistice had 
 been signed. The churches of Evanston, as agreed upon, were opened for 
 assemblies of the people to give thanks for the end of the war. Large numbers 
 gathered in First Church where the service was under the direction of Dr. 
 Rail. 
 
 The celebration in Evanston continued in the afternoon with a parade 
 of children and a mass meeting of students and citizens in the gymnasium, 
 with Acting-President Holgate presiding. An address was made by Professor 
 John A. Scott. Two French soldiers who had been cited by their government 
 for heroism were introduced bv Dean James. Thev were among the exchange 
 students who came to the United States as part of the plan to bring the French 
 and the American governments into more complete co-operation. 
 
 A British commission, composed of five men, representing Cambridge, 
 Oxford. Manchester, and Glasgow Universities and Trinity College, Dublin, 
 and two representatives of women's colleges who were the guests of the uni- 
 versity participated in the celebration. 
 
 William Howard Taft, former President of the Linked States, chairman 
 of the League to Enforce Peace, gave an address that evening before an audi- 
 
To Church Tower 35 
 
 ence of five thousand persons in the gymnasium, lie declared the day to be 
 one of the few great days in the history of the world, and urged as necessities 
 for an enduring peace: a league of nations,' a world court, and a plan for 
 universal military training. 
 
 In the November meeting of the official board, a motion was passed which 
 provided for the naming of a committee to arrange for a reception in honor 
 of Dr. and Mrs. Tittle. It was also ordered that a notice should be sent to 
 pew holders that any vacant seats in the church might be occupied, after 
 10:30, on the morning of December 1, 1918. In the service that mornina, 
 following an introduction by Dr. Rail, Dr. Tittle preached his first sermon. 
 
Present Structure, First Methodist Church 
 
 ]\fnt Apart From Us 
 
 By Ernest Fremont Tittle 
 
 These all, having had witness home to them through their faith, received 
 not the promise, God having provided some better thing concerning us, that 
 apart from us they should not he made perfect— Hebrews 11 :39, 40. 
 
 THE First Methodist Church, Evanston, was the first church established 
 in this community. It came into existence in the year 1854, along with 
 Garrett Biblical Institute. 
 
 In that same year the Republican Party was organized in Michigan in 
 opposition to the extension of slavery into the territories, which was "the 
 crucial issue in the sectional conflict which prepared the way for the Civil 
 War." In that year, Abraham Lincoln, speaking in Urbana, Illinois, said that 
 he had, he thought, no prejudice against the Southern people; they were just 
 what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist among 
 them, they would not introduce it. If it did now exist among lis, we should 
 not immediately give it up. lie maintained, however, that this was no excuse 
 for allowing slavery to go into even one new territory. In that same year 
 
 This sermon was preached or November 19, 1944, in observance of the Ni 
 the founding of the Firsl Methodist Church, Evanston, Illinois. 
 
 37 
 
 •ticth Annivei sai \ of 
 
38 Not Apart From Us 
 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes in Cambridge, Massachusetts, brought home for his 
 son to read a book, just published, called Uncle Tom's Cabin. 
 
 In 1854, England plunged into the Crimean War in order to rescue 
 Turkey from the Russian Bear, or so it was said; and Andrew Carnegie in 
 the United States received indignant letters from a cousin in Scotland 
 demanding to know why this country had not come into the war. In that 
 same year Commodore Perry returned to Japan with ten warships to persuade 
 the Emperor to negotiate a trade agreement with United States, and the 
 Emperor, seeing the warships in Tokyo harbor, was duly persuaded. 
 
 In 1854, David Livingstone was exploring Central Africa, then known 
 as the Dark Continent, and the first Protestant mission was established in 
 Egypt in the face of persecution by the civil authorities. In that same year 
 the first two agents of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in foreign 
 parts were arriving in India, where three years later the Sepoy Rebellion 
 against British rule cost the lives of fourteen American missionaries and their 
 wives and two children. 
 
 By 1854, Protestant missions in China had been established only in a few 
 seaports, such as Canton, Foochow, Amoy and Shanghai. But in that year 
 Hudson Taylor, who was preaching outside of Shanghai, decided to regard 
 all China as his parish; and he later formed an interdenominational agency 
 known as the China Inland Mission which very nearly succeeded in bringing 
 Christianity to every province in China. 
 
