I hit, men" the mahogany desk was a cathedral pulpit now "don't you see it?" The Centenary At Old First BY HARVEY REEVES CALKINS THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN NEW YORK CINCINNATI Copyright, 1919, by HARVEY REEVES CALKINS TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER FAGS FOREWORD 9 I. WEDGWOOD 11 II. AT THE CITY NATIONAL, BANK 14 III. AN UNOFFICIAL BOARD MEETING 23 IV. THE CHURCH OF YESTER-YEAR 37 V. STRAWS LN THE CURRENT 44 VI. AT THE COMMERCIAL CLUB 58 VII. MEXICAN PETROLEUM 78 VIII. KHAKI AND CLOTH 82 IX. CLARA CURTIS SPEAKS THE TRUTH 106 X. BEHIND THE BARRICADE 116 XI. THE SHINERS 135 XII. THE VOICE OUT OF THE DESERT 152 XIII. CROSS CURRENTS 173 XIV. BESIDE THE NORTHERN LAKES 191 XV. LETTERS 214 XVI. THE BOARD MEETS 223 XVII. THEY THAT WILL BE RICH 240 XVIII. THE COMING OF AN AMBASSADOR 254 XIX. TIDINGS FROM SAINT M HIEL 267 XX. AND IT WAS NIGHT 282 XXI. THE OLD PATHS 297 XXII. THE DAY OF THE ARMISTICE 307 XXIII. VANISHING CLEWS 318 XXIV. FLYNN'S POINT 328 XXV. A RAINY DAY 336 XXVI. PIETRO PROPHESIES. . . 345 2134965 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE "But, men" the mahogany desk was a cathedral pulpit now "don't you see it?" Frontispiece "0, Miss Janes, what have I done!" 158 Then something came to Clara Curtis 340 FOREWORD If there shall be any foreword, let it be the word written by Addison in the Spectator, and applied by him to the simple-hearted squire, Sir Roger de Cover- ley: "He brought philosophy out of closets and libraries to dwell at tea tables and in coffee houses." H. R. C. New York City, Easter, 1919. CHAPTER I WEDGWOOD MRS. RHODIN CURTIS she always wrote her name full-bodied, Clara Heustis Curtis was learning to make mental adjustments. Mrs. Heustis, who still attended prayer meeting at Old First, said these were "temptations," but Clara had quite dis- carded the well-worn phrases of what she called "the creeds." There were times when Mrs. Rhodin Curtis deviated. Her mother told her it was "yielding to temptation," but this old-fashioned statement of the case always brought a frown to her daughter's placid brow, a distinct and almost ugly frown. "I wish you wouldn't talk that way, mother" it was when Clara had bought the second set of Wedg- wood for six hundred and thirty-five dollars and Mrs. Heustis had spoken plainly of extravagance "it irri- tates me so that I cannot enter into the silence." Then something stirred. Mrs. Heustis was much attached to her son-in-law, and he genuinely returned her affection. He had been telling her in confidence some of his financial worries. Rhodin Curtis seldom mentioned business perplexities to his wife. They dis- turbed her calm. Something stirred. "The 'silence* of which you speak, my child, may some day feel the crash of an 11 12 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST earthquake," and Mrs. Heustis looked into her daugh- ter's face with the prophetic instinct of motherhood. "Why, mother, how perfectly morbid as though some awful chasm were about to yawn underneath me and little Arthur and my strong and beautiful Rho! If you would only fix your mind on the pleasant and lovely things you would find that the unpleasant things what church people still call evil would vanish into unreality." Clara Curtis spoke winsomely, for she was a winsome woman. Mrs. Heustis lifted little Arthur into her lap, where he snuggled. "Perhaps your mother is too matter of fact, Clara; but I do not believe you can banish evil out of the world by thinking it away. Can the Bel- gian and Armenian women 'think away' the unutterable things which they have suffered? I wish you could have heard Dr. Locke's sermon on 'The Cost of World Peace.' " "Now, mother, I positively refuse to talk about the Belgians and Armenians; you know how it unnerves me! ... Arthur, run and tell Bergith mother says you are to have a big, big orange. You may eat it on the veranda. ... I hate Dr. Locke and his old 'Centenary Sermons,' and I think it is unkind of you to remind me of such horrid things!" and Clara hid her face in her hands. Mrs. Heustis pressed a kiss upon her daughter's cheek it was velvet soft. "My dear child, forgive me for disturbing the dream-world in which you are living. But, Clara, we cannot unthink these awful facts, we must meet them." Then Clara Curtis lifted her head and looked serene- WEDGWOOD 13 ly into her mother's face. "Do not be tragic, mother dear. What seems to you so evil is only good in the making. The evil is but illusion, unreality; it will vanish away as vapor. Only the good will remain, for good alone is real. It must be so, for God is good, and, mother, God is all." Mrs. Heustis turned slowly from her daughter's tranquil eyes. Her own eyes were blinded with tears and a passionate prayer leaped unbidden to her lips: "Gently, Lord, O gently lead her in the day of her awakening." At the doorway she glanced back with a smile and a wave of the hand. "Good-by, dear; I'll be over to- morrow." "Good-by, mother." Clara still sat with lifted head and with serene and tranquil eyes, with deep and dreamful eyes, that looked but saw not. Thus Hypatia looked, lovely near-Christian looked and saw not while shadows gathered in Alexandria the city, and a thunderbolt fell upon the house of Theon fifteen centuries ago but with this differ- ence: Clara's mother ceased not to pray. CHAPTER II AT THE CITY NATIONAL BANK "fTIHREE MONTHS, Mr. Kennedy? I hardly A can do that." The president of the City Na- tional Bank looked into the immobile face of Sanford Kennedy, managing partner of King and Kennedy, Limited, Wholesale Chemists. It was a keen look, but friendly. "No, Mr. Kennedy, a ninety-day note is quite out of the question; sixty days positively is our limit. As a matter of fact, most of our current discounts are from ten days to thirty." "But, Mr. Gilbert, the public is under the impression that money is unusually easy; what is your great urgency ?" "To keep it easy." "You mean by short loans and quick returns?" "Certainly." "But ordinary business must find such urgency rather trying." "Ordinary business, my dear sir, must yield to the one business now in hand." "The war?" "To be sure. Banks just now have only one purpose to enlist public and private resources in the war program of the American government." "Do you mean, sir, that ordinary bank loans are no longer available?" 14 AT THE CITY NATIONAL BANK 15 "We do not mean to be unreasonable, Mr. Kennedy, but every case must stand on its own merits. For instance, if a builder or contractor is in the midst of an enterprise which he has begun in good faith under financial guarantees, the banks of this city will con- tinue to afford all reasonable accommodation. That is only fair. But the building trade already has been notified that new enterprises will receive scant consider- ation until after the war." "But what if ordinary business has taken on some new development directly related to the war situation ?" "That would be a case in point, Mr. Kennedy. In fact, under such circumstances, we are ready to stretch a man's credit to the limit and make almost any terms desired. But he must have a clear case." "Well, I reckon King and Kennedy will have no diffi- culty on that score," and Sanford Kennedy's immobile face relaxed into lines that had been laughter once in the days before business had atrophied his soul. James Gilbert swung his chair face front. "I shall be very glad to know the new developments of your firm," he said. "I can state the matter in few words. For several years we have been carrying a heavy stock of the cya- nides particularly a high grade of potassium. This compound, as you may be aware, forms the basis of the best blue and green dyes." "I see." "When the British blockade began to tighten, American interests became painfully aware that we had been dependent upon Germany for most of our dyes as well as many of our commercial chemicals. At once 16 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST we began systematic experiments at our laboratories." "I see." "For some time now our south side plant has been able to produce Prussian Blue and Berlin Green of the very highest grade. Recently we have perfected a *fast black' that is absolutely satisfactory." "I congratulate you, sir." "It hardly would be proper for me to speak of tech- nical trade secrets, but this much further I can say: We have been in correspondence with a certain Swiss firm of chemists who have long held the German for- mula for making aniline dyes out of coal tar as a base, but who still fear a German boycott if they actually should manufacture for trade export. After long negotiation an English firm has now secured the for- mula, and King and Kennedy will represent the Ameri- can trade." "I certainly congratulate you, Mr. Kennedy." "As soon as we were sure of our ground we communi- cated with the textile trades, and literally have been snowed under with orders for future delivery. There will be no difficulty in securing potassium cyanide in sufficient amount and of the highest quality; extensive deposits in Utah have recently been developed. Our aniline dyes, for the present, will be sent to us from England. But our physical equipment is wholly in- sufficient. Plans and specifications are now ready, and we purpose to build extensive new laboratories; hence my request for accommodation. Anything less than ninety days would be inconvenient to us." The president of the City National Bank turned quietly in his chair and lifted the receiver from his AT THE CITY NATIONAL BANK 17 private wire: "Please ask Mr. Curtis to see me di- rectly," and then "Mr. Curtis," as the cashier entered, "Mr. Ken- nedy's people are planning extensive additions at their south side laboratories; please afford them every ac- commodation. This comes clearly under the general banking program approved by the Treasury Depart- ment. You are familiar with it all. You know King and Kennedy securities and can arrange the loan that is, if Mr. Kennedy is agreeable to this." "I reckon Rhody and I can make terms" quizzi- cally "we've done it before." Rhodin Curtis cast a quick, inquiring glance at the bank's client and smiled cordially. "I shall be at your convenience," he said. The cashier at the City National was one of the bank's strong assets. Genial, commanding, sympa- thetic, his personal popularity drew and held a wide clientele throughout the city. "Fixing it with Rhody" was ordinary business parlance for negotiating a bank loan, and progressive business interests more and more were centered at the City National. Some of the directors, notably Dr. Janes, criticized the open-handed way in which the cashier extended the bank's credit, especially to young men, some of them hardly out of their teens. "Think of it, gentlemen," he said, "three hundred dollars to Tony Carrari, on his personal note, to estab- lish a string of shoe-shining cabins down State Street ; it's absurd!" "And every dollar paid," interrupted the president 18 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST it was at a bank directors' meeting "and Tony's deposits already more than four hundred a month ! Dr. Janes will have to choose a better text when he criticizes Mr. Curtis." "Very well, I'll say nothing more. But it isn't good business, and the thing will end in a crash somewhere." Dr. Janes glowered behind his glasses. But the thing did not end. On the contrary, each semiannual statement showed increasing prosperity, and the directors were quite content with the bank's administration. "Curtis may be a bit too liberal," lawyer Lasher re- marked to one of the directors at a club dinner, "but Gilbert has no failings in that quarter and will draw the check rein when needed. That last dividend, you know, wasn't bad, and I'm willing to stand for another just like it." And so thought the other directors. As for Dr. Janes, he was as good as his word and said nothing more. "I shall be at your convenience," and then, "Is this to be a term loan, Mr. Gilbert ?" The question was one of official courtesy, for Rhodin Curtis spoke as a man accustomed to plan his own program. "Fix it as you please, Mr. Curtis ; it is in your hands. Give Mr. Kennedy anything he wants and make what- ever time extensions you may desire. The bank can afford to go the limit in this business." The cashier's searching and masterful glance cov- ered both men for a moment. "I understand," he said. Bowing formally he withdrew. AT THE CITY NATIONAL BANK 19 As he reached the door of the president's room he turned and encountered the eyes of Mr. Kennedy fixed on him with intent earnestness. If the older man sighed, it was an unconscious sigh, for both men smiled in cordial recognition. The younger man bowed again and passed into the bank with quick, elastic steps. Sanford Kennedy drew on his gloves. The lines in his face, that had been laughter once, deepened into grim furrows like trenches on the Flanders front. They were grim but very human. James Gilbert was smiling broadly. "I declare, Kennedy, you are the limit! 'Ordinary business!' Why, man, you know perfectly, better than I do, that the manufacture of dyes is a high necessity thrust on us by the war, and therefore entitled to prior consider- ation in any banking program. You were trying to 'draw' me!" Mr. Gilbert glowed with great inward comfort as he entered a memorandum on his desk pad. "Well, Gilbert, perhaps I had a little notion we might do business this morning, but I like to move cautiously. Everybody, I reckon, has an idea that his own particular business will help Uncle Sam whip the Kaiser especially when he is needing a bank loan," with a shrewd look across the desk. "Right you are, my friend," and the president leaned back in his chair and glanced at a card which the corridor boy that moment laid on his desk: "Tell Dr. Locke I shall be at liberty in a few minutes, Luther." "Right you are!" he repeated. "Why, a downstate commission house wanted five thousand yesterday to put over a deal in frozen eggs; insisted it was 'war 20 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST business' by which, of course, they meant it was a chance to cut a comfortable slice of war profit!" "But King and Kennedy will not be making dyes for the sake of charity, Mr. Gilbert." "I understand perfectly, and you are entitled to a good liberal reward. You are helping to break down the economic strength of Germany. You are develop- ing permanent foundations for American manufactures and, at the same time, are weakening enemy resources. If you were in England, you would be in line for a knighthood. As it is, you are entitled to all the profit that comes your way. You might call it, as I call our discounts on government business, 'patriotic by-prod- ucts.' But frozen eggs bah!" "So you turned the downstate commissioners out of doors, I suppose." "O, no, we discounted their paper. We are not re- fusing good business. We know the house credit as sound as the income tax. But the manager grew warm when I held him down to twenty days; needed thirty, he said, to put the deal across." "Perhaps you thought the City National might make it in 'two jumps,' eh, Gilbert?" "Perhaps so." Mr. Gilbert smiled again and lifted the card which lay in front of him. " 'Two jumps,' that reminds me of Lasher's sugges- tion yesterday. Were you at the Club?" "No, I took a sandwich and cup of coffee at the laboratory too busy these days for club lunches. What is Lasher's latest? We ought to put him up for mayor on a 'reform and economy' platform." "And he'd make good too. I declare Lasher would AT THE CITY NATIONAL BANK 21 cut expenses in an Eskimo igloo! We need such men in these days of loose spending." "But loose spending means tight banking, Gilbert." "I'm not saying anything, am I ?" and James Gilbert balanced the card on the tips of well-manicured fingers. "What was Lasher's suggestion?" "He said the treasurer ought to credit one half our club dues to the Red Cross, in lieu of subscriptions, and postpone the new clubhouse until after the war." "I'm for postponement all right." "And I like Lasher's suggestion about club dues. I tell you, Kennedy, we must use some financial judgment in dealing with the Red Cross and Y. M. C. A., or busi- ness men will be swamped! Business and charity have the right to stand on a war footing together. What's more, private and church charities may as well call a halt until after peace is declared. If we manage to keep up ordinary church budgets, we'll do mighty well. But there's a limit ! More than fifty millions picked up in that last Y. M. C. A. drive I tell you there's a limit!" "My notion to a hair, Gilbert. I told Dr. Locke last Sunday that our own church scheme ought to wait until after the public mind can get back to normal. But I saw he didn't take to it very well has a notion that his plan of tithe-paying will cover the whole busi- ness !" "Tithe-paying ! He's not going to press that !" "That's his plan and not bad either