J-NRLF 
 
 Jlr 
 
 we\) S iT 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, 
 
 OIKT OK 
 
 Accession Class 
 
FIRST SERIES 
 
 DEBLKWEU 
 
 himself. 
 
COPYRIGHT BY DR. C. S. CARR 
 1900. 
 
REV. DR. TALKWELL 
 
 SKETCHES 
 
 UPREHCHEH PREACHING TO HIMSELF 
 
 By DR. C. S. CARR, 
 COLUMBUS, O. 
 
 SERIEvS No. I. 
 
 '^ OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 L/IGHT OF TRUTH PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 COLUMBUS, OHIO. 
 
CL *s- 
 
 - 
 
 
PUBLISHER'S PREFACE. 
 
 In placing the following pages before the read- 
 ing public in this form the publisher's purpose has 
 been to give as wide prominence as possible to a 
 series of papers by Dr. Talkwell, which have been 
 running in serial form in the columns of the 
 LIGHT OF TRUTH. Extensively read as they have 
 been, there is a rapidly increasing class of enquir- 
 ing people to whom these papers would appeal, 
 if brought to their notice, who never see the LIGHT 
 OF TRUTH, and to that class this book is respectfully 
 introduced, with the hope that renewed activity in 
 reaching for the higher and better planes of relig- 
 ious thought may follow its perusal. 
 
 THE LIGHT OF TRUTH PUB. Co. 
 
 93443 
 
AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 The sketches which comprise this volume consist partly 
 of fiction, partly of fact. The preacher, Dr. Talkwell, and the 
 society to whom he makes his reports, these are fiction. 
 
 Behind Dr. Talkwell, however, there is a man whose home 
 and manner of life are partly described by the sketches. This 
 man, once a doctor, afterwards a pastor and now engaged in 
 other business, is living as nearly as circumstances will permit 
 the life which is ascribed to f)r. Talkwell. 
 
 In all other particulars these sketches portray facts. 
 Every incident and character described are realities. Every 
 letter and question, every conversation and visit are all actual 
 occurrences. There has been no attempt made to write a 
 story or to give these sketches any literary form. They are 
 collected in this volume exactly as they appeared in the papers 
 printed in the same city where they were written. 
 
 It was the original intention of the author to make them 
 a series of character sketches of every day occurrences. He 
 did not set out to write a treatise on sociology or theology. 
 Whenever other sketches occur in this book they were written 
 more for the sake of giving variety and breadth of thought to 
 the series than any wish to enter the arena of philosophical 
 discussion. 
 
 The author makes no claim of being a follower of Jesus. 
 He has, however, sought to make the life of Jesus a study, and 
 see how far such a life can be made compatible with the life 
 
6 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 of an active business man. At the same time that he has 
 been doing this, he has, through the assistance of the little 
 fiction of Dr. Talkwell, been trying to imagine how far the life 
 of a pastor of a modern church could be made to conform to 
 that life which Jesus outlined for his disciples to live. In 
 trying to bring his own life to the standard set by Jesus he is 
 daily brought in contact with the difficulties which would 
 beset any preacher who should make the same attempt. 
 
 The modern preacher insists upon calling himself a fol- 
 lower of Jesus. Nothing could be further from the truth. 
 His habits, tastes, and ambitions are in direct contradiction to 
 the habits which Jesus prescribed for his disciples. The 
 so-called minister of the Gospel of to-day has little or nothing 
 in common, either in practice or belief, with him they call 
 Master. His function in society may be a good one, but by no 
 stretch of imagination can he be made to resemble Jesus or 
 his disciples. 
 
 "Dr. Talkwell" was once a successful preacher. He was 
 successful in having a fine church, aristocratic audiences, and 
 commanding a good salary. He was successful in having 
 many friends, living a luxurious life, and holding a good posi- 
 tion in society. In short, he was successful in everything 
 except taking a single step in the direction of following Jesus. 
 
 At last his eyes were opened. He suddenly became aware 
 of the farce that he was playing. He saw the utter futility of 
 preaching pleasant platitudes to his comfortable, well-fed 
 parishioners. He began to realize that he was not touching 
 the lives of those to whom Jesus ministered. Shame and 
 repentance took the place of his old pride and selicomplac- 
 ence. He resigned his pulpit and began to go among the 
 people. He quit making sermons, but continued to talk. 
 Every Sunday morning he stood in his pulpit where he used 
 to preach, to tell the people his thoughts and experiences 
 which had come to him by associating with the so-called lower 
 classes. 
 
AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 7 
 
 This book contains a large number of these talks. They 
 are short and to the point. They deal only with living ques- 
 tions of today. They are an attempt to say over again some 
 things that Jesus said many years ago. They were not said in 
 the interest of any sect or society. It is the hope of the 
 author that the reader may be made better acquainted with 
 the man Jesus. The author believes that Jesus has been 
 grossly misrepresented by the church ; that his teachings have 
 been perverted : that his example has been ignored. 
 
 This volume is the first one of a series of talks by " Dr. 
 Talkwell," which the author hopes to see published as rapidly 
 as they accumulate. 
 
 0. S. CARR, M. D., 
 
 Columbus, Ohio. 
 
OF THF 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 2& 
 
 A CITY PREACHER RESIGNS. 
 
 The Conversion of a Popular Preacher How Dr. Talk-well became 
 
 Dr. Do-well. 
 
 )HERE was a sensation in church circles in the city of 
 Columbus. The Rev. Dr. Talkwell had resigned his 
 pastorate. Strong, self-possessed, educated, eloquent, 
 popular, and the pastor of one of the most flourish- 
 ing churches in the city. In the high water of financial success 
 was the church which called him pastor. He had made it so by 
 his ability and untiring effort. He had begun with a small, 
 unpretentious church and made it one of the first churches of 
 the city, and now right in the zenith of its glory and prosperity 
 he had suddenly resigned his pastorate, giving no reason for 
 his action. 
 
 It occurred at the regular preaching service on Sunday 
 evening. The house was crowded to the doors to hear one of 
 his popular lectures. Expressions of astonishment and regret 
 were heard on every hand, but the church officials were 
 shocked and astounded beyond measure. It was as if a 
 thunderbolt had fallen out of a clear sky. After a hurried 
 consultation a committee was appointed to wait on the doctor 
 next morning for an explanation of his extraordinary conduct. 
 
 The committee was composed of men of learning, wealth 
 and business integrity. They found the doctor in his study 
 awaiting them, for he had heard they were coming. The 
 friendly greetings were followed by a short, awkward pause. 
 The chairman of the committee, a prominent lawyer, began, 
 rather hesitatingly, the business before them. 
 
10 REV. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 "We have called, doctor, as a committee from the church 
 to ask your reasons for your unexpected resignation, and if 
 possible, to persuade you to reconsider your step." 
 
 A solemn hush followed the question, in which the doctor 
 calmly looked at his brethren, and they as calmly awaited his 
 answer. Never before in their acquaintance had they faced 
 each other as man and man, but their relations had always 
 been of an official character and their few business transactions 
 of a clumsy, stereotyped fashion, in which he seemed to them 
 a curious mixture of priest, pastor, teacher and hireling, while 
 they were to him little more than his financial managers. 
 But now they all appeared as if they had some real busi- 
 ness to attend to. 
 
 With suppressed feeling the doctor at length replied : 
 " Your question is natural and direct, and my reply shall be 
 the same. My reason for resigning the pastorate of a Christian 
 church is that I am not, nor have I ever been, a Christian 
 minister." 
 
 u Why, doctor," they replied in chorus, " we are astonished 
 to hear you say so. Surely this must be some joke or delusion, 
 for a man that has been as useful and successful as you have 
 been in our city of unquestionable character and Christian 
 scholarship, of which we have been proud not a Christian 
 minister? We don't know what you mean." 
 
 u 1 am not going to deny," the doctor answered quietly, 
 " I have made myself useful to the church and to the city, and 
 in perhaps many other ways. What I am denying is that I am 
 a Christian minister. There are many useful men in this 
 world besides Christian ministers. Perhaps I may be classed 
 as useful, but I have no vestige of excuse for calling myself a 
 follower of Jesus, in a Scriptural sense. I am not dissatisfied 
 with my position in society. I am well content with my 
 success, proud of my church, grateful for the enthusiastic sup- 
 port you have given me, but so long as I remain the pastor of 
 your church, so long I stand before the public posing as a 
 
A CITY PREACHER RESIGNS. 11 
 
 disciple or follower of Jesus. This is a falsehood to which I 
 can not be a party any longer. For several years the convic- 
 tion has been gradually growing upon me that, while my 
 function in society is a perfectly legitimate and useful one, I 
 have no more right to call myself a follower of Jesus than I 
 have to call myself a follower of Buddha or Mahomet or 
 Brigham Young. All these said good things, did good things, 
 and in a general way other good men can copy them to good 
 advantage. But on the other hand, these leaders of men had 
 peculiarities which constituted their special mission, and it is 
 the adoption of these particular peculiarities that give one the 
 right to claim to be a disciple or follower. 
 
 " To try to do good in a general way and teach the truth 
 as seems to be needed by the present generation, is certainly 
 a good work, and I am not at all discouraged at what I have 
 accomplished, but this gives me no honest pretext for calling 
 myself a minister of Jesus Christ. Jesus founded no church, 
 taught no creed, headed no sqcial reform, advocated no school 
 of divinity, philosophy or ethics, but simply chose the lowly 
 and outcast as his associates and friends and taught his 
 disciples to do likewise. Had I been related to Jerusalem in 
 his day as I am to Columbus in this day, I would probably 
 never have met Jesus at all, or at least his life would have 
 seemed to me a dismal failure, unworthy of other- notice than 
 pity. 
 
 u Why do I allow people to call me a Christian minister? 
 I have done nothing to warrant such title. I associate with 
 the best people, live in the best part of the city, dress like a 
 gentleman. I not only have a place to lay my head, but no 
 king could have a better place. All I know of the outcasts 
 or depraved is what I learn by hearsay or occasional hasty 
 visits to some poor family, about whom I know next to 
 nothing, and with whom I have nothing in common. 
 
 " Now, as long as I remain in a so-called Christian pulpit 
 I am in false relations to the people. I had my choice either 
 
12 REV. TALKWEIX'S SKETCHES. 
 
 to announce to my congregation that I was not a follower of 
 Christ or resign. I thought to resign would be the least sen- 
 sational and create the least shock. I do not think you would 
 care to have a man preach to you after he had publicly 
 announced that he did not profess to be a follower of Jesus 
 in any true sense of the phrase." 
 
 " But," expostulated the brethren, " you have always 
 taught us that to live a prayerful and sincere life was to be a 
 Christian, and surely you have done this?" 
 
 u To simply live a prayerful and sincere life," replied the 
 doctor, " is certainly religious, and the kind of religion that 
 Jesus heartily approved of, but this has nothing whatever to 
 do with the Christian ministry. Jesus did not call all men to 
 be Christian ministers, or to be his followers. During his 
 lifetime he called only a very few to be his disciples. To the 
 world in general he made no call, but rather brought an 
 announcement of good news. He said to the world: ' God is 
 your father, not your angry judge and ruler. God loves you, 
 he is not mad at you. God sympathizes with you, he does 
 not hate you.' This he said to the whole world, high and 
 low, good and bad, and he sought to bring to the world peace, 
 which comes from a complete acceptance of such a faith as 
 this." 
 
 " But he called out of the world a few chosen ones to be 
 his disciples; to be his ministers; to live as he lived; to 
 spend their lives among the outcast and downtrodden ; to turn 
 away from fortune, family and fame, to carry his message to 
 the poor. To live among them, to stay among them, to 
 become acquainted with their peculiar trials and besetments. 
 I have done none of these things. No doubt Jesus would 
 approve of what I have done, but I am sure that he would not 
 regard me as one of his ministers or disciples." 
 
 u I recall," spoke the chairman of the committee, " that 
 your sermons lately have been chiefly on Christian disciple- 
 ship. Your position seemed to me to have been very logical, 
 
A CITY PREACHER RESIGNS. 13 
 
 and well taken. You showed us that we, all of us, ought to 
 be Christian ministers ; that a good mechanic, an honest 
 lawyer, a conscientious merchant, are each as much ministers 
 of Christ as the one who officiates as the pastor or preacher of 
 a church. I thought that was good doctrine, but I can not see 
 how your teachings harmonize with your present position." 
 u Unfortunately, it harmonizes only too well with my 
 attitude at present," replied the doctor. " You are, so are 
 any other honest men, as much Christian ministers as I am. 
 You are living honest, prosperous lives, so am I. My vocation 
 is teaching. I teach theology, ethics, history and English 
 literature generally. If I am as honest and sincere as you 
 gentlemen are in your vocations I am as much a Christian 
 minister as any of you, but no more. The truth is, brethren, 
 that none of us are Christian ministers. We are doing pre- 
 cisely as other men are. We are seeking to gain a livelihood 
 in a respectable way and with as little contact with disagree- 
 able circumstances and people as possible. I do not condemn 
 this course of life. I simply say it is not living the life of a 
 Christian minister. The atheistical chemist in our university 
 is discovering and teaching truth, God's truth, just as much as 
 I am. The agnostic physician of our congregation is making 
 his vocation a blessing to the people, and in fact, is minister- 
 ing more directly to the people than I am. The unbelieving 
 mechanic who sometimes listens to my theology is rearing a 
 large family in a quiet, unpretentious way ; is respected by 
 his associates as a truthful and sympathetic friend, although 
 he does not believe one word of Christian theology. The addi- 
 tion to their lives of all that I teach would not make one of 
 these men a whit more capable or useful, in their lives of min 
 istry than they are now. This is what I have been saying in 
 my pulpit, and this is what I am saying now. Are these men 
 followers of Jesus ? If so, then I am a follower of Jesus. If 
 not, then I am not and you are not. Really, brethren, it is 
 these very reflections that have led me to take the step that I 
 have taken." 
 
14 REV. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 " The committee would like to know," said the spokes- 
 man, " exactly what you mean by following Jesus ? " 
 
 " Alas, brethren, your question is a serious charge against 
 my ministry among you. I have been your minister for more 
 than a score of ^ears, a professed follower of Jesus, with no 
 other real work among you except to teach you to become 
 followers of Jesus by precept and example. And now, after 
 all these years, you ask me what it is I mean by following 
 Jesus. The fault is my own ; I confess it. I have not been 
 clear on the subject myself, in my precepts, and as for my 
 example, I have done nothing whatever but to do what any 
 other rational creature would have done had he never heard 
 of Jesus. But since you ask me what I mean by following 
 Jesus, I will attempt to give a brief answer." 
 
WHY A CITY PREACHER RESIGNED. 
 
 What is it to Follow Jesus ? A Preacher Preaching to Himself. 
 
 UR readers will recollect that we left Dr. Talkwell 
 in his study surrounded by an anxious church com- 
 mittee, who had called to ask his reasons for so 
 suddenly resigning as the pastor of their church. 
 He had replied to the committee that one of the reasons for 
 his taking this step was that he did not any longer consider 
 himself a fit man to be called a Christian minister or a follower 
 of Jesus. 
 
 The committee then asked him to define what he meant 
 by following Jesus, and the doctor replied : 
 
 " Your question shows me very clearly how little I have 
 been really teaching you about Jesus all of these years. But 
 in a few words I will attempt to tell you what I mean by 
 following Jesus. In the first place Jesus did not call men to 
 be his followers. Jesus did not come to condemn the world. 
 He seemed to approve of the evolution of society as he found 
 it. He found cruelty, injustice, superstition, ignorance and 
 hypocrisy in the world, just as we find it now. He instituted 
 no crusade against these things, headed no special reform to 
 exterminate them. He seemed to believe all these things 
 were working out the problem of human society.. To be sure, 
 he approved, condemned, corrected, comforted and encour- 
 aged. But he did these things only as friend meets friend. 
 He sought no special opportunities. If he addressed a mul- 
 titude it was only because circumstances conspired to bring it 
 about. His words were addressed to the particular person or 
 
16 REV. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 persons he happened to be in conversation with. He wrote 
 no book, nor sought in any way to perpetuate his teachings 
 beyond their natural influence at the time they were said. 
 What he tried to do, was to persuade a few men to become his 
 followers, to seek the life he sought, to give their lives for those 
 who need help. 
 
 " He saw in the natural evolution of society that the 
 ignorant, the weak and poor would naturally be oppressed with 
 all sorts of injustice and cruelty. It was to this class that he 
 went. It was to this class that he invited his disciples to 
 go. To be sure, he invited all men to be saved from sin, 
 and taught them how they could be saved. But his minis- 
 ters, his few special disciples, he sought to make them saviors 
 in the same way that he had been their savior. He turned 
 his back on the world and its allurements of fame, comfort, 
 reputation and honorable standing in the community. He 
 became of no repute, had not where to lay his head, hunted 
 as a common criminal, ate with publicans and sinners, sneered 
 at as a wine bibber, the friend of harlots and the woman of 
 Samaria, and was finally arrested, tried and executed as a 
 blasphemer. 
 
 " All this he did for those whom the natural evolution of 
 human society had crushed and has continued to crush ever 
 since. To those who needed no physician, to those who had 
 been successful in keeping apace with the evolution of human 
 society, he was not called. The well need no physician. It 
 was to the sick ones he came, the ones we call depraved, 
 ignorant and beastly, and to those he called his disciples. 
 He told them that if they followed him, they would, like him, 
 become of no repute, their names would be a by-word, they 
 would be cast out of the synagogues, would be arrested and 
 tried as he was, would be beaten, imprisoned, despised, out- 
 raged and degraded. 
 
 u Now, none of these things have happened to me, simply 
 because I have not followed him at all. Had I followed Jesus 
 
WHY A CITY PREACHER RESIGNED. 17 
 
 in the city of Columbus, probably no one of you would have 
 known me personally. I would have been known in the ' Bad 
 Lands,' in the police court and in the byways of the city. I 
 could have, like Jesus, become the friend of many despairing 
 souls, but no one would have known it. I could have gone in 
 and out quietly among these people, living a harmless, peace- 
 ful and contented life, and shown them a few of them at 
 least the way to solve their problem. Not by kicking against 
 Fate or striving against the forces of human evolution ; but 
 by quietly submitting to what occurs as the providences of a 
 wise Father, taking care only that love should be my motive 
 in all my conduct." 
 
 u Are we to understand you then, doctor, that you are 
 about to turn your back upon yonr splendid work in this city 
 and take up this sort of a life ? " asked the committee. 
 
 " No," replied the doctor; U I have not fully decided to 
 become a disciple of Jesus. I am so far committed to the 
 ordinary affairs of the world,' that I fear I could not break 
 loose again from them and become a true disciple of Jesus 
 without doing more harm than good. Most of my family and 
 fraternal relations would have to be broken. My habits, tastes, 
 likes and dislikes, formed by a long life of ease and prosperity, 
 have become too fixed to be shaken off easily. I have utterly 
 incapacitated myself in speech and manner to come near these 
 people without exciting suspicion as to my purpose or anger 
 at what appears to them to be impertinence. The chasm is so 
 great that I can not get to them, I fear. But at least I can do 
 this much. I can refuse to be called a Christian minister any 
 longer. I am not a Christian minister. I am simply a man of 
 the world, no better than thousands of others who never heard 
 of Christ, and I positively refuse to be called by such a name 
 any more. Not all men, as I have already said, are called to 
 be Christian ministers. I fear I am not one of those who have 
 been called. But at least I can be an honest man and refuse 
 to sail under false colors any longer." 
 
18 REV. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 "Bat, doctor, have we not missionaries to attend to this 
 sort of thing, and has not our church always supported the 
 missions of this city ? After all, is not this kind of work only 
 a branch of Christian work? Are you not exaggerating its 
 importance, when you make it all that Jesus wished his dis- 
 ciples to do?" 
 
 " Yes, we have missionaries, upon whom I have tried in 
 past times to shirk my responsibility in these matters, buf the 
 missionaries as a class come no nearer following Jesus than 
 the regular pastors. They simply preach to the people ; they 
 do not live with them. There is no real sympathy whatsoever. 
 The missionary, as a rule, preaches only the miserable, cast-off 
 theology that the pastor has discarded long ago as uteriable. 
 Missionaries do these people far more harm than they do good^ 
 by holding up to them the necessity of a life utterly irrational 
 and impracticable. Jesus was no more a missionary than he 
 was a preacher. He simply lived so close to these people that 
 he brought his own sweet, pure life into actual contact with 
 theirs. 
 
 " As to the relative importance of this so-called branch of 
 Christian work, I desire to put myself on record as saying that 
 it is the only wosk that Jesus called His ministers to do. He 
 did not call his ministers to teach theology or ethics, or found 
 churches or establish colleges, or head social reforms. He 
 knew that these things would all occur in the natural evolu- 
 tion of human society. But he also knew that 'the poor 
 we have with us always.' That there would always be those 
 who would be continually falling under the wheels of progress, 
 crushed or outraged. There is nothing in the natural evolu- 
 tion of society that provides for this class of victims except to 
 let them die. It would be simply another example of the 
 survival of the fittest, had not Jesus interposed and established 
 a ministry for this very class of people. 
 
 "What the unconscious forces of society fail to do, (the 
 law) he sought by self-conscious sympathy and fraternity to 
 
WHY A CITY PREACHER RESIGNED. 19 
 
 accomplish, (the gospel). If I am to be a minister of Jesus 
 Christ this is my work and my only work. I have either got 
 to do this work, to the exclusion of everything else, or refuse 
 to be called a Christian minister. Which ^hall it be brethren, 
 I ask you ? I would really like your practical good judgment 
 in this matter." 
 
 ; ' Well," answered the spokesman of the committee, 
 u suppose we should agree to employ you at your present 
 salary, as a public instructor, disband our present organization 
 as a church, form ourselves into a secular society, use our 
 church property as the plant by which we carry on our work, and 
 our pulpit shall be the rostrum from which you will continue 
 to instruct the people as you have in times past. Suppose we 
 agree to all this, can we hope to retain you as our instructor?" 
 
 " I thank you, brethren, for your consideration of my 
 feelings ; but I shall not be able this morning to decide the 
 matter. I have not wholly given up the idea of becoming a 
 Christian minister. If I should so decide, of course we will 
 have no further business with each other ; for in that case you 
 would not have any use for me, nor would I have any use for 
 you. But should I conclude to serve you in the capacity in 
 which I have been serving you, dropping all titles, names and 
 formalities which serve in the least particular to convey the 
 pretense that I am a Christian minister, or that we are a 
 Christian church, or that there could be any such thing as a 
 Christian church, if I conclude to adopt such a course of life, 
 I will inform your committee of the fact soon enough to begin 
 to act in the matter. 
 
 u In the meantime, brethren, I trust you will understand 
 my reasons for resigning, and I hope that the reasons may 
 seem as important to you as they do to me." 
 
 What will he do. this doctor of divinity, in the zenith of 
 his strength, physical and mental ; versatile, capable, possessed 
 of practical common sense and ripe scholarship? Will he 
 decide to become to our city what Jesus became to Palestine? 
 
20 REV. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 Will he decide to enter with his strength and purity the slums 
 and hovels of wretchedness of Columbus? To become the 
 personal friend and adviser of these people? Will he give his 
 life for them, as Jesus gave his life for sinners ? If so, blessed 
 will be Columbus in the midst of the cities of the earth. Her 
 palaces of shame will be brought low and her hovels of virtue 
 exalted, her waste places be made glad and those that dwell 
 in the riches and security of iniquity shall be overturned and 
 brought to naught. 
 
 Will he, however, decide to continue his course as a regular 
 doctor of divinity? Continue his comfortable, successful, pop- 
 ular, reputable course of life, having for his portion the best 
 clothes, the best food, the best of society, the best of everything 
 that the land can furnish? Will he? Then Columbus, like other 
 cities of the earth, will continue to have its slums, its poor 
 and outraged, its degraded and its vicious, growing more 
 numerous and appalling every year, with no one who has the 
 strength and courage to succor them. Which will he do? 
 
A COLLEGE-MADE PREACHER. 
 
 Preparation for the Ministry Dr. Talkwell Has Resigned 
 
 . TALKWELL had resigned as the successful pastor 
 of one of the most flourishing churches in the city, 
 on the grounds that his functions as the pastor of a 
 modern church did not entitle him to be called a 
 minister of Jesus Christ. His astonished brethren called upon 
 him for an explanation. After a brief conversation, in which 
 the doctor explained to his brethren that, according to his 
 growing convictions as to. the work of a Christian minister, he 
 could no longer conscientiously pose as one and remain pastor 
 of any church, he intimated that he would speak to them in 
 the capacity of an instructor at some future time, but he 
 should insist that it be thoroughly understood that he no longer 
 pretended to stand before the public as a Christian minister. 
 Desirous of hearing a fuller explanation of the doctor's 
 position on the subject of the work of a Christian minister, he 
 was invited to give a course of lectures under the auspices of 
 a secular society, known as the Board of Popular Instruction. 
 As the society was composed practically of his old congrega- 
 tion and as his rostrum was to be his old pulpit, the doctor 
 was only too glad to accept the invitation. Only a summary of 
 these lectures can be given from time to time, leaving the 
 reader to elaborate each one for himself. 
 
 Before beginning his lecture, the doctor said: I wish to 
 repeat what I have already stated to your committee, and 
 what I shall take the liberty of repeating many times in the 
 future, if I should continue this series of lectures ; that I have 
 
22 REV. TALKWELI/S SKETCHES. 
 
 no charge whatever against that class of individuals who call 
 themselves Christian ministers. As a class, I know them to 
 be educated, hard-working and thoroughly conscientious indi- 
 viduals. That their wish and purpose is to promulgate right- 
 eousness, according to their notion of the meaning of the word. 
 I have not resigned from the pulpit because of any disparag- 
 ing opinions I hold of the work of the modern pulpit. There 
 is no greater or more timely force at work in society than the 
 pulpit. But for myself, I see no reason whatever why my work 
 as a preacher and pastor of a modern church gives me any 
 excuse for posing as a Christian minister. Should I continue 
 in this course of lectures, they will take up in detail the 
 reasons why I have reached this conclusion. 
 
 Today I propose to inquire whether 1 ever prepared my- 
 self to become a Christian minister. In other words I am 
 going to compare my preparation to become a follower of 
 Jesus, with the preparation which Jesus himself enjoyed. 
 
 So far as we know of the early life of Jesus, we have 
 every reason to believe that until he was thirty years of age 
 he worked as a common laborer among the common people. 
 That he exhibited an early interest in the theology of the 
 times seems evident from his experience with the doctors of 
 divinity when he was twelve years of age. But that he had 
 any other education than was the lot of all other Jewish boys, 
 there is not a scrap of evidence. He could read the old Testa- 
 ment as they used it. He had been taught at home and in 
 the local synagogues the interpretation of the Scriptures in 
 vogue in those days. It is not at all likely that he had any 
 other book education. That his education could compare 
 favorably with what is now known as a common school educa- 
 tion is not at all likely. That he could write a sermon or 
 deliver a sermon extemporaneously, acceptable to modern 
 usages, there is not a particle of evidence. That he was the 
 author of the so-called Sermon on the Mount, the greatest of 
 all sermons, there can be no doubt. But to call these wise 
 
A COLLEGE-MADE PREACHER. 23 
 
 sayings of the fifth, sixth and seventh of Matthew to call 
 these a sermon in any modern use of the word is to misname 
 them entirely. Neither in form nor unity do they in the least 
 particular resemble what is now known as a sermon. 
 
 But there were a great many things that Jesus did learn 
 which he could not have learned at any college. He had 
 learned the people the common people. He had learned 
 them in the only way possible for any one to learn them by 
 being one of them himself. He lived an humble life, an out- 
 door life, a self-supporting life. He passed his boyhood and 
 early manhood facing the difficulties and solving the"problems 
 of the common people. He knew what their problems were. 
 He knew what their aspirations were.' He knew their hearts, 
 their longings, their fears and their superstitions. This was 
 His education, his only education, except that he was able to 
 read and quote to them the Scriptures, which they had been 
 taught to believe were the word of God. 
 
 But Jesus' preparation for the ministry did not consist 
 wholly of what he knew ; it consisted largely of what he was. 
 One of the items in his preparation was that he overcame 
 himself, before entering the ministry. In the story of his 
 temptation in the wilderness we find him assailed by an evil 
 spirit with the lusts of the flesh, the ambition for fame and 
 the worship of worldly ideals and aspirations. He was tempted 
 in all points like us. But he overcame them all, and minis- 
 tering angels became his companions. 
 
 Now, when I compare this preparation of Jesus for the 
 ministry with my own preparation to follow in his footsteps, I 
 do not wonder that I did not succeed. What was my prepara- 
 tion? I am not going to outline it to you because I believe it 
 to be remarkable or unusual, but rather because I believe it 
 is typical of the preparation usually received by any one who 
 sets out to become a Christian minister. 
 
 In the first place, I was a studious boy, which kept me 
 apart, in a great measure, from the other boys. At school and 
 
24 REV. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 vacation I never had any particular enthusiasm or interest in 
 the games and adventures of my school fellows. My father 
 was able to keep me in school, consequently I did no work but 
 to keep up my studies. I came in actual contact with no kind 
 of business. My experience was nearly limited to the routine 
 of a student's life. Except from glimpses now and then, I 
 knew little or nothing of what was going on in the world 
 around me at the time. I was rapidly acquiring tastes and habits 
 which drifted me .farther and farther away from the common 
 people. What few grains of information concerning the 
 masses that managed to sift through the wall of exclusion 
 built around me, gave me the impression that the history of 
 today was dull, vulgar arid unsatisfactory. 
 
 After finishing high school I entered college, which still 
 further excluded me from the people. Having finished college 
 I entered a theological seminary, where I was supposed to 
 take that step of preparation for the ministry which was to fit 
 me to stand up before the people, about whom I knew next to 
 nothing, to become their guide and their shepherd. 
 
 I had no vocation except preaching. I knew nothing 
 about farming, nothing about mechanics, nothing about the 
 mercantile business, nothing about law or medicine, and yet, I 
 was proposing to stand up before these classes and teach them 
 how to live. 
 
 What was far worse, I knew nothing of the people to 
 whom I was particularly sent as a minister of Jesus Christ. In 
 spite of all the diversions and perversions of a theological 
 education, I had retained a somewhat dimmed and deformed 
 notion that as a minister of Jesus Christ my mission was chiefly 
 to the poor, the outcast, the down-trodden, and the depraved. 
 There still lingered in my memory fragments of Scripture, 
 " When I was hungry, ye fed me ; when I was naked, ye 
 clothed me; when I was in prison, ye visited me; when I was 
 sick, ye came to me ; when I was a stranger, ye took me in." 
 I remembered that dramatic scene when Jesus stood in the 
 
A COLLEGE-MADE PREACHER. 25 
 
 synagogue at Nazareth, and read from the prophet Isaiah the 
 proclamation of His own mission. 
 
 When he read : u The spirit of the Lord is upon Me, 
 because He annointed Me to preach the good tidings to the 
 poor; He hath sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and 
 recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are 
 bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." 
 
 To be sure, I had a very hazy conception of my proclama- 
 tion to these poor people. Exactly what I could do or say that 
 would be of any practical benefit to them was one of the 
 things I had not learned in college. I had been trained in a 
 school of theology, which enabled me to comprehend the utter 
 futility of supposing I could go to them some pleasant evening, 
 and by the assistance of a professional evangelist or singer, 
 convert them en masse, and thus discharge my whole respon- 
 sibility concerning these very disagreeable people. I had been 
 reared on a broader plane of thinking than that. But pre- 
 cisely what it was that I was expected to do to put myself into 
 vital relation with the men and women who swear and drink, 
 who are dirty and lazy, who are sick and vicious, who are in 
 prisons and hospitals, who are naked and hungry, become a 
 friend to the stranger and a companion of the outcast, how I 
 was to follow my Master in these particulars, I had received 
 no instruction whatever. 
 
 I could preach a good sermon; I knew that. No one 
 could find a flaw in my grammar or rhetoric ; my manners and 
 dress were such that no church need to be ashamed of me, 
 either in the pulpit or the drawing room. My whole life had 
 been spent among people of culture and refinement. I was 
 an easy conversationalist, a good Bible student, and a public 
 speaker of perhaps more than average ability. These things I 
 had learned. But in what way they fitted me to follow my 
 Master in his proclamation of glad tidings to the poor, I could 
 not understand. I thought it was my own fault and thought 
 perhaps I was better adapted to the regular pastorate than 
 evangelical work. I concluded that it was more a matter of 
 temperament and taste than any thing else. I knew there 
 were some people who were so constituted that they liked to 
 do that sort of thing. I knew that I was not one of them. 
 
THE FIRST PASTORATE. 
 
 Dr. Talkwell's Second Lecture Sketch of His First Pastorate. 
 
 TOLD you last week of my preparation for the minis- 
 try ; how I had graduated from a theological semin 
 ary with high honors. I was now supposed to be 
 prepared to follow the meek and lowly Jesus in car- 
 rying the gospel to the poor and heavy laden. I had acquired 
 a literary fastidiousness and aristocratic habits, which seemed 
 to be assumed by every one to be just the thing to enable me 
 to follow in the footsteps of the lowly Nazarene, to do the 
 humble work of my Master, the carpenter's son. 
 
 Despite my education I was not altogether free from 
 doubt on this subject. I sometimes thought I detected an 
 incongruity between my mission and my education. When I 
 read the latest theological review I felt sure I was master of 
 the situation, but when I read the Testament I was not quite 
 sure that I had learned anything that would be of assistance 
 to me. I was not quite clear as to what my mission was, but 
 I had a vague supposition that it was somehow related to the 
 fallen and perishing ones of society. 
 
 But my thinking along this line was suddenly interrupted 
 by the event of receiving a call to become the pastor of a large 
 and prosperous church in one of our cities. I had no more 
 time for musing about my mission. I had two sermons to 
 prepare each week for a critical, cultured congregation, pos- 
 sessed of literary fastidiousness, jealously sensitive as to their 
 own customs, vain of their services and elegant place of 
 worship. I had several special meetings to conduct every 
 
THE FIRST PASTORATE. 27 
 
 week. I became practically manager and leader of several 
 societies. Every moment of time that could be spared from 
 my pressing duties as pastor of that church was devoted to 
 social functions, just as imperatively demanded of me as any 
 other part of my work. I worked very hard, but personally 
 I had no time to see any poor people, or to even give them a 
 thought. To be sure, we had a committee of our church whose 
 duty it was to attend to such matters. Through their reports 
 I occasionally heard that we were doing something in that 
 line. 
 
 Sometimes I had a sickening fear that I was not doing the 
 work of a real Christian minister, but what to do I did not know. 
 I understood homiletics better than I did homes, and was 
 better posted on the latest Bible criticisms than I was con- 
 cerning the unsanitary condition of the alleys where the poor 
 people lived. I made many resolves and had several ineffect- 
 ual spasms of trying to do something in this line, but all 
 ended in flat failure. 
 
 I tried to talk with my brethren sometimes about these 
 matters, which finally resulted in our establishing a mission 
 chapel, presided over by an assistant, all of which brought me 
 not one whit nearer the poor and down-trodden. I finally 
 gave up trying to get any nearer to them, comforting myself 
 with the idea that the avenues needed a Christian minister as 
 well as the alleys, and that I was specially adapted to minis- 
 ter to the avenues. And I succeeded in making myself really 
 believe that I was a Christian minister all this time, though 
 sometimes I had my doubts. 
 
 There was another thing in the preparation of Jesus that 
 I lacked besides the knowledge enabling me to carry the 
 gospel to the poor. I had not conquered myself. In my 
 bodily habits I was not conspicuously bad, as I used neither 
 liquor nor tobacco and loudly condemned their use by others, 
 but in my use of food I did not hesitate to indulge myself in 
 the choicest dainties the land afforded, and surrounding myself 
 
28 REV. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 by all the expensive luxuries that my ample salary permitted. 
 I lived altogether a pampered, luxurious life. 
 
 As for worldly ambition, perhaps no one in my congrega- 
 tion was farther from Jesus in this particular. I had an am- 
 bition to become a great preacher, to make my pulpit a great 
 power in the land. I was determined that I would be known 
 as far as the English language was spoken. This was my 
 thought day and night. This ambition had been distinctly 
 taught to me at college as being entirely legitimate for a 
 Christian minister. I wanted to live to see the day when my 
 sermons would be published in this and other countries and 
 possibly translated into other tongues. I wanted to be popular 
 at home and abroad. I dreaded of all things to do or say any- 
 thing that would have a tendency to make me unpopular. 
 
 I preached against pride, vanity, luxury and selfishness. 
 But I succeeded in doing so with such good taste and elegant 
 language as to offend no one of my supporters, every one of 
 whom was guilty of these things. 
 
 My success was phenomenal. I rose to distinction very 
 rapidly. My services were in demand over a very large area of 
 the country. My sermons were reported in many papers. Ver- 
 ily, verily, I had received my reward. But all this time the 
 sweet, pastoral life of Jesus, his lowly companions, his heart 
 to heart conversations, his frugal, unselfish life, his suffering 
 with poor, ignorant, weak humanity these things were 
 slipping farther and farther away from me. Except in my 
 pulpit I had come to read mostly the latest commentators, 
 critical reviews, literary criticisms and the like ; finding the 
 simple gospel, except by straining its meaning, to be out of 
 harmony with the life I was leading. Had not my career 
 been interrupted by illness I should without doubt have con- 
 tinued to grow less Christ-like and more prosperous, until, at 
 the close of a long and useful life, I should have been buried 
 with the usual honors and eulogies that are accorded the suc- 
 cessful preacher of today. (How different from the last scenes 
 
THE FIRST PASTORATE. 29 
 
 that closed round the earthly labors of Jesus, Paul, Peter, 
 Matthew, and a host of others in every land and age who have 
 followed in the footsteps of the Master!) 
 
 The continued strain of my artificial life finally induced 
 severe prostration. I was not only obliged to retire from my 
 pastorate, but from the city. In the cool shade of an old 
 orchard, in a quiet, obscure country place, far from the noise 
 and ambitions of the city, during a slow convalescence, I 
 began to think. It was the first time I had ever had a 
 chance to think by myself, for myself, about myself. The old 
 sprawling, shaggy apple trees that had borne their load of 
 juicy fruit year after year for the benefit of the world seemed 
 to rebuke me with their solemn, unpretending humility. 
 
 I had time to look squarely at my past life. How 1 had 
 been tickled with fame, pleased with notoriety, puffed up with 
 flattery, made glad a thousand times in my foolish vanity by 
 complimentary remarks upon my eloquence, learning and 
 influence. 
 
 How quiet it was there, how solemn ! A little Testament 
 without notes seemed no longer out of place. I began to read 
 it, not a verse here and there, not critically, but as a child 
 would read a story whole books at a time. 
 
 I read the book of Matthew one beautiful Sunday morn- 
 ing in the generous shade of one of those old, ministering 
 apple trees. Beginning with the fifth chapter, 1 read it all 
 through, every word of it. It seemed to me that morning that 
 I had never read the book before. It was so plainly and 
 clearly a refutation of the life I had been living. But its 
 rebukes were so gentle, so loving, so forgiving, that I cried 
 with joy that I had found them at last. 
 
 It seemed so strange to me that I had never applied these 
 gentle rebukes and warnings to my own life. When Jesus 
 t; warned his disciples against the Scribes and Pharisees be- 
 cause their works were done to be seen of men," and love the 
 chief place of feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
30 REV. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 the salutations in the market places, and to be called of men, 
 Rabbi. "But be not ye called Rabbi, for one is your teacher 
 and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father on 
 earth, for one is your Father which is in heaven. Neither be 
 ye called masters, for one is your Master, even the Christ. 
 But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. And 
 whosoever shall exalt himself, shall be humbled, and whoso- 
 ever shall humble himself shall be exalted." 
 
 Plainly I was guilty of disobeying every item of this 
 warning. I could be distinguished from the ordinary run of 
 men by my garments. I did have the chief place at public 
 banquets or feasts, and the chief seat in the synagogues 
 (churches), and should have thought it strange had I not been 
 offered these places whenever I honored them with my pres- 
 ence. I was saluted in the market places, not with the title 
 Rabbi, to be sure, but by the title Reverend, which means 
 practically the same thing. I not only was called by these 
 titles, but I called others whom I considered above me by 
 titles, signifying Father and Master. I was considered among 
 the greatest of my vocation, but by no torture of language 
 could I be called a servant. I had exalted myself deliberately, 
 persistently^ and now I was humbled, humiliated by the words 
 of the same book that I had read a thousand times before, by 
 the words of the same book of which I had been so long con- 
 sidered a critical student and learned expositor. 
 
 What blindness was it that had prevented my seeing this 
 before? Having eyes I had not seen; ears I had not heard, a 
 cultivated mind and yet not understood. 
 
THE SECOND PASTORATE. 
 
 Dr. Talkwell's Third Lecture His Second Pastorate. 
 
 HAD intended in this lecture to confine my remarks 
 to a brief sketch of my second pastorate, but I find so 
 many written questions on my desk this morning 
 indicating on your part a natural curiosity of a per- 
 sonal nature, that I will speak more fully of personal matters 
 than I intended to. I will not read the questions, but will try 
 to summarize the principal facts covered by them. 
 
 You remember my last 'lecture left me in an obscure 
 country place, slowly recuperating from an extreme prostra- 
 tion brought on by a long, successful city pastorate. I had 
 begun to read the Testament without notes out there in the 
 cool quiet of a beautiful old farm. The effect upon me was 
 marvelous. It completely transformed my views as to the 
 mission of a gospel minister. 
 
 I was then thirty-seven years of age, unmarried, without 
 even a boyish romance to vary the intensity of twenty years' 
 experience as student and preacher. It was two years before 
 I recovered my health sufficient to follow any vocation, during 
 which time I remained in the country. 
 
 While living in this beautiful place, I became acquainted 
 with a venerable old pastor of the church in the village nearby. 
 He had been serving the church for over thirty years, and was 
 beloved by all. I attended his services quite regularly for 
 nearly a year, learning by observation what a pastor could 
 really be to his people. The sermons were of a practical 
 
35} KEV. TAJLK WEIL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 nature, and were intended for that particular congregation. 
 While he held the older theological notions, he so seldom re- 
 ferred to them in his simple, off-hand, heart to-heart discourses, 
 that he scarcely ever annoyed me by them. He seemed to 
 have naturally outgrown book theology. He had become so 
 closely interlocked in the lives of his people that his sermons 
 seemed more like fatherly advice and counsel than specimens 
 of pulpit oratory. Many a mother had presented her child to 
 this venerable old pastor for christening, who had herself been 
 christened by him, at the same altar, years before. To him 
 were confided troubles, fears, plans and ambitions of the 
 plain, wholesome people who were his congregation. His 
 home was the temporary rendezvous of many a hunted, stranded 
 soul. This spirit of sympathy and charity had so pervaded his 
 church that the petty jealousies and rivalries of the other 
 churches of the village found little foothold among his people. 
 
 I had preached in this church several years before at a 
 conference which was held in the village. It was in the midst 
 of the glory of my former pastorate. The people of the village 
 had flocked out to hear the talented young preacher from the 
 city. I little thought then that the gentle, old pastor who 
 introduced me to his congregation that morning was so soon 
 to become my teacher. I became slightly acquainted with 
 his family, one member of which I had not forgotten. His 
 youngest daughter, reared as she had been in the sunshine of 
 this practical Christian home, although I had slight opportu- 
 nity to become acquainted with her, touched my heart as no 
 other woman had. The vision of her simple loveliness, the 
 memory of her helpful accomplishments, had been with me 
 ever since. Perhaps it was this that brought me to this old 
 village again, to seek rest and recuperation. 
 
 It had been several years since I had seen her, during 
 which time my relations to society had presented numerous 
 opportunities to have selected a wife of social standing and 
 wealth. Yet, somehow or other I had not done so; perhaps 
 
THE SECOND PASTORATE. 33 
 
 because of a vague memory perhaps not ; I am not sure. At 
 any rate I was very glad to find that she was still unmarried and 
 an enthusiastic assistant to her father in his many and varied 
 pastoral duties. Our acquaintance soon ripened into warm 
 friendship, which finally resulted in that deepest and holiest 
 of all feelings love. We were married in the fall, two years 
 after my illness ; and the following spring her father, who had 
 become to me more than a father, died. The people all 
 mourned the loss of their dear old pastor, friend and counselor. 
 
 One year from the date of my father-in-law's death, I 
 became the pastor of the church he had served so many years. 
 Even with the aid of my wife, who had been brought up in 
 his work, I found myself in a more difficult place to fill than I 
 did in my city pastorate. 
 
 In the first place my new resolution to bear the gospel to 
 the poor and outcast found little scope in this rural pastorate, 
 as there were very few of tfrat class of people. Such few 
 cases as I managed to find were hopelessly estranged from my 
 people by old prejudices and ancient family feuds. There 
 were in all five churches in the little town of 1,500 people in 
 which my church was located. After a thorough investigation 
 I found that less than 500 actually attended any church. I 
 began visiting among the churchless ones, seeking to interest 
 them in religious matters. But my activities were misunder- 
 stood by the other churches, as well as the people, and I was 
 soon regarded as a proselyter, desiring to build up my church 
 denomination. Everything was quiet before I came. Each 
 church had sett-led down to their definite boundaries. There 
 was peace, but it was the peace of death (as I thought then). 
 
 By the pastors of the other churches, I began to be 
 regarded as a dangerous competitor, as my visits among the 
 people began to bring into my congregation new faces. My 
 colleagues, noticing my success in this line, began to visit 
 also, which soon developed a spirit of rivalry among the 
 churches, although I made every effort possible to avoid such 
 
34 REV. TALKWEIX'S SKETCHES. 
 
 feeling. My evangelical efforts were regarded with some 
 misgivings and embarrassment by my own members. They 
 had come to love the peace of the old days, and the disturbing 
 influence of my zeal to spread the gospel was disquieting to 
 them. 
 
 They were much better acquainted with the newcomers 
 in my congregation than I was, and I discovered a lack of enthu- 
 siasm, if not a decided indifference toward my missionary 
 efforts. I noticed, with sinking spirits, that my intense desire 
 to push my church out into new fields of activity was not only 
 disturbing the peace of my own church, but it was kindling 
 the spirit of jealousy and strife, which already existed to some 
 degree among the churches. Where I had sought to bring the 
 gospel of peace, I had succeeded only in stirring up denomina- 
 tional zeal and competition. 
 
 I knew many of my flock longed for the quiet of the old 
 days, when each church was more or less content with its own 
 little circle of followers, leaving the rest of the world to come 
 and go as it pleased. All this was new to me, and the shame 
 and anguish it caused me was quite overwhelming. What was 
 I to do ? I knew that my mission was to carry the gospel to 
 the world, and not simply to the few believers who constituted 
 my church. But when I undertook to carry the gospel to the 
 world, I found that I was bringing a sword and not peace. 
 
 Petty denominational differences were revived that had 
 long been buried in the quiet days that preceded my pastor- 
 ate. Why could I not be content to preach and visit, to 
 marry and christen, to bury and console, among the little 
 flock left me by my quiet, genial predecessor, whom every bod} r 
 seemed to love. 
 
 My new idea of the function of a gospel minister had led 
 me to study social problems. I thought if I was to carry the 
 good tidings to the poor and outcast I must seek to relieve the 
 conditions that made them poor and outcast. I began to 
 introduce such subbjects in my pulpit, but I soon discovered 
 
THE SECOND PASTORATE. 35 
 
 that my people were not interested in sociology. Prison 
 reform, the tramp problem, better citizenship, purity of poli- 
 tics, and the like, did not seem to them to have any connection 
 with the gospel. In my city pastorate I had the reputation of 
 being a great preacher, but none of the sermons that had made 
 me great there was of the slightest interest here. In the city, 
 surrounded by stirring scenes of local interest, assisted by fine 
 music and elegant accessories of every sort, my eloquence and 
 beautiful diction seemed fitting and met the applause of the 
 multitude (although I doubt not that many a poor, lonely, 
 bereaved, starving soul found little or no help by my 
 eloquence). 
 
 But here it was different. There were no stirring local 
 events. The people were intelligent, but practical. Their 
 lives were simple and frugal. The sermon constituted all 
 there was of a church service. If it referred to matters that 
 touched their lives, they were interested. If not, they were 
 not interested. No artifice or oratory or jugglery of words or 
 gilded diction was of any account to them. 
 
 On funeral occasions I was a sore disappointment to them. 
 With my dear old predecessor a funeral was made a great 
 occasion. He was sure to have a crowded house, to which all 
 denominations contributed. In his simple, clear faith he rose 
 to an eloquence that moved all the people. He believed in 
 heaven; an orthodox heaven. He believed in hell ; an ortho- 
 dox hell. He believed in the endless quiet of the one, and the 
 never-ending disquiet of the other. He never bothered with 
 questions about conditional immortality, continued probation, 
 final salvation or an intermediate state. Death to him was 
 final, but in his broad charity and magnificent toleration he 
 found a comfortable hope in almost every case. 
 
 But with me the case was different. I was not at all clear 
 on questions of future life. I believed in immortality in a 
 general way, but it was a subject about which I disliked to 
 make any definite statements. I had held almost every shade 
 
36 REV. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 of opinion on these subjects without finding myself contented 
 with any, and had settled down into a sort of semi-agnos- 
 ticism on such matters which my city pastorate did not 
 especially disturb. I had been in the habit of reading a few 
 passages of Scripture, making a brief prayer, relating chiefly 
 to the bereaved, sometimes adding a few vague remarks 
 touching immortality. But I had no settled, clear convictions 
 on these subjects. 
 
 I knew nothing about heaven or hell, the whereabouts of 
 departed spirits, the resurrection of the body, and could speak 
 on these subjects only by using figures of speech to which 
 almost any meaning could be attached. This did not satisfy 
 these people. They wanted something more definite. Their 
 small, well kept cemetery marked the last resting place o-f 
 many a beloved one. They expected of me, and had a right to 
 expect something besides surmises, doubts and vague platitudes. 
 But for the assistance of my sweet-spirited wife i should have 
 sunk under the burden of these trials. I knew my people 
 were nearer right than I was, but I could not adjust my think- 
 ing to their expectations of me. I was learning to love them 
 more and more every day, and yet my weakness to serve them 
 was growing more striking and apparent to me. 
 
 Most of my people were born and reared within the 
 limits of the village. To them their little town with its insti- 
 tutions was the world. To me it seemed narrow and petty, 
 although I recognized its charms and virtues. They were 
 proud to have so noted a preacher as a pastor of their church, 
 and yet were secretly disappointed by his ministrations. With 
 my new gospel I had not yet become to be content with little 
 things. I wanted to operate on a larger scale. I wanted to 
 set the town on fire with evangelical zeal, and it had never 
 occurred to me as yet that any such thing could be done or 
 ought to be done, except through the agency of a regularly 
 organized church. 
 
A COUNTRY PREACHER RESIGNS. 
 
 Dr. Talkwell's Fourth Lecture He Resigns His Country Pastorate. 
 
 'N THE lectures that have preceded this one, and this 
 one also, I have ventured to dwell chiefly on my own 
 biography in order to put before you the conditions 
 which brought me to become your pastor. I had been 
 educated for the ministry in the usual way. I had been the 
 successful pastor of a city church, which my health compelled 
 me to resign. While recuperating from the illness, I began to 
 read the New Testament without notes, which greatly changed 
 my views of the function of a Christian minister. 1 accepted a 
 call to a country church. As pastor of a country church 1 found 
 myself much nearer able to be what I conceived a Christian 
 minister ought to be than I had in my previous city pastorate. 
 But I found the place of a country pastor much harder to fill. 
 The artifices and speculations, refinements and literary culture 
 of my ministerial preparation were of little or no service to me 
 in my country pastorate. My preparation for the ministry had 
 not furnished me with the things that interested them. Their 
 interests were entirely local. I found myself hampered by the 
 narrow scope of the subjects that seemed appropriate to my 
 pulpit. While the average intelligence was greater than in 
 the city, their vital interests were limited to their own quiet, 
 pastoral life. 
 
 I had become greatly interested in social subjects. I had 
 learned to love the people in my country parish more and 
 more each year, but my longings for a larger field of activity 
 
38 REV. TALKWELI/S SKETCHES. 
 
 gradually grew upon me. I wanted to come into intimate 
 relations with the classes about which I had read so much. In 
 my former city pastorate I had learned next to nothing of any 
 class except the cultured, aristocratic, prosperous people. In 
 my country pastorate the people were almost entirely frugal, 
 industrious and virtuous. I felt that my call as a Christian 
 minister should bring me more in contact with the wandering 
 sheep. The city only could furnish me the field for my labor. 
 I was thoroughly rested now and wished once more to take up 
 a city pastorate. I felt pure that I could establish an institu- 
 tional church which would enable me to follow in my Master's 
 footsteps in ministering to the poor, the wretched and depraved. 
 I had not as yet been able to lead a church into this sort of 
 work, but I had no doubt but that I should be able to do so, 
 if I found the right sort of a church. 
 