 Now all this is, of course, to say that we are not the first generation in 
 this church to live through troubled times, confronted at once with severe 
 demands and great opportunities. And worth knowing is the way our prede- 
 cessors met their situation. 
 
 They founded a church which almost immediately became a community 
 center. During the years of the Civil War it was used by the entire com- 
 munity as a place of worship and also as a place for carrying on works of 
 mercy sponsored by a national organization known as the Sanitary Com- 
 mission, which was the forerunner of the American Red Cross. In the early 
 years and, indeed, for many years, it was used by Garrett Biblical Institute 
 and Northwestern University for both formal convocations and other gather- 
 ings of a social character. 
 
 They founded a church whose material fabric was repeatedly altered 
 with a view to making possible a larger service to the community. The build- 
 ing which immediately preceded the present structure was completed, all 
 except the spire, in 1874 at a cost of seventy thousand dollars, which was a 
 large load for the church of that day to carry, especially in view of the 
 economic consequences of the great Chicago fire. Yet the debt on the new 
 building (there was one!) was liquidated within ten years after the day of 
 dedication. Frances Willard, in her autobiography, recalls that on the day 
 of dedication she herself, without a penny in her pocket and with no idea as 
 to where she might get one, subscribed one hundred dollars, to the consterna- 
 tion of all whom she held dear. Then, wonder of wonders! she received the 
 
Not Apart From Us 39 
 
 very next week her first invitation to lecture for one hundred dollars, in 
 Pittsburgh. And a member of the church got her a pass there and back, 
 so that within ten days after making the pledge her check for that amount 
 was in the hands of the treasurer of the church. A story with a moral not to 
 be overlooked! 
 
 They founded a church whose membership contained an extraordinarv 
 number of gifted, far-seeing, and devoted individuals. At a time when the 
 total membership did not exceed six hundred, this church was making a 
 notable contribution to American culture and some contribution to world 
 culture. After one of its members— John Evans— this community was named, 
 as was also one of the most majestic mountain peaks in continental United 
 States. Another member, who taught a class in the church school, founded 
 the Evanston Public Library, the first kindergarten in Evanston, the first 
 boys' magazine to obtain nation-wide circulation, and afterward gained addi- 
 tional fame as the author of The Hoosier Schoolmaster. Another was out- 
 standing among the business leaders of Chicago in the eighteen seventies 
 and carried on his own business with a lively sense of obligation to the 
 community. Another served with distinction as one of the first deans of 
 Northwestern Medical School, and still another as a member of the faculty of 
 a medical school in China. 
 
 This small church provided leadership for the anti-slavery movement, for 
 the temperance movement, for the crusade for the recognition of the rights 
 of women. It provided presidents for three theological schools— Garrett, 
 Drew, and Union in Foochow. It provided presidents for five universities- 
 Wisconsin, Northwestern, Boston, the University of Southern California, 
 and Nanking, China. It nurtured teachers of religion, editors of religious 
 periodicals, ministers for Methodist pulpits, and missionaries for foreign 
 lands. It sent missionaries to Mexico, to Africa, to China, to India and 
 Malaysia. 
 
 The heritage which is ours as members of this church is something to 
 think about. It is the faith, vision, and devotion of men and women who 
 wrought righteousness, obtained promises, promoted good causes, influenced 
 for good the culture of their day and the course of history. And it is some- 
 thing more than the contribution of a particular church. It is the Christian 
 faith and the Christian tradition, developed and handed down by the faithful 
 in all generations. It is a civilization, a culture, a way of life influenced by 
 Christian beliefs and principles, which is indeed something to think about. 
 