if times were normal." "But the members won't stand for it, Kennedy." ""That's what I told him. Money is plentiful, but 22 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST men are not giving it away without a good stiff reason. First Church Centenary, no doubt, has a certain historic interest, but you won't catch fish these days with pale 'anniversary' bait it's got to be blood red! We ought to call the whole thing off." "You're right, and we might as well settle the busi- ness here and now. I 'phoned Dr. Locke yesterday that it would not be possible for me to serve as treasur- er of the Fund, and he said he would be at the bank this morning to talk things over. He has just sent in his card. You sit quiet and we'll see him together." "Very well, Gilbert, if you desire it ; I reckon the rest of the Board will stand for what we say." Sanford Kennedy removed his gloves and settled back into his chair. The lines that had been laughter were deep cut creases now and they were hard. James Gilbert pressed a call button at the side of his desk. "Show Dr. Locke in, Luther." CHAPTER III AN UNOFFICIAL BOARD MEETING AS a boy at school Richard Locke was always "Dicky." His first week at college fastened "Dickens" upon him, and college instinct approved. McRae, who was Scotch, pronounced the college verdict: "He's not so clever but he's straight human and 'Dickens' is his name." That was the reason Old First had chosen him as pastor. "We don't want a sky-scraping preacher," Sanford Kennedy had insisted, "but a man who can understand folks ; he'll win specially if he's strong in finance." And so it was that Mr. Kennedy was troubled that morning at the bank when he saw the momentary em- barrassment in his pastor's face. But he was glad that Richard Locke neither lifted his eyebrows nor looked wise. He liked him. "Two against one isn't fair fighting eh, Dr. Locke?" "O, there'll be no fighting! I'm your Dare-to-be-a Daniel and quite wondering how it will seem to be eaten. But," turning to the banker, "wouldn't you better wait, Mr. Gilbert, until the rest of the lions get here?" The words were frank and the humor contagious. "No, Dr. Locke, this is to be an exclusive meal for 23 24 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST Kennedy and myself, served comfortably in my own private den." "None of that, Gilbert, or Daniel will turn Samson and leave two dead lions on the rug !" and then to his pastor with quick courtesy, "I'm not here by appoint- ment, Dr. Locke ; I had business at the bank this morn- ing, and Gilbert suggested that I stay and talk things over with you and him church matters, I mean." "I'm glad you're here, both of you; you men knew Old First, and loved her, long before I did ; her interests are safe in your hands." The pastor's directness was almost disconcerting, but his strong fellowship was irre- sistible. There was a moment's hesitation. The banker, trained to promptness, began with difficulty. "I want to explain, Dr. Locke, why I shall not be able to serve as treasurer of First Church Centenary Fund. Perhaps I did not make myself clear last eve- ning over the 'phone." "No, Mr. Gilbert, I found myself somewhat puzzled; I thought that matter was quite settled." "And so it was, but at the convention of American Bankers, at Atlantic City, Secretary McAdoo told us plainly that the government would not be able to float forthcoming war loans unless the banks entered upon a vigorous campaign of preparation." "Yes, I read of it, and noted the splendid response of the bankers." "Well, we didn't wait to be urged. By unanimous vote we pledged for government use all our profits, all our savings, and every ounce of our personal influence and official resources." AN UNOFFICIAL BOARD MEETING 25 "That was great business !" "As a result of the convention, bankers have a tacit understanding among themselves that they will dis- courage, as far as possible, private enterprises that require new capital. Government business and war work are to have the right of way." "That's the patriotism that wins !" "So we think, Dr. Locke. And that's the reason, as you at once will see, why bank officers feel, under the circumstances, that they ought not to become officially related to any charity excepting, of course, the old established societies or new charities directly related to the war. You see, the raising of special funds is part of the 'new business' which ought to be discouraged. New charity plans, like new business plans, must give way." "Charity, Mr. Gilbert? Just what has that to do with our plans at Old First?" The banker showed that he was somewhat nettled, but proceeded. "Of course, Dr. Locke, I was not referring to ordi- nary church budgets; these are recognized as a neces- sary part of community life. But unusual expendi- tures such as we have planned at First Church the creation of permanent funds, the erection of new build- ings, and the like, these clearly are not related to the war work now in hand." "I do not quite get you, Mr. Gilbert." "Now, Gilbert" Sanford Kennedy was leaning across the desk "there's no use beating about the bush ! The fact is, Dr. Locke, Gilbert and I and some of the other members of the Board have made up our 26 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST minds that this whole celebration at First Church is out of place and ought to be called off." Richard Locke's mother used to say she could "read Dicky's thoughts by watching his lips." It was during their senior year at college that McRae remarked, confidentially, "Dickens has a short upper lip that's the reason he's able to keep it stiff." If the minister's lips had grown a shade more tense while Mr. Kennedy was speaking, neither of his friends noted it. The banker continued: "Don't you think it is just a bit unpatriotic, Dr. Locke?" "Unpatriotic Old First!" "The Centenary, I mean." "But, Mr. Gilbert, it's a fact that First Church was founded in 1819, is it not?" "That hardly is the point." "I rather think it is the point. My arithmetic makes 1919 the one hundredth anniversary of the founding, and June of next year the month of the actual Centenary Celebration." "If we celebrate!" broke in Mr. Kennedy senten- tiously. " 'If we celebrate' I confess, gentlemen, I do not quite follow you. This matter has been planned for more than two years. 'The Centenary at Old First' has become a church slogan. First Church families for three generations back have been traced and their descendants in various parts of the country have been notified. In fact, I need hardly remind you, my invi- tation to become your pastor three years ago was based on your belief that I could help you organize a success- AN UNOFFICIAL BOARD MEETING 27 ful Centenary celebration as part of your new program of reconstruction at least so Mr. Kennedy informed me when he brought to me your kind invitation." "I'll stand by that, Dr. Locke, and so will every member of the Board. It was a good day for First Church when you became our pastor, and we're back of you" Mr. Kennedy spoke with cordial emphasis "but don't you recognize the country is at war! and democracy is fighting for its life !" with a sudden burst of petulance. "That's my point exactly !" The banker again was speaking. "We planned our Centenary two years ago without any thought of present developments, but no one, I assure you, would make such plans to-day. I do not believe that anyone would question our pastor's patriotism, but some have wondered why he should press a church program just now, when everybody else is pressing the war." James Gilbert's incisive words completed the pastor's impeachment. The tragedy of war is the confusion of ideals. Dis- loyalty hath slain her thousands, but blindness her tens of thousands. Richard Locke knew this and kept his poise. If the minister of Old First had been of stiff unbending mold, there would have been an instant wrench and a permanent dislocation. But he was built of drawn steel. He could take a jar and spring back to form. The pastor spoke with quietness. 28 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST "Did either of you happen to read the President's recent address to a group of church leaders ?" "Not I ; perhaps Gilbert did ; I've been too busy." "No ; war news and the market are my limit." "I suppose it's only the preacher who is expected to be interested in church business and general business also." The words came with perfect good humor, but there was a tinge of sadness in his voice which he could not wholly conceal. Sanford Kennedy caught it instantly and turned toward the banker. "I declare, Gilbert, we laymen are the limit. We invite Dr. Locke to take expert management of the church, and then make snap judgment on church affairs without full information. We prejudge the pastor's plans and then invite him to indorse our find- ings. Would you call it conceit or contrariness? I reckon it's both about fifty-fifty!" The lines in Mr. Kennedy's face showed sharp with vexation. "Shall we take hands off, Kennedy?" "Never!" The word leaped from the pastor's lips with the swiftness of thought. The banker regarded him quizzically. "Why not?" he asked. "Because an Old First program without the laymen would be 'Hamlet' with Hamlet left out." "Then Hamlet will have to express his opinions, even if, as Kennedy here seems to think, he has merely a snap judgment." Mr. Gilbert was plainly irritated. Richard Locke had discovered during his first year out of the seminary that pettiness is never cured, nor irritation allayed, by clever and forceful argument. AN UNOFFICIAL BOARD MEETING 29 He remembered it now. He also recognized with chagrin that his own yearning for spiritual fellowship inadvertently had caused this crossing of the currents. But the largeness of his leadership became apparent when, without noticing the cross currents, he quietly dropped his plummet into the undisturbed depths of human faith. "Mr. Wilson was asked recently by a group of min- isters how best the churches could support the govern- ment during the war. The President's reply was prophetic and" the pastor spoke with a man's frank- ness "it contains the whole of my sermon text, treatment, and exhortation." "What did he say?" asked Gilbert with returning good humor. "This 'Make your own churches efficient; the country and the world will have need of them as never before.' " Richard Locke did not wait for word or comment. "Men" his directness was startling "what is an efficient church? "I myself have been called an 'efficiency expert,' " he continued, "yet what is meant by it is a puzzle beyond my comprehension. I'm sick of this whole 'efficiency' business in the church if all it signifies is an up-to-date filing system, a well-balanced organization and prompt attention to monthly bills!" Richard Locke unconsciously had risen to his feet. It was the preacher instinct ; he was casting a line and must stand to it. "What is an efficient church?" he repeated. "An efficient bank, I suppose, is one that effectively uses its 30 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST resources so as to meet the intelligent demands of busi- ness. An efficient government is able to organize and employ the agencies under its control so as to bring about the largest degree of national prosperity. And an efficient church is it not a church that realizes the infinite reach of its resources and brings those re- sources into strong and living contact with human need? If the church in our generation had been effi- cient, would Christendom now be weltering in blood?" The pastor reached his hands toward the two men as to a hushed and expectant congregation. "I tell you, men, this war was bound to come. It was inevitable. And victory never will come, whatever be the military triumphs, until Christianity itself is made efficient. The churches must rise to exalted leadership, or democracy will lapse backward into the dark. The President pleads that the world shall be made safe for democracy, but Christianity demands that democracy itself shall be redeemed." He continued passionately: "If this Centenary of ours is to be a sentimental cele- bration of something that happened a hundred years ago, I have no time for it. If it is to be made the occasion for a clever piece of church finance, no patri- otic American will stand for it. I myself repudiate it with all my soul. It is churchly camouflage. "But, men," the mahogany desk was a cathedral pulpit now, "don't you see it? The Centenary at Old First is God's hand helping us to 'gear' ourselves to the tasks of a new Christianity. The other churches must meet it as well as we that same world issue ; but Old First will have the joy of meeting it as a stripling AN UNOFFICIAL BOARD MEETING 31 of twenty-one meets the inevitable burden of manhood the burden was bound to come, it comes easier amid the birthday greetings of friends." As Richard Locke paused and resumed his seat Mr. Kennedy's eyes were riveted upon his face. He had supposed the pastor's plummet would fall into the familiar shallows of "church loyalty" and "missionary needs," but the line had plunged into an ocean whose thrilling depths he dared not fathom. The next words startled him. "Men, let's meet it square: If Old First is to become an efficient church, are you am I ready to adjust ourselves to the facts and issues involved?" For five minutes James Gilbert had been intent upon a brass paper weight. If he had been moved it was not apparent. He spoke with habitual business precision. "What facts and issues do you mean, Dr. Locke?" It was the pastor now who realized the incisive di- rectness of the banker's question as though one sud- denly were required to name and specify the "dark un- fathomed caves" of that same unfathomed ocean. But his words came with strength. "I have spoken presumptuously. I cannot name the 'issues' that confront the church, much less define them. They are spiritual, they belong to the atmosphere. Nevertheless they may be recognized without difficulty as we recognize transparency in glass or oxygen in the air; they are recognized by their absence. "Let me illustrate what I mean," he continued, for he saw that his words had taken hold. "I spent my vaca- tion, as you know, in New York city. It is the great- est metropolitan center on the planet and packed to 32 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST the core with human interest. If ever the Church of Christ was challenged to high leadership in the midst of driving human forces, the thousand churches of New York have received that challenge now. And yet it is a despair and mockery that these great churches seem like shallow skiffs floating on the tide when they ought to be, and if they were efficient would be, like the resistless lifting of the tide itself." "New York is blase," interrupted the banker sen- tentiously; "the people have neither faith nor senti- ment." "On the contrary, New York pulses with human fel- lowship." The pastor spoke eagerly. "I was there when Joffre was welcomed. I felt the lift of their passionate sympathy with France. It exalted the whole continent. And, men, Christ could draw those millions into thrill- ing fellowship with himself if 'efficient' churches knew how to lift him. Their lack of spiritual vision, and therefore their failure to command the public mind these are the facts and issues, Mr. Gilbert, which confront the American churches." Then, with wistful- ness, "And these are the facts and issues which confront us at Old First." Richard Locke paused and his friends looked at him inquiringly. It was evident that he had not finished what he desired to say. "I'm going to put a straight question in finance." He addressed the banker. "Go ahead, sir ; that's my line." "First, then, Mr. Gilbert, if our plans for the Cen- tenary did not involve a campaign for money, would there be any question as to its 'timeliness'?" AN UNOFFICIAL BOARD MEETING 33 "Certainly not, Dr. Locke; that's the very meat of the nut." "Is First Church becoming impoverished because of the war?" "Hardly that, but you must not forget the great popular subscriptions, such as the Red Cross and Y. M. C. A. Our own church people have taken their fair share and these war funds must be continued." "I do not forget them, Mr. Gilbert; but would you say that these war work subscriptions have been sacri- ficial? Are they not rather a token of enlarged abil- ity ? Surely, First-Church people have had some share in the remarkable war profits which have been piling up in this city." There was an uneasy movement on either side of the mahogany desk, but Richard Locke was a wise pastor and did not choose to take note of all that he could see ; he was a guide, not a detective. He continued: "Have you felt the difference between the financial drive and the spiritual drift of our business men? Or, let me put it to you straight are you me*i gripped by the spiritual movement at Old First as you are by the financial movement in the