These Little Ones
It was a long but easy journey down south to the Union Pacific, and
finally east to Chicago. And when the young couple, whom the passengers
watched with much interest, arrived at the great city, they found half a
dozen men and women of importance awaiting them at the Union Station,
with more servants to assist them than they had pieces of luggage. Mr.
and Mrs. Hopkins, with their own carriage, were in attendance to offer
the hospitality of their house to the Rev. James Hartigan and his bride.
It was a long drive to Englewood; but everything that kind friends,
clear skies, and human forethought could do to make it pleasant was
fully done. For the time being, they were installed in the Hopkins
mansion--a veritable palace--and for the first time Jim had the chance
to learn how the rich folk really live. While it was intensely
interesting, he was eager to see the field of his future work. Belle,
however, agreed with their host and hostess that it would be worth while
to see a little of Chicago first.
The stockyards are either fascinating or intensely disgusting. The
Hartigans had their fill of them in five minutes. The Art Institute had
not yet been built, but there were museums and galleries and good music
in many places. Lincoln Park and the great rolling, gusty lake were
pleasant to behold; but to Jim, the biggest thing of all--the thing of
which the buildings and the crowds were mere manifestations--was the
vast concentration of human life, strife, and emotion--the throb and
compulsion of this, the one great heart of the West.
There was dirt in the street everywhere; there were hideous buildings
and disgusting vulgarities on every side, and crime in view on nearly
every corner; but still one had to feel that this was the vital spot,
this the great blood centre of a nation, young, but boiling with energy,
boundless in promise--a city with a vital fire in its heart that would
one day burn the filth and dross away and show the world the dream of
the noblest dreamers all come true--established, gigantic, magnificent.
There is thrill and inspiration--simple, natural, and earthy--in the
Canyon where the Cheyenne cut the hills; but this was a different thrill
that slowly grew to a rumble in Jim's heart as he felt the current
floods of mind, of life, of sin, of hope that flowed from a million
springs in that deep Wabash Canyon that carved in twain the coming city
of ten million hopes that are sprung from the drifted ashes of a hundred
million black and burnt despairs.
Hartigan had ever been a man of the saddle and the open field; but
gazing from the top of that tall tower above the station, sensing the
teeming life, the sullen roar, far below, he glimpsed another world--a
better thing, for it was bigger--which, in its folded mantle, held the
unborn parent, the gentler-born parent, of the mighty change--the
blessed cleanup that every wise man prays for and works to bring about.
What place were they to occupy in this maelstrom? Two ways were
open--one, to dwell in the dungeons and the horrors as poor among the
poor; the other, to come as different beings--as frequent visitors--from
another world. Jim, with his whole-souled abandon, was for the former;
but Belle thought that all he would gain in that way would be more than
offset by loss of touch with the other world. At that time those two
worlds were at war and she contended that his place was to stand between
the world of power and the world of need.
Their compromise was a little flat on the second floor of a house in
Englewood, near enough to the rolling Lake to afford a glimpse of it and
convenient to the open stretch that is now the famous Jackson Park.
Here, with pretty rugs and curtains and pictures of horses and hills,
they lined the home nest and gathered the best thoughts of the lives
they had lived. Here at all times they could come assured of peace and
rest.
Then came the meeting with the Board of Deacons, the preliminary visits
to the field of work, where the streets were full of misery and the slum
life rampant. A few short blocks away was another world--a world of
palaces. Jim had never before seen massed misery; he had never before
seen profligate luxury, and the shock of contrast brought to him the
sudden, overwhelming thought: "These people don't want preaching, they
want fair play. This is not a religious question, it is an economic
question." And in a flash: "The religious questions _are_ economic
questions," and all the seemingly wild utterances of old Jack Shives
came back, like a sudden overwhelming flood at the breaking of a dam. In
an instant he was staggering among the ruins of all in religious thought
that he had held holy.
When he reached their apartment that evening he was in a distraught
condition. For some time he paced up and down. At last he said: "I must
go out, Belle. I must walk alone." He spoke with intense emotion. He
longed for his mountain; there was but one thing like it near--the
mighty, moving lake. He put on his hat and strode away. Belle wanted to
go with him, but he had not asked her; her instinct also said "no";
besides, there was the physical impossibility of walking with him when
he went so striding. She sat down in the dusk to wonder--to wait.
He went to the lake shore. A heavy gale was blowing from the north and
the lake was a wild waste. It touched him as the sage plains did; and
the rough wind helped him by driving away all other folk afoot.
