“I was graduated from the Ohio Wesleyan Seminary in debt. I had no
reputation for piety, and I don’t remember that I pretended to any.
I had convictions, however, and a burning desire to do something, to
achieve something for the benefit of my fellowmen, and I was ready for
the first opportunity.”
“Was it long in coming?”
“No, but you would not have considered it much of an opportunity. I
took charge of a small church at Harrisburg, Ohio, at a salary of three
hundred and twenty dollars a year. In preaching regularly I soon found
it necessary to formulate some kind of a theory of life,—to strive for
some definite object. I began to feel the weight of the social problem.”