same business district?" "Perhaps not, Dr. Locke." James Gilbert spoke with frankness. "Do you know the reason?" "Well," with a forced laugh, "I suppose it's the 'love of money,' as the Good Book says." "It's worse than that, sir, it's the lure of money." Sanford Kennedy whirled toward his pastor "What do you mean, 'lure' ?" "I mean 'the deceitfulness of riches.' Money is not 34 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST a commodity; it is a mystic life force; it is stored-up spiritual power and right here our strongest men constantly are misled. They do not correctly locate the old, old difference between the church and the 'world,' a difference which never can be annulled. Therefore they fail to recognize that the financial drive of business is and ought to be the spiritual drive of the church." James Gilbert had again become intent upon the brass paper weight, but Mr. Kennedy was looking into the face of his pastor as one who searched for some- thing that eluded him. Richard Locke was sensible of the softened atmosphere and continued with a man's strong sympathy: "This is the main reason I have looked forward with such eagerness to the financial part of our Centenary we would study the meaning of money as a fact in spiritual leadership and as the nerve center of com- munity service." Sanford Kennedy seemed suddenly to find the clue he had been seeking. " The main reason,' Dr. Locke, is not always the compelling one; is there no other?" he asked. Richard Locke's face flushed. "Forgive me, men," he said, "I have not thought to deceive you ; perhaps I have been deceiving myself. Every word that I have spoken is the fundamental truth, and yet, I confess I have been holding back the passion that consumes me." The two men stared at him, but the pastor cared nothing for their astonished look. His words came in a swelling torrent. "I dare not and I will not remain a passive onlooker AN UNOFFICIAL BOARD MEETING 35 in this hour of the world's agony. If the church has no commanding message, then so much the worse for the church she will shrivel in the midst of virile men. I will give up my pastorate and seek service at the front. I am still a young man and I have neither wife nor child" (the firm lips became tense and white as in the presence of a haunting memory) ; "God forbid that I should hold a safe and easy place while other men are yielding up their lives. "That's my burden ! It's on me night and day. If I have been slow in telling you, it's because I myself have been slow in realizing it. But you have it now. Can the church give victorious leadership in this hour of human need? "Our Centenary has seemed to me a magnificent frontal drive that would interpret Christ's message in terms of life and carry it into the heart of this com- munity. That's why I've dreamed of it and prayed for it and planned for it. And that's why I haven't envied the men in khaki I was in the heart of things myself. And now if the church fails, or, worse, if the plans are called in, it will seem like yielding up my sword and retiring to the rear," and Richard Locke turned away his head. But it was only for a moment. As though lifting and throwing away a burden, he looked up with his old winsome smile. "Don't think of me," he said. "I'll find my place somewhere. As for the church plans, I want you to be wholly undisturbed. Unless Old First clearly under- stands the purpose of our Centenary I myself shall advise that the plans be withdrawn. I refuse to juggle 36 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST Christ's gospel in order to put across a church budget." As Sanford Kennedy and James Gilbert looked into the unclouded eyes of their pastor, the persuasion grew into a conviction that there was a majestic world pur- pose in the Great War which was more than the defeat of the Germans. Mr. Kennedy arose. The lines in his face were deep with added care, but the gentleness of a woman was there also. "I shall be grateful, Dr. Locke, if you will lay before the next Board meeting our Centenary program as you think it ought to be. Are you with me in this, Gil- bert?" "Most cordially." "Then, as chairman of the Board, I think I may offer it as a formal request. Is this too much to ask?" The pastor did not answer. He had risen with Mr. Kennedy, and was pacing the length of the president's office. Suddenly he turned T11 do it, men," he said. CHAPTER IV THE CHURCH OF YESTER-YEAR THE second American war with England de- cided nothing but determined everything. The Peace of Ghent side-stepped the immediate issue, im- pressment of American seamen, but established a world fact: the solidarity of the American nation. The ad- venture of '76 became the American habit. That is why the story of Old First, like the story of a thousand other American churches, is a mirror of our most intimate American history. The vision of the pioneers and the dream of the pathfinders are written into its records. A nation's spirit is like the free spirit of a man high adventure requires a certain background of as- surance. After proud England had been fought to a standstill and the insolence of the Barbary pirates had been chastened by Decatur's guns, Europe accepted the Western republic as an accomplished fact. The adolescent nation had found itself; now it must find a place big enough for its own giant spirit to expand. The swinging stride of a hundred years would bring Pershing's army to the plains of Picardy. It could not be accomplished a single day sooner. Eager to realize his destiny among the nations, and led by a wisdom larger than his own, the young giant plunged into the wilderness west of the Alleghenies. 37 38 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST Here, in the basin of the great lakes and the mighty valley of the Mississippi, the spirit of America would work out its masterful solutions. The world-meaning of Bunker Hill and Lexington would be interpreted. As early as 181 4 a steamboat line was established between Pittsburgh and New Orleans seven years after Robert Fulton's miracle-boat, the Clermont, had startled the world by its first trip on the Hudson. Fort Niagara at the east and Fort Dearborn at the west presently insured the free development of vast inland seas. The rest was inevitable. Saint Louis, Cincinnati, Saint Paul, Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago these and five hundred throbbing cities of the plains grew, as all the west and south was bound to grow, large and loose and free. And here, between the Great Lakes and the Gulf, the story of Old First began. A hundred years have passed since the original clap- board "meetinghouse" proclaimed that God never sends but always leads his pioneers into the wilderness. To the casual historian nothing was here to lift or en- noble life. But the drudgery of work and the squalor of opportunity brought stately compensations. Men dwelt apart and learned the primal facts of God and the soul. The church in those wilderness days meant to the scattered settlers what an entire circle of institutions must mean to-day. For this very reason the pioneer reached a spiritual and therefore an intellectual su- premacy which he continues to hold. The reason is plain. THE CHURCH OF YESTER-YEAR 39 To the pioneer the church brought clear recognition of unseen and spiritual things, yet never as an end in themselves ; these always were related to the intellectual and moral problems of actual life. The pioneer had neither time nor disposition to become a "thinker," yet he was able to render mental and moral judgments with almost intuitive precision. It was the normal development in American life of what we shall not see again the church meetinghouse the only and the necessary center for social fellowship, for intellectual quickening, and for ethical instruction. The glory of it was this: that the whole circle of life was shot through with religious and spiritual ideals. The church, as a definite social unit, became "inter- ested" in political and national problems. And herein is the difference between church life then and now national and social problems were judged as "church" questions. For instance, Richard Locke, during the first year of his pastorate, had sought to arouse the membership of Old First to the menace as well as the opportunity which immigration must bring to American Christian- ity. But the intelligent leadership of Old First con- gratulated their pastor on his masterly marshaling of the facts and refused to become aroused. Immigra- tion was an honored American institution ; it could now be taken for granted, or, at best, left to the ponderous wisdom of the Congress. The church, as such, was but mildly concerned. With a keen sense of something lost the pastor of Old First read the faded records of "Quarterly Meet- ings" where backwoodsmen of a century ago were alive 40 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST and alert to the Christian interpretation of national problems. The significance of immigration was not lost to those clear-thinking pioneers. Some painstaking secretary, probably the traveling preacher himself, had copied into the church record the immigration figures taken from Niles* Weekly Register, an early century newspaper published in Baltimore and devoured by hungry settlers in their wilderness cabins. The figures, after one hundred years of national development, are significant of many things. The record is for immigrants arriving during two weeks of the summer of 1817: "From England, 649 ; Wales, 51 ; Ireland, 581 ; Scot- land, 134; Germany and Switzerland, 826; France, 31 total, 2,272." But even more significant is the comment of the editor transcribed to that church record of a forgot- ten generation: "The degree of suffering must ever be very great to rouse a courage sufficient to cause many to fly to a strange land from whence they never expect to return ; but in spite of this, and all the strong ties of kindred and home, the immigration is powerful and will in- crease. We have room enough yet; let them come. The tree of liberty we have planted is for the healing of the people of all nations." Richard Locke's knowledge of American history was challenged by the official records of Old First chal- lenged and inspired. Here, hidden under brief and often casual reference, were nerve centers of American life that thrilled to his eager and sympathetic touch. Was it nothing that the first log meetinghouse was THE CHURCH OF YESTER-YEAR 41 replaced by a commodious brick church, completed dur- ing the summer of 1824, when, it is recorded, "a cheer- ful company gathered in the new church to celebrate the visit of Lafayette to the United States and return thanks to God for his manifold blessings upon our nation" was it a mere memorandum in an old church record ? The slow-moving decades that saw Old First increase in numbers and wealth and dignity were the same dec- ades that saw American ideals warped and weathered into American life. Nor was it a smooth and passion- less history. Scars were there, for strife and division wrought tragedy in the church as in the nation. But it was all intensely human. The widespread panic that afflicted the country during the presidency of Mr. Van Buren brought double sorrow to the wor- shipers at the "brick church," for it was destroyed by fire, and the discouraged people hardly had heart to clear away the wreckage. During the forties Old First was housed in an un- sightly unfinished building, which in turn fell victim ta the flames on the very day that General Scott entered the palace of the Montezumas. The Mexican War had been bitterly opposed by the saints at Old First, and worldlings wagged their heads and remarked that Providence had chosen one day for double judgment. Then gold was discovered in California and saint and sinner forgot their differences and talked only of the "golden age" that had come. Millions of yellow wealth poured back across the plains. Old First felt the quickening flow and was rebuilt in strength and beauty. The walls were lifted with praise 42 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST and the timbers set with jubilation. Moreover, the "liberals" were able to control the building plans. A choir loft and organ marked the passing of the hard and strait days of the wilderness, while a simple yet stately tower gave churchly dignity for which two generations of townsmen have not ceased to be grateful. And now began a service to the community and to the nation which words never can measure. How the walls of Old First echoed with clarion voices during those last fierce days of the slavery debate! What hushed and whispered prayers were lifted there during all those anxious days of Civil War! What mighty men had stood within its pulpit, what noble heads had bowed beside that altar rail ! "Surely, our second century shall be worthy of our first!" It was Richard Locke's parting word as he left the president's office that morning at the City National Bank. And Sanford Kennedy answered with a troubled look, "It ought to be, Dr. Locke, but it's up to you to make the people see it. In my judgment the 'angel' of Old First has undertaken a man's job this time!" The pastor's laugh was like a crisp winesap in October. "The 'angel' of Old First has men to stand by him," he said, and passed into the bank for a word with Rhodin Curtis. The president was smiling broadly as he turned to Sanford Kennedy. "I declare, Locke's laugh is a tonic for tired nerves ; he would put courage into any water- soaked trench in northern France!" "It's faith, Gilbert, the old prophetic faith that you THE CHURCH OF YESTER-YEAR 43 read about. I knew something of it myself once on a time, but it's been oozing away from me for twenty years. If Locke's Centenary program will bring back my lost ideals, Old First can have anything I've got," and Sanford Kennedy looked moodily out of the window. CHAPTER V STRAWS IN THE CURRENT RICHARD LOCKE walked straight to the cashier's desk. "Rho" it was curious that no one called Rhodin Curtis by his peculiarly "pet" name except his own wife and Richard Locke, especially so as Clara Curtis disliked and shunned the popular pastor of First Church. "Rho, I need your help; can you come to the Boys' Club to-night at eight?" Rhodin Curtis looked at him with level eyes. "What's the game, Richard? Are you playing it straight?" "Straight as a shortstop's throw to first! I'll play the game as nearly as I can without a scratch, but I've told you more than once, Rho, that I intend to put you out, and I'll do it. I may miss my throw at first and second, and even at third, but I'll get you at the home plate if I wait for thirty years! A man like you simply must not be permitted to score on the wrong side of the tally-sheet." "Maybe the game will be called before either of us has a chance to score. I wish to thunder it would!" and Rhodin Curtis closed his desk with sudden emphasis. And then "Come and lunch with me, Dick, though I give you 44 STRAWS IN THE CURRENT 45 warning I'm in a devil of a mood and intend to turn you down cold." "I'll chance it, old man," and they left the bank together. If birth and breeding are conditions of friendship then preacher and banker were polewide apart. If education and mental habit were needed to bring them together then the cleavage between them was complete. Richard Locke was manor-born and college-bred. He was in the ninth generation from Lionel Locke, one of the London gentlemen who sailed with Lord Dela- ware and reached the Jamestown colony at the close of the fearful winter of 1609-10, long known in Virginia annals as the "Starving Time." For three hundred years there had not wanted a Locke in the intellectual and social development of American life first in the Shenandoah Valley of old Virginia, later in the Blue Grass counties of Kentucky. These had been for the most part "country gentlemen," with a good sprinkling of lawyers and doctors. Rich- ard was the fourth Locke to become a minister "not a very good showing," his mother used to say; for Richard's mother was a Winthrop, and, after the straitest manner, a New Englander. The boy's earliest memory was of a vine-grown manse near the Kentucky river, nesting in its own grounds far back from the Lexington Pike. He used to ask Lissa which was "rounder" the big white columns on the portico or the big dark elms by the gate. And old Mammy Lissa would laugh and answer, "Lor', chile, dey's bof as roun' as you' big blue eyes," 46 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST which Dicky thought was the perfection of polite- ness. Before he was eight years old he knew the meaning of grief first, when his brown-coated pony, Ginger, broke her leg and had to be shot, and then but he never could think of it without crying. They led him one day into the big chamber next to the drawing room where his beautiful brave father was lying white and still. Then, after a month, his mother started with him on