AT THE CHURCH OF THE ASCENSION
A group of literary people with whom I was acquainted had rented No. 3
Fifth Avenue, and were operating a coöperative housekeeping scheme. I
became part of the plan and it was there that I first met the Rector
of the Church of the Ascension, the Rev. Percy Stickney Grant.
Naturally, we talked of the church and its work. I was so impressed
with Mr. Grant's bigness that I volunteered to devote some of my spare
time to the work of his parish. A few weeks later I got a letter from
him inviting me to become a member of his staff. This was a surprise
to me, but I made no immediate decision. I was earning a comfortable
living and devoting my spare time to the Socialist propaganda. I was
_free_--very free--and I saw danger ahead in church work.
I had several interviews with Mr. Grant and went over the situation. I
wasn't a man with Socialistic tendencies; I was a Socialist--a member
of the party.
The danger ahead looked smaller to Mr. Grant than it did to me. He had
absolute confidence in the broad-minded men of affairs around him. My
Socialism was explained and understood. Just how to fit in was the
next problem.
The mission of the church is at No. 10 Horatio Street. It was without
a minister in charge. For a few Sunday evenings I conducted the
service. The audience was composed of half a dozen parishoners and a
dozen of my personal friends. Mr. Grant knew nothing of my ability in
public address. I took his place one night in the church and that
ended my career at the chapel. I had discarded an ecclesiastical title
I possessed but never used; I became a lay reader in the Episcopal
Church--the church of my youth--the church in which I was baptized and
confirmed.
The conference and discussion following the service was an
afterthought. The audiences steadily grew. It was and is the most
cosmopolitan audience I ever saw. I wanted to get acquainted with the
people and suggested a sort of reception in the chapel. The ladies of
the church provided refreshments.
"Who is that man?" one of the ladies at the tea table asked one night.
"He is a Socialist agitator," I answered.
"Why don't you ask him to talk?"
The man was Sol Fieldman and I asked him to speak for five minutes. He
did so and from that time the character of the after-meeting changed.
The first few evenings after the change the speaking was very
informal: any one of note who happened to be in the meeting was asked
to speak. Later, the invitation was enlarged and any one who desired
to speak could do so. Then came a time limit. A workingman asked that
the refreshments be cut out. The table took up valuable space and the
time consumed in "serving" was "a pure waste," so he said. Then we
arranged for a formal presentation of a topic and a discussion to
follow it.
The Socialists were always in the majority. Every Socialist is a
propagandist--not always an intelligent propagandist. Intelligent and
leading Socialists are generally engaged Sunday evenings, so the
majority of those who came to us were of the hard-working
kind--limited, very limited, in the literary expression of the social
soul flame that so passionately moves them.
Some of our church officers who took an active part in the first
year's meetings were somewhat alarmed at the brusqueness of these men
and women, and undertook to correct their manners.
The Rector understood. And with great patience and tact he heard all.
The Church of the Ascension has in its membership some of the
country's biggest leaders in industry; some of these men came to the
meetings. What they saw and heard was different to what they expected.
They fraternized with the men of toil. It was a fraternity utterly
devoid of patronage. There were free exchanges of thought. The
average labouring man is incapable of such conference, for no matter
how many years a member of a labour union it is only when he becomes a
Socialist that he becomes an intelligent advocate of anything.
[Illustration: The Church of the Ascension]
The Rector and I tried to avoid the notice of the newspapers and for
about six months we succeeded. Then came the explosion of the bomb on
Union Square and we were at once thrown into the limelight. I was on
the Square that afternoon.
It was designed to be a mass meeting of the unemployed. The unemployed
are not usually interested in any sort of propaganda; the more
intelligent of the labour men are, and the Socialists are more so.
So the promoters of the mass meeting for the unemployed were
Socialists. It was at this meeting that a police official declared to
a man who had the temerity to question him that the policeman's club
was mightier than the Constitution of the United States.