 Christianity since the days of Constantine has itself been influenced and 
 to some extent corrupted by its political and social environment. It is, how- 
 ever, a fact that Christianity, even in diluted forms, has been a mighty bul- 
 wark against barbarism, against tyranny, against obscene lusts and sadistic 
 cruelties. As we can now clearly see, a civilization influenced, however 
 slightly, by Christian beliefs and principles is something different— vastly 
 different— from a civilization in which the things which Jesus Christ stood 
 for are deliberately repudiated and despised. In the one case there is sonic 
 
40 Not Apart From Us 
 
 recognition of human dignity and decency. In the other there is no regard 
 for truth, for intellectual and moral integrity, or even for the most elementary 
 dictates of humanity. And make no mistake about it, what happened in 
 Germany can happen anywhere. It can happen not alone by the deliberate 
 intention and the particular acts of a few extraordinarily evil men; it can 
 happen by the unpremeditated drift of multitudes of men toward a way of life 
 that takes no account of God and His righteousness but is wholly and crassly 
 secular. It can and it will happen if a generation is allowed to grow up 
 religiously illiterate, with no knowledge of the Christian faith or the Christian 
 ethic but with physical lusts unrestrained, with selfish aims unrebuked, and 
 with the cynical view that everybody is, of course, out for what he can get. 
 
 A civilization influenced by Christian beliefs and principles is, in fact, 
 now seriously threatened. In France two Roman Catholic priests have 
 written a book with the significant title Is France a Mission Land? According 
 to these writers, there are now three areas of culture and outlook in France. 
 There is an area where Christianity is practiced more or less. There is an 
 area where there is still a background of Christian influence but no con- 
 nection with the Church and its teachings. And there is an area where there 
 is no background of Christian influence, no knowledge of Christian teachings, 
 no recognition of Christian morality or even of "natural morals," but only the 
 most irresponsible paganism. And who would be rash enough to assert that 
 the situation which obtains today in France is confined in France? 
 
 The men and women who ninety years ago founded this church and those 
 who came before them in the Christian faith and tradition— these all, "having 
 had witness borne to them through their faith, received not the promise, God 
 having provided some better thing concerning us, that apart from us they 
 should not be made perfect." This we have now to recognize. In a most 
 important sense we have the faithful dead at our mercv. They cannot attain 
 the ends they sought apart from us. They did what thev could in their day 
 to preserve and promote a civilization influenced by Christian beliefs and 
 principles. But it now lies, in part at least, with us to say whether a civiliza- 
 tion so influenced shall endure or shall be allowed to perish at the reckless 
 hands of paganism and the limp hands of a churchmanship lacking in vision 
 and devotion. 
 
 This church, let God be thanked, is still a community center. Some 
 fourteen years ago its material fabric was again altered with a view to making 
 possible a larger service to the community; and the present building is serving 
 the community. It is being used not only by organizations of the church but 
 by groups unaffiliated with the church, of which eighty-three used it regularly 
 or occasionally between October 1, 1943, and October 1 of the present vear. 
 It is a fact, also, that the present membership of this church contains a large 
 number of gifted, far-seeing, devoted men and women unselfishly engaged 
 in the promotion of good causes. And it is a fact that the church school 
 of today is turning out bovs and wis with the Christian outlook on life. 
 
 Yet we have, I think, to recognize that we are now at a crucial point as 
 a church. Through the bitter years of the depression and down to the present 
 
Not Apart From Us 
 
 41 
 
 Chancel of Present Chi 
 
 year we carried a heavy load of indebtedness, on which at the outset the 
 interest charge alone constituted twenty per cent of the church budget. From 
 this load we are now happily free. And it would be, perhaps, but natural, that 
 is, in accord with ordinary human nature, if we should now look forward to 
 days of relative ease. But that, of course, would be fatal. If we should now 
 be content to mark time, we would not stay at the point we have reached. 
 We would be driven back by the forces of inertia and selfishness, and this at 
 a time when men of faith and good will must put forth their very greatest 
 efforts if humanity is not to retreat into another Dark Age but is to advance 
 toward a world of justice, security, and peace. 
 
 Today is indeed "a time for greatness." It is a time not to mark time but 
 to march with vision and courage toward the city of God. We have now to 
 
42 
 
 Not Apart From Us 
 
 make up our minds as to the kind of world we want our children to live in. 
 If what we want is not a civilization in which the individual is completely 
 at the mercy of the state but a civilization in which the individual is regarded 
 as a child of God and therefore as a creature of dignity and worth who must 
 
 be accorded certain rights and 
 freedoms— if that is what we 
 want, we must dedicate our- 
 selves to the tasks of the Kina- 
 dom of God. 
 