a long journey to "Grandma Winthrop's" and the little lad saw the Kentucky hills no more. Richard Locke grew up as a true son of New Eng- land, but a white-columned portico, and kind old Lissa, and dear brown Ginger remained a constant and vivid memory. The call of the South and the voice of the North were for him a blended speech. College and seminary a honeymoon beyond seas with Frances, his boyhood sweetheart and his college love then three strong years in a growing church in the suburbs. After that the picture became blurred and dim, for he never permitted himself to look back into that chamber of agony. He remembered how they lifted Frances out of the wreckage, and how they placed little Lionel on the bank beside her, but all the rest of it was a whirling night- mare of dust and broken gear. It was twelve months before he dared to drive another automobile and three years before he tried to carry a man's work with a man's strength. At thirty Richard Locke answered the call to Old First "Ready," as he wrote McRae, "to lift with every ounce that's in me, though, God knows, it will be STRAWS IN THE CURRENT 47 a lonely lift for me." But when McRae wrote back, "Marry again," he burned the letter. His spinster aunt, Kate Winthrop, had been his solace and friend since the death of his mother when he was at the Seminary. On his call to Old First she took her place as a matter of course, the gentle guardian of the pastor's home. If it was a "lonely lift" no one ever dreamed it; for Richard Locke did not wear crepe on his sleeve nor his heart, either. First Church parsonage became the center of parish life, both grave and thoughtful, eager and gay. As for the pastor, the young people believed in him, the poor of the city loved him, and it was Rhodin Curtis who said it when his name was proposed at the Commercial Club "Locke is a man's man." It is worth recording how Rhodin Curtis made that discovery. He was not a churchman, but he went once or twice with Clara to hear the new preacher. He liked the straightforward speech of the man and some- thing in the preacher's message nested in his heart. But one Sunday Clara came home from service with her lips pressed together. "I'm finished at Old First," she said. "What's troubling you, sweetheart?" "Of all things in the world, Rho! Dr. Locke said that some of my dearest friends are untruthful!" "Said what!" "Well, he didn't use exactly that language, but that's exactly what he implied. Mrs. Kave Rogers was a per- fect angel afterward, full of gentleness and forgiveness. But she said it would be better for her to stay away from church if the minister felt it was his duty to insult 48 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST some of the members of his congregation. She was just right, too, and I'm finished at Old First!" The next morning Rhodin read the outline of Dr. Locke's sermon in the Gazette the Monday papers gave the churches liberal space. He had preached from the text, "If we say that we have no sin, we de- ceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." These words arrested him: "Sin is the common tragedy of us all. It is not merely a theory of evil, it is a fact of experience. To deny its existence and call it an ugly concept of the mind is the subtlest form of self-deception and self- deception means that common facts no longer ap- peal to us. The startling word of the text then be- comes our menace: 'The truth is not in us.' Moral degeneracy has begun, even in the midst of culture and beauty." "That was straight talk, Clara," her husband re- marked at the breakfast table, "and my only criticism is that Dr. Locke should hand out strong stuff like that to a bunch of kid-gloved saints. Kave Rogers needed it all right, but I don't understand why his wife should be so troubled. She has religion enough for ten ordi- nary women, though I didn't quite follow her line of talk when you had that sick headache last week, and she 'dropped in on you,' as she said. Anyhow, I'll be glad for you to cut church and go out with me in the car." "But I'm not going to 'cut church,' Rho! Mrs. Rogers has invited me to a lecture in their drawing room next Thursday evening. Professor Roome, from Boston, is going to speak on 'Reality,' and if I like it STRAWS IN THE CURRENT 49 I'm going to join a reading club that meets every Sunday morning at the Art Institute. You come too, Rho ; that's a dear !" "Yes, I think I see myself on Sunday mornings rum- maging through a lot of notions! I've got 'Reality' to the limit at the bank I'll leave the 'rummage sales' for you," and then, as she bridled a little, "Take this," and Rhodin Curtis blew a laughing kiss across the breakfast table. A little later, as she stood beside him in the hall, he circled her slender waist with his arm and said, almost coaxingly, "Don't you think, Clara, you would better reconsider that church proposition? I'm a reprobate myself, but I feel awfully safe with you sitting by mother's side at Old First. I can't help thinking of the future, you know, and especially little Arthur." Clara's answer left a sting that remained with him long afterward. "If I'm to be responsible for choos- ing the religion of the family, then I shall choose the religion that appeals to my own taste." Rhodin kissed her with his accustomed gallantry and left her smiling in the doorway. He waved his hand as he turned into the avenue, and she never dreamed that he was swearing under his breath nor that he sat down at his desk thirty minutes afterward with a strange depression upon him. At two o'clock that afternoon Rhodin Curtis pulled himself together and decided that he needed a tonic. That meant just one thing, and an hour later he was sitting on the side lines at South Park, where the "Wolverines" were scheduled to play their last game with the "Athletics." 50 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST He sat moodily watching the practice play before the game when his interest was suddenly aroused by the arrival of a keen-faced young Italian whom he recog- nized as Tony Carrari, the proprietor of a shoe shin- ing business. His individual stand was near the bank. He came with an air of importance that was altogether evident, leading a group of ten or eleven Italian boys. Richard Locke, in cap and sweater, brought up the rear. They took two rows of seats in front of Curtis, evi- dently reserved for them. "Great business, this, Mr. Curtis," was the pastor's genial greeting, for already he had a speaking ac- quaintance with the cashier of the City National. "Great Caesar ! I should say so, Dr. Locke ! Where under the stars did you pick up that string of spa- ghetti?" "Aren't they fine?" was the enthusiastic reply passing over unnoticed the phrase which he saw by the flash in Tony's eyes was resented. "This is my first tryout of our downtown program at Old First. If it succeeds I'm going to make a proposition to the Board. Three of these boys are not yet two months out of Naples, and Tony is the only one who has been here more than a year." Just then the umpire called "Play ball!" and two hours afterward Richard Locke and Rhodin Curtis walked out of South Park arm in arm, friends and lov- ers for the years to come. How the thing happened neither could quite understand, yet both men knew that an alliance had been signed and sealed. Curtis lunched the next day with Mr. Gilbert and tried to explain what had taken place. STRAWS IN THE CURRENT 51 "You know, Locke got that bunch of little dag No, I'll never call them that again ! Those little chaps snuggled up to him like a bunch of brothers, and he began explaining the game to them in their own lingo, mark you until you could see the excitement blazing in their big black eyes. He made them follow every turn around the bases, and when Joe Peters sent a fly over left field that brought in two runs, one little chap stood on the bench and yelled ! That finished me ! I made Tony change seats and took three or four little fellows who understood a bit of English and put them next to the fine points of the game. I don't know how much they got, but I know what I got a jar to my whole notion of the Italians! I tell you, when I saw that little chap, two months out of Naples, stand up on the seat and yell because a preacher had helped him to understand American baseball, I became a home mis- sionary on the spot ! Richard Locke can have my vote for anything he wants in this town." I Three years had passed since the ball game at South Park, and swift friendship had ripened into strong affection. It was the calling of strength to strength, like oak trees at the edge of a forest. Rhodin Curtis was a graft of many stems Scotch, Irish, Scandinavian, French "a genuine American," he was proud to insist. His family tree had so many roots to it that he seriously contemplated, he said, a change of name to "Banyan" that is, he used to say it until he saw how it discomfited Clara, who was plac- 52 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST idly proud of her Heustis blood. Clara was to him "a garden inclosed," the perennial bloom of his affection. His one ambition was to shut her away from trouble, and even annoyance. Rhodin's grandfather he traced his pedigree no further had been a hardy fisherman among the coves and inlets of Lake Huron. His father became a boat builder at Cheboygan, with a blacksmith shop as a side line. When the boy was sixteen he was placed in charge of the shop. One afternoon just before his twentieth birthday he banked his forge, hung his leather apron on the nail, and walked into the kitchen where his father was shap- ing a tiller in front of the fire. "I'm through, father," he said. "Why, it ain't four o'clock yet, Rhode." "I'm through for good ; I'm going to Detroit." There was no quarrel. Rhodin Curtis made up his mind before he spoke, and when he spoke it was settled. To Detroit he went. For three months he was a dock hand at the wharf until he recognized that he might better have remained at Cheboygan. Then he sat down and thought it through. The next day he made appli- cation for entrance at a commercial school with evening classes. For the next year his work was cut out for him a dock hand during the day and a tireless student far into every night. At the end of the year he left his "job" on the river front and secured a "position" with an uptown commission house. His rise was rapid, first as salesman and then as accountant. At the end of six years he sat at the manager's desk. STRAWS IN THE CURRENT 53 His native ability was unusual, yet Rhodin Curtis had something larger than trained ability: it was an intuitive knowledge of men and courage to trust his own judgment even to the point of daring. When he made an error he did not weaken himself by hesitancy and self-distrust. He turned his mistakes into assets for future realization. The Detroit house was one of the leading corre- spondents of the City National Bank, and James Gil- bert formed a high judgment of the progressive strength of the young Detroit manager. On his urgent recommendation Rhodin Curtis was invited to the City National as assistant cashier. Within six weeks of his arrival Rhodin knew to a hair his first year's program, namely, to convince the Board of Directors that he understood how to create new business for the bank, and to persuade Clara Heustis that her happiness was "bound in the bundle of life" with his own. At the end of a year the Gazette gave a full column to "the brilliant wedding last evening at the old Heustis home on Park Road." The closing paragraph made Mrs. Heustis glow with happiness : ""Thus one of our oldest and most honored families confirms the judgment of financial circles throughout the city, that Rhodin Curtis deserves all the happiness and the unusual success that have come to him. An- nouncement is made elsewhere of Mr. Curtis's unani- mous election as cashier at the City National Bank." When Richard Locke came to Old First, Rhodin Curtis was beginning to settle into the staid habits of the successful man. "I was getting stale," he said, 54 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST "and that ball game at South Park gave me back my 'pep.' " He positively refused to unite with Locke in any part of Old First activities, but gave substantial help in opening a boys' club in the twelfth ward. "It's a good speculation," he said. When he further suggested the order of "Boy Boosters," and offered special inducements to every member of the club who would open a savings account at the bank, the pastor called him "our new Franklin." But Rhodin laughed at him and said, "It's nothing but my insatiable thirst for money. These savings ac- counts will mean big business in the years to come, and big business means big banking. You see, I'm joined to my idol, Dick, so I advise you to give me up." And Richard Locke looked at him. "I'll give you up, Rho, at the end of the ninth inning, not a day sooner." After Clara's withdrawal Rhodin Curtis never attended service at Old First, and the pastor never suggested it. Both men knew the reason why, and both men honored each other with a man's un- spoken sympathy. The reading club at the Art Institute, now increased to a considerable company, had organized into the "Church of the Reality," and Clara had become a charter member. When a building project was an- nounced Rhodin lifted his wife to an ecstasy of delight by promptly subscribing a thousand dollars. Mrs. Kave Rogers proudly announced it at the Woman's Club, and quietly hinted "No doubt Mr. Curtis is deeply interested in 'Reality Teaching.' ' And then Miss Winthrop remarked with plain New STRAWS IN THE CURRENT 55 England candor, "I believe Mr. Curtis would buy Clara an island in the moon if she wanted it!" It was said in the Winthrop family that Richard inherited his tact from his father. Once in a long while Rhodin Curtis would sit beside his wife in the beautiful little "Reality" Auditorium, built like a diminutive Greek temple. But his Sundays for the most part were spent on the golf links until he made an unexpected discovery. He had bitterly resented his boyhood limitations and keenly felt his lack of education. But having made up his mind there was no help for it he carried it off with ill-disguised indifference. He tried to tell himself he was a "self-made man," and quite independent of "college curlicues." And then Richard Locke came into his life. Guided by an unerring instinct, his new friend talked to him of books not "bookishly," but as an educated man always will speak, with natural and easy fellowship and waited his chance. One morning he dropped in at the bank and stopped a moment at the cashier's desk. He was laughing. "Look here, Curtis, I reckon old Tom Carlyle knew where the Prussians would get off!" and he opened a pocket edition of "Heroes" and pointed to a passage heavily penciled : "There is a Divine Right or else a Di- abolic Wrong at the heart of every claim, that one man makes upon another." "I say, Dick, that's hot stuff, isn't it! I'd like to get hold of that for half an hour." "Take it along, Rho, I'm through with it" and Richard Locke went down the steps smiling. 