|
Three months had gone by since the Sunday morning when Dr. Bruce came into his pulpit
with the message of the new discipleship. They were three months of great excitement in
Nazareth Avenue Church. Never before had Rev. Calvin Bruce realized how deep the
feeling of his members flowed. He humbly confessed that the appeal he had made met with
an unexpected response from men and women who, like Felicia, were hungry for something
in their lives that the conventional type of church membership and fellowship had failed to
give them.
But Dr. Bruce was not yet satisfied for himself. He cannot tell what his feeling was or what
led to the movement he finally made, to the great astonishment of all who knew him, better
than by relating a conversation between him and the Bishop at this time in the history of the
pledge in Nazareth Avenue Church. The two friends were, as before, in Dr. Bruce's house,
seated in his study.
"You know what I have come in this evening for?" the Bishop was saying, after the friends
had been talking some time about the results of the pledge with the Nazareth Avenue
people.
Dr. Bruce looked over at the Bishop and shook his head.
"I have come to confess that I have not yet kept my promise to walk in His steps in the way
that I believe I shall be obliged to if I satisfy my thought of what it means to walk in His
steps."
Dr. Bruce had risen and was pacing his study. The Bishop remained in the deep, easy chair
with his hands clasped, but his eye burned with the glow that belonged to him before he
made some great resolve.
"Edward" -- Dr. Bruce spoke abruptly -- "I have not yet been able to satisfy myself, either, in
obeying my promise. But I have at last decided on my course. In order to follow it I shall
be obliged to resign from Nazareth Avenue Church."
"I knew you would," replied the
Bishop quietly. "And I came in this evening to say that I shall be obliged to do the same
thing with my charge."
Dr. Bruce turned and walked up to his friend. They were both laboring under a repressed
excitement.
"Is it necessary in your case?" asked Bruce.
"Yes. Let me state my reasons. Probably they are the same as yours. In fact, I am sure they
are." The Bishop paused a moment, then went on with increasing feeling.
"Calvin, you know how many years I have been doing the work of my position, and you
know something of the responsibility and care of it. I do not mean to say that my life has
been free from burden-bearing or sorrow. But I have certainly led what the poor and
desperate of this sinful city would call a very comfortable -- yes, a very luxurious, life. I have
had a beautiful house to live in, the most expensive food, clothing, and physical pleasures. I
have been able to go abroad at least a dozen times, and have enjoyed for years the beautiful
companionship of art and letters and music and all the rest, of the very best. I have never
known what it meant to be without money or its equivalent. And I have been unable to
silence the question of late: 'What have I suffered for the sake of Christ?' Paul was told
what great things he must suffer for the sake of his Lord. Maxwell's position at Raymond is
well taken when he insists that to walk in the steps of Christ means to suffer. Where has my
suffering come in? The petty trials and annoyances of my clerical life are not worth
mentioning as sorrows or sufferings. Compared with Paul or any of the Christian martyrs or
early disciples, I have lived a luxurious, sinful life, full of ease and pleasure. I cannot endure
this any longer. I have that within me which of late rises in overwhelming condemnation of
such a following of Jesus. I have not been walking in His steps. Under the present system of church and social life I see no escape from
this condemnation except to give the most of my life personally to the actual physical and
soul needs of the wretched people in the worst part of this city."
The Bishop had risen now, and walked over to the window. The street in front of the house
was as light as day, and he looked out at the crowds passing, then turned, and with a
passionate utterance that showed how deep the volcanic fire in him burned, he exclaimed: "Calvin, this is a terrible city in which we live! Its misery, its sin, its selfishness, appall my
heart. And I have struggled for years with the sickening dread of the time when I should be
forced to leave the pleasant luxury of my official position to put my life into contact with
the modern paganism of this century. The awful condition of the girls in some great
business places, the brutal selfishness of the insolent society, fashion, and wealth that ignores
all the sorrow of the city, the fearful curse of the drink and gambling hell, the wail of the
unemployed, the hatred of the church by countless men who see in it only great piles of
costly stone and upholstered furniture and the minister as a luxurious idler, all the vast
tumult of this vast torrent of humanity with its false and its true ideas, its exaggeration of
evils in the church and its bitterness and shame that are the result of many complex causes -- all this as a total fact in its contrast with the easy, comfortable life I have lived, fills me
more and more with a sense of mingled terror and self accusation. I have heard the words of
Jesus many times lately: 'Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of these least, my brethren, ye
did it not unto me.' And when have I personally visited the prisoner or the desperate or the
sinful in any way that has actually caused me suffering? Rather, I have followed the
conventional soft habits of my position and have lived in the society of the rich, refined,
aristocratic members of my congregations. Where has the suffering come in? What have I
suffered for Jesus' sake? Do you know, Calvin" -- he turned abruptly toward his friend -- "I have been tempted of late to lash myself with a
scourge. If I had lived in Martin Luther's time I should have bared my back to a
self-inflicted torture."
