The bishop at last spoke gently. "What is your plan?"
"My plan," replied Dr. Bruce slowly, "is, in brief, the putting of myself into the centre of the greatest human need I can find in this city, and living there. My wife is fully in accord with me. We have already decided to find a residence in that part of the city where we can make our personal lives count for the most."
"Let me suggest a place." The bishop was on fire now. He went on and unfolded a plan of far-reaching power and possibility.
They sat up late, and their plan, as it finally grew into a workable fact, was in reality nothing more than the renting of a large building formerly used as a warehouse for a brewery, reconstructing it and living in it themselves in the very heart of a territory where the saloon ruled with power, where the tenement was at its filthiest, where vice and ignorance and shame and poverty were congested into hideous forms.
It was not a new idea. It was an idea started by Jesus Christ when He left His Father's house and forsook the riches that were His, in order to get nearer humanity and, by becoming a part of its sin, helping to draw humanity away from its sin. It was the nearest approach to anything that would satisfy the hunger of these two men to suffer for Christ.
So they reasoned for themselves, not judging others. They were simply keeping their own pledge, to do as Jesus would do, as they honestly judged He would do. That was what they had promised.
The bishop had money of his own. Everyone in Chicago knew that the bishop had a handsome fortune. Dr. Bruce had acquired and saved, by literary work carried on in connection with his parish duties. This money, a large part of it, the two friends agreed to put at once into the work, most of it into the furnishing of a Settlement House.
Chapter Forty-Nine
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, but Nazareth Avenue 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.
But when it became publicly known that the bishop also had announced his retirement from the position he had held so long, in order to go and live in the centre of the worst part of Chicago, the public astonishment reached its height.
"But," 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 souls in this particular manner? If we were 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 lost of our own city?"
Nazareth Avenue Church parted from its pastor with regret for the most part, although the regret was modified by some relief on the part of those who had refused to take the pledge.
* * *
It was fall again, and Chicago faced another hard winter. The bishop one afternoon came out of the Settlement where he now lived, 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 the bishop, 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.
As he stood looking at the windows, the door between them opened, and Felicia Sterling came out.
"Felicia!" said the bishop. "When did you move into my parish without my knowledge?"
"How did you find me so soon?" asked Felicia.
"Ah, these are the only clean windows in the block! But why have you dared to come to Chicago without telling me, and how have you entered my diocese without my knowledge?" the bishop asked in mock displeasure.
"Well, dear Bishop," said Felicia, who had always called him so whenever they had met, "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 Martha, one of Rachel's music pupils who is being helped to a course in violin by Virginia Page. I am keeping house for her, and at the same time beginning an experiment in pure food for the people around here. I have a plan I want you to develop. Will you, dear Bishop?"
"Indeed, I will," replied the bishop. 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 food. 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 it 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," said the bishop hastily, while his eyes twinkled. "Still, the proof of the pudding... You know the rest."
"Come in and try some," exclaimed Felicia. "You poor bishop, you look as if you hadn't had a good meal for a month!"
She insisted on the bishop 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 often. Sit down there and let me give you a taste of good food, for I believe you have been fasting."
So Felicia and the bishop had an improvised lunch, and the bishop, who 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.
"The Auditorium banquets were simply husks compared to 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," Felicia answered. "That is my gospel. Shall I not follow it?"
Felicia went back with the bishop, amazed at the results of what considerable money and a good deal of consecrated brains had done. As they walked through the Settlement building they talked incessantly. Felicia was the incarnation of vital enthusiasm. Even the bishop wondered at the exhibition of it, as it bubbled up and sparkled over.
They went down into the basement, and the bishop pushed open the 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 overalls was whistling, and driving the plane as he whistled. He looked up as the bishop and Felicia 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. "Stephen is one of our helpers here two afternoons in the week."
Just then the bishop was called upstairs, and he excused himself for a moment, leaving Felicia and the young carpenter together.
