Pursuing the plan he had originally mapped out when he came to Milton,
he spent much of his time in the afternoons studying the social and
civic life of the town. As the first Sunday of the next month drew near,
when he was to speak again on the attitude of Christ to some aspect of
modern society, he determined to select the saloon as one of the
prominent features of modern life that would naturally be noticed by
Christ, and doubtless be denounced by him as a great evil.
In his study of the saloon question he did a thing which he had never
done before, and then only after very much deliberation and prayer. He
went into the saloons themselves on different occasions. He had never
done such a thing before. He wanted to know from actual knowledge what
sort of places the saloons were. What he saw after a dozen visits to as
many different groggeries added fuel to the flame of indignation that
burned already hot in him. The sight of the vast army of men turning
into beasts in these dens created in him a loathing and a hatred of the
whole iniquitous institution that language failed to express. He
wondered with unspeakable astonishment in his soul that a civilized
community in the nineteenth century would tolerate for one moment the
public sale of an article that led, on the confession of society
itself, to countless crimes against the law of the land and of God. His
indignant astonishment deepened yet more, if that were possible, when he
found that the license of five hundred dollars a year for each saloon
was used by the town to support the public school system. That, to
Philip's mind, was an awful sarcasm on Christian civilization. It seemed
to him like selling a man poison according to law, and then taking the
money from the sale to help the widow to purchase mourning. It was full
as ghastly as that would be.
He went to see some of the other ministers, hoping to unite them in a
combined attack on the saloon power. It seemed to him that, if the
Church as a whole entered the crusade against the saloon, it could be
driven out even from Milton, where it had been so long established. To
his surprise he found the other churches unwilling to unite in a public
battle against the whisky men. Several of the ministers openly defended
license as the only practicable method of dealing with the saloon. All
of them confessed it was evil, and only evil, but under the
circumstances thought it would do little good to agitate the subject.
Philip came away from several interviews with the ministers, sad and
sick at heart.
He approached several of the prominent men in the town, hoping to enlist
some of them in the fight against the rum power. Here he met with an
unexpected opposition, coming in a form he had not anticipated. One
prominent citizen said:
"Mr. Strong, you will ruin your chances here if you attack the saloons
in this savage manner; and I'll tell you why: The whisky men hold a
tremendous influence in Milton in the matter of political power. The
city election comes off the middle of next month. The men up for office
are dependent for election on the votes of the saloon men and their
following. You will cut your head off sure if you come out against them
in public. Why, there's Mr. ----, and so on (he named half a dozen men)
in your church who are up for office in the coming election. They can't
be elected without the votes of the rummies, and they know it. Better
steer clear of it, Mr. Strong. The saloon has been a regular thing in
Milton for over fifty years; it is as much a part of the town as the
churches or schools; and I tell you it is a power!"
"What!" cried Philip, in unbounded astonishment, "do you tell me, you, a
leading citizen of this town of 50,000 infinite souls, that the saloon
power has its grip to this extent on the civic and social life of the
place, and you are willing to sit down and let this devil of crime and
ruin throttle you, and not raise a finger to expel the monster? Is it
possible! It is not Christian America that such a state of affairs in
our political life should be endured!"
"Nevertheless," replied the business man, "these are the facts. And you
will simply dash your own life out against a wall of solid rock if you
try to fight this evil. You have my warning."
"May I not also have your help!" cried Philip, hungry of soul for
companionship in the struggle which he saw was coming.
"It would ruin my business to come out against the saloon," replied the
man, frankly.
"And what is that?" cried Philip, earnestly. "It has already ruined far
more than ought to be dear to you. Man, man, what are money and business
compared with your own flesh and blood? Do you know where your own son
was two nights ago? In one of the vilest of the vile holes in this city,
where you, a father, license to another man to destroy the life of your
own child! I saw him there myself; and my heart ached for him and you.
It is the necessary truth. Will you not join with me to wipe out this
curse in society?"
The merchant trembled and his lips quivered at mention of his son, but
he replied:
"I cannot do what you want, Mr. Strong. But you can count on my sympathy
if you make the fight." Philip finally went away, his soul tossed on a
wave of mountain proportions, and growing more and more crested with
foam and wrath as the first Sunday of the month drew near, and he
realized that the battle was one that he must wage single-handed in a
town of fifty thousand people.
He was not so destitute of support as he thought. There were many
mothers' hearts in Milton that had ached and prayed in agony long years
that the Almighty would come with his power and sweep the curse away.