 It had not yet occurred to me that the work of the Master 
 and the work of the pastor were necessarily incompatible. 
 Even in my country pastorate I found it impossible to extend 
 the influence of my church to the ones who needed it most. 
 And the chief obstacle which I encountered was the church 
 itself. The many careless ones and the few depraved and 
 vicious ones within the bounds of my parish were so well 
 known to my people that they had no interest or confidence in 
 any attempt to reclaim them. Thus I was obliged to settle 
 down to the quiet and beautiful life of my venerable prede- 
 cessor, yet I was discontented with it. I was sure that I was 
 not leading the life of a Christian minister. Once more the 
 church stood in my way. I could see no parallel between the 
 life I was living and the life outlined by Jesus when he sent 
 his disciples into 'the world. 
 
 It was at this point in my career that your call for me to 
 serve your church came. I accepted eagerly. I believed it a 
 providential opportunity to preach the new doctrines of Chris- 
 tian ministry which I had come to adopt. I believed I could 
 lead your church into paths of real Christian ministry. 
 
A COUNTRY PREACHER RESIGNS. 39 
 
 When John the Baptist demanded of Jesus evidence that 
 he was the Messiah the only reply he received was that the 
 blind see, the lame walk, and the poor have the Gospel 
 preached to them. I was determined to keep this thought 
 before me. My work should be through the church to preach 
 the Gospel to the poor. It seemed to me, then, that I needed 
 just such an organization to assist me in carrying the Gospel 
 to the poor. It had not occurred to me that my Master had no 
 such organization ; that while he was sometimes found in the 
 synagogues and temples, yet it was not on these he relied for 
 assistance. Indeed it was these institutions that constituted 
 his chief opposition. 
 
 It was not by the aid of the church of his day that Jesus 
 carried the Gospel to the poor, but he did so in spite of the 
 church. I still clung to the idea that Christian ministry could 
 only be hoped for through the church. 
 
 I need not recite to you what has happened while I was 
 your pastor. How you have listened to my sermons on the 
 new gospel ministry and showed your appreciation by raising 
 my salary and presenting me with an elegant parsonage on a 
 fashionable street. How we have sometimes succeeded in per- 
 suading some of the outcasts to come into our elegant church, 
 but to stay only a few weeks. How we have cautiously 
 assisted discharged criminals, hesitatingly thrown out the life- 
 line to the harlot with little or no result except to increase the 
 widespread belief that they are beyond hope. We have tried 
 vainly to bring to us the ones we should have gone to. I 
 should have gone to these people, not to invite them some- 
 where, but to stay with them. It was un-Christlike and 
 impertinent for us to try to force our habits, our manners and 
 our ways of thinking upon these people. To import them 
 into our society and then feel disappointed because they did 
 not like to stay, shows how little we understood the work and 
 the people. After we had made such proselytes, we made 
 them twofold more the children of hell than we were. In our 
 
40 REV. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 home life and in our church life we were thoroughly incapaci- 
 tated to reach the poor because of the barriers of wealth and 
 culture. To invite them into our homes was only to fill them 
 with envy or tempt them to steal. To inveigle them into our 
 church was simply to awe them into stupid embarrassment or 
 make them mad at what seemed to them sinful extravagance. 
 
 I do not blame any of you for these things. You have 
 done your very best to follow where I have led. We have 
 simply attempted an impossible thing. I have been trying to 
 get you to do the work that I set out to do. My Master did 
 not try to get people to go into the synagogues or temples. 
 That was not his work. Neither the synagogues nor the 
 temples nor any other institution of civilization could minister 
 to the peculiar needs of a certain class of downtrodden ones. 
 He went to them, ministering to their needs, stayed with them, 
 became one of them, suffered with them, rejoiced with them, 
 lived with them. Because he did this his name has become 
 a power and an inspiration in the world ever since. 
 
 He called his followers to do the same work he did. I 
 professed to be one of his chosen followers, but I did not fol- 
 low in this work. My mistake was in supposing that I could 
 follow him in the peculiar work he assigned his followers 
 while I remained the pastor of my church. While that insti- 
 tution we call the church is doing a great work, and a necessary 
 work in the evolution of human society, yet I insist that it is 
 not doing the work which Jesus expected his ministers to do. 
 He told his ministers to go to the lost sheep of the house of 
 Israel. " To provide neither gold nor silver nor brass in their 
 purses, nor script for their journey, neither two coats, neither 
 shoes, nor yet staves." 
 
 At the same time Jesus said these things the synagogues 
 and the temples were in operation, but had failed to minister 
 to the whole people, just as the church of today fails to min- 
 ister to a certain class of people. It was to this churchless 
 class that he sent his disciples, and it is to this class that he 
 
A COUNTRY PREACHER RESIGNS. 41 
 
 calls them today. Instead of going to the churchless I went 
 to the churches. I provided myself with purse and script and 
 gold and silver and brass, and two coats, and shoes, and every- 
 thing else that any luxury-loving man could desire. 
 
 In the ten years that I have served you as pastor, I have 
 make a frantic but futile attempt to compromise and com- 
 mingle these two courses of living. I have tried to be a 
 minister of Jesus Christ, and the pastor of a modern church 
 at the same time. I have tried to drag the church out of its 
 legitimate function into a field of activity that it can never be 
 made to serve. The church is an educational institution, it 
 is this and nothing more. It is only incidentally and accident- 
 ally doing any of the work that Jesus desired his followers to 
 do. It is doing a good work, a work that at present, at least, 
 can not be performed by any other institution or society. 
 
 The ones to whom Jesus sent his disciples live and die, 
 go and come, in this city, absolutely untouched by the churches. 
 The church can not go to them ;' could not serve them if it did 
 go. I do not blame the church for these things, for it was 
 neither called nor instituted by Jesus, nor did he expect it 
 to do his work. I blame only myself, who profess to be a 
 special minister of Jesus, called to do his special work among 
 that special class to which he was sent. 
 
 In this series of lectures I have tried to lay before you 
 more fully my reasons for resigning as your pastor. I am not 
 a Christian minister, never have been, and quite likely never 
 will be. I feel sure that my past life has utterly incapacitated 
 me for any such work. Your society has kindly invited me to 
 give these lectures, and I appreciate the opportunity to 
 explain myself. 
 
 I have a proposition to make to this society a business 
 proposition, simply. If you will accept it on the terms men- 
 tioned in my letter to you, you may consider it a bargain. An 
 honest bargain, I hope, but the same kind of a bargain as any 
 other commercial transaction. 
 
42 REV. TALK WELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 I will agree to go in the byways and neglected places of 
 this city each week, learn what I can from these people, and 
 come to this place every Sunday, morning and tell you what I 
 have seen and heard during the week. You may call my 
 reports what you please ; sermons, lectures, or what not, but I 
 beg of you not to call me a Christian minister. I will try in 
 these visits through the city to ascertain for you what a Chris- 
 tian minister might do if he would. I believe that there is a 
 great work that could be done. I am willing to confess to 
 you that at present I have neither the courage nor faith to 
 enter this work wholly myself, but I can at least ascertain 
 what the work is, and outline for you the practical details. I 
 shall not blame any one for hesitating or refusing to do this 
 work, for this is exactly what I have done myself. If you 
 conclude to employ me to do this work for you, I will be here 
 next Sunday morning with my first week's experience among 
 that class of people, who, although no worse in the sight of 
 God than any other people, yet are crushed down and degraded 
 by the inevitable and unavoidable evolution of human society. 
 
YE VISITED ME NOT. 
 
 How We Preachers Minister to Those in Prison. 
 
 WAS just about to say when I was interrupted this 
 morning, that instead of visiting some one of the 
 by ways of this city during the past week and report- 
 ing to you what I had seen, I was unexpectedly called 
 to a neighboring city in this state. My call brought me into 
 contact with the workhouse located there. Like other work- 
 houses, the prisoners are those who have committed petty 
 offenses which are not considered of sufficient gravity for the 
 penitentiary. They are an ignorant, diseased, underwitted, 
 unskilled, shiftless class addicted to the use of one or more 
 narcotics, generally brought up in vices of all sorts, depraved 
 by their parents, outraged by society, degraded by the powers 
 that should be their defenders. These men and women are 
 huddled together in care of those who have no other thought 
 than to get as much out of them as possible with as little 
 expense. 
 
 These people are the natural and legitimate product of 
 the same society that is avenging itself upon them. I am not 
 complaining of these things, however, I am only putting them 
 before you. They are, perhaps, unavoidable, under the cir- 
 cumstances. Well, here they are, huddled together, helpless, 
 hopeless and despondent, a hundred or more of them. Their 
 keeper is a politician. He got his place as a political spoil. 
 He knows nothing or cares nothing about humanity, 
 ethics or religion. He refuses them reading matter, because, 
 
44 REV. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 as he says, they are there to be punished, and he conceives it 
 his duty to make them as miserable as he can. The lives of 
 these people are absolutely within the keeping of this man 
 and his assistants. If ever men and women needed or 
 deserved intelligent and prayerful assistance, these poor crea- 
 tures do. 
 
 a I was in prison and ye visited me, r is doubtless read 
 from every pulpit in that city Sunday after Sunday, and they 
 who read this saying of Jesus are called ministers of Jesus 
 Christ. Where are they and what are they doing about these 
 poor people? They are attending to the finances of their sev- 
 eral churches. They are visiting among happy and prosperous 
 parishioners. They are attending socials, church fairs, after- 
 noon teas, and what not. They are giving lectures, preaching 
 sermons, reading essays, in short, they are performing their 
 legitimate function in society A good work, but not this kind 
 of work. They know nothing nor care nothing for these poor 
 creatures, who, softened by adversity, quickened by despair, 
 would grasp eagerly any hand stretched out to save them. A 
 splendid opportunity for the ministry. But do they do it, 
 these people who are called ministers of Jesus Christ? No, 
 they do not. 
 
 A miserable make-shift of a Sunday service is held once 
 a week for these people by a layman and his wife, whose the- 
 ology is of that bygone type which the least a person hears of 
 it the better he is off. The superintendent is not at all in 
 sympathy with these services, and the friction between him 
 and the people who hold the services is well known to the 
 prisoners. 
 
 The females do not attend the services at all, but pur- 
 posely disturb them by tramping and shuffling in the rooms 
 directly above. This is a fine redress that society is making 
 these outraged children. Why are there no harvesters in this 
 field, ripe and waiting for reapers? Why is it that the elo- 
 quence, the learning, the training is used in that city every 
 
YE VISITED ME NOT. $ 
 
 Sunday on audiences that have no need, no sorrow, except the 
 need and sorrow of over-indulgence and ennui ? Why is there 
 not one from among the number of those who call themselves 
 Christian ministers in that city why is there not one who 
 will go to those people, become their consoler, and, if need be, 
 their defender? Why is it they will continue to minister to 
 those who come to hear them out of a sense of duty or force 
 of habit, or because it is the proper thing to do, rather than 
 that they have any need or interest in their ministry ? Why 
 do they not go to those that need them to those who are in 
 sorrow, to those who are poor, to those who are oppressed, to 
 those who are in prison ? I will tell you why. 
 
 Because this is not their work. They have no time. 
 They are already overworked. They know nothing of these 
 people arid could render them no practical service. They 
 know nothing of hunger, poverty ; nothing of the despair of 
 the down trodden, nothing of the paralyzing anguish of hav- 
 ing no friends. Some people blame them for not doing this 
 work. I do not. 1 know by bitter experience that they have 
 no preparation for it. It is the work of a Christian minister ; 
 a follower of Jesus. One who is willing to work for no salary. 
 To become of no reputation. To be counted among publicans 
 and sinners. Willing to have men separate themselves from 
 his company as from an evil thing ; willing to be called a 
 friend of harlots, a wine bibber, or anything else that the 
 Pharisees of all ages call those who do the real work of Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 There is one caution I wish to drop here, however, before 
 closing, which seems to have been overlooked by the church 
 entirely. It is the assumption that the poor, the depraved, 
 the prisoners, and such like, are so easily ministered to that 
 almost anyone will do. If a boy becomes enthusiastic on 
 religion, no matter how ignorant he may be, or how abnormal 
 his previous life may have been, if he only has the gift of gab 
 and self-confidence, he is thought to be just the fellow for 
 
46 REV. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 mission work. If he has been a bummer, a prize-fighter, a 
 drunkard, or a horse thief, so much the better ; he will attract 
 a bigger audience. To stand such a man up to recite his 
 adventures in a mission or prison is supposed to be just the 
 thing that will save that kind of people. Theology, no matter 
 how rotten, how irrational it may be, is all right if it is only 
 Dut strong enough. To make them smell sulphur and see 
 Satan, as John Calvin did, is thought to be just the medicine 
 that the low and vicious ones need. 
 
 Let me tell you that I think this a great mistake. If any 
 audience needs rational theology it is these audiences. Sub- 
 terfuges will meet with far better reception with the average 
 church audience than with such people. All the wisdom, and 
 sagacity, and prudence, and eloquence, and logic, and common 
 sense, of which any man is capable, is needed to properly 
 handle the audience that commonly gathers at the missions, or 
 is found in the prison. If foolish theology must be preached, 
 let it be somewhere else than these places. Let it be served up 
 in beautiful diction and rythmical cadence to aristocratic audi- 
 ences who care for such things, but in the mission and prison 
 there is actual human need, human distress ; platitudes won't 
 do here, heart must address heart, experience must touch 
 experience, feeling must engender feeling, hope must kindle 
 hope, no shams can be mode to work here. I wish I could 
 emphasize this caution. 
 
A REFORMED PARSONAGE. 
 
 Dr. TalkwelPs New Parsonage " I was a Stranger and Ye Took 
 
 Me In." 
 
 Y DEAR," said Mrs. Talkwell to her husband at 
 breakfast the next morning after the doctor's first 
 report, u now that you are free from the foolish 
 burdens and unnatural vexations of a city pastor- 
 ate, why can't we carry out the plan we wished to when we 
 first came to this city? You know we intended to rent that 
 large brick house on North Third street and furnish it cheaply, 
 without carpets or unnecessary 'furniture, and make of it a 
 Christian home, where any one could be made welcome. I 
 noticed as I passed it yesterday that it was for rent again.'' 
 
 u But, my dear, while I know what is in your heart, and 
 feel, like you, that it is positively sinful for us to continue to 
 live here, surrounded by so much needless luxury (glancing 
 around the elegant parsonage presented to him by his former 
 parishioners), while so many people as worthy as we are are 
 suffering for the common necessities of life; yet have you con- 
 sidered all that is involved in this undertaking? Just think of 
 the locality ; such an undesirable place to bring up our chil- 
 dren. And " 
 
 " Yes, yes !" responded Mrs. Talkwell, "I have thought 
 of all that. Here is Martha now. nineteen years old ; has 
 finished school ; and Ruth, seventeen, quite old enough to 
 begin to minister to others in return for all she has received. 
 And as for Mark, he is twelve years old today; and I know of 
 no better way to celebrate his birthday than for us to resolve 
 
48 REV. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 here and now to bid farewell to all this wealth and luxury ; to 
 go out into the world and l^ve among that kind of people to 
 whom the Master sent his ministers." 
 
 u Really, papa," said Martha, "don't hesitate on our 
 account ; for mamma has been talking the matter over with 
 Ruth and me, and we would like to try the experiment. We 
 are heartily sick of the selfishness and uselessness of the lives 
 we have been living. If we have any culture or accomplish- 
 ments as the result of all our study and training, we are quite 
 willing to let others who have not and can not have such 
 privileges share the benefit of them (if indeed there can be 
 any benefit in them)." 
 
 u And, besides!" exclaimed Ruth, "I believe we shall 
 learn to love these people quite as well as the people with 
 whom we have been associated. What little I have taught in 
 the mission Sunday school has brought me to see that beneath 
 their untidy appearance and rough behavior there is a sincerity 
 and frankness that are quite refreshing. I think we should all 
 like it very much." 
 
 " Why, you quite surprise me with your missionary zeal!" 
 replied the doctor, laughingly. 
 
 " But I decidedly object," interposed Martha, " being 
 called a missionary. I have seen so much of that kind of 
 people ever since I can remember that the sound of the word 
 is associated in my mind with the uncanny and the unreal." 
 
 "And then," added Ruth, " I don't like the word 'zeal,' 
 either. It's all right, I suppose, but it makes one think of 
 John the Baptist. I'd rather call it interest than zeal." 
 
 " Oh, well, my dears, you'll have to excuse your father in 
 an occasional use of these old theological terms. They stick 
 to me like bad habits. Such words have been horribly mis- 
 used, and I do not wonder you have an aversion for them. 
 But, my son, what do you think of the idea of going on North 
 Third street to live in a big house, with bare walls and floors, 
 bare windows, hospital beds, wood-bottom chairs, cheap crock- 
 
A REFORMED PARSONAGE. 49 
 
 ery, and live on soup-bones instead of porter house steak? 
 How would you like that, my son ?" 
 
 "Oh, I don't care where we live, so long as I have mamma 
 for my sweetheart, and you and the girls to play with. We 
 can have just as much fun there as anywhere, I suppose. 
 Anyhow, I have more fun at home than anywhere else. What 
 difference is it to me what street it's on?" 
 
 " But," interrupted Mrs. Talkwell, u we ought to consider 
 this business seriously, and get about it at once. We could 
 dispose of our furniture, bric-a-brac and jewelry for a consid- 
 erable sum. This house will rent for sixty dollars a month, 
 which, together with the salary they pay for your Sunday 
 mo-ming reports, will make all the income we shall need for a 
 time at least." 
 
 "Well, really, my dear, I think I shall turn the practical 
 details of the matter over to you. You seem to have a head 
 for worldly wisdom." 
 
 " What would we call our new home ? " asked Ruth. 
 
 " I should prefer to call it nothing," answered the doctor. 
 "It will be simply our home, with room to spare. We will be 
 only putting ourselves in a situation to do what Jesus expected 
 his disciples to do when he said, 1 1 was a stranger and ye took 
 me in.' As it is, you see we can do nothing of the sort. We 
 could admit no stranger to our present home. Hospitality 
 with us is a practical impossibility." 
 
 " But why," persisted Ruth, " must we practice such rigid 
 economy and frugality?" 
 
 " Well," replied the doctor in mock gravity, "in order to 
 put my answer in sermon form, we must practice economy and 
 frugality : 
 
 " First That we may excite in others no envy. 
 
 " Second That we may tempt no man to steal from us. 
 
 " Third That we may have something to spare for others. 
 
 " Fourth That we may no longer be examples of gluttony 
 and extravagance. 
 
50 REV. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 " Fifth That we may be able to follow" 
 
 " I rise to a point of order," laughingly interrupted Mrs. 
 Talkwell. " We were to have -no more preaching in this 
 family. We were to drop preaching and go to practicing. In 
 place of being a family of Talk- wells, we are aspiring to become 
 a family of Do-wells." 
 
 u Forgive me, my dear. I had temporarily forgotten my- 
 self. I will sin no more in this regard. At least I will try 
 very hard. I wish there was a gold cure for bad habits like 
 this. I have other bad habits, but the habit of preaching is 
 my worst one. The Lord reveals to me his will, and instead 
 of doing it, I make a sermon out of it and shout it to others. 
 Then, like a fool, I sit down and wonder why others do not 
 do what God has told me to do. Seriously, I desire the prayers 
 of my family that I may be finally liberated from the perni- 
 cious and lifelong habit of preaching." 
 
 u But to return to the subject of economy," quietly re- 
 marked Mrs. Talkwell with a roguish twinkle in her eye, "I 
 suspect that the girls have other reasons for looking forward 
 with some anxiety to a home in a private poorhouse. I am 
 afraid they will find it quite embarrassing to receive certain of 
 their callers in a home such as we have been talking about, 
 especially as they are liable to meet there " 
 
 "No, mamma," interrupted Ruth, U I think you do us 
 both injustice. You know very well we shall not consider that 
 we have lost anything to lose callers who would object on such 
 grounds." 
 
 And yet the tell-tale blushes on the faces of the two girls 
 indicated that the remark of their mother had raised in their 
 minds a phase of the question which they had already thought 
 about. Poor girls. We congratulate you and yet we pity 
 you. If you take this step you will need no young people's 
 religious meetings to suggest Christian work for you. It will 
 come to you thick and fast. You will need no tracts, lesson 
 leaves, or sermons, to tell you what to do. You will need only 
 
A REFORMED PARSONAGE. 51 
 
 frequent recourse to your closet, where, with door shut, your 
 Father will come to you in secret with the wisdom and 
 strength for each day's work. 
 
 Thus it was that the Talkwell family established their 
 new home. Such a home that if Jesus were to come into this 
 city hungry, friendless, and with no place to lay his head, he 
 would find ready welcome, instead of being met with suspicion 
 or scorn or fed on the back porch with a few cold scraps like a 
 dog. 
 
 Not a public institution nor yet a proselyting dodge, but 
 simply a Christian home; just such a home as is absolutely 
 indispensable to Christian hospitality. The only sort of a 
 home that has the least vestige of excuse for claiming to be a 
 Christian home. Not a place of many inmates, but simply a 
 few guests, with such a degree of intimacy as to make fraud 
 impossible and merit recognizable. In short, a Christian home 
 where Christian hospitality and fraternity are possible. 
 
A PRACTICAL BEGINNING. 
 
 ''Render Unto Cresar the Things that are Caesar's, and Unto God 
 the Things that are God's." 
 
 was an unwonted flush of enthusiasm notice- 
 able in the face of Dr. Talkwell last Sunday as 
 he awaited the seating of the vast audience assem- 
 bling to hear his report from the neglected places of 
 our city. He seemed overwhelmed with surprise at the change 
 in the personnel of his audience. The faces of many old 
 friends and former parishioners were missing, as it had been 
 rumored that the doctor's report might make it embarrassing 
 for certain owners of property located in the Bad Lands, who 
 were members of his former church. But where one had left 
 his audience, twenty had come, seemingly of the working 
 class. But if any came to hear a sensational lecture they 
 were disappointed, for whatever else the doctor may be, he is 
 not a sensational pulpiteer. 
 
 After the organ voluntary had ceased, after the audience 
 was waiting with breathless expectation, still the doctor sat 
 with bowed head, as if in meditation or silent prayer. A 
 solemn hush fell on the assembly. No audible prayer could 
 have effected such a sincere and impressive devotional spirit 
 as seemed to pervade the whole congregation. It seemed, 
 indeed, as if the Lord was in his temple, and all the earth kept 
 silent. The omission in these services of the usual stereotyped 
 prayer was never fully understood and appreciated by the 
 church-goers until this service. Not a word was spoken, and 
 
A PRACTICAL BEGINNING. 53 
 
 yet never in the history of this church was an audience so 
 touched by a spirit of true devotion. "And thy Father, which 
 seeth in secret shall reward thee openly," these words spoken 
 by Jesus so long ago took on a new meaning to every one. 
 
 The report, (of which unfortunately only the briefest synop- 
 sis can be allowed space,) was given without notes in an easy? 
 familiar manner. It was an occasion when oratory would 
 have seemed vulgar, and poetry as much out of place as at a 
 cabinet meeting. 
 
 He said among other things : If any have stayed away 
 from this meeting for fear of the report I am about to make, 
 it is another example of the Scripture that says: u The 
 wicked fleeth when no man pursueth." I am neither a Gat- 
 ling gun nor a blatant, meddler with other people's affairs. I 
 am at work trying to find out all I can about this city, but I 
 shall take plenty of time and caution before I repeat the items 
 to this meeting. Notwithstanding I have been a pastor in this 
 city for over ten years, I know next to nothing about the city, 
 but I do know enough about it to comprehend that these 
 things can not be understood in a day or in a month. I am 
 not one of those who think they can go slumming Saturday 
 night and then stand in the pulpit Sunday morning and tell 
 the city officials how to run the city government. This h< r .s 
 already been done in this city several times with very unfor- 
 tunate results to every one concerned. I am not going to fol- 
 low this very unwise example. 
 
 Let me tell you briefly what I am proposing to do. I am 
 determined to juggle no longer with the plain words of Jesus. 
 I am going to do as he told me to do, partly, at least (for you 
 remember that I have already confessed to you that I have 
 neither the courage nor the faith to become wholly a Christian 
 minister). I am going to leave the ninety and nine sheep that 
 are safe within the fold, and I am going out to hunt for the 
 lost one, and shall not be at all surprised if I find ten where I 
 was looking for one. 
 
54 REV. TALKWEIwI/S SKETCHES. 
 
 I mean by lost sheep simply those who are getting the 
 worst of it. I mean those who for one reason or another are 
 deprived of the bounties which God has provided for all alike. 
 I mean those who are suffering from cold, or hunger, or 
 injustice, or disease, or neglect, or degradation of any kind. 
 With the great chariot of progress I have no quarrel whatever. 
 The most of us were lucky enough to get into this chariot 
 where we are riding safe from the perils that assail those out- 
 side. Ninety are on the chariot, ten are under its wheels, 
 being crushed to death by its progress. We, who are safe, 
 have no cause for boasting or egotism. The reason we are 
 aboard instead of being ground under the wheels is the accident 
 of hereditary endowment, early education, and other peculiar 
 circumstances over which we have no control. 
 
 I want to go to my lost brothers. Not because they are 
 worse men than I am, but because they are suffering. I have 
 been safely housed all these years within the told, ministering 
 to the ninety and nine, diligently stopping my ears to the 
 piteous bleatings of the lost one on the dreary, cold mountains 
 of despair and wretchedness. I have tried to make myself and 
 others believe that Jesus did not exactly mean that I was to 
 go out of the comfortable, warm, elegant sheep-fold and give 
 up my whole time in the search for lost sheep in the wretched 
 squalor, where vice and vulgarity shudder and cringe. 
 
 I was willing to collect money to hire some one else to go 
 after the lost one or deliver beautiful exhortations to admiring 
 congregations on the subject, but that I, the scholarly writer, 
 the eloquent preacher, the refined Christian gentleman, should 
 attend in person to such small matters seemed ridiculous. 
 And I should have made myself thoroughly ridiculous had I 
 attempted it, without a doubt, for with all my learning I knew 
 nothing whatever about real Christian ministry. But now 
 that I desired to stop quibbling and do some real Christian 
 work, a new difficulty arose. 
 
 How to go about it that was my problem. The higher 
 
A PRACTICAL BEGINNING. 55 
 
 criticisms or social theories were of no use to me now. My 
 immense and costly library was useless trash in this extremity. 
 I could not solve this problem with a lead pencil safe in my 
 cosy study, as I had been in the habit of solving social prob- 
 lems. I spent several restless nights in which no sleep came 
 to my relief. 
 
 Even my prayers seemed of no avail in this matter, for I 
 was praying through the thick fog of my own prejudices. I 
 did not know I was prejudiced; no one does. Every preju- 
 diced man thinks he is fair and liberal. It is only after he gets 
 over it that he discovers that he was prejudiced. 
 
 During all the time when I was wondering what I should 
 do and how I should begin, the evil city government kept 
 reverting to my mind as the logical and probable place lor 
 assistance. In their public distribution of alms, in the man- 
 agement of public safety, with the information collected by 
 the policemen who patrol every part of the city day and night, 
 what institution or institutions' could possibly be in possession 
 of so much information ? Here my prejudice arose. 
 
 While I had not made myself prominent in any opposi- 
 tion or criticism upon the city authorities, yet the public utter- 
 ances of those who had done so, had prejudiced my mind 
 against the authorities. While I knew nothing about the 
 matter personally, yet I harbored a vague notion that they 
 were bad men and cared for little else than boodle and were 
 as far removed from any desire to assist any Christian work as 
 it was possible for any set of men to be. Mind you, I did not 
 know anything about this, and yet the persistent and repeated 
 attacks, assertions and insinuations of these critics had thor- 
 oughly prejudiced my mind against our city authorities. 
 
 It was, therefore, with great hesitation, that I finally con- 
 cluded to visit the mayor's office. I expected to find well, 
 no matter what I expected. I had rather tell you what I did 
 find. I found a cordial welcome, a respectful and sympathetic 
 attention to all I had to say, and when I revealed the fact that 
 
56 REV. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 I only wished to come into such relations to the poverty, vice 
 and degradation of our city as to enable me to understand 
 them, to report them and try to be of assistance in mitigating 
 them, I was not only assured of his personal aid, but every 
 facility afforded by the city government was offered me. There 
 were placed before me plans and work already done in this 
 direction. The quiet benevolences, the unknown charities, 
 the un-talked of humanities that had been going on in this 
 public office all through the pitiless shower of vituperation 
 and slander of the churches, were incidentally revealed to me 
 as our conversation continued. I was astonished and ashamed, 
 and yet pleased that I had found the assistance I so much 
 needed. 
 
 The personal and official assistance rendered me by the 
 executive department has enabled me to find out more about 
 our city inside of two weeks yes, a hundred times more 
 than I had learned in ten years of pastoral work. Now that I 
 have assumed sympathetic relations to the city government 
 my old distrust and hostility are rapidly disappearing. I 
 expect to find imperfections where shall I look for perfec- 
 tion? But surely fraternity is better than estrangement. I 
 regret that I did not see this long ago. Why did I not follow 
 my Master in such things ? The scribes and Pharisees tried 
 in every way to get him to speak ill of the very unjust govern- 
 ment that prevailed in his time. But not a word of criticism 
 could they get from him. When tli;y brought him the tribute 
 money and asked him if it was lawful for Cassar to collect 
 tribute of them, he would answer them nothing else but 
 u Render unto Cassar the things that are Caesars ; and unto 
 God the things that are God's." To criticise governments was 
 not the Master's work. He came to bring good tidings of 
 peace to all men, especially to the poor, the downtrodden, the 
 outcast. 
 
 I wish I had always attended to my own business, instead 
 of spending my strength in criticising other people's affairs. 
 
A PRACTICAL BEGINNING. 57 
 
 Nothing is so much needed in our cities as sympathetic 
 relation between the churches and the city government. This 
 could be easily brought about if the churches would try to do 
 as Jesus did in these matters. I have every reason to believe 
 that the people who constitute the city governments would 
 meet all respectful advances on the part of the churches with 
 courtesy. 
 
 Some of the churches entirely ignore the city government, 
 paying no attention whatever to the affairs of the city. This 
 is very wrong. Others of the churches are spending their 
 strength and vitality in fighting the city government. This is 
 also wrong. I fear the churches are rare, indeed, who are 
 earnestly trying, in a Christian spirit, to make friends with 
 the city government, and thus become of real use to the city. 
 
 I hope my past errors in this respect will be somewhat 
 atoned for by my future conduct. No one in this city is in 
 greater need of reform than myself. I see this now, very 
 plainly. I wish I had seen it before. 
 
A PREACHER'S EMANCIPATION. 
 
 41 Come Unto Me, All Ye That Labor and are Heavy Laden, and I 
 Will Give You Rest." 
 
 JT THE close of a very interesting report of our city's 
 by-ways, which was mainly statistical, the doctor 
 closed with the following words : When I was in 
 the regular pastorate I was often at my wit's end 
 to know what to preach about next. It seemed to me often 
 that I had preached every subject I could think of thread- 
 bare. Oh, for something new to preach about. This was my 
 perpetual worry. With something to preach about it was easy 
 enough to make a sermon. I used to invent all sorts of means 
 to suggest new themes for my pulpit. I would search through 
 books of sermons, glance over the pages of an encyclopedia, 
 turn the leaves of my dictionary, rummage in historic anec- 
 dotes, anything and everything to ring a change on the 
 hackneyed questions and trite topics which I considered 
 proper for pulpit work. 
 
 I must have succeeded in this better than the average 
 preacher, for my success in drawing and holding an audience 
 was good, as you all know. But the anxious agony it cost 
 me kept me constantly in a state of restless absent-mindedness, 
 oblivious to the pathos, the humor and the beauty of every- 
 day happenings about me. The shivering beggar, the chatter- 
 ing school girl, the swaggering policeman, the noisy parade, 
 were all passed by me without the slightest interruption to 
 my exhausting cogitations. Oh, the brain weariness of it all! 
 
A PREACHER'S EMANCIPATION. 59 
 
 I shudder as I recall it. It comes back to me like the memory 
 of a horrible nightmare. 
 
 But all is changed now. Since breaking away from the 
 necessity of preaching two sermons about nothing every week, 
 and since spending my time more as Jesus did among the 
 people, I find my themes accumulating much more rapidly 
 than I can dispose of them. Your written questions have 
 piled up about me here until I scarcely know what to do 
 with them. Such pertinent questions, too! Questions that 
 probe the innerness of subjects entirely new to me, but 
 extremely interesting. I can scarcely wait for the opportunity 
 to speak to you on Sunday morning. 
 
 Notwithstanding that we have dispensed with all pre- 
 liminaries, except the organ voluntary, and all concluding 
 ceremonies other than to shake hands and go home, yet the 
 time seems far too short for me to say to you what is in my 
 heart! If every day were Sunday I should have no want of 
 new themes to bring to your attention. The home that I live 
 in now brings them to me thicker and faster. My daily duties 
 and privileges are better than all the libraries on earth as 
 sermon-making material. And the joy of it all, the exhilara- 
 tion of it and the healthy reaction of sleep and rest which 
 follow such fatigue as this. Oh, the freedom of it ! I would 
 not go back to my bonds again for the world. The bonds that 
 bound me to conventionalities, that bound me to proprieties, 
 that bound me to the niceties of modern culture, that bound 
 me to creeds, to church usages, pastoral duties, to ecclesiastical 
 burden bearing. 
 
 Oh, that I had heard the voice of my Master years ago, 
 calling me from the foolish worry and futile labors which 
 beset me. How many times have I read, for the benefit of 
 others, my Master's words when he said : u Come unto me, 
 all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you 
 rest." 
 
 I little thought, in those days when I was reading this to 
 
60 REV. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 others, no man needed to heed this invitation more than 
 myself. All the dreary days I was heavy laden and bearing 
 useless burdens, burdens that Jesus never intended me to 
 bear. Now that I have broken the ecclesiastical chains that 
 bound me to the pitiless proprieties of church usages I have 
 found that rest which Jesus promised his followers. 
 
 I can go in and out now among the people, the poor people, 
 the depraved people, the ones who need me most, with no church 
 dignity to weigh me down, or ecclesiastical propriety to pull me 
 back. I have to consult no one's quirks or qualms on these 
 subjects but my own. The usages of polite society, the fetters 
 of orthodoxy are nothing to me whatever. And the freedom of 
 it ! I never understood before what was meant by the freedom 
 of the gospel. To be free from the law, the unwritten law of 
 society, the church and tradition. I never understood before 
 what Jesus meant when he said : a And ye shall know the 
 truth and the truth shall make you free," and again, "if 
 the son shall make you free, ye shall be free, indeed." 
 This may sound to you like boyish enthusiasm, but it seems 
 quite real to me. If you could realize the hampering influ- 
 ences and the suffocating limitations of the regular pastor's 
 life, you would be better able to understand the joy of my 
 emancipation. 
 
 No man has less time or less strength to devote to real 
 Christian ministry. His life is filled with petty annoyances, 
 frivolous interruptions and futile distractions. No time is his 
 own time, no day is his day of rest. He has neither holy days 
 nor holidays. His cares, domestic, ecclesiastical and social ; 
 his burdens, financial, clerical and scholastic, weigh him down. 
 I know by experience how gladly he would break away from 
 the whole torturing business if he dared to. But he feels sure 
 that church traditions and personal necessities have bound 
 him hopelessly to the stake of public opinion. He honestly 
 believes that the faggots of censorship are piled high about 
 him, and that the least attempt to break away from old beliefs 
 
A PREACHER'S EMANCIPATION. 61 
 
 and usages would only light the fire which would make his 
 martyrdom complete. 
 
 But this is not true. The people are ready to support real 
 gospel ministry. They are as tired of paying for this sort of 
 thing as the preachers are tired of furnishing it. It only needs 
 a little frankness and mutual confession on both sides to end 
 this long drawn out misunderstanding. Your magnanimous 
 treatment of my confession and resignation is a prophecy of 
 what is to come. " Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on 
 earth." 
 
EVOLUTION AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 44 For We Know That the Whole Creation Qroaneth and Travaileth 
 Together in Pain Until Now." 
 
 JT THE close of his regular Sunday morning report, 
 Dr. Talkwell said : I find a question here which 
 has been repeated so many times I am inclined to 
 answer it. It is this : " How do you reconcile the 
 theory of evolution to your teaching on the Christian min- 
 istry ? " The evolution of human society is a phrase that is 
 on the lips of almost everybody, nowadays, but how few really 
 believe in it. If this phrase means anything it means spon- 
 taneous growth, growth from inherent forces, conscious but 
 not self-conscious growth, a growth that no one can hinder or 
 help. Reformers make for themselves early graves by sup- 
 posing that they can help society to grow ; tyrants are crushed 
 in the attempt to stop its growth. Governments seek to guide 
 a growth they do not understand, and the lawless strive 
 to break the laws of their being which no man can break. 
 Men shout themselves hoarse in advocating theories of quick- 
 ening the growth of society or make themselves ridiculous by 
 trying to turn back the wheels of time, but the slow, ceaseless, 
 irresistible evolution goes on, giving heed to none. Absolutely 
 impartial, completely immutable. 
 
 Men may pray or men may curse ; the growth of society 
 is neither hastened nor impeded. Institutions rise, nations 
 spring up, customs flourish, but these all pass away without 
 leaving a trace to mark their futile attempt to increase or 
 decrease the pulse beat of creation one whit. Creeds, statutes, 
 
EVOLUTION AND CHRISTIANITY. 63 
 
 theologies, usages, revelations, are but clods that cling to the 
 wheels of time in their ponderous, unhesitating revolution, 
 clods that are soon flung by the wayside by the centrifugal 
 force of progress. Who can help God? Who .can hurry prov- 
 idence ? 
 
 This evolution is carried on by eternal, changeless laws 
 God's laws. I do not mean by the law, the Old Testament 
 canon, or the New Testament canon. I mean the rational 
 laws upon which society rests, the law of trade, the law of 
 mental growth, the physical laws, the laws of the universe, 
 the laws that govern all social relations, and all other laws, 
 physical, mental, and spiritual, upon which the evolution 
 of society depends. Man did not make these laws. Man 
 can not unmake these laws ; man can not break these laws 
 nor prevent them. He can destroy himself by standing in 
 the way of them. The church is one of the great educa- 
 tional institutions of the land, one of the forces that is 
 working out the evolution of society. The church, like all 
 other institutions of civilization, is a part of the great system 
 of law which undertakes to govern the growth of society. 
 The church has a work to do, but it is a work of the law, 
 not of the Gospel. Jesus said that he came not to destroy 
 the law, but that every jot and tittle of the law must be 
 fulfilled. 
 
 Every honest merchant, every well-meaning mechanic, 
 every conscientious student, every sincere preacher, is working 
 out the problem of the evolution of human society. Books 
 can not do this, nor talk can not. Experience in actual busi- 
 ness relations is the only guide. Sentiment has little or no 
 part to play in it. Complete justice, absolute equity, this is 
 all that is needed to prepare the world for the kingdom of 
 God. The laws inherent in the nature of things must bring in 
 this justice and equity. We can not hope for these things to 
 come from any other source. Talking will not do it. 
 
 In the meantime, while this grind' of social forces is going 
 
64 REV. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 on, a process which no man can hinder or help, there is a large 
 multitude of people, who, from no fault of theirs, are being 
 ground to death. This is inevitable, incurable, and but slowly 
 growing more tolerable. Thousands are suffering,, thousands 
 will continue to suffer, for which there is no radical remedy 
 available ; no cure possible. It is to these that the Christian 
 minister is called. His mission to them is not reformation or 
 condemnation, or, so-called, salvation. It is simply the mis- 
 sion of the Master Jesus to bind up the broken-hearted, to show 
 them that the part they are taking in the evolution of human 
 society is no mean part ; that they are the chiefest of martyrs 
 and not the chiefest of sinners. To show them the dignity of 
 poverty, the value of adversity ; to show them that a clean 
 heart and a right spirit (the only real treasure in this world) 
 are as near, even nearer, to them than to the rich and the 
 arrogant. 
 
 Many questions handed to me seem to indicate a belief 
 that I am teaching a new doctrine of Christian living. This is 
 a mistake. What I have been saying applies only to the 
 Christian minister. We who pretend to be doing the work of 
 the Christian minister are not doing this work at all. We 
 only talk, talk, talk. That's all. We say I go, but do not go. 
 It is of the minister I am speaking. As to the rank and file 
 of the so-called Christian church 1 have nothing to say. I 
 wofider at the faith and long suffering that enables them to 
 bear the burdens of an institution that has so little to give in 
 return. 
 
 I am surprised that they are able to sit Sunday after 
 Sunday and hear us ministers tell the people to do the very 
 thing that the Master sent the minister to do. Little by little 
 the minister has shifted his own work upon the people until 
 at last he has come to think that his only duty is to talk, to 
 tell some one else what to do. 
 
 The minister was sent to bind up the broken hearted, to 
 comfort the oppressed. It was not the people who were sent 
 
EVOLUTION AND CHRISTIANITY. 65 
 
 to do this; it was the minister. But the minister does not do 
 it. He simply stands in his pulpit and tells the people to do 
 it, for which he draws a salary. He does not clearly tell the 
 people how to do anything, for he does not know himself. 
 Therefore the people do not go. And so it comes to pass that 
 no one goes. Thus the down-trodden ones are allowed to 
 suffer on. They get the worst of everything. They work the 
 hardest, eat the meanest food, sleep where the minister's dog 
 would not sleep. The minister tries to comfort himself with 
 the fact that Jesus sometimes talked to a rich man. There- 
 fore they are justified in living on princely salaries and con- 
 tinuing their genteel professions. 
 
 If we did not call ourselves Christian ministers and usurp 
 this function of ministry, other Christians would arise to do 
 this work. But we u neither go in ourselves nor allow those 
 who would go in to pass.'' The greatest trouble is we are 
 devising ideals instead of dealing with the real. What is, not 
 what ought to be. is our real work. Ideals do more mischief 
 than good, since they tend only to paralyze present effort. 
 Yet ideals have their place. To have a clear ideal, with a 
 distinct comprehension of the real, is the end of all wisdom. 
 
 All knowledge tends to set before the mind a vision of 
 the ideal or else portray s^me detail of the real. To adjust 
 one's self to the real without defacing the beauty of the ideal is 
 the highest goal of human endeavor. To live in harmony with 
 the present generation, and yet not be blinded by its incom- 
 pleteness, is true philosophy. To see the golden age ahead 
 without dazzling the eyes of the lesser beau I y of the Now and 
 Here is to be at once practical and pious. To have faith in 
 the present providences, as well as in the past and future 
 providences, is to have both faith and works. To believe 
 in present revelations and not despise past revelations is 
 to be neither conservative nor radical. To see the worth of 
 the present without underestimating the greater worth of the 
 future is the truest sanity, the safest theology. Oh, to be true 
 to the best feeling of the present without blurring my image 
 of better things to come ; to hold present joys side by side 
 with anticipations of the ideal for this I most devoutly wish 
 and pray. 
 
LOVE, THE ONLY RELIGION. 
 
 * And if I Give My Body to be Burned, But Have Not Love, it 
 Profiteth Me Nothing." 
 
 ;T THE close of the organ voluntary last Sunday 
 morning. Dr. Talkwell said: I find a number of 
 questions before me that cover virtually the same 
 ground. They are practical and pertinent questions, 
 and deserve a more complete answer than I shall be able to 
 give them this morning. I will read you a sample of them : 
 " Are not the wicked and depraved receiving simply what 
 they deserve and are therefore not entitled to our considera- 
 tion? 1 ' u How can we love the depraved, the vulgar, the 
 ignorant and the vicious?" a Ought we to help such people 
 at all?" I have received many similar questions and invite 
 your attention to the following considerations as possibly pre- 
 senting the matter in a new light. 
 
 The accident of birth determines whether or not a person 
 is to be reared in depravity or culture. And yet it i^ this very 
 thing that we are constantly forgetting, when we harbor 
 any blame or aversion towards the depraved. If it has hap- 
 pened thai you are better than your neighbor, may it not be 
 wholly due to superior parentage and early surroundings, for 
 which you are entitled to no credit whatever? The only just 
 way to judge of your neighbors merit is to ask yourself, 
 u would I with the same hereditary influences, the same early 
 ducation, with the same mishaps that have befallen him, 
 would I have done better than he has?" 
 
LOVE, THE ONLY RELIGION. 67 
 
 Is it not possible to look at each man or woman in the 
 world, high and low, good and bad, as acting a necessary part 
 in the evolution of human society? At first statement such a 
 proposition does not sound right ; but let us consider it 
 further. 
 
 In this light we might look upon the world as a great 
 drama, with the villain and the hero; the nobleman and the 
 peasant; the beggar and the Shylock ; the drunkard and the 
 miser ; the Pharisee and the prodigal ; the overworked and 
 the idle ; in which all these characters are taken by the dif- 
 ferent members of the human family. That God has so fixed 
 it that while it is not absolutely essential that each one of 
 these characters must come onto the stage of action before his 
 kingdom can come on earth, yet he has so wisely arranged 
 things that in case they do come onto the scene of action, that 
 instead of hindering the coming of God's kingdom upon earth, 
 they shall actually all of them work together, each in his own 
 way, to the bringing on earth the final balance of forces which 
 shall be the kingdom of God on earth. 
 
 That the drunkard is God's temperance lecturer; that the 
 thief teaches the fallacy of dishonesty and crookedness ; that 
 the murderer is a practical demonstration of the command 
 " Thou shalt not kill; " that the just man is an object lesson 
 in righteousness ; that he who does right or wrong teaches by 
 his actions, more effectually than any words can teach, the 
 everlasting truths of God ; that we are to consider wickedness 
 as working together with righteousness to bring peace on 
 earth; that mankind is so constituted, that he is a being of so 
 high an order, that experience only can teach him great truths 
 which God wishes him to know. 
 
 To illustrate : The villain is just as necessary to bring out 
 the pathos of a play on the stage as the hero. The only dif- 
 ference is, his part is not so pleasant a part to play as is the 
 hero's. The hero gets all the applause. The villain gets all 
 
68 REV. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 the hisses. But both are working together to produce the 
 same general result. 
 
 Why can we not look upon the world in all its activities 
 in the same light? Circumstances over which the man had 
 little or no control, may have determined that his part in this 
 great drama of life shall be a drunkard, a beggar or a libertine. 
 Surely he has a hard part to play. His is the thorny path. 
 But if we could only grasp the idea that after all he is just as 
 surely demonstrating the goodness of God by his failure to 
 find happiness in his course of life, as the righteous man is 
 demonstrating the goodness of God by his success in finding 
 happiness in a righteous life. 
 
 The chemist in deciding the truth of an experiment over 
 and over again in every possible way, proves by his failures, as 
 well as his successes, the hidden truth he is trying to discover. 
 In this great drama of life, in which we find some one trying 
 every possible way to discover the secret of a happy life, those 
 who make a failure teach as useful a lesson as those who make 
 a success. Each wrecked life upon the sands of time is a 
 warning signal to the traveler, guiding the way of the inex- 
 perienced. If we could take such a view as this of the great 
 struggle of life in which we are placed, would it not be pos- 
 sible for us then to love those who have been called upon to 
 play the harder part ? Can not the hero on the stage be the 
 friend of the villain, even though the villain has a hateful part 
 to play ? Should he not rather pity than despise the villain, 
 who must bear the hisses and the jeering of the crowd, while 
 he assists the hero in bringing out the thought which the play 
 was intended to teach ? 
 
 None of us intended to take the part of the drunkard, the 
 outcast or the villain in the great drama of life. Visions of 
 nobility, fame and success, colored by the individuality of each, 
 were the youthful anticipations of every one of us. If, how- 
 ever, instead of reaching a place of honor, we have found our- 
 selves in the gutter, if obscurity instead of fame has been our 
 
LOVE, THE ONLY RELIGION. 69 
 
 lot ; if instead of a position of trust we have ende.1 our career 
 in a prison; these things ought to excite pity rather than con- 
 tempt, and ought to quicken rather than deaden our love for 
 each other. 
 
 History is, in a sentence, the word of God to man. Each 
 generation is a written page in this sacred book. Every man, 
 good or bad, high or low, refined or depraved, has helped to 
 write this history. Some have done it in tears, others in joy, 
 some in peace, others in tribulation, some surrounded by the 
 cheers of a happy home, others in the dingy, lonesome prison 
 cell; some have passed their lives serenely, with the peace 
 that this world can neither give nor take away, led by the spirit 
 of God ; others have been tossed and tumbled by the billows 
 of discord, envy and hatred. 
 
 Some have been fanned by the cool breezes of good will 
 and love towards all men ; while others have been scorched 
 and withered by the passions of lust and greed. But all have 
 helped to write the pages of history which written or unwritten 
 by the hand of man, have brought to the world all the knowl- 
 edge it now possesses. If circumstances have determined ibr 
 some to take the harder part in this drama of life, shall we 
 not pity rather than hate them ? Can we not love them, rather 
 than despise them ? Let us believe that God not only some- 
 times overrules the wickedness of man and turns it to the 
 betterment of mankind, but that he always does so; that no 
 evil escapes the watchful eye of God ; that everything con- 
 tributes to his kingdom on earth. By the aid of some such 
 view as this we can find it possible to love all men ; to love 
 .the man who hates us ; to love the degraded man ; to love the 
 one whose ways seem to us evil, and only evil. 
 
 At least we can be sure of this much, that unless we love 
 mankind, it will profit us nothing to bestow all our goods to 
 feed the poor or give our bodies to be burned. We may exalt 
 faith as a Christian virtue, and put hope on a high pedestal of 
 honor as a Christian grace, but we ought always to remember 
 that love is the greatest, if not the only, essential Christian 
 virtue. 
 
FOLLOWING THE MASTER. 
 
 " He Becometh of no Reputation. He Eateth With Publicans 
 and Sinners." 
 
 questions lie before me this morning which 
 I propose to answer in the near future, the first of 
 which I will answer in part at this time. The 
 questions are all important ones, and I have been 
 expecting that some one would ask them before this. I will 
 read some of them : u What practical good could possibly 
 arise from Christian ministers visiting places of depravity T 
 shame and debauchery ? " a Would such visits be likely to 
 reform such places ? " u Would not the reputation of the 
 minister suffer more than would be warranted by the good he 
 could do?" 
 
 Each one of these questions has several sermons wrapped 
 up in it, but I shall be obliged to treat them in a general way, 
 only. In the first place, personal observation of these places 
 is the only way to find out what actually occurs. The people 
 who are doing the most talking about such places are the very 
 ones that know the least about them. Hearsay is very mis- 
 leading in these matters, as well as in all other matters. 
 Since I have come to a little personal knowledge of the 
 people we call depraved, and the places we call wicked, I 
 realize how ridiculous I must have seemed to some of the 
 knowing ones of my congregation, in trying to expound and 
 correct these evils as I used to do in my pulpit. 
 
 I had relied on hearsay. I had read some books, talked 
 with people who had the reputation of knowing, and had 
 
FOLLOWING THE MASTER. 71 
 
 succeeded in getting a very warped and inadequate notion of 
 the facts. I must have made myself especially absurd to the 
 sophisticated part of my audiences in attempting to locate the 
 blame in all these matters. By visiting and getting confiden- 
 tial relations to the saloons, gambling places and houses of 
 prostitution, I have discovered that many more people are 
 involved in this sort of business than I realized before, or 
 would have believed, if I had been told. 
 
 The real owners of the majority of these places are men 
 of wealth, influence and respectability. Some of these men 
 are prominent in church and benevolent enterprises. And 
 yet they rent their property for these purposes. In some cases 
 they collect the money personally, though they generally have 
 shame enough left to employ an agent to do their dirty work. 
 
 Let us look this matter squarely in the face. A bad man 
 or a bad woman engaged in a bad business must have a place 
 to operate in. They find other men and women standing 
 ready to furnish them a place if only they are willing to pay 
 their price. These men and women who furnish the places 
 know exactly what they are being used for. They get more 
 for this use of their property than they would for any 
 legitimate purpose. Almost everybody but reformers know 
 this perfectly well. 
 
 Again, bad men and women, in order to carry on a bad 
 business, must have patrons. There must be a large number 
 of other men and women who have money and who deliber- 
 ately choose to spend their money in this way. These people 
 are to be found in every congregation, in every assembly, and 
 alas, in nearly every home. 
 