 We must assure to boys and 
 girls the opportunity of know- 
 ing what Christianity is and 
 demands, and not allow them to 
 grow up religiously illiterate. 
 This involves that we will 
 spend more thought, more time, 
 and more money on our own 
 church school, as, indeed, we 
 are proposing this year to do. 
 And it involves, I am personally 
 convinced, that we will under- 
 take to have religion taught in 
 the public school. In this state 
 the public school cannot be ex- 
 pected to teach religion under 
 its own auspices, which, in fact, 
 it is prohibited by law from 
 doing. It has, however, been 
 Cloister demonstrated, notably in Elgin 
 
 and Oak Park, that the public school can be expected to allow the 
 teaching of religion in school buildings on school time by teachers accept- 
 able to school principals and remunerated by parents or by churches in 
 cases where parents are unable to pay. And it has been demonstrated that 
 when this opportunity is offered as many as ninety per cent of the children 
 in the community may be expected to take religion and like it. The Nazis 
 and the Japanese militarists have shown in a perverse way what can be done 
 by exposing children to false beliefs and standards. The Christian Church, 
 working in part through the public school, must show what can be done by 
 exposing children to the things which Jesus Christ stood for. 
 
 What is at stake is the fate of our society; and we have now to recognize 
 that our society is become a world society. We are not the first generation 
 to live in troubled times, as has been said. We are the first to live in a 
 world society. The men and women who founded this church were hardly 
 affected, if at all, by the Crimean War, which was then in progress; still 
 less were they affected by any event in Asia. The Industrial Revolution was, 
 to be sure, under way, but it had not by the 1850s brought into existence a 
 
Not Apart From Us 
 
 43 
 
 world society. We are the first generation to be personally affected by hap- 
 penings in remote parts of the earth— the first to live in a society where eco- 
 nomic depressions tend to become world depressions and wars between nations 
 tend to become world wars. We must, therefore, learn to think interna- 
 tionally and to act with due regard to the welfare of the world as a whole, 
 in full recognition of the fact that we cannot ourselves prosper or dwell secure 
 unless all men everywhere are accorded a fair chance in life. 
 
 We shall not find it easy to do this. Anne O'Hare McCormick, in 
 an article in the New York Times, comments on the present situation of 
 the liberated countries of Europe, about which she has first-hand information. 
 "While the whole continent languished behind bars," she says, "far-away 
 observers imagined that the occupied nations would be drawn together in 
 a community of suffering. In the first stage of the liberation, however, 
 there are few signs of this unity. On the contrary the peoples already freed 
 appear more self-centered, more 
 separate than before. Each is 
 so overwhelmed by its own 
 problems that the misery of 
 others stirs only faint echoes." 
 Nor is there reason to suppose 
 that the situation in this coun- 
 try after the war will be greatly 
 different from the one she re- 
 ports as now obtaining in the 
 liberated countries of Europe. 
 
 International thinking is no 
 easy achievement but it is now 
 become a necessity— a condition 
 of human welfare on this 
 planet. And who should be 
 expected to think internation- 
 ally if not those who profess the 
 Christian faith that all men are 
 children of God and brothers to 
 one another and who have been 
 taught that "we are members 
 one of another" so that "whether 
 one member suffereth all the 
 members suffer with it"? As a Interior of Chapel 
 
 fact, there is reason to fear that humanity is destined to some all-engulfing 
 calamity unless church people can and will think and act in ways made neces- 
 sary by the existence of a world society. 
 
 Those who came before us in this church were committed to the world 
 mission of Christianity. The little society which worshiped in a loo school- 
 house on what is now Ridge Avenue made a contribution, small but signili 
 
44 Not Apart From Us 
 
 cant, to foreign missions. In subsequent years members of this church went 
 as missionaries to all the ends of the earth. And now there is laid upon us 
 the most sacred obligation to pray and work and give to the end that the world 
 society of which we are part shall be brought under the influence of Christ, 
 who as history has demonstrated is the Way, the Truth, and the Life— the only 
 way that leads to life and not in the end to economic chaos, mass unemploy- 
 ment, mass slaughter and destruction. 
 
 Those who came before us, "having had witness borne to them through 
 their faith, received not the promise, God having provided some better thing 
 concerning us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect." May 
 grace be given us to meet the obligation which is ours! 
 

 
 lb 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 | 
 

 
 3 0112 050749826