8
Frank Nelson never became an old man. Toward the end of his life his
body could not fulfill the demands of his spirit, and he was not able to
undertake as much nor see as many people as he wished, but he never
neglected any responsibility. At times he could not keep going and had
to stop on the street to rest because too much exertion caused pain, but
he would not spare himself nor did he ever complain. He was a happy
soldier who smiled through his closing years.
In 1931-1932 he suffered from a blocking off of the blood vessels that
drain the leg, a condition which has very serious possibilities. He
weighed these possibilities, says Dr. Richard S. Austin, but like most
patients he figured there was always the chance that he might not have
to pay the price. He was like the physician who when told to practice
what he preached replied, "Did you ever know a sign-post to walk down
the road?" He bore his illness with fortitude, concealing from his
family and friends the vexation that he felt as the activities which
were life itself to him were curtailed more and more. When entering the
church in procession with the choir, he would never use a cane though he
was often suffering acutely, but squaring himself, and throwing back his
shoulders, he would march resolutely on. As he crossed the chancel to
enter his pulpit, something of his old vigor was apparent, and as he
preached, his voice was strong and clear. If he was less animated, he
was no less intense, no less the tremendously invigorating preacher. One
day in the parish house Canon Symons met him carrying a heavy bag. He
was about to leave for one of his frequent periods in the hospital, and
Canon Symons remonstrated with him and tried to take his bag, but Mr.
Nelson refused, saying, "No, I won't. I would rather drop in my tracks
than to save myself and spend endless days in hospitals."
At the Annual Meeting of the Parish on April 10, 1939, Mr. Nelson
presented his resignation, "not because I want to quit, but I am
concerned that this parish should not weaken. This church is facing, as
every church is facing, a new day; and it needs the leadership of
younger and stronger men." It was accepted with marked reluctance to
take effect when his successor should be chosen and had arrived. On May
21st the parish and many of his friends outside Christ Church celebrated
his forty years' ministry in the one church and city, and there was a
singular out-pouring of people.
At the conclusion of the observance he wrote a friend:
Though it was not so stated in the bond, it saved me from a
farewell celebration. I preached at all three services, and it
saved me the embarrassment of listening to eulogies, and saved
others from having to deliver them! But everyone was fine about
it. They decorated the Altar with gorgeous red roses, and me with
my red Seminary hood (He wore his Doctor's hood rarely and always
looked rather sheepish when asking his secretary to take it out
of the safe!), and we had the two choirs at eleven o'clock, and
lovely music at all the services. So the day went well, and we're
all glad it is well over.
In a letter to another friend he said:
It wasn't easy to speak and to face the services, and that they
meant the real end of my rectorship, my active ministry. There
were dear friends and very loyal parishioners there. And I think
you know my love for Christ Church and for Cincinnati, and my
inexpressible appreciation of all that this church and city have
given me. It is terribly hard to try to realize that after this
summer I shall no longer be rector of Christ Church--and all that
that has meant and means--and in very deep gratitude I saw the
many, and my mind and heart were very full. Indeed I hope I shall
not "retire" from the friendships, and from the life of the
people and city. Thank you more than I can say for what only you
could so write. I have had a very rare opportunity, and very
privileged forty years, and I hope the coming years--or weeks or
months, whatever God wills--will bring in their own way the same
high things and find me worthy of them, and chief of them, worthy
of your friendship and faith.
He had given the church and city a lifetime of service, loyalty, and
love, and the place he held in the affections of his people had been
abundantly made known to him.
In July before the last Sunday he was scheduled to preach, he was
stricken by a heart attack, and so his ministry came to a close without
further sadness of farewell. He spent a few weeks in the hospital, and
improved sufficiently to journey to his beloved Cranberry Isles
accompanied by his wife and daughter. But a doctor, knowing what others
did not realize, broke down and wept when Mr. Nelson left the hospital.
His friends and he himself felt confident that a protracted rest would
do the work of healing. In August he sustained another and a more severe
attack, and as the chilling, autumn winds blew in from the Atlantic they
brought him to the Phillips House in Boston. He saw no one at first, but
then he grew restless, and the doctor permitted visitors. There were
many, and as he was making no progress, he was moved to the old family
home in North Marshfield, near Cape Cod. There as a boy he had roamed
the spacious, rambling house and the bright fields, and there his
parents had lived the last twenty-five years of their lives. The lovely,
old home with its atmosphere of peace brought back many tender memories.
In the absolute quiet of these surroundings which he loved, he lingered
some two weeks. With another attack he lapsed into unconsciousness, and
his boyhood friend, the late Dean Philemon F. Sturges of Boston, came
down to be with the family. On the morning of October 31st as the end
approached, Dean Sturges knelt beside him and in the dear familiar words
of the Prayer Book said, "Lift up your hearts," and the family bravely
responded, "We lift them up unto the Lord." The Dean continued, "It is
very meet, right, and our bounden duty, that we should at all times, and
_in all places_, give thanks unto Thee, O Lord." It was meet and right
that Frank Nelson should depart this life on such a note of
thanksgiving.