56 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST That day Rhodin Curtis learned the high fellowship of books. He discovered within himself what most virile men possess an eager appetite for strong and beautiful expression. It was the beginning of mellow days, for liberal culture will enter at any open door. And yet it all came about so naturally that he never once suspected Carlyle's pocket "Heroes" was a meshed net dropped dexterously into the current by a skilled fisherman. And Richard Locke had his reward. About three months afterward a messenger boy delivered at Old First parsonage a bulky parcel. It was two volumes of "Letters," the life correspondence of Emerson and Carlyle. There was no mark of identification, but as the pastor glanced the volumes through, his eye fell on the initials "R. C." penciled opposite these words they were part of a letter to Emerson and carried the heart's cry of the despairing prophet of Chelsea: "Though a deep dark cleft divides us, yet the rock- strata, miles deep, unite again and the two souls are one." Richard Locke laid the volumes tenderly upon the table and stretched out his hands. "O God, give him to me even if the cleft becomes a chasm!" A chasm? ... a pit! If men could peer into the future, would they dare to pray? So it was, three years after the ball game at South Park, that Richard Locke stood beside the cashier's desk and said STRAWS IN THE CURRENT 57 "Rho, I need your help ; can you come to our Boys* Club to-night at eight?" And so it was, also, that Rhodin Curtis looked at him with level eyes and said "What's the game, Richard? Are you playing it straight?" As the two friends turned in at the Commercial Club, Rhodin faced the preacher square. "Look here, Dick will the boys' meeting to-night have anything to do with your Centenary scheme at Old First? I've heard some of the church people talk- ing about it and I ought to tell you straight that I'm not with you" and then with brusque gentleness, "It's a pity to turn you down !" The answer came with a flash: "I don't expect to be turned down!" There was a shade of annoyance in Rhodin's eyes, and then his hand gripped Richard Locke's shoulder. "Come along, Dick, I've a proposition of my own to make; I need your nerve." CHAPTER VI AT THE COMMERCIAL CLUB " T WISH you were a smoker." Rhodin Curtis pushed Ji. back his chair and lighted a strong Havana. It had been a nervous, half-tasted meal, unseasoned with words, for both men were preoccupied. But there is a fellowship of silence. Whole-hearted sympathy does not demand conversation; least of all will it "make talk." Friendship accepts a confidence unspoken and is content. Richard Locke seemed not to hear his friend's re- mark, but finished his dessert and drank his coffee while his eyes glanced unquietly across the table. Pres- ently he spoke "Rho, there's something troubling you." Rhodin Curtis smiled into the eyes of his friend. But, for once, there was no answering smile. "All right. I admit it, I am troubled. But confess that you have troubles of your own, my preacher friend. Now, a good mild 'smoke* would comfort you, although I confess that this particular brand would tan a wooden Indian," and Rhodin squared his elbows on the cloth and inhaled vigorously. "I'm afraid no brand of 'smoke,' from Walter Raleigh until now, would quite reach my trouble, Rho." Instantly the half-consumed cigar was crushed into the ash tray. "I owe you an apology, Richard, for 58 AT THE COMMERCIAL CLUB 59 being so casual. I was trying to cover up my own beastly humor. Please forget it." "Rho Curtis, when you pushed through my front door, three years ago, every room in the house was open to you ; they're open to you now all except one which you insist shall be kept tight locked, more's the pity !" and then, with a whimsical smile, moving forward the ash tray, "Finish your smoke, Rho, I want to talk to you." "No, I've had enough, too much ; I smoked two before breakfast and three after black stogies at that. I'm as nervous as a hedgehog and twice as ugly," and Rhodin swallowed a glass of ice water with feverish haste. "I reckon you've told half the truth, my dear fellow." "The whole truth, Richard." Rhodin looked into his plate with a slowly gathering frown, and tapped impatiently upon the table. There was a moment of silence and then Richard Locke spoke with decision. "I'm a city missionary, Rho, and that means the un- dertaking of difficult and sometimes dangerous work. Just now I need your help. First of all, I want you to interview the cashier of the City National Bank and convince him that his own safety and the comfort of his friends require that he shall go with me into the north woods for a week's fishing. Tell him we'll start Thurs- day morning at eight-thirty. After you've accom- plished that, please report and I'll have another job waiting." If the minister of Old First needed new proof of his friend's constancy it was afforded now. Rhodin's knit 60 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST brows began to relax and a flickering smile curved his lips and overspread his face. A long breath seemed to draw the tenseness from his frame and rest him. "Dick, you're a brick !" he said, with quick impulsive- ness. "If 'a week in the woods,' is your text you may stop right there no need of the sermon; count me a convert here and now!" and Rhodin drew another breath that seemed to drink in the ozone of the forest. Then a soft look came into his eyes and he added : "What is it? telepathy, mind- reading, or what? I'm almost superstitious, for, you know, a fishing trip was the very proposition I had in my own mind when I spoke to you before lunch ; only I was slow in coming to it. What made you suggest it?" "Who can say, Rho ? for certainly I did not have it in my thought half an hour ago. Personality is a deep ocean and full of mystery." "Mystery rather, a shadow land! There are a dozen puzzles that I want to put to you regular posers and the north woods will be my inning! I in- tend to unreel riddles, Mr. Preacher, and troll for pickerel at the same time." "All right, Rho, but don't forget I've a few reels of my own to unwind just to punish you, old fellow, for not coming to church." "Fine! and that reminds me of all the 'collections' I've been missing at Old First. Here's where I make good, for this entire trip must be at my expense, Dick." "Not so fast, sir! I'm an easy mark, but not quite as easy as that! Financing the church and fishing for bass are quite separate accounts, and I shall not permit financial transfers it's another name for embezzle- AT THE COMMERCIAL CLUB 61 ment. We'll divide the cost fifty-fifty, and charge it as straight 'fun' without any religious slant to it. Let me warn you against oblique finance, Rho." For the least fraction of a second a startled look leaped into Rhodin's eyes ; but it was gone again before the swiftest camera could have caught it. Indeed, he was himself unconscious of it as though a silent and mysterious tenant peered suddenly from a window and as suddenly vanished. His frank laughter, ingenuous as a boy's, was sufficient reward for his friend's rally- ing speech. Richard Locke believed in the gospel of good cheer and dispensed it, always. "I say, if you're as clever in finance as you are in theology, I'll call on you. I need expert help just now in my own personal affairs." "At your service, sir: *R. Locke, Preacher and Ac- countant Life Records Prepared for Audit Office Hours, A Time When Ye Think Not Charges, All You've Got!'" The startled flash at the window merged again into a merry glow as Rhodin Curtis caught the swift badinage and threw it back with "Great advertising, Dick! You may have my per- sonal patronage at the time specified"; and then with droll solemnity, "I'm to pay, I suppose, at the end of the audit." "Strictly in advance, sir! 'Bills Receivable' are charged as bad debts and thrown out of the account." "You win ! I'll pay in advance if ever !" It was play but with a tense underplay that both men recognized. Richard Locke's homiletic skill was not reserved for the pulpit. 62 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST "Seriously, Dick, let's get our trip planned, or some- thing will be sure to crowd it over. You know, I was born in the north woods. From the time I was six years old I trolled and angled and netted in all those northern lakes. The prospect of trolling again through Crooked Lake and Crooked River has fairly taken the crooked temper out of me! Let's start to-morrow; Brooks can take over my work for a few days. Come along." "Impossible, Rho," opening his pocket date book. "Our next Board meeting, and a critical one for me, will be on June eleventh two weeks from to-night. I've got to crowd a month's work into the next fortnight. That's why I must have a week in the woods !" "I get you," "I'll prepare my Board report, with special Cente- nary recommendations, while we're north intend to 'try' it on you before presenting it to the Board." "Poor judgment, Dick, for I don't favor your Centenary scheme." "That's my reason," with a straight look. "All right, Mr. Preacher, I've never doubted your sportsmanship, even when you lose." "I'll not lose, Rho." Then he went on. "There is one item which I dare not neglect ; you see I've acquired the reputation of being a 'slacker' in or- dinary social engagements. Aunt Kate Winthrop gave me solemn warning at breakfast that we are booked for a reception to-morrow evening at Doctor Janes's. His daughter is expected home from India and we are desired to meet her." "Haven't you seen Elizabeth Janes yet?" AT THE COMMERCIAL CLUB 63 "No; has she arrived?" "Reached home yesterday morning. Clara and I were at the station, with her father and Frank, to meet her." "You know her, then?" "Well, rather! that is, Clara does. They grew up together and always have been intimate friends. Eliza- beth was bridesmaid at our wedding, six years ago three years before you came. It caused a tremendous stir in their set when she became a missionary. The old Doctor hardly could bear it." "I suppose she's like her father, then." "Not in the least except that she'll stand, even if she stands alone. Clara says she resembles her mother, who died when Frank and Elizabeth were children. She certainly was a beautiful girl." " 'Was' which means, of course, that she's come back tattooed with India ink ! I'll be glad to meet her, for I admire any girl who offers herself as a foreign missionary. Broken health and marred looks are like a soldier's scars marks of honor." "Well, I saw her for only a moment at the station, but I've a vivid impression that Elizabeth Janes will pass muster although it was clear enough she's not the lightsome girl who went out to India." "The Doctor told me she expected to serve but one term on the field and is coming home for good. He was very happy over it." "Yes, that was the plan when she went away; but Frank said to me, while we were waiting for the train, that his sister expects to return next year. Her father will have to adjust himself to the situation." 64 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST "Missions is warfare! I have personal memoranda of more than three hundred missionaries whom I have met, so I must get busy and make Miss Janes's ac- quaintance without delay. I've been a student of mis- sions and missionaries ever since I was in college." "You certainly will find Miss Janes an interesting study I might have said a dangerous study, except that Clara told me last night, after an afternoon at the Doctor's, that she's engaged to some India mis- sionary confound him!" and then, as Locke eyed him with a quizzical look, "I might as well confess, Richard, that I've had an ulterior interest in Eliza- beth's return; she's the one woman I had selected for Old First parsonage and now my one ambition for you falls like a house of cards." A quick red flamed up in the minister's cheek and, receding, left a momentary pallor. But he said noth- ing, and Rhodin burst out petulantly: "Forgive me, Dick, I've as much delicacy as a grizzly bear! only I had set my heart on a great happiness for you, and every plan of mine goes glimmering. For- get it, please ; I'll try to be decent even if I must remain stupid." "Didn't I say that every room in the house is wide open to you, Rho? I am sincerely glad for your gen- erous thought of me. But you don't understand what it means to be struck by lightning ! I'm as dead as an old stump except for a memory that grows sweeter as it recedes farther into a dim and broken past." "Richard Locke, you've no right to talk like that! You're a perfect specimen of 'our manhood's prime vigor' see how my Browning sticks? and just ready AT THE COMMERCIAL CLUB 65 for a man's establishment. I call myself young at thirty-four and I'm a good year your senior. I have been confident ever since I came to know you that your man's duty is to marry again O, the devil! mission- aries always were a bunch of sapheads; I wish I knew who he was !" As Rhodin brought his exhortation to this grotesque conclusion Richard Locke burst into repressed laughter, so genuine, so free from irritation, that his friend could not resist the infection of it, and laughed with him. It is clean sportsmanship that takes no hurt where a hurt is not intended. "I'm surely grateful, Rho, that you are the languish- ing victim of this romance, and not I ! What have you been reading? positively you talk like 'Jane Eyre'! It is time for me to revise your courses, my friend. You'll have to shun fiction and get back to finance." "O, hang finance ! and cut out comedy" with re- turning irritation. "I tell you I'm ugly to-day and Elizabeth Janes is the smallest part of my trouble. Forget me, please, and talk about the Boys' Club." "All right, Rho, only I'm glad we're going away for a week. I didn't get half a vacation last summer, and here I am with a full car, a rough road ahead of me and flat tires! I'm going to loaf, and let you fish." "That's the way I loaf, Dick," with a returning smile. "By the way," after a moment of silence, "Tony Carrari was in the bank yesterday to make a transfer of his savings account. He's off again to Camp Sherman and likely to be in France within thirty days. He says he hasn't any near relations and wants the 66 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST church to have his money in case anything happens to him. Do you know anything about it?" "I know all about it in fact, that's the reason I want you to be at the Club to-night. Tony will be there doesn't leave till to-morrow. Twenty-three of the boys are now in khaki. They want the bank to receive a tithe of their pay from the government and apply as directed afraid they'll miss their part in Old First program if they have to send from 'Over There.' " "Afraid they'll miss you certainly have been feed- ing those boys some strange dope!" "Dope? that's the one thing I've been able to keep from them ! I made up my mind three years ago that there should be at least one group related to the church with a normal and natural outlook, and that bunch of Italian boys gave me my opportunity. I've planted, cultivated, and fairly matured a crop of young folks who know the healthy heart of religion, without cant or artifice. They accept life as a stewardship. They're what I call normal Christians the healthiest bunch in this town !" "Do you tell me that those Italian boys actually tithe their petty earnings ?" "Every lad of them except half a dozen new mem- bers ; we won't let the boys begin tithing until they've taken the club lessons in 'Stewardship Foundations,' and that requires a month or six weeks. Christian stewardship is a life business, and the boys are entitled to a fair start." "Richard Locke, you may be the prophet of a new day but I'm desperately afraid you'll be dead and AT THE COMMERCIAL CLUB 67 buried before ordinary folks understand what you're driving at!" "That doesn't worry me," with quiet emphasis ; "the joy of it is knowing that your foundations won't turn to chalk and cheese after you're gone!" Rhodin Curtis gazed gloomily across the table and Locke added "The fact is 'ordinary folks' are the only ones who ever will understand what I'm driving at ! Stewardship is too simple for the highbrows and too straightforward for the double-dealers. Setting apart a portion of income as the acknowledgment of God's ownership never troubles 'ordinary folks' unless they stumble over dead legalism. Young folks accept the principle of the tithe directly they understand it. That's why I've had such success with my Italian boys they didn't have to unlearn anything just ordinary kids, and keen as whips. They accept God's ownership as the beginning of religion, and they acknowledge it as plain, ordinary honesty. It has been a luxury to lead them." "Well, Dick, I'll say this much: financial legalism never bothers a banker; he's accustomed to acknowl- edging ownership." "Certainly a practical banker accepts the principles of stewardship almost by intuition." Richard Locke's face was full of eagerness, but Rhodin's gloomy eyes gave back no answering light. A deep suspiration escaped him, quickly covered by a frown as though his own thoughts were hateful to him. Then he spoke. "Nevertheless, I'm afraid that ordinary men, bank- ers included, will part company with you at the crucial 68 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST point, and that your Italian boys will forget the entire business when they recognize it." "Let's have it, Rho, your whole honest thought for Old First Centenary is staked on the Christian in- terpretation of property and, so far as I can see, the future of Christianity itself is tied up with Christ's gospel of stewardship." "Then, Dick, I'll have to put it to you straight! Ownership of property, the acknowledgment of it, and this whole philosophy of yours that you call Steward- ship, implies a relation between two persons and that's where your whole statement of the divine owner- ship falls to the ground, at least as far as the ordinary man is concerned. Not one man in fifty believes that God is a 'person,' or, if he does, he has only a dim and hazy notion of what he means. You can't do business with a fog-bank! Property means personality, and you've got to know the person you're dealing with, at that ! The City National Bank opens no account with Joe Brockman's astral body, and has no dealings with Ed Mulford's spiritual aura. We do business with folks, not phantoms!" Rhodin's gloomy eyes blazed like a furnace. "O, I know," he drove ahead, "I know the Christian vocabu- lary of property 'The earth is the Lord's' '/ brought nothing into this world' 'It is He that giveth thee power to get wealth,' and the rest of it. I do not say that