"We have met before," said Felicia, looking at Stephen Clyde frankly.
"Yes, 'back in th
e world,' as the bishop says," replied the young man.
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 -- then?" he said, and then he was afraid he had wounded her, or called up painful memories.
But Felicia had lived over all that. "Yes, and you also. How is it you are 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 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. Someone noticed that he whistled louder than ever as he planed.
"Felicia," said the bishop, "did you know Stephen Clyde before?"
"Yes, 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 the bishop in the eyes frankly and answered, "Truly and truly, nothing more."
The week following, the bishop was coming back to the Settlement very late 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 into the bishop's face, and the other threatened him with a sharp stake that had evidently been torn from the fence.
"Hold up your hands, and be quick about it!" said the man with the pistol.
The place was solitary, and the bishop had no thought of resistance. He did as he was commanded, and the man with the stake began to go through his pockets. The bishop was calm. As he stood there with his arms uplifted, a spectator might have thought that he was praying for the souls of these two men. And he was.
Chapter Fifty
THE BISHOP was not in the habit of carrying much money with him, and the man who was searching him uttered an oath at the small amount of change he found. As he uttered it, the man with the pistol savagely said, "Jerk out his watch! We might as well get all we can out of the job!"
The man with the stake was on the point of laying hold of the chain when there was the sound of footsteps coming towards them.
"Get behind the fence! We haven't half searched him yet. Mind you keep shut now, if you don't want--------"
The man with the pistol made a significant gesture with it, and his companion pulled and pushed the bishop down the alley and through a broken opening in the fence. The three stood there in the shadow until the footsteps passed.
"Now, then, have you got the watch?" asked the man with the pistol.
"No, the chain is caught somewhere!" And the other man swore again.
"Break it, then!"
"No, don't break it," the bishop said, and it was the first time he had spoken. "The chain is the gift of a very dear friend. I should be sorry to have it broken."
At the sound of the bishop's voice, the man with the pistol started as if he had been shot by his own weapon. With a quick movement of his other hand he turned the bishop's head towards what little light was shining from the alleyway, at the same time taking a step nearer. Then, to the evident amazement of his companion, he said, "Leave the watch alone! We've got the money. That's enough!"
"Enough! Fifty cents! You don't reckon--------"
Before the man with the stake could say another word, he was confronted with the muzzle of the pistol, turned from the bishop's head towards his own.
"Leave that watch be! And put back the money, too. This is the bishop we've held up! The bishop, do you hear?"
"And what of it? The President of the United States wouldn't be too good to hold up, if--------"
"Put the money back, or I'll blow a hole through your head that'll let in more sense than you have to spare now," said the other.
For a second the man with the stake seemed to hesitate at this turn in events, as if measuring his companion's intention. Then he hastily dropped the money back into the bishop's pocket.
"You can take your hands down, sir." The man with the pistol lowered it slowly, still keeping an eye on the other man.
The bishop slowly brought his arms to his side and looked at the two men. In the dim light it was difficult to distinguish features. He was evidently free to go his way now, but he stood there, making no movement.
"You can go on. You needn't stay any longer on our account." The man who had acted as spokesman turned and sat down on a stone. The other man stood viciously digging his stake into the ground.
"That's just what I'm staying for," replied the bishop. He sat down on a board that projected from the broken fence.
"You must like our company. It is hard sometimes for people to tear themselves away from us," the man standing up said, laughing.
"Shut up!" exclaimed the other. "We're on the road to hell, though, that's sure enough. We need better company than ourselves and the devil."
"If you would only allow me to be of any help--------"
The bishop spoke gently, even lovingly. The man on the stone stared at the bishop through the darkness. After a moment of silence, he spoke slowly, like one who had finally decided upon a course he had at first rejected.
"Do you remember ever seeing me before?"
"No," said the bishop. "The light is not very good and I have really not had a good look at you."