At the burial in Cincinnati, November Third, the parish, life-long
friends, and representatives of the city thronged Christ Church not to
say "Farewell," but "Hail!", for as Alfred Segal grandly put it, "He was
like one going away to gather in his victory." For a night and a day
preceding the service, his body lay in the beautiful chapel of his own
creation, and great numbers of men, women and children of all faiths
came to pay a final tribute. The burial service was the same as he
himself had always used, only read now by his successor, and the Bishop
of the Diocese. To his friends and beloved people it all seemed passing
strange if not unreal. Frail beings that we are, we had never sensed
more than a vague possibility that his ministry would one day terminate.
It was not past human knowing, of course, but it was beyond the grasp of
human imagining that the day would come when Frank Nelson would no
longer walk the city's streets, no longer hurry to the distant suburbs.
We felt this way because in an unusual sense men loved this servant of
the servants of God in Cincinnati who had dwelt among them for forty
years. Yet the great congregation rose above human grief and surmounted
the consciousness of personal loss in the tremendous note of triumph and
thankfulness that prevailed throughout the simple service from its
opening sentences, "I am the resurrection and the life," to the Bishop's
final words of commitment, "Unto God's gracious mercy and protection."
They sang only hymns of victory, hymns that he especially loved and
which were expressive of his faith and spirit: John Bunyan's "He who
would valiant be," and "There is a wideness in God's mercy." The
recessional moved to the church door to the triumphant words "For all
the saints who from their labors rest," set to the stirring tune of R.
Vaughan Williams. Thus in the simplicity and dignity of the things said
and done there that afternoon did the passing of this noble minister
symbolize the destiny of all mankind.
They took him to beautiful Spring Grove Cemetery and laid him beneath a
majestic sycamore tree whose spreading branches seemed to represent the
out-reach of his life. Years ago at his behest Christ Church had been
given a plot of ground for the poor, the friendless, and the forgotten
of men, "God's Acre." There, by his express wishes, Frank Nelson lies
among the least of his flock, the faithful shepherd who called his own
by name. Then every man "went away again unto his own home."
_The
Afterglow_
9
It is now more than five years since Mr. Nelson's death, and today the
old church in the hands of his successor, Nelson M. Burroughs, whose
first name singularly suggests a prolongation of the Nelson dynasty, and
whose spirit and abilities are a worthy continuation of an unusual
rectorship, is still animated by Frank Nelson's vision, his joy in
service. His ideals live today in the parish of Christ Church, which has
not failed him but carries out that which he committed unto them in his
farewell address:
The Church is the important thing to all of us. We need the
Church, for faith, for courage, for guidance. The Diocese needs
this Parish--its loyalty--its support--its fellowship--as we need
the Diocese. The City needs this Church. You will never forget,
will you, the Vision, and the power that came with it, that Mr.
Stein gave us forty years ago, viz;--that the Church is the Body
of Christ, not a club, to minister, and not to be ministered to.
The people all about us, the whole city, are our concern, to
bring them the Gospel of Christ. So, I pray God you will go
forward into the new day with high faith and enthusiasm. You have
a mission from God.
The mission goes on in the spirit of readiness to embark on great
ventures, and of youth not knowing defeat, for on Easter Day, 1941 the
authorities of Christ Church announced it as their purpose to erect a
glorious new building on the site of the present edifice as the only
adequate memorial to Frank Nelson. As in the dark days of 1917 the
parish audaciously built the Centennial Chapel, so the tragic repetition
of world war sees in the present rector and people no diminishing of
that daring and firmness of vision. This plan is, as Mr. Nelson would
have it, not for his own glory, but for the larger range of the Church
in the service of the city. He had said, "This is the work of those who
will come after me."
Christ Church will one day be clothed in garments of new beauty because
Frank Nelson preached the Gospel that is the hope of a better democracy.
The grandeur of his accomplishment impels men to undertake this task;
and thus it is a living fact that his vision is still an influence in
the city, and is the choice heritage of an unnumbered host.
If because of human frailty we think of heaven as rest, his spirit
corrects us. If in our partial understanding he seems to deserve release
from labor, yet for the very reason that he "wrought with tireless hand
through crowded days,"[22] we know in our moments of vision that for so
knightly a spirit the only possible reward is authority over ten cities.
From that kingdom of the spirit, he speaks to us across the abyss of
time, and nowhere is his voice stronger, his thought clearer than in the
first chapter of the Epistle to the Philippians. Here, forever sealed in
the enduring words of Saint Paul, is the heart of Frank Nelson's
ministry, a ministry valiant and without blemish:
I thank my God upon every remembrance of you ... for your
fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now; being
confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good
work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] Inscription on a tablet in the chapel of Phillips Exeter Academy,
Exeter, N. H.
+-------------------------------------------------------+
| Transcriber's Note: |
| |
| Research has shown that the copyright on |
| this book was not renewed. |
| |
| Typographical errors corrected in the text: |
| |
| Page ix incalcuable changed to incalculable |
| Page 9 incalcuable changed to incalculable |
| Page 9 interne changed to intern |
| Page 23 enternal changed to eternal |
| Page 25 Legionaires changed to Legionnaires |
| Page 35 unconsciouness changed to unconsciousness |
| Page 40 nothwithstanding changed to notwithstanding |
| Page 47 immeasureably changed to immeasurably |
| Page 49 Farrer changed to Farrar |
| Page 58 self-martydom changed to self-martyrdom |
| Page 58 internes changed to interns |
| Page 59 Gareld changed to Garfield |
+-------------------------------------------------------+
End of Project Gutenberg's Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati, by Warren C. Herrick