When, a few minutes later, Mrs. Strong came up, Philip told her exactly
how he had decided.
"I cannot leave these poor fellows in the tenements yet; my work is just
beginning to count with them. And the church, oh, Sarah, I love it, for
it has such possibilities and it must yield in time; and then the
whiskey men--I cannot bear to have them think me beaten, driven out,
defeated. And in addition to all the rest, I have a feeling that God has
a wonderful blessing in store for me and the church very soon; and I
cannot banish the feeling that if I should accept the call to Fairview,
I should always be haunted by that ghost of Duty murdered and run away
from which would make me unhappy in all my future work. Dear little
woman," Philip went on, as he drew his wife's head down and kissed her
tenderly, while tears of disappointment fell from her--"little woman,
you know you are the dearest of all earthly beings to me. And my soul
tells me the reason you loved me enough to share earth's troubles with
me was that you knew I could not be a coward in the face of my duty, my
conscience, and my God. Is it not so?"
The answer came in a sob of mingled anguish and happiness:
"Yes, Philip, but it was only for your sake I wanted you to leave this
work. It is killing you. Yet,"--and she lifted her head with a smile
through all the tears--"yet, Philip, 'whither thou goest I will go, and
where thou lodgest I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy
God my God. Where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried; the
Lord do so to me and more also if aught but death part thee and me.'"
There were people in Milton who could not undersatnd[sic] how a person
of such refined and even naturally expensive and luxurious habits as the
minister's wife possessed could endure the life he had planned for
himself, and his idea of Christian living in general. Philip could have
told them if he had been so minded. And this scene could have revealed
it to any one who knew the minister and his wife as they really were.
That was a sacred scene to husband and wife, something that belonged to
them, one of those things which the world did not know and had no
business to know.
When the first Sunday of another month had come, Mr. Strong felt quite
well again. A rumor of his call to Fairview had gone out, and to the
few intimate friends who asked him about it he did not deny, but he said
little. The time was precious to him. He plunged into the work with an
enthusiasm and a purpose which sprang from his knowledge that he was at
last really gaining some influence in the tenement district.
The condition of affairs in that neighborhood was growing worse instead
of better. The amount of vice, drunkenness, crime and brutality made his
sensitive heart quiver a hundred times a day as he went his way through
it all. His study of the whole question led him to the conviction that
one of the great needs of the place was a new home life for the people.
The tenements were owned and rented by men of wealth and influence. Many
of these men were in the church. Discouraged as he had so often been in
his endeavor to get the moneyed men of the congregation to consecrate
their property to Christian uses, Philip came up to that first Sunday
with a new phase of the same great subject which pressed so hard for
utterance that he could not keep it back.
As he faced the church this morning he faced an audience composed of
very conflicting elements. Representatives of labor were conspicuous in
the galleries. People whom he had assisted at one time and another were
scattered through the house, mostly in the back seats under the choir
gallery. His own membership was represented by men who, while opposed to
his idea of the Christian life and his interpretation of Christ,
nevertheless continued to go and hear him preach. The incident of the
sexton's application for membership and his rejection by vote had also
told somewhat in favor of the minister. Many preachers would have
resigned after such a scene. He had said his say about it, and then
refused to speak or be interviewed by the papers on the subject. What it
cost him in suffering was his own secret. But this morning, as he rose
to give his message in the person of Christ, the thought of the
continued suffering and shame and degradation in the tenement district,
the thought of the great wealth in the possession of the church which
might be used almost to transform the lives of thousands of people, if
the men of riches in Calvary Church would only see the kingdom of God in
its demands on them--this voiced his cry to the people, and gave his
sermon the significance and solemnity of a prophet's inspiration.