 Again, bad men and women, in order to carry on a bad 
 business publicly, must have the consent, or at least, the tacit 
 approval of the authorities. The authorities of all ages, of 
 all countries and of all cities have found it practically impos- 
 sible to exterminate the three vices alluded to, i. e., drunken- 
 ness, gambling and prostitution. In some form or other they 
 
72 REV. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 have existed in all places from time immemorial, sometimes 
 legalized, sometimes evading or defying the law. One set of 
 men frame these prohibitions and then hand them over to 
 another set of men to enforce. The executors of these laws 
 invariably find that they can only drive such parties into 
 secrecy, but can not actually prohibit them. The authorities 
 then do the best they can to adjust themselves to the situation. 
 Compromises follow, which result in setting aside a portion of 
 the letter of the law. These bad practices are allowed under 
 certain limitations. These allowances soon come to be regarded 
 by the offenders as their rights, as exactly defining what is 
 expected of them. What the law allows them to do comes to 
 these people to take the place of conscience, as indeed it does 
 to many other people. 
 
 Now in view of all this, the co-operation of property 
 owners, the patronage of the pleasure seekers, the indulgence 
 and inability of the authorities, we discover that the so-called 
 offender is only one of many in an unbroken chain of partici- 
 pating men and women. I should never have known this or 
 even mistrusted it, in all of its startling realities, had I not 
 visited these places myself. And as my acquaintance increases 
 with these places and people, my inability to fix the blame 
 definitely also increases. What a sorry figure I must have cut 
 in those days when I used to make orations on these subjects, 
 pointing out the culprits with my forefinger to large audiences, 
 when the great majority of those who listened to me knew 
 how perfectly unjust and senseless my words were. 
 
 This is one reason why I would have the ministers become 
 familiar with these places. They would know then exactly 
 what they are talking about, and would be better able to com- 
 mand the respect and following of their audiences. This is 
 work that each minister would be obliged to do for himself, 
 in his own way. 
 
 In the second place, if it was known to the thousand and 
 one u silent partners " in questionable enterprises, that there 
 
FOLLOWING THE MASTER. 73 
 
 were in this city eighty ministers continually visiting their 
 secret sources of revenue, becoming conversant with every 
 detail of each enterprise, fixing the responsibility where it 
 belongs, there would be a hustling out and cleaning up in the 
 byways in our city, such as can never be accomplished in any 
 other way. No public outcry need be made, just quietly going 
 in and out of these places, not as an enemy or spy, but like 
 the Master, a friend to all. He had the reputation of being a 
 friend to publicans and sinners; so ought his ministers to 
 have. But through it all, the minister ought to, in a friendly 
 manner, show that he knows all their secrets, courteously 
 facing each one with the facts, showing all their true relation 
 to each other and the city. 
 
 Gould any man, after he knew that his pastor was perfectly 
 familiar with his financial relations to secret places of sin and 
 vice, have the nerve to accept official relations to the church, 
 and try to palm himself off as an exemplary man ? I think 
 not. He would either withdraw such pretentions and take his 
 true relations to society, or he would reform his practices. 
 His double life would be impossible. He would not dare to 
 insult the church by offering it money he had collected from 
 places of vice, if he supposed his pastor knew he was commit- 
 ting a sacrilege. The ignorance of his pastor concerning such 
 matters is his safety. Hypocrisy of this sort would not be 
 attempted if his pastor was really doing the work of a Chris- 
 tian minister. 
 
 This does not mean that the Christian minister is to 
 become a spy or a detective. It only means that if he was 
 where he belonged, among the poor, the depraved, the outcast, 
 he would, incidentally and unavoidably, become acquainted 
 with facts that would revolutionize society. He need not hunt 
 for these facts ; he need only go about his Master's business, 
 seeking the lost sheep, making friends with the publican, and 
 he would learn things of greater worth to him as a preacher 
 than could be taught him by all the theological universities in 
 
74 JREV. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 the world. The only way to reach the avenues is through the 
 alleys. The only way to minister to the rich is to become 
 ministers to the poor. The only way to tear down the strong- 
 holds of arrogancy and aristocacy is to become acquainted 
 with the hovel and brothel. If he would reform the oppressor, 
 he must find the oppressed. This is a ministry that can not 
 be said or written. It must be done. Such a minister, like 
 Jesus, may leave no book or creed behind him, but he is sure 
 to leave his life behind him. Society does not need any one 
 to tell them the way. There are already enough doing that. 
 What society needs is some one to show them the way. The 
 way to reach Dives is through Lazarus. We can never reach 
 Lazarus through Dives. Such a minister will always find con- 
 solation in the words of Jesus when he said : " He that findeth 
 his life shall lose it ; and he that loseth his life for My sake 
 shall find it." 
 
DR. TALKWELL AT HOME. 
 
 "As Ye Would That Men Should do to You, do Ye Even so to Them." 
 
 . TALKWELL'S new home on North Third street 
 is the scene of many queer incidents and interest- 
 ing conversations. Among the many visitors who 
 call at the reformed parsonage are found a liberal 
 sprinkling of clergymen from this and adjoining cities. With- 
 out foreseeing that it would be so, the doctor's new parsonage 
 is rapidly becoming quite an information bureau on local 
 charities and public institutions of all kinds. With nothing 
 to bother him now but the work of the Master, the doctor is 
 fast acquiring an acquaintance with the city, which enable? 
 him to render practical service to nearly every applicant for 
 assistance. In other words, he is just beginning to learn the 
 first rudiments of real Gospel ministry. 
 
 As a specimen of the conversations that are of daily oc- 
 currence at this home of curious hospitalities, a brief extract 
 from an interview between the doctor and a visiting clergy- 
 man is given. The doctor was found seated in his library, 
 which is a large room, three sides of which are occupied with 
 plain book-cases filled to the top with books calculated to 
 interest and instruct the uneducated classes. In the middle 
 of the room a large, bare reading table, with pen and ink for 
 writing. A few wood-bottom chairs complete the furniture of 
 the room. 
 
 A little girl had just called at the parsonage to get a pic- 
 ture book for a sick brother at home that the doctor had 
 visited the day before. He was in the act of selecting the 
 
76 REV. TALKWEU7S SKETCHES. 
 
 book when a visitor was announced. After the usual saluta- 
 tions, he said : 
 
 "I am the pastor of the church of Zanesville. I 
 
 have heard a great deal about your new parsonage. I could 
 not believe that any rational man would undertake to do what 
 I have heard concerning your enterprise. I have come to 
 learn for myself how much truth there is in the reports. If 
 you do not object. 1 would like to ask you a few questions." 
 
 "Certainly not." 
 
 "Well, to begin with, what is it exactly that you have 
 attempted to do in moving out of an elegant parsonage, lo- 
 cated on a fashionable avenue, and establishing yourself in 
 such a home as this?" 
 
 " I have attempted," replied the doctor. u simply this, 
 that if Jesus Christ were to call at my door, with no x place 
 to lay his head and no money to pay for such a place, I 
 should not be obliged to drive him out in the street. In my 
 former parsonage I would have been obliged to do so, and my 
 excuses were many and ample. Not that my former parsonage 
 was any different than the average parsonage or the average so- 
 called Christian home. But the idea of a tramp or unknown 
 man or woman eating at my table, sleeping in one of my beds or 
 using my bath room, was absolutely preposterous in those days. 
 My women would have been shocked beyond measure and T 
 should have regarded it as a very unsafe experiment, as indeed 
 it would have been. But now and here, with nothing to tempt 
 people to steal, and yet entirely comfortable, nothing too nice 
 for the wayfaring man and yet absolutely clean, I can at least- 
 take one step towards following the advice of Jesus, when he 
 said: 'I was hungry and ye fed me, naked and ye clothed 
 me, a stranger, and ye took me in.' r 
 
 w ' But, doctor," replied the clergyman, u is not your gen- 
 erosity abused? Are you not overwhelmed with tramps and 
 mendicants?" 
 
 u No, I am not. I have room to spare all the time. I 
 
DR. TALKWELL AT HOME. 77 
 
 expected the trouble of which you speak. I had no idea 
 how it would work until I tried it. If people would only have 
 faith enough in Jesus to just simply trust the experiment of 
 following his precepts they would not find them to work as 
 disastrously as they expect. Now this is the way true hospi- 
 tality works. There is nothing that an unworthy man or 
 woman dreads so much as acquaintance, or close scrutiny of 
 any kind. It frightens them to invite them in the house and 
 talk to them. Their deeds are evil and they love darkness. 
 To feed them on the back porch like a dog, or to give them a 
 ticket to lodge with a herd of tramps like themselves, is pre- 
 cisely the treatment they desire. To be treated as if they 
 were men and women scares them, terrifies them. To be 
 asked their name, their business, to be proffered friendship, 
 fraternity and brotherly kindness, is just what they do not 
 desire and will not tolerate. They will get away from such a 
 house as quickly as possible and will never call again. 
 
 ;< But the worthy ones, the ones in real distress, who have 
 nothing to hide, desire acquaintance, long for sympathy and 
 communion. To turn such a one away from your door with a 
 meal ticket or an order to sleep in a lodging house is as cruel 
 as it is un-Christ-like. He has asked for a fish and we have 
 given him a scorpion ; he has asked for bread and we have 
 given him a stone. We have denied him the very thing he 
 needs most, wishes most fraternity, sympathy, advice. 
 
 " If all the so-called Christian homes in this city were 
 doing this, what a world of touching pathos and helpless suf- 
 fering would be uncovered. If even one hundred homes were 
 doing it they would not find themselves troubled with a guest 
 more than once a week. But if this is to be the only home of 
 the kind in so large a city as this, where a true fraternity and 
 hospitality is offered to the stranger, I should not be at all sur- 
 prised to find myself embarrassed at times to know what to 
 do, but as yet I have not found it so." 
 
78 REV. TALKWELL'S SKETCHEvS. 
 
 " How many guests have you at present?" asked the 
 clergyman. 
 
 u Six men and two women, and I would be very glad if I 
 had time to stop here and tell you their stories, which have 
 been fully verified by the best of evidence. But no guest 
 stays long. Sometimes a single meal or day, and he is gone 
 on his way rejoicing." 
 
 u Do you not find it expensive to feed and house so many 
 people ? " 
 
 u With the economy and frugality we are now practicing 
 (and we are all of us the better for it), my running expenses 
 are less than they used to be in my days of un-Christ-like 
 luxury and extravagance, notwithstanding we have from six 
 to twelve guests. A cheap stew or soup bone, which will fur- 
 nish ample nourishment for fifteen people, costs less than the 
 porterhouse steak or mutton chop used to, for my family of 
 five." 
 
 ik But your other expenses ? How do you manage them ? " 
 
 u We have no other expenses to speak of. We keep no 
 servants. My daughters take care of their own rooms and are 
 enjoying it immensely. The guests take care of their own 
 rooms and are glad to do so. We have a laundry in the base- 
 ment, entirely operated by guests under the superintendence 
 of my wife. The floors are frequently scrubbed and we are 
 much cleaner than we used to be in our days of carpets, cur- 
 tains, upholstered furniture, draperies, and the many other 
 unsanitary fixtures of the elegant unwholesomeness of our 
 former home. The fact is, we could do a great deal more 
 work if we had it to do, for you have no idea what a relief it 
 is to put away the complex fussiness of the world, the flesh 
 and the devil." 
 
 " What class of women apply for assistance ? " 
 
 " Oh, a great many kinds. Sometimes, foolish girls, lured 
 into the city by fiendish women for unholy purposes; some- 
 
DR. TALKWELL AT HOME. 79 
 
 times discharged servant girls, who have no friends in this 
 city; stranded women, attempting to travel without sufficient 
 means, who find themselves unable to go farther. But, of 
 course, I will never see but a very small per cent, of those 
 who are perishing for Christian fraternity. 
 
 Of the men, the most numerous and worthy class are the 
 boys and young men who drift into this city every day in search 
 of employment. A large number of these are unsuccessful and 
 are finally arrested as loiterers, vagrants, or for begging, and 
 are quickly converted into criminals. There never was greater 
 need for Christian ministry than in these cases. The degrada- 
 tion of this large and constantly increasing class of men and 
 boys is a shame to our civilization, and a shame to those who 
 profess to be Christian ministers. One-tenth of the money 
 sent out of this city every year for foreign missions to coun- 
 tries where there is not one-hundredth part the need of Chris- 
 tian ministry as there is here in our own city ; one-tenth of 
 the money and one-half of the energy spent in raising it would 
 turn this stream of misguided but innocent men and women 
 from ruination into paths of salvation and usefulness. It is 
 scarcely less than a crime against humanity for those who 
 pretend to be following Jesus to spend their time and strength 
 in raising money for foreign missions, when degradation 
 unknown in foreign lands lies at our very doors. It is simply 
 trying to pull the mote out of our brother's eye, while the 
 beam is in our own." 
 
 u Do you consider yourself a follower of Tolstoi?" 
 
 u No, I do not, although I am not worthy to unlatch one 
 of his shoes. If I understand Tolstoi he objects to the whole 
 trend of modern civilization, and seeks to persuade all men to 
 resume primitive methods of living. 
 
 " I believe it to be both futile and undesirable to under- 
 take to turn back the wheels of time. I believe in the trend 
 
80 REV. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 of modern civilization. I believe it is bringing in God's king- 
 dom on earth in his own way and in his own time. 
 
 " But in the meantime many innocent and feeble ones are 
 crushed. This is inevitable. It is simply the operation of the 
 law of the ' survival of the fittest.' For this class the Chris- 
 tian ministry was instituted. To this class the Christian min- 
 ister was sent. He has no business whatever with the pros- 
 perous and the satisfied. This is exactly what Jesus meant 
 when he said ' those that are well need no physician.' " 
 
REAL CHRISTIAN WORK. 
 
 For the Son of Man is Come to Save That Which is Lost." 
 
 OW think ye? If a man have a hundred sheep, and 
 one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the 
 ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and 
 seeketh that sheep which is gone astray ? 
 
 And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he re- 
 joiceth more of that sheep than of the ninety and nine which 
 went not astray." 
 
 In our last week's report of Dr. TalkwelFs affairs we 
 left him at home in the midst of an interview with a visit- 
 ing clergyman. The visitor was plying the doctor with ques- 
 tions about his views and plans of Christian ministry. We 
 will take up the thread of conversation where it was dropped. 
 
 The clergyman asked : " How do the ones who need assist- 
 ance learn of your hospitable home ? " 
 
 " The majority of those whom I assist are discovered by 
 me in my other ministrations. I spend my time among the 
 class most likely to need me, and find them in a natural way. 
 You must remember that my home is not a public institution. 
 It is simply a private but Christian home; a home where 
 Christian hospitality is practicable. The churches are already 
 relying too much upon public institutions for such things. 
 What we need is not more institutions, but more hospitable 
 homes." 
 
 u Do I understand you to be opposed to public institu- 
 tions ? " 
 
82 REV. TALK WELL'S .SKETCHES. 
 
 "No. Institutions have their function, but they can never 
 be made to do the work of a Christian minister. Food and rai- 
 ment these places can and do supply, but not Christian frater- 
 nity. The superintendent may be just and faithful, and the 
 inmate may be obedient and respectful, but the relation of 
 keeper and inmate remains a fact. Brotherhood and fraternity 
 do not grow here. The home is the only hope of real Christian- 
 ity. The public institution is at best a temporary makeshift, 
 which prevents something worse happening, that's all. You 
 can not Christianize people in job lots, or fraternize them in 
 straight rows. The freedom and spontaniety of the home is 
 the only place where love will thrive. 'Be it ever so humble 
 there's no place like home.' ' 
 
 u But," continued the clergyman " do not you keep sta- 
 tistics of your work here or some kind of a record of your 
 guests, like public institutions ? " 
 
 u No, I do not. It is all right for public institutions to 
 keep their statistics, I suppose, but statistics of Christian 
 work is simply brag, nothing less. Just as if real Christian 
 work could be counted and tabulated and added up and dis- 
 played in ornamental type, and finally read out loud to admir- 
 ing audiences. Why, it is worse than brag, it is sacrilege. I 
 would as soon think of making statistics of my domestic frater- 
 nities and felicities and Haunting them in public places as to 
 keep record of Christian work. Statistics of so-called Chris- 
 tian work is only one phase of that denominational rivalry 
 that has been the curse of modern civilization so long." 
 
 " When and how do you prepare your sermons ?" 
 
 u I do not prepare or preach any sermons. I am making 
 a careful investigation into the various institutions and enter- 
 prises, high and low, good and bad, within the limits of our 
 city. I am trying to become acquainted with the innerness of 
 these things. I report each Sunday morning to the people 
 what I have learned. I am simply trying to find out for my- 
 self the exact state of things in the city and tell it to my con- 
 gregation. 
 
REAJU CHRISTIAN WORK. 83 
 
 u I believe that the only reform needed is to turn on the 
 light. The thing needed more than any other thing in this 
 city is for some one who can command the attention of the 
 people to learn the facts by personal observation, then give 
 them to the public. This is the business of the preacher. This 
 is exactly what the prophet of Israel used to do. He was al- 
 ways on the side of the oppressed, the downtrodden, the out- 
 cast. I find this much more instructive and edifying to my 
 people than the exploits of the ancient Jews or the theologi- 
 cal dissertations of Paul. What I have been preaching for all 
 these years, with nothing to preach about, I confess I can hard- 
 ly understand now." 
 
 The clergyman began to get a little uneasy at the turn the 
 conversation had taken, and anxious to change the subject, in- 
 terrupted with a question. 
 
 " Do you find the degradation in this city as great as you 
 expected ?" 
 
 " No, I do not. Since I have come to understand these 
 people and have become partially able to look at things from 
 their standpoint, I find that conscious, deliberate wrong doing 
 is about evenly distributed in all strata of society. I do not 
 believe that there is any more real sinning among the socalled 
 low classes than among the socalled upper classes." 
 
 " Do the people who stop with you enjoy entire equality 
 with your family?" 
 
 " Certainly. Anything short of that would be adding 
 insult to injury. We all eat at the same table, spend our eve- 
 nings in the same general sitting room. We have singing and 
 reading, and they are in every sense of the word our guests. 
 There is not so much difference in people after all. I find 
 just as many intelligent people, just as many interesting 
 people, just as many high-minded people among the friendless 
 and homeless ones as among any other class. The differences 
 are very superficial indeed. They consist principally in clean 
 hands, neckties, polished shoes, and the thousand and one 
 
84 REV. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 polite insincerities commonly called culture. At heart the 
 different strata of society will average up about the same. 
 The defenseless ones are oftener exposed than the ones who 
 have money or influence. This gives u s the impression that 
 their offenses are more common. 
 
 u Their vices are of a more conspicuous character, partly 
 because they do not know how to conceal them, and partly 
 because they do not care to do so. What we call bravado in 
 them is so often desperation complete discouragement. 
 
 u A man unsuccessful in business, surrounded by squalor 
 and discouragement, unsteady work, poor wages, poor habita- 
 tion, unwholesome, uninspiring surroundings, is apt to be con- 
 tinually doing things forbidden by society, even though he 
 has no immoral intentions. It is from this class that the 
 majority of the so-called criminals come. There are many 
 reasons for this besides their absence of moral conviction. 
 Their lives are necessarily more open, their vices more con- 
 spicuous, their pleasures more subject to criticism ; in short y 
 their ^vhole lives are under the scrutiny of the policeman. 
 
 " A man on the avenue gets drunk. He is sent home in 
 a carriage. A man in the alley gets drunk. He is sent to 
 the city prison in the patrol. Two women on the avenue 
 have a falling out; two polite but angry women cease to speak 
 to each other forever. Two women in the alley have a falling 
 out ; the affair is settled in police court. 
 
 u A domestic infelicity occurs on the avenue in which 
 some one's marital rights have been strained. A choice tid-bit 
 for the gossips is the consequence some heartache, perhaps, 
 nothing more. The same thing happens in the alley, and the 
 bums in the lobby of the police court applaud the judge as 
 he sentences a man or woman or both to the workhouse. 
 
 " An altercation occurs between two fast swells in a first- 
 class saloon or hotel. Chandeliers are broken, cut glass 
 shivered, blood flows. The thing is hushed up. If it gets into 
 print at all no names are mentioned. 
 
REAL CHRISTIAN WORK. 85 
 
 " Two denizens of the alley differ in Casey's saloon. A 
 heavy beer glass is in the hand of each. A row ensues ; an 
 arrest is made. Two families are deprived of support for one 
 or two months while the men serve out their sentences. And 
 so the list might be drawn out indefinitely. These people do 
 on their plane exactly what the upper classes do on their 
 plane. 
 
 " What these people need more than anything else is 
 justice, simply justice. Nothing could be devised, more 
 unfair, more unjust than the way we are treating these 
 people Their homes are invaded by the chattel mortgage 
 fiend, the conscienceless pawnbroker, the exacting installment 
 man, the tyrannical policeman, the scheming peddler, the 
 pitiless sheriff, the domineering landlord and the snooping 
 detective. Considering where they live, they pay the highest 
 rent. When they work they do the meanest work and get the 
 least pay. They are charged ten times the legal rate of inter- 
 est if they borrow money. 
 
 "Their complaints we call anarchy, their cries of distress 
 we call ingratitude. We laugh at their wretchedness, are 
 shocked at their vulgarity, we jest at their ignorance, and 
 their degradation is one of the standard attractions of our city 
 to idle sight seerers and curious visitors. And to rub it all in, 
 to clinch the infamy of their environment, we send them 
 mawkish missionaries to tell them how bad they are, and 
 to show them how much superior we are to them. And 
 to think that I have been ten years in this city, a professed 
 minister of Jesus Christ, and have done nothing to lift 
 their burdens or defend them in their helplessness. I am 
 one of those whom Jesus described when he said: u For 
 they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay 
 them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move 
 them with one of their fingers." 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
A CONUNDRUM FOR CHRISTIANS. 
 
 " He That Is Without Sin, Let Him Cast The First Stone. 
 
 JND he said unto her, 'Neither do I condemn thee ; go 
 thy way and sin no more." 
 
 During Dr Talkwell's report last Sunday, he said: 
 I have a problem for you, a conundrum in social 
 ethics, which I confess, I am not able to answer satisfactorily 
 to myself. I am going to give you a bit of real history, every 
 word of which I can vouch for as being the truth. As I pro- 
 ceed with this story I wish you each and all to keep asking 
 yourselves this question, " Who is to blame?" 
 
 Some time since in one of my midnight rounds of this 
 city, guided by a policeman, I came across a young girl in a 
 house of shame, who attracted my attention. She had none of 
 the airs of the kind of people to which she belonged. She was 
 modest, reticent, comely, of genteel manners, used good Eng- 
 lish, and in no way betrayed the usual vulgar tastes or habits 
 which are common in such places. I followed up the acquaint- 
 ance begun that dark stormy night. Little by little she re- 
 vealed to me her history. I have taken the pains to verify 
 every detail of her story before giving it to you. I found her 
 words only too true. 
 
 Two years ago she was an innocent, happy girl, living in 
 a small town fifty miles from this city. Her mother suddenly 
 died, leaving her to the care of a father, who to say the least, 
 was no companion or guide to his impulsive and romantic 
 daughter. She was unhappy at home. By the advice of her 
 lover, and with the consent of her father, she accepted a posi- 
 tion as clerk in this city, at a very small salary. 
 
A CONUNDRUM FOR CHRISTIANS. 87 
 
 
 
 For a time things went on smoothly and she was very 
 happy. She knew no one in the city except her lover, but he 
 was so kind and attentive that she wished for nothing more. 
 Her salary was only $4 per week, but by economy and ingen- 
 uity, she succeeded in keeping up appearances. Small gifts 
 from her lover, which were at first refused and afterwards re- 
 luctantly accepted, helped her over some hard places. They 
 were about to be married. The wedding day was fixed. Her 
 daily toil behind the counter and nightly vigils in a dingy, 
 cheerless bedroom were about to come to an end. 
 
 A member of the firm for which her lover worked was 
 discovered to be a defaulter for a large sum of money. He was 
 connected with a good family and the matter was hushed up, 
 but the business went to the wall. Her lover's position was 
 gone, together with the small earnings he had been saving up. 
 The marriage had to be postponed. But alas, it could not be 
 postponed. The impetuousity of lovers restrained by financial 
 impediments claimed another 1 victim to its ever increasing 
 martyrdom. Harassed by day, haunted by night, her strength 
 finally gave way, and she lost her position. They were practi- 
 cally beggars, but agreed that they could not be married yet. 
 The word had already gone to their friends that they were 
 married. They let it go so. 
 
 In sheer desperation he left the city one night to find 
 work. He did not tell her he was going, and she supposed he 
 had deserted her in her shame. Sickness detained him many 
 weeks. She sought to hide her shame in a place where all 
 pretty girls are made welcome. In reputation, at least, she 
 quickly sank to the level of a common courtesan. The mis- 
 tress of the house which she entered was a peculiar woman of 
 her kind, whom we must stop to describe. 
 
 This woman had been a widow three. years. Her husband, 
 a hard working man, had become involved in a debt through 
 the perfidy of a near relative. This debt left a large mortgage 
 for the widow to pay. She could not pay it from the farm. A 
 
88 REV. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 friend induced the widow to keep a boarding house in the city 
 as a means of paying the mortgage. She tried it and found 
 that she could not make her boarding house pay expenses. 
 But her boarding house experience had taught her one way 
 she could pay off the hateful debt. Through ignorance of the 
 city she had located in a bad place for any legitimate business. 
 She had discovered that she could rent rooms by the day or 
 week, if no questions were asked; also that she could get very 
 high rent, especially of girls. 
 
 She gradually drifted into this way of doing, promising 
 herself to get out of the wretched business as soon as her debt 
 was paid. In raising the price for her rooms, she placed upon 
 the property the stigma that naturally belongs to such houses. 
 The landlord must be placated. He must also have higher 
 rent. She consents to higher rent and thus practically 
 goes into partnership with her landlord in the curious business 
 of furnishing a safe place for sinning sirens. She consoles 
 herself that her partner in business is a respectable business 
 man, a church man and belongs to the best society; that only 
 well behaved well dressed young men of rank and respectabi- 
 lity visit her house; that the police know exactly what she is 
 doing, but find no fault as long as order is maintained. With 
 these and many similar things she consoles herself. 
 
 When she met the girl, the heroine of our story, it was by 
 accident. She had known the girl slightly before either of 
 them came to the city and had known her family well. Find- 
 ing her in complete desperation, poverty and physical pros- 
 tration, she took her home with her with no intention to do her 
 any ill. But the infamy of her place, with its demoralizing 
 surroundings, soon wrought its work with the haunted and 
 outraged girl. With no self respect to lose, with nothing but 
 sheer physical existence or suicide before her, she quickly 
 succumbed to the environment. Her landlady, the widow, inter- 
 posed to save her protege, but her own moral stamina was gone. 
 4w The pot could not call the kettle black." Be it said to her 
 
A CONUNDRUM FOR CHRISTIANS. 89 
 
 credit, however, she made many futile attemps to undo the 
 the work that she had unintentionally wrought in the poor 
 girl. But it was too late. The girl could not forgive herself. 
 There was nothing left to save. The lover returned to the city 
 one day and frantically sought the whereabouts of the girl he 
 had wronged. By chance they met one day on the street. She 
 spurned him, refused to hear one word of explanation. He 
 dogged her footsteps and followed her in horror to her place of 
 shame. He entered, found the landlady, the widow, and a 
 stormy scene ensued. He learned all the horrible sequel of 
 his own act. He left the house and fled the city, horrified at the 
 whole ghastly business, enlisted in the army, and in a distant 
 tropical clime he is today doing futile penance for sins he 
 never intended to commit. 
 
 This is when I fouud her. This is how I found her. 
 Crouching there in her room alone, clothed in cheap gaudiness, 
 surrounded by tawdry decorations, in tearless open-eyed an- 
 guish, unable to cry or laugh or feel any longer. Complete 
 moral paralysis. And yet through it all one could catch 
 glimpses of the innocent girl that was, of the refined woman 
 that was to be, of the beautiful maternity that should have 
 been. Her last words to me were, " The only kind service you 
 can render me is to let me alone. Do not waste your words, 
 or your sympathies. I am already morally dead, and my body 
 will not last much longer. Please do not drag me from the 
 obscurity I have found. As it is, no one knows or cares. You 
 can do nothing but harm for me. I am only one of hundreds. 
 It hurts me beyond endurance to treat me as if I were a lady. 
 Please go away." 
 
 Now, what I want to ask is, who is to blame for all this ? 
 Who is responsible ? Let me array before you the principal 
 characters in this little tragedy and ask you to pick out the one 
 who is most to blame. Let me enumerate them in the order in 
 which we have become acquainted with them. The dead moth- 
 er, the unparental father, the romantic daughter, the impul. 
 
90 REV. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 sive but well meaning lover, the merchant who paid his clerk 
 only four dollars a week, the defaulter who caused the failure 
 of the firm who employed the lover, the merchant's foreman 
 who discharged the sick girl without any further interest in her, 
 the hard working farmer who suddenly died, the perfidious rela- 
 tive who involved the widow in debt, the struggling widow, 
 fighting against debt and low prices, her influential city land- 
 lord, willing to join her in a scheme to make money faster, the 
 society swells who visited aud gave financial support, the con 
 senting city ofiicials here they are lined up before this audi- 
 ence, just before the curtain drops. 
 
 Which one shall we blame most? Shall we blame one 
 more than the rest ? Shall we blame them all ? Shall we 
 blame any of them? Did any of them realize the awful 
 tragedy they were taking part in ? Which of us, in this vast 
 audience, dare cast the first stone? 1 dare not for one. I will 
 tell you why. The man who received the rent, who owns the 
 property where the greater part of this pitiful tragedy occurred 
 who knew what the place was used for that man was a mem- 
 ber of my former church all the time I was its pastor. While 
 he was acting his part in this cruel drama I was his pastor. 
 My tacit approval of his character helped to maintain his re- 
 spectability through it all. Part of that rent money was con- 
 tributed to my salary. This accursed money, the price of that 
 poor girl's shame, helped to buy the clothes my wife was wear- 
 ing, the food my daughters were eating. God forgive me that 
 in my ignorance I, too, was taking a part in this pathetic affair. 
 Had I been about my Master's business during that time in 
 stead of hobnobbing with the pharisees of my own church, my 
 part in this wicked business would not, could not, have hap- 
 pened. 
 
PUBLIC CHARITIES. 
 
 ' But When Thou Doest Alms Let Not Thy Left Hand Know What 
 Thy Right Hand Doeth That Thine Alms May Be in Secret,'* 
 
 'T THE close of last Sunday's report Dr.Talkwell said : 
 At the approach of cold weath,er each year we 
 begin to hear talk about public charities. Every- 
 body has a theory of his own. The only thing that 
 any one is sure of is that all the others are wrong and only 
 the speaker is right. Nearly every one says that charities as 
 at present dispensed are doing more harm than good (present 
 company excepted of course), yet no one seems to be able to 
 do any more about it than talk, talk, talk. This theory has 
 been exploded ; that plan has been tried and found wanting ; 
 this money has been worse than wasted ; that fund has been 
 exploited with no results but harm, and yet in the face of 
 all these confessions, the public will be again asked to con- 
 tribute money, money, money, to continue this annual farce, 
 a farce too foolish to be even funny. 
 
 As the failure of organized charities seems to be universal, 
 including all schemes, secular or sacred, sectarian or non- 
 sectarian, we should expect to find the cause for the failure 
 to be common to them all. Now, there is one thing that is 
 common to all charitable organizations and charity workers so 
 far as I know, and that is, a want of personal acquaintance 
 with the subjects of charity. I believe this to be the secret of 
 the failure of each and every charity. They do not know the 
 people they are trying to help. They are afraid to get near 
 
92 REV. TALKWEIJ7S SKETCHES. 
 
 enough to the ones they are pretending to assist to understand 
 them. Their attitude toward them is a mixture of fear, pity, 
 contempt and curiosity, rather than fraternity or friendliness. 
 No one is to blame for this, perhaps, but it has the invariable 
 effect of changing fish into scorpions and bread into stones. 
 
 Genuine friendship must precede any real charitable act. 
 No charity is possible between two persons who have not for 
 each other a feeling of unaffected interest and sympathy. One 
 may feed the other, but both are degraded by the act. It is one 
 thing to feed a man ; it is another thing to eat with a man. It is 
 one thing to order a family a load of coal ; it is quite another 
 thing to sit with them in friendly conversation and enjoy 
 together its gratefuj warmth and flickering light. We may feed 
 animals, since no intercourse with them is possible, but with 
 men and brothers we should break bread together. At least 
 we should be on such terms with them that such a thing 
 would be agreeable and mutually helpful. We may house 
 animals and appoint for them a keeper, but we cannot pile 
 men up four deep in lodging houses or herd them in droves 
 like hogs or cattle in soup houses, without doing them more 
 harm than good. If men are entitled to anything they are 
 entitled to hospitality, to courtesy. Anything less than this 
 is demoralizing to the giver and degrading to the recipient. 
 
 Charity of any sort disassociated from actual, personal 
 acquaintance is a boon to the dead beat, but death to the 
 honest, virtuous subject of charity. The truckling impostor 
 and the professional mendicant always like to meet an undis- 
 criminating giver. The two fit each other exactly. One has 
 gratified his lazy propensities and the other has gratified his 
 vanity. Both are absurd, one as much as the other. Each 
 man's opportunity to do charitable work is exactly limited by 
 his personal and intimate acquaintance with those who need 
 charity. It is generally believed that a man's ability for 
 charitable work is measured by his pocketbook. This is not 
 true. No man can do real charity work by proxy, It is a 
 personal matter. 
 
PUBLIC CHARITIES. 93 
 
 This is exactly where all charitable organizations have 
 always failed and always must fail. True charity is work that 
 can never be organized. It is a hand to hand work. It must 
 be done as brothers, neighbors, friends and daily associates. 
 
 To feed a drove of men and women whose names and 
 previous history are unknown, is not charity ; it is either 
 stupidity or cupidity. Nothing could be more degrading to 
 the recipients of such charity or damaging to the community 
 in which it occurs. Each time it is repeated society suffers 
 and human parasitism is encouraged. The devil himself 
 could not contrive a better plan to nourish and perpetuate 
 dangerous vagabondism or to crush and drive to despair, 
 worthy poverty. 
 
 If it be true that the people who need or deserve charit- 
 able assistance in any city are practically strangers to the 
 people who constitute the churches ; if this be true, then it 
 is also true, that the churches are absolutely unfit to do any 
 charitable work among them. The first thing to be done is to 
 get acquainted with these people. Get sympathetic relations 
 to them ; enjoy their entire confidence. No one man or 
 woman can get such relations to many people. If the 
 churches were doing what Jesus expected his followers to do, 
 there would be no need for any organized charity. Each 
 follower of Jesus would know one or more of these people 
 and would be rendering them all the assistance necessary 
 in an effective manner, which can never be imitated by any 
 organization whatever. 
 
 Rendering charitable assistance is not only a difficult 
 matter requiring close acquaintance, but a delicate matter 
 requiring intimate friendship. Except in some extreme emer- 
 gency, like sickness or providential calamities, it is rank 
 impertinence for one person to approach another person, with 
 whom he is not acquainted, with any charity whatsoever. 
 These people have sensibilities just like ours. They resent 
 what we would resent. They are even morbidly sensitive, (at 
 
94 REV. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 least those who have not been entirely debauched by such 
 procedure). 
 
 To enter a house with no better pretext than to bring a 
 Christmas present, a loaf of bread or a religious tract is a 
 breach of etiquette bordering on criminal trespass. I wonder 
 that such people are not oftener kicked out of doors. They 
 are, some times. There ought to be a natural pretext for 
 making such an approach. The pretext which is most com- 
 mon, and the one which is most sure to touch the heart, is 
 sickness. To visit a house as a doctor or nurse excites neither 
 resentment nor cupidity. The relation is entirely a normal 
 one, and is the entering wedge to further ministrations. 
 
 The work of the district nurse, already established in many 
 cities, is exactly in line with these suggestions. They have a 
 wholesome and natural pretext for visiting these homes. At 
 the suggestion of the attending physician, they are called. 
 They are trained, professional nurses, capable of giving 
 instruction in the care of the sick, hygiene, cooking, etc., etc. 
 They come at a time when their visit is neither an insult nor 
 an enigma. To accept help in times of sickness has no stigma 
 attached. This is common with rich and poor alike. To follow 
 up the opportunity opened by the work of these nurses would 
 be strategic and would be the first step towards bridging the 
 chasm we have allowed to grow between the prosperous and 
 unfortunate. This is an open door where creed and creedless 
 may enter on equal footing. Reciprocal friendship could 
 begin here, after which real charity could begin. 
 
 Charity is a word the poor people, as a rule, despise. To 
 be suspected as being in any degree a subject of charity is a 
 dishonor which they try to shun. Next to being a jail-bird is 
 to be a charity-bug. No charity can be entirely welcome that 
 is not indirect or confidential. In giving of alms, a let not 
 your right hand know what your left hand doeth." 
 
WICKEDNESS MADE SECURE. 
 
 " Salt is Good, But if the Salt has Lost its Savor Wherewith Shall 
 
 it be Seasoned? It is Fit Neither for the Land Nor the 
 
 Dunghill. Men Cast it Out. He that Hath Ears 
 
 to Hear, Let Him Hear." 
 
 [R. TALKWELL continued last Sunday morning his 
 answer to the question, "What practical good could 
 possibly arise from Christian ministers visiting 
 places ordinarily called wicked?" 
 
 In my attempts to get acquainted with our city I have 
 had frequent occasion to enter a place of public amusement 
 of a kind to be found in all cities of any size. A small price of 
 admission is charged. At the end of a long, well lighted hall 
 is a stage on which are nightly performances, Sundays excepted. 
 The performances are not especially objectionable nor inter- 
 esting, but they are of sufficient variety and coarse humor to 
 attract audiences every night. 
 
 The women who frequent this place are classed as disre- 
 putable, and are mostly examples of pathetic poverty and 
 reckless despair. The men are from all classes of society, but 
 consist mostly of the so-called lower classes. Tables and 
 chairs are scattered throughout the hall, where beer and other 
 refreshments are served. A special policeman is always in 
 attendance, whose presence seems wholly superfluous, as the 
 best of order prevails. 
 
 Sitting at these tables, listening to the entertainment or 
 talking with each other, drinking and smoking, about 100 
 men and one-quarter as many women spend six evenings in 
 
96 REV. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 the week until 12 o'clock. The place is frequently visited by 
 the police and detectives in search of truants, runaways and 
 petty offenders. The place renders a peculiar service to the 
 city, as the officers are almost sure to find the wanted man or 
 woman of a certain type. An irresistable attraction for the 
 place draws them here, making them easy game for the 
 police. 
 
 Young men who indulge in an occassional lark, or visitors 
 who wish to see the sights of the city with the boys, are 
 almost sure to visit this place late in the evening. No openly 
 indecorous word or action is allowed here, and yet the associa- 
 tions which young men of respectable families form here are 
 most unfortunate. 
 
 No girl enters this place who makes any pretense of 
 decency. Her presence here speaks plainer than words could, 
 what her vocation is. With the external appearance of well- 
 behaved people, these men and women mingle freely together 
 forming acquaintances that can hardly end in anything but 
 harm to both. And yet young men (with a liberal sprink- 
 ling of men not young) can maintain a respectable standing 
 in the community at the same time they frequent this place. 
 They can spend an evening in company with a pure girl in 
 one of the many exclusive homes of the city, and the next 
 evening in company with one of these pitiful, brazen, 
 debauched girls of the town. They can carry this sort of 
 thing on year after year and feel perfectly safe. They can 
 do this because none but their own kind visit here. 
 
 Some time ago during a visit to this public hall I saw a 
 young man who belonged to a Bible class that I was teaching 
 at the time. He was a prominent member of the church, of 
 aristocratic family and engaged to one of the purest and 
 sweetest girls I ever knew. He was sitting at a table with 
 other young men engaged in conversation with two of the 
 girls. He saw me about the same time I saw him, and tried 
 to conceal his identity by pulling his hat down over his eyes. 
 
WICKEDNESS MADE SECURE. 97 
 
 I approached the table, however, and spoke to him as if there 
 was nothing peculiar about our meeting in this place. After 
 some hesitation he introduced me to his male friends, but did 
 not offer to introduce me to the girls. He became very uneasy 
 during my conversation, in which I alluded to the church and 
 Bible class and other matters in common between us. His 
 confusion was so great that I soon took pity on him and retired 
 to speak to others I recognized. 
 
 The next day I met one of the men to whom I was intro- 
 duced, and he began at once talking of the occurrence of the 
 last evening. He apologized profusely for having been seen 
 in such a place, and among other things he said : " The young 
 fellow you talked with was terribly cut up over the affair, and 
 said if there were five more men like Dr. Talkwell in this 
 city it would not be safe for anyone to go on a spree without 
 leaving town." 
 
 I pondered long and seriously over this last remark. " If 
 there were five more such men as Dr. Talkwell in this city it 
 would not be safe (safe mind you) for a man to go on a spree 
 without leaving town." I had accidentally stumbled on a 
 secret of the debauchee and the wayward. 
 
 What this class of men desire most of all is precisely 
 what we are doing to be let alone. They wish us to stay 
 away, and we are kind enough to do so. Once behind the 
 closed door of this or any similar place, they are as safe as if 
 an ocean separated them from home. For fear of contam- 
 inating ourselves we have avoided such places, and thus made 
 it easy for our sons to conceal themselves within. To save 
 our own timid souls we have digged a pitfall for our sons. 
 
 This same privacy extends to all the saloons of the city, 
 and is of our own making. We have hedged these places 
 about with safeguards, with our own moral cowardice and 
 pious Phariseeism. Once behind the screen, and the prodigal 
 son is as safe from his prudent father or prudish mother as if 
 they were in different hemispheres. The prodigals of today 
 
98 DR. TALKW ELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 need not go into a far country. Their revels can safely be 
 conducted under our very noses. This is exactly what we 
 have been practicing and preaching industriously for years. 
 We have been the chief ally of the saloonkeeper. We have 
 made his place a place of safety to the sinner. 
 
 And to make our idiocy complete, our imbecility perfect, 
 we have tried faithfully, lo, these many years, by legal perse- 
 cution, to drive these places into greater seclusion, force them 
 into safer obscurity. As they are at present conducted, the 
 policeman is liable to enter them at any time, day or night, 
 and they are open to the inspection of any citizen at all times. 
 But we would have driven these places, if we could, behind 
 locked doors and into private rooms, where no policeman 
 could enter and no citizen could find entrance except by 
 special permission. I am truly thankful that our misguided 
 zeal was not successful. 
 
 If I had simply been about my Master's business instead of 
 officiating as the business manager of a social and educational 
 club, I should have known better. I need not have waited so 
 long to learn that my absence from and hostility to these 
 places only intensified their mischief. If I had only been 
 following in the footsteps of the friend of publicans and 
 sinners, I should have learned long ago that lesson that the 
 young man taught me when he said : " If there were five Dr. 
 Talkwells in this city it would not be safe to go on a spree." 
 
 Suppose instead of five there were one hundred. Suppose, 
 in other words, that all the pastors in this city were really 
 Christian ministers, visiting all places where wandering sheep 
 are wont to stray; suppose such an astounding state of affairs 
 existed, where, then, would the young men feel safe to go on 
 a spree? All the preaching in Christendom can not constitute 
 such an effectual barrier to the harmful influences of these 
 places as the quiet, persistent, friendly visits of a sincere man 
 or woman, seeking to follow the footsteps of Jesus, who talked 
 with harlots and ate with publicans. 
 
KID-GLOVE CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 "Woe Unto You When All Men Speak Well of You." 
 
 R TALKWELL is visiting the state institutions. By 
 the courtesy of the governor he has access to all 
 possible information concerning them. Each insti- 
 tution is reported in detail its uses and abuses, its 
 aims and shortcomings to large and interested audiences 
 every Sunday. Each report furnishes such a large array of 
 items of interest to both the taxpayer and the pious, that sev- 
 eral consecutive Sundays are occupied with a single institu- 
 tion. Each Sunday's report occupies about an hour. At the 
 close of one of these very helpful and timely reports the doc- 
 tor said : 
 
 "I will now change the subject by answering one of the 
 many questions that are awaiting reply. For instance, here is 
 a question that keeps constantly coming up. It has been 
 asked me over and over again since our new work began : c If 
 Christian ministers were to visit places generally forbidden to 
 respectable people, such as saloons, gambling places, etc., etc., 
 would not their reputation suffer? Would not their respecta- 
 bility be sullied? Would not their standing in society be 
 injured ?' 
 
 " Well, to begin with, any man posing as a Christian 
 minister who thinks more of his reputation, his respectability, 
 his standing in society than he does of his work as a Christian 
 minister, ought to strictly avoid visiting such places. His 
 visits could do no possible good, and they would do a great 
 deal of harm. Such a man ought to be kept in a band-box 
 
100 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 where he belongs. Such a man does not believe in the first 
 principles of Christianity. He might be a theologian, but he 
 is not a Christian minister. The less Christian work (?) he 
 does in any community the better off the community would be. 
 
 a But to those who really do care more about following 
 Jesus than becoming popular, I wish to say a few words. 
 Suppose I admit, to start with, that the work of the real 
 Christian minister is quite liable to be despised, mistrusted, 
 misjudged by a large portion of every community. Suppose 
 that I admit that the churches, as a rule, would not support or 
 tolerate the work of such a minister. Were you not prepared 
 for this when you set out on the Christian ministry ? Did you 
 not know that a Christian minister would meet with such 
 things ? Have you not read your Testament ? What do you 
 suppose Jesus meant when he said : ' Blessed are ye when 
 men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all man- 
 ner of evil against you, falsely, for my sake.' What do you 
 suppose he meant when he said this ? 
 
 " Is it not fair to presume that he foresaw that your work 
 would make you liable, at least to have men revile you, and 
 persecute you, and say evil things of you ? If a minister is to- 
 only do those things which do not render him liable to any of 
 these unpleasant experiences, what did Jesus mean when he 
 said these words ? Jesus did not anywhere promise or intimate 
 that his ministers were to be popular, well spoken of, re- 
 spected or of good reputation. He again and again warned 
 his disciples that the exact opposite of this must be looked 
 for. 
 
 u He said to his disciples : ' Beware of men, for they will 
 deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you. in 
 their synagogues.' ' And ye shall be hated of all men for my 
 name's sake.' Did you not read this before you set out to be 
 a Christian minister ? If you read it, did you believe it ? If 
 you did read and believe it, how came you to expect that any 
 thing else would occur to you? Scourged in the synagogues. 
 
KID-GLOVE CHRISTIANITY. 101 
 
 hated of all men. This is what Jesus said. Surely he was 
 not describing that set of men who are posing as Christian 
 ministers today. Either he did not know what would happen 
 to Christian ministers, or else these men are not Christian 
 ministers. 
 
 u For of all men, the so-called Christian minister of today 
 bears the least resemblance to this description. No one 
 reviles him, no one persecutes him, no one scourges him in 
 the synagogues (except when they scourge each other on 
 account of some doctrinal difference). Of course there are 
 some black sheep among them who lose their reputations, and 
 are justly condemned by the community, but as a rule, they 
 are the most respectable, the most popular and the least per- 
 secuted men in any community. Why is this? My answer 
 is, because they are not doing the work that Jesus expected 
 that they would do. If they were doing this work really, they 
 would soon find themselves in collision with a thousand and 
 one things with which now they have the most amicable 
 relations. 
 
 "I do not mean by this that the so-called Christian min- 
 ister is deliberately compromising with evil, always, or even 
 often. But I do mean to say that the work he is doing closes 
 his eyes, stops his ears to the facts of his surroundings. This 
 has the effect of making him almost absolutely innocuous. 
 His unconscious inertness is fitly described by the scripture 
 when it says : " Because thou art neither cold nor hot I will 
 spew thee out of my mouth." 
 
 In another place Jesus says : ' If they have called the 
 master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they 
 call them of his household ? ' Did you expect that you could 
 follow Jesus and not suffer at least some of the persecutions 
 that he suffered ? He said : " He that taketh not his cross 
 and followeth after me is not worthy of me." What do you sup- 
 pose he meant by cross ? Did he mean things that are com- 
 fortable, that are reputable, that are prosperous, that are 
 desirable ; did he mean any of these things ? I think not. 
 
102 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 Did you get it into your head when you entered the 
 ministry that you were going to gain a reputation rather than 
 lose a reputation? Did you see in the ministry an opportun- 
 ity to win respectability, rather than a sacred obligation to 
 lose your respectability if need be ? They said of Jesus : u Be- 
 hold a man gluttonous, and a wine bibber, a friend of publi- 
 cans and sinners." Have they ever said this of you? Have 
 you ever given them any occasion to say this of you ? Have 
 you not, on the contrary, carefully avoided such places and 
 associations as would make any one liable to say such things 
 of you ? Have you been reading your testament all this time ? 
 If so, by what hocus pocus have you been able to persuade 
 yourself that you have been following Jesus? 
 
 You remember that Jesus was roundly criticised by the 
 pious ones of his day for doing the work of practical charity 
 on the Sabbath day. They charged him with breaking the 
 Sabbath by doing secular, humanitarian work on that day. 
 Have you ever been accused of this? Did the community 
 ever criticise you for not keeping the Sabbath day? I think 
 not. You have been very punctilious about this, without a 
 doubt. And let me tell you right here, if you keep on care- 
 fully avoiding doing the things Jesus did, you will have no 
 trouble in maintaining your respectability, your popularity 
 and your unsullied reputation as a refined Christian (?) 
 gentleman. 
 
 You just read your Testament every day, take careful 
 note of what Jesus did, then cautiously guard against doing 
 any of them, and you will have no trouble whatever. No one 
 will speak ill of you. Your reputation as a nice, pious 
 preacher will be flawless. Everybody will like you. No man 
 will have aught against you. Stop your ears against those 
 disagreeable persons who try to make it out that there is any 
 disrepute possible in the work of a Christian minister. 
 
 No; until you are willing to give up the world and 
 take Jesus at his word, follow him- wherever he leads, I would 
 advise you to stay at home in your little parsonage, in your 
 own respectable parish, and carefully guard that little glass 
 trinket of yours which you call your reputation. Some one 
 might speak ill of you as they did of Jesus. 
 
PRIMITIVE RELIGION. 
 
 " It is More Blessed to Give Than to Receive." 
 
 >ND IF I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and 
 if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, 
 it profiteth me nothing." 
 
 There is nothing that can take the place of love. 
 If we have the love of humanity in our hearts and have noth- 
 ing else, we have all there is of religion. If we have not the 
 love of humanity, genuine, unaffected love; though we have 
 everything else, we have nothing that is religious. Though I 
 bestow all my goods to feed the<poor but do not love the poor,. 
 I have done nothing. Though for humanity I give my body 
 to be burned, if I do not love humanity, I am nothing to- 
 humanity. 
 
 There is but one real service we can render our fellow- 
 beings, and that is to love them. If real love exists between 
 two people, all the law and the gospel will be their rule of 
 conduct toward each other as a matter of course. This will 
 be so whether they have heard the gospel or not. If, however* 
 there be no genuine love between two people, all the legal 
 enactments, social etiquette, culture and refined manners in 
 the world cannot make them obey either the law or the gospeh 
 If we have love, we have everything; if we have not love, we 
 have nothing. Although my faith may be so great that I am 
 able to remove mountains, if I do not love humanity I have 
 nothing. I may be able to prophesy and understand all mys- 
 teries ; if I do not love my fellow-beings, without respect of 
 persons, I am nothing; I have nothing. 
 
KM DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 It is not enough that I love them that love me ; for do not 
 even the heathen do this ? It is not enough that I love my 
 own family ; for do not the brutes do this ? It is not enough 
 that I love persons of my own set, or society, or church, or 
 nationality, or color, or language, or faith all this falls far 
 short of the gospel; all this do the people of the world. 
 
 If I cannot love a man because he is dirty, or a woman 
 because she is ragged, I have no religion. If my love does 
 not withstand vulgarity, profanity, laziness, stupidity, lying, 
 licentiousness, I have not the love that entitles me to the 
 name of Christian. If I love only beauty, refinement, thrift, 
 grace, if I love only those who are virtuous and happy, 
 wherein am I different from them that know not Christ? 
 
 Just so long as there remains any class toward whom I 
 have only hate and aversion, for whom I have no love, just 
 so long I have failed to comprehend Christ. It is not enough 
 that I feel a love toward humanity ; that I cherish a senti- 
 ment of love ; I must be actuated in all my activities and 
 dealings with men by love. 
 