men who talk that way are insincere, they simply are using the traditional language of religion without any least thought of interpreting it in terms of the business world. Do you suppose that the ordinary man, when he draws his pay, or receives his salary, has AT THE COMMERCIAL CLUB 69 any notion that he is using the property of another person? Not for a minute not one in a thousand! No, sir; an honest man just takes what he thinks honestly belongs to him and does the best he can with it. If he's a tightwad, he'll squeeze every dollar ; if he's open handed, he'll loosen up but in any case he'll do exactly as he pleases. He's the person concerned, and no other!" Richard Locke sat devouring every word, as a hungry soldier devours an unexpected ration. Rhodin plunged forward : "What you say regarding the tithe is absolutely sound I mean from a banker's standpoint. Owner- ship must be acknowledged, and the owner tells what the acknowledgment shall be. Acknowledgment is what a banker calls the acid test of property it settles the fundamental question of title. Every banker is familiar with that, as a principle of finance, and, of course, interest and rent are its most familiar forms. So I say again your position is absolutely sound. If God is the Owner, then he is bound to name his own basis of acknowledgment. So far as I ever heard, no one questions that the tenth was anciently ordained and, I reckon, if there is a God he doesn't change. Certainly, Christ's gospel of human freedom cannot alter the universal ethics of property and property acknowledgment. That's all clear enough to any busi- ness man. Nevertheless, Dick, the whole thing seems to me futile and useless except as a biblical jack-in-the- box for cajoling folks into supporting the church. You see, I'm not a churchman and can afford to talk! "The trouble is at the very heart of it divine per- 70 THE CENTENARY AT OLD 'FIRST sonality. It's like beating the air! It's easy enough to use a sort of churchy vocabulary and talk of divine ownership, human stewardship, and the like, but these words have taken on a new set of meanings. I tell you most men cannot think of God as a 'person' at all. They think of God when they do think, which isn't often! as an ethical ideal, or a principle of truth, or 'something up there' what you will but not a living person, as you or I are persons." Still Richard Locke sat eager, leaning across the little table, while the furnace fire in Rhodin's eyes died down and left them lusterless and dead. "I'm a detestable crepe-hanger to talk this way, Dick, for honestly, I want you to succeed. But you asked for it straight and I've given it to you straight as a die! That's why I cannot be with you in your Centenary scheme. I'm dead sorry, but I'm only tell- ing you what other men ought to tell you some of them members of your own church for they think about it exactly as I do. So cut out the Centenary stuff ! Preach good, cheery sermons without any 'thus- saith-the-Lord' ; it annoys folks. Let Old First put up live stunts for the soldiers and do the base running for Red Cross and Y. M. C. A. batsmen just as the other churches are doing. Our present business is to win the war, and after that well, this old world has wagged on for some thousands of years and will continue to wag after our own little tales have wagged to their inevitable finish." As Rhodin Curtis tried to push over his doleful pun with a forced smile, he turned his eyes toward the window and never saw how the eagerness in the min- AT THE COMMERCIAL CLUB 71 ister's face softened into a look of ineffable tenderness. "Rho" there was a vibrant lift in Locke's voice that made him look up "I thank you for your faith- fulness. I wish you could stand in Old First pulpit and speak those words again! You have named the heart of our Centenary message God a glorious Person, eternal, immortal, invisible, yet present, inti- mate, and real and the whole thrilling message pointed by a clear understanding of the nature of personality itself. The significance of human per- sonality, and therefore of human brotherhood, is deeper than we yet have penetrated. It roots in God himself. The clew to it is property, for, just as you have said, property means personality. To acknowledge the divine ownership will mean awareness of the Owner. It was so in the beginning. It ^always must be so while men live upon the earth. Business and not theology is leading the revival which shall sweep our generation." The low tones of the minister's voice pulsed with suppressed feeling. Rhodin felt the thrill of it, yet could not fathom its meaning as an eagle might sense the strange throbbing of a motor car upon a mountain road. "Come to our Boys' Club to-night," he added, "and you'll get a hint of what I mean will you, Rho?" "Sure, I'll come," and Rhodin had a fleeting sense of gladness. Then, glancing at his watch, "I must get back to the mill, now; war finance is an unmerciful weariness to the fellow who feeds the machine but has no share in the grist that grinds through." Richard Locke looked at him. "No share in the grist !" he repeated ; "why, it's common knowledge that 72 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST the City National is increasing its resources every month. It was only yesterday I was reading the re- port of the directors, showing the ratio of increase dur- ing the last five years. Are you sure you're not romanc- ing again, Rho?" The glint of steel leaped into Rhodin's eyes, a look that Locke never had seen there before. "Perhaps it has not occurred to you," with a touch of irony in his voice, "that a corner grocery might be doing a pros- perous business while the delivery boy wasn't carrying home enough wages to pay the rent." "O, my dear fellow, don't tell me that! Surely the City National deals generously with its own officers." "I've nothing to complain of; the directors have treated me as well as I deserve, and better. The trouble is the delivery boy is paying too much rent ! wants to live in a big house on the boulevard when he ought to be content with modest lodgings near the mill," and Rhodin glanced whimsically at his friend, who hardly knew how to take him. "Certainly you live in comfort, Rho, as you're en- titled to ; and, if you'll permit me to say it, your home on Park Road is like an exquisite cameo. But no one ever would accuse you of extravagance except in the purchase of rare first editions, which I'm wicked enough to covet!" Rhodin enjoyed his friend's confusion for a moment, and then added "No, I don't mean personal and house expenditure, though," with a slight shrug, "I'm frank to say it's costing us too much to live. But I mean certain ven- tures of which Clara has no knowledge. The fact is AT THE COMMERCIAL CLUB 73 I've been trying my luck with a 'war bride' or two, and finding it rather a worrisome business." "Oho, that's the lay, is it? Where are you inter- ested?" "A turn or two in Chicago wheat, but mostly Co- ordinated Copper." "I don't know about the wheat, Rho. Government is likely to take a hand there, but you can't lose on the other that is, if you got in on any reasonable basis. Even an impecunious preacher can tell a good thing when he sees it. Copper is bound to push upward as long as the war lasts, and longer. You needn't let Coordinated Copper worry you." "O, copper will push upward that's a dead cer- tainty; and I'm in all right with Coordinated, if I'm able to hold on ! The mischief is there's a falling mar- ket ; it simply will not turn. The increased demand for copper products is not permitted to have its legitimate effect on stock. I've covered my margins three times in four months, with a total loss to date of three thousand dollars." "Too bad!" "Oh, I intend to hold on I'm not a quitter ! More- over I had a straight tip this morning from a friend of mine in Wall Street. I haven't yet decided what I'll do but maybe the delivery boy will carry home some big wages one of these days." As the two friends arose from the table and moved down the corridor Rhodin lighted another cigar. "Hold steady, Rho. Your financial judgment has meant much to the business development of this city; it won't desert you now." 74 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST "That's my trouble, Richard," in a low voice as they approached the lobby. "I don't seem to show as good judgment in managing my own affairs as I do the affairs of other men." "Has it occurred to you," in the same low voice, but penetrating by its very intensity, "that in the one case you are conscious of stewardship and in the other case you are not?" Rhodin Curtis looked at him intently. "But, Dick" and then, as they reached the lobby "No matter, forget about it! ... I suppose the club meets in the same place over that plumber's shop." "Same place." "All right. I'll be there at eight. Shall I call for you with the car?" "No, I'm to be there at seven ; have to meet the begin- ners in stewardship. But you may drop 'round for McRae, if you will, and bring him with you. He's tak- ing dinner with me at the parsonage. He wants to meet our Club Volunteers." "Fine ! I like Mac. I hear he's going to France." "Yes ; he handed in his resignation a month ago and is waiting for his appointment to be confirmed goes as chaplain in the Expeditionary Forces. He's been pulling me pretty hard, I can tell you." "Then you'll be wanting to get home ; wait a minute and I'll drive you." "No, I must have a word with the secretary here and then put in two hours at the church office. Miss Cop- ley is losing all patience says she can't get my desk clean in a month. I've a notion to bring back the old 'roll-top' just to take the worry from her face." AT THE COMMERCIAL CLUB 75 "A 'church expert' with a roll-top desk? Dick, you're degenerating!" As he moved toward the elevator Rhodin cast an imaginary line, and looked back laughing. " 'Truce to his restless thoughts' !" he quoted. "Here's to Crooked River and our first two-pound pickerel!" Richard Locke stood for a moment with a look in his face of mingled perplexity and gladness. Ten minues later he left the secretary's office by way of the reading room, and thence made his way to a more convenient elevator near the tea room. A young lady immediately in front of him was moving toward the grilled door of the elevator shaft, which they reached together just as the porter swung open the cage. The minister, bowing slightly, waited for her to enter. She hesitated and glanced across the corridor. Then, ad- dressing the porter "Would you mind holding the car? only a moment?" "I'm never in a hurry, miss; we've passed the rush hour, so jus' take your time if Dr. Locke don't mind." The porter's smile was large and benevolent. "It always is a service, madam, when Americans are required to pause and take breath." The minister of Old First was not "a ladies' man"; some said that he avoided them. But courtesy was born in him, and, his Aunt Kate Winthrop said, he had a "way" with him. His speech was answered with a smile and a frank straightforward look. "Thank you; my father is just inside the tea room and will be here directly." 76 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST If Richard Locke had not been wholly occupied with his own thoughts he would have recognized that the answer and the bow were the half-friendly, half-formal response of acquaintanceship, as of one, at least, who might have known him. But he was perplexed, dis- turbed, irritated. Rhodin's words at the lunch table kept repeating themselves in the back part of his mind "a great happiness for you" "ready for a man's establishment." . . . He drew himself up with an im- patient throwing back of his head and a very evident frown on his face. His companion, with a slight touch of embarrass- ment, glanced again toward the tea room. "I'm so sorry to detain you it must be quite vexing please do not wait any longer," she said. The minister flushed. "I assure you, madam, you were not in my thought" and then, flushing still deep- er as he realized the brusqueness of his remark, "I mean you were in no way connected with a passing thought." Then, recovering himself, with a somewhat forced at- tempt at pleasantry, "You see, ministers are not always considerate." "Nor missionaries, either, Dr. Locke." Then he looked at her. Ten minutes afterward, when he tried to recall her appearance, he could remem- ber nothing but small brown oxfords underneath a modish skirt and dark brown eyes they would be black under mazda lights laughing up at him. "A missionary? I do not ... I mean . . . you seem to have the advantage of me," he said with genial greeting. At least those were the actual words that he enunciated. But his mental ejaculation was positively AT THE COMMERCIAL CLUB 77 pugnacious "What's the matter with you, man? Can't you talk without chattering!" and his speaking face responded to the inward thought. The brown eyes ceased laughing and looked at him with quietness. "That need not surprise you; min- isters are public characters, you know. It was only yesterday that I . . . O, I'm glad you've come, father," as Dr Janes emerged from the tea room. "I've been disarranging Dr. Locke's program." The gray-haired physician, bowing, turned to the minister with old-fashioned courtesy. "I am sorry if I have detained you," he said, "but it is a pleasure to know that already you have made Elizabeth's acquaint- ance." "Yes, we were just . . . that is ... I certainly am glad to meet you, Miss Janes," and Richard Locke be- came aware of an extended hand which he grasped cordially. But all that he noticed was the gloves matched the oxfords perfectly, and the brown eyes were laughing again. CHAPTER VII MEXICAN PETROLEUM RHODIN CURTIS was at his desk, shortly before two o'clock, when Mr. Gilbert stopped and spoke to him. "Will that loan to King and Kennedy run us a little short this month, Mr. Curtis?" "No. Kennedy phoned me a few minutes ago that they do not wish to take the loan until Saturday. That will be the first of the month, and over three hundred thousand of good paper will be in. We can handle eighty-five thousand for King and Kennedy with entire comfort." "Will you make it for ninety days, as Kennedy desired?" "Certainly, with the expectation of renewing part of it for another sixty. I have given Brooks instructions to have the note ready for Mr. Kennedy's signature on Saturday morning, and to pass the credit to King and Kennedy's account. I'll not be here ; Dr. Locke and I are taking a few days in the north woods before the hot weather begins." "Well, I hope you'll have a good time, but don't be gone for more than a week. This last German drive is making a ticklish market and we'll need to watch things." "Have you noted the late quotations on 'Mexican Petroleum'?" 