But Philip had not been long enough in Milton to know the entire
sentiment of the people. He had so far touched only the Church, through
its representative pulpits, and a few of the leading business men, and
the result had been almost to convince him that very little help could be
expected from the public generally. He was appalled to find out what a
tremendous hold the whisky men had on the business and politics of the
place. It was a revelation to him of their power. The whole thing seemed
to him like a travesty of free government, and a terrible commentary on
the boasted Christianity of the century.
So when he walked into the pulpit the first Sunday of the month he felt
his message burning in his heart and on his lips as never before. It
seemed beyond all question that if Christ was pastor of Calvary Church
he would speak out in plain denunciation of the whisky power. And so,
after the opening part of the service, Philip rose to speak, facing an
immense audience that overflowed the galleries and invaded the choir and
even sat upon the pulpit platform. Such a crowd had never been seen in
Calvary Church before.
Philip had not announced his subject, but there was an expectation on
the part of many that he was going to denounce the saloon. In the two
months that he had been preaching in Milton he had attracted great
attention. His audience this morning represented a great many different
kinds of people. Some came out of curiosity. Others came because the
crowd was going that way. So it happened that Philip faced a truly
representative audience of Milton people. As his eye swept over the
house he saw four of the six members of his church who were up for
office at the coming election in two weeks.
For an hour Philip spoke as he had never spoken in all his life before.
His subject, the cause it represented, the immense audience, the entire
occasion caught him up in a genuine burst of eloquent fury, and his
sermon swept through the house like a prairie fire driven by a high
gale. At the close, he spoke of the power of the Church compared with
the saloon, and showed how easily it could win the victory against any
kind of evil if it were only united and determined.
"Men and women of Milton, fathers, mothers and citizens," he said, "this
evil is one which cannot be driven out unless the Christian people of
this place unite to condemn it and fight it, regardless of results. It
is too firmly established. It has its clutch on business, the municipal
life, and even the Church itself. It is a fact that the Church in Milton
have been afraid to take the right stand in this matter. Members of the
churches have become involved in the terrible entanglement of the
long-established rum-power, until to-day you witness a condition of
affairs which ought to stir the righteous indignation of every citizen
and father. What is it you are enduring? An institution which blasts
with its poisonous breath every soul that enters it, which ruins young
manhood, which kills more citizens in times of peace than the most
bloody war ever slew in times of revolution; an institution that has not
one good thing to commend it; an institution that is established for the
open and declared purpose of getting money from the people by the sale
of stuff that creates criminals; an institution that robs the honest
workingman of his savings, and looks with indifference on the tears of
the wife, the sobs of the mother; an institution that never gives one
cent of its enormous wealth to build churches, colleges, or homes for
the needy; an institution that has the brand of the murderer, the
harlot, the gambler burned into it with a brand of the Devil's own
forging in the furnace of his hottest hell--this institution so rules
and governs this town of Milton to-day that honest citizens tremble
before it, business men dare not oppose it for fear of losing money,
church-members fawn before it in order to gain place in politics, and
ministers of the gospel confront its hideous influence and say nothing!
It is high time we faced this monster of iniquity and drove it out of
the stronghold it has occupied so long.
"I wish you could have gone with me this past week and witnessed some of
the sights I have seen. No! I retract that statement. I would not wish
that any father or mother had had the heartache that I have felt as I
contemplated the ruins of young lives crumbling into the decay of
premature debility, mocking the manhood that God gave them, in the
intoxicating curse of debauchery. What have I seen? Oh ye fathers! O ye
mothers! Do you know what is going on in this place of sixty saloons
licensed by your own act and made legal by your own will? You, madam,
and you, sir, who have covenanted together in the fellowship and
discipleship of the purest institution of God on earth, who have sat
here in front of this pulpit and partaken of the emblems which remind
you of your Redeemer, where are your sons, your brothers, your lovers,
your friends? They are not here this morning. The Church does not have
any hold on them. They are growing up to disregard the duties of good
citizenship. They are walking down the broad avenue of destruction, and
what is this town doing to prevent it? I have seen young men from what
are called the best homes in this town reel in and out of gilded temples
of evil, oaths on their lips and passion in their looks, and the cry of
my soul has gone up to Almighty God that the Church and the Home might
combine their mighty force to drive the whisky demon out of our
municipal life so that we might feel the curse of it again nevermore.
"I speak to you to-day in the name of my Lord and Master. It is
impossible for me to believe that if that Christ of God were standing
here this morning he would advise the licensing of this corruption as
the most feasible or expedient method of dealing with it. I cannot
imagine him using the argument that the saloon must be licensed for the
revenue that may be gained from it to support the school system. I
cannot imagine Christ taking any other position before the whisky power
than that of uncompromising condemnation. He would say it was evil and
only evil, and therefore to be opposed by every legal and moral
restriction that society could rear against it. In his name, speaking
as I believe he would speak if he were here this moment, I solemnly
declare the necessity on the part of every disciple of Christ in every
church in Milton of placing himself decidedly and persistently and at
once in open battle against the saloon until it is destroyed, until its
power in business, politics, and society is a thing of the past, until
we have rid ourselves of the foul vapor which has so many years trailed
its slimy folds through our homes and our schools.