 This is not saying that I must be a vapid goody-goody, a 
 driveling, sentimental crank that any dead-beat delights to 
 find, upon whom he thrives and fattens. It is possible to love 
 a fellow-being without making a fool of him, or allowing him 
 to make a fool of me. 
 
 It does not follow because I love a man that I will do 
 everything he wants me to do. In fact, love is more discrim- 
 inating in its service than indifference. It is indifference 
 rather than love that actuates a person to give a stranger on 
 the street a dime, simply because he asks for it. It is a debat- 
 able question whether love ever inspires indiscriminate giving. 
 Love sometimes hurts, demands, compels, as well as soothes, 
 coaxes and indulges. A surgeon may love the one he cuts, as 
 well as the philanthropist loves the one he feeds. A man may 
 despise and hate the beggar he feeds, and love the child he 
 punishes. Love seeks to benefit, to restore, regardless of 
 means. 
 
PRIMITIVE REUGION. 105 
 
 A policeman may love the one he arrests; the jailor may 
 love the one upon whom he turns the key ; the teacher may 
 love the one upon whom the severest discipline is adminis- 
 tered. Indeed, nothing short of this is Christianity. On the 
 other hand, our " Lady Bountiful " may loathe the one she 
 rescues ; the millionaire may hold in contempt the enterprise 
 he assists, and the pastor may feel only languid interest in 
 the people to whom he ministers. All this often passes for 
 love, but is filthy rags in the sight of God. 
 
 It is the one who hates, not hurts, that is un-Christian. 
 It is the one who loves, not flatters, that is of Christ. " Give 
 to him that asketh," but not necessarily the thing asked for. 
 " From him that would borrow turn not away." He is entitled 
 to consideration and courtesy, but it does not follow that his 
 own idea of his own good shall prevail. 
 
 When a man's necessities are so great as to decide him to 
 ask for help, he does, by asking me, take me into his con- 
 fidence. His affairs have become temporarily my affairs. I 
 ought to do or advise, exactly as if the matter were my own. 
 If what he asked for, in my judgment, is not the best thing, 
 I have no right (much less is it my duty) to give it to him. 
 If I give any one anything which I do not believe to be for 
 his best good, I have done him an injury, not a kindness. 
 
 When asked to assist any one in trouble or want or dis- 
 tress, we are to do by him exactly as if the case were our own. 
 Since it is a fact that we often decide for ourselves a way out 
 of a difficulty that involves pain or self-denial or great sacrifice, 
 we ought not to shrink from prescribing the same for our 
 fellows, if it is our judgment such things are for the best. It 
 is the pernicious notion that love only coddles, indulges, 
 agrees to everything, that makes the idea of universal love 
 seem ridiculous to so many. The more we love a person, the 
 more we should be just to him. We are not just to our 
 brother when we consent to do anything for him which, in our 
 understanding of his case, is not the proper thing, even though 
 he may ask it. 
 
106 I)K. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 It is more pleasant to indulge than to deny, and easier 
 sometimes to consent, than to correct ; but if we really love 
 we will often be compelled to do both. There are many 
 people who continue to befog themselves with the notion that 
 the indiscriminate giving of money is an indication of love. 
 In the majority of cases of want, money is not needed at all. 
 Even in cases where money is needed, something besides the 
 money is needed far more. 
 
 Friendship, sympathy, counsel, acquaintance, these are 
 needed more than money. There are cases where money 
 should be given in addition to these, but never without them. 
 To give a man money is simply to give him power to do good 
 or ill, as he chooses. If I do not know nor care which he will 
 do with it, do 1 do the person or the community a good service 
 to give such a one money ? Ought we to give a child firearms, 
 or an imbecile dangerous chemicals ? It would not be a kind- 
 ness to do so to say the least. Why ? Because it would be 
 putting power into incompetent hands. 
 
 To give a bad man money is to do exactly the same thing. 
 It is not love that inspires such a gift. To give an entire 
 stranger money is a venture that is more liable to cause harm 
 than to do good. It is myself that I owe to humanity, without 
 respect of persons, not my money. It is myself that I should 
 give indiscriminately, not power. Jesus gave himself, not 
 money, to redeem humanity. Give to him that asketh. Give 
 what? Give yourself, your sympathj 7 , your advice, your best 
 judgment, and if need be, your money if no one else has a 
 higher claim on you. 
 
BLOWING HOT AND COLD. 
 
 Know Thy Works, That Thou Art Neither Cold nor Hot ; 1 
 Would Thou Wert Cold or Hot, So Because Thou Art 
 Lukewarm, and Neither Hot nor Cold, I Will 
 Spew Thee Out of My Mouth." 
 
 JT THE close of a very interesting report on one of 
 the state institutions last Sunday, Dr. Talkwell said : 
 "I have tried to make it clear to you in past dis- 
 courses that my former inefficiency as a Christian 
 minister depended largely upon the fact that I knew little or 
 nothing of the real lives of the so-called lower classes. This 
 conviction grows upon me daily as I continue my stay among 
 them. I am no longer visiting them. I am among them to 
 stay. If I make any visits it will be to the so-called upper 
 classes, and return at once to my place among the lowly, the 
 outcast and the outraged. Instead of losing my life, I have 
 found it. Instead of spending my strength, I have renewed 
 my strength. 
 
 I have found the degradation of the lower classes to be 
 exactly like the culture of the upper classes only skin deep. 
 The real man and woman underneath is very much the same, 
 with, perhaps, a liberal margin in favor of the degraded. I 
 have found the frank vulgarity and the outspoken profanity 
 of the so-called lower classes to be no surer index to what a 
 person really is, than the po'lite insincerities and polished 
 pretenses of the so-called upper classes. I have found pure 
 hearts and loyal souls everywhere, but I have found them so 
 much oftener among the poor than I used to among the rich. 
 
108 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 that I begin to believe that Jesus knew what he was talking 
 about when he spoke of the " deceitfulness of riches." 
 
 When I was the prosperous pastor of a prosperous 
 church I had a way of explaining (?) the words of Jesus, con- 
 cerning riches and rich men, which, in reality, emptied them 
 of all meaning. This toadying to the rich man was uncon- 
 scious on my part at the time, but I can see now plainly that 
 I was doing it nevertheless. When Jesus said that "A rich 
 man shall hardly enter the kingdom," when he said, " It is 
 easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a 
 rich man to enter into the kingdom of God," I felt sure that 
 such rash statements needed smoothing down; that they 
 were not to be taken literally. 
 
 I get out those old sermons now and read them over 
 with mingled shame and amusement. When Jesus told the 
 young man that if he would be perfect he must sell his pos- 
 sessions and distribute them to the poor (for he had much 
 riches), I had taken this plain statement in one of those old 
 sermons of mine, and by an adroit piece of theological thim- 
 ble-rigging I had actually made it out that Jesus did not mean 
 the rich men in my congregation; he only meant that partic- 
 ular rich man. It was unconscious on my part then, for I was 
 beholden to the rich man in those days. He sustained my 
 expensive church. He greased the wheels of my ecclesiastical 
 machinery. It was only just reciprocation on my part; sim- 
 ply good manners. It was the inevitable result of organized 
 Christianity and a salaried Christian ministry. 
 
 But as I read those sermons over now, my arguments 
 were so thin, and my illustrations so far-fetched, that if there 
 were any rich men in my congregation that had a particle of 
 sense they must have despised me. It is so apparent to me 
 now, since I am free from the whole business, that I blush as 
 I read it. What must a sensible, rich man have thought of 
 me, when I was using all my eloquence to curry his favor by 
 explaining away such plain, unmistakable language as Jesus 
 
KLCAYLXG HOT AXD COLD. 109 
 
 made use of when he said : u Ye cannot serve God and Mam- 
 mon." " For either you will hate the one and love the other, 
 or else will hold to the one and despise "the other." 
 
 Now it is an actual fact, as these old sermons reveal, that 
 I took this saying of Jesus as my text, and made it out to my 
 own satisfaction, at least, that the rich man was all right; 
 that he could live in a mansion with warm, empty rooms to 
 spare, while his neighbor was shuddering in a dark, cold 
 hovel ; that he could enjoy an income of tens of thousands a 
 year, while his neighbor was dragging out a miserable exist- 
 ence trying to support a large family on less than two hun- 
 dred dollars a year ; that he could feast while others fainted ; 
 that he could be warm while others were cold ; that he could 
 thrive while others perished ; that he could do all these things 
 and yet save his soul and become at last the possessor of a 
 crown of glory, richly studded with jewels, emblematic of the 
 colleges he had endowed, the churches he had built and the 
 benevolent enterprises he had assisted. 
 
 How the rich men must have despised me ! I feel sure 
 that they do not enjoy such truckling as this. Whatever else 
 the rich man is, he has brains to see through such subterfuge. 
 I do not wonder now that the rich man doled out his pennies 
 to me rather daintily after hearing such senseless sycophancy. 
 I honestly believe had I told him the square truth that he has 
 no moral right (according to Jesus) to have more than enough, 
 while his brother has less than enough, he would have ad- 
 mired my courage and would have set much higher value on 
 my preaching. Had I resolutely turned my face from all 
 apologies for the plain, direct ethics of Jesus concerning 
 riches, I really believe he would have been a more generous 
 contributor. It might not have reformed his practices, but he 
 would have known in his heart that I was telling him the 
 truth. He would have done secret penance for his conduct by 
 enlarging his gifts. 
 
 Had I made it plain to the rich man that I was the advo- 
 
110 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 <?ate of the poor man, the oppressed woman and the ragged 
 child, I suspect that he would have been only too glad to have 
 turned over to me larger portions of his wealth to relieve his 
 pangs of conscience. But I did not impress the rich man with 
 the fact that I would make any such use of his money if he 
 gave it to me. I gave him the notion many times that I 
 wanted to build a larger church, a higher steeple, employ a 
 more expensive choir, or contribute extensively to foreign 
 missionary enterprises ; that I wanted his money much more 
 for such things than to help the poor. He had business sagac- 
 ity enough to see that I overestimated the importance of these 
 ecclesiastical affairs. He lost confidence in my practical wis- 
 dom and concluded he could make better use of his own 
 money than 1 could. He was not altogether wrong, either. 
 
 My Master said : " Woe unto you that are rich ! For ye 
 have received your consolation ! " I frequently apologized to 
 the rich man for these harsh words of Jesus, but I never once 
 faithfully delivered my Master's message. I was secretly 
 ashamed of my Master and the rich man was secretly ashamed 
 of me. He knew that I was straining the plain words of 
 Jesus for his benefit. He resented my patronage. The truth 
 would have hurt him less. But I was unconscious of it all. I 
 often wondered at the parsimony then, but I see it all now. 
 It was a plain case of the " blind leading the blind." 
 
 I had parted company with Jesus. I was in a labyrinth of 
 my own making. Peter denied his Master thrice ; I had de- 
 nied him thrice and thrice and thrice again. I had failed to 
 effectually reach the rich man because I had not gone to the 
 poor man. 
 
 I had earned the silent contempt of the rich man at the 
 same time I had estranged and hurt the poor man. My re- 
 finements of the gospel had rendered them neither cold nor 
 hot, and they contained neither reproof nor succor. I have 
 since learned that the onlv wav to become a minister to the 
 
BLOWING HOT AND COLD. Ill 
 
 poor is to become one of them. I have also learned that the 
 only way to minister to the rich is to become a minister to the 
 poor. No one appreciates the services of such a minister 
 more than the rich man. He would be only too glad to placate 
 his own sense of right by assisting such a minister. My later 
 experiences confirm this, of which I may speak next Sunday. 
 
A RICH MAN'S RELIGION. 
 
 ' For the Love of Money is a Root of all Kinds of Evil, Which 
 
 Some, Reaching After, Have Been Led Astray From 
 
 the Faith, and Have Pierced Themselves 
 
 Through With Many Sorrows." 
 
 >S DR. TALK WELL rose to begin his report, a wealthy 
 banker asked the following question : 
 
 u What do you mean, or what do you suppose 
 Jesus meant, by the term 'rich man?' How much 
 money or wealth must a man have to be properly called a rich 
 man ? " 
 
 A rich man is one who spends more money for his personal 
 gratification than he needs. A man may control the use of 
 a large sum of money without being a rich man. He becomes 
 a rich man only when he consents to spend upon himself more 
 than is needed for any rational want. A man may be a 
 millionaire, and yet be a poor man in his habits. If a man 
 uses his millions in legitimate industries, furnishing work for 
 others at wages that allow them to live as well as he lives 
 himself, such a man is not a rich man. It is only when a man 
 can bring himself to consent to habitually use for his own 
 personal gratification more than he allows to those he employs. 
 Anything more than frugality and strict economy is riches. 
 Every one knows that there are those who daily suffer for 
 want of sufficient food and clothing. Everybody knows this. 
 There is no way to escape this knowledge. Providence has 
 so fixed it that there is only enough in this world to supply 
 each one decently. If one has more than enough to do this, 
 
A RICH MAN'S RELIGION. 11$ 
 
 then some one else must have less than enough. Any man 
 who allows himself needless luxuries is depriving some one 
 else of the necessaries of life. It is easier for a camel to pass 
 through the eye of a needle than for such a man to enter the 
 kingdom of God. 
 
 What is a luxury ? Something better or more expensive 
 than the average man can afford. This changes with every 
 generation, but remains relatively the same. Everyone knows- 
 when he is spending more on himself than the average person 
 could afford. When a man does this he is a rich man. A man 
 may have the control of millions and not do this, or have a 
 moderate income and be able to do it. Some capitalists live 
 frugally, practice economy, and use every cent of their income 
 to enlarge their usefulness. Such a man is not a rich man, 
 Such a man is the salt of the earth. May their tribe increase. 
 They are the men of ten talents who were commended for 
 having gained ten more talents for the Master. 
 
 Some men suffer because they have too little to eat, too- 
 little to wear and too much work to do. Such a man is poor. 
 Other men suffer because they have too much to eat, too- 
 much to wear, and too little work to do. Such a man is rich. 
 A shame on him. Woe unto him. No hunger can equal the 
 anguish that awaits him. Neither biting frosts nor crushing: 
 burdens can bring the torture that he is piling up against him- 
 self. He lazily cuts off his coupons, he languidly draws his, 
 interest. He loafs while others work for him, he yawns and 
 stretches while others sweat for him. " Woe unto him ! He 
 hath received his consolation ! " 
 
 How much may a man expend for his own living? My 
 answer is this : The average income which others receive. If 
 all wages and incomes were equally divided among all the 
 men of this country, what would each one receive ? Whatever 
 your answer is, that is the answer that God makes to your 
 question. If you receive a greater income than this, you have 
 110 right to use the surplus for your own gratification. You 
 
114 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 are by honor bound to so* use the surplus that others will 
 equally enjoy the benefit of it. 
 
 Your superior education and culture does not entitle you 
 to spend more on yourself on account of acquired taste and 
 habits, but on the other hand, it should have prepared you to 
 get along with less than your ignorant neighbor is able to do. 
 If your education did not so prepare you, it was not a Chris- 
 tian education you received, that is certain. If you really love 
 the people, you will make their woes your woes, their joys 
 your joys, and their wages your wages. You can then mourn 
 when they mourn ; rejoice when they rejoice. If you refuse 
 to use for your own living more than the average man receives, 
 then when the people are oppressed, you are oppressed also. 
 You are like Jesus, become poor for the sake of the people. 
 
 Surely Jesus could have commanded a better salary than 
 he did if he had chosen to. Did Jesus not have tastes and 
 appreciations that lifted him above the masses ? Why, then, 
 did he not indulge them like the many people do today who 
 think they are following Jesus ? Jesus refused to be richer 
 than the poorest. If I have not done this, I am not his fol- 
 lower. There is no use trying to dodge this plain fact. 
 
 Finally the Gospel will prevail, and every man receive an 
 equal income. In the meantime inequalities remain. The 
 best way to avoid the curse of riches is to use the excess of 
 income in such a way that others enjoy equal benefit from it. 
 Otherwise we are not Christians but brutes. If we must 
 indulge our aesthetic tastes, it can be done by the art gallery, 
 the theater, the popular concert, etc., to all of which the public 
 should have equal access and equal rights. It is not aesthetic 
 but, piggish, to keep such things for our own exclusive use. 
 
 There are two pigs in a pen. Both pigs are hungry. Enough 
 feed is put into their trough for both. But one pig is the 
 stronger. He drives the weaker one away, and eats it all. 
 As a consequence, both pigs suffer. The one suffers because 
 he has had too much to eat; the other because he has had too 
 little. Surely swine are disgusting creatures. 
 
A RICH MAN'S RELIGION. 115 
 
 There are two men on the street. Both men are hungry. 
 They have money enough (fifty cents) to buy both a good 
 dinner. But one man has all the money, and the other man 
 has none. The man who has the money buys himself a dinner 
 for fifty cents ; the other remains hungry. As a consequence 
 both suffer. The one suffers because he has had too much to 
 eat ; the other suffers because he has had too little. Surely 
 Christians are disgusting creatures. You say this man is not 
 a Christian ? The chances are that he thinks he is, and it is 
 not at all unlikely that he calls himself a Christian minister. 
 I used to do such things at the time I was known as a Christian 
 minister. You ask, u Could he not do as he pleased with his 
 money ? " Yes, he could, and he did. So did the other pig. 
 Money is power. He who has the most money has the most 
 power. He has deprived the other man of his dinner and has 
 eaten both dinners, simply because he had the power to do so. 
 This is exactly what the other pig did, also. There is no differ- 
 ence whatever. If the man can be defended, the pig can also. 
 
 The fact is this world is only rich enough to furnish all 
 the men with twenty-five-cent dinners. If I eat a fifty-cent 
 dinner, some other man must go without. If I eat a dollar 
 dinner, three men must go without. If I have a dollar to spare 
 for my dinner, I should save seventy-five cents to help the 
 ones who have no dinner. Otherwise, I am doing exactly 
 what the pig did. A twenty-five cent dinner is good enough 
 for anyone except a glutton. 
 
 I have heard that they have periodical debauches at our 
 national White House. At these so-called banquets every 
 sitter is supposed to eat or destroy ten dollars worth of food 
 and drink. At the same time people are hungry in all the 
 land. And yet we call this a Christian nation. We call the 
 president, who presides at these carnivals, a Christian presi- 
 dent. We call the people who help waste this food Christian 
 gentlemen and Christian ladies. We call the preachers who 
 honor these scenes of gross gluttony, by their presence or 
 approval, Christian ministers. Every time we use the word 
 Christian in such a sense, u we crucify to ourselves the Son of 
 God afresh, and put him to an open shame." 
 
A TALK ON ALMS-GIVING. 
 
 A Mission Without a Scrip. A Charity Without a Purse. 
 
 [R. TALKWELL was looking over his morning inaiL 
 He was seated in his plainly furnished library, 
 where gathered every night many stranded, helpless 
 souls for counsel, encouragement, and fraternity. His 
 mail consisted this morning, as usual, mostly of letters from 
 residents of the city relating to some trouble, physical or 
 spiritual, for which his help or advice was sought. One by one 
 the letters were read through carefully, sympathetically. 
 
 Occasionally a tear glistened in his eye as he read them. 
 The same old stories and yet ever appealing afresh to his heart. 
 Widows caught in the meshes of mortgage fiends. Mothers 
 tortured by wayward sons or daughters. Fathers, helpless or 
 desperate with no work, no credit, and worse than that, no 
 friends. Families disgraced by an erring girl hiding in places 
 of shame. Girls on the verge of a precipice, at the bottom of 
 which there is no hope, no pity, no help. Boys restive under 
 all restraint, misunderstood, misguided, with their manhood 
 yet unvanquished, ambition yet uncurbed. All these, and 
 more, were the writers of the letters which the doctor was 
 reading. 
 
 What will he do for these people ? This one man with no 
 funds, no organization behind him. What will one man do 
 with all these petitions? Can he perform miracles of healing, 
 of feeding, of defending, of consoling this multitude? Yes, 
 he can and will, right speedily, right easily. No trumpets to 
 sound, no statistics to keep, no red tape to unwind, no laggard 
 
A TALK ON ALMS-GIVING. 117 
 
 committee to wait for, no whining missionaries to consult. This 
 is what he will do, this one man who is making a feeble step 
 in the direction of real Christian ministry. This is what he 
 will do. 
 
 In his going in and out among the people a dozen lawyer's 
 have noticed his work and have offered to defend any case 
 where injustice is grinding the poor. >l Just telephone me and 
 you will find me ready at any time." A simple clasp of the 
 hand, a manly " Thank you sir, " and the compact is sealed. 
 A dozen physicans have noticed and have offered the same 
 fraternal assistance. Men of means have offered to make 
 small loans without interest to those found worthy of confi- 
 dence. The district nurses have offered their beautiful minis- 
 trations by which medicines for the poor, nicknacs for the con- 
 valescent, flowers and fraternities for the incurable are fur- 
 nished. The mayor, with all the powers of organized society 
 behind him, has offered his services in all cases where the law 
 would be more effective than the gospel. 
 
 How did Dr. Talkwell get all these powers to act in be- 
 half of the poor and down-trodden ? By simply doing his duty 
 among them. All these offers came to him unbidden, un- 
 sought. By losing his life, he found it. This is what he will 
 do, this one man in the name of his master, Jesus. He will 
 step to his telephone and summon to his aid these men and 
 women, many of whom never spoke in prayer meeting, were 
 never miraculously converted, do not attend church regularly 
 and hold curious notions about the Bible, but who really be- 
 lieve in Jesus, and are willing to follow in his footsteps if any 
 man will show them the way. 
 
 He will perform the miracle of setting all these willing 
 minds and open hearts to work for humanity in a moment's 
 time. On the wings of electricity his messages will speed 
 wings furnished by secular scientists while carping theologians 
 are disputing as to the difference between tweedle-dee and 
 tweedle dum. All the miracles of modern science become 
 
118 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 ministering angels to do his bidding. " He that believeth in 
 in me, the works that I do shall he do also ; and greater works 
 than these shall he do." 
 
 The number of his helpers increases every day. He meets 
 them on the street car. He finds them in the saloon. He dis- 
 covers them in the churches. He is accosted by them in the 
 busy market place. He seeks them nowhere. He finds 
 them everywhere. Simply because he is following his Master. 
 Simply because he has quit talking and has gone to work. 
 That is the secret of it. 
 
 The number of his petitioners increases every day. He 
 finds them where no organized charity can enter ; where no 
 proselyting impertinence can penetrate. He finds hearts sore and 
 hearts sick, where the missionary could only do harm ; he finds 
 them where pious, poor-pussying would not be allowed. And 
 what is better than all this, he sets other men to finding these 
 things out also ; not by exhortation, but by example. Oh, the 
 pity of it, that the plain gospel of Jesus should have become 
 so twisted, so perverted that anyone could have supposed that 
 any work beside this is Christian work that any other minis- 
 try than this is Christian ministry. It was this kind of work 
 that Jesus did. He did no other work. 
 
 It was in the midst of this morning's work that Dr. Talk- 
 well was interrupted by a visit from a city clergyman. He 
 explained that he had called to interest Dr. Talkwell in a 
 scheme to help the poor of the city. It was proposed to raise 
 money from each congregation and put the whole into the 
 hands of a city missionary to distribute among the poor as he 
 thought best. Dr. Talkwell asked : " Why is it proposed to 
 have the clergyman who raise the money pay it over to some 
 one else to disburse ? ^ 
 
 The clergyman replied : u Why I suppose that the preach- 
 ers who raise the money would not have time to look up the 
 needy ones, or if they did have time they would not know 
 where to find them." 
 
A TALK ON ALMS-GIVING. 11 
 
 u What!" exclaimed Dr. Talkwell. " Haven't time to 
 find the poor ; do not know where they are ? Are you talking 
 of Christian ministers when you say these things ? Do you 
 mean to say that there is a Christian minister in this city who 
 either has not the time or knowledge to intelligently disburse 
 the offerings of his own church to the poor ? A professed 
 Christian minister who has no time to visit the poor, and does 
 not know where to find them if he does have the time, is as 
 absurd as a merchant who has no store or customers a teacher 
 who has no school or scholars. 
 
 " If it be true that neither you nor the other ministers 
 know who or where the poor are, how did you come to know 
 that this other man, who calls himself a missionary, knows any 
 more about the poor than you do ? " 
 
 u Oh, well, " replied the clergyman, " it is supposed that 
 a missionary who spends all his time with the poor would 
 know more about them than the regular pastor, is it not ? " 
 
 " But you have no moral right to deal with suppositions 
 in this matter. If you collect money of your people with the 
 understanding that it is to be used for the poor of this city, you 
 are bound on your honor to see that it is so used. You have 
 no moral right to guess or suppose in such matters. You should 
 know. I have quit soliciting money for any purpose. As for 
 myself, I have no money. If I had I should feel it my per- 
 sonal duty to see that it was wisely used for the benefit of the 
 resident poor. My conscience would not allow me to shirk 
 this duty on anyone else. It seems to me certain that this 
 missionary, who is so anxious to distribute other people's alms, 
 can hardly have the example of Jesus in mind when he does 
 so. Jesus did nothing of this sort. He told the rich man to 
 sell what he had and distribute it to the poor. This so-called 
 missionary would have said : ' Sell what you have and bring 
 the proceeds to me and I will distribute it.' I should do a 
 good deal of thinking first and watching afterwards if I gave 
 money to such an enterprise, I think." 
 
120 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 " You do not mean to infer." replied the clergyman, u that 
 &ny of this money will be misappropriated ? " 
 
 " I did not intend to infer anything, " answered Dr. Talk- 
 well, u but I did intend to distinctly state that if you or any 
 other man collect money from the people of this citv, with the 
 understanding that such money is to be used for the benefit of 
 the poor of this city, that you have taken upon yourselves the 
 moral obligation to see that the money is so used. If you do 
 not do this, and the money you raise is used wholly or partly 
 for the benefit of non-residents, you have flim-flammed the 
 people, and the whole lot of you deserve to be sent to the 
 work-house, as they do other flim-flam mers. If you know 
 that such money is to be used solely for the benefit of resi- 
 dents of this city, it should be so stated when you raise the 
 money. If you know that it will be partly or wholly used for 
 the benefit of tramps, it should be so stated that the people 
 may know'to what sort of an enterprise they are giving. But 
 if, on the other hand, you do not know how this money will 
 be used, whether for the benefit of residents or non-residents-, 
 it is nothing less than dishonesty for you to fail to make this 
 -clear to those of whom you solicit money. Fraud is fraud, 
 even though it be a pious fraud." 
 
WHAT DID JESUS DO? 
 
 What Would Jesus Do If He Were a Carpenter?" 
 
 iHKOUGH the influence of a very good book entitled 
 " In His Steps," it has become quite the thing now- 
 adays to ask ourselves every day " what would 
 Jesus do if he were in our place? What would 
 Jesus do if he were the editor of a metropolitan newspaper ? 
 What would Jesus do if he were the president of a railroad 
 company ? What would Jesus do if he were a merchant, a 
 lawyer, a school teacher, a musician," etc., etc. These are very 
 suggestive questions, but I feel inclined to carry these ques- 
 tions a little farther. 
 
 For instance, u What would Jesus do if he were a carpen- 
 ter?" What did he do when he was a carpenter ? All tra- 
 ditions agree that Jesus was a carpenter. He probably con- 
 tinued in this vocation until he was about thirty years old. 
 Then he began his mission of gospel ministry. He was a 
 carpenter no longer. He became a minister of the gospel, a 
 bearer of good tidings to the poor, a shepherd to the lost 
 sheep, a friend of the publicans and sinners. He quit carpen- 
 tering when he became a minister. His mission to the people 
 was incompatible with a salary, with the possession of prop- 
 erty, with official dignity, with earthly power or vocation of 
 any sort. His power was the power of example, the power of 
 truth. His vocation was the vocation of the shepherd, who 
 left the ninety and nine sheep of the fold to search for the lost 
 one wandering in the bleak mountains of degradation and 
 despair. 
 
122 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 What would Jesus do if he were a carpenter ? He would 
 quit carpentering if he wished to become a minister of the 
 gospel. That is what he would do. At least that is what he 
 did do. What would Jesus do if he were the editor of a news- 
 paper? He would quit the newspaper business and enter the 
 work of a gospel minister. What did he tell Andrew, the 
 fisherman, to do? To quit fishing and he would make him a 
 fisher of men a minister. This is what he required of each 
 of his disciples. A complete renunciation of worldly, remun- 
 erative business, an unconditional surrender of mind and 
 body to the unremunerative, impractical calling of the gospel 
 ministry. 
 
 If the question was, u what would Jesus advise an editor, 
 a railroad man, a carpenter to do," it would be easy to give an 
 answer, as he put himself on record many times. He would 
 tell such people to keep the law r . He would have said, " If 
 thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." This is 
 what he told everybody. He came ' k not to destroy the law, 
 but to fulfill the law." He said just what Moses or Elijah or 
 any other good man would have said. He had nothing new to- 
 offer on moral conduct. He had new and better rules for 
 keeping the law, such as, u Love is the fulfilling of all law,' r 
 u As ye would that others should do unto you, do ye even so- 
 unto them." 
 
 While Jesus remained a carpenter he was, no doubt, a 
 good and faithful workman, receiving pay for his labor like 
 other men. But when he began his mission as a minister of 
 the gospel he became poorer than the poorest. He had no 
 place to lay his head. He received no pay, had no home ; he 
 relied on the hospitality of those to whom he ministered. He 
 slept where night overtook him. He rested where fatigue 
 overcame him. He ate where hunger found him. His pecul- 
 iar mission demanded all this of him. 
 
 In order to really go to the poor, the hungry, the over- 
 burdened, he must become like them. He' must show them 
 
WHAT DID JESUS DO? 123 
 
 that the peace and joy he came to bring could not be shaken 
 by these things. So long as he allowed himself any earthly 
 comfort or privilege they could not have, so long his life could 
 not demonstrate his teachings. He must become as one of 
 them. Then he could teach as one having authority. Then 
 could he say, u I am the way," not " I can tell you the way, n 
 but u I am the way." 
 
 Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, blessed are ye 
 poor, blessed are ye who hunger ; he not only taught these 
 things, but he demonstrated them. He was blessed, although 
 he was reviled of men ; he was poor. He was hungry. There 
 was no way to bring these truths to the world. He must 
 drink the cup of human suffering to the bitter dregs, and. in 
 spite of them all he had a joy the world could neither give 
 nor take away. Could neither give (as he refused such joys 
 as earth can give), could not take away (as he drank the cup 
 of earthly sorrow to the last drop.) 
 
 To this kind of life he called his ministers. He did not 
 call many ministers. Only twelve during his life time. Only 
 twelve of all those who heard him and loved him. He had a 
 message for the whole world. But his messengers were chosen 
 from many. Many were called but few were chosen. The 
 holy spirit has been calling a few here and there ever since. 
 
 Chosen for what ? To enjoy priestly privileges or wield 
 ecclesiastical powers ? Not at all ! Chosen for a service of 
 worldly sacrifice and humble ministration. He washed his 
 disciples' feet to illustrate the function of the real minister. 
 A mean service, according to worldly wisdom. Called to lose 
 their lives that they may make others rich in spiritual gifts ; 
 called to bear all the hate, the ignominy, the poverty, the 
 false accusations this world can invent in order to prove to 
 the world that real poverty, real riches, can neither be given 
 nor taken away by the world. 
 
 There is a sense in which every man can carry the gospel 
 to his neighbor. Deeds of kindness, words of sympathy, 
 
124 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 acts of genuine fraternity all these carry the gospel from 
 man to man. But that Jesus intended to institute a special 
 gospel ministry, there can be no doubt. That he intended to 
 call some men apart from all worldly employment, giving 
 their whole time to ministrations among the unfortunate, is 
 very certain. How anyone can read the New Testament and 
 reach any other conclusion is a curious enigma. Unfortu- 
 nately, this doctrine has been held by men who took advan- 
 tage of it to claim for the gospel ministry special privileges, 
 special powers and special distinctions. Such claims are 
 exactly the reverse of the truth. Gospel ministers have taken 
 upon themselves special responsibilities, special hardships 
 and special self-sacrifice. Instead of gaining the world, they 
 have lost the world. 
 
 On the other hand, there are those who deny that Jesus 
 intended to establish any special ministry; that he instituted 
 no special class of men to do this work ; that the editor, the 
 carpenter, the blacksmith, the school teacher, is just as much 
 a minister of the gospel as any one else, if he only chooses to 
 be ; that the gospel minister is simply a good man or woman, 
 performing every duty, keeping every obligation. This view 
 of gospel ministry is especially attractive to those persons 
 who wish to pose as gospel ministers and yet shirk the respon- 
 sibility of real gospel ministry. This view of the gospel 
 minister is ably defended by that preacher who wishes to 
 enjoy every luxury and comfort this world can give, and at the 
 same time satisfy himself that he is following his Master, Jesus. 
 
 Real gospel ministers are needed in the world today as 
 much as ever. While there are, doubtless, more of such in 
 this age than ever before, yet it is a strange circumstance that 
 this function has gradually shifted from the so-called minis- 
 terial class to the laymen. The work of ecclesiastical propa- 
 ganda and theological proselyting has, little by little, in the 
 churches, taken the place of gospel ministry. The real work 
 of Jesus is mostly done by secular enterprise. In the Master's 
 work it is, perhaps, more true than ever before that those who 
 say u I go," do not go, while those who say u I go not," really 
 do go. 
 
A USELESS CHURCH. 
 
 Why Stand Ye Here Idle?" "Because No Man Hath Hired Us." 
 The Way of Salvation is the Way of Service. 
 
 LOCAL clergyman called on Dr. Talkwell the other 
 day to get his opinion on a question that had been 
 troubling him seriously. He said: " My church is 
 getting on fairly well as churches go. We have a 
 very wise and pushing board of managers and I am succeed- 
 ing tolerably well in drawing an audience, but as a church we 
 are doing nothing except to keep the thing running. I preach, 
 they listen, and then go home to dinner. Then I preach again, 
 then they go home to sleep. ' I rack my brain to invent 
 something to preach about, and they rack their brains to raise 
 money to pay the choir, the sexton, the taxes, the running 
 expenses and my salary. 
 
 u Then, of course, we have young people's meeting, but it 
 is quite pathetic to witness their futile attempts to keep up an 
 interest in these meetings. They have nothing to talk about, 
 nothing practical to do; in short, there seems to be no rational 
 reason for their meeting whatever. The same general want of 
 purpose is apparent in our Sunday school and prayer meeting. 
 Now, this in brief, is our trouble. It grows worse every year. 
 We want something to do, some practical Christian work. 
 " If we had something to do I would have something to 
 preach about, the young people would have something to 
 talk about ; we would have something to pray for, and confer 
 over; we would have something fresh to teach the young in 
 our Sunday school. As it is, we harp over and over again the 
 
126 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 same old things, all good enough in their way, but long since 
 antiquated. 
 
 u I have watched your radical departure from church cus- 
 toms with interest, and while I do not quite follow you in all 
 of your views, I am inclined to think you are on the right 
 track. At least your acquaintance with the city and its religi- 
 ous needs may enable you to make some suggestions as to 
 practical church work. Can you tell us what to do to be 
 saved from spiritual dry rot and theological dyspepsia ? " 
 
 To all of the clergyman's remarks Dr. Talkwell listened 
 with close attention and sympathetic interest. He hesitated a 
 moment before venturing a reply. In that moment of hesita- 
 tion a silent prayer to the Father of all Wisdom was offered, 
 that the right words might be said. This habit of silent 
 prayer in all emergencies began in the doctor's history as soon 
 as he discarded all ecclesiastical crutches, and the habit is 
 becoming more and more a necessity with him. 
 
 " I feel deeply the confidence you have shown in me by 
 asking my advice in such matters," said Dr. Talkwell at last, 
 u and I sincerely pray that I may be able to help you in your 
 dilemma. You have stated the case exactly, and what you say 
 of your own church applies to many others equally well, I fear. 
 There is nothing the church so sorely needs today as some- 
 thing tangible, something rational to do. Not money, not 
 membership, not buildings, not scholarship, not anything do 
 they need so much as sensible, practical Christian work. 
 
 " I know by painful experience what it is to be the pastor 
 of a church, with all the machinery needed for good work, 
 with an ample following of men and women ready to obey any 
 specific request, lacking nothing, in fact, but a clear, practical 
 notion of what I wished to do. Since I have withdrawn from 
 the necessity of keeping this useless, ecclesiastical tread- 
 mill moving, I have found many things which the church 
 might be doing, not only for the good of humanity, but for its 
 own good. The churches are being rapidly deserted by prac- 
 
A USELESS CHURCH. 137 
 
 tical men and women, and unless it very soon outlines for 
 itself some work that will appeal to the judgment and enthu- 
 siasm of the business and working people, many churches 
 might as well stop entirely the farce of holding public 
 services. 
 
 " Let me see. Where is your church located ? " asked 
 the doctor, after a pause. 
 
 " On the east side of the city," replied the clergyman. 
 " The people in the bounds of my parish are generally well- 
 to-do, a great many of whom belong to churches down-town. 
 There seems to be little or no field for mission work, and in 
 our public services we have to contend with down-town 
 churches, which have attractions with which we cannot suc- 
 cessfully compete. Our entire energies are expended in try- 
 ing to hold the ground we have already gained." 
 
 " Your location was evidently selected with a view to get 
 as far as possible from the real work of a Christian minister," 
 remarked Dr. Talkwell, " but there are several fields white for 
 the harvest where East Side churches enjoy special advan- 
 tages, I will mention one, only, for your consideration. 
 
 " Southeast of this city is an institution known as the 
 Infirmary, where nearly 400 poor, stranded souls are housed 
 together waiting for death to ring down the curtain on the 
 last act of their sorrowful careers. This multitude of human 
 shipwrecks is made up of many creeds and nationalities. 
 Some of them have been prosperous and prominent citizens, 
 some hopeless vagabonds. Some are bright, some idiotic, 
 some sweetly content, some morbidly dissatisfied. But all are 
 pitiful in the extreme ; all, for one reason or another, proper 
 material for genuine Christian ministration. 
 
 "Now these people are nearer to your church than to 
 churches down town. This is your natural advantage. Again, 
 you have less of this kind of work available than the down- 
 town churches have. You will find the managers of this 
 institution quite willing to allow you all reasonable privileges 
 
128 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 to do Christian work. There is a good chapel for services, 
 commodious grounds and large rooms for social intercourse. 
 
 " Grandfathers and grandmothers in all stages of senility 
 and infirmity are there. New-born children with no father,, 
 and perhaps worse than no mother, are there also. The lame 
 and the lunatic, the cunning and the curious, are found at this 
 place in all phases of dejection and degeneration. These are 
 they of whom Jesus spoke when he asked Simon, l Lovest 
 thou me?" Simon answered, ' Yea, Lord, thou knowest I 
 love thee.' ' Feed my lambs.' It was of such as these he 
 spoke." 
 
 u But I fail to see how either I or my church can do any- 
 thing for these people," said the clergyman. 
 
 * c Yes, I expected you would say that. Allow me, how- 
 ever, to attempt to outline a plan, subject, of course, to change 
 and revision, as the wisdom of experience dictates, which may 
 help you. First, let me caution you against going at this work 
 as reformers or opposers of anything or anybody. Not a sus- 
 picion of politics or the slightest tinge of proselyting should 
 be exhibited. If your theology is not broad enough to carry 
 the gospel to Jew and Gentile, Catholic and Protestant with- 
 out disturbing anyone's theological notions, stay away by all 
 means. If your love for humanity is not strong enough to 
 meet bravely the criticism of some, and misrepresentation of 
 others, do not attempt it. Remember that if you attempt to 
 follow, the Master you will be sure to meet some of his crosses. 
 
 " One word more before I proceed to the particulars of 
 the suggestions I was going to make. All beginnings seem 
 small and insignificant. The gospel is like a grain of mustard 
 seed, very small, but is capable of great development. At 
 first you will have some very uninviting and unpromising work 
 to do. Once begun, however, the work will grow in unex- 
 pected ways and directions. 
 
 u I wish to repeat that real Christian work always begins 
 with small things. This is so in any real work. If I want a 
 
A USELESS CHURCH. 129 
 
 living tree I must plant the seed and wait for the slow pro- 
 cesses of germination and growth. A very small seed, a very 
 unpromising shoot, a miserable little shrub with tiny twigs, is 
 all that has seemingly resulted from years of waiting. But 
 the elements of growth are there. The hidden vigor of living 
 vitality is there, which sooner or later, will begin to show 
 itself in larger results. 
 
 " But if I am content to have an artificial tree, a dead 
 tree, a tree that has no inherent vitality, I can get such a tree 
 ready made, already grown in a single day. Place it beside 
 the little twigs for which I have waited two or three years, 
 and the dead tree towers over it in patronizing superiority. 
 And yet, everybody knows that that little living twig is worth 
 more than a thousand dead trees. The dead tree begins at the 
 zenith of its glory and' gradually degenerates into worthless 
 insignificance. The living tree begins in apparent insignifi- 
 cance and grows into majestic beauty and strength. 
 
 "It is just so with religion and theology. Religion is a 
 living vitality. Theology is an artificial structure. Religion 
 begins as a small thing, but having real life, it gradually 
 becomes a great thing. Theology consists of creeds and out- 
 ward observances, is man-made and has no inherent life. 
 Theological enterprises generally start off with a big boom, a 
 wonderful display of property and people. But true religious 
 work never begins this way; it always begins with small 
 things. Jesus in describing the growth of real gospel work, 
 said : L The kingdom of heaven is like unto a grain of mustard 
 seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed 
 is less than all seeds, but when it is grown, it is greater than 
 the herbs and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the heavens 
 come and lodge in the branches thereof.' 
 
 " Again : l The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, 
 which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till it 
 was all leavened.' This shows what Jesus thought of gospel 
 work. It is a little thing at first. His own life was seemingly 
 
130 KEV. TALK WELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 a small affair. He headed no great enterprise. The greatest 
 things he ever said were wayside conversations or confidential 
 talks. His mission, viewed from any worldly standpoint, was 
 a failure, but the life of his personal contact had been imparted ; 
 the seed had been planted. A living germ had been fructified, 
 and could do nothing else but grow. Organizations could not 
 help or hinder its growth. Ecclesiastical machinery could and 
 did pervert its growth, but could not entirely defeat it. 
 
 u If you begin the work of Christian ministry at the 
 Infirmary with the expectation that in six months or a year 
 you are going to have some dramatic results to parade before 
 the people, or startling statistics to bawl and bray to admiring 
 multitudes (like the ticket seller of a sideshow), if you go into 
 this work with any such expectation or wish, or go into any 
 other real Christian work in this way, you are sure to be 
 disappointed. 
 
 u In the first place, I should advise you to make several 
 preliminary visits to this institution, get acquainted with the 
 directors, the superintendent and the doctor in charge of the 
 institution. Get their confidence that what you desire to do 
 has in it no hostile feeling or sinister motive. As soon as they 
 discover that your purpose is only to bring gospel fraternity 
 and brotherly sympathy, you will probably have their consent, 
 -at least, if not their active co-operation. 
 
 " You will find this institution, like all other similar insti- 
 tutions, managed by men who accepted the authority they 
 ^njoy because of the salary attached. It was probably no 
 humanitarian or philanthropic impulse that prompted them to 
 seek this work. These positions were sought as the means of 
 livelihood and were secured by the same means that any other 
 political position is secured. This is not intended as a stigma 
 upon them or their work, for it applies to all similar institu- 
 tions of this and many other cities. It is not likely that any 
 of them would claim that they would wish to do this kind of 
 work if there was no salary attached. They would reply, and 
 
A USELESS CHURCH. 131 
 
 very justly, that those who minister to the churches have 
 precisely the same attitude toward their work. It is very safe 
 to say that a church that pays no salary would have no 
 preacher, except, perhaps, the Quakers. 
 
 u After consulting with the managers of this institution 
 you might find the way opened to spend the evening that you 
 have been devoting to what is called a prayer meeting to 
 devote this evening to the infirmary. Call your young people 
 to your assistance and get up some sort of helpful, interesting 
 and amusing entertainment every Wednesday evening reci- 
 tations, singing, readings and whatever may suggest itself as 
 being proper. As soon as you find your church and these 
 people laughing together at the same humor, or crying 
 together over the same pathos, or enjoying together the same 
 music, or being uplifted by the same inspiration, or singing 
 together, you have established something in common between 
 you and them. This is the first step to take toward anyone 
 you wish to benefit; find something in common something 
 that can be mutually enjoyed. 
 
 u No sooner will you have begun this work in the right 
 spirit, than acquaintances and intimacies will begin to spring 
 up between the two companies of human souls, who have 
 never before known each other. No doubt a Sunday service 
 would soon follow, even though it be nothing but a song 
 service by your young people. You might alternate with 
 your young people Sunday morning or evening in holding- 
 services, leaving them in charge of your services when 
 you preach over there, and allowing them to hold the same 
 song service in your church in the place of your sermon. Of 
 course, these are only suggestions ; a thousand and one things 
 will occur to you as you go on with the work. Get it out of 
 your head as quickly as possible that in order to run a church 
 successfully you have got to preach two or three sermons 
 every week. The people are getting tired of this sort of 
 thing, and the preachers are getting tired of it. 
 
132 DR. TALKWELt'S SKETCHES. 
 
 " It is simply a custom that has outlived its usefulness. 
 One good rousing sermon by some live worker in Christian 
 ministry would do more good than twenty sermons preached 
 by some one who has nothing in particular to say. A preacher 
 delivering a sermon simply because he has been paid for doing 
 so and it is expected of him, rather than that he has anything 
 to say; and an audience listening to this preacher because they 
 have paid for it and it is expected of them, rather than that 
 they have any interest in what he is saying, is a serio-comic 
 performance fit to make the gods weep and laugh alternately. 
 
 u Post yourself on the laws governing this institution and 
 the history of it. Get the directors or the superintendent to 
 deliver addresses before your church on the effects and defects 
 of the work it is doing. Become acquainted with as many as 
 possible of the inmates. Many of them have relatives in the 
 city who would appreciate your work. This might be a means 
 of enlarging your work in the city, getting into new channels 
 of influence. Make your people acquainted with every detail 
 of the direct and indirect influence of this institution upon 
 our city, until your people will become known as reliable 
 authority on these subjects. 
 
 " You will soon find that you will be consulted by people 
 who are in some way interested in this institution, and little 
 by little you will become a real minister to a large number of 
 people who are in some way affected by this institution. 
 There is no end to the work that will gradually grow up around 
 you. The election of a new trustee, the appointment of a new 
 superintendent or matron, the death of an old pauper or help- 
 less widow would become themes of daily conversations with 
 the people of your church, which will take the place of petty 
 gossip and trivial formalities with which they now spend their 
 precious time. 
 
 ''Finally, what do you suppose would be the effect on 
 the institution itself to know that the eyes of two or three 
 
A USELESS CHURCH. 133 
 
 hundred people were upon them ; that the hearts of two or 
 three hundred people were beating in sympathy with the 
 inmates ; that the energies of two or three hundred people 
 were pledged to sincere devotion to the help, the defense 
 and the friendship of everybody in any wise connected with 
 it? What encouragement this would be for improvement. 
 What discouragement it would be for neglect and indiffer- 
 ence. But this is not a theme for words ; action alone can 
 develop it. It is an open door to a large work. It is a field 
 white for the harvest." 
 
A MODERN HERESY. 
 
 When Thou Doest Alms, Let It Be Done In Secret. 1 
 
 'FTER spending the morning hour last Sunday in 
 answering questions on local affairs, Dr. Talkwell 
 said: 
 
 One of the curiosities of history is the modern 
 conception of the teachings of Jesus. Exactly those things 
 that Jesus forbade his desciples to do are today regarded as 
 the special signs of Christian discipleship. On the other hand, 
 nearly all that he regarded as essential is systematically 
 ignored. It is the irony of fate that nearly everything that he 
 strove to eradicate from the minds of his followers is now 
 done in his name, for his sake, and professedly derived from 
 his teachings. 
 
 'Tis passing strange that such plain, direct language as 
 Jesus used could be so perverted except by deliberate inten- 
 tion. For instance, out of the many things that Jesus taught 
 which have been absolutely reversed in practice, let us select 
 three alms-giving, prayer and fasting. 
 
 These things, Jesus taught, should be done secretly. No- 
 where and at no time did he give anyone the slightest pretext 
 for supposing that they could be done publicly, except in 
 direct violation of his express directions. 
 
 In regard to alms-giving, after warning his followers 
 against the practice of those who make their alms-giving 
 public in the street or synagogue, he said : ut But when thou 
 doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand 
 
A MODHRX HERESY. 135 
 
 doeth, that thine alms may be secret." How can such clear 
 language be misunderstood? Not only should our alms giving 
 be so secret that our neighbors do not know it, but so secret 
 that our left hand should not know what our right hand doeth. 
 This hyperbole was used to emphasize his thought of the im- 
 portance of secrecy in this matter. For the sake of those who 
 give charity, for the sake of those who receive charity, it 
 should be secret, sacredly secret. Only then will the Father 
 who seeth in secret recompense thee. In other words, it is 
 only secret charity that accomplishes the purposes intended. 
 Charity ought to be so indirect, so secret, that although the 
 recipient gets the full benefit of it, yet he does not know that 
 he has received any charity. 
 
 How any one who has a particle of respect left for the 
 teachings of Jesus can consent to go deliberately into public 
 alms-giving after reading these sayings of his, is one of the 
 puzzles in mental athletics very difficult to solve. Here are 
 the plain words of Jesus, warning against publicity, command- 
 ing the most careful privacy in alms-giving and yet his pro- 
 fessed followers use every means in their power to give each 
 detail of such work the greatest possible notoriety. The daily ' 
 papers, the street bulletin, the public assembly; all are taxed 
 to the utmost to tickle the vanity of givers, in order to get 
 more givers of the same sort. Jesus said: u When thou 
 doest alms, sound not a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites 
 do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have" 
 the glory of men." 
 
 Instead of sounding one trumpet on the street and in the 
 synagogues, a thousand trumpets are sounded, trumpets 
 unknown to the primitive times in which he spoke. Every 
 facility of modern advertising is used to publish abroad the 
 names of givers, the amounts given, and the wonderful good 
 that has been and will be done by the self-sacrificing mana- 
 gers. 0, what a flagrant violation of the words of Jesus! To- 
 what despite are his reasonable requests put. Be it said to 
 
136 DR. TALKWElvL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 the credit of occasionally one giver, however, the name is 
 withheld, either from a sense of native modesty or possibly a 
 secular notion that Jesus has the right of it. Such names are 
 generally signed simply "A Friend." Whose friend is not 
 stated, but from the unwillingness to make public the gift it 
 may be inferred that he is a friend of Jesus at least. 
 
 But, it will be asked, how can public charities or relief 
 organizations be carried on if no publicity be given them ? 
 Perhaps they could not be maintained in any other way. I do 
 not know. Fortunately, however, this is a problem which the 
 follower of Jesus does not find himself obliged to solve. Jesus 
 had nothing whatever to do with such things. Neither by 
 word nor example did he intimate that he wished his disciples 
 to do anything of this kind. If people would live as Jesus 
 wished them to, there would be no need of a yearly fit of 
 charity hysterics. If every day professed Christians were 
 practicing the Golden Rule, then would alms-giving be in 
 secret, a sacred confidence between friend and friend. And if 
 we disregard the teachings of Jesus ten months in the year 
 we must not expect to make it right by public alms-giving the 
 other two months. Both the ten months' indifference to our 
 neighbors and the two months' loud voiced anxiety over the 
 consequence of our indifference are alike in direct violation of 
 the plain precepts of Jesus. 
 
 Charity fever and ague, I call it. First the ten-month 
 chill, then the two-month fever. Instead of the even temper- 
 ature of healthy Christian living the year round, we have the 
 intermittent fever of a spasmodic, ecclesiastical machine. If 
 the people were taught that Jesus wished his followers to do 
 their alms-giving in secret and never, never, let any one know 
 of it, what a new doctrine this would be. This would cer- 
 tainly be ' new theology." And yet here this doctrine has 
 stood on the first pages of the sayings of Jesus as plain as 
 words could make it. We have mouthed the words over and 
 over again, taught our children to say them, and yet what a 
 
A MODERN HERESY. 137 
 
 strange doctrine. What a mischievious practice this would 
 be to the present order of things. 
 
 Just think of it. " When thou doest alms, let not thy left 
 hand know what thy right hand doeth, that thine alms may be 
 in secret." What a heretical practice this would be. Such 
 alms-giving could not be organized at all. Even the church 
 could not gather or distribute this sort of alms-giving. Secret 
 alms-giving could only be carried on by the direct contact of 
 giver and recipient. The third party would pervert such gifts 
 entirely. What a discouraging state of things this would be 
 for subscription lists; for public donations and even for penny 
 collections. What opportunity would be given for men who 
 have made themselves immensely wealthy from the earnings 
 of other men to pose as public benefactors and Christian gen- 
 tlemen ? What would become of all the pretty pulpit orations 
 eulogizing the Rockefellers, the Wanamakers and the 
 Carnegies? 
 