78 MEXICAN PETROLEUM 79 "Rather !" Then the president of the City National leaned a little nearer Rhodin. "I've wired Rockway and Company to sell fifty thousand ordinary Penn- sylvania on my personal account and put it into that stock. If our charter permitted the buying of foreign securities, I'd make a five hundred thousand dollar in- vestment for the bank without a minute's hesitation. That's my faith in Mexican Petroleum !" and President Gilbert passed into his private office. Rhodin smiled knowingly and picked up a letter, marked "Personal," that was lying on his desk. He had read it twice already. It was from Passmore, his former chief at the Detroit commission house and now cashier of Rockway and Company. It was hardly a "business letter," but rather a friendly gossip. NEW YORK, May 25, 1918. MY DEAR CUBTIS: You asked me to put you next to a sure thing when it came along. Well, it's here and it's name is 'Mex. Pete.' If you have any doubt about it, what do you think of this? your conservative president at the City National has just wired us to rip out a fifty thousand block of rock-bottom Pennsylvania and put it into the light and airy! He says he keenly regrets that he is not able to make an investment of bank securities, but does this on his own personal account. And he's dead right too! I didn't know that Gilbert could see so far ahead ; most conservatives are near-sighted ! They are leery of Mex. Pete because of the Huerta regime and our own government's dilatory tactics in the Mexican mix-up. But, all the same, the value is there! we've investigated it to the last peso. And now is the time to go in. That's not a "tip," that's a dead certainty if your eyes are not full of the dust stirred up by the present German drive. The market is hovering at 93. It has moved up steadily since January, when it stood at 79. I don't see how it can drop from the present figure. But even if it should, Mex. Pete will begin to soar as soon as Foch turns the trick north- east of Paris. The "bears" say he can't do it (pessimism is their stock in trade!). They say the whole thing will end in German 80 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST victory, or, just as bad, a negotiated peace. In that case, of course, I wouldn't care to handle Mex. Pete or any other security that Ger- man "kultur" is likely to smirch. But I figure it like this is Uncle Sam in this war or is he not? If America has lost her punch, then it's all up with Mex. Pete! But if America and the Allies can handle the situation in France, then you'll see Mex Pete take the aeroplane route to the sky. Me for Uncle Sam! I'm ready to gamble my last dollar on the pro- gram put up (at last !) by the administration at Washington. I've gone the limit myself, and want my friends to get in with me. If you think I'm seeing double, ask Gilbert. No one ever accused him of enthusiasm. My advice is just this: Sell your coat your shoes and go the limit ! I can protect you for ten days to the tune of one thousand shares, and can get you in on a margin of 20 per cent. Better make it an even twenty thousand to cover emergencies. Wire Saturday without fail if O. K. Yours truly, E. H. PASSMOBE. Rhodin frowned and bit his pencil. Every dollar of his available funds was locked up in Coordinated Copper. It was sure but it was slow, and no ready market without sacrifice. Gilbert's enthusiasm and Passmore's letter confirmed his own solid judgment. For three months he had been confident that Mexican Petroleum would mean millions to farsighted investors. But where could he find twenty thousand dollars unless The dark brows knit together. "I'll do it !" he muttered, inwardly. "I've always been opposed to mortgaging the home, but this is different ; I owe it to Clara and the boy, even if they take the risk with me. Carberry values the place at forty thousand, and it will carry sixty per cent without a scratch. He's offered it twice now within four months. I don't in- tend to saw wood all my life !" and his jaw set. He lifted his desk receiver. "'Market' 2848 MEXICAN PETROLEUM 81 Please give me Mr. Carberry Mr. Carberry? Mr. Curtis speaking, City National I would be glad for you to step over to the bank at your convenience I think I'll put over that matter you suggested Yes, the property on Park Road all right, three o'clock will do Thanks." Then Rhodin sent a wire. It was not yet two o'clock and Wall Street would be doing business for another hour, counting the difference in time. E. H. Passmore With Rockway and Company New York Proposition accepted. Margin named will be covered in time specified. R. CUHTIS. CHAPTER VIII KHAKI AND CLOTH "^lAPITANO! CAPITANO!" ^-/ Miss Copley turned swiftly. She had just stepped from the city pavement and was entering the vestry of Old First. The business offices of the church were entered from the north side of the ivy-grown tower, the door of which stood hospitably open. "Capitano!" The voice of the boy shrilled out again and Miss Copley looked inquiringly toward the tall officer who stood beside her on the tower steps. But Captain Janes seemed wholly unconcerned, and kept his eyes on the mobile face of his companion. "Soldiers don't yell at their officers, Nicola; they salute them." The tall officer spoke indeed, but he did not notice the red-faced boy at all; he was studying a wisp of amber that clung coyly underneath Miss Cop- ley's right ear. Instantly a pair of muddy heels struck together, the diminutive shoulders of the Boy Scout straightened, and a grimy hand touched the boyish military hat in a perspiring salute. Miss Copley clapped her hands and smiled raptur- ously. The boy gazed up at her, framed in the ivied doorway of the old church, and could think of nothing but a breathing Madonna. Captain Janes, who never KHAKI AND CLOTH 88 had been in Italy, had thoughts of his own. However, he seemed wholly to approve the devotional look in the eyes of the boy and returned his salute with soldierly precision. "What do you want to say to me, Nicola?" he in- quired, kindly. "Dr. Locke he tell-it me " began the boy with an- other salute. "Yes, what did Dr. Locke tell you, my boy?" The officer was smiling now, for his eyes glanced over the boy's head and encountered that identical gentleman himself hastening toward the church from the direction of the Commercial Club, and not fifty feet distant. "Dr. Locke he tell-it me will Capitano please come-a da Club to-night, eight off d' clock." "And what do you learn at the Club, Nicola?" The Boy Scout stood at attention while the minister of Old First paused not five feet behind him. "Dr. Locke he learn-it me: hate-a da lie, love-a da flag, an' " the musical voice dropped to a note of wondering reverence "know-a d' God." "Bravo, Nicola!" The boy whirled in astonishment, and once more the grimy hand touched the hat rim in respectful salute. "It pays, Frank, it pays !" Richard Locke grasped the tall officer's hand heartily and lifted his hat to Miss Copley "and Nicola Campo is one of our latest recruits!" Then turning to the boy: "Where have you been, Nicola?" "Ah, Pastore, me no find Capitano heem notta King Ken', not house, not Miss Heuss' find him just-a now church." 84 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST Miss Copley had vanished into the vestry and Cap- tain Janes volunteered no comment. "All right, Nicola, you may go now; be on time to- night. You have done very well indeed." "Grazia!" Grazia Grace is there more gentle speech than this to say "I thank you"? An Englishman's muffled "Q'u" gives forth a foggy impression that he is courteous at heart but hates the bother of expressing it. A Frenchman's brisk "Remerciements" is habitual but quite too like the small change of a conversational cash register. But an Italian's soft-spoken, full- voweled "Grazia" will bring the softness of southern skies to the bleakest tenement; there is unconscious Christian depth to it. The boy in khaki stiffened in a parting salute and clicked with soldier steps across the pavement. The minister turned to the officer beside him. "When do you join your company, Frank?" "I return to camp on Saturday, but the various units are still in the air. There's no telling just what will happen except we're likely to sail almost any day; that much seems certain." "I would envy you, if I dared." "Don't say it, Dr. Locke! The nearer I get to actual military service it has been nothing so far but a ragged 'get ready' the more I am convinced that men like you are transforming this war from a scrap into a sacrament." Richard Locke said nothing, but looked at him in- tently. "We think we know what we're fighting for," he KHAKI AND CLOTH 85 continued, "and I suppose we do. But it's one thing to wave the flag and talk brave words about democracy, and quite another to interpret democracy so that the people can realize the foundation of it. Little Nicola is learning what the rest of us hardly understand, and" with sudden emphasis "we've got to get hold of it !" "You hearten me immensely." "I intend to ! Miss Copley has been telling me some- thing of your Centenary program, and I can well un- derstand why you are having difficulty in putting it over. I almost wish," glancing through the vestry door, "that I were staying home to help lift. I think it's great !" "I honestly believe that you've lifted a ton in two minutes and I surely am grateful to Miss Copley for her splendid cooperation." "You can count on that, Dr. Locke; Miss Copley is enthusiastic over 'the Centenary at Old First' ; she has been pumping me full of it for an hour. "No wonder Nicola couldn't find you!" laughing. "By the way, I had the great pleasure of meeting your sister a few minutes ago; she was at the Commercial Club with your father." "So you have met Elizabeth ! and father introduced you I'm glad of that." "But I'm not so sure!" laughing again. "I'm puzzling myself to know whether it was your father who introduced me or not! However, I feel comfort- ably certain that I have made your sister's acquaint- ance, and that is quite sufficient." "Well, no one but Elizabeth could have made me ask leave from camp at this time," and Captain Janes's eyes 86 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST wandered again into the quiet vestry. Then, glancing at his wrist-watch, "I must be going now you'll be at the house to-morrow night, of course." "Yes, and hope to drop in for a greeting beforehand ; I shall be leaving town Thursday. You'll not overlook Nicola's message for to-night?" "I'll be there." "I'm glad of that ; the boys are going to make a vital proposition" and then as the two men separated, and the tall young officer squared himself on the lower step "I've one grievance, Frank, against Uncle Sam." "What's that?" "He won't let preachers put on khaki unless they're with the colors !" and Richard Locke disappeared into his study. Five minutes afterward Miss Copley had taken her seat opposite the minister of Old First. A square office desk, piled with papers, stretched between them. Miss Miller, clerk and stenographer, sharpened her pencils at a side table. "Did we finish the survey of the fourth ward, Miss Copley?" "Not quite, but I suggest that we take up these re- ports from the twelfth. There has been unusual inter- est in the Italian quarter and I would like to get all our facts collated. The fourth can wait." "Right ! move where there's movement !" "My reaction to that, Dr. Locke, is just this: in- tensive cultivation is more economical, more thorough, and therefore more successful than loose extension possibly can be." KHAKI AND CLOTH 87 Richard Locke pursed his lips together, but he answered sedately: "Curious, Miss Copley, isn't it? the missionary in- stinct is to spread while the teaching instinct is to dig; both of them, I reckon, must be included in any forward program of Christianity." "Well, I say dig, Dr. Locke !" The minister's laugh rang out merrily. "It's a wise leader who knows where to place the emphasis. How- ever, one thing is sure we'll make no mistake if we complete our survey of the twelfth. Most of our data is in hand and we can begin at once. Will you please take some preliminary notes, Miss Miller? . . . There it goes again! I wish someone would write a booklet on 'The Ethics of the Telephone. 5 . . . Thank you, Miss Copley, for answering." The telephone ceased its clamor and Miss Copley took down the receiver. A smile dimpled her face and Richard Locke waited. He was watching her. "It's cousin Craig," she said. "He'll be here prompt- ly at five, and says you're to have on your 'seven league boots.' " "Which means that he intends to drag me forth on his famous 'war constitutional' before dinner. All right, we can cover four blocks of the twelfth before he gets here. . . . Now, if you please, Miss Miller." Rose Copley had one pet aversion. She called it her bete noire for during her first year out of college Miss Copley never used a simple word if a complex one would express her meaning. Moreover, if Miss Copley could choose between an English word and its French equiva- 88 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST lent, invariably she would choose the French. Formerly she would have preferred the German, but that was before the sinking of the Lusitania. Miss Copley's pet aversion was her name not the high-bred surname, which was her constant comfort, but the diminutive Rose "just as though I were a pudgy flower girl," she complained. "Educated people ought to have the privilege of choosing their own names," she insisted at a family gathering of uncles, aunts, and cousins, to celebrate her coming of age, "and not be compelled to carry a misfit that has been wished upon them. 'Margaret' would have suited me entirely, 'Priscilla' always has dignity, and 'Catherine Copley' would have been perfectly adorable! But 'Rose' it makes me feel like a Bo- hemian gypsy girl rather than an American college woman" and then Craig McRae, who was her favor- ite cousin, laughed immoderately and began: "Pretty Rose . . . charming Rose . . . I'm in love with my Rosalie!" which offended her highly. Nothing ever was finer than the quiet poise with which Miss Copley had adjusted herself to the pitiful wrecking of her illusions. After taking her Master's degree psychology was her major she had spent one year as tutor in a girls' academy. Her dream was a doctorate from a German university and a college pro- fessorship. Staunchly she had stood up for Ger- many's right to national expansion and to world- empire, too, if she could achieve it. England had be- come far too supercilious! KHAKI AND CLOTH 89 Then came the unspeakable murder in Saint George's Channel. When it was announced that hundreds of civilians had gone down with the Lusitania, many of them women and children, she insisted that it must have been an accident. When the facts became known, proving premeditated attack, she tried to justify it by Hindenburg's laconic "War is war!" but the words choked her fair round throat and would not come. Finally, when with burning cheeks she read of public rejoicing in German cities, imperial decorations for the commander of the submarine, and, last of all, bronze medals to commemorate the infamy, then her woman's instinct prevailed against her heart's desire and the German dream passed into the sad country of "broken things." She did not talk about it her hurt was far too deep she simply lifted the German ideal from its secret niche in her thought and left the place of it empty and void. The perplexing part came afterward: her ambition to become a teacher passed out of her life. It was as though a rude hand had despoiled a beautiful picture she did not try to repair it she removed it from the wall. "It's the woman in you," said her cousin Craig. "Now a man thinks of his career as more or less of a 'job,' " he continued, "and his professional degree as a tool to work with. So, every second professional man, if he can afford the time and the expense, will manage to secure some sort of post-graduate title. If the easy Berlin market is closed, he finds a satisfactory product near at hand finds, indeed, that he has been 90 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST overlooking a superior article at his very doors. He secures it, paying for it in time and study about one third its supposed value, and proceeds to pound at his job. "But a woman is married to her career. Her pro- fessional diploma is like a wedding ring. If it is with- held, she feels that some shadow is impending, while to change it for 'another' is a species of disloyalty. So cheer up, Rose," Craig went on, heartily. "It's better to find out that you're a splendid woman than to get a 'Ph.D.' and teach psychology." "But I must do something, Craig," Rose answered, disconsolately. "I can't sit down and wait for some Prince Charming to come along and say delightful things to me !" "He'll come, Rose. . . . Meantime, this is my scheme for you : take a year of practical training at the South Side Settlement I can arrange it for you and after that something's bound to turn up. You're more 'missionary' than 'schoolma'am,' anyway!" And so it proved. At the end of six months her cousin received this exhilarating letter: "I've made two discoveries, Craig. Psychology must be mastered in actual field work rather than from text- books, and I myself react more easily to the child and adolescent mind than I do to the adult. I am sure I would succeed as 'social work secretary' in a city church, a 'downtown' church, of course. If you weren't smothered in that rich and respectable suburb, I would come to you, just for a try-out. If you hear of some opening please let me know." Then it was that Craig McRae laid a deep and sub- KHAKI AND CLOTH 91 tie plot. "You've simply got to manage them," he said to his wife, "and manage them, of course, without their knowing it. Both of them are blooded thoroughbreds ; they'll shy at a feather." Then he proceeded. "Rose is a perfectly glorious woman with a heart of gold. In plain American speech she loves children and young folks, and they can't help loving her and that's exactly what she means by her seven- jointed psycho- logical reaction to the child and adolescent mind ! But I daren't tell her so; she thinks I want her to get married which I do! and she'll run in the opposite direction. "As for Dickens Locke, he's a perfect paradox! unbending as a shot-tower and sensitive as the hair spring of a watch ! I expected he would take a sensible view and let me talk to him, but he's as elusive as ever. The minute I come within sight of marriage he vanishes into thin air. Both of them are equally impossible when it comes to looking after their own welfare. I'll have to manage this entire business for them and take their gratitude afterward." And so it came to pass that Miss Rose Copley entered upon her duties as social work secretary at Old First some six months before the events recorded in these pages. Craig McRae was a full year in bringing it to pass, yet his subtle diplomacy could not be discerned at any point. He had the name of being a church poli- tician, had Dr. McRae which he hotly resented. "The church needs practical builders and engineers," he said, "to keep the high-browed statesmen from plung- ing us over the embankment ; I'm an engineer" which is a dark saying, and needs explaining. 