No permit was given and no mass meeting held, but the multitude was
there and when the police began to disperse it the people who were
neither Socialists nor unemployed resented being driven off the
streets. I saw men clubbed and women deliberately ridden over by the
mounted police. I kept moving: I wanted to be where it was most
dangerous. I suffered for months with a bruised arm that I got as I
went with the crowd in front of the horses: it was a blow aimed at a
man's head; I was clubbed on the back for not moving fast enough. At
every turn, at every angle of the Square, the police were as brutal as
any Cossack that ever wielded a knout.
Late on that afternoon the police opened the Square--that is, the
people were permitted to cross it in all directions. My study was at
No. 75 Fifth Avenue, and I was moving in that direction past the
fountain when the explosion took place. I was hurled off my feet; that
is, the shock to my nervous system was so great that I collapsed. My
first flash of thought was of the battle-field!
Fifteen feet in front of me two men staggered. It seemed to me that
one of them had been ripped in twain. He fell and the other fell on
top of him. Instantly the policemen around me seemed crazed: as I
staggered to my feet one of them struck me a terrific blow with his
club. The blow landed between my shoulders, but glanced upward,
striking me on the back of the head. I tumbled over, dazed, but the
thought that his next blow would murder me seemed to give me
superhuman strength and I ran. As I turned he attacked another man and
I thought I was free. I was mistaken, however, for he gave chase and
if I had not escaped into the crowd I would have fared badly at his
hands.
My nerves were so badly shattered that on the way to my room I fell
several times. The following Sunday night the Civic Federation packed
our meeting with their speakers.
Mr. Gompers's representative in New York was the first man put up. He
was furnished with quotations from alleged Socialist writers on the
question of religion. Then a woman from Boston who had once been a
Socialist, sent a note to me--I was presiding--asking for extended
time. I was the only Socialist in the place who knew what was going
on.
The newspapers had all been "tipped off," as the _Herald_ reporter
told me later. The discussion waxed so warm that fifty people were on
their feet at once, shouting for recognition.
Humour in such a situation is a tremendous relief. I managed to inject
some into the discussion and it was like grease to a cartwheel. In a
humorous way I turned the light on the Civic Federation and the
audience laughed. Next day every newspaper in New York had an account
of the meeting. From that time until the end of the first year of the
meeting the papers reported not only what happened but much that never
happened. Most of them were humorous in their treatment. The Marceline
of the press gave us much space in its characteristic style.
The result was that we were forced to have policemen guard the door so
that when the chapel was full the crowd unable to gain admittance
could be dispersed. We admitted by ticket for some weeks, but the
plan didn't work well. Of course, many who came were moved solely by
curiosity, but for two years the chapel has been filled at every
meeting. On the wildest winter nights it looked sometimes as if the
choir was to be my only audience, yet when the after-meeting opened,
the place was as full as usual.
The Sunday evening service is designed to be of special helpfulness to
working people; it is an extra service permitted by the canons of the
church, and in this instance directed to helpful and constructive
social criticism. The discourses have not been theological in any
sense, but I have seen men and women converted, experiencing a change
of heart in exactly the same manner as people are converted in revival
meetings. The same energies of the soul were released and the same
results obtained with this extra consideration, that the change was a
new attitude toward society as well as a change of heart.
Men and women who had not been in church since they were children have
found an atmosphere--a spiritual atmosphere--that has been a distinct
help to them during the week. There have been unique examples of this
that cannot be recorded or catalogued. If we were padding a year-book,
bolstering a creed or attracting men merely to put our tag on them the
meetings would have waned long ago, for the class of people who attend
are quick to discover undercurrents or ulterior motives.
The spiritual atmosphere is created by a combination of forces. The
picture of the Ascension by La Farge has contributed not a little to
it--even to people to whom the circumstance was a myth. The
architecture and music contributed much.
We held the after-meeting in the church one night--to accommodate
hundreds of people who couldn't get into the chapel. The meeting was a
failure. The most radically minded men told me that they couldn't talk
in the church.
"Why?" I asked one man.
"---- if I know, but it took the fight out of me!"