 The rule of secret alms-giving would necessitate a per- 
 sonal contact between each giver and recipient. How disgust- 
 ing! Such alms-giving could not be done in a hurry, but 
 would have to be practiced the year round. How tiresome ! 
 Such alms-giving would need no public office, no salaried offi- 
 cials, no paid collectors. How uninteresting! Such alms-giv- 
 ing would necessitate close acquaintance and actual friendship 
 with those who need charity. How degrading ! And yet there 
 is no other way to obey Jesus except to keep our alms-giving 
 secret. No learned quibbling can evade this plain conclusion. 
 And yet we pay men good salaries to make it appear other- 
 wise. 
 
HOW HYPOCRITES PRAY. 
 
 "But When Thou Prayest, Enter into Thy Closet." 
 
 Dr. Talk well's departure from the ordinary 
 church usages it has been noticed that he had 
 omitted the usual stereotyped prayer. The time 
 usually occupied by a spoken prayer has been de- 
 voted to absolute silence, sometimes broken by faint organ 
 chords of a devotional character. Whether this omission was 
 due to a change of opinion or not. has caused much comment. 
 Last Sunday, after his regular report, he devoted a few min- 
 utes to the subject of prayer, which explains his*conduct in 
 this particular. He spoke as follows : 
 
 " And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypo- 
 crites are, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues 
 and in the corners -of the streets. But thou, when thou pray- 
 est, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, 
 pray to thy Father which is in secret." 
 
 Now if these words do not mean that Christians should 
 not pray in public places, either in their places of public 
 worship, or on the street corners, what do they mean ? If this 
 does not mean that J.esus wished his followers to abandon the 
 practice of public prayer, which was common in those days, 
 and pray only in secret, what does it mean ? How could lan- 
 guage be made plainer? u When thou prayest," he does not 
 say, sometimes when thou prayest, or, as a rule when thou 
 prayest; but he states without any reserve or exception, 
 u When thou prayest." His followers were bidden, not only 
 
HOW HYPOCRITES PRAY. 13tf 
 
 to not stand on the street corners when they prayed, or in 
 places of public worship, but to enter into their closets, and 
 for fear even this express language might not be strong 
 enough, he added, " and when thou hast shut thy door, pray 
 to thy Father which is in secret." 
 
 How could Jesus have selected stronger or plainer words 
 forbidding public prayer and commanding silent prayer? It 
 would seem as if he foresaw that his words would be garbled 
 and quibbled over and therefore determined to make them so 
 direct and forcible that no learning could evade them, or 
 stupidity misunderstand them. 
 
 Jesus nowhere else said anything to retract these words. 
 At no time did he utter a syllable to modify this terse, unmis- 
 takable prohibition of public prayer. No man can quote a 
 word that fell from the lips of Jesus that in any wise conflicts 
 with his first declaration that prayer should be only in the 
 privacy of the closet, with the door shut, in absolute secrecy. 
 If Jesus did utter any words' authorizing anyone to make 
 prayer a public observance, who will quote them for me ? 
 Who will tell me where they may be found ? 
 
 Last Sunday night I attended church. When I stepped 
 off the street car a crowd of people were assembled on the 
 corner of the street. A man stood on the street corner pray- 
 ing very loudly. I could hear every word he said across the 
 street. After he had finished a woman began praying. Ar- 
 riving at the church a trifle late, I was stopped at the door 
 because a man was standing in the pulpit praying. A large 
 congregation was assembled. My indignation at the flagrant 
 violation of the reasonable admonition of Jesus which I had 
 just witnessed on the street corner was not cooled when I 
 reached the church. But here I was compelled to stand fully 
 eight minutes to witness another disobedience equally as 
 great. I kept asking myself: u Have these people ever read 
 the sixth chapter of Matthew ? r Not only were they praying 
 on the corner of the streets, not only were they praying stand- 
 
140 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 ing in the synagogues, but they were ignoring every other 
 thing that Jesus said about prayer. 
 
 Jesus said : " Use not vain repetitions." They were 
 using vain repetitions repeating words that could have no 
 other possible use except to please the vanity of those who 
 like to make or hear eloquent prayers. Jesus said, " The 
 heathen think they shall be heard for their much speaking. 
 Be not like unto them, for your Father knoweth what things 
 ye have need of before ye ask Him." 
 
 To leave no room for cavil as to what he meant by " much 
 speaking " he proceeds to give them a prayer which contains 
 just forty-five words (revised version). These words could be 
 uttered easily in half a minute. Could I believe my eyes 
 when I saw these followers of Jesus standing to pray in 
 exactly the same places he forbade them to stand ? Could I 
 believe my ears when I heard these men saying exactly the 
 things which Jesus forbade them to say ? Could I believe my 
 senses that I was living in a country where the words of 
 Jesus are held sacred, walking in the streets of a city where 
 the name of Jesus is placed above all other names, standing 
 in a church dedicated to the propagation of the doctrines 
 taught by Jesus? Could I believe my senses that I was 
 actually a spectator to such public and unprovoked, premedi- 
 tated disregard to the gentle words of the Master they profess 
 to follow ? 
 
 As I stood there with uncovered head waiting for this 
 man who was standing in the synagogue praying, I could not 
 help recalling, not only the words of Jesus on this subject, but 
 his practice. It is said of him, " After he had sent the multi- 
 tudes away he went up into the mountain, apart, to pray. 
 And when even was come he was there alone." How exactly 
 this example of Jesus was reversed. This man did not send 
 the multitude away to pray, but on the contrary he called 
 them together with the deliberate intention of praying before 
 them as soon as they were assembled. And again : when 
 
HOW HYPOCRITES PRAY. 141 
 
 Jesus came with his desciples u unto a place called Geth- 
 semane," he said unto the desciples, " sit ye here while I go 
 and pray yonder." And when he came back and found his 
 disciples sleeping he said : " Could ye not watch with me 
 one hour ? " u Again a second time he went away and prayed 
 .... and he came again and found them sleeping." And on 
 another occasion it is said, " and in the morning, a great while 
 before day, he went out and departed into a solitary place, 
 and there prayed." 
 
 These glimpses of the habits of Jesus are sufficient to 
 show that they were no idle words he uttered when he advised 
 his followers to pray in secret. It seems from this that it was 
 the custom of Jesus to go apart even from his disciples to 
 pray. In other words, he practiced what he preached on this 
 subject, as well as on all other subjects. 
 
 But some will say, how is this, Dr. Talkwell, did you not 
 pray in public when you were our pastor? Yes, I did, and I 
 used to justify my conduct by .refer ring to those few occasions 
 when Jesus was suddenly confronted by some great grief or 
 agony, as at the grave of Lazarus and on the cross. He gave 
 utterance to a mere sentence or exclamation which I had been 
 taught to regard as examples of public prayer. And also that 
 last meeting of Jesus and his disciples just before his arrest,, 
 when alone with his chosen few he offered a prayer. Yes, 
 like a drowning man, I grasped at these straws to save the 
 church traditions, but I did not fully realize in doing so I was 
 setting aside the plain teachings and the plainer examples of 
 Jesus on this subject. 
 
 I have come to believe that Jesus was right. Prayer is 
 necessarily a private matter. It is communion with God, 
 The secret place, where all the world is shut out, is the only 
 appropriate one. I do not like to parade my domestic affairs 
 in public. Such things seem too sacred for such use. How 
 much more ought my communion with God to seem too sacred 
 for public assemblies and street corners ! When I really have 
 
U'Z REV. TALKWE-LL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 anything to pray for I do not want anyone to hear but my 
 Pather. It is only when I am making a perfunctory prayer, 
 that I can make it fit for others to hear. I pray no more to 
 the public. I pray only to God. It is my new work that has 
 changed my views on this subject. I have something to pray 
 for these days. I need help now. When I was the prosper- 
 ous pastor of a prosperous church I prayed toward the source 
 of my prosperity the church. I am working for my Master 
 now, mostly. It is to him I pray. I do not need a public 
 place or assembly for such prayers. I have found the privacy 
 of the closet to be all that Jesus recommended. And I begin 
 to understand that the street corner and the synagogue are no 
 place for sincere prayer. Yes, I believe that Jesus was right 
 about it after all. 
 
 Next week I will speak about public fasting. 
 
HOW HYPOCRITES FAST. 
 
 14 But When Thou Fastest, Appear not Unto Men to Fast." 
 
 R. TALKWELL said last Sunday : 
 
 The demoralizing effect of a well-fed, much-fed 
 and always-fed condition of the body has been recog- 
 nized from time immemorial. A vigorous spiritu- 
 ality is not expected where complete bodily satisfaction exists. 
 When the body is kept carefully guarded from all hunger the 
 spirit sleeps contentedly. Fasting produces a spiritual self- 
 consciousness. An over-fed body acts as a spiritual opiate. 
 " Man shall not live by bread alone, " has been forgotten by 
 those who never fast. Much fasting produces spiritual famine. 
 Voluntary fasting often has as a reward a spiritual feast. 
 
 Fasting has been practiced for three distinct and entirely 
 different purposes. It has been practiced as a physiological 
 or hygienic measure. It is good for the body. In some bodily 
 temperaments fasting is absolutely necessary to good health. 
 With the concentrated foods and sedentary habits of modern 
 civilization, fasting is an ever increasing necessity to the 
 preservation of good digestion and the prevention of acute 
 disease. 
 
 Fasting has been practiced as a penance. As a self- 
 inflicted punishment for sins committed, fasting has always 
 been found a convenient cudgel. Fasting as a penance to 
 atone for excessive indulgence has some incidental benefit, 
 but is liable to degeneration into license for intemperance. 
 If the fast for Lent justifies the preceding carnival, then both 
 had better be omitted. 
 
144 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 Fasting has also been practiced as a means of grace. Re- 
 ducing the bodily functions to a minimum of activity, greater 
 spiritual activity is possible. Many others besides religions 
 devotees have found that an empty stomach makes an exces- 
 sive brain. So far as Jesus practiced voluntary fasting, all 
 this must have been his reason for doing so. Not as a hygienic 
 measure, for he held the things of the flesh as of secondary 
 importance to the things of the spirit. Not as a penance for 
 sin, for he regarded God as a loving; Father rather than as an 
 exacting tyrant. The forty days' fast of Jesus just before 
 [beginning his mission was not a hygienic measure, nor a 
 penance, but a spiritual exercise for the purpose of gaining 
 complete mastery of his body. 
 
 It would seem that if Jesus practiced voluntary fasting 
 after this, it was done in secret, as he had the reputation of 
 not fasting at all. " And John's disciples and the Pharisees 
 were fasting, and they come and say unto him, why do John's 
 disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but thy 
 disciples fast not ? " But whatever may have been his prac- 
 tice he did not fail to give very specific directions to his 
 disciples about fasting. This, like alms-giving and prayer, he 
 enjoins the most careful secrecy. He omitted nothing to- 
 emphasize his wish in this particular. He said : u Moreover, 
 when ye fast be not as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance; 
 .for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men 
 to fast. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But 
 when thou fastest, anoint thy head, and wash thy face, that 
 thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which 
 is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward 
 thee openly." 
 
 If Jesus foresaw how completely his words were to be 
 ignored by his professed followers ; how the very things he 
 strove againat would become the special badge of Christian 
 discipleship, what must have been his feelings ? Perhaps he 
 did foresee it. This may explain in part his agony at Geth- 
 semane. 
 
HOW HYPOCRITE S FAST. 145 
 
 Did he foresee that in spite of his words fasting would be 
 set apart for certain days ; that fast days would become as 
 public as holidays ; that they would be scheduled like sport- 
 ing events; that every item of each fast would be prescribed 
 like the menu of a public banquet ; that no pains would be 
 spared to make this observance conspicuous by mode of dress 
 and general deportment; that all compunction of conscience 
 and propriety would be lost by his followers in making public 
 parade of the most excellent means of grace ? Did he foresee 
 all this? He said once to the theologians, " Ye have made 
 the word of God of no effect by your traditions." I wonder if 
 he would not say the same thing again. 
 
 It is quite unlikely, however, that Jesus' mode of fasting 
 was a formal or stated observance, either public or private. 
 After he began his career as a minister of the gospel his life 
 was altogether too serious for such things. He became so poor, 
 having no home or place to lay his head, that fasting was fre- 
 quently unavoidable. The Master, himself, and the disciples 
 could not carry the gospel to the poor and outcast without 
 getting hungry sometimes. Formal fasting was quite super- 
 fluous in such a life. This was also true of those primitive 
 ministers of the gospel who accepted what Jesus taught liter- 
 ally. They used to get hungry too. They saw no way to 
 avoid it and follow Jesus. It required several hundred 
 years of theological research to discover a way to become a 
 gospel minister and yet remain a well-fed, well-paid gentle- 
 man. Few people realize the amount of Christian scholarship 
 that has been expended to transform the life of a Christian 
 minister into a prosperous, college-bred orator. 
 
 Alms-giving, prayer and fasting are pious observances. 
 Real piety seeks seclusion. Nothing is more obnoxious to the 
 normal mind than a public exhibition of piety. No more dis- 
 agreeable person exists than one who is always appearing 
 pious. No one likes to be in the presence of such a person. 
 This is so true that even the pious mistrust or hate each other. 
 
145 DR. TALKWELIAS SKE1CHES. 
 
 To be really pious, without allowing anyone to discover it, is 
 true religion according to Jesus. A want of modesty destroys 
 the charm of the most beautiful woman. So a want of secrecy 
 destroys the beauty of the most zealous piety. A piety that 
 does not diligently seek to hide itself is spiritual vulgarity. 
 
 At first everybody instinctively tries to hide piety. This 
 is exactly as it should be. It is only after great effort and 
 spiritual self abuse that any sane person can bring himself to 
 exhibit his piety. All sorts of evangelistic devices have been 
 contrived to persuade u new converts" to display in public 
 some sign of piety. This is always repugnant to any sincere 
 rnind. Human nature naturally rebels against such defile- 
 ment of its most sacred feelings. It is only the less modest 
 ones who can be so debauched. Thanks to the natural divinity 
 of the human soul, the great majority of people remain true 
 to their own hearts. Thanks to the integrity of human nature, 
 only a few can be cajoled to betray their holiest sensibilities. 
 Most people, in spite of their teachers, hold their piety in 
 sacred privacy. And the Father who seeth in secret does 
 reward them openly. 
 
 But some will say, " Shall we hide our light under a 
 bushel?" Hiding our piety is not hiding our light. Private 
 piety leads to public acts, which are the light of the world. 
 Acts, not words, constitute the light of the world. The per- 
 son whom the world calls a u religious crank " is one who 
 makes his piety public. Such a person does far more harm 
 than good. His is the religions to talk, talk, talk. There is 
 no light in it at all. But the one who instinctively conceals 
 his piety, and is governed in all his outward acts by the law of 
 love, is the light of the world. Such a one cannot hide his 
 light. The Master has promised that he would be rewarded 
 openly. The world needs more and more of this kind of light. 
 
JESUS' TEACHINGS PERVERTED. 
 
 " Thy Father Which is in Secret Shall Reward Thee Openly. 1 
 
 . TALKWELL'S reports on the various enterprises 
 and activities of the city grow each Sunday more 
 and more interesting. The great ignorance of one 
 class of citizens about everything that concerns any 
 other class in a large city constitutes the chief barrier to 
 every kind of fraternal work. People know little or nothing 
 about each other, except those few who are associated in small 
 cliques or societies. This is the inevitable trend of modern 
 civilization. To endeavor to correct this unfortunate tendency, 
 the whole effort of the secular society (to whom Dr. Talkwell 
 makes his Sunday reports) is directed. At the close of his 
 report last Sunday the doctor said : 
 
 It is asked, why is it that the church is practically unani- 
 mous in making almsgiving, prayer and fasting public obser- 
 vances, if it be true that they were originally advised and 
 practiced by Jesus as secret observances ? 
 
 The answer is this: The ecclesiastical organization known 
 as the church is vitally interested in public worship. A 
 church without some sort of public worship would be a finan- 
 cial failure. Secret observance cannot be utilized in any way 
 by church organizations for such purposes. The church can 
 have no abiding interest in any thing that cannot be made to 
 contribute to its own material life or progress. Every religious 
 observance recommended by Jesus that could not be appro- 
 priated by the church for practical purposes, has either been 
 
148 REV. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 quietly ignored or gradually perverted. If alms-giving is only 
 to be practiced in secret, if prayer is to be confined to one's- 
 own closet, if fasting is to be carefully concealed, then of what 
 use are they to public worship? None whatever. 
 
 Gradually these observances have been forced into public 
 service because there was no other way to use them to benefit 
 the church. As soon as the attempt was made to organize 
 Christian worship and harness it up in ecclesiastical rules, the 
 absence in Jesus' sayings of anything out of which to build a 
 church ritual must have been noticed. For this reason no 
 attempt was made at organizing Christian worship for a long 
 time. Under the mistaken notions of Paul, little companies 
 of believers were gathered in several places to await the 
 second coming of Jesus. But the sayings of Jesus furnished 
 so little pretext for an organization that at first no such 
 attempt was made. 
 
 It was only after the idea had arisen that Jesus had given 
 Peter and his successors full authority to develop the details 
 of a church organization that an ecclesiastical system was 
 seriously attempted. . Then began an elaboration of a church 
 ritual and creed as fantastic as it was far from anything to be 
 found in the sayings of Jesus. This continued, with protests, 
 now and then, until the Reformation. By this time the people 
 had become accustomed to seeing the things which Jesus com- 
 manded to be observed in secret, practiced in the most public 
 manner. But it was not pretended at this time that the say- 
 ings of Jesus gave them any authority for such public per- 
 formances, but it was claimed that the authority had been 
 delegated to them to make any changes or additions they 
 should choose to (under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, of 
 course). 
 
 When the Reformation came, a great part of this ritual 
 was abandoned by the protesting churches. But a portion 
 remained. The idea that all of these public observances 
 could be spared was not tolerated. Some of the ritual must 
 
JESUS' TEACHINGS PERVERTED. 149 
 
 be saved. But in order to save any of the ritual, one of two 
 things must be done. They must either admit that the author- 
 ity to invent a ritual had been actually given to the church 
 through Peter, or else they must contrive to make Jesus in 
 some way directly responsible for them. 
 
 It was the special work of most of the protesting churches 
 to deny that the original church had any authority to invent 
 a church ritual or creed. Hence, whatever of the ritual or 
 creed they inherited from the mother church, which the pro- 
 testing church considered worth saving, they were obliged to 
 maintain on the grounds that Jesus, or at least the Gospel 
 writers, had instituted them. Had the people not already 
 become accustomed to these observances long before any 
 attempt was made to prove them by the sayings of Jesus, it 
 would have been impossible for the church to have made any 
 one believe that Jesus wished his followers to do such things. 
 
 Thus it is that the Protestant churches cling with des- 
 perate clutch to every text or syllable of the Gospel that can 
 be tortured into an excuse for maintaining some kind or 
 degree of public worship. It is pathetic to witness with what 
 ingenuity of interpretation and valiant persistency the profes- 
 sional theologian undertakes to fasten upon Jesus the respon- 
 sibility of a multitude of church customs and traditions which 
 come and go with each succeeding century. He established 
 none of them. He had little use for any of them. None of 
 them have the slightest resemblance to anything he ever said 
 or did. This is not saying that Jesus would disapprove of all 
 the customs and traditions of the modern church ; it is simply 
 saying that he did not originate them, and is in no sense 
 responsible for them. 
 
 While about his mission he came in contact with church 
 forms and traditions. He made use of them whenever they were 
 of service to him. That he used them differently than was the 
 custom appears from the fact that he was shut out of the 
 synagogues. He did not exactly oppose the existing church 
 
150 DR. TALKWELI/S SKETCHEvS. 
 
 customs, but he tried to use them for some rational purpose. 
 This he could not do, for they would not allow him to. 
 
 I do not regard Jesus as the author of our church customs, 
 rituals, creeds or traditions, one whit more than I regard him 
 the author of our system of public education, or our form of 
 government, or our social etiquette. All these may be good 
 and might meet the entire approval of Jesus, but by no word 
 or act did he indicate a desire to disturb or establish any such 
 institutions. He confined himself to his peculiar mission. 
 His mission was to establish a gospel ministry, to call apart 
 from the natural avocations of life a few men to do as he did. 
 He took them and showed them what he wished them to do. 
 He also told them in a very plain simple way, exactly what he 
 expected of them. This is all he did, this is all he said. 
 
 While no doubt he expected this mission to reach the 
 whole world, yet this was his way of reaching the whole world. 
 His way was to go to the poor, the wretched, the outcast, 
 knowing that this was the only way to reach the others. Many 
 gospel ministers are trying to reach the poor, the depraved, 
 through the rich and the cultured. In this they have the* 
 Gospel exactly reversed. Jesus showed them the only open 
 door to the world. He showed them by going through the 
 door himself; by becoming homeless and hungry; by losing 
 his life for the lost sheep. Had he gone to the rich and cul- 
 tured his name would have passed into oblivion in a single 
 generation. He called his ministers to follow in his footsteps. 
 So far as we know the history of the disciples they did follow 
 him, and as a consequence they met about the same fate. It 
 was only after his followers quit following in his steps that 
 their persecutions ceased. The same persecutions stand ready 
 today to meet anyone who dares to literally follow Jesus 
 even though he follow him half way as Peter did. These 
 persecutions come now from the same source that they did 
 then from the ecclesiastical organizations, and not from the 
 people. 
 
DR. TALKWELL'S CHURCH. 
 
 Can A Modern Preacher Become A Christian Minister? 
 
 REPORTER called on Dr. Talkwell this week to ask 
 him some questions about a new departure which 
 the secular society he represents Is proposing to 
 make. The reporter asked : 
 
 u Have you any objections to anwering a few questions 
 touching the new work of your society ? " 
 
 " Not at all. I should certainly object to an attempt to 
 make public anything which I regarded as the Master's work, 
 but the society of which I speak makes no pretension of doing 
 such work. Therefore I have no objection to speaking of it 
 to you." 
 
 " Is it true, then, that this society is seriously considering 
 an extension of its work ? " 
 
 " Yes, it is true. Until now we have simply been having 
 every Sunday morning a public service devoted mainly to the 
 reports of my investigations into the various enterprises and 
 activities of the city. These reports are to be continued 
 indefinitely. The rapid growth and change of such a city as 
 this will continue to furnish ample material for an hour's 
 report once a week. But I have been considering the matter 
 very seriously, lately, and have concluded there is more work 
 that the society could do. I have made a proposition to the 
 society, which they are considering and are about to accept. 
 
 Before I resigned my pastorate they were paying me 
 $5000 a year. In addition to this sum they were also raising 
 for missionary societies, and various outside denominational 
 
152 DR. TALKWELI/S SKETCHES. 
 
 purposes, as much more. This would make at least $10,000 a 
 year the church was raising for the work we were carrying on. 
 
 My proposal to them will cost considerably less money, 
 but in my opinion do a great deal more effective work. It is 
 proposed to divide the work into three departments, musical, 
 social, and public instruction. I have offered my services to 
 the church for $1,000 a year to take charge of the department 
 of public instruction, to be carried on much the same way as 
 my Sunday morning reports have been coming before the 
 public once or twice a week with information concerning some 
 item touching the life and institutions of our city. 
 
 The department of music will be presided over by a 
 competent musician, capable of teaching various instruments, 
 conducting choruses and the like. This person will also re- 
 ceive a salary of at least $1,000 a year. The director of music 
 will be expected to organize orchestra and chorus classes for 
 the production of sacred music, oratorios, operas, etc. 
 
 The director of the social department of the society will 
 have charge of the organization of clubs, literary societies, 
 and especially amateur dramatic societies. The director of 
 this department will also receive a salary of $1,000 a year. 
 
 The church building is to be remodeled into a theater 
 auditorium, first-class in every particular. The room is to 
 differ in no way from a modern opera house, except the addi- 
 tion of a pipe organ. The rooms that we have heretofore 
 used as Sunday School rooms will be used for rehearsals, com- 
 mittee rooms, kindergarten work and other requirements of 
 our society. The audience room, or theatre, is to serve the 
 purpose of musical and dramatic uses, as well as the Sunday 
 services." 
 
 u You do not mean to say that you intend to have dramatic 
 performances in the same room where you hold your Sunday 
 services ? " asked the reporter in astonishment. 
 
 " Certainly I do. Why not ? The truths of the Bible or 
 any other ethical truths can be taught far more effectively by 
 the drama than all the preaching in the world." 
 
DR. TALKWELL'S CHURCH. 153 
 
 " What, do you intend to introduce something like the 
 Passion Play upon the stage ? " 
 
 " Nothing of the sort. We will have little or no time for 
 such nonsense. Plays based upon the Bible should be selected 
 from the parables rather than the mythology of the Bible. 
 Every sentiment of the Sermon on the Mount can find expres- 
 sion in a much more telling way by dramatic representation 
 than by dreary sermonizing." 
 
 u Do you expect to confine your dramatic representations 
 to Bible lessons entirely?" 
 
 " I presume not, although the sayings of Jesus would 
 furnish plenty of material for hundreds of soul-stirring dramas. 
 What a theme the Prodigal Son would make for the dramatist, 
 or the story of the woman they brought to Jesus, and to whom 
 he said, c Neither do I condemn thee ; go and sin no more.' 
 These beautiful pictures in the life of Jesus could be wrought 
 out by even an amateur dramatist in such a realistic way as 
 to bring them home to every heart. I would not feel by any 
 means any necessity, however, to be restricted by any bounds, 
 for wherever human need or human aspiration touches there 
 would be a legitimate field for our work." 
 
 " Would you expect to bring out these dramatic represen- 
 tations by amateur talent alone ? " 
 
 " As nearly as possible. This would be the work of the 
 director of that department. At least three amateur dramatic 
 societies will be organized ; one consisting of the children, one 
 of the young people and one of the men and women of the 
 city. All these will be selected without any reference to 
 creed or locality. This would make the most effective preach- 
 ing possible, besides furnishing something elevating and 
 inspiring for our people to do." 
 
 " But," the reporter asked, " do you not think the salaries 
 rather small to command men of sufficient talent to take 
 charge of this sort of work ? " 
 
 " Well, so far as I am concerned the salary is large 
 
154 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 enough. One thousand dollars a year is a larger salary than 
 the average workman receives, and I would be ashamed to 
 confess that I would not be able or willing to live on as small 
 a salary as an honest working man. But suppose we are 
 obliged to pay our musical director and social director $2.000 
 each a year, yet this would only bring the three salaries to 
 the amount of $5,000 per year, exactly what they used to pay 
 me alone. Then there would be nothing to prevent both of 
 the directors from giving private lessons in music or elocution 
 in addition to their regular work.*' 
 
 "How will you meet the running expenses of such a 
 work?" 
 
 u Oh, in various ways ; perhaps by small admission fees 
 to some of the entertainments, or perhaps in the same way we 
 used to when we were known as a church." 
 
 " Would the building be open every night?" 
 " I hope so, and every day, too, for that matter. We in- 
 tend making it large enough to accommodate an ordinary con- 
 vention, and everything of this sort would find a ready wel- 
 come. It will be our purpose to make the place just secular 
 enough to admit any good thing, and just holy enough to shut 
 out every sort of hypocrisy and pretence ; a place where 
 people, old and young, will love to come ; a place where it 
 will be the pleasure rather than the duty of all to gather; a 
 place where sociability, not solemnity, is the regular order." 
 " Why do you object to calling this society a church?" 
 u The only objection I should have is the popular notion 
 that the church is doing the work of Christian ministry. If 
 we should call our society a church, then our work would be 
 regarded as our idea of Christian discipleship. That any 
 church has ever done or can ever be made to do the work of 
 a Christian minister is exactly what I deny. That the church 
 has done a good work and can be made to do a still greater 
 work is doubtless true, and it is this greater work of the 
 church we are aiming to do. 
 
DK. TAUv'WELI/S CHURCH. 165 
 
 But this has only incidentally anything in common with 
 the mission of Jesus, and I wish to avoid giving a wrong in- 
 ference. That we are proposing to do the work that the 
 church ought to be doing, I certainly believe. 
 
 Personally, I hope to be able to take a few feeble steps in 
 the Master's work. My department of work will call me con- 
 stantly to associate with the unfortunate classes. I will have 
 no other business but to work among them. I shall come 
 each Sunday to my reports with my heart full of the suffering 
 and the injustice which they are enduring. I am simply to 
 report my observations. All so-called literary work will be 
 left to those who have the time. Then, I hope to do some of 
 the Master's work at the same time I am assisting in the edu- 
 cational work, which the church has so long mistaken for the 
 work of the Master." 
 
DR. TALKWELL'S CONGREGATION. 
 
 And when He Putteth Forth His Own Sheep, He goeth before 
 
 them, and the Sheep Follow Him for they know 
 
 His voice. And a Stranger will they not 
 
 Follow, but will Flee from Him: For 
 
 they know not the Voice of 
 
 Strangers. " 
 
 Dr. Talkwell rose to make his usual report last Sun- 
 day morning, he said : 
 
 I have been asked again and again howl accounted for 
 the change that has occurred in my audience, since I 
 have left off preaching and undertaken to make these services of 
 some practical benefit. For instance, as you all know, my audi- 
 ences have greatly increased, but what is a great deal better, at 
 least one-half of my audience is made up of men and women 
 that I could not possibly reach while I attended to the tradi- 
 tional duties of a regular pastor. 
 
 I see before me every Sunday morning a large multitude 
 of people that I have tried to inveigle into this place by all the 
 ecclesiastical tricks and theological jugglery that my con- 
 science would allow me to resort to, but they would not come. 
 I have tried to get them here with free suppers, free entertain- 
 ments, by appointing invitation committees, by using printed 
 invitations, by introducing lectures on popular subjects, by 
 making them hurried visits. I spared neither printers' ink 
 nor prayers. I spent my physical strength and exhausted my 
 mental vigor with every sort of claptrap and indirect bribery 
 to get them here, and still they have stayed away. But now 
 that I have ceased all this worry and worldlv anxietv and 
 
DR. TALK WELL'S CONGREGATION. 157 
 
 gone about my Master's business without giving these services 
 a single thought, they are coming in increasing numbers every 
 Sunday. 
 
 As compared to the work of my old pastorate, how easy 
 is the work of my Master; how light are his burdens. Oh, 
 how vain, how exceedingly un-Christ-like, was the work of 
 those days when I wore upon my neck the yoke of ecclesiasti- 
 cism, and bore upon my shoulders the burden of denomina- 
 tional zeal. I have laid aside all personal ambition about what 
 sort of congregations attend this place. I never think of ask- 
 ing anyone to come and hear me speak. This used to be my 
 habit. I have reformed. To simply go in and out among 
 those to whom I can be of the greatest service, is my only mis- 
 sion. 1 do not go among them to get them, but to help them. 
 I bring to bear what learning and influence I may possess for 
 their defense and encouragement. It is little or nothing 
 whether they come to hear me speak or not. 
 
 But this seems to be the most effectual way to bring them 
 to this place. I believe it was the reason the multitude fol- 
 lowed Jesus. He went about doing good, instead of acting 
 as the soliciting agent of some church enterprise. Think of 
 Jesus going about Palestine trying to persuade the people to 
 come to the temple to hear him preach ! He had no time for 
 such folly. He frequently sought to avoid the multitude. 
 His was not the mission of a preacher. The world had already 
 too much preaching. It needed some one to show them how 
 to do. This is exactly what is needed today, even more than 
 then. 
 
 I heard a preacher complaining the other day that the world 
 is growing more and more wicked because the people do not 
 attend church as they ought to. I asked him why he thought 
 the people ought to attend church. He replied, so that he 
 might teach them God's word. This is a very common mistake. 
 The world does not need telling to be good ; it needs showing 
 how to be good. The world is saying to us preachers : " Show 
 us the way ; do not stand there and talk about it any longer. 
 If you can do any better than we can, do it, so that we can see 
 
158 DK. TALK WELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 you and learn how." Not even a trade can be taught by talk; 
 how much less the way of life. 
 
 All sorts of plans are devised from time to time to get 
 more people to attend church. Nearly every way but the 
 right way has been tried. As soon as the preacher dares to 
 cut loose from the burdens and proprieties of church customs, 
 and spend his time among those who need him, he will not 
 lack for a congregation, whether he has a good choir or not. 
 Opportunities for magnificent service to humanity are more 
 numerous now than ever before in the history of the world. 
 
 One of the judges in our city told me not long since of 
 one of the many cases that occur under his notice every year. 
 A man charged with an unnameable crime in his own family 
 was thrown into prison to await his trial. He had many 
 friends in the shops where he worked, but the peculiar atroci- 
 ty of the crime with which he was charged caused his friends 
 to shrink from him in horror. No one was willing to go his 
 bail. No one even called to see him during the four months' 
 imprisonment while he waited for his trial. 
 
 A man used to active life, accustomed to plenty of friends, 
 had enjoyed the respect of every one, was suddenly plunged 
 into solitary confinement, shut out from all human intercourse. 
 Words can never discribe the suffering of those terrible 
 months. When he entered that prison cell he was a strong 
 man; when he appeared before the judge for his trial he was 
 an emaciated, shrunken remnant of his former self. The ab- 
 ject defenselessness of the man excited the especial attention 
 and pity of the judge, who appointed two young lawyers to 
 investigate the case. They did so, and, to the surprise of 
 every one, the suspicion against the man had not a particle of 
 substantial foundation to rest upon. It was one of the most 
 outrageous examples of misleading circumstantial evidence 
 that could be imagined. As soon as it began to reach his 
 friends that there was a possibility of innocence in his case, 
 they rushed to his rescue. He was promptly acquitted. The 
 day he returned to the shops an ovation awaited him from his 
 
DR. TALKAYKLI/S CONGREGATION. 159 
 
 former associates that will never be forgotten by those who 
 witnessed it. 
 
 Think of the wretchedness of those months of suspense. 
 Think of the haggard weariness of the long days, and the awful 
 anguish of the terrible nights conscious of his own innocence; 
 realizing fully the injustice of the charges against him, but utter- 
 ly unable to do a single thing about it; caged like a wild 
 beast, shunned by even his keepers, bearing the ignominy of 
 one of the most dreadful crimes known to man ; the victim of 
 a curious combination of conspiracy and circumstances, but 
 innocent of it all. 
 
 Never before in his life, perhaps never again, could a 
 Mend be of such value to him. But no one comes, ana he 
 can reach no one. Oh, for a chance to explain to some one 
 who would listen and act. All this time within a short dis- 
 tance of his prison were over one hundred men who are 
 called ministers of the gospel ; men who are supposed to be 
 spending their whole time and talent in following in the foot- 
 steps of Him who said : " I was in prison and ye visited me," 
 and yet none of them went to him. What an opportunity for 
 service ! What a strange occasion for some man wishing to 
 win new parishioners! 
 
 What would have been the effect upon that army of men 
 who worked in the same shop with this poor fellow, had some 
 preacher found him out and vindicated his honor, as it would 
 have been so easy to have done. To have restored him to his 
 family and place would have won more hearts to the cause of 
 Ohrist than all the wishy-washy missionary work that could 
 be done in ten years. It is this kind of work that will make 
 congregations, not literary work. There is plenty of it. Not 
 a day passes but some poor, defenseless person could be found 
 and rescued if some one only had the time and desire. It is 
 this kind of work that has wrought the change in my congrega- 
 tion. Not prison work exclusively, but all kinds of humani- 
 tarian work, exactly as the Master did. The multitude fol- 
 
160 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 lowed him and they would follow any one else who [does 
 the work of a Christian minister. People will begin to go to 
 church when they have something to go for. The sheepjjwill 
 follow the shepherd. They know his voice. It is not neces- 
 sary to drive them, or coax them or bribe them. They will- 
 gladly follow the shepherd. As soon as we make ourselves real- 
 ly shepherds, the flocks will follow. I am sure of it, for Jesus 
 said it would be so, and because my experience has confirmed it. 
 
THE RICH MAN'S CHURCH. 
 
 Dr. Talk well, the Reformed Preacher, Attends 
 a Strange Church Convention. 
 
 >ND it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I 
 will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh ; and your 
 sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your 
 young men shall see visions, and your old men shall 
 dream dreams." 
 
 It was midnight, May 13, 1900. There was a full moon 
 flooding the earth with mellow light.. It was the hour for the 
 meeting of a strange convention that was to assemble in a 
 grove of ancient trees southeast of the city. With a guide 
 and interpreter I set out to visit this secret conference of cu- 
 rious creatures. It was to be the first time that a human being 
 had ever been able to gain admission. I was nervous with ex- 
 pectation, and the still solemnity of the night produced in 
 me a feeling of awe and foreboding. My guide walked rapidly, 
 but seldom spoke. 
 
 We were already in the outskirts of the city, with only 
 here and there a twinkling light to remind us of the existence 
 of human habitation. Presently these vanished, and we stood 
 alone among great, gaunt, spreading elms. In the center of 
 the grove was a clear, circular place into which the moonlight 
 poured, making every thing wierdly distinct, contrasting sharply 
 with the black shadows of the monster trees. Around the 
 outer edge of the open space was a single row of huge seats of 
 glistening white marble, resembling whited sepulchres. 
 
151> . DR. TALK'WELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 The stillness was oppressive. Not a leaf moved. All ani- 
 mated creatures were asleep. u We will wait here,'' said my 
 guide. "They will arrive soon. Ah, here comes some one now." 
 Noiselessly an uncanny, uncouth creature emerged from the 
 black shade and glided to one of the highest seats. 
 
 Such a strange creature! It resembled a miniature church 
 building, and when standing was about ten feet high. Its hat 
 appeared like a steeple. Its blinking red eyes looked like 
 lighted windows. The square, wide mouth was so like a 
 church door, that the illusion was complete. Other similar 
 looking creatures began to rapidly fill the vacant seats, some 
 with steeple hats, some with two. Some very large and pre- 
 tentious, some small and shabby, but all bore an unmistakable 
 resemblance to a church or chapel or cathedral. 
 
 " How is this ? " I whispered to my guide, " these crea- 
 tures look like churches. What joke or magic or optical illus- 
 sion is this you are practicing on me?" u Keep still," he de- 
 manded. tl You will soon discover that they are churches. 
 This is the regular monthly convention of the churches of 
 Columbus. Not church organizations, but church buildings. 
 When this association was formed there were only ten of them; 
 now there are over 100. They steal away at midnight once a 
 month, always in the full of the moon, to this place, partly 
 for business and partly for pleasure. Listen, now the presi- 
 dent of the convention is speaking." 
 
 I listened, but heard nothing but the soft tolling of a 
 distant church bell. This, I learned, was the only speech 
 these curious creatures had. My interpreter could translate 
 to me what was said. The president was saying : 
 
 " Since our last meeting nothing unusual has occurred. 
 One new member has been added to our list. This new comer 
 is of an aristocratic origin and is the most notable access- 
 ion to our club for many years." 
 
 A clanging of bells indicated the applause of the members, 
 especially of the smaller ones. 
 
THE RICH MAN'S CHURCH. 163 
 
 4i We will now call upon our new member for a speech, as 
 has been our custom so many years," said the president, with a 
 profound bow toward an aristocratic group, which sat quite 
 separate from the rest. 
 
 The small ones huddled closer together in mute admira- 
 tion as the grey-stone, richly ornamented, newly-elected mem- 
 ber rose to speak. After carefully wiping his stained-glass 
 spectacles with a fine lace handkerchief, and arranging the 
 costly bouquets that adorned his person, he deliberately 
 smoothed down the grass-plat of his waistcoat, and began in 
 silvery tones to chime a well worded speech. 
 
 " In the first place," remarked the new member with 
 emphasis, u I am an orthodox of the orthodox." A clanging 
 applause greeted this remark, from all except a lonesome little 
 group at the far side of the circle, partly obscured by the 
 shade of a giant tree. " I believe the old theology, and have 
 no use for new-fangled creeds or speculations." (How the 
 little churches rattled their unpainted clapboards in approval 
 of this. Some of the large ones looked knowing, but kept 
 still.) "I believe in the old-fashioned hell-fire, infallible 
 Bible, and miraculous conversions. But there are some things 
 which the churches of today pretend to believe, which I do 
 not believe at all. I wish to be frank with you. It is time 
 some of us were willing to speak the entire truth. 
 
 41 As you know, when we were dedicated a good deal was 
 said about the meek and lowly Master. It was inferred, at 
 least, that we were to be sacred to the work which he did in 
 Palestine, 1900 years ago. That the poor, the downtrodden, 
 the lame, the blind, the publican, the sinner, the lost sheep, 
 were to be the special object of all our ministrations. Our 
 doors were to be open to the friendless stranger, our roofs 
 were to shelter the homeless fugitive, our altars to be a refuge 
 for the vilest sinner, our pews give rest to weary poverty 
 struggling against the inevitable, our pulpits the place where 
 injustice in high places was to be denounced and the helpless 
 poor defended. 
 
164 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 " All this was said, as you recall, that day when you were 
 formally opened to the public. It was also said on the occa- 
 sion of my debut a few days ago. But I am not going to take 
 any part in such a farce. I know and you know, and we alto- 
 gether know, that nothing of the kind has occurred or is likely 
 to occur. (Consternation among the ortho-aristocrats, laugh- 
 ter and noisy clanging from the small heterodox group, shame 
 and silence among the little ones.) 
 
 u I wish to be frank, at least. I was not intended for such 
 classes. The location selected for me indicates that very 
 clearly. The grandeur of my architecture, the elegance of my 
 decorations and furniture, make as effectual a barrier against 
 the poor and lost ones as a double row of bayonets or a small- 
 pox quarantine. The services are unintelligible to the ignor- 
 ant, irrelevant to the poor, and misleading to the vicious. Our 
 plant is no more intended to attract the friendless and ragged 
 than the Waldorf-Astoria hotel or Delmonico's. It is simply 
 ridiculous to pretend anything else. 
 
 u In order to keep such an expensive plant moving, the 
 patronage of many well-to-do people must be obtained and 
 kept. Nuthing must be done or said to drive them away or 
 prevent others coming. The ragged and dirty cannot be in- 
 cluded in such a congregation. One class or the other must 
 go. Neither can many who are not wholly respectable be 
 made welcome. No fashionable woman or pharisaical man 
 cares to sit in the same pew with people of no respectabil- 
 ity. There is no pay in the poor or influence in the downtrod- 
 den, no help in the publican, no reliability in the stranger 
 and homeless. A church enterprise can no more be made 
 successful with such material than a dry goods store or a sum- 
 mer resort. It takes money to run a church like ours. This 
 talk about the poor and friendless is all bosh. Of course, as a 
 side issue, if we are not too busy with our own affairs, we in- 
 tend to do a little something in this line, but as a general 
 thinrr, we'll neither have the time nor the facilities for such 
 
THE RICH NAN'S CHUKCH. 165 
 
 work. Now, there you have the matter straight, and if my 
 standing in this association is affected by my statements, I 
 wish to withdraw at once." 
 
 Then he sat down and glared defiantly at the convention, 
 when he discovered that they were all sound asleep. A dead 
 silence prevailed for some minutes, when the president awoke 
 with a start, and said that he would entertain a motion of a 
 vote of thanks to the newly elected member for his scholarly 
 and eloquent address, after which the convention would ad- 
 journ to the banquet room where an elaborate bill of fare 
 awaited them in honor of the occasion. 
 
 Then I awoke and discovered I had been dreaming. 
 
 Notwithstanding I had been dreaming, I had been listen 
 ing to some very solemn truths. I suppose my dream was 
 occasioned by the presence of two new, magnificent churches, 
 just completed, in the most fashionable quarter of our city. 
 
 These churches, with every modern improvement, palatial 
 without, gorgeous within, are now bidding for patronage and 
 support. Who are they asking to come ? Their deeds speak 
 louder than their words. The location which they have 
 selected, the grandeur with which they have surrounded them- 
 selves, the expensive luxuries they have provided, all speak 
 louder than words as to the kind of people they wish to attract. 
 The location of the church is also exactly where the poor will 
 not or cannot come. These churches must have rich men, else 
 they cannot be maintained. These rich men must be toadied, 
 and everything carefully guarded against which is calculated 
 to offend them. 
 
 Therefore, the whole truth cannot be told. The poor will 
 not be defended. The oppressed will have no advocate in this 
 place. A preacher would be simply idiotic to step into such a 
 pulpit and say anything offensive to the rich. After a church 
 enterprise has gone to such enormous expense to invite the 
 rich and fashionable, for the preacher to get up in his pulpit 
 and say anything to drive them away again, would be asinine. 
 
166 REV. TALK WELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 But there is no danger that he will do so. He will carefully 
 guard the fastidiousness and the sensitiveness of his rich pew 
 holders. 
 
 For shame ! for shame ! that we should call this sort of a 
 performance Christian ministry. Such churches may be all 
 right in the evolution of society, but why the doing of such 
 things should be called following Jesus is an ever-growing 
 mystery to me. When Jesus made a public announcement of 
 his ministry to Nazareth he said : u The spirit of the Lord is 
 upon me because He hath anointed me to preach good tidings 
 to the poor. He hath sent me to heal the broken hearted, to 
 preach deliverance to captives, and recovery of sight to the 
 blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised." 
 
 Now how any man in his right senses, whose business it is 
 to run one of these fashionable churches, can persuade him- 
 self that he has such a mission as Jes"us proclaimed his mission 
 to be, goes beyond any imagination that I am capable of. 
 These churches are doubtless performing a good function in 
 society, but it is not the function of gospel ministry. 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF LAISSEZ FAIRE. 
 
 While Ye Gather the Tares Ye Uproot the Wheat Also." 
 
 R. TALKWELL said last Sunday morning : 
 
 If all the people, especially clergymen, would 
 study the parables of Jesus with the same interest 
 they do the metaphysics of Paul, there would be 
 less confusion as to the teachings of Jesus. It is safe to say 
 that ten sermons are preached from the controversies of Paul, 
 where one is preached from the gentle, plain teachings of the 
 Master. It is so much easier to find texts appropriate to the 
 work of church organizations ' in the writings of Paul, who 
 never saw Jesus (in the flesh) than to find such texts in the 
 words of Jesus himself. The fact that the writings of Paul 
 happened to be bound in the same book with the teachings of 
 Jesus has done more to obscure and pervert the Gospel than 
 all the other causes combined. Paul never spoke with Jesus, 
 never saw the Gospels, and except by hearsay and tradition 
 knew nothing whatever of the Master. The wonder is that he 
 should ever have been regarded as a competent expositor of 
 the teachings of Jesus. 
 
 But without pursuing this subject any further, allow me 
 to call your attention to one of the beautiful parables of 
 Jesus, this morning, as it gives better answer to many of the 
 questions before me, than any words of mine could do. The 
 parable which I quote from the 13th chapter of Matthew is as 
 follows : 
 
 u The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man that 
 sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy 
 
168 DR. TALKWKLL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 came and sowed t^res also among the wheat and went away. 
 But when the blade sprang up and brought forth fruit then 
 appeared the tares also. And the servants of the householder 
 came and said unto him : Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in 
 thy field? Whence then hath it tares? And he said unto 
 them : An eneni} 7 hath done this. And the servants say unto 
 him: Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But 
 he saith : Nay ; lest haply while ye gather up the tares ye 
 root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until 
 the harvest ; and in the time of harvest I will say to the 
 reapers : Gather up first the tares and bind them in bundles 
 to burn them ; but gather the wheat into my barn." 
 
 Now in this parable we have the world placed before us 
 in a nutshell. The good seed of God's own planting, (the 
 wheat), growing side by side with the bad seed which human 
 greed and depravity has planted, (the tares). It is proposed 
 by the servant to uproot the tares, but the Master objects on 
 the ground that while they are endeavoring to uproot the 
 tares they would also uproot the wheat. Let them both grow, 
 and when the harvesters come, then will they be able to dis- 
 cern the tares and separate them from the wheat. 
 
 I wish I could paint this lesson on the sky and stamp it 
 on the forehead of every fanatical bigot that infests the earth. 
 What a rebuke this gentle parable contains for that numerous 
 tribe of social busy-bodies and theologicial harpies who 
 imagine they are doing God's will simply because they are 
 making themselves disagreeable to every well-balanced mind. 
 
 This parable presents to the mind the whole world of 
 human activities, good and bad ; things that make for peace, 
 and things-thai make for strife, growing side by side. Institu- 
 tions that degrade and institutions that elevate. Enterprises 
 that rob and ravage as well as enterprises that heal and 
 succor. Organizations that enrich and beautify, closely 
 imitated by organizations that destroy and deform. All these 
 thriving, growing and working together, and yet so linked to 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF LAISSE/, FAIRE. 169 
 
 each other, so intimately entangled that to attempt to uproot 
 one we are in danger of uprooting the other. 
 
 Narrow-minded zeal says, let us exterminate the wicked 
 tares. But the wise householder says, let them grow together. 
 Thin-headed egotism selects what he supposes to be tares and 
 proposes in his blind fury to pull them up. But the lord of 
 the harvest bids him stop, lest he uproot also the wheat. 
 Presumptuous ignorance proposes a crusade of hostility and 
 uncompromising warfare, but the wisdom of real knowledge 
 hesitates before the problem of deciding whether this or that 
 had best be uprooted or let alone. Let them alone. Here we 
 find the origin of the doctrine of Laissez Faire. 
 
 Jesus did not pose as a reformer. He criticized nothing 
 but the hypocritical pharisees and the rich. Neither did he 
 pose as an organizer. He defended none but the poor, the 
 outcast and the degraded. He warned the oppressor and con- 
 soled the oppressed, but he sought in no way to arbitrarily 
 interfere with the order of 'things. All things must grow 
 together until the harvest, If a thing is good it will bring 
 forth wheat ; if not it will be burned. Time will do it. God 
 has so fixed it that He does not need any one to uproot the 
 tares or to save the wheat. Let every man see to it that his 
 own heart and life is what it should be, and God will do the 
 rest. The mote in my own eye is my business, not the sup-, 
 posed beam in my neighbor's eye. All unholy things will 
 perish by inherent defects. 
 
 No human institution or activity is wholly good or wholly 
 bad. Each one has its blades of wheat and tares. The 
 attempt to uproot the blades of tares will result in uprooting 
 the wheat, and the whole thing must start over again, to go 
 through the natural evolution step by step once more. Every 
 institution is crude and faulty in the beginning. The tares of 
 human imperfection appear in great numbers at first. Gradu- 
 ally, as time goes on, if they are allowed to grow with the 
 wheat, their worthlessness or harmfulness is revealed. The 
 harvester can then separate them safely. 
 
170 REV. TALKWELI/S SKETCHES. 
 
 Before any enterprise of human activity has passed 
 through the natural evolution of its growth, no man can tell 
 which of its elements are good, or which are bad. Something 
 good will remain if allowed to grow after all the bad has been 
 burned. There is some wheat in everything that God allows 
 to come into existence. 
 
 History is God's word to man ; the only inspired word. 
 The world is making history every day. In this way God i& 
 teaching us what to do and what not to do. The good lives- 
 forever; the bad will finally be burned, but can not be prema- 
 turely uprooted. The good is God's guide posts showing the 
 way to go. The bad is God's light houses showing the danger- 
 ous places the way not to go. Each kind has its function to 
 perform, which no man can destroy or avert. 
 
 What, then, is the hope of the world ? If the good and 
 the bad are to grow together until the function of each be 
 fulfilled, what shall we do to be saved? Educate, educate : 
 that's all that can be done. Education is the only radical cure 
 for evil. In the meantime palliatives must be used, perhaps, 
 such as prisons, almshouses, asylums, and the like, but these 
 only palliate; they can not cure. Education is the only 
 specific treatment. Behind every evil is some kind or degree 
 of ignorance. Education alone will avail. 
 
 The church is doing a portion of this work of education. 
 To be sure it reaches directly only a few as yet. From the 
 middle class the church mainly draws its support. The 
 extremely prosperous and the extremely unprosperous are 
 practically untouched by the church. Yet it is doing a greater 
 educational work today than ever before. Its ethics are often 
 faulty, its themes are often of no value, and its motives often 
 selfish, yet as an institution of popular education it could not be 
 spared. It has before it a tedious work, a long and difficult 
 work in which it will be more and more assisted by the col- 
 leges, the press and the drama. The light is breaking slowly 
 but surely. Before that light all evil will disappear. All this 
 
THE DOCTRIXK OF LAISSEZ FAIRE. 17J 
 
 has been going on many centuries. How long, oh Lord, how 
 long? 
 