Northward he went, feeling, but seeing nothing, of the rolling waters.
Jack Shives with his caustic words came back to mind: "It's their
'fore-God duty to steal if their babies are hungry and they can't feed
them any other way." Jim had never seen these things before; now they
were the whole world; he had seen nothing else these slumming days. His
spiritual ferment was such that, one by one, all the texts he had read
came back as commentaries on this new world of terror. He recalled the
words of the Master: "Your Heavenly Father knoweth ye have need of these
things"; the fearful doom of those that "offend these little ones"; the
strict injunction to divide with the needy and care for the helpless;
and again, the words, "The Kingdom of heaven is within you"--not in a
vague, unplaced world after death, but here, now--and those who thought
that, by placating the custodians of costly edifices, they were laying
up "treasure in heaven" were blindly going to destruction.
He strode in the night with his brain awhirl. The old texts held for him
some new power: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,
and all these things shall be added into you"; and again, "The kingdom
of heaven is within you"; "Sell all that thou hast and give to the
poor." In vain he sought for inspired words that would reestablish the
happy land beyond the grave that his teachers had ever pictured in set
phrase. Yet every word of the Master pointed the other way. "_Here_";
"_now_"; and "_first within_" was the kingdom. And the hollowness of all
the rich man's preachment--that the poor must suffer patiently in hope
of a reward beyond the grave--was more and more a hideous stratagem as
in his mind arose together two portrait types: the pinched, sullen,
suffering face of the slums and the bloated, evil face to be found on
the boulevard.
The mockery of it horrified as the immensity of it all swamped him. He
had no mind, no equipment, for the subtleties of theology, and his head
was a whirl of maddening contradictions, till the memory of his mother's
simple devotion came like a cooling drink in his fever: "Never mind
trying to reason it all out; you can't do it; no one can. Only ask what
would the Master have done?" Yes, that was easy. "Feed the hungry,
clothe the naked, visit the sick"; and turning, he wheeled homeward. The
upheaval of all foundations seemed less dreadful. He could not expect to
reason it all out. It was enough to do as the Master would have done;
and, whether it was the feeding of the multitude, the healing of the
lepers, the gentleness to the woman taken in adultery, or the helping of
the man who fell among thieves, there was no doctrine, no
preaching--only kindness shown as sympathy and physical help in their
troubles, here and now. The words of another childhood friend came back
to him--those of Fighting Bill Kenna. He used to say, "I don't care a
dom what he is, if he's a good neighbour." Yet the neighbour in question
was a papist and they were kind and friendly every day of the year,
except on those two set apart by the devil to breed hate. Kenna was
right where his heart led him and wrong where his creed was guide.
Hartigan could not have told why he went alone on that walk. He only
knew that in this crisis something cried out in him to be alone with the
simple big things. Why should the worldly-wise companion he had chosen
be left out? He didn't know; he only felt that he wanted no worldly
wisdom now. He wished to face the judgment day in his soul all alone. He
would not have done so a year before; but the Angel of Destiny had led
on an upward trail and now he was brought aside to the edge so that he
might look over, and down, and know that he was climbing.
* * * * *
Belle met him at the door. Her face was anxious. But his look reassured
her. He took her on his knees as one might lift a child and, sitting
with his arm around her and gazing far away, he said: "I had a
landslide, Belle. All my church thought and training were swept away in
a moment. I was floundering, overwhelmed in the ruin, when I found a
big, solid, immovable rock on which I could build again. It was not the
Church, it was my mother gave it to me. She used to say: 'Don't try to
reason it all out; no one can. Only try to do as the Master would do';
what that is we are not always sure; but one who followed Him has told
us, 'Keep cool and kind and you won't go far astray.'"
She looked into his face and saw something that she had never seen there
before. The thought that flashed through her mind was of Moses and how
his countenance showed that a little while before he had talked with
God. She was awed by this new something he had taken on; and her
instinct hushed the query that arose within her. She only gripped his
hand a little and looking far away, said slowly: "There are times when
He comes to talk with His own. I think he wanted to walk with you alone
by the lake and talk, as He one time walked with His men on the shore of
Galilee."
"My mind is clear now, Belle," he continued, "if these people want me to
begin here merely as orthodox pulpit preacher, I must give up the post.
That is what I want to be, but this is not the time or place for it. If,
on the other hand, they will let me try to help those who need help, and
in the form in which they need it--well and good; I will do my best to
understand and meet the problems. But we must at once have a clear
understanding."