"See!" he exclaimed, as he went on after drawing a vivid picture of the
miserable condition of life in the buildings which could not be called
homes, "see what a change could be wrought by the use of a few thousand
dollars down there. And here this morning, in this house, men are
sitting who own very many of those tenements, who are getting the rent
from them every month, who could, without suffering one single sorrow,
without depriving themselves of one necessity or even luxury of life, so
change the surroundings of these people that they would enjoy the
physical life God gave them, and be able to see His love in the lives of
His Disciples. O, my brethren, is not this your opportunity? What is
money compared with humanity? What is the meaning of our discipleship
unless we are using what God has given us to build up His kingdom? The
money represented by this church could rebuild the entire tenement
district. The men who own these buildings," He paused as if he had
suddenly become aware that he might be saying an unwise thing; then,
after a brief hesitation, as if he had satisfied his own doubt, he
repeated, "The men who own these tenements--and members of other
churches besides Calvary are among the owners--are guilty in the sight
of God for allowing human beings made in His image to grow up in such
horrible surroundings when it is in the power of money to stop it.
Therefore, they shall receive greater condemnation at the last, when
Christ sits on the throne of the universe to judge the world. For will
He not say, as He said long years ago, 'I was an hungered and ye gave me
no meat, naked and ye clothed me not, sick and in miserable dwellings
reeking with filth and disease, and ye drew the hire of these places and
visited me not?' For are these men and women and children not our
brethren? Verily, God will require it at our hands, O men of Milton, if,
having the power to use God's property so as to make the world happier
and better, we refused to do so and go our ways careless of our
reponsibility[sic] and selfish in our use of God's money."
Philip closed his sermon with an account of facts concerning the
condition of some of the people he himself had visited. When the service
closed, more than one property owner went away secretly enraged at the
minister's bold, and, as most of them said and thought, "impertinent
meddling in their business." Was he wise? And yet he had been to more
than one of these men in private with the same message. Did he not have
the right to speak in public? Did not Christ do so? Would he not do so
if he were here on earth again? And Philip, seeing the great need,
seeing the mighty power of money, seeing the indifference of these men
to the whole matter, seeing their determination to conduct their
business for the gain of it without regard to the condition of life,
with his heart sore and his soul indignant at the suffering he had
witnessed came into the church and flung his sword of wrath out of its
scabbard, smiting at the very thing dearest of all things to thousands
of church-members to-day--the money, the property, the gain of
acquisition; and he smote, perhaps, with a somewhat unwise energy of
denunciation, yet with his heart crying out for wisdom with every blow
he struck, "Would Christ say it? Would He say it?" And his sensitive,
keenly suffering spirit heard the answer, "Yes, I believe He would."
Back of that answer he did not go in those days so rapidly drawing to
their tremendous close. He bowed the soul of him to his Master and said,
"Thy will be done!"
The week following this Sunday was one of the busiest Philip had known.
With the approach of warmer weather, a great deal of sickness came on.
He was going early and late on errands of mercy to the poor souls all
about his own house. The people knew him now and loved him. He comforted
his spirit with that knowledge as he prayed and worked.
He was going through one of the narrow courts one night on his way home,
with his head bent down and his thoughts on some scene of suffering,
when he was suddenly confronted by a young man who stepped quickly out
from a shadowed corner, threw one arm about Philip's neck and placed his
other hand over his mouth and attempted to throw him over backward.
It was very late, and there was no one in sight. Philip said to himself:
"This is the attack of which I was warned." He was taken altogether by
surprise, but being active and self-possessed, he sharply threw himself
forward, repelling his assailant's attack, and succeeded in pulling the
man's hand away from his mouth. His first second's instinct was to cry
out for help; his next was to keep still. He suddenly felt the other
giving way. The strength seemed to be leaving him. Philip, calling up
some of his knowledge of wrestling gained while in college, threw his
entire weight upon him, and to his surprise the man offered no
resistance. They both fell heavily upon the ground, the man underneath.
He had not spoken and no one had yet appeared. As the man lay there
motionless, Philip rose and stood over him. By the dim light that partly
illuminated the court from a street lamp farther on, he saw that his
assailant was stunned. There was a pump not far away. Philip went over
and brought some water. After a few moments the man recovered
consciousness. He sat up and looked about in a confused manner. Philip
stood near by, looking at him thoughtfully.