MEANWHILE,
Nazareth Avenue Church was experiencing something never
known before in all its history. The simple appeal on the
part of its pastor to his members to do as Jesus would do
had created a sensation that still continued. The result of
that appeal was very much the same as in Henry Maxwell's
church in Raymond, only this church was far more
aristocratic, wealthy and conventional. Nevertheless when,
one Sunday morning in early summer, Dr. Bruce came into his
pulpit and announced his resignation, the sensation deepened
all over the city, although he had advised with his board of
trustees, and the movement he intended was not a matter of
surprise to them. But when it become publicly known that the
Bishop had also announced his resignation and retirement
from the position he had held so long, in order to go and
live himself in the centre of the worst part of Chicago, the
public astonishment reached its height.
"But
why?" the Bishop replied to one valued friend who had
almost with tears tried to dissuade him from his purpose.
"Why should what Dr. Bruce and I propose to do seem so
remarkable a thing, as if it were unheard of that a Doctor
of Divinity and a Bishop should want to save lost souls in
this particular manner? If we were to resign our charge for
the purpose of going to Bombay or Hong Kong or any place in
Africa, the churches and the people would exclaim at the
heroism of missions. Why should it seem so great a thing if
we have been led to give our lives to help rescue the
heathen and the lost of our own city in the way we are going
to try it? Is it then such a tremendous event that two
Christian ministers should be not only willing but eager to
live close to the misery of the world in order to know it
and realize it? Is it such a rare thing that love of
humanity should find this particular form of expression in
the rescue of souls?"
And however
the Bishop may have satisfied himself that there ought to be
nothing so remarkable about it at all, the public continued
to talk and the churches to record their astonishment that
two such men, so prominent in the ministry, should leave
their comfortable homes, voluntarily resign their pleasant
social positions and enter upon a life of hardship, of
self-denial and actual suffering. Christian America! Is it a
reproach on the form of our discipleship that the exhibition
of actual suffering for Jesus on the part of those who walk
in His steps always provokes astonishment as at the sight of
something very unusual?
Nazareth
Avenue Church parted from its pastor with regret for the
most part, although the regret was modified with a feeling
of relief on the part of those who had refused to take the
pledge. Dr. Bruce carried with him the respect of men who,
entangled in business in such a way that obedience to the
pledge would have ruined them, still held in their deeper,
better natures a genuine admiration for courage and
consistency. They had known Dr. Bruce many years as a
kindly, conservative, safe man, but the thought of him in
the light of sacrifice of this sort was not familiar to
them. As fast as they understood it, they gave their pastor
the credit of being absolutely true to his recent
convictions as to what following Jesus meant. Nazareth
Avenue Church never lost the impulse of that movement
started by Dr. Bruce. Those who went with him in making the
promise breathed into the church the very breath of divine
life, and are continuing that life-giving work at this
present time.
*
* * * * *
It was fall
again, and the city faced another hard winter. The Bishop
one afternoon came out of the Settlement and walked around
the block, intending to go on a visit to one of his new
friends in the district. He had walked about four blocks
when he was attracted by a shop that looked different from
the others. The neighborhood was still quite new to him, and
every day he discovered some strange spot or stumbled upon
some unexpected humanity.
The place
that attracted his notice was a small house close by a
Chinese laundry. There were two windows in the front, very
clean, and that was remarkable to begin with. Then, inside
the window, was a tempting display of cookery, with prices
attached to the various articles that made him wonder
somewhat, for he was familiar by this time with many facts
in the life of the people once unknown to him. As he stood
looking at the windows, the door between them opened and
Felicia Sterling came out.
"Felicia!"
exclaimed the Bishop. "When did you move into my parish
without my knowledge?"
"How
did you find me so soon?" inquired Felicia.
"Why,
don't you know? These are the only clean windows in the
block."
"I
believe they are," replied Felicia with a laugh that
did the Bishop good to hear.
"But
why have you dared to come to Chicago without telling me,
and how have you entered my diocese without my
knowledge?" asked the Bishop. And Felicia looked so
like that beautiful, clean, educated, refined world he once
knew, that he might be pardoned for seeing in her something
of the old Paradise. Although, to speak truth for him, he
had no desire to go back to it.
"Well,
dear Bishop," said Felicia, who had always called him
so, "I knew how overwhelmed you were with your work. I
did not want to burden you with my plans. And besides, I am
going to offer you my services. Indeed, I was just on my way
to see you and ask your advice. I am settled here for the
present with Mrs. Bascom, a saleswoman who rents our three
rooms, and with one of Rachel's music pupils who is being
helped to a course in violin by Virginia Page. She is from
the people," continued Felicia, using the words
"from the people" so gravely and unconsciously
that her hearer smiled, "and I am keeping house for her
and at the same time beginning an experiment in pure food
for the masses. I am an expert and I have a plan I want you
to admire and develop. Will you, dear Bishop?"
"Indeed
I will," he replied. The sight of Felicia and her
remarkable vitality, enthusiasm and evident purpose almost
bewildered him.
"Martha
can help at the Settlement with her violin and I will help
with my messes. You see, I thought I would get settled first
and work out something, and then come with some real thing
to offer. I'm able to earn my own living now."
"You
are?" the Bishop said a little incredulously.
"How? Making those things?"