 In the meantime, while the millenium lingers, there are 
 the lost sheep, the prodigal sons. These the church can not 
 reach, can not touch. For these there is no church, no hope. 
 To these the Christian minister is sent. To these he must go. 
 He must, like Jesus, take upon himsell their woes, their pov- 
 erty, their suffering. He must leave no chasm of fortune or 
 fame between himself and those he would succor. He must, 
 like Jesus, become poorer than the birds, who have nests ; 
 poorer than the foxes, who have holes. 
 
 It was not the work of the Master to uproot the institu- 
 tions of society, neither is it the work of the Christian minister. 
 Society is working out its own salvation, according to inherent 
 laws God's laws. Not one jot or tittle of this law will be 
 destroyed till all is fulfilled. To those under the law, to those 
 upon whom the law rests most heavily, the minister is called 
 to bind up the wounds, to defend the weak, to bring cheer to 
 the hopeless. 
 
IMPOTENCE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 41 But Woe Unto You, Scribes and Pharisees, Hypocrites! For Ye 
 
 Shut Up the Kingdom of Heaven Against Men ; for Ye Neither 
 
 Go In Yourselves, Neither Suffer Ye Them that are 
 
 Entering to Go In." 
 
 JOE unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for 
 ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretense 
 make long prayer ; therefore ye shall receive the 
 greater damnation. 
 " Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye 
 compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is 
 made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than 
 yourselves." 
 
 Dr. Talkwell announced last Sunday that four of his 
 former parishioners had followed his example and opened 
 their homes to Christian hospitality. All superfluous 
 and costly furniture had been replaced by such things as 
 to " tempt no man to steal." No hungry or homeless 
 man should ever be turned empty-handed away from these 
 homes again. The doctor said : " This is what I call con- 
 version. This is the c new birth.' This is Christian work. 
 I wait for more to follow. In the meantime I will continue to 
 make my home what I wish my hearers to copy. 
 
 I have had occasion to state several times that the 
 churches and pastors of the cities have neither the time nor 
 the facilities for doing any real, practical Christian work. 
 They are already staggering under burdens of their own, 
 
[MPOTENCE OF THE CHURCH. 173 
 
 burdens which in no way relate to the work which Jesus 
 assigned to his followers. They are the burdens of building 
 churches, the burdens of maintaining choirs, the burdens of 
 raising the preacher's salary, .the burdens of raising money for 
 the various ecclesiastical societies. It is a heavy load that the 
 churches are already bearing; it is an irksome task that the 
 preachers are already performing. 
 
 To ask or expect of them to extend a hand to a fallen one r 
 or rescue a perishing brother or sister, to give a cup of cold 
 water to the thirsty or bread to the hungry ; to go to the pris- 
 oner in his dingy cell, or visit the sick, to ask or expect them 
 to do such things as these, in addition to the burdens they are 
 already bearing, is too much. They must either give up the 
 vexatious folly of pretending to do Christian work at all, or 
 else continually disappoint those who expect any practical 
 Christianity of them. They cannot do Christian work in 
 addition to the work they are already doing. It is simply 
 impossible. 
 
 One of the many proofs which I might cite that these 
 statements are true, I am about to present. Before I gave up 
 all hope that the church might be made to do practical Chris- 
 tian work, I conceived a plan by which each church could be 
 given an opportunity to do a little of this kind of work. I had 
 been for a long time visiting the city prison nearly every day. 
 I found many truant boys and girls confined there simply 
 because they were out of money, were strangers away from 
 home and friends. I found these people many times penitent 
 and piteously pleading for some one to help them out of the 
 pit into which they had fallen. My attention was called to 
 these creatures every day. I could dispose of a few of these 
 people by my unaided effort, but the greater number of them 
 had to go down because there was no friend to help them. My 
 heart bled for them, but I had not the facilities to save them. 
 
 In my despair and extremity I appealed to the churches 
 to help me. I accordingly addressed to them a letter which I 
 
174 REV. TALK WELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 will read to you. The letters read as follows, and were ad- 
 dressed to the pastors : 
 
 " DEAR SIB AND BROTHER We will agree, of course, that 
 nothing is so much needed today as some scheme to help the 
 fallen and degraded. This is your mission more distinctly 
 than my own; hence I turn to you in my dilemma. I have 
 for some time been visiting the city prison, with a view to be- 
 friending those who desire help. I try to find out from them 
 what they expect to do when liberated. I try to put myself 
 in their place and solve their problems for them. When lib- 
 erated I act as a friend and adviser. The first thing they 
 must have, of course, is a place to work. Some honest work 
 sufficient to keep them from starving. Here is where my 
 chief difficulty lies. No one wants them. They are jail-birds. 
 They try, but not being able to find work, become discouraged 
 and relapse. I have carried this matter in my heart for a 
 long time, trying to devise some scheme to assist them. I 
 will submit to you what seems to me to be the only solution 
 possible. If you know among your parishioners one or more 
 business men, who have some menial work to do, involving 
 no trust or skill, who will take one of these persons for 
 Christ's sake and give him one more trial for his life, will you 
 not solicit his assistance? If so, will you arrange with him to 
 take one of these persons? 
 
 I will first see to it that the person I send to you is clean, 
 free from disease, desirous of becoming a Christian and will- 
 ing to do any menial work whatever to earn a livelihood. I 
 will then send the person to you, and if, after conversation 
 with him, you find that all of these things are true of him, you 
 will then take him to the employment you have provided and 
 keep an oversight of him. If each preacher in this city would 
 take one such person every six months I could dispose of all 
 such people I can find by regularly visiting the city prison 
 and low places. I will not send you to exceed two persons a 
 year unless you desire it. This has the advantage of not 
 
IMPOTENCE OF THE CHURCH. 175 
 
 seeming to them charity or a society of criminals, but gives 
 them the encouraging feeling that they are free from their old 
 life. 
 
 I try not to let them know that I make a practice of 
 doing this, but let each one feel that I have happened only to 
 be his friend. Can you do this ? If you will do so, please let 
 me know. If you at least approve of this plan, let me know. 
 Put your name on the back of this sheet, and mail it to a 
 brother minister of this city, which will give him an oppor- 
 tunity of doing the same thing, and requesting him also to 
 pass it on to the next one. This will save me the trouble and 
 expense of addressing each minister a circular letter. I have 
 no funds or assistance in this matter. A great many men and 
 women have expressed a desire to become Christians who are 
 so low down and so entirely without friends and money that 
 it is indeed a problem what they are to do unless some 
 such plan is brought to their assistance. 
 
 This would diffuse the burden of their oversight in such a 
 way as to make it more helpful. Each minister could do as 
 he pleased about receiving such persons into his church or 
 societies. Please send this letter on and let me hear from 
 each one on receiving this letter." 
 
 I started out three such letters as this with the request to 
 pass them along. One of the letters was returned to me 
 finally with indorsements on the back of it of about a dozen 
 of the leading clergymen. They all spoke well of the plan, 
 but no one offered me assistance. The other letters I never 
 heard from. I received only one letter in reply, and that 
 letter was from a prominent clergyman refusing point-blank to 
 have anything to do with any person discharged from a prison. 
 
 What had I asked of these clergymen ? Simply that they 
 allow me to bring to their notice a boy or girl, friendless and 
 destitute, who wanted to be a Christian, willing to do any 
 work, to hold their place only during good behavior, guilty of 
 no crime, a victim of cruel circumstances over which they had 
 
176 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 no control. I simply asked the privilege of bringing such a 
 boy or girl to the pastor's study that he might satisfy himself 
 as to the merits of the case. I was simply trying to bring 
 practical missionary work to the very doors of the church. 
 Knowing that pastors are very busy men, I tried to bring them 
 such work as would only cost them a few moments' time and 
 a few words of recommendation. But no one responded to 
 my letter. And yet they go right on raising money for 
 foreign missionary work. They go right on accepting the 
 widow's mite to send to China and will not raise one finger to 
 help these perishing ones at home. 
 
 In my grief and disappointment at receiving no help from 
 the pastors I visited one of the oldest pastors of the city, since 
 retired from the pnlpit, and explained to him my disappoint- 
 ment and discouragement. He said in substance : 
 
 " I have long been in the pastoral work. I know by ex- 
 perience that the preachers of this city, or any other city, can 
 riot do the kind of work you wish them to do. They have no 
 time for such work. Their parishioners have no faith in such 
 work. They dare not employ such men, even on the recom 
 mendation of their pastor. Everybody is too much absorbed 
 in his own affairs to attend to such things. The pastor dare 
 not upbraid his parishioners for their hard-heartedness lest 
 they withdraw their support from his church.*' 
 
 I replied: " So then, it is your opinion, is it, that the 
 church is unfitted to do this sort of work? " 
 
 " Yes, that is my opinion, although I know that many of 
 them would be willing to if they knew how to do so. What 
 we need is less theology and more practical Christian work in 
 our pulpits. We need preachers who can show the people 
 how to do this sort of work, both by precept and example. 
 This is the work of the coming church. The church is cany- 
 ing altogether too much dead wood membership, and dragging 
 after it too much traditional nonsense to be able to do such 
 work today." 
 
 Alas! I have found these words were the solemn truth. 
 I have given up expecting anything of this sort from the 
 church. 
 
CALL NO MAN "REVEREND. 
 
 The Disciple is not Above his Master, nor the Servant Above 
 his Lord." 
 
 THE Rev. Dr. Talkwell in ? " said a gentleman who 
 had called at the home of Dr. Talkwell on North 
 Third street, one day last week. 
 
 " Yes," replied Mrs. Talkwell, who had opened the 
 door to receive the visitor. "I suppose you mean my hus- 
 band, Mr. Talkwell." 
 
 He was shown to the plain library of Dr. Talkwell, who 
 was engaged in conversation -with several people who evi- 
 dently belonged to the lower classes. 
 
 "Is this the Rev. Dr. Talkwell?" the caller enquired. 
 
 u Yes, sir. My name is Talkwell. Be seated. What can 
 I do for you ? " 
 
 " Well, to come at once to the point, I have come to ask 
 you what I ought to do to be a Christian. I have led a more 
 or less careless and indifferent life, during which time I have 
 accumulated quite a large property. I am getting along 
 toward the middle of life and I should like to begin to lead a 
 religious life. I have read much of you lately, and have con- 
 cluded to come to you and ask you the question that has been 
 so often asked : What shall I do to be saved ? " 
 
 " Well," replied the doctor, " your errand this morning 
 reminds me of a similar occasion on which a man came to 
 Jesus with about the same question. As I take Jesus for my 
 guide in all things, I will read it for you, and let us see if we 
 can not get some light on your question. 
 
178 DR. TALKWELL'vS SKETCHES. 
 
 " It is in the 19th chapter of Matthew, beginning with the 
 16th verse : 
 
 " 'And behold, one came and said unto Him : Good 
 Master, what good things shall I do that I may have eternal 
 life? 
 
 " 'And He said unto him: Why callest thou me good? 
 There is none good but one. That is God. But if thou wilt 
 enter into life, keep the Commandments. 
 
 '"He said unto Him : Which ? 
 
 " ' Jesus said : Thou shalt do no murder. Thou shalt 
 not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not 
 bear false witness. Honor thy father and thy mother. And 
 thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. 
 
 " 'And the young man said unto him : All these things 
 have I kept from my youth up. What lack I yet ? 
 
 ' 'Jesus said unto him : " If thou wilt be perfect, go and 
 sell that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have 
 treasure in heaven. And come and follow me. 
 
 " ' But when the young man heard that saying he went 
 away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.' 
 
 " You see," said Dr. Talkwell, " this is a very similar case 
 to your own. You come lo me inquiring the way of eternal 
 life, or how to be a Christian, as you put it. You say you are 
 a man of considerable property, and you want me to state in 
 brief what you shall do to be saved. 
 
 u In the first place, I noticed when you addressed 
 me you called me 'reverend.' Now, if I were to follow my 
 Master I should object to your calling me reverend. Only 
 -one is entitled to reverence, and that is God. We should 
 revere only that which is perfect, and no man is perfect. 
 Even the Master would not allow the young man to call him 
 good. There is only one who is good ; that is God. All men 
 are fallible. To call men ' reverend ' is simply to perpetuate 
 past superstitions arid ignorance. The time was when priests 
 were supposed to have divine powers, unlike other men. 
 
CALL NO MAN "REVEREND." 179 
 
 Those times are nearly past, and the titles should pass away 
 also. I should much prei'er that you call me Mr. Talkwell, or, 
 as I am generally known, Dr. Talkwell. 
 
 " But you came to ask me what you should do to be saved. 
 My reply is, like the reply of the Master: Keep the law. Be 
 a square and honest man. Deal with your neighbor uprightly. 
 Treat men as you would like to be treated yourself. Honor 
 your parents. Do nothing you are ashamed of. Give an 
 honest equivalent for everything you get. If you will do 
 these things, you will have eternal life. 
 
 " But," replied the caller, " do you mean to say that if I 
 am simply a mural man, that I would be religious?" 
 
 fc * Certainly I mean to say that. Is this not what the 
 Master said ? " 
 
 a Well, I have done these things. I have conducted my 
 business fairly. I have wronged no man that I know of. I 
 have treated my neighbor exactly as I would be treated. I 
 surely think that I have honored my father and mother, but I 
 supposed in order to be religious I had to do something more 
 than this. I always thought that in order to be religious a 
 person had to be converted, join the church and be baptized ; 
 begin to read the Bible, and attend church ; say prayers and 
 take public part in religious meetings of various kinds. I 
 thought at least some of these things were necessary in order 
 to be religious/' 
 
 " Well," replied Dr. Talkwell, " those are certainly the 
 traditions of this generation. All things which you have 
 enumerated are generally expected as evidences of religion. 
 But with all these I have nothing to do. Jesus is my guide, 
 and he said nothing whatever about these things. If you 
 want to be a good man, a man entitled to eternal life, a man 
 who would meet the approval of Jesus, you are to keep the 
 law simply, be a good man. 
 
 . " I do not say that these things you have enumerated will 
 not help you to keep the law. Certainly, I believe that 
 
180 DR. TALKWELlv'S SKETCHES. 
 
 prayer is absolutely essential to success in keeping the law,, 
 but according to Jesus, prayer should always be in private." 
 
 " Well, then," replied the caller, " according to your talk, 
 it would seem that I am already a religious man without 
 knowing it. I had received the impression from things I had 
 heard of you. that you would have every man quit business 
 and pay no attention to his own good, giving his whole life for 
 the benefit of the poor and down-trodden." 
 
 " No,*' replied Dr. Talkwell, u you are entirely mistaken. 
 I do not advise men to do any such things in order to be 
 religious. I have never said so, nor have I any such thought 
 in my mind. The honest, fair-dealing business man or the 
 honest working man of today has the essentials of eternal life. 
 I have nothing whatever to offer to such a man, except to 
 repeat to him the law the same as my Master did. 
 
 " I always try to express my conviction that constant 
 communion with God greatly assists such life. This commun 
 ion may have the form of prayer, or even an honest wish to be 
 good and true, a wish that is heartfelt and sincere. There can 
 be no better prayer than such a wish, and God will answer 
 such a prayer." 
 
 " But," replied the caller, " did not Jesus in the story you 
 have read to me, advise the young man to sell his property 
 and come and follow him ? " 
 
 u Yes, he did. If you wish to become a follower of Jesus r 
 that is what you will have to do," replied Dr. Talkwell. 
 
 " But you didn't ask me what you must do to become a 
 follower of Jesus, you only asked me what you must do to 
 inherit eternal life. If you have come here this morning to 
 inquire of me what you must do to become a disciple of Jesus r 
 I. would give you exactly the same advice as Jesus did the 
 young man. You cannot follow Jesus and own any property. 
 You cannot follow Jesus and have any remunerative occupa- 
 tion of any sort. In order to become a follower of Jesus you 
 
CALL NO MAN "REVEREND." 181 
 
 have got to do as Jesus did, throw yourseJf entirely upon 
 providential protection. 
 
 u But I did not understand that you wished to become a 
 follower of Jesus. You were merely inquiring the way of 
 eternal life." 
 
 *' Do you then make a distinction between the followers 
 of Jesus and other religious men ? " asked the caller. 
 
 " Certainly I do. Jesus called only a few men to follow 
 him in the life he led. Surely you must recognize that Jesus 
 expected different things of the twelve disciples he called 
 about him than he expected from the multitudes he taught. 
 
 " If you have any idea of going into the Christian ministry, 
 the first thing you must do is to put your possessions where 
 the poor and the needy shall derive the greatest possible 
 benefit from them. The only way you can show any confi- 
 dence whatever in your calling as a Christian minister is to 
 refuse to have any other income than Jesus had. He had not 
 even a place to lay his head, although before entering upon 
 his mission, we have every reason to suppose that he was a 
 prosperous carpenter. Had he continued his vocation as a 
 carpenter, he would probably never have been distinguished 
 from any other good honest carpenter. But when he chose 
 the mission of Christian ministry he became poor and homeless 
 like those to whom he went. 
 
 u If you wish to do this work you must do likewise. Going 
 to the poor means becoming like them poor." 
 
 " Well," replied the caller, " it is very evident to me that 
 I do not wish to become a Christian minister. I only want to 
 insure my salvation." 
 
 "All right. You go right on, then, being a good man. 
 Continue to do an honest business, according to business prin- 
 ciples, and you need have no worry about the traditions of 
 the church. Treat your employes exactly as you would wish 
 to be treated if you were to change places. Pay decent wages. 
 Be courteous and patient with all subordinates. 
 
182 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 " If, according to your own best judgment, you believe 
 that you can be a better man by joining the church, by getting 
 baptized, or by following any of the other traditions of the 
 church, you ought to do so. But if you do any such things 
 because you think Jesus commanded them, you will be doing 
 a very foolish thing. 
 
 " If the church helps you to be a good man, you ought by 
 all means to help the church in return. It is an honest debt 
 you owe the church, which is just as binding upon you as the 
 debt you owe your grocer. But if, on the other hand, the 
 church renders you no assistance, its ministrations are of no 
 use to you; it is simply unmitigated foolishness and nonsense 
 for you to have anything to do with it. 
 
 u There are a few things that I would like to say to you 
 before you go, which may not be out of place. I wish you 
 would take the gospel according to Matthew, and make it a 
 study. Read it over and over again, and take Jesus for your 
 guide. Try to forget all you have been taught about Jesus, 
 and just take the gospel as it reads. 
 
 " If you will do this and practice according to it, you will 
 find life growing happier every day. Never mind what other 
 people say about Jesus ; read for yourself what he said. 
 
 " But try to remember always the distinction between the 
 duties of a Christian minister and the duties of the multi- 
 tude. Jesus did not come to bring a new law, but to reassert 
 the old law. He did not come to bind new burdens upon the 
 people, but to show them how to bear their old burdens, 
 show them how to get rid of needless burdens. He called a 
 few people about him to assist him in this work. To these few 
 people he gave specific instructions not intended for the mul- 
 titude. 
 
 u If you wish simply to be a religious man, keep the law. 
 But if you wish to be a follower of Jesus, expect to do exactly 
 as Jesus did, do not attempt to follow him with a bag of 
 money like Judas. If you do, you will sooner or later betray 
 him for money." 
 
AN ORDINATION SERMON. 
 
 u Ye can not Serve Two Masters Ye can not 
 Serve God and Mammon." 
 
 ;R. TALKWELL was invited to the ordination ser- 
 vices of a young man about to be installed as a 
 pastor of one of the Columbus churches. The 
 doctor was selected to deliver the charge to the 
 young man in a formal service intended to convey to the can- 
 didate an outline of the work before him. The doctor said 
 among other things : 
 
 My dear young brother, I hardly know whether to congratu- 
 late or condole, but there are a few things you ought to bear 
 well in mind before you attempt to enter the great work of 
 Christian ministry. Your work is simply to follow Jesus. 
 Make friends among those he made his friends. You are not 
 a reformer, a missionary or a literary critic. Yours is the 
 work of succor, of suffering with others. 
 
 I have always been inclined to the opinion, which has be- 
 come a strong conviction, that all the forces that are at work 
 in modern civilization, have a legitimate function to perform 
 in working out the result that lies before us. Each one ex- 
 presses, imperfectly as yet, some need of a human heart or 
 brain. Arbitrary hindrance may delay their fulfillment, but 
 not defeat. Artificial support may postpone the death of in- 
 stitutions that do not really minister to human needs, but at 
 last they will die. All this is going on, in the main at least, 
 bv the aid of activities that are not self-conscious. Self-con- 
 
184 DR. TALK WELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 scious action may try to hurry or hinder, but all such effort is 
 absolutely futile. 
 
 The battle^is on. Right will finally conquer. In the 
 meantime the plan of the battle is under providential super- 
 vision. The rank and file are absolutely unconscious of the 
 results they are working out. The leaders, even, are working 
 under sealed orders, which they are only allowed to open from 
 day to day. We can not stop this battle. We should not 
 wish to. It will be the final salvation of the world. It is the 
 Messiah that has come to deliver us. Churches, monopolies, 
 prisons, factories, missions, saloons, temperance crusades, thea- 
 ters, families, marriage, prostitution all these conflicting, 
 ceaseless forces are each one here to fight and to continue to 
 fight until their contribution to human need is discovered and 
 secured. Every conceivable wrong way to live will be tried 
 and rejected by the experiences of men. 
 
 This will bring to some despair, wretchedness, poverty, 
 degradation; toothers, triumph, gain, luxury and sensuous sur- 
 feit. In the meantime, those who are called to be ministers, 
 those who desire to follow Jesus like the corps of surgeons 
 that follow the battle, must seek the wounded, the helpless, 
 the outraged. While we know that the battle of civilization 
 that is taking place before us, must and will settle the coming 
 kingdom upon earth, yet our business is only with the ones 
 who have fallen during the battle. With the battle we have 
 little or nothing to do. We are not counted either with those 
 who are profiting by this contention (and are therefore among 
 those who are well fed and well provided for), nor among 
 those who have fallen and need succor, but we are among 
 those who are sent to minister to the ones that lie scattered on 
 the battlefield in all conditions of helplessness and mutilation. 
 
 We can not do this work in some distant, luxurious, com- 
 fortable hospital. We have got to be on the field. Some of 
 the after-effects of a wound may be treated in the institution 
 far away from the scene of battle, but the main work, in order 
 
AN ORDINATION SERMON. 185 
 
 to be effective, must be individual, instantaneous, and with a 
 complete and intimate knowledge of the situation. We can 
 not at once be directing this battle, or any portion of it, and 
 attend to our duties in the ambulance corps. This fallen one 
 at our side wants to know what he shall do to be saved. We 
 can not tell him what he shall do. We can only show him. 
 
 If Christ could have told us what to do he need only to 
 have written a book in some comfortable place, and not have 
 subjected himself to the discomfort and vicissitudes of the 
 depraved, of the sinners or the outcasts. If words could have 
 conveyed his message, his crucifixion between two thieves 
 would have been unnecessary. He could only show. What he 
 said, others had said before, and have said many times since, 
 without any knowledge of his words. 
 
 It isn't the saying of the gospel ; it is the working out of 
 it the world needs. The poor man in the alley with a large 
 family, tyrannized over by employer and policeman, wants 
 help, needs a savior. Words will not do it. Is there a Mes 
 siah to go to him and show him how to solve his problem, or 
 at least to suffer with him? In order to do this the Messiah 
 must subject himself to the same conditions that beset the one 
 he ministers to. If we are the surgeons that follow the battle, 
 if we are the ministers of Jesus, we will not hear the clash of 
 arms and roar of cannon, but only the groans of the wounded, 
 and the cries of those who need help. 
 
 We may comprehend that the battle is for right, and that 
 right will finally win ; we may respect and sympathize with 
 those who are prominently engaged in this battle ; we may 
 take a keen interest in the details of the conflict ; but it is to 
 the sick and wounded and the dying that we are called. This 
 is our business. To them we must go. In the banquet hall, 
 where the victor is feted, in the triumphal parade where the 
 conquering hosts are displayed and eulogized, we have no 
 business. Our place is with the fallen one, if we follow Jesus. 
 
 There is no law in actual operation in this world but the 
 
186 DR. TALK WELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 law of love. It is against this law that all the battle rages, 
 but this law will finally triumph. Society will find that out at 
 last. Not from the pulpit nor the ministerial conference nor 
 the prayer meeting, but from the clash and crash of actual 
 business, in which many will be wounded and killed, and it is 
 to these and these only that the Christian minister is sent. Of 
 course it would be more honorable from a worldly standpoint 
 to help direct the battle, but our master has assigned us to the 
 ambulance corps. Tt would be more pleasant and agreeable 
 to choose only those who are well for ministrations, but Jesus 
 has left us no choice. We must either go to the fallen or have 
 no part in his mission. To pretend that we have the privilege 
 to select for ourselves the class of people to whom we are to 
 minister; is to rob the gospel of meaning and reduce it to a 
 code of ethics of doubtful practicability. 
 
 When Jesus said, u If a man smite thee on one cheek, 
 turn to him the other also," he was talking to his ministers, 
 not to merchants or mechanics. Such a procedure on the part 
 of the business world would do more harm than good. But 
 for the Christian minister who has voluntarily set out to suffer 
 with those who do suffer such things, it is the only rational 
 thing to do. There are those whose circumstances are such 
 that they are obliged to turn the other cheek to those who 
 smite them. It is your function to show these people how all 
 these things can be suffered with dignity and self respect. 
 Hundreds of men were crucified before Jesus was, and the 
 cross was regarded as the greatest ignominy that could be 
 ignored. It was only when Jesus voluntarily took up the 
 cross that all the ignominy and shame connected with it dis- 
 appeared, and in its place the cross has become the sacred 
 emblem of sublime nobility. 
 
 As soon as you voluntarily place yourself among those 
 who suffer, their sufferings will become a badge of honor 
 instead of dishonor. You will put to shame those who prac- 
 tice injustice. You will demonstrate that the meek actually do 
 
AN ORDINATION SERMON. 187 
 
 inherit the earth. If we, who call ourselves Christian minis- 
 ters, will not do this, who will ? Those engaged in actual bus- 
 iness, such as merchants, artisans, professional and working- 
 men of all classes, these are the ones that are working out the 
 details of the incoming kingdom of God. Greed, tyranny,, 
 competition, ambition, selfishness, pretense, must clash and 
 contend until all the enemies of love are dead. Little by little 
 will the discovery be made that love and business are compati- 
 ble. Little by little will the fact be made known that hate 
 and contention have no legitimate place in the world. But 
 this must be discovered and worked out in actual business. 
 Each victim of greed and duplicity that falls by the way is a 
 martyr in a cause as holy as ever caused the death of any 
 sainted martyr of old. 
 
WHAT IS THE CHURCH DOING? 
 
 "Take Heed, Therefore, That the Light Which is in Thee, be Not 
 
 Darkness." 
 
 >T DR. TALKWELL'S- service last Sunday morning 
 the most of the time was occupied in answering 
 written questions from the people who attend these 
 services. For want of space only a few of these 
 questions can be given. To get any adequate notion of the 
 interest that has been aroused on all the vital questions of 
 Christianity, a person must attend these services. No report 
 can do such a service justice. He said in part: 
 
 Some of the questions before me are better answered in a 
 general way, while others require specific answers. I have 
 selected this morning a few of the latter kind, to each of which 
 I will try to make specific though brief answer. 
 
 First : Are we to infer that Dr. Talk well is opposed to 
 the church? 
 
 No, I am not opposed to the churches. I am simply 
 ascribing to the churches a different function in society than 
 the one commonly ascribed. They are doing, in some cases, 
 at least, a good work, but in so far as they are doing anything 
 it is a social and educational work, and not the work of 
 Christian ministry. 
 
 Second: Do you consider the work of the church super- 
 fluous? 
 
 No, I believe the majority of the churches are still doing 
 a necessary work. But I fear that a rapidly increasing num- 
 
WHAT IS THE CHURCH DOING? 189 
 
 ber of them are not only superfluous, but a serious drag on the 
 energies of the people for no real purpose. 
 
 Third: Do you think that the church in the past was of 
 more use to society than at present? 
 
 Yes. This, however, is not saying that the church used 
 to be better, or that it is becoming senile. But the educa- 
 tional facilities of the present, the abundant supply of cheap 
 and wholesome literature, the many social privileges of this 
 generation have robbed the church of much of its former field 
 of work. The time was when the church was the center of 
 the social and educational activities of society. The preacher 
 was an oracle, and often the only educated man in the neigh- 
 borhood. This has all passed. Except in a few progressive 
 cases the theological function of the church is nearly a thing 
 of the past. 
 
 Fourth : What, exactly, is the church doing today? 
 
 It aims to teach the law of God as found in the Bible, and 
 in some cases it is trying to apply its teachings to the social 
 relations of its members. 
 
 Fifth : Do you think the church is losing its hold on the 
 masses of the people? 
 
 In the matter of teaching the law of God there is a fatal 
 and rapidly progressing skepticism among the masses as to 
 the authority of the church to decide what the law of God is. 
 Each man is deciding such matters for himself, more today 
 than ever before in the history of the world. 
 
 As to the function of the church as a social factor in 
 society, its importance is growing at a rapid pace. He has 
 made a great mistake who prophesies the decline of the 
 church. It is growing, and undoubtedly will continue to 
 grow, but not in the direction that many churchmen would 
 like to have it. As an oracle of God's law or an expositor of 
 Bible texts the church has, at least, seen its best days, but as 
 a factor in the development of sociological problems and 
 social experiments, the church is just entering upon a new era 
 
190 I)K. TALI\\YKM,'S SKETCHES. 
 
 of growth. Happy is that church that is able to lay down the 
 old function, and take up the new, instead of trying to obstruct 
 progress with obsolete customs and worthless theology. 
 
 Sixth : Do you regard the function of the church as an 
 important one ? 
 
 Certainly I do. The fact that the church has an existence 
 is the evidence that it has a right to exist. No institution as 
 virile and active as the church could have come into being 
 except it had in some degree ministered to the wants of 
 the people. Nothing can long continue after it has ceased 
 to supply some human want. The people will turn away 
 from anything that does not feed them. Success is today 
 the best certificate anything can present to vindicate its 
 right to be. In the evolution of society nothing comes into 
 the field of activity that does not in some way meet a human 
 want. 
 
 I do not wish to belittle or arraign the work of the 
 modern church. But why the church should claim to be do- 
 ing the work that Jesus did, or the work he called his fol- 
 lowers to do, is one of the curiosities of history. Why they 
 should try to quote Jesus to explain or justify their function 
 in society is passing strange. I shall try some time to explain 
 how this came about. But whatever may be the explanation 
 of it, this unwarranted assumption on the part of the churches 
 that they are doing the work that Jesus called his disciples to 
 do, is what I deny. This is all the criticism I have to make 
 on the work of the church. I have undertaken to say that 
 they should either quit making any claim that they are doing 
 the work of the Master, or else begin to do the work of the 
 Master. For myself, I have quit making any such claim. 
 
 Before I understood what the Master expected his disci- 
 ples to do, I had taken upon me domestic obligations incom- 
 patible with discipleship. Therefore, I have withdrawn all 
 pretense of the sort. But while I have withdrawn all pre- 
 tenses to being a Christian minister I am seriously trying. 
 
WHAT IvS THE CHURCH DOING? 191 
 
 both in my home life and public life, to discover how far a 
 person may follow Jesus, who either cannot or will not re- 
 nounce all domestic relations. 
 
 Seventh : Did Jesus and his disciples, after their minis- 
 try had begun, maintain any domestic relations ? 
 
 No, they did not. No man can follow Jesus in the work 
 of a Christian minister and recognize any other obligation, 
 whatsoever. If anyone doubts this let him read Matthew, 
 chapter XII, from the 46th verse to the end of the chapter : 
 
 u While He yet talked to the people, behold his mother 
 and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him. 
 
 Then one said unto him, "Behold thy mother and thy 
 brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee." 
 
 But he answered and said unto him that told him, u Who 
 is my mother ? And who are my brethren ? " 
 
 And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples and 
 said, u Behold my mother and my brethren ! " 
 
 " For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is 
 in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother." 
 
 In fact this same thought appears many places in the 
 gospel. 
 
 Eighth : What would you advise a pastor to do who 
 wishes to follow Jesus without giving up his pastorate? 
 
 I have serious doubts whether this could be done at all, 
 but as a step in this direction he might make his home a place 
 where Christian hospitality is possible; he might locate his 
 home in that part of the city where he is most needed, and if, 
 in. addition to this, his church would excuse him from sermon- 
 making, social calls and all other superfluities of pastoral 
 duties, he would have a great deal of time to devote to work 
 that at present nobody is doing, and work that nobody will do, 
 except by someone literally following the footsteps ef Jesus. 
 He should be an example of frugality, economy and hopeful- 
 ness to all who know him. 
 
 Such a man might still continue to speak to a regular con- 
 
192 DR. TALKWEIX'S SKETCHES. 
 
 gregation for which, of course, if he had a family, he would be 
 obliged to accept a small salary. If he had the courage to tell 
 what he actually saw and to point out the only possible 
 remedy, he would soon find himself surrounded by the people 
 that he cannot now reach, and deserted by the people that 
 now support him. But his work would be vastly nearer the 
 work that Jesus did. 
 
 What such a course on the part of a pastor would lead to r 
 I cannot say. Whether any semblance of church organization 
 could be maintained where the whole truth, and nothing but 
 the truth, is proclaimed from the pulpit every Sunday, I am 
 not quite sure. I am inclined to the opinion that it could be- 
 If the spirit of love should actuate and control such a work I 
 believe it would succeed. It is barely possible that in time 
 this might develop a church which would assist rather than 
 prevent, the work of a real gospel minister. 
 
THE SUNDAY THEATRE. 
 
 'All Things Are Lawful Unto Me, But All Things Are Not Expe- 
 dient ; AH Things Are Lawful For Me, But I Will Not 
 Be Brought Under the Power of Any.*' 
 
 'FTER the regular report last Sunday, Dr. Talkwell 
 said : 
 
 A number of questions have reached my desk 
 concerning the Sunday theatre controversy and the 
 subject of Sabbath observance generally. These are questions 
 vitally related to the welfare of our city, and I feel sure that 
 no public teacher or preacher could do better than to devote 
 his time to such questions. In the short time which I devote 
 to the question box each morning, I cannot more than touch 
 this matter lightly in a single aspect. 
 
 Now, to begin with, there are at least 100,000 people in 
 the city of Columbus who do not regularly attend church. 
 The greater number of these do not attend church at alL 
 They spend their Sundays here or there, as fancy or circum- 
 stances dictate. Now, if the question was whether it would 
 be better for these people to attend church or to attend the 
 theatre on Sundays, I think I should reply that the church, 
 all things considered, would be the better. I certainly believe 
 that the people of Columbus should attend church every Sun- 
 day, at least once. I believe the consideration of the subjects 
 presented at the churches would do them all good. 
 
 But this is not the question. The question is, whether it 
 is better for the large multitude of people who do not attend 
 church at all to go idling around the city, with no definite 
 
194 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 aim or purpose, or lazily lie abed reading a Sunday newspaper, 
 or spend their time in the backroom of some saloon playing 
 cards, or perhaps doing even worse, whether it is better that 
 the people be allowed to continue doing these things, or 
 whether a good, wholesome, interesting theatrical performance 
 be provided for them Sunday afternoons and evenings. Now, 
 this is the question, as I understand it. 
 
 Now, remember, I say in the beginning that I had rather 
 the people would attend church on Sunday than to attend the 
 theatre. But I had also rather that the people would attend a 
 good, wholesome theatre on Sunday than to do other things 
 which they will do if they do not attend the theatre. 
 
 I believe in Sunday rest. I believe, as far as possible, 
 every person should be allowed one day in seven for rest and 
 recreation. It is a pity that anyone should have to toil week 
 after week, with no day for rest and recuperation. Sunday is 
 the day fixed by law and church tradition, and I think that 
 we should guard this day .is a day of rest as carefully as possi- 
 ble. But, after all. rest is simply another name for change. 
 A change of scene and thoughts and activities constitute rest. 
 A large multitude of people have no other time for recreation 
 except Sunday. They must work from morning until night, 
 six days in the week. Now, if it is a fact, as I believe it is, 
 that the majority of these people have no interest whatever 
 ii\ church services, why not attempt to furnish them some 
 other services in which they will have an interest? 
 
 The theatre today comes nearer furnishing these people 
 what they want than any other institution. in modern civiliza- 
 tion. If the theatre is not quite up to what it should be, the 
 solution of the problem is not to oppose Sunday theatrical 
 performances, but rather to make them all that they should 
 be. The theatre is very attractive to the multitude. Its 
 lessons are very forcibly taught. It is able to bring out pathos 
 and sentiment, ethics and exhortation in a much more forcible, 
 manner than the pulpit can. There is no rational reason in 
 
THE STXDAY THEATRE. 195 
 
 the world why the theatre should not be made auxiliary to 
 the pulpit. There would be no hostility between these two 
 institutions of modern civilization if the subject was treated 
 with more thought and less fanaticism. 
 
 Shall we have Sunday afternoon and evening theatre at 
 our parks? Shall our city theatres be opened on Sunday after- 
 noon and evening? % I am convinced that it would prevent ne 
 one from going to church. Every one who wished to, could 
 attend church just the same. It would simply provide some- 
 thing for those who do not go to church. It is simply meeting 
 a multitude of people, who have no shepherd, half way. It 
 would be infinitely more effective on the part of the clergy to 
 undertake to influence the character of the Sunday theatre, 
 than to undertake to oppose it. Plays of an elevating, highly 
 moral character would find as ready acceptance as plays of a 
 degraded character. 
 
 It is a curious fact that the saloonkeepers and the preach- 
 ers agree that Sunday attractions, like the public parks and 
 base ball, ought to be closed. I say it is curious, but of easy 
 explanation. Both the preachers and saloonkeepers are inter- 
 ested in keeping the people within the city. One wants them 
 to attend church ; the other wants them to attend the saloon. 
 No set of men are more hostile to Sunday amusements than 
 the saloonkeepers. It not only takes away their customers, 
 but drains away the money that they would otherwise get. 
 
 I was struck very forcibly with this idea the other day. 
 I was in a saloon where the proprietor had been raging and 
 frothing at the mouth in his violent opposition to Sunday base 
 ball, suburban parks, etc. He said that it killed the town 
 dead ; that Sunday had become the most unprofitable day of 
 the week, whereas it used to be the most profitable one. He 
 waxed eloquent in his arguments. He fumed and roared 
 against those who would destroy our Sabbath day. 
 
 In less than half an hour business called me to the study 
 of one of our city pastors. The subject of Sunday theatres 
 
196 DR. TALKWEIX'S SKETCHES. 
 
 happened to come up, and I heard another man grow eloquent 
 on the subject of Sunday desecration. He urged like the 
 saloonkeeper, that these things should not be allowed; (hat 
 they interfered with his business. Although, of course, his 
 motives were entirely different from those of the saloonkeeper, 
 yet the same one-sided view of the case was apparent. When 
 the saloonkeeper and the preacher agree on plans of forcible 
 Sunday keeping there must be something wrong somewhere. 
 I know of no reason, scriptural or rational, secular or sacred, 
 why we should not have elevating theatrical performances 
 during the summer months at the park ; why we should not 
 have Sunday afternoon concerts at the park ; why we should 
 not have evening entertainments at the theatres within the 
 city. I know of a great many good reasons why we should 
 have these entertainments, but I have yet to hear of a single 
 reason that appeals to my judgment why we should not have 
 them. 
 
 If these things interfered with the churches in any way, if 
 these things hindered people from attending churches who 
 would otherwise go, then I should certainly be opposed to 
 them. It is simply idiocy to try to force people to go to church 
 by preventing them from enjoying any rational recreation or 
 amusement. People cannot be Christianized in any such way 
 as this. If we do not furnish them elevating, healthful recre- 
 ation on Sunday, they will simply do worse, that's all. 
 
 I quite agree with the principle of periodic rest, that man 
 needs such rest, and that such a day should be instituted, and 
 I quite agree with the tradition of the church that Sunday is 
 as good a day as any other, but it still remains true that to 
 quote the fourth commandment as the reason why we should 
 keep Sunday any different than any other day is either insin- 
 cere on the part of the one who does so, or else evidence of 
 his own ignorance. 
 
 Let me quote the fourth commandment: let us see what 
 it is : u Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days 
 
THE SUNDAY THEATRE. 197 
 
 shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh day (not 
 the first day) is a Sabbath day unto the Lord, thy God. In it 
 thou shalt not do any work; thou, nor thy son, nor thy 
 daughter (who keeps these things?), thy man servant, nor thy 
 maid servant (I would like to consult the various servants in 
 this city on this question), nor thy cattle, nor the stranger that 
 is within thy gates." 
 
 Now I wish to say about this commandment that it is 
 wholly impracticable in the present order of things ; that it is 
 simply stupendous folly to undertake to keep either the letter 
 or the spirit of such a commandment. 
 
 Moses said still further, concerning the Sabbath, " Who- 
 soever cloeth any work therein (in the Sabbath day), he shall 
 surely be put to death." Also, " Ye shall kindle no fire 
 throughout your habitations on the Sabbath." I insist upon it 
 that such talk as this has long since been relegated to past 
 barbarism, and the interests of our modern Sunday are not 
 enhanced by any such quotations. , 
 
 I keep no such Sabbath day, and I am sure the so-called 
 Christian keeps no such Sabbath day. I certainly work harder 
 on Sunday than on any other day of the week. I have no 
 maid servants, nor man servants, but my liveryman and my 
 family work harder on Sunday than on any other day. So 
 does my horse work harder on that day. The services at the 
 workhouse, the mission Sunday school in the afternoon, and 
 the numerous visits to places of destitution and degradation, 
 make my Sunday a workday, not a rest day, except in the 
 sense that it is somewhat of a change from the other days of 
 the week. 
 
 To quote the fourth commandment to corroborate the gen- 
 eral principle that one-seventh of the week should be devoted 
 to rest is perfectly consistent, but to quote the fourth com- 
 mandment in order to give the modern Sunday a divine origin 
 implies either great ignorance of the history of Sunday, or a 
 willingness to resort to anything to make a point. The first 
 
198 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 day of the week was originally kept by Christians, not because 
 they supposed it was Sabbath, but in commemoration of 
 Christ's resurrection. 
 
 Even while Paul was yet preaching the question as to 
 whether Gentiles were obliged to keep the Jewish Sabbath 
 came up again and again. The Christians were comparatively 
 unanimous in wishing to hold services on the first day of the 
 week, in memory of the resurrection of their Master. But 
 just what to do with the Sabbath day was a vexed question, 
 and for five or six centuries there was more or less attempt on 
 the part of Christians to keep the Sabbath day in addition to 
 the first day of the week. But. finally, it was decided to set 
 aside the fourth commandment, both in letter and spirit, and 
 institute in its stead the first day of the week. Having thus 
 deliberately set aside the fourth commandment as no longer 
 binding upon Christians, to turn about in this day and age of 
 the world and quote that the same commandment as a reason 
 whythe traditions of the church concerning Sunday should be 
 kept, is either ignorance or duplicity. (See article on Sun- 
 day, Chambers' Encyclopedia, or the same. Encyclopedia 
 Brittanica). 
 
UP-TO-DATE THEOLOGY. 
 
 "Old Things are Passed Away, All Things are Become New, 
 
 ;R. T ALKWELL devoted most of the hour last Sunday 
 morning tc- the many questions that had accumu" 
 lated on his desk. He said in part : 
 
 A great many of the questions I receive are theo- 
 logical rather than practical. Discussing theological notions 
 is no part of my business. I used to indulge in such mis- 
 chievous pastime, but I have reformed. Yet there are a few 
 questions before me which de'serve attention, for in spite of 
 the fact that they have been answered again and again, yet 
 most people still cling to the older notions. As these are 
 direct questions to myself, I will read them as I answer them. 
 
 What do you believe about the creation of the universe? 
 
 The creation has been believed to be an event that hap- 
 pened about 6,000 years ago; that God brought into being the 
 universe by a command or fiat, piece by piece, out of nothing, 
 taking Him in all just six days, after which He rested a whole 
 day. Since the progress of the study of geology and allied 
 sciences has made such a belief difficult, it has been discovered 
 that the Scriptures will bear an interpretation less obnoxious 
 than this, but it is still very difficult, even by the aid of expert 
 exegesis, to avoid collisions between the scientist and theo- 
 logian. 
 
 To conclude that the days of creation mentioned in 
 Genesis meant periods of longer, or shorter duration according 
 to the latest geological chronology, helps to reconcile the Bible 
 
-JOO DR. TALKWELIAS SKETCHES. 
 
 to science, but does not explain the use of such ambiguous 
 language on the part of the inspired writer. It is worthy of 
 note that these days were not discovered to mean periods until 
 the demonstrations of geology could no longer be punished as 
 crimes or sneered at as lunacies. 
 
 The creation of the modern thought is a continuous pro- 
 cess, not an event. There came a time certainly in the grad- 
 ual evolution of the universe when it became possible for 
 animal life to be maintained on the planet, but that was 
 hundreds of thousands, not 6,000 years ago. And that neither 
 vegetable nor animal kingdom, nor man himself, was the 
 result of any sudden or miraculous display of God's power, 
 but the gradual and never ceasing evolution going on in nature 
 at all times and places ; that the physical universe came from 
 pre-existing matter rather than nothing. Instead of fiats and 
 commands we have processes and natural selections ; that God 
 not only was creating the world, but is creating it. Creation, 
 according to the latter thought, is going on about us now in 
 exactly the same sense it was in the Carboniferous age. 
 
 Neither thought raises a doubt as to the existence of God 
 or His continued providences, but there is a rational difference 
 in the conceptions, as to the means made use of, and the order 
 and method of procedure. 
 
 What do you believe about Providence? 
 
 The older thought as to providence is something like this : 
 That after God had finished the creation, the physical universe 
 was able, by virtue of the laws or forces with which it was 
 endowed, to go about its own mission without God's immediate 
 attention. He is represented as being away somewhere. Up 
 in heaven, for instance, on a throne. He makes only occa- 
 sional visits to the earth, sometimes sends a prophet or an 
 angel, less frequently comes in person to attend to some very 
 important business. The ordinary operations of nature (so 
 called) are thought to be incapable to accomplish all that 
 
UP-TO-DATE THEOLOGY. 201 
 
 ought to be done, which requires more or less special or mirac- 
 ulous interference on God's part. 
 
 The records of the personal visits which God has thought 
 necessary to make the earth from time to time, are supposed 
 to be enumerated in the Jewish Scriptures, which sh'ow them 
 to be attended with unusual phenomena. 
 
 The visits of God to earth, at first frequent and unmistak- 
 able, became less frequent and tangible as history develops 
 until in these latter days if any special visitations occur at alt 
 they are attended -by so much ambiguity that they fail to con- 
 vince the majority. 
 
 The later thought as to Providence is that God is immi- 
 nent in the physical universe. That is to say, the Spirit of 
 God, or God the Spirit, animates, or is the life of all physical 
 existence, that God cannot be conceived as separate from the 
 universe ; that in God we all live and move and have our 
 being ; that He never leaves us or specially visits the world, 
 but He is always and ever about, around and within us; that 
 all the forces of nature are but the direct expression of His 
 will ; that He has no special abiding place, but He fills the 
 immensities of the whole universe; that if He were to with- 
 draw His personal presence from the world, even for one 
 instant, chaos and catastrophe would be the result. 
 
 There are no laws but God's free will ; no forces at work 
 in heaven or earth save God's special, personal agency (except 
 the action of the free spirits like Himself, mankind, which 
 He has created.) That God moved in the earth while it was 
 yet a part of the nebula from which it was evolved, has never 
 left, never will leave. Has no special messengers ; but the 
 winds do His bidding, and the seas carry His commands. 
 That gravitation, cohesion, heat, electricity, are not blind 
 forces, but are the premeditated volitions of God. That each 
 rising sun is a miracle, each setting sun a burning bush. That 
 nowhere and at no place, can anything occur more wonderful 
 than evervdav existence. 
 
202 I)K'. TALKWKLI/S SKETCHES. 
 
 What do you believe about revelation ? 
 
 The idea of revelation, now getting old, but not yet 
 extinct, regards revelation as special and partial. God, wish 
 ing to reveal His will to man, is supposed to have selected 
 certain rtien through whom the revelation was made. God is 
 represented as speaking to men, or moving men to write 
 certain things, upon which the eternal happiness of humanity 
 depends, yet leaving the remainder of mankind to either find 
 out what was revealed to the inspired ones or else remain in 
 ignorance of it. These revelations of God's will were com- 
 mitted to writing and finally collected into a single volume 
 known as the Bible. This book is regarded as the will or 
 word of God, infallible in every page and letter, arid there is 
 no possible way open to man to know God's will except from 
 this divine book. 
 
 The only hope entertained of the salvation of those who 
 do not know of this book is, that they who do know of it tell 
 the rest about it. If this very important work is neglected by 
 anyone he is liable to be gently chided for his want of zeaK 
 but the neglected ones suffer eternal loss on account of the 
 omission. The revelation which God thought necessary to 
 make to man closed about two thousand years ago, and during 
 the subsequent centuries He has remained silent because no 
 further revelation is required. 
 
 This revelation was made mostly through the medium of 
 the ancient Hebrew language, and a dialect of the old Greek. 
 These documents have since been subject to the inevitable 
 exigencies of transcription, translation and interpretation, 
 but have somehow retained their unsullied infallibility 
 through it all. The knowledge of these Scriptures has neces- 
 sarily been known to a comparatively small number of the 
 human family, and yet, concealed in their pages, was the only 
 way by which man could be saved. 
 
 Unlike the devout Jew, who saw the glory and handiwork 
 of God in the heavens and firmament, to whom day unto day 
 
UP-TO-DATE THEOLOGY. 205 
 
 uttered speech, and night unto night showed knowledge, 
 whose voice was silent in no speech or language, this tradit- 
 ional theory of inspiration would confine God's word to the 
 intricacies and obsolete forms of a dead language and retard its 
 spread by the financial success of missionary corporations and 
 Bible societies. 
 
 This view of revelation is rapidly giving way to concep- 
 tions which refuse to regard revelation as special or partial, 
 but sets no limits or bounds to God's communion with man 
 save the necessary limitations of man's comprehension. That 
 in all places, and at all times, God has revealed just so much 
 of His will to each man as he is capable of receiving, hold- 
 ing him responsible and only responsible for the measure of 
 light he clearly comprehends. He is that >l light that lighteth 
 every man that cometh into the world." That men of olden 
 times, the same as modern times, received more or less of God's 
 will as their apprehension of truth was more or less. 
 
 That all truth, physical or metaphysical, secular or sacred, 
 is God's will. That the Bible is a partial record of what men 
 felt and thought to be true in ancient times, and is worthy of 
 the most careful study and respectful consideration. That the 
 Bible is the word of God in the same sense that our convict- 
 ions of truth and duty are the word of God. That the records 
 called the Holy Scriptures were written by men and are probably 
 a fair representation of the doings and opinions of the ancient 
 Jews, although they have not escaped the changes incident to 
 human fallibility, carelessness and desire to improve. That 
 just so much of the Bible should be held to be true as has 
 stood the test of experience. That the intrinsic worth and 
 beauty of the Bible can only be discovered by treating it pre- 
 cisely as any other book, by reading it critically without pre- 
 judice for or against its origin. This, briefiy stated, is the 
 later view of revelation. 
 
THE YOUNG PEOPLES' MEETING. 
 
 41 And Why Call Ye Me Lord, Lord, and Do Not the Things 
 
 which 1 Say?" 
 
 OT every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall 
 enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that 
 doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. 
 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have 
 we not prophesied in thy name ? And in thy name have cast 
 out devils? And in thy name done many wonderful works? 
 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you ; depart 
 from me, ye that work iniquity. Therefore, whosoever hear- 
 eth these sayings of mine and doeth them, I will liken him 
 unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock.' 1 
 
 As Dr. Talkwell arose last Sunday morning to begin his 
 report he said : 
 
 I have begun to visit the churches of the city of Colum- 
 bus, including the missions, Sunday schools and the young 
 People's societies. It may sound strange to you, but in all 
 the twelve years of my pastorate in this city I had learned 
 next to nothing about these things. 
 
 I knew what my own church was doing, but I knew 
 nothing about the other theological enterprises of the city 
 except by hearsay. I have been visiting these places with 
 the same interest and surprise as if I had been a total stranger 
 to their practical workings I wish .to speak a few minutes 
 this morning about the Young People's (so-called) Christian 
 societies. In order to let you know exactly what occurs at 
 
THE YOUNG PEOPLES' MEETING. 205 
 
 one of these meetings, I employed a stenographer to attend a 
 meeting selected by himself to take down every word that wa& 
 said. 
 