92 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST When the South Side Settlement invited Mr. Frank Janes, junior partner of King and Kennedy, to serve on its Board of Trustees (that was before our declara- tion of war, when the aforesaid junior partner had no thought of entering the army), Dr. McRae, pastor of the important suburban church at L , and chair- man of the Settlement Committee, was congratulated on making such a strong nomination. And when Mr. Frank Janes accepted the nomination, and made him- self acquainted with the work of the Settlement, it was natural that he should become interested. That Mr. Frank Janes should greatly covet a "social" program for his own church, and should find the minister of Old First already committed to it, may be taken as a logical development. And when the new trustee proceeded to interest the wealthy Mrs. Heustis, constant in good works, and drove her to the Settle- ment on several visits of personal inspection, this is merely a further proof of his clear-headed executive ability. In all of this Dr. Craig McRae gave open encouragement. But when winsome Rose Copley, already called "little mother" at the Settlement, captured completely the gentle heart of Mrs. Heustis, and when Old First Board accepted Mrs. Heustis's offer and invited Miss Copley to the position of social work secretary, then the wily McRae spoke dubiously and suggested to his cousin that perhaps she would have better opportunity in one of the cities "farther east." The inevitable result followed. Richard Locke was in duty bound to care for the needs of his own parish, and could not permit Mrs. Heustis's offer to lapse. KHAKI AND CLOTH 93 Therefore he lost no time in convincing Miss Copley that Old First was ready to provide exceptional oppor- tunity for the development of children's work, Miss Copley's own strong specialty. To the invitation of the Board the pastor added his own powers of per- sonal persuasion and in this Richard Locke was not a novice. When he learned that Craig McRae was standing in the way of his cousin's appointment, he promptly called that reverend gentleman upon the carpet and proceeded to puncture his objections in vigorous and not too clerical English. But all he received for his brusque- ness was a stiff rejoinder, and the grudging conces- sion that Rose might do as she pleased he would not oppose her. The janitor of Old First never under- stood why that day the dignified minister at L bestowed upon him a solemn wink as he left the church, and Dr. Craig McRae did not enlighten him. Within a month the new social work secretary was introduced to Old First congregation, and Mrs. Heustis had taken Rose Copley, glowing and confident, under her own complete protection. "You are to be my other daughter," she said, "to take Clara's room for your very own, and to make this house your home." Craig McRae was in high spirits. "It's better than making love myself," he said to his wife laughing, "for there hasn't been a hitch from start to finish." "But you haven't seen the 'finish,' Craig; 'the best laid plans of mice and men' remember I" "Nonsense, Maggie! The thing can't fail, unless 94 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST human nature itself takes a complete somersault! Dickens Locke is slow, but he's a man, every ounce of him. He feels in honor bound to give Rose every op- portunity and he'll do it. I know him of old. More- over, he'll want her to succeed for the sake of the parish itself, for Rose certainly is a genius with young folks. Don't you see what follows ?" "I'm listening" which is the more remarkable when it is known that Mrs. McRae seldom did that thing. "They'll be thrown together constantly in congenial work, 'play-work' you might call it, with similar tastes and the same ideals and both of them attractive, single-minded, and human ! Dickens is fond of deep water, no doubt, and loves to sail alone; but I'll wait for six months and then hail him. I promise you a pair of gloves that he'll be sighting another ship !" "All right, Craig; mauve, please." At one minute before five Craig McRae, in the field uniform of an army chaplain, swung up the tower steps of Old First and pushed unceremoniously through the vestry door. "Craig!" "Mac!" The exclamations burst simultaneously from Rose Copley and Richard Locke, while a diminutive "O!" escaped the lips of Miss Miller. "It's perfectly gorgeous, Mac! When did you get it?" "I've had the uniform for three weeks, but didn't dare get into it until my appointment was confirmed from divisional headquarters. The official letter KHAKI AND CLOTH 95 reached me on the two o'clock delivery, and I was togged out in full array within fifteen minutes ! Will I pass, Rose?" "I just love khaki!" was the enigmatical reply of Miss Copley as she gathered up her papers from the desk. The two men struck into a swinging stride as they left the church, turned from Main into High street, then took the Circular Park Road toward the suburbs. "We'll have to make the short circuit this time, Mac. It's already ten after five, and I must be at the Boys' Club at seven with a bite of dinner somewhere inter- vening." "That's all arranged, Dickens; Curtis phoned me that he would pick us both up at ten minutes before seven, and Miss Winthrop phoned that dinner would be served at five minutes past six, on the dot. That gives us full fifty minutes for a three-mile turn mere sauntering." "It's just like Curtis," was the spirited reply; "he never considers his own convenience when he thinks he can render a service. He wasn't intending to turn up until eight." "I don't know about that, but he told me over the 'phone that he was curious to sample the 'dope' you were feeding to those Italian boys, and wanted to drop in at your seven o'clock meeting." Richard Locke struck his stick upon the pavement exultingly. "I tell you, Mac, Rho Curtis is a man! I've never yet known him to dodge an issue ; all he wants is the facts, and he's ready with his judgment sound, 96 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST sober, and far-seeing. We were talking of this matter to-day at lunch, and here he is, without another word, gathering up his facts. What makes me sick at heart is that the facts don't seem to appeal to him. He is plainly interested, and yet, as far as I can see, he's as removed from the church as ever." College friendships are in a class by themselves. The comradeship which bound Richard Locke to Craig McRae was wholly different from that which cemented him to Rhodin Curtis. With the latter he was con- scious of a deep and passionate fellowship, yet he never would have thought of asking him for the name of his tailor. The peculiar intimacies of campus, class room, and "dorm" come only once. The two friends had reached South Park, and were walking with somewhat slackened pace along a foot- path beside the lake, when Richard Locke looked quizzically at McRae. "I say, Mac, your officer's outfit turns me quite green with envy! I'll have to climb into it just to get the 'feel' of it." "You ought to climb into a uniform of your own ! I tell you, Dickens, you're making the mistake of your life. Old First pulpit, or any other American pulpit these days, is a poor place for a preacher with red blood in him." It was a body blow, and Richard Locke winced under it. His lips pressed close together, but he said nothing. The words of Captain Frank Janes came back to him "Men like you are transforming this war from a scrap into a sacrament." The close-fitting uniform of Chaplain McRae gave KHAKI AND CLOTH 97 him even more than his usual assurance, a quality in which he was by no means deficient. He continued: "It's the business of a preacher to follow the flag!" "You mean it's his business to lead, Mac." Craig McRae was keen. In college he had taken "high" grades for brilliant scholarship, while Richard Locke, except in philosophy, never had risen above "fair." It was his intuitive ability to see to the heart of things that gave to the latter his place of spiritual leadership. That was the reason the quick glancing eyes beneath the officer's cap were now turned full on him. "Of course, Dickens, that goes without saying," he answered. Richard Locke blazed. "Exactly 'that goes with- out saying !' We preachers constantly assume that the great fundamentals can be taken for granted, as though they did not need fresh and living statement, a new statement, in every generation. What is this war it- self but the tragedy of the unspoken truth ? Following the flag is a pitiful substitute for preaching the blood- red heart of it!" College friendships know how to take as well as give, and it was Craig McRae now who felt the drive of Locke's counter blow. But he took it standing. He spoke with strength. "You score, old fellow! I admit the charge. But, after all, you're simply saying that preachers for a generation have been fussing over evolution, and verbal inspiration, and higher criticism, and have left un- plumbed the depths of judgment and mercy and faith. There surely has been a dearth of prophets in our day." 98 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST The gravel crunched underneath their feet as the two friends rounded the head of the lake and turned for the homeward stretch. "What gets me, Dickens, is how to meet the present issue. It's too late to reconstruct the tragic facts. The war is here. As a minister of Christ my business now is to keep close to the brave fellows who will go 'over the top,' and go over the top with them if I can." "Have you said it all, Mac?" "So far as I know, yes." "Are you sure you're not dodging the real issue ?" "Dodging? what do you mean?" " Just this : Has the church itself no place of leader- ship? Has the preacher no commanding message for brave men and women who never will see the fields of France or Flanders? Ministers, there must be for the thousands 'over there,' but who shall lift up the voice of prophecy for the millions 'over here' ? My heart leaps to go with you to the trenches I'm young, unmarried, unimpeded but, Mac, forgive me, it seems to me like running away from God's fiercest battle front." A slow red pushed itself above the khaki collar and tinged McRae's neck and cheeks. "Dickens, I'll say to you what I wouldn't admit to another mortal, what I've hardly admitted to myself I've got to go to the trenches to keep from falling down! I've reached the end of my tether at L ." "Mac!" "I'm giving you the straight truth ! When I'm with the boys at camp I can pour out every ounce that's in me. I give them nothing but the commonest old stuff loyalty, purity, truth but it gets across. The KHAKI AND CLOTH 99 fellows like it, and, as for me, I know that I'm preaching a man's free gospel to free men. I breathe deep and hold my head high. But I never enter my own pulpit without feeling a lid clamped down on brain and heart." Richard Locke had taken his friend's arm as they moved down the path together. McRae went on : "The only sermons that seem to get anywhere in my own pulpit are my so-called war sermons, and these could be packed into two capsules warranted to go down any American throat *Die for Democracy' and 'Damn the Dutch' ! That's the popular stuff right now. You can preach it by the yard without disturb- ing anybody's prejudices, nor even scratching any- body's gray matter. But no preacher can feed a church on junk like that that is, for steady diet. I tell you I'm at the finish! I've gone through every sermon I've got, reviewed my old lecture notes, and cluttered my table with every book of the past ten years that seemed to promise anything at all. But my own stuff is a despair to me and everything else I've struck is either stale or superficial. I'm going to the trenches to find some message that doesn't sound like pebbles rattling in a drum !" "That's why I'm staying home, Mac." "Yes, and that's why you've been an amazement to me ! I know there's not a yellow streak in you, and yet you've been willing to stick here and " "Shame the Cavalier and Puritan fighting stock that's in my blood! Say it, Mac, that's what you mean !" "No, I won't say it only I wish I could fathom what's in your mind." 100 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST "I wish I could fathom it myself ! All I can say is I'm getting glimpses of a message that thrills me. It's a new dispensation, it seems to me, of the same old blessed gospel. This much I know: The war has un- covered superficiality and men are demanding founda- tion facts. It's true in politics and business, and it's bound to be true in religion. That's why your war sermons 'get across.' They may be fleshed with bunk, but the bones of them are honest stuff which the people understand. You can't fool Americans in church or out! They know what gets to them." Richard Locke stopped short on the gravel walk and gripped McRae's shoulder. His voice was vibrant as he continued speaking. "I know exactly what you mean when you feel a lid clamped down on you. I feel it often myself, and, I tell you, Mac, we are the ones to blame! We don't interpret the people to themselves. They are in heroic mood and ready for high daring. We give them 'war,' and they're with us heart and soul ; then we drop back into platitudes and they are bored to death. No wonder we feel the 'lid'! It's reflex action, nothing more. We are stupid enough to lay a covering of com- monplace over a blazing fire and the smudge of it falls on preacher and people alike." "But it's the same thing, Dickens, when I give them 'Democracy' and the rest of our war talk good stuff too ! It doesn't seem to go. Nothing gets across but bayonets and blood, and there's simply no sense in it. So I'm going where I can get a 'near up' of both of them and maybe I'll discover what it is the people like." "Why, Mac, don't you see it already? When we KHAKI AND CLOTH 101 lift up democracy, or flay the Germans, and think that this is what the people like, we simply fool ourselves and mystify them. We don't reach the basal facts at all. The thing that really thrills them is the heart of Christ's gospel, which, all unconsciously, we are preach- ing a stewardship committed unto them and threat- ened by a cunning and powerful enemy. They're ready to go through hell-fire to protect their trust!" "What trust can they have in mind unless it's pointed out to them?" "Any trust it doesn't make a bit of difference ! As a nation, just now, it's democracy. To the individual it may be anything at all money, property, position, influence, education. It's the fact of stewardship that thrills them and not some particular administration of it. Duty becomes a dull routine without the flaming glory that lies back of it ! It isn't democracy that men will die for, but the trust committed unto them- They have died in other centuries for the king who had en- trusted to them his honor. The guardianship of a trust any trust will redeem a soul from hell. Stewardship, wherever you find it, is the human side of God's eternal gospel." "By your own words, then, you ought to be in the trenches ! The boys over there are ready to suffer for the trust committed to them." "Just so the folks at home! It's the same spirit 'over here' that the boys have 'over there.' In fact they took it with them that's why they went. But the folks held here at home, who want to go but can't, do not realize that they too are at the center of the fight that the same heroic stewardship is demanded here 102 THE CENTENARY AT OLD FIRST as there ; that spiritual world-issues are to be fought to a finish right here in American society. It is the one message that will give the church victorious leadership in this hour of human need." "Stewardship?" "Stewardship." The men resumed their swinging stride down the edge of the lake. Both were engrossed in thought. Pres- ently Craig McRae spoke again. "That's a great message, Dickens, but it can be preached after the war as well as now." "Wrong! It's a war gospel and must be preached while the people are awake to the high meaning of consecration." "So that's the reason you're sticking at Old First when you might be in France to-day." "It's just this, Mac: If Old First Centenary is able to put that message over in this city, it will be the opportunity of a lifetime, and, so far as I am concerned, the biggest war contribution that I can ever hope to make." For five minutes not another word was spoken. The men had left the Park by the east gate and were now once more upon the city pavement, nearing the end of their vigorous "constitutional." The spring and glow of perfect health were in them both. "That was great work, Mac ; it still lacks ten minutes of six. We'll have time for a cold 'shower' before dinner." "Let the shower go this time, Dickens, and slow