"Those
things!" said Felicia with a show of indignation.
"I would have you know, sir, that 'those things' are
the best-cooked, purest food products in this whole
city."
"I
don't doubt it," he replied hastily, while his eyes
twinkled, "Still, 'the proof of the pudding'--you know
the rest."
"Come
in and try some!" she exclaimed. "You poor Bishop!
You look as if you hadn't had a good meal for a month."
She
insisted on his entering the little front room where Martha,
a wide-awake girl with short, curly hair, and an
unmistakable air of music about her, was busy with practice.
"Go
right on, Martha. This is the Bishop. You have heard me
speak of him so often. Sit down there and let me give you a
taste of the fleshpots of Egypt, for I believe you have been
actually fasting."
So they had
an improvised lunch, and the Bishop who, to tell the truth,
had not taken time for weeks to enjoy his meals, feasted on
the delight of his unexpected discovery and was able to
express his astonishment and gratification at the quality of
the cookery.
"I
thought you would at least say it is as good as the meals
you used to get at the Auditorium at the big banquets,"
said Felicia slyly.
"As
good as! The Auditorium banquets were simply husks compared
with this one, Felicia. But you must come to the Settlement.
I want you to see what we are doing. And I am simply
astonished to find you here earning your living this way. I
begin to see what your plan is. You can be of infinite help
to us. You don't really mean that you will live here and
help these people to know the value of good food?"
"Indeed
I do," she answered gravely. "That is my gospel.
Shall I not follow it?"
"Aye,
Aye! You're right. Bless God for sense like yours! When I
left the world," the Bishop smiled at the phrase,
"they were talking a good deal about the 'new woman.'
If you are one of them, I am a convert right now and
here."
"Flattery!
Still is there no escape from it, even in the slums of
Chicago?" Felicia laughed again. And the man's heart,
heavy though it had grown during several months of vast
sin-bearing, rejoiced to hear it! It sounded good. It was
good. It belonged to God.
Felicia
wanted to visit the Settlement, and went back with him. She
was amazed at the results of what considerable money an a
good deal of consecrated brains had done. As they walked
through the building they talked incessantly. She was the
incarnation of vital enthusiasm, and he wondered at the
exhibition of it as it bubbled up and sparkled over.
They went
down into the basement and the Bishop pushed open a door
from behind which came the sound of a carpenter's plane. It
was a small but well equipped carpenter's shop. A young man
with a paper cap on his head and clad in blouse and overalls
was whistling and driving the plane as he whistled. He
looked up as the two entered, and took off his cap. As he
did so, his little finger carried a small curling shaving up
to his hair and it caught there.
"Miss
Sterling, Mr. Stephen Clyde," said the Bishop.
"Clyde is one of our helpers here two afternoons in the
week."
Just then
the bishop was called upstairs and he excused himself a
moment, leaving Felicia and the young carpenter together.
"We
have met before," said Felicia looking at Clyde
frankly.
"Yes,
'back in the world,' as the Bishop says," replied the
young man, and his fingers trembled a little as they lay on
the board he had been planing.
"Yes."
Felicia hesitated. "I am very glad to see you."
"Are
you?" The flush of pleasure mounted to the young
carpenter's forehead. "You have had a great deal of
trouble since--since--then," he said, and then he was
afraid he had wounded her, or called up painful memories.
But she had lived over all that.
"Yes,
and you also. How is it that you're working here?"
"It is
a long story, Miss Sterling. My father lost his money and I
was obliged to go to work. A very good thing for me. The
Bishop says I ought to be very grateful. I am. I am very
happy now. I learned the trade, hoping some time to be of
use, I am night clerk at one of the hotels. That Sunday
morning when you took the pledge at Nazareth Avenue Church,
I took it with the others."
"Did
you?" said Felicia slowly. "I am glad."
Just then
the Bishop came back, and very soon he and Felicia went away
leaving the young carpenter at his work. Some one noticed
that he whistled louder than ever as he planed.
"Felicia,"
said the Bishop, "did you know Stephen Clyde
before?"
"Yes,
'back in the world,' dear Bishop. He was one of my
acquaintances in Nazareth Avenue Church."
"Ah!"
said the Bishop.
"We
were very good friends," added Felicia.
"But
nothing more?" the Bishop ventured to ask.
Felicia's
face glowed for an instant. Then she looked her companion in
the eyes frankly and answered: "Truly and truly,
nothing more."
"It
would be just the way of the world for these two people to
come to like each other, though," thought the man to
himself, and somehow the thought made him grave. It was
almost like the old pang over Camilla. But it passed,
leaving him afterwards, when Felicia had gone back, with
tears in his eyes and a feeling that was almost hope that
Felicia and Stephen would like each other. "After
all," he said, like the sensible, good man that he was,
"is not romance a part of humanity? Love is older than
I am, and wiser."
The week
following, the Bishop had an experience that belongs to this
part of the Settlement history. He was coming back to the
Settlement very late from some gathering of the striking
tailors, and was walking along with his hands behind him,
when two men jumped out from behind an old fence that shut
off an abandoned factory from the street, and faced him. One
of the men thrust a pistol in his face, and the other
threatened him with a ragged stake that had evidently been
torn from the fence.
"Hold
up your hands, and be quick about it!" said the man
with the pistol.