 My instructions were carried out faithfully with such ex- 
 ceptions as will appear in the report. In reading this report 
 one hardly knows whether to laugh or cry. The evident de- 
 sire which these people express to follow their master, Jesus, 
 together with the absolute futility of their misguided efforts, 
 make a saddening picture, very distressing to me. 
 
 Only faith in God's overruling providences ; only a vigor- 
 ous belief that God will finally bring order out of chaos, save 
 me from complete pessimism when I witness such pathetic 
 waste of time that has before it no definite purpose or rational 
 object. I will read to you the report exactly as furnished to 
 me by the stenographer. 
 
 Meeting at 7 : 00 P. M., sun time. At this time no one was 
 present except two girls and one man standing outside of 
 door. Meeting commenced at 7 : 15. Ssixteen ladies and three 
 men were present when meeting commenced. Others came 
 later. Young man led meeting. Leader Sing No. 14, 
 " Showers of Blessing." Leader Sing 173, " Must Jesus bear 
 the Cross ? " 
 
 Leader Let us have three voluntary prayers. Young 
 man prayed. (Could not hear what was said.) Lady prayed, 
 (Could not hear what was said.) Leader prayed : " Heavenly 
 Father, we feel tonight that we need more of thy love. Be 
 with us during our worship. Bless every one that has come 
 here. We know each one has come to receive the blessing he 
 is in need of. Grant that they may not go away without it. 
 Lord, it is not only a duty, but it is a privilege to testify and 
 pray and uphold thy name and cause. 
 
 Leader Have you any selection? Girl No. 46, u The 
 Mind of Jesus." Leader Our lesson is found in Luke X 
 (read portion about good Samaritan.) Our subject is, " A 
 Friend in Need." This man fell among thieves and was in a 
 
U06 DR. TALKWKLI/S SKETCHES. 
 
 place where he needed help. And so people get into places 
 where they need help, but are we so willing to help them ? 
 Sometimes it is a cross and a burden to do anything for them. 
 But if we engage in doing these things Christ is willing to 
 help us. The three passed by on the other side, but when the 
 good Samaritan came he had compassion on the man and sent 
 him where he would be taken care of, and we can do likewise 
 if we have Jesus with us. The meeting is now in your hands, 
 and I hope you will have something to say on this subject, or 
 on any subject that you wish to speak upon. 
 
 Girl Sing second verse of 67, a Anywhere with Jesus." 
 Lady We are taught by Christ that we are to have charity 
 and love for our fellow beings, for those who are discouraged 
 and in need. It seems that prosperity deserts some people ; 
 they continually meet with reverses; and they become dis- 
 heartened and discouraged. If we can go to them in the right 
 spirit we can do a great deal for them, even with a smile or a 
 kind word, more than we have any idea of. We may minister 
 to their physical and their spiritual needs as well. But first 
 we must have the spirit of the Holy Ghost in our hearts. 
 Girl Please sing 213, u Scatter Seeds of Kindness.-' 
 
 Leader I am sure that everyone can say something for 
 Jesus. 
 
 Lady In thinking of this subject today, " A Friend in 
 Need," and reading over the text, I wondered if I would have 
 reached out a helping hand if I was passing. We condemn 
 those who passed by, but are we doing any better? was the 
 thought that came to me today. 
 
 Lady There are many ways of showing mercy in kind 
 acts. Sometimes we go where we would expect kind words, 
 or some kind treatment, but we get nothing of the kind, but 
 something that it takes us a long time to forget, and I have 
 often prayed, in these trying circumstances, for the God of all 
 to have mercy upon them ; that he will open the eyes of all 
 those who do these things to what they are doing, and I pray 
 
THE YOfXG PEOPLES' MEETING. yfl 
 
 God that if I ever do such a thing that he will have mercy 
 upon me and show me my error and give me the right under- 
 standing. 
 
 Young man Song 84, u Only a Beam of Sunshine." 
 
 Young man This topic we have tonight is certainly a 
 great one. Maybe there is some person, or some young lady, 
 who is going from the church to some place that she should 
 not go to, and maybe she falls into temptation. Some of the 
 people pass her by, and others stop and talk to her. Each 
 one of us can become a good Samaritan. Let us try to help 
 each one to live a Christian life, for we know that the Christian 
 life is the right life for each one of us. 
 
 Girl Sing the third verse of No. . (Commenced with 
 u Only a Word for Jesus.") 
 
 Man and girl started to speak. 
 
 Girl About three sentences, but did not hear. 
 
 Man We all appreciate the good Samaritan act if it is 
 done for us. We appreciate anyone who is neighborly to us, 
 but the reason that we fall short and I think that we should 
 pray a great deal more about this matter. We ought to pray 
 to be neighborly. There are some people who we cannot 
 tolerate, and this is human nature, but it is not the good 
 Samaritan spirit, This is my failing, and I always recognize 
 that failing, but we need more of the grace of God to help us. 
 
 Man Sing verse of 264 u What a Friend We Have in 
 Jesus." 
 
 Lady I find that this thought sometimes comes to us, 
 that these people bring a great many things on themselves, as 
 this man did in going down to Jericho. The; way that he took 
 was a bad way ; it was full of wickedness, but the good Samar- 
 itan did not ask why he went that road, he just stopped and 
 helped him. 
 
 Every day of my life I feel that I want to help some one ; 
 I want to do some good to somebody. Even if it is only the 
 tramp that comes to the back door, it seems to me that if we 
 
208 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 looked at him with a cheerful countenance, instead of slam- 
 ming the door, that it would help him. It is often a bother to 
 go from the back of the house to the front door when an agent 
 comes, but if we speak to him pleasantly it may be an en- 
 couragement and a help to him. And the many little places 
 where we can, even by just a look, encourage some one. I 
 want to help someone every day ; I crave to be of help to 
 those that are depressed and are in need. We cannot know 
 in this world, but some one will be surprised in eternity to 
 ; know the result of just these little acts of kindness. 
 
 Leader One verse of 54, " The Song of the Soul." 
 
 Middle-aged woman I know that the greatest desire of 
 my life is to be more like Christ ; that I may be able at all 
 times to speak words of kindnes and do something that will be 
 of help to some one. Ever since I was twelve years old I have 
 been trying to love Jesus, and I will say that I am not weary 
 in so doing. And, Oh, it gladdens my heart to see young 
 people in the service of Christ. Pray for me that I may be 
 more faithful. 
 
 Man Sing a verse of No. 60, " Meet Me There." 
 
 Girl Reading this lesson brought to my mind the motto,. 
 " Look Up and Lift Up." I like the point brought out that if 
 young people go astray that we do not pass by on the other 
 side, and do not say a word to them. I hope I may help them. 
 We often think if we had money, but if we give what we have 
 we can do a great, deal. 
 
 Girl Sing 263, kC I'll Live for Him." Leader said, " Sing 
 the third verse." 
 
 Old man The thought that most interests me is this, to- 
 do what we have opportunity. We cannot all go to the 
 islands of the sea, but there is work to do by the waters where 
 we are, and we know that he will surely bless what we do in 
 his name. 
 
 Leader One verse of 262, " Fade, Fade, Each Earthly 
 Joy." 
 
THE YOUNG PEOPLES' MEETING. 209 
 
 Leader We have time for a number of testimonials. 
 About six minutes of eight. Pause of about two minutes, the 
 only interval to speak of in the meeting. 
 
 Lady Sing verse of 162. 
 
 Leader We shall stand and sing. 
 
 At the close of the song repeated benediction in concert : 
 " The Lord watch between thee and me, while we are absent 
 one from another.'' Dismissed at 8 o'clock. Five men and 
 twenty one women were, present. 
 
 My experience in this sort of meetings teaches me that 
 this particular meeting was much above the average, and yet 
 how futile, how far-fetched from everything that Jesus re- 
 garded as essential, the whole affair seems. These young 
 people are taught that to get together and say over and over 
 again these trite homilies is Christian work. They are led to 
 believe that when they have done this they have done their 
 Christian duty. Instead of doing as Jesus wished them to do, 
 visit the sick, visit those in prison, to give a cup of cold water 
 to the thirsty and bread to the hungry, instead of doing these 
 things in the name of the Master, they get together and spend 
 an hour in this semi-solemn and semi-ridiculous manner. 
 
 Oh, how these well meaning people need a leader ! Some 
 one to show them the way. Some one to go ahead and do 
 what Jesus did, and show them how to follow. Some one to 
 show them how to make their homes places where Christian 
 hospitality is possible ; some one to show them how to take 
 the first feeble steps in the direction of a lost sheep of Israel. 
 Some one to show them how to break down the barriers that 
 separate them from the prodigal sons and daughters. 
 
 As a means to an end, these meetings might be made very 
 useful, but as an end they are worse than nothing, since they 
 lead those who attend them to believe they have done some- 
 thing for Jesus, when in reality they have done nothing but 
 talk, talk, talk. 
 
MISSIONARY HERETICS. 
 
 Or. Talk well and the City Missionary A Visit to the Mission Tent. 
 
 EFORE beginning his regular report last Sunday 
 morning, Dr. Talkwell said: While I was still pas- 
 tor of a prosperous church, associated only with 
 prosperous and well behaved people, I was all the 
 while conscious that I was not living the life of a Christian 
 minister. The poor and the outcast were not touched by my 
 ministration. I felt sure that this was not the life that Jesus 
 lived. But I used to pacify myself with the belief that the 
 so-called lower classes were being ministered to properly by 
 that class of people known as missionaries, and that kind of 
 public ministration known as missions. I supposed these 
 people were having the gospel preached to them, and lulled 
 any conscience by assuring myself that no one was neglected. 
 To be sure, I had never attended these missions, and 
 knew little or nothing of the character of the gospel preached. 
 I personally contributed to such enterprises, and my church 
 was liberal in its donations, .but as a matter of fact I knew by 
 inference only what kind of gospel was being propagated at 
 these places. 
 
 Since throwing olf the ridiculous burdens of a regular 
 pastorate, and beginning to mingle with the people, I have 
 found out a great many things that I did not know before. 
 Among many other things I have made myself acquainted 
 with missions and missionaries. I have had frequent conver- 
 sations with the missionary and listened to his sermons, and 
 
MISSIONARY HERETICS. '.ill 
 
 have made myself somewhat familiar with the peculiar doc- 
 trines which he tries to disseminate. 
 
 I feel sure that the average minister does not know exactly 
 what is being taught at these places, or he would not be able 
 to make himself so perfectly content in his polite and agree- 
 able vocation. The most pernicious and demoralizing notions 
 concerning God, sin and righteousness are being promulgated 
 among the masses in this way. In order to be specific in 
 what I have to say I will report, as nearly as I can recollect, 
 the substance of a sermon I heard in a mission tent the other 
 evening. 
 
 The audience was composed, apparently, of people who 
 do not often attend church. The preacher said that " it was 
 the fashion, nowadays, for the pulpit to dwell upon the love of 
 God, and not upon His wrath." He thought that the love 
 had been held up too much, and that the pulpit had become 
 afraid to teach the old-fashioned doctrine of hell fire. " But," 
 said he, " if the Bible does not teach that there is a literal lake 
 of fire and brimstone, a seething, burning fire, where the 
 wicked are tortured forever and ever, if the Bible does not 
 teach this, then it does not teach anything else. Just as sure 
 as the Bible teaches that there is a heaven where the saints 
 are at rest, it teaches that there is a hell of burning fire where 
 the wicked are tormented forever and ever." 
 
 He went on to say. further, that by wicked he did not 
 mean simply men who got drunk, or steal, or lie, or break any 
 of the moral laws, he meant all the people who had not been 
 saved (converted). He was very careful to explain to his 
 audience that a man might live a very immoral life, and yet 
 be saved, or, on the other hand, a man might live a very 
 moral life, and not be saved. "Therefore," he said, "whether a 
 man is moral or immoral, has nothing whatever to do with the 
 question. The question is whether the man has been saved." 
 
 Then the preacher went on to describe what he meant by 
 being saved. I listened carefully to his exposition of this 
 
212 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 subject, and while he was not at all clear in his definitions, I 
 gathered the impression that salvation was a sort of hysterical 
 or miraculous experience, which could be obtained in the fol- 
 lowing way : 
 
 First, the candidate was to come forward to be prayed for. 
 He was then to make various other public display of his wish 
 to become converted. If he did not succeed at the first meet- 
 ing he was to come to another, and keep coming until he was 
 converted. This conversion was liable to come upon him sud- 
 denly, at any time, anywhere, but it was only to be had by 
 his making some public demonstration of his feelings. 
 
 The speaker emphasized again and again the fact that it 
 was just as easy for the most hardened wretch and vilest sin- 
 ner to become converted as it was for the man who had led an 
 upright and moral life; that God could convert one just a& 
 quickly and easily as he could the other; that one was just as 
 much in danger of going to hell, and being burnt forever, as 
 the other; that in the sight of God there was no difference 
 whatever between unconverted men ; whether they were men- 
 of strict morality or of the lowest degradation, in the sight of 
 God they were exactly alike; that it was just as easy to escape 
 from a life of debauchery and debasing habits, as from a life 
 of good behavior and right living. 
 
 I confess that I was astonished beyond measure to hear 
 such doctrines as these preached in our city. I really did not 
 know that any one was preaching such stuff; I supposed that 
 such horrible notions had passed away a half century ago. I 
 am sure our city preachers do not know that this is the kind, 
 of stuff that the average missionary is teaching. 
 
 Such sentiments as these are certainly opposed to the 
 work of the church. No church can wish to have the people 
 believe such things. To hold up God as a monster of injustice 
 who will, as soon as this short and uncertain life is over, con- 
 demn people to everlasting punishment, simply because they 
 have not passed through that peculiar phase of hysteria 
 
MISSIONARY HERETICS. 213 
 
 known as conversion, is monstrous. To hold up before the 
 public such an idea of God as this is the most deliberate and; 
 horrible blasphemy that could be possibly imagined. 
 
 Why are the churches willing to support such places? 
 Why are the preachers willing to indorse such enterprises ? 
 I can conceive no other reason than that they are anxious to 
 shirk the responsibility of this kind of work on anyone who 
 will volunteer to do it. To give money to such an enterprise 
 and then stay away from it, and remain in entire ignorance of 
 what is being preached, is what I used to do, and I fear many 
 are doing so yet. ; 
 
 Such doctrines are not being preached in the churches any 
 more, with rare exceptions. The preacher who has been to 
 college knows better than to talk such stuff. And yet we are 
 willing to turn loose among that class of people who need the 
 gospel most a set of uneducated, irresponsible, loud-mouthed, 
 longwinded, professional mountebacks, known as revivalists 
 and missionaries, to blaspheme God, to undermine morality, 
 and to mislead the people as to the gravity of sin and degra- 
 dation. This metaphysical figment called " conversion " is 
 being held up in the place of right living and moral integrity. 
 Sin is cheapened by teaching people that it may be put aside, 
 in a moment. 
 
 I feel sure that if the preachers could spend more time in 
 finding out what is going on at these places, they would no 
 longer content themselves by collecting hard-earned dollars 
 for this kind of work. 
 
 The fact of the matter is that the very best kind of 
 preaching is necessary for this kind of work. If any public 
 speaker should be an educated man, it is the one who attempts 
 to do mission work. It is much easier for a sentimental 
 goody-goody to successfully fill a fashionable pulpit than to 
 speak to the audience that usually gathers at such places. 
 
 When will the churches come to realize that they have 
 not discharged their responsibility in this matter? They train 
 
214 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 missionaries carefully to send to China or India, but the mis- 
 sionaries they send to the alleys and by-places of their own 
 city are not only, as a rule, ignorant men, but men who are on 
 the borderland of emotional insanity. 
 
 Here we confront the same old difficulty to which I have 
 been trying to call attention, namely, that those who profess 
 to be followers and ministers of Jesus are not doing the 
 Master's work. They keep themselves apart from the very 
 ones to whom they were sent. They know nothing of the lost 
 sheep. They are willing to permit any irresponsible person to 
 undertake the work which they were sent to do. 
 
 If the college-bred clergyman was spending his time 
 among the classes that the city missionary is allowed to 
 exploit, a great change would occur. The problems of 
 sociology would then be studied at their very fountain heads. 
 We have here in our city all the data needed for any practical 
 study of society. All that is lacking is strong, intelligent 
 ministers of the gospel to do as Jesus did ; to go to the lost 
 ones and stay with them, become their companions, guides 
 and defenders. Defend them from the wolves of the law and 
 the wolves in sheep's clothing that pretend to bring the 
 gospel. Jesus is being crucified over and over again on our 
 street corners and in our mission halls, and we who call our- 
 selves Christian ministers do not know or do not care. If God 
 will forgive me for my negligence in the past, I will try to do 
 better in the future. 
 
FAITH IN WORKS. 
 
 Dr. Talkwell Answers the Question, " What is Christian Work? " 
 
 >S DR TALKWELL was about to close his service 
 last Sunday morning a man arose and asked the 
 privilege to propound a question. The doctor con- 
 sented and the following question was asked : 
 " What do you mean by Christian work?" The doctor 
 answered as follows : 
 
 Nearly every day I am consulted by some one with refer- 
 ence to practical Christian work. A great many people want 
 to know what can be done, in a practical way, towards doing: 
 the work which the Master expected his followers to do. 
 
 In attempting to give advice in this direction the peculiar 
 surroundings of each person have to be considered. What one 
 man or woman can do easily would be very difficult for 
 another one to attempt. I am not, at this time, speaking of 
 Christian ministers. As I have so frequently stated before, a 
 Christian minister is one who turns his back on all remuner- 
 ative vocations and loses himself among the poor and outcast,, 
 for Christ's sake ; becomes poorer than the poorest of them,, 
 and finds himself without reputation, without home, and with- 
 out any organized support; in short, finds himself where Jesus- 
 predicted he would find himself, where Jesus found himself. 
 
 But all people can, in a partial way, do this sort of work. 
 The merchant, the law maker, the artist, the artisan, the 
 preacher, the teacher, the day laborer, each and all can, in- 
 spite of their worldly vocations, do a great deal of the Master's- 
 work, if they would. 
 
216 DR. TALK WELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 Since I have made a move in this direction myself, I have 
 been frequently consulted by those wishing to do something 
 in this line. No man can, in a public way, give this sort of 
 advice. Each man's case must be considered separately and 
 judged according to its special conditions. But I wish to give 
 you, briefly, this morning, the work of one man. in an adjoin- 
 ing city, who, in addition to his vocation by which he supports 
 himself, does a great deal of the Master's work. This man is 
 only one of many that I know doing similar work, but he 
 serves to illustrate what may be done. 
 
 The work that he does in this direction has no salary at- 
 tached whatever, and is a means of constant expense rather 
 than income. The work must be done between the hours de- 
 voted to his regular employment. 
 
 He is a member of the county visiting committee where 
 he belongs, appointed by the judges of his county, for the pur- 
 pose of visiting all of the public institutions supported by the 
 county, in whole or in part. The visits in these institutions 
 are made in behalf of the inmates, to see that they are prop- 
 erly housed, properly treated and properly cared for. The 
 institutions to which these visits are made include the work- 
 house, the city prison, the county jail, the orphans' home, the 
 infirmary, and many other similar institutions of the county 
 where he lives. 
 
 This committee is expected to make an annual report to 
 the judges of the county, in which the condition of these insti- 
 tutions is set forth. Thus, in a very practical way, he is able 
 to bring a strong influence to bear in behalf of the criminal, 
 the pauper, the sick and the demented. He visits these insti- 
 tutions clothed with sufficient authority to command attention 
 and respectful consideration. It will be, of course, impossible 
 to measure the amount of good that a wise and willing man 
 could effect in this way. but it must be very great. These 
 visits are made at odd intervals, which are used by the average 
 man in the pursuit of pleasure, and yet it is doubtful whether 
 
FAITH IN WORKS. 217 
 
 anyone could find greater satisfaction and recreation than the 
 subject of our sketch finds in this very business. 
 
 The acquaintances made in these institutions open to him 
 the doors of other institutions and enterprises, to which he 
 could not, otherwise, find a welcome. This man is also a 
 member and director of the Humane Society of the city where 
 he lives, which gives him easy and ample opportunity to 
 wield a powerful influence in the protection of defenseless 
 human and brute creatures. 
 
 I am not saying that he is able to use all of these oppor- 
 tunities to their fullest extent, or that any one man could be 
 able to do so, but by seeking these relations to society he has 
 put himself in a way to make the most of the spare time at 
 his disposal, and so related himself to the forces of organized 
 society as to be able to accomplish more good in an hour than 
 an isolated man could accomplish in a week. 
 
 Again, this man is a director of the workhouse of his city, 
 where the most of the city offenders are confined ; has charge 
 of the Sunday services, has a keen interest in the welfare of 
 the prisoners, becomes personally acquainted with large num- 
 bers of them, with whom he remains friends after their dis- 
 charge, is alive to the benefits of the system of paroles by 
 which prisoners are allowed their freedom under certain moral 
 restrictions, and through this institution he can, in countless 
 ways, set in motion forces that work toward righteousness, 
 which ramify into every nook and cranny of the city where he 
 resides. 
 
 The prestige and authority which these official relations 
 give him enable him many times to accomplish in a single 
 moment what would cost another man many days of patient 
 endeavor. All this is done without any remuneration, save 
 the satisfaction of doing it. All this is done at times ordinarily 
 spent in the pursuit of pleasure. Instead of base-ball, the 
 horse race, theatre, bowling alley, excursion rides, summer 
 vacations, instead of these things, he prefers to spend the in- 
 
218 I)K'. TAU\\YEU/S SKETCHES. 
 
 tervals between business hours in this way. Whether he gets 
 more or less pleasure out of life by this course we cannot 
 know until we have tried it for ourselves, but if I were to 
 judge from his appearance and conversation, I should say that 
 the life of the average sporting man falls far, far, below in 
 point of pleasure that which this man enjoys. 
 
 In addition to these things, the subject of our sketch has 
 a little fund of money which he loans, without interest, to 
 worthy people personally known to him, who are in sore dis- 
 tress. It happens, many times, that a poor widow has been 
 obliged to borrow a small sum of money, for which she is pay- 
 ing an exorbitant rate of interest to some money lender, who 
 holds a chattel mortgage on all she possesses. After he has 
 bled her to the extent of her ability he forecloses his mortgage, 
 selling everything she has, practically setting her out of doors. 
 
 It is in these.cases that this man steps in, and is generally 
 able to settle the matter for a few dollars, which are loaned to 
 the distressed one without interest. He has never yet lost a 
 cent of money in this way, and he has assisted a great many 
 such cases. By the aid of lawyers who give their services in 
 such cases for nothing, he generally finds that the victim has 
 already paid on this mortgage all that the money lender is 
 entitled to, but in some cases a few dollars remain to be paid, 
 which is done. The small fund which he devotes to this pur- 
 pose might have been spent in pew rents, or a fast horse, or a 
 summer vacation, or some other personal indulgence, but 
 whether it would have brought him such satisfaction in that 
 way, as it does in the way in which he uses it, is very doubtful, 
 indeed. 
 
 Another thing which the subject of this sketch does, his 
 house is open to the friendless at all times. He has no other 
 social relations except people who are in distress, who need 
 counsel or temporary assistance. These are his chosen com- 
 panions. At any time, day or night, his doors are open to 
 them. No one is ever turned away hungry or friendless. 
 
FAITH IX WOKKS. 21 
 
 Every one is made welcome, and his attic rooms have been the 
 haven where numberless poor, stranded, defenseless creatures 
 have found that temporary rest and recuperation needed to 
 keep them from sinking beneath the waves of despair and 
 oppression. 
 
 His social relations are absolutely limited to this class of 
 people. It is this class that surround his table on Thanksgiv- 
 ing day and Christmas dinner. It is this class that gather 
 around his fireside on long winter evenings and spend the 
 time in song and conversation. It is upon this class he calls r 
 when driving about the city. It is to this class he talks and 
 writes, and it is to the defense of this class that he uses what 
 influence and ability he may possess. 
 
 Now, in this hasty sketch, I have only hinted at the real 
 life which I have tried to hold up before you. This is what I 
 call Christian work. What this man's devotional habits are I 
 do not know; but he spends little or no time in the public 
 service of the church. It is my impression that he is not very 
 popular in the church to which he belongs, and is more or less 
 of an enigma, if not a positive annoyance, to his pastor. He 
 has tried to use the church in many ways to forward his prac- 
 tical schemes for righteousness, and while he has found indi- 
 vidual members of the church willing, yet the church as an 
 institution, he tells me, is nearly or quite useless to render 
 assistance in any practical way. The time and money spent 
 in ecclesiastical institutions only render him less able to carry 
 on the work of the Master. 
 
 It may be that I have given some of you the impression 
 that the man whom I have been describing is a sour visaged r 
 ascetic, useless old fogy, who has no relish of life, or interest 
 in the joys of modern civilization. This is not true. A more 
 genial, humorous, fun-loving, unconventional, exuberant, 
 rollicking fellow, I have never known. With his family it is 
 a perpetual picnic. They play and sing and talk together 
 like children of the same age, and their home life is simply 
 
220 DR. TALKWELIv'S SKETCHES. 
 
 ideal in its unstinted happiness and absolute freedom, both 
 mental and physical. At their house there is no conventional 
 Sunday, nor family altar, nor mechanical observance. Every- 
 thing is spontaneous, and each one is a law for himself. 
 
 I believe all this is as it should be. And while I do not 
 doubt that a closer acquaintance would reveal many imper- 
 fect things, and disclose many things that could be improved, 
 yet I think that the life that I have tried to hold up before 
 you is in the direction of that life which Jesus came to bring 
 to the world. 
 
 Everybody can do more or less of this kind of work if 
 they wish. If the churches were holding up this kind of life 
 as Christian work and this kind of character as evidence of a 
 genuine Christian experience, there would, no doubt, be more 
 such work done. But so long as miraculous conversion is pro- 
 claimed as the only genuine evidence of Christian character, 
 so long the teachings of the church will render little or no 
 assistance to practical Christian work. 
 
 In short, my idea of Christian work exactly accords with 
 Jesus when he said as recorded in Matthew, Chap. XXV, 
 31st to 37th verse : 
 
 " But when the son of man shall come in his glory, and all 
 the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his 
 glory ; and before him shall be gathered all the nations ; and 
 he shall separate them one from another, as the shepherds 
 separateth the sheep from the goats ; and he shall set the 
 sheep on his right hand, and the goats on the left. 
 
 " Then shall the .King say unto them on his right hand, 
 Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared 
 for you from the foundation of the world ; for I was an hun- 
 gered, and ye gave me meat ; I was thirsty and ye gave me 
 drink ; I was a stranger, and ye visited me ; I was in prison 
 and ve came unto me." 
 
OBSESSION (DEMONOLOQY). 
 
 Jesus "Called Unto Him the Twelve and Gave Them 
 Power Over Unclean Spirits." 
 
 >S DR. TALKWELL was about to begin his report 
 last Sunday morning, a prominent Spiritualist of 
 the city arose and requested permission to ask the 
 doctor a question. He was given the permission 
 and put the question as follows : 
 
 " In some remarks of yours a few Sundays ago, you stated 
 that it was your belief that the spirits of the dead were able 
 to affect the living for good or ill. You did not elaborate this 
 statement, and what I would like to ask you this morning is 
 in what way do the spirits of those who are dead affect us for 
 ill?" 
 
 The doctor replied : "Well, my friend, you have raised a 
 very serious question. The subject of demonology is a subject 
 which the doctors of divinity very wisely let alone today. I 
 remember, while I was still counted as an orthodox clergyman r 
 I was appointed to read a paper at a ministerial conference on 
 the subject of 'Demonology.' As I had learned nothing of this 
 subject in my theological studies, I was anxious to read it up 
 a little before I attempted to write the paper. 
 
 "Where was I to find some good authority who had written 
 up this subject? This was the first question before me. 
 Accordingly I wrote a letter to several clergymen of national 
 reputation, asking them if they knew of a good work, by a 
 recognized authority, on the subject of 'Demonology/ I 
 
't& DR. TALKXVELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 received several replies, which informed me that there was 
 no such work as that worth anyone's reading; that the subject 
 of demons, or devils, or evil spirits, was a subject about which 
 the theologian of today professes to know nothing. 
 
 u Now. you see, my friend, your question has raised this 
 subject, c Can the spirits of the departed do us, who remain in 
 the flesh, any ill ? ' If you had lived in the time of Jesus you 
 would not have asked such a question. Everybody then be- 
 lieved that evil spirits could affect people. Jesus met this 
 belief every day ; on every page of the Gospel are to be found 
 conversations or occurrences in which Jesus engaged concern- 
 ing evil spirits. 
 
 The word, "devil, 71 as we read it in the Testament, should 
 have been translated demon, or spirit, in order to convey the 
 meaning intended. This word does not mean Satan, or a fallen 
 angel, at all. The word translated u devil " as it was used in 
 the time of Jesus, meant simply spirit an unclean spirit. 
 Whence came these spirits that plagued the people then ? 
 What was the origin of the spirits that Jesus cast out from 
 the people? To show you that they used the words devil and 
 spirit as synonyms, let me read you a paragraph from the 
 Testament : 
 
 First, from Luke IV, beginning with the thirty-first verse : 
 " And he came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee. And 
 he was teaching them on the Sabbath day ; and they were 
 astonished at his teaching ; for his word was with authority. 
 And in the synagogue there was a man who had a spirit 
 of an unclean devil ; and he cried out with a loud voice, 
 Ah ! what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth ? 
 Art thou come to destroy us ? I know who thou art, the Holy 
 One of God. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace 
 and come out of him. Aud when the devil had thrown him 
 down in the midst, he came out of him, having done him 
 no hurt. And amazement came upon all, and they spake 
 together one with another, saying, What is this word? For 
 
OBSESSION (DEMONCMLOGY). y&i 
 
 with authority and power he commandeth the unclean spirits, 
 and they come out. And there went forth a rumor concerning 
 him into every place of the region round about." 
 
 And again, in Luke IX, beginning with the thirty-seventh 
 verse : " And it came to pass, on the next day, when they 
 were come down from the mountains, a great multitude met 
 him. And behold a man from the multitude cried, saying, 
 Master I beseech thee to look upon my son ; for he is mine 
 only child ; and behold, a spirit taketh him, and he suddenly 
 crieth out ; and it teareth him that he foameth ; and it hardly 
 departeth from him bruising him sorely. And I besought 
 thy disciples to cast it out; and they could not. And Jesus 
 answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how 
 long shall I be with you, and bear with you ? Bring hither 
 thy son. And as he was yet a coming, the devil dashed him 
 down and tore him grieviously. But Jesus rebuked the 
 unclean spirit, and healed the boy, and gave him back to his 
 father. And they were all astonished at the majesty of God." 
 
 Thus you see, in the language of the New Testament, that 
 the words devil and unclean spirit, mean exactly the same 
 thing. Sometimes, in referring to the same affliction, the word 
 devil was used, and then again the word spirit. 
 
 It is certain that the writers of the New Testament 
 believed that the unclean spirits were able to take possession 
 of men and women, causing them to do and say things they 
 would not otherwise have done or said; that these writers 
 believed that Jesus and his disciples were able sometimes to 
 cause these unclean spirits to leave the afflicted ones; that 
 their ability to cast out the unclean spirits depended in part 
 on the faith of the one attempting to cast them out, and in 
 part upon the faith of the afflicted one. At first the disciples 
 were unable to cast out these spirits because of their faith- 
 lessness. It is beyond dispute that the writers of the Gospel 
 believed these things. 
 
 I am well aware that these things have been explained 
 
-224 DR. TALKWELL'S vSKETCHES. 
 
 away. 1 used to myself belong to a class of theologians whose 
 business it is to explain away nearly everything* that Jesus 
 said or did, in order to reconcile the Gospel to my own views. 
 I used to say that the writers of the New Testament recorded 
 the facts as they understood them; that these people supposed 
 they had evil spirits when they really had epilepsy, or some 
 other nervous disorder; that Jesus accommodated himself to 
 their mistake, and allowed them to think he was casting out 
 unclean spirits, when in fact he was doing nothing of the kind T 
 but was operating upon the imagination of his subjects 
 entirely. Such a man would be called a charlatan, today, by 
 the medical profession. 
 
 But if we are able to take the Gospel as it .reads we cannot 
 escape one of two conclusions ; either that the Gospels are 
 gross misrepresentations of what occurred, or else Jesus him- 
 self believed that he was calling out unclean spirits. 
 
 While most people are willing to accept the doctrine that 
 the spirits of good people continue to minister to our good 
 alter they have departed from the flesh, there is a natural 
 repugnance to the doctrine that the spirits of bad people are 
 able to continue their mischievous work after their departure. 
 Surely one is as logical as the other, and it is very difficult to 
 escape one conclusion if we admit the other. 
 
 The objections that arise in the mind against the doctrine 
 of evil spirits are not so formidable on close examination. It 
 will be asked, " Are we then at the mercy of .evil spirits, who 
 can enter our hearts at any moment, pervert our lives at any 
 time or place they choose? -' 
 
 No ; this does not necessarily follow. The spirits of the 
 departed are like the spirits of those who remain in the flesh 
 they seek their own. They desire to associate with those who- 
 are like them. Evil spirits would not disturb us if we were 
 not evil ourselves. We will invite to ourselves precisely such 
 spirits as we have made welcome by the lives we lead. No- 
 bad spirit could control the life of a good man. 
 
OBSESSION (DEMONOLOGY). 225 
 
 Our spiritual environment corresponds to our physical 
 environment. If we surround ourselves with evil suggestions 
 or dissipation, we attract to ourselves just such spirits, and 
 their ministrations to us affect our lives for ill in precisely the 
 same way that the ministrations of good spirits affect our lives 
 for good. We are not at their mercy at all. Jesus can today 
 cast out the spirits the same as he could when he walked and 
 talked in Palestine. We can, by faith in the words of Jesus, 
 find ourselves ministered to by good spirits. If we look 
 closely at this doctrine we do not find it so horrible after all. 
 At least, those who are trying to live good lives need not be 
 disturbed by it. 
 
 I have come to that state of mind in which I am willing 
 to believe almost any theory which makes unrighteousness 
 more hateful and undesirable, and makes righteousness more 
 desirable. If my life is what it ought to be I shall be 
 glad to be surrounded by the good spirits of my departed 
 friends, and I shall not at all fear the evil spirits of those mis- 
 guided, headstrong ones we call bad. There is nothing in the 
 ministry of good spirits or in the evil machinations of bad 
 spirits, that ought to disturb a good man. 
 
 But on the other hand, if I am a bad man, consciously 
 bad, I should not desire the presence of my departed friends, 
 either good or bad ones. I would not like the good ones to 
 witness my degradation and uncleanness. I should be anxious 
 to escape their knowledge of my evil ways. At the same time 
 I should fear the presence of evil spirits. They would haunt 
 me in my dreams, and make me fearful in my waking 
 moments. The whole doctrine of the ministration of good 
 and evil spirits is hateful only to those who are evil, and has 
 no terrors for the righteous man. 
 
 But we must not judge of the badness of spirits by the 
 apparent badness of people while in the flesh. People are 
 not so bad as they seem. Most ill doing depends upon some 
 obscure physical infirmity or mental defect. Once liberated 
 
226 DR. TALKWEUL'S SKETCHES, 
 
 from the body the spirit loses all its physical hindrances and 
 retains only its mistaken notions. Thus, much of the badness 
 disappears. Its ignorance only, remains, but liberated from 
 the hindrances of the body it rapidly grows in spirit and in 
 truth. During its different stages of growth, however, it seeks 
 the association of those who are in the same stage of growth. 
 Even the bad spirit may imagine he is helping those he is 
 hurting. He would naturally help those who hold the same 
 mistaken notion with himself. 
 
 At any rate, the New Testament is hopelessly committed 
 to this doctrine. If we wish to escape this doctrine we must 
 throw away our Testaments. No height of pious evasion ; no 
 length of theological quibbling; no breadth of elastic imagina- 
 tion ; no depth of deliberate duplicity, can escape the fact that 
 from end to end the Gospels are saturated with the doctrine of 
 evil spirits. He who holds the New Testament in his hands 
 and pretends to love it as a revelation of God, and yet professes 
 not to believe in the presence of spirits about us, both good 
 and bad, has managed to execute a mental back double somer- 
 sault very difficult to explain; much more difficult, indeed, 
 than to reconcile the demonology of Jesus with the latest 
 revelations of modern science. 
 
 x 
 
DIVORCE AND ADULTERY. 
 
 " Whosoever Shall Marry Her that is Divorced, Committeth 
 
 Adultery." 
 
 JT THE close of his regular Sunday morning report 
 Dr. Talkwell said : I have been asked again and 
 again for my opinion as to marriage and divorce. 
 All sorts of questions have been asked me indicating 
 unsettled convictions and a variety of opinions on this subject. 
 I should pay no attention to these questions were it not for 
 the fact that it gives rne an opportunity to illustrate how 
 completely the teachings of Jesus are ignored by those people 
 who call themselves Christians. 
 
 The teachings of Jesus on this subject are so plain, so 
 emphatic, as to leave no room for query or uncertainty. It 
 seems almost incredible that people will go on calling Jesus 
 their Master, pretending to be guided by his teachings, com- 
 passing earth and sea to make proselytes in the name of 
 Jesus, and all the time deliberately and persistently violating 
 the plainest and most reasonable of his teachings. After 
 reading the words of Jesus on the subject of divorce it is the 
 most shameless cavil to pretend to be a follower of Jesus and 
 hold prevalent notions on divorce. 
 
 Jesus said : " It has been said, Whosoever shall put away 
 his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement ; but I say 
 unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for 
 the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery ; and 
 whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adul- 
 terv." 
 
ffiS DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 In other words, Jesus taught that there was only one 
 transgression which the wife could commit which warrants a 
 man in obtaining a divorce. In order to be sure that they 
 should not misunderstand him he named that transgression 
 openly, fornication. Again, a divorced wife cannot remarry, 
 according to Jesus, without committing adultery. Now, Jesus 
 said these things plainly; there is no possibility of misunder- 
 standing his words ; nowhere did he say anything different or 
 modify in any degree this simple and emphatic teaching. 
 
 The Catholic church, be it said to her credit, has observed 
 the teachings of Jesus in this respect, but what about the 
 Protestant churches ? Every church seems to be a law unto 
 itself concerning the subject of divorce. Whatever the law of 
 the church happens to be, that the church follows, without any 
 reference whatever to what Jesus taught. 
 
 If Jesus was right, every divorced woman who remarries 
 is guilty of adultery and every preacher who remarries or 
 consents to the remarriage of such a woman is a participant in 
 her crime. There is no way to cavil around this plain truth. 
 So far as I am aware there has never been any attempt, either 
 with subterfuge or sophistry, to explain away this daring vio- 
 lation of the Master's teaching. It is simply a case of diso- 
 bedience for which no excuse is possible. 
 
 After all that has been said about following Jesus, after all 
 that has been sung about walking in his footsteps, yet as soon 
 as any single command of his comes in conflict with the selfish 
 interests of the church organization, a complete back down is 
 the inevitable result. 
 
 I am not at present discussing whether a divorce ought to 
 be granted for any other reason than fornication, or whether a 
 woman divorced has a right to marry again. I am not discus- 
 sing these questions from my own standpoint. I am simply 
 stating that Jesus said these things, and that the Protestant 
 church is openly and flagrantly practicing to the contrary, 
 
DIVORCE AND ADULTERY. 229 
 
 with here and there an exception. And now let me explain 
 why they are doing so. 
 
 It is one of the inevitable evils that follow in the wake of 
 the ecclesiastical competition which began with the Reforma- 
 tion. Let us say, a prominent supporter of the church wished 
 a divorce. If he could not get a divorce and remain in the 
 church where he belonged, he would withdraw his support and 
 go to a church where he could get his divorce. The secular 
 authorities, for various reasons, wishing to grant divorces on 
 un-Scriptural grounds, thus gained the sanction of the church. 
 With this encouragement, secular authorities have continued 
 to develop and multiply the divorce laws until now, with 
 plenty of money and influence, a man or a woman may marry 
 or remarry with little or no restraint. 
 
 If the teachings of Jesus upon this subject are not prac- 
 ticable, why does not the church come out and say so plainly ? 
 If Jesus can no longer be trusted to lead, why do they pretend 
 to continue following him ? 
 
 The subject of marriage and divorce is a very sacred sub- 
 ject. It is a subject that touches society, the home, and all 
 that is sacred to domestic ties, at a most vital point. If there 
 be any sacred institution in this world, it is the institution of 
 marriage ; and if Jesus is not obeyed on this most important 
 subject, why should we pay any attention whatever to anything 
 else he says ? If he did not know what ought to constitute a 
 just ground for divorce, and then did not know whether such 
 people ought to remarry or not, what did he know? It is 
 simply a howling farce for people, who are setting aside Jesus' 
 teachings in these particulars, to pretend to be his followers. 
 Every song sung by such a church in the name of Jesus Christ 
 is a hollow mockery. It is passing strange that people can 
 practice in cold blood, day after day, such deliberate and 
 unprovoked contempt of the master they profess to follow. 
 
 Remember, I am not discussing the subject of marriage 
 and divorce from my own standpoint, nor am I pretending to 
 
230 DR. TALKWELJL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 give a theory of my own. I am simply giving what Jesus said 
 about it, and am calling attention to the fact that people can 
 profess to follow Jesus as their Master, and then deliberately 
 strike out from among his teachings all those that do not please 
 them. 
 
 Of course I am aware that there are ministers who follow 
 Jesus' teachings to the letter in regard to divorce, but this is 
 the exception rather than the rule. The Protestant churches 
 of today are not taught to obey Jesus in this respect. There 
 are so many of the Master's teachings that the church has 
 deliberately set aside that it is an ever increasing wonder to 
 me that they call themselves Christians at all. 
 
 Jesus said that alms-giving should be practiced in secret. 
 The church practices it in public. Jesus said that fasting 
 should always be done in secret, and carefully concealed from 
 the public. So far as the church observes fasting at all it does 
 not do so. Jesus said prayer should be in secret, and I defy 
 anyone to quote a single word from Jesus concerning a public 
 prayer, and yet the practice of public prayer is so common 
 that no church service would be considered complete without 
 a public prayer. Jesus said: " Swear not at all;" that is, 
 take no oath, but let your answers be simply yes or no : for 
 u whatsoever is more than this cometh of evil," and yet, with 
 rare exceptions, the church pays no attention to it. Jesus 
 washed his disciples' feet and commanded those who profess to 
 be Christian ministers to do the same. In fact, this was the 
 only ordinance that he established at all, but it has been 
 quietly ignored by the rank and file of the church. 
 
 This list of omissions might be continued, but time for- 
 bids. Suffice it to say that not only have we departed from 
 following Jesus in his daily habits and example, but we have 
 departed from his teachings until there is little or no resem- 
 blance between our practices and the teachings of Jesus. 
 
 The reason for this is that Jesus did not have in view a 
 church organization. He was not making a creed or philoso- 
 
DIVORCE AND ADULTERY. 231 
 
 phy to support an ecclesiastical machine. He was simply 
 showing people how to live. He expected his gospel to be 
 propagated from man to man. He gave his life to his disciples, 
 and expected them to give their lives to other followers, and 
 so the life of Christ would be handed down from generation to 
 generation. 
 
 Indeed, this is exactly what has occurred in spite of the 
 church. The church, as an organization, has rendered little 
 or no assistance about this matter. It has often hindered 
 propagation of the real gospel, but it is not clear to my mind 
 that it has ever helped it 
 
 This is not saying that the church is bad; that it has no 
 function in society, but it is saying that, in the development 
 of the church, little or no regard has been given to the teach- 
 ings of the Master they profess to follow. Many people 
 within the church, as well as outside the church, are following 
 Jesus according to their best light and opportunity, but to say 
 that the church renders any direct assistance to such people, 
 or furnishes them any special opportunities for such work, any 
 more than any other institution of modern civilization, is, I 
 believe, saying too much. 
 
SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 The Scientist and the Theologian, as Contrasted by Dr. Talk well, 
 
 >S DR. TALKWELL stood up before the large audi- 
 ence that greeted him last Sunday morning, instead 
 of beginning his report as usual, he spoke as follows: 
 The meeting in our city of the convention of 
 scientists has brought to us a large number of very distin- 
 guished men for whom I entertain the most profound respect. 
 These men, I believe, are the hope of the world. It is to 
 these men that we must look for our saviours, our deliverers, 
 our redeemers. Science is the real Messiah for which the 
 world has been looking so long. Theology has always been 
 talking about a Messiah, while science has been quietly pre- 
 paring his way and making his paths straight. The scientist 
 has always been a man of action; the theologian a man of 
 talk. 
 
 What is the difference between a scientist and a theolo- 
 gian? Both are trying to account lor the universe. Both are 
 attempting to give us something of the past history of the 
 earth, and to peer into the future destiny of the earth that 
 lies before us. Both the scientist and the theologian, each in 
 his own way, are trying to give us an explanation of this won- 
 derful universe in which we find ourselves. 
 
 What, then, is the difference between a scientist and a 
 theologian? These men are alike in one more particular, at 
 least, namely, that they are not content to eat and sleep, work 
 and play, live and die with no interest in such great questions 
 
SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY. 233 
 
 as: Who are we? Whence did we come? Whither are we 
 going ? 
 
 But in attempting to answer these questions there is a 
 radical difference between them. The theologian assumes 
 that he has a revelation from God which fully answers all 
 these questions. This naturally leads him to confine his 
 inquiries mainly, if not wholly, to this revelation. The scien- 
 tist, on the other hand, either denies or ignores such revelation, 
 and turns to the -universe itself to learn what he can from 
 study of its laws and forces. The theologian studies a book. 
 The scientist studies a universe. 
 
 With the Bible in his hand the theologian feels sure he 
 has the key that will unlock all mysteries, answer all ques- 
 tions. The scientist makes no such use of the Bible. He 
 may use the Bible as a devotional book or imagine that he 
 finds in its pages good ethics, but when he really wishes to 
 discover any truth concerning the great problems about us he 
 appeals to some source of scientific investigation. 
 
 What the theologian hopes to find by Scriptural exegesis, 
 the scientist seekg in the rocks. The theologian tries to learn 
 of heavenly mansions by burying his face in a musty volume, 
 while the scientist really discovers innumerable heavenly 
 mansions with the telescope and spectroscope. 
 
 The theologian feeds on speculations and inferences. The 
 scientist weighs and measures. The theologian withdraws 
 from nature and becomes encysted from the real world by the 
 walls of his study, but the scientist gathers truth from fields 
 and woods and mountains. When the theologian wishes to 
 know more about his fellow-man he fills his soul with the fan- 
 tastic sayings of the church fathers or the fables of John 
 Bunyan. The scientist seeks this same information by the 
 methods of modern sociology. The theologian makes a pil- 
 grimage to the Holy Land to pull over again the straw and 
 chaff of ancient tradition and mvth. The scientist makes a 
 
234 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 pilgrimage to Arctic seas or to tropic forests to gather fauna 
 and flora to enrich the museums and libraries of the world. 
 
 The theologian poisons his lungs and brain by breathing 
 the noxious air of an unventilated study, thus making himself 
 the easy victim of morbid fancy and abnormal whim, while 
 the scientist is laying the foundation for right thinking by 
 inhaling the oxygenated air of the glacial regions, or tramp- 
 ing over plain and hillside in search of fossil and boulder. 
 
 The golden age of the theologian is in the past. Accord- 
 ing to him the world reached the zenith of its revelation 
 nineteen hundred years ago. If we wish to know the truth 
 we must look backwards, not forwards. Revelation closed 
 centuries ago, since when the heavens have been dumb. The 
 eye of the aspiring theologian is turned longingly toward the 
 Orient. The dead languages, the mouldering stone heaps of 
 the East are to him of greater import than the restless dis- 
 covery and revolutionary invention of the west. He decider 
 everything by defunct diatribes and confirms everything by 
 canting canons. 
 
 The golden age of the scientist is the future. According 
 to him the world is yet only on the threshold of revelation. 
 If we wish to know the truth we must look forward, not back- 
 ward. The books of God's revelation are just beginning to 
 open, and the heavens are whispering secrets which they 
 refused to tell the ancient peoples. The eyes of the tireless 
 scientist are turned with faith toward the Occident. He 
 leaves the dead to bury the dead, and continues to harness his 
 chariot of progress to wave, and wind, and electricity. He 
 decides everything by experience and confirms everything by 
 experiment. 
 
 Among scientists there is a practical agreement the world 
 over; but the theologians are in a constant state of violent 
 disagreement. The scientist welcomes every new theory, 
 and gives willing place to unexpected discoveries. The 
 theologian frowns at new things, and fights to the last against 
 
SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY. 23iv 
 
 new light. The scientist regards truth as something that 
 is unfolding, unfinished, in a state of evolution. The theolo- 
 gian tenaciously clings to his last dogma as something finished r 
 incapable of improvement, infallible, unquestionable. In the 
 mind of the scientist God is creating the world now. In the 
 mind of the theologian, God has created the world and is 
 resting. 
 
 The study of science engenders no schism, creates no 
 enemies, fosters no persecutions. The history of theology is 
 the history of schism, war and persecution. The scientist 
 beholds the universe as a stable thing, governed by unchange- 
 able laws, absolutely indifferent to petition, coercion or bribe. 
 The theologian conceives of the universe as governed by a 
 Being whom petition can change, importunity can modify, and 
 sacrifice can placate. The scientist sees no room in the uni- 
 verse for caprice or pity or patronage. The theologian seeks 
 to clothe the Father of the Universe with the vacillating likes 
 and dislikes of an earthly parent. 
 
 The theologian essays to discover the attributes of God 
 by syllogism and metaphysical distinctions. The scientist 
 acquaints himself with the attributes of God by looking 
 calmly and squarely into the facts of nature. When the theolo- 
 gian wishes to prove anything he cites authorities, quotes dig- 
 nitaries. When the scientist wishes to prove anything, he 
 turns to the indubitable facts of the universe. 
 
 The assumptions of theology can be learned by the lazy 
 and the arrogant. But science has no royal road; all its 
 devotees must be humble, sincere workers. The deductive 
 method of the theologian finds its choicest tid-bit in the 
 ambiguities of the Apocalypse and the Prophet Daniel. But 
 the inductive method of science prefers the homely diet of 
 every day facts and tangible evidences. 
 
 I do not wish to ignore the fact that the trend of 
 modern theology is in the direction of science, and away 
 from ancient tradition and church form. I very gratefully 
 
236 DR. TALKWEIX'S SKETCHES. 
 
 remember this while I am saying all these things, and yet 
 I wish to drop this caution, that so lar as theology influ- 
 ences any man's thought, it is in the direction above 
 indicated. Neither do I wish to infer that all preachers are 
 theologians, and therefore come under the opprobrium of 
 theology. Many preachers, by instinct and education, are 
 scientists, rather than theologians. They constantly appeal to 
 the natural facts of religion, rather than the historic or tradi- 
 tional facts. No doubt the tendency of the pulpit is rapidly 
 in this direction. 
 
 Perhaps the day is near at hand when the preacher's 
 library will be mainly a scientific one. I sincerely hope so. 
 For whatever else may be said of the church, it stands today 
 as the most potential institution for popular education of 
 which modern society can boast. It has the machinery and 
 facility for doing a great work in dispelling the darkness of 
 ignorance and bringing in the light of scientific truth. The 
 work the church has before it is a double one. First, to era- 
 dicate the poison weeds that theology has so faithfully planted 
 and cultivated, and second to prepare the ground and sow the 
 seed of scientific truth, which will bring forth an abundant 
 harvest. 
 
 But I do not allow my anticipations to shut out the ugly 
 fact that it is only a small minority of the churches that has 
 laid aside the useless task of perpetuating theology; that has 
 taken up the healthful, constructive one of teaching the 
 people the facts revealed by science. The day is rapidly 
 approaching when the savant and the philosopher will take 
 the place of the preacher of theology. 
 
 Our preachers will then, indeed, be prophets. Then, 
 indeed, will the pulpit be a watch-tower and its occupant a 
 watchman foretelling real dangers, predicting actual calamities, 
 saving the people, not from an angry God, but from the out- 
 raged laws of nature; saving them not from an omnipresent 
 
SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY. '..'37 
 
 devil, but from the omnipresent, irrevocable forces of the 
 universe. 
 
 Jesus said on one occasion, while speaking on this same 
 subject : 
 
 " But woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! 
 because ye shut the kingdom of heaven against men, for ye 
 enter not in yourselves, neither suffer them that are entering 
 in to enter. 
 
 u Woe, unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for 
 ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte ; and when 
 he is become so, ye make him twofold more a son of hell than 
 yourselves. 
 