It took the fight out of all. So we went back to the chapel. One man
whom I have known for years as a Socialist agitator who fought the
intellectuals in his party and was a materialist of the most radical
kind made this statement at the last meeting of the first year:
"I appreciate the courage of Mr. Grant in opening this church to the
people and opening its pulpit to a representative of the people. I am
grateful for the fine fellowship, the freedom of discussion, the
music, the beautiful architecture and the inspiration that comes from
such contact, but these are the smallest of what has come to me during
the past winter. I am the son of an orthodox Rabbi but I have been an
atheist all my life. I have been over-bitter and destructive in my
addresses. I have learned something here. I did not expect nor did I
want to, but I have. I am now a believer in the immortality of the
soul and I look forward to life instead of death. This has influenced
my work, my life. Instead of a hundred words against human slavery to
one for human freedom I speak a hundred for human freedom to one
against human slavery. That may seem small to you. It's big to
me--it's a new psychology."
A school teacher, a brilliant young Jewess, said: "The inspiration of
that service in the church lasts all week with my scholars. I am worth
twice as much as I was to the public schools."
A letter from a trained nurse says: "I am going away for the summer,
but before I go I want you to know how much of a blessing your service
has been to me, and to both physicians and nurses in this hospital,
for we have all been at one time or another, and we have always talked
over your topics with interest and profit."
During the first year we had a tremendous stimulus in the meetings
from the active participation of four of the most prominent
theosophists in the country--two of whom are members of the vestry.
They sharpened the line between spiritual and material things. They
brought to the notice of working-class Socialists the essential things
of the soul. They made the meetings a melting-pot in which the finest,
best and most permanent things were made to stand out distinctly. The
world affords not a better field either for the testing or propagating
of their philosophy, but they did not come the second year and we
missed them very much.
There was a good deal of misunderstanding about the meetings, arising
from garbled newspaper reports. The newspaper reporter has a bias for
things off colour--buzzard-like, he sees only the carrion--at least he
is trained to report only the carrion--this always against his will.
So we were kept explaining to men and women of the church who had not
been able to attend and see for themselves. There was not only
misunderstanding but prejudice. I came in contact with it in quarters
the most unlikely. The people of independent means in the Church of
the Ascension have social ideals, those of the working class who are
in the church have none--none whatever, and what prejudice I found
came from those who had never contributed anything to the church but
their presence, and to whom the church from their childhood had been
an almshouse, a hospital, and a place of amusement.
These were the people, baptized and confirmed Christians, who spoke
with bitterness and a sneer of the evening meetings because the
majority of the attendants were Jews. The other phase of their
prejudice was against Socialism--which they supposed to be a process
of "dividing up." My chief encouragement came from the richest people
in the church, the sneer came from the poorest.
The range of topics was as wide as the interests of human life. The
speakers were the leading men of New York and distinguished visitors
from other lands. One of the earliest speakers was Mrs. Cobden
Sanderson, the daughter of Richard Cobden and the intimate friend of
William Morris. Capitalism was represented by Professor J.B. Clark,
Dr. Thomas R. Slicer and Herman Robinson of the American Federation of
Labour. There were many others, of course, but these were the best
known. The Socialist leaders were W.J. Ghent, Rufus Weeks, Gaylord
Wilshire and R.W. Bruére. Exponents of individualism were many, and
most of them were brilliant. The most powerful address on behalf of
labour was made by R. Fulton Cutting. There has been no attempt to
bait an ecclesiastical hook to catch the masses. We have tried to make
men think and to act on their best thought.
This venture in ecclesiology is not the democratization of a church.
It is the leadership of a rector--Mr. Grant is an ecclesiastical
statesman--he has a strong cabinet in his vestry. Men who, having made
big ventures in the business world, are not averse to an occasional
venture in matters not directly in their line. He has enough reaction
among them to keep the balance level.
The Church of the Ascension is the real Cathedral of New York. What
matters it about Canon, Chapter, Dean and Prebend? A cathedral is a
church of the people--all the people!