"Citizens, Christians, church-members, I call on you to-day to take up
arms against the common foe of that we hold dear in church, home, and
state. I know there are honest business men who have long writhed in
secret at the ignominy of the halter about their necks by which they
have been led. There are citizens who have the best interests of the
community at heart who have hung their heads in shame of American
politics, seeing this brutal whisky element dictating the government of
the towns, and parcelling out their patronage and managing their funds
and enormous stealings of the people's money. I know there are
church-members who have felt in their hearts the deep shame of bowing
the knee to this rum god in order to make advancement in political life.
And I call on all these to-day to rise with me and begin a fight against
the entire saloon business and whisky rule in Milton until by the help
of the Lord of hosts we have gotten us the victory. Men, women,
brothers, sisters in the great family of God on earth, will you sit
tamely down and worship the great beast of this country! Will you not
rather gird your swords upon your thighs and go out to battle against
this blasphemous Philistine who has defied the armies of the living God?
I have spoken my message. Let us ask the wisdom and power of the Divine
to help us."
Philip's prayer was almost painful in its intensity of feeling and
expression. The audience sat in deathly silence, and when he pronounced
the amen of the benediction it was several moments before any one
stirred to leave the church.
Philip went home completely exhausted. He had put into his sermon all of
himself and had called up all his reserve power--a thing he was not
often guilty of doing, and for which he condemned himself on this
occasion. But it was past, and he could not recall it. He was not
concerned as to the results of his sermon. He had long believed that if
he spoke the message God gave him he was not to grow anxious over the
outcome of it.
But the people of Milton were deeply stirred by the address. They were
not in the habit of hearing that kind of preaching. And what was more,
the whisky element was roused. It was not in the habit of having its
authority attacked in that bold, almost savage manner. For years its
sway had been undisturbed. It had insolently established itself in power
until even these citizens who knew its thoroughly evil character were
deceived into the belief that nothing better than licensing it was
possible. The idea that the saloon could be banished, removed, driven
out altogether, had never before been advocated in Milton. The
conviction that whether it could be it ought to be suppressed had never
gained ground with any number of people. They had endured it as a
necessary evil. Philip's sermon, therefore, fell something like a bomb
into the whisky camp. Before night the report of the sermon had spread
all over the town. The saloon men were enraged. Ordinarily they would
have paid no attention to anything a church or a preacher might say or
do. But Philip spoke from the pulpit of the largest church in Milton.
The whisky men knew that if the large churches should all unite to fight
them they would make it very uncomfortable for them and in the end
probably drive them out. Philip went home that Sunday night after the
evening service with several bitter enemies. The whisky men contributed
one element. Some of his own church-members made up another. He had
struck again at the same sore spot which he had wounded the month
before. In his attack on the saloon as an institution he had again
necessarily condemned all those members of his church who rented
property to the whisky element. Again, as a month ago, these property
holders went from the hearing of the sermon angry that they as well as
the saloon power were under indictment.
As Philip entered on the week's work after that eventful sermon he began
to feel the pressure of public feeling against him. He began to realize
the bitterness of championing a just cause alone. He felt the burden of
the community's sin in the matter, and more than once he felt obliged to
come in from his parish work and go up into his study there to commune
with his Father. He was growing old very fast in these first few weeks
in his new parish.
Tuesday evening of that week Philip had been writing a little while in
his study, where he had gone immediately after supper. It was nearly
eight o'clock when he happened to remember that he had promised a sick
child in the home of one of his parishioners that he would come and see
him that very day.
He came downstairs, put on his hat and overcoat, and told his wife where
he was going.
"It's not far. I shall be back in about half an hour, Sarah."
He went out, and his wife held the door open until he was down the
steps. She was just on the point of shutting the door as he started down
the sidewalk when a sharp report rang out close by. She screamed and
flung the door open again, as by the light of the street lamp she saw
Philip stagger and then leap into the street toward an elm-tree which
grew almost opposite the parsonage. When he was about in the middle of
the street she was horrified to see a man step out boldly from behind
the tree, raise a gun, and deliberately fire at Philip again. This time
Philip fell and did not rise. His tall form lay where the rays of the
street lamp shone on it and he had fallen so that as his arms stretched
out there he made the figure of a huge and prostrate cross.