"Do you know me now?" The man took off his hat and getting up from the stone walked over to the bishop, until they were near enough to touch each other.
The man's hair was coal black, except for a white spot on the top of his head about as large as the palm of the hand.
The minute the bishop saw that, the memory of fifteen years ago began to stir in him.
"Do you remember one day back in '81 or '82, a man came to your house and told a story about his wife and child having been burned to death in a tenement fire in New York?"
"Yes, I begin to recall now," murmured the bishop.
The other man seemed to be interested. He ceased digging his stake in the ground and stood still, listening.
"Do you remember how you took me into your own house that night and spent all next day trying to find me a job? And how, when you succeeded in getting me a place in a warehouse as foreman, I promised to quit drinking, because you asked me to?"
"I remember it now," the bishop replied. "I hope you have kept your promise?"
The man laughed. Then he struck his hand against the fence with such passion that he drew blood.
"Kept it? I was drunk inside of a week. I've been drinking ever since. But I've never forgotten you or your prayer. Do you remember, the morning after I came to your house, and after breakfast you had prayers and asked me to come in and sit with the rest? You didn't seem to take 'count of the fact that I was more than half drunk when I rang your doorbell. My God, what a life I've lived. My promise not to drink was broken into a thousand pieces inside of two Sundays, and I lost the job you found for me. But I never forgot you or your prayer. I don't know what good it's done me, but I never forgot it. And I won't do any harm to you, nor let anyone else. So you're free to go. That's why."
The bishop did not stir. Somewhere a church clock struck one. The man had put on his hat and gone back to his seat on the stone. The bishop was thinking hard.
"How long is it since you had work?" he asked, and the man standing up answered for the other.
"More'n six months since either of us did anything to tell of. Unless you count holding-up work. I call it pretty wearing kind of a job myself, especially when we put in a night like this one and don't make nothin'."
"Suppose I found good jobs for both of you. W
ould you quit this and begin all over?"
"What's the use?" the man on the stone spoke sullenly. "I've reformed a hundred times. Every time I go down deeper. It's too late!"
"No!" said the bishop. All the time he sat there he prayed, "O Lord Jesus, give me the souls of these two for Thee!"
"No!" the bishop repeated. "You two men are of infinite value to God." And then he remembered the man's name.
"Burns," he said, "if you and your friend here will go home with me tonight, I will find you both places of employment. You are both comparatively young men. Why should God lose you? In the name of Him who was crucified for our sins, no one but God and you and myself need ever know anything of this tonight. He has forgiven it. The minute you ask Him to, you will find that true. Come, we'll fight it out together. Everlasting life is worth fighting for. It was the sinner that Christ came to help. I'll do what I can for you. O God, give me the souls of these two men!"
The bishop broke into a prayer to God that was a continuation of his appeal to the men. His pent-up feeling had no other outlet. Burns was sitting with his face buried in his hands, sobbing. And the other man, harder, less moved, without a previous knowledge of the bishop, leaned back against the fence, stolid at first. But as the prayer went on, he was moved by it.
That same Presence that smote Paul on the road to Damascus and poured through Henry Maxwell's church the morning he asked disciples to follow in Jesus' steps, and had again broken irresistibly over the Nazareth Avenue congregation, now manifested Himself in this corner of the mighty city.
The bishop's prayer seemed to break open the crust that had for years surrounded these two men and shut them off from divine communication. And they themselves were thoroughly startled by the event.
The bishop ceased, and at first he did not realize what had happened. Neither did the two men. Burns sat with his head bowed between his hands. The man leaning against the fence looked at the bishop with a face in which new emotions of awe, repentance, astonishment, and a broken gleam of joy struggled for expression.
The bishop rose. "Come, my brothers! God is good. You shall stay at the Settlement tonight. And I will make good my promise as to the work."
The two men followed the bishop in silence. When they reached the Settlement it was after two o'clock. The bishop let them, in, and led them to a room. At the door, he paused a moment.
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