She put her arms about him and after a little silence said: "I am with
you to the finish, Jim. I know you have received a message and have
guidance as to how it should be delivered."
It was in the little flat, with sagebrush in the vases, that they
thought it out, and reached a solution that was the middle of the road.
The first presentation of his new understanding Jim made to the Board of
Deacons two days later. He said:
"When a man is swimming for his life, he does not want to discuss
politics. When a man's children are hungry, he can't be expected to
respect the law that prevents him from feeding them. When a man has no
property, you needn't look to him for a fine understanding of the laws
of property. When a man has no chance for lawful pleasures in life, he
cannot be blamed much for taking any kind that comes within reach. When
a man's body is starved, cold, and tormented, he is not going to bother
about creeds that are supposed to guide his soul."
"All of which we freely admit," said Mr. Hopkins, with characteristic
gravity. "The problems that you name are very real and grave, but they
are the problems of the nation. Rest assured that every man of force in
America to-day is aware of these things, and is doing all he can to meet
them squarely. Moreover, they are being met with success--slow, but
continued success.
"Are you prepared to outline the plan by which you would contribute to
the local solution of these national problems?"
Yes, Hartigan had it there on paper. "I must approach these people
through the things which they know they need. They don't feel any need
of a church, but they do feel the need of a comfortable meeting place
where the wholesome love of human society may be gratified. Their lives
are devoid of pleasure, except of the worst kinds. This is not choice,
but is forced on them; there is not a man, woman or child among them
that does not--sometimes, at least--hunger for better things--that would
not enjoy the things that you enjoy, if they had the chance. I want
harmless pleasures in abundance put within their reach.
"Man is an animal before he is a soul; so I would begin by providing the
things needful for a body. All men glory in physical prowess; therefore
I want a gymnasium, and with it, the natural accompaniments of bath
house and swimming tank. In short, I don't want a church; I want an
up-to-date People's Club, with a place for all and a welcome for all."
The deacons sat back and gazed at one another. "Well," said Deacon
Starbuck, president of the Stock Bank, "you surely have a clear-thinking
business head among your gifts."
There was a distinct split in the views of the Board. The older men
objected that this was an organization for propagating the Gospel of
Christ, not for solving economic problems, and proved with many
Scripture texts that we must "first of all seek the Kingdom of God and
His righteousness," after having secured which, the rest would follow.
But the younger men took Hartigan's view that it was no time to talk
politics to a man when he was swimming for his life. Fortunately,
Hopkins was able to stave off action, pending a fuller discussion, and
brought that on at once.
"Let us understand. Is the club to be a charity, a benevolence, or a
business proposition--that is, a free gift, a partly supported
institution, or a dollar-for-dollar bargain?"
The older men believed in charity. Jim opposed it as wrong in principle.
As a business proposition it was hopeless, at present; so he definitely
labelled it a "benevolence."
"All right," said Hopkins, "now how much money do you want, and how long
to make good?"
Again Jim referred to the paper in his hand.
"I want twenty-five thousand dollars cash to provide and equip a
temporary building; I want five thousand a year to run it, and I want
one thousand dollars a year salary paid to my wife, who is with me in
all things, and will give all her time to it. I want three years to make
good, that is to make a noticeable reduction in drink and crime, which
is the same thing, and this we shall gauge by the police records. By
that time I shall have fifteen hundred families in touch with the club,
paying dues to it. I shall stand or fall by the result. If I satisfy
you, I shall ask for a hundred-thousand-dollar building at the end of
that time."
"You say nothing about street sermons," said a plaintive old gentleman
with a long white beard and the liquid eyes of an exhorter.
"No, not one. I don't want them. I can work better indoors."
The president said, "Well, Mr. Hartigan, perhaps it would be well for
you to retire, in order that we may freely discuss your plan. As you
seem to have it on paper, would you mind leaving the document?" Jim
hesitated, glanced at it, then handed it to Mr. Hopkins. It was all in a
woman's hand.
In fifteen minutes, Jim was summoned to learn the decision. They
accepted, not unanimously, but they accepted his entire proposition,
with the exception of one item; they would not pay salary to or
officially recognize his wife. It was a bitter pill, and Jim's eyes were
brimming with tears and his face flushed at the injustice when he went
home to tell her. Poor little woman! Her lips tightened a trifle, but
she said: "Never mind, I'll work for it just the same. I'm afraid they
are still in the Dark Ages; but the light will come."