Dr. Bruce was very pale. Never had he seen the Bishop or heard him when under the
influence of such a passion. There was a sudden silence in the room. The Bishop sat down
again and bowed his head. Dr. Bruce spoke at last.
"Edward, I do not need to say that you have expressed my feelings also. I have been in a
similar position for years. My life has been one of comparative luxury. I do not, of course,
mean to say that I have not had trials and discouragements and burdens in my church
ministry. But I cannot say that I have suffered any for Jesus. That verse in Peter constantly
haunts me: 'Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that ye should follow His
steps.' I have lived in luxury. I do not know what it means to want. I also have had my
leisure for travel and beautiful companionship. I have been surrounded by the soft, easy
comforts of civilization. The sin and misery of this great city have beaten like waves
against the stone walls of my church and of this house in which I live, and I have hardly
heeded them, the walls have been so thick. I have reached a point where I cannot endure
this any longer. I am not condemning the church. I love her. I am not forsaking the
Church. I believe in her mission and have no desire to destroy. Least of all, in the step I am
about to take, do I desire to be charged with abandoning the Christian fellowship. But I feel
that I must resign my place as pastor of Nazareth Church in order to satisfy myself that I
am walking as 1 ought to walk in His steps. In this action I judge no other minister and
pass no criticism on others' discipleship. But I feel as you do. Into a close contact with the
sin and shame and degradation of this great city I must come personally. And I know that to
do that I must sever my immediate connection with Nazareth Avenue Church. I do not see any other way for myself to suffer for His sake
as I feel that I ought to suffer."
Again that sudden silence fell over those two men. It was no ordinary action they were
deciding. They had both reached the same conclusion by the same reasoning, and they were
too thoughtful, too well accustomed to the measuring of conduct, to underestimate the
seriousness of their position.
"What is your plan?" The Bishop at last spoke gently, looking with the smile that always
beautified his face. The Bishop's face grew in glory now every day.
"My plan," replied Dr. Bruce slowly, "is, in brief, the putting of myself into the center 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. His fine face actually glowed with
the enthusiasm of the movement in which he and his friend were inevitably embarked. He
went on and unfolded a plan of such far-reaching power and possibility that Dr. Bruce,
capable and experienced as he was, felt amazed at the vision of a greater soul than his own.
They sat up late and were as eager and even glad as if they were planning for a trip
together to some rare land of unexplored travel. Indeed, the Bishop said many times
afterward that the moment his decision was reached to live the life of personal sacrifice he
had chosen, he suddenly felt an uplifting as if a great burden were taken from him. He was
exultant. So was Dr. Bruce from the same cause.
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 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 apart from its
sin. The University Settlement idea is not modern. It is as old as Bethlehem and Nazareth.
And in this particular case it was the nearest approach to anything that would satisfy the
hunger of these two men to suffer for Christ. There had sprung up in them at the same time a longing that amounted to a passion, to get
nearer the great physical poverty and spiritual destitution of the mighty city that throbbed
around them. How could they do this except as they became a part of it as nearly as one
man can become a part of another's misery? Where was the suffering to come in unless
there was an actual self-denial of some sort? And what was to make that self-denial apparent
to themselves or any one else, unless it took this concrete, actual, personal form of trying to
share the deepest suffering and sin of the city?
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
promised. How could they quarrel with the result if they were irresistibly compelled to do
what they were planning to do?
The Bishop had money of his own. Every one in Chicago knew that he had a handsome
fortune. Dr. Bruce had acquired and saved, by literary work carried on in connection with
his parish duties, more than a comfortable competence. 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.
| 