 " Woe unto you. Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for 
 ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted 
 the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith; 
 these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other 
 undone. 
 
 " Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a 
 camel." 
 
DR. TALKWELL'S SECULAR CHURCH. 
 
 A Creedless Religion at Work, 
 
 IS Monday morning, and Dr. Talkwell is seated 
 in the little study which forms a part of the vast 
 church building over which he presides. It is the 
 same study, where, a little over a year ago, the doctor 
 formally presented his resignation to the official board of his 
 church. It was here in this little room where his church 
 brethren met him and listened with astonishment to his 
 reasons for resigning as their pastor; that according to his 
 later reading of the New Testament, he was not a Christian 
 minister, and was unwilling to be posed as such any longer: 
 that their so-called church was only an institution of public 
 instruction ; that there was no parallel between the life he 
 was leading and the life Jesus outlined for his disciples. 
 
 There was no attempt on the part of Dr. Talkwell to deny 
 that he had been doing a good and useful work, but he was 
 fully satisfied that the work he had been doing was not tiie 
 work of a Christian minister. Therefore, he had resigned, in 
 order to escape the inconsistency of pretending to be doing 
 what he was not doing. He was even willing to continue 
 speaking from their pulpit, if they were willing to lay aside 
 the notion that they were making any pretense of doing the 
 work of a Christian minister. 
 
 After some talk it was finally agreed that he was to spend 
 his time visiting about the city, doing as nearly as he could 
 the work of a Christian minister, and reporting every Sunday 
 
DR. TALKWELL'S SECULAR CHURCH. 239 
 
 morning from his old pulpit the things he had seen and heard 
 during the week. They were to drop the title " Christian 
 church" and assume the title of Board of Popular Instruction. 
 
 All this happened a little more than twelve months ago. 
 An eventful year has passed. Many changes have been 
 wrought, the most of which were not anticipated or expected 
 by the doctor. One of the changes was in the doctor himself. 
 He had lost that effeminate, clerical, scholarly look, and in its 
 place he had acquired a virile, sun-burned, muscular appear- 
 ance. In place of the affected smile, and the over-anxious 
 effort to be pleasant, of other days, was a frank, straightforward 
 look of honest interest and sympathy. All this had been 
 brought about unconsciously by his daily contact with the 
 world of real facts. 
 
 Although it was Monday morning it was not a blue Mon- 
 day, as it used to be in the old days of his sermon making. 
 His Sundays, nowadays, were indeed days of rest, days of 
 sweet communion and quiet intercourse. After making his 
 Sunday morning report of his week's experiences, which was 
 entirely extemporaneous, he was free to spend the rest of the 
 day at home, .at the parks, or at some place of popular 
 amusement, as he chose. Thus it was that Monday morning 
 found him fresh and vigorous, ready for another week's inves- 
 tigation and service. 
 
 He had finished reading the letters brought by the morn- 
 ing mail, and was about to leave his office, when he was de- 
 tained by a visit from the same committee that had visited 
 him in this same place over a year ago. A spectator to both 
 of these visits must have been struck with the change in them, 
 as well as the' doctor. The off-hand, hearty, familiar greetings 
 were in strange contrast to the obsequious, differential, stilted 
 manner of the committee one year ago. 
 
 Between these men there had sprung up a comradeship, a 
 real, honest human friendship, the fruits of a year's close part- 
 nership in hard, practical work that commended itself not 
 
240 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES, 
 
 to their hearts but to their heads as well. No one would have 
 suspected any of them of being pious. Their manner and 
 talk was like men who were on terms of absolute equality and 
 had some real business to perform, of which they were neither 
 ashamed nor proud. 
 
 " Before we begin the business that brought us here this 
 morning," said the spokesman of the committee, u we wish to 
 congratulate you, doctor, on the services in our church last 
 evening. Never, in the history of the church, has there be'en 
 such an impressive service, in the presence of such a large 
 and varied audience. It is simply gratifying and surpris- 
 ing beyond words. The change that has been coming over 
 our whole work is something that has been as unexpected as 
 it is inspiring. When you first proposed to introduce the 
 amateur drama into our church I am free to confess that I was 
 somewhat shocked and puzzled, but the outcome fully justifies 
 your judgment and sagacity. When I saw the drama last 
 evening, in which the ancient Prophet Jeremiah and his mis- 
 sion to the generation in which he lived was brought out with 
 such startling reality and force, it seemed to me I never heard 
 a sermon before; and when I looked around upon the vast 
 audience of new faces, and saw on the stage the earnestness 
 and dramatic ability of the young people who presented the 
 play, I could scarcely keep from shouting l Hallelujah!' as the 
 old evangelical revivalists used to." 
 
 " Well," replied the doctor, " I do not think you ought to 
 give me credit for all this, or even a small portion of it. I had 
 no idea, when I resigned as pastor of your church, what our 
 work was coming to. I simply was forced by my conscience 
 to take the step that I took then. I had no idea where it 
 would lead to. I supposed, of course, that it would lead to 
 the abandonment of our church work and to my own obscurity. 
 But little by little this thing has forced itself upon us and we 
 have under our charge today a church work one hundred 
 times larger than it would have been had I continued in my 
 
DR. TALKWELL'S SECULAR CHURCH. 241 
 
 old way. The people flock to our church in large numbers, 
 people who could not have been persuaded on any pretext to 
 have attended our church before. And then the people who 
 are earnestly at work could not have been induced to take up 
 any sort of church work before. This came to me as unex- 
 pectedly as it did to you." 
 
 " But," spoke up one of the committee, u the peculiar 
 feature of the work that surprises me is this, the religious 
 fervor of it all. It struck me at first that whatever success 
 might attend our departure from the ordinary methods of 
 church work, at least we would be likely to lose the religious 
 spirit, but not so. Our church work, as it is now, divided into 
 three departments, the department which consists of your 
 reports ; the musical department, in charge of a musical di- 
 rector, and the dramatic department, in charge of a dramatic 
 director all seem to be inspired by a real, genuine religious 
 fervor. Never have I attended better meetings than have 
 been given under the musical department, in their sacred 
 oratorios, operettas and popular concerts. 
 
 u And the same is true of the sacred dramas that have been 
 presented from time to time. And as for your Sunday morn- 
 ing reports, no more solemn, intensely religious meetings have 
 I ever attended than some of these reports have produced, and 
 it is all so unexpected, so unintentional. It seems as if the 
 occasion itself furnished the religious zeal and devotional 
 spirit, without any wish or premeditation on the part of 
 anyone." 
 
 " Yes," replied the doctor, u I have noticed all that, and 
 I assure you, brethren, that I am profoundly grateful to God 
 for the way in which His spirit has led us in this work. The 
 first few feeble steps I took' in this direction I had very little 
 faith. I was concerned not only for the welfare of myself and 
 family, but for the future prospects of the church. But I 
 could not do otherwise. My conscience would not allow me 
 any longer to pose as a Christian minister, while all the time 
 
242 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 I was nothing in the world but a well paid, well kept gentle- 
 man of fastidious tastes and luxurious habits. Why, brethren, 
 I would not exchange one day of my present religious faith 
 and happiness for all of the make-believe, sermon writing and 
 book-reading religion that could be crowded into a year's ex- 
 perience. I have tried both, I know exactly what they are." 
 
 u And then," spoke up another member of the committee, 
 u consider that we have been trying for years to get certain of 
 the young people interested in our work, and how impossible 
 it seemed to be, and even those few who did come, there 
 seemed to be nothing for them to do. It was perfectly 
 pathetic to attend one of their so-called young people's 
 meetings, and hear them try their best to talk about nothing, 
 try their best to have a meeting when there was no rational 
 reason for their having one. But now the enthusiasm, the 
 multitudes, the fervor, the activity, the exuberance of the 
 young people's work connected with this church ! Why, our 
 church is the busiest place in this city. Scarcely a day or 
 evening passes in which there is not something well worth 
 anybody's time to attend, and it is not simply young people's 
 work, either. Old people, middle-aged people, as well, find 
 something to inspire, interest and console." 
 
 " Yes," replied the doctor, " all you say is true, but we 
 should carefully guard against ascribing the paternity of our 
 success to any individual. We, none of us. foresaw or con- 
 trived it. It is simply this, we have followed the leading of 
 the Spirit. It has led us into a larger work than we knew of. 
 There is a still larger work for us. If our success has only 
 confirmed our faith in the leading of the Spirit, so that we 
 shall be willing to go wherever it leads, then indeed, our suc- 
 cess will be valuable to us. But as you came in you spoke of 
 some business that you wished to transact this morning. To 
 what did you refer ? " 
 
 " It was about that saloon affair that we wished to consult 
 
DR. TALKWELL'S SECULAR CHURCH. 
 
 243 
 
 you. You know it was mentioned some time ago that if we 
 could open, in some favorable locality in the city, a place re- 
 sembling a saloon, and provide it with attractive features 
 somewhat similar to a saloon, that it might lead to a good 
 work. We have been talking the matter over, and investigat- 
 ing other enterprises along this line, and we have reached the 
 conclusion that such a thing might be made to work. We 
 thought we would consult you about it this morning." 
 
THE CHURCH AND THE SALOON. 
 
 The Proposed " Church Saloon " as Viewed by Dr. Talkwell. 
 
 ?E LEFT Dr. Talkwell last week in his study in 
 consultation with! his executive committee. The 
 committee had been congratulating him on the 
 great revival of religious interest that had been 
 awakened in the church during the past year as the result of 
 its radical departure from ordinary church work. When we 
 interrupted their conversation the committee had just reached 
 the subject of their business, which related to the establish- 
 ment of a saloon under the auspices of Dr. Talkwell's church. 
 The committee went on to say : 
 
 " The lamentable failure which has followed all attempts 
 to interest the floating population in any enterprise which the 
 church has undertaken is too well known to need comment. 
 The idea of establishing a saloon, or a place somewhat resem- 
 bling a saloon, furnishing the good features of the saloon with 
 an attempt to eliminate its harmful features, has been talked 
 of in our society for some time, and it is our wish, this morn- 
 ing, if possible, to settle on some definite plan of procedure. 
 Have you given this subject any thought? " 
 
 u Yes," replied the doctor. u I have thought a good deal 
 about it, and my thinking on this, as well as most other prac- 
 tical subjects, has undergone a complete revolution since I 
 have begun to come in contact with the world. Of course you 
 know the scheme to establish a sort of church saloon is not a 
 new one. It has been tried over and over again in different 
 cities." 
 
THE CHURCH AND THE SALOON. 245 
 
 " Yes," replied the committee, ; ' the plan is not an origi- 
 nal one with us. but we thought we might profit by the fail- 
 ures of other attempts, and also by your intimate acquaintance 
 with the saloon question. In our dramatic and musical 
 societies, to be sure, we are reaching a large number of young 
 men and women which heretofore we were utterly unable to 
 reach, but there are yet a multitude of young men which we 
 shall never be able to reach in this way." 
 
 " Yes, I fully realize that," replied the doctor. " Every 
 Sunday afternoon, as I go in and out of the first-class saloons 
 located on High street, I am confronted with the fact that 
 these saloons gather a larger number of young men than all 
 the churches combined. Not bad young men, either. Bright, 
 smart, intelligent fellows who will soon become the back- 
 bone of our commercial world. 
 
 " These places are not altogether bad, they have some 
 very good features, indeed. Upon some of them I have very 
 little criticism to offer, but it does seem a pity that these 
 places should be so entirely cut off from the influence of the 
 church. 
 
 I fully realize that the church is chiefly to blame for this. 
 The way the church has proceeded in its treatment of the 
 saloon, no other result could have been expected. For one 
 institution of society to attempt to exterminate another insti- 
 tution, nothing but harm can result. 
 
 The saloon is one of the legitimate institutions of modern 
 society. It has sprung up in spite of ecclesiastical institutions. 
 It is a movement that represents a human need, just as surely 
 as the ecclesiastical movement. It is here to stay, in some 
 form or other. It is simply fighting against Providence to 
 expect to banish it. The only hope is to assist at its evolu- 
 tion, its development. The saloon has some features that the 
 church will be obliged to adopt, in order to succeed in getting 
 the multitudes of our very best young men. 
 
 But of course you know all this, without my repeating it 
 
246 DR. TALK WELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 to you. Your business this morning, I suppose, is not so much 
 to discuss the general subject as to fix on some definite 
 arrangement." 
 
 " Yes, that is what we wish," replied one of the com- 
 mittee. u We feel that we have talked about this matter long 
 enough, and we have about concluded to rent a suitable room 
 and fit it up exactly like a first-class saloon, with billiards and 
 other attractions, eliminating from the bar all alcoholic stimu- 
 lants, but offering everything else in the way of drinks and 
 refreshments. We feel sure that such a place would be pat- 
 ronized by a large number of young men that could not be 
 induced to relate themselves in any way to a church." 
 
 u Well," replied the doctor, " I have no doubt that such a 
 place would have a patronage, but I have no idea that it would 
 reach the class you are aiming to reach. It would come much 
 nearer to reaching them than the Y. M. 0. A. does, or the 
 mission work, but it would hardly break into the ranks of those 
 that most need what the church wishes to bring. 
 
 Since I have become acquainted with the saloon and the 
 class of people who frequent these places, I have reached 
 quite different conclusions than I used to entertain. If you 
 really wish to assist in the development of the saloon, so as to 
 bring it into a more useful function in society, you must go 
 about it in a business way. If I could persuade five good 
 business men to become the proprietors of five saloons on High 
 street, without advertising the fact that these saloons had 
 changed hands, we might begin to do something. 
 
 Suppose, for instance, any of you gentlemen should buy 
 out or lease a well established saloon. Now, you would thus 
 be able to control that saloon entirely. You could hire your 
 own bar tender, and put behind the bar just such a man as 
 you wished. I would not change the saloon in any radical 
 particular. I would furnish the same drinks and the same 
 attractions that any other first-class saloon furnishes. 
 
 But yet there would be a radical difference. The man 
 
THE CHURCH AND THE SALOON. 247 
 
 behind the bar must be a clean man ; a man who uses good 
 language ; a courteous, business-like man, who will be able to 
 command the respect of every one who enters his place. He 
 ought to be a man who understands human nature well enough 
 to [know that sudden, revolutionary changes do more harm 
 than good. Gradually he should introduce into his place 
 every improvement he can without driving away his cus- 
 tomers. 
 
 In doing this he will not find himself alone, for there are 
 already, a great many saloon keepers in this city doing this 
 very thing. But no doubt the development of the saloon in 
 this line would be greatly hastened if the church would begin 
 to exert some direct influence in the matter in this way. 
 
 Now, if there are in our congregation five men who wish 
 to take up the saloon in a business way, from a purely business 
 standpoint, and try to make the saloon, as far as possible, 
 what a saloon should be, I shall have very strong faith that 
 the result will be gratifying. 
 
 " But if we undertake to imitate and thus serve notice on 
 its patrons that it is a sort of a missionary scheme, or any 
 kind of a goody-goody business, we will utterly fail to reach 
 the class we wish to. Such a place would, as I said before, 
 command a patronage, and perhaps sufficient patronage to 
 warrant the attempt, bat it will never reach the root of the 
 matter/' 
 
 " But, doctor, what will the other churches say of us if 
 we become proprietors of saloons, and our young men become 
 bar tenders? What sort of repute will our church get into if 
 we embark in such an undertaking?" 
 
 kk Well, if we care a fig for what the other churches think,, 
 then we had better not undertake it. Unless we are willing 
 to follow conscience in this matter, without any reference to 
 outside criticism, we had better throw the whole matter up. 
 We have done so in the past, brethren, why can we not trust the 
 future ? Suppose we do become of no repute among the other 
 
248 DR. TALKWEIX'S SKETCHES. 
 
 churches? Is not this exactly what the master had to bear? 
 Was he not called a wine bibber, did he not become a friend 
 of harlots ? Was he not regarded as disreputable, and a friend 
 of publicans and sinners ? 
 
 Now, we must not shrink from the possibility of these 
 things happening to us if we are going to do the work he 
 wished us to do. If we are going to reform the saloon, we 
 must become legitimate saloon keepers ourselves. We must 
 get the saloon where we can control it, and little by little we 
 must eradicate the objectionable features of the saloon, pre- 
 serving only the social features, which it so admirably pos- 
 sesses today. 
 
 There are a large number of men who can take a drink of 
 beer, or wine, or whiskey, without doing them apparently any 
 harm. These men have done so many years, and have con- 
 tinued to be upright, useful citizens. In fact, the bulk of our 
 best citizens do this very thing. Now, why can we not con- 
 trol the places where such men are furnished drinks ? I know 
 no reason why. Why is it that we should leave this very im- 
 portant function of society for irresponsible people to supply ? 
 
 I know of no good place in this city where a good man 
 could actually accomplish more good than behind a bar. At 
 least, the saloon could be made a place where law is respected 
 and obeyed. It could be closed on Sunday and at midnight, 
 no drinks sold to habitual drunkards, or minors, and so on and 
 so on. 
 
 All this could be done without any considerable shock to 
 the business of any first-class saloon, and I know that a break 
 of this kind would be followed by many other first-class 
 saloons. At least one-third of the saloons in this city would 
 be glad to close on Sunday, if the custom could become gen- 
 eral. And with this beginning by the proprietor the gradual 
 reformation and development of the saloon could be carried 
 steadily on." 
 
 a Well, doctor," said the committee, u we are ready to 
 
THE CHURCH AND THE SALOON. 249 
 
 follow you wherever you lead. Our experience in the past 
 has given us unbounded confidence in the future. We are 
 willing to become all things to all men, and we are quite sure 
 the experience you have gathered in the last year, by your 
 constant association with these places, constitutes a much 
 more valuable guide than all the colleges in the United States 
 could have furnished us. 
 
 We believe in you because you are leading us. You are 
 going ahead. When you used to stand in your pulpit and tell 
 us what to do, without doing anything yourself, nothing was 
 accomplished. But since you have taken off your broad cloth 
 coat and kid gloves and gone to work among the people, our 
 confidence in your leadership increases every day." 
 
 " But," interposed the doctor, U I do not disapprove of the 
 plan of establishing an imitation saloon, where something like 
 a saloon is maintained, and yet no alcoholic drinks are fur- 
 nished. I have no doubt that this place would attract a great 
 many people who do not now go to saloons, and simply have 
 no such place to go to. I would, therefore, advise this move. 
 
 But I would repeat, if you really want to get at the heart 
 of the matter, go to work quietly, buy a saloon, put a good 
 man behind the bar, keep in constant touch with the place, 
 introduce changes as rapidly as the business will allow, and 
 we will become pioneers in the development of the saloon, 
 which hundreds of saloons will be glad to imitate. 
 
 No class of men need a leader so much today as the 
 saloon class. No class of men would be more willing to fol- 
 low the leader than this very class. Many of them are ashamed 
 of their business, and this very shame keeps them from ming- 
 ling with other men as they would like to. All this hue and 
 cry about the saloon keeper and the saloons has only made 
 them worse. We have tried to put out a fire by smothering it 
 with fuel. I tell you, brethren, I long to see the day when the 
 leading saloons of the city will be conducted by men whose 
 characters are above reproach, and whose aim and ambition is 
 
250 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 to make them all that they ought to be. No greater work 
 than this can be imagined. 
 
 But we must expect as our chief opponents those very 
 people who profess to be followers of Jesus. Of course they 
 will object. It was the church that caused Jesus to be crucified 
 when he was on earth, and it is the church that would crucify 
 him again if he came. Ecclesiasticism can never be reconciled 
 to Jesus Christ. It has always been his enemy and probably 
 always will be. We must be patient with these things, accept 
 them as facts, and do the best we can to adjust ourselves to 
 them, remembering the words of the Master to pray for those 
 who despitefully use us, and to turn the other cheek to those 
 who smite us. 
 
 In the meantime, look about you, and see if you cannot 
 find some place to establish the place you spoke of. I would 
 not call such a place a saloon at all, however. I would call it 
 a " coffee house," or something like that. Let us not pretend 
 anything. Not even pretend to have a saloon. If we go into 
 the saloon business, let us go into it really. All pretenses are 
 sure to fail sooner or later, and we will only succeed in mak- 
 ing ourselves ridiculous, and, in addition, fail to accomplish 
 our purpose. 
 
 But, brethren, if any of you have the courage to brave the 
 lion in his den, I already know of a first-class saloon that can 
 be bought at a very reasonable figure. However, we will talk 
 this matter over in the future. In the meantime, think about 
 the subject and whatever we do or do not do, let us determine 
 to follow our consciences wherever they may lead." 
 
A REVIVAL OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 I Was Sick and a Stranger and Ye Took Me Not In, 
 
 'NASMUCH as ye did it not unto the least of these, my 
 brethren, ye did it not unto Me." Since Dr. Talkwell 
 quit preaching, and began to make a few feeble steps 
 in the direction of following Jesus, he comes in con- 
 tact with many pathetic scenes. For several years Dr. Talk- 
 well has been a constant visitor at the city prison, and has 
 taken the pains to uncover the facts of many a true story ; 
 stories that read more like novels than the naked facts of 
 every day occurrences. Last Sunday morning Dr. Talkwell 
 told one of these stories at the close of his regular report. 
 The incident occurred two or three years ago, but it is the 
 same in kind as has been occuring ever since. The title of the 
 doctor's story was, "The Last Days of Chris Bergmann." 
 He lay curled up in the corner of an empty freight-car* 
 stupid with broken sleep, stiff with cold, a sooty, ragged, ach- 
 ing fellow, when he was discovered by an angry brakeman. 
 He was hustled off as fast as creaking joints and unsteady 
 nerves would allow. He tried to pull himself together a little 
 on the sunny side of a dingy warehouse, but it was a cold day; 
 he wasn't well. If he had been a well-to do man, he would 
 probably have consulted a doctor and been told he was threat- 
 ened with pneumonia. But he wasn't a well-to-do man. He 
 was only a tramp. It mattered little to him whether he had 
 pneumonia or not. 
 
252 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 He smells coffee somewhere. He tries to locate it. He 
 sees a frizzly girl emptying some ashes. He guesses she 
 knows where the coffee is. He asks her for some breakfast. 
 She tells him to be off, calh him harsh names, talks loudly. 
 A policeman hears the row, and with free use of the mace and 
 the assistance of the patrol, he succeeds (with great credit to 
 himself) in landing his man in a damp, unventilated cell of 
 our city prison. He is slated as a dangerous character and re- 
 sisting the police. 
 
 At the turnkey's office he was searched, as is the custom. 
 Nothing was found, however, save a few cigar stubs and a 
 greasy, old remnant of a German Testament, which was taken 
 away from him. He was tired; he was hungry. He had not 
 slept well. Rigors were creeping up and down his back. 
 Strange ringing sounds were in his head, and he felt a deathly 
 faintness of the stomach. The sounds grow louder. He 
 tumbles down on the iron slatted cot; the grates of his cell 
 grow dim. He loses consciousness. If he had been a well-to- 
 do man the doctor would have called it a swoon ; but he was 
 only a tramp. No one cared to call it anything. 
 
 When he came to consciousness he had a raging thirst. 
 He tried to sit up several times before he was able to do so, 
 because of a curious dizziness in the head. He called for 
 water. No one heard. He called again, louder. One of his 
 fellow prisoners in the next cell told him the water had just 
 been passed. He'd get no water now for an hour. So he lay 
 still. He was trying to think where he was. He felt for the 
 greasy Testament. It was not there. Had it been there in 
 its old place for he had carried it a long time he would 
 have thought no more about it, for he did not want to read it ; 
 he only wanted to know if it was there. 
 
 It was the only thing left that connected him with that- 
 life which was his before he became a tramp. His mother 
 gave him the book when he was young and strong and happy. 
 He had carried it ever since. It was to him a fetish, a mascot. 
 
A REVIVAL OF CHRLSTTANITY. 253 
 
 Now that he had lost it, as he believed, he began to think 
 about the other days. He was too tired to think much. Vague 
 remembrances of a squalid boyhood, a dingy home, a drunken 
 father, a haggard, fretful mother, of leaving home when a boy, 
 a sea voyage, his return, where no trace of his former home 
 could be found, his wanderings, fully expecting to some day 
 find his mother, his gradual adjustment to the life of a tramp, 
 his frequent imprisonments for vagrancy, passed hazily 
 through his mind. 
 
 The last thing he distinctly remembers is being hustled 
 out of the freight car a few hours before. He cannot remem- 
 ber where he is. He only knows he is imprison. What prison 
 and for what offense he does not know. Luckily he does not 
 care. The keeper puts a chunk of bread in the iron box 
 attached to his cell. He asks for water, but he gets no reply 
 nor water. He tries to eat the bread, and bites off a huge 
 chunk, but his mouth is dry and parched and he cannot 
 swallow it. The longer he chews the thicker it gets. He 
 would like to have a drink, but no one will give him water. 
 
 He puts the bread on his cot, and lays his head upon it, 
 wearily, and soon passes into a troubled sleep. He is rudely 
 awakened next morning by the turnkey and is bundled into 
 the Police court before the judge. He has a high fever, a 
 thirst and a blinding headache. He is as a lamb, dumb be- 
 fore his shearers. He dimly comprehends what is going on 
 about him. He neither asserts nor denies he only mutters 
 unintelligible words when they speak to him. He knows not, 
 he cares not what they will do with him. He is conscious 
 only that he wants water and wants to lie down again. He 
 gets ten days and costs. He is led away and put into a differ- 
 ent cell. His coat was left in the other cell. He asks for it. 
 No one pays attention. He asks for water again. 
 
 A fellow prisoner who is allowed in the corridor hears 
 him and gets him some. He drinks long and eagerly. He 
 sleeps all day and all night. Two chunks of bread lie un- 
 
251 DR. TALK\VEIvL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 heeded in the iron box next morning. He is in a muttering 
 delirium now. He talks in poor German and worse English, 
 no one understands, no one cares. All day he talks on, some- 
 times asking for water. Sometimes he imagines he is talking 
 to his mother. Towards night his condition is discovered. It 
 is too late to get the doctor tonight. He talks on more and 
 more feebly and indistinctly all night. Prisoners give him 
 sips of water, but he does not seem to care any longer. 
 
 The doctor comes in and orders him taken to the hospital. 
 He lives nearly twenty-four hours after he reaches the hos- 
 pital. His body is turned over to the city and is soon stretched 
 on the cold dissecting table of a medical college. There it lies 
 in the glare of electric lights that poor, tired body, yielding 
 up the secrets of its wonderful mechanism to jesting, careless 
 students, who see in the corpse before them only the means of 
 reaching the profession which shall give them fame and wealth. 
 His work is done, and let us hope that his last work, at least, 
 has rendered a service to humanity which has been appreciated. 
 
 In all his dull, degraded, but gentle life, he has never 
 heard a word of praise. He has left us all he had his ana- 
 tomy. Let us praise him now. He made a splendid patho- 
 logical specimen ; lobar pneumonia, both lungs, first stage, 
 infiltration complete. Fortunately exhaustion set in to hasten 
 termination, furnishing a rare exhibit. Splendid case, good 
 fellow at last ! 
 
 While these pathetic scenes were occurring several of our 
 city churches were holding enthusiastic revival services. 
 Professed followers of Jesus were added to the churches by 
 the score. These comfortable, well-housed, well-clothed, well- 
 fed people who never spent an hour in the city prison in their 
 lives, met in large congregations, to sing hymns about follow- 
 ing Jesus ; about giving up the world to walk in the foot- 
 steps of their Master. Not one ot them ever thought of con- 
 necting the work of the Master with prisons or hospitals or the 
 hungry, or those that are naked. Nothing of the sort. 
 
A REVIVAL OF CHRISTIANITY. 255 
 
 These people think they are following Jesus when they go 
 to their churches to sing and pray, and tell each other how 
 bad they have been and how good they are going to be. I 
 used to be pastor of this sort of a church, of which I am 
 heartily ashamed. The pathetic incident which I narrated has 
 been repeated in this city many times, and yet those people 
 who call themselves followers of Jesus are as unconscious of 
 the fact, as if these scenes were in central Africa instead of 
 being at their very door. I find such things every day, now 
 that I have quit preaching and gone to practicing. Every 
 preacher in this city ought to be leading his congregation in 
 this sort of work. Nowhere on this wide earth is there more 
 need of Christian teaching than in our churches, and yet these 
 are the people who are raising money to send missionaries to 
 foreign countries in order to instruct them in the teachings of 
 Jesus. 
 
THE IRREVERENCE OF SUNDAY SCHOOLS. 
 
 " Let All Things Be Done Decently, and in Order. 
 
 PORTION of Dr. Talkwell's work in this city is to 
 visit the various institutions, where he gathers in- 
 formation which constitutes his Sunday morning 
 reports to his congregation. Lately Dr. Talkwell 
 has been visiting the churches, Sunday schools and young 
 people's church societies in various parts of the city. During 
 Dr. Talkwell's report last Sunday, he said : 
 
 Before I close this report I wish to say a few things about 
 the deportment which I have noticed in the Sunday schools. 
 While I was pastor of a church myself I had no time to visit 
 other churches. I had no idea what the condition of other 
 churches was, except what I learned from the printed reports 
 of their finances, etc. I had a vague idea that some of the 
 vexatious details connected with my own Sunday school were 
 not true of other Sunday schools. I partly blamed myself for 
 it, and bewailed the fact that I had not the tact and natural 
 qualifications to make it all that it ought to be. 
 
 In my own Sunday school I noticed with pain and disap- 
 pointment a great deal of irreverence, among the boys and 
 girls alike, especially the older ones. I was shocked beyond 
 measure to discover that boys and girls brought up in the Sun- 
 day school could treat subjects which I had always considered 
 sacred, with such levity, laughing and whispering during 
 prayer, making doggerels on the hymns used, tearing up the 
 lesson leaves and using them as paper wads, and other dese- 
 crations too numerous to mention. It seemed to me that we 
 
THE IRREVERENCE OF SUNDAY SCHOOLS. '253 
 
 were doing our children infinite harm by bringing them to- 
 gether under conditions which allowed them to convert rever- 
 ent worship into fun and frolic. 
 
 But on visiting other Sunday schools lately I find that 
 my own Sunday school was a little more than up to the aver- 
 age. I certainly believe that no well-bred person could 
 tolerate the conduct which the average Sunday school teacher 
 is obliged so see Sunday after Sunday, except they had become 
 used to it gradually. No such conduct would be tolerated for 
 a moment in our secular schools, nor would it be allowed in 
 our homes, or theatres, or in any other public place that I 
 know of. The inattention, the irreverence, the ill-mannered 
 behavior, is simply shocking to an attentive visitor, and would 
 not be endured for a moment by a Sunday school teacher if 
 she or he were to meet the same scholars in any other place 
 except the Sunday school. 
 
 Little by little the Sunday school teacher has grown ac- 
 customed to such behavior in the Sunday school, until at last, 
 he takes it as a matter of course. Over and over again have I 
 seen a modest, refined young lady making a vain endeavor to 
 interest a class of impertinent, saucy boys in some Sunday 
 school lesson. I have seen her go on ignoring their uncouth 
 behaviour, apparently not noticing their contempt for her and 
 her teachings, until my fingers have itched to take them one 
 by one and fling them out of the nearest window. I had much 
 rather my children would be in a respectable theatre, listen- 
 ing to a decent play, where pathos and humor are depicted by 
 trained artists, than to have them take part, either as teacher 
 or scholar, in any such farce as this. 
 
 One day I was asked to take charge of a class of young 
 ladies in one of these Sunday schools. Something happened 
 just before the lesson began which caused the young ladies to 
 laugh. I waited a while for them to leave off laughing, and 
 finally we began to read the lesson together. But the laugh- 
 ing occurred at intervals, and constantly interrupted the 
 
358 DK. TALKWELIAS SKETCHES. 
 
 reading of the lesson. I finally stopped and asked them if 
 they would not tell me what they were laughing about, so that 
 I might laugh with them. Their blushes soon convinced me 
 that it was something which ordinary modesty would not 
 allow them to repeat, and so I went on with the lesson, but 
 the laughing continued by spells during the whole of the 
 hour. 
 
 And what was the lesson about, do you ask ? About the 
 crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The lesson was about that most 
 pathetic scene in the last days of our master. I surely believe 
 that if 1 could have introduced into that school room a heathen 
 who had never heard of the gospel and could have made him 
 understand what the lesson was about. I could have stirred 
 his heart with pitv and reverence with the story of the awful 
 agony of the gentle Nazarene on Calvary. 
 
 But these young ladies, brought up in a Sunday school, 
 reared, I suppose in Christian households, at no time during 
 the lesson evinced the slightest interest or respect for this 
 touching picture of the crucifixion. In any other place, upon 
 any other subject, these interesting young ladies would have 
 been tender, respectful and intelligent. I cannot believe that 
 they could bring themselves to treat the sufferings of any 
 other person as they did the sufferings of Jesus, whom they 
 profess to follow. 
 
 This is the work of the Sunday school. To them the Sun- 
 day school had been a school of irreverence that had gradually 
 hardened their hearts to the pathetic scenes of Christ's life. 
 It had gradually accustomed their minds to the horrible inci- 
 dents which occurred during the persecutions and trials of 
 Jesus. Little by little they had become calloused until they 
 had reached that hardness of heart in which the agony of the 
 cross, the solemn and awful phenomena of the crucifixion had 
 become to them matters of jest and merriment. 
 
 The parochial school is far ahead of the Sunday school in 
 the particulars of reverence and decorum. In these schools 
 
THE IRREVERENCE OF SUNDAY SCHOOLS. 259 
 
 religious instruction is given the same as other instruction. 
 The same order, the same studious attention and discipline is 
 required. This is exactly as it should be. The idea of herd- 
 ing together a drove of children without the proper authority 
 or means to maintain order and then pretend to give them 
 religious instruction is not only a farce, but is positively sacre- 
 ligious. Piety and paper wads, prayer and caterwauls, scrip- 
 tural quotations and hair pulling, are all mixed up together 
 in the average Sunday school, and I wish to put myself on 
 record as saying that such things are not only ridiculous in the 
 extreme but are doing far more harm to the cause of religion 
 than skepticism and so-called infidelity ever did or can do. 
 
 I was in a barroom the other day. the resort of Italians 
 and colored people. The keeper of this place does not allow 
 the slightest disorder. I saw him correct a man who was sit- 
 ting in one chair with his foot in another chair. The man was 
 a stranger to the place or he would not have presumed to 
 doit. 
 
 But in the Sunday school I have seen this thing done over 
 and over again without exciting any attention whatever from 
 superintendent or teacher. I am sorry to be obliged to say 
 these things, but they are solemnly true. Our Sunday schools 
 have much to learn of the parochial in these particulars, and 
 I hope secular prejudice and ecclesiastical hostilities will be 
 laid aside long enough for us to do so. As for myself 1 have 
 given up the pretense entirely of having a Sunday school ; 
 I do not desecrate Sunday any longer in this particular. 
 
 At the same hour and in the same place that we used to 
 hold Sunday school there is an illustrated lecture given for 
 the children and young people of our church. The infant 
 department, under the charge of a kindergarten teacher, con- 
 tinues much as before, with the exception that no attempt is 
 made to teach them the miraculous stories of the Bible. Such 
 stories to the immature mind do an injury very difficult to 
 
260 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 overcome in after years. Two or three classes of adults for 
 the critical study of the Bible and church history continue to 
 do the same excellent work of former years. But in all other 
 respects we have abandoned what we used to call our Sunday 
 school, and I sincere^ pray that God will forgive us for the 
 mischief that we were unconsciously doing our children all 
 these years, and assist us in our determination to do so no 
 more. 
 
LOTTERIES. 
 
 How They Are Exterminated, 
 
 ;T THE close of Dr. Talkwell's report last Sunday 
 morning, he said : There is an adage I have fre- 
 quently heard, that " Where ignorance is bliss it is 
 folly to be wise." I do not know where this adage 
 can be better applied than to the average reformer. The 
 ignorance of this class of people is only equalled by their 
 never-ceasing activity. Let me cite you a case in point. 
 
 I received a letter from a clergyman the other day, which 
 is, in the main, a criticism on some things I have said about 
 the saloon, and produces some arguments to which I wish to 
 call your attention. 
 
 I am criticised for not being willing to join a crusade of 
 extermination against the saloon. My position is, first, that 
 the saloon cannot be exterminated, even if we wish to; and, 
 second, that it ought not to be exterminated. Both of these 
 positions are criticised in the letter referred to. 
 
 The writer goes on to say that he believes the saloon can 
 be exterminated and refers me to the fact that the Louisiana 
 lottery was exterminated, and has become one of the things 
 of the past ; that this extermination was brought about by the 
 churches ; that the crusade against the Louisiana lottery was 
 in every particular, similar to the crusade against the saloon ; 
 that the Louisiana lottery is no more. 
 
 , Now, this argument is a good illustration of the ignorance 
 of this class of people. The writer appears to be utterly 
 
262 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 unconscious of the fact that the Louisiana lottery was never in 
 so flourishing a condition as it is today. 
 
 What was the effect of the crusade against this lottery ? 
 It had this effect, simply : It drove them out of the state of 
 Louisiana into one of the South American republics, near our 
 coast, Honduras, where today it has its headquarters. The 
 general agent in the United States is located in Florida. 
 Never were there so many tickets sold as today. Their busi- 
 ness, being shut out of the mails, is conducted through the 
 express companies, and is, in every way, strengthened by the 
 change. 
 
 I have been acquainted with one of the agents in this 
 city for several years, which has afforded me an opportunity 
 to know of the gradual increase in their business. There are 
 five agents of the Louisiana lottery in this city today, all of 
 whom are doing a flourishing business. The agent with whom 
 I am acquainted sold one month, 500 dollars" worth of these 
 tickets, and, according to his statement, the other agents are 
 doing as much, if not more, business than he is doing. 
 
 Men in all walks of life are buying these tickets. Two 
 brothers I know in this city are running a grocery established 
 with the money received as a prize from this lottery. Another 
 instance is of a business man who was about to make an assign- 
 ment, and was saved from failure by the accident of receiving 
 a prize from this lottery. 
 
 Now, I am not saying these things in defense of the lot- 
 tery, or with any wish to apologize for this sort of business. 
 I am only saying them to show how ignorant some people are 
 concerning the facts of society. I have no doubt there are a 
 great many men in this city who believe that the Louisiana 
 lottery was exterminated, while the efforts to exterminate it 
 have only strengthened it and driven the revenues, which the 
 state of Louisiana ought to receive, out of the country. We 
 still have the lottery, minus the revenue it used to pay us. 
 Instead of the money being collected and redistributed in 
 
LOTTERIES. 263 
 
 this country alone, it is collected, taken out of the country, 
 and distributed all over the world. In other words, all that 
 has been done is to make matters worse. 
 
 As long as people wish to do these things they will con- 
 tinue to do them ; and all that can be accomplished by 
 reformers in this line is to drive them into greater obscurity. 
 The more mystery that surrounds any such enterprise the better 
 it succeeds. The fact that this lottery is obliged to use the ex- 
 press companies, instead of the mails, throws a sort of glamour 
 over the whole affair that is very attractive to the class of 
 people who patronize such things. The further fact that it is 
 located in Honduras, instead of Louisiana, gives it a more 
 romantic air, which is a great help to business. 
 
 Now, this is the kind of thing that happens when an 
 attempt is made to up root any institution of modern society. 
 It reminds me of a farmer I knew once, who tried to destroy 
 a bed of Canada thistles by, plowing them up. It was a small 
 bed, covering only a few square rods, but he decided to plow 
 the field, in order to exterminate them. He certainly plowed 
 very deeply, and there were no Canada thistles to be seen for 
 a while. But a few weeks afterwards he discovered what he 
 had done. He had simply scattered the root of these Canada 
 thistles all over his field, and the next year he had an abund- 
 ant crop of thistles, a thousand times as many as he had ever 
 had before. 
 
 Something like this happens when we attack an institu- 
 tion of society. We may scatter it, drive it into places of 
 seclusion, compel it to adjust its activities to new relations, 
 but we will find, if we try to. that we have not exterminated 
 it. The sam-e thing happens when the saloons are closed on 
 Sunday. Some people wish to drink on Sunday, and to try to* 
 compel them to do otherwise is only to make them worse. We 
 have our choice between the saloon, with its front door open, 
 where anyone may enter, or a club room above or behind the 
 saloon, with locked doors. 
 
264 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 It may be that the Sunday saloon is bad, and only bad ; 
 but what I claim is this : That the Sunday club room is worse, 
 far worse ; and if I must choose between the two give me the 
 open saloon, where the authorities of the city may enter at 
 any time they choose. 
 
 We have had two years' experience in this city of closed 
 saloons. In spite of the fact that these saloons were watched 
 by as brave and efficient chief of police as ever lived, every- 
 body who knows anything of the matter admits that Sunday 
 drinking was increased, and the lawless element made worse 
 by the change. The saloon proper was really closed, and the 
 police often exceeded their authority in trying to exterminate 
 the club room, but were utterly powerless to do so. Yet the 
 average reformer seems to be quite ignorant of all this. 
 
 Here we are again confronting the difficulty to which I 
 have so often alluded. Those who would reform society know 
 so little about the society they are trying to reform. First, 
 they do not know, by personal observation, what it is they are 
 trying to reform. Second, they do not know what they are 
 really accomplishing when they succeed in effecting any 
 change. If those who would reform society would really be- 
 come acquainted with the facts they are trying to deal with, 
 a great deal of pernicious meddling would be averted. 
 
 Suppose, instead of trying to exterminate the Louisiana 
 lottery, they had proceeded in the matter as Germany is doing. 
 Germany allows the lottery to exist, under the inspection of 
 the authorities, who carefully regulate every detail of the 
 matter, so as to prevent any fraud of any kind. About fifteen 
 per cent, of the proceeds are used to pay salaries and govern- 
 mental privileges. The rest of the money is strictly and hon- 
 estly returned to the people in the form of prizes. 
 
 Now, if the people persist in buying lottery tickets, these 
 are the ones to buy, instead of purchasing of the lottery 
 that has been dealt with according to our methods. We fight 
 them just enough to make them mad, they lose all respect for 
 
LOTTERIES. 265 
 
 the authorities, and the whole affair degenerates into a sort of 
 a dog fight. Then they seek to justify themselves in their 
 crooked methods by the fact that they have not been fairly 
 dealt with. Instead of stopping them, we have only demoral- 
 ized them, given them an excuse for trying to get even with 
 us. 
 
 By driving the Louisiana lottery outside of the United 
 States, we have added greatly to its revenue and success. This 
 has tempted two other lotteries to begin operations, the Pan- 
 American and the Mexican, both of which have agents in this 
 city selling their tickets. It is well-known that these lotteries 
 pay back again to the people only a small per cent, of the 
 money they collect. 
 
 All this mischief has arisen as a direct result of trying to 
 exterminate the Louisiana lottery, and yet the average re- 
 former supposes this lottery has been exterminated, and 
 boasts of the good he has been able to accomplish. I used to 
 do these foolish things myself, and I can see now very plainly 
 how ridiculous I was. I meant well, but I was unsophisti- 
 cated. My intentions were good, but I was ignorant. I wanted 
 to fix things without knowing what was wrong. 
 
 Jesus warned his disciples against trying to uproot the 
 tares that grow with the wheat, lest the wheat be also uprooted. 
 He said, u Let them grow together, and when the harvest 
 comes, the reapers will then be able to separate the tares from 
 the wheat." 
 
 Reformers seem to have forgotten this. They are not 
 willing to wait and allow the different institutions of society 
 to grow until the harvester comes. They want to begin to 
 uproot. 
 
 Sooner or later, every institution that does not contribute 
 to the good of society will be buried. Nothing but good has 
 eternal life. The way to reform things is to let them grow. 
 Their own worth or worthlessness will soon appear if let 
 alone, but under persecution they are sure to thrive. The 
 function of law is to protect people from harm, not to pre- 
 scribe rules of moral conduct. 
 
THEOLOGY AND RELIGION. 
 
 Dr. Falkwell Explains Some Points of Difference. 
 
 JT THE close of his regular report last Sunday morn 
 ing. Dr. Talkwell said : 
 
 Over a year ago, when I began to mingle with 
 the people instead of writing sermons; and visiting 
 the poor and outcast instead of visiting my wealthy parish- 
 ioners. I thought it would be an excellent thing to open a 
 question box every Sunday morning in this pulpit. I solicited 
 written questions, but I had no idea that so many questions 
 would be asked. In spite of every attempt I have made to 
 answer them, they accumulate on my hands much more 
 rapidly than I can dispose of them. I had no idea the people 
 were interested in so many vital subjects. 
 
 I shall never be able to answer all the questions I receive. 
 I can only attempt to select from them the ones I consider 
 the most important. Each one of these questions deserves a 
 more complete answer, but I shall have to content myself 
 with a few words. The first question I select is : 
 
 " What is the first essential of religion ? " 
 
 There is only one essential of religion. That is prayer. 
 The religious man is one who believes in the efficacy of prayer. 
 The man who believes in God, the Father of all Spirits, be- 
 lieves Him to be near and willing to help all those who ask 
 Him; that man is religious. He may never have said a 
 formal prayer; he may never have joined a church ; he may 
 never have subscribed to a creed, or made a public profession 
 
THEOLOGY AND RELIGION. 267 
 
 of religion ; but if he has learned to pray, aud is well as- 
 sured that his prayers do avail something, he is religious. It 
 makes no difference whether he is called a Christian, a Mo- 
 hammedan or a pagan. Religion is one the world over. It is 
 a realization of the Fatherhood of God, and a personal, vital 
 experience of His protecting care. 
 
 The religious instinct is as natural to man as any other 
 instinct. It does not have to be taught to him. It is natural 
 to him. Creeds and theologies, and ecclesiastical institutions 
 have done more to destroy the natural religious instincts of 
 men than they have to help them. As a class, the theologian 
 is no more religious than any other class, and I have some- 
 times doubted if they were as much so. 
 
 He who knows by experience that God is, and is able and 
 willing to help His children in answer to prayer, has all that 
 there is essential in religion, even though he may never have 
 seen that book we call the Bible, or heard of that ecclesiastical 
 institution we call the church." 
 
 The next question is, " What do you consider essential in 
 theology ? " 
 
 u All there is essential about theology can be stated in a 
 very few words, i. e., the Fatherhood of God, the brotherhood 
 of man. God is my Father, and every man my brother, every 
 woman my sister. This is my theology. This is all there is 
 of theology that amounts to anything. All the haggle and 
 wrangle and bandy of words about plans of salvation, about 
 probation, about inspiration, about sanctification, is sheer 
 waste of time and consists of scholastic figments. All these 
 things were invented by men, and used by men as implements 
 of warfare. They have never been of any use to the world. 
 People who believe them are the worse for believing them, as 
 a rule. 
 
 That man who believes that God is the Father of all man- 
 kind, soon comes to believe that every man is his brother, and 
 
268 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 every woman his sister. He soon begins to shape his conduct 
 in accordance with this belief. 
 
 This is the only creed that has ever been of a particle of 
 use in the world ; every man my brother, every woman my 
 sister. No matter how high or low, how aesthetic or vulgar, 
 how learned or ignorant, every man my brother, every woman 
 my sister. This is all there is of my creed. I fall short of 
 living up to this creed, but it is my ideal, towards which I am 
 striving. 
 
 Here is .another question. I ought not to try to answer it 
 in a few words, I suppose, but I must either do this, or neglect 
 to .answer it at all. The question is: 
 
 u What is meant by the term, Christian religion?" 
 
 I used to think I knew how to answer this question, but I 
 confess to you that the more I think about it the less it means. 
 I believe in Jesus. I believe his words, I believe in his 
 example, and try to follow it as far as I can. I place the 
 name of Jesus above all other names. I am sure no man 
 prizes his teachings more than I do, or sets a higher value up- 
 on the influence he has had upon this world. 
 
 Jesus was a religious man. So far as I am able to learn, 
 Jesus was the most religious man that ever lived, yet he did 
 not found a religion. He did not seek to become the author 
 of a new religion. We have no right to call religion by his 
 name. Religion was in the world before Jesus came. Relig- 
 ion is a natural instinct of the human soul. To say "Chris- 
 tian religion" implies that Jesus either inaugurated religion, 
 or else founded a new one. This is ascribing to Jesus some- 
 thing he did not claim or desire. 
 
 The example and words of Jesus have led many men to 
 believe and become religious, and in their gratitude to him 
 they have attached his name to their religious experience ; but 
 strictly speaking, there is no such thing as Mohammedan re- 
 ligion, Jewish religion, Christian religion, Mormon religion, 
 etc. All of these terms are misleading. 
 
THEOLOGY AND RELIGION. 1>69 
 
 Religion is religion. What we mean when we say Chris- 
 tian religion, is Christian theology. What we mean when we 
 say Jewish religion, is Jewish theology. Religion is one. 
 There are many theologies, but there is only one religion. I 
 never use the term Christian religion myself. Jesus Christ 
 did more than all other men to stimulate the religious instinct 
 of man, but he did not found a religion. 
 
 I must content myself today by answering just one more 
 question. It relates to what I said a few Sundays ago about 
 the scientist and the theologian. The question is this, and it 
 comes from a clergyman for whom I entertain the highest 
 respect: 
 
 u I read your recent comparison of the theologian and 
 scientist. I wish to ask you if the unfavorable light in which 
 you put the theologian does not bear too hard on some of the 
 more advanced theologians, such as Fiske, Drummond and 
 Gladden?" 
 
 My answer to this question is that neither Fiske, Drum- 
 mond nor Gladden are theologians in the sense in which I 
 used the term. The theologian is a man who is trying to ac- 
 count for the universe, its past, present and future, by the 
 study of the Bible. As I explained in the article, a theolog- 
 ian thinks the Bible contains all that is necessary to know of 
 these subjects, and he confines his studies to the explanation 
 of Scriptural texts. 
 
 Fiske is not a theologian, he is a philosopher. Drummond 
 was not a theologian, he was a scientist. No one would have 
 ever thought of his being a theologian, had he not taken up 
 some of the questions of natural theology and discussed them 
 by the use of scientific methods. Gladden is a philosopher, 
 not a theologian. To be sure, he uses the Bible, not so much 
 to discover truth, or prove his assertions, as he does to recon- 
 cile the Bible to other sources of truth. Such a man is not a 
 theologian. A full-fledged theologian has an abhorrence of 
 such men. Dr. Briggs, by simply daring to assume that there 
 
270 DK. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 were any other sources of revelation than the Bible, has got 
 himself into hot water. 
 
 I used the word theologian to mean that man who does 
 not recognize any other authoritative source of theological 
 truth than the Bible. I do not think I dealt unjustly with 
 this man. I think he is entitled to all the opprobrium the 
 comparison gave him. 
 
 Neither of the three men above mentioned can fairly be 
 included among the class I aimed at. Indeed. I am indebted 
 for much that I have been saying to these men. I have little 
 or no difference with either of them, and consider any man 
 foitunate who has the privilege of profiting by their teachings. 
 
 As I said before, when treating this subject, not all 
 preachers are theologians, and, fortunately, not all theologians 
 are preachers. A great many men are in the pulpit today 
 who are philosophers and scientists. The theologian has little 
 or nothing in common with these men. He believes that God 
 revealed to the world all that he wants any one to know, 
 through his series of revelations which we call the Bible; that 
 all we know of God or morality is learned from the Bible, and 
 to attempt to learn anything of these things from any other 
 source is sacrilege. These men hate science and scientists. 
 They despise philosophy and philosophers, and are doing more 
 .harm to real religion than any other class of men." 
 
A SERMON ON CLEANLINESS. 
 
 Microbe a Messenger of God to Make Us Clean. 
 
 ND God said, let the earth bring forth the living 
 creature after its kind, cattle and creeping things, 
 and beasts of the earth, after its kind, and it was so. 
 And God made the beasts of the earth after its 
 kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that 
 creepeth upon the ground after its kind. And God saw that 
 it was good . And to every beast of the earth, and to every 
 fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the 
 earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for 
 meat, and it was so. And God saw everything that he had 
 made, and behold it was very good." 
 
 These words are found in the second chapter of Genesis, 
 and they thoroughly commit the Bible to the goodness of all 
 created things. If the writer of Genesis knew what he was 
 talking about, there was nothing created in vain. Behind 
 every creation there was a good purpose, a beneficent aim. 
 
 If this be true, then those creatures which seem to be of 
 no use on earth, whose function seems to be an evil one, are 
 simply misunderstood. If we knew a little more about them 
 we would discover why the goodness of God brought them into 
 being. 
 
 Ever} 7 creature has its own check against over reproduction. 
 In their struggle against each other they rise and fall alter- 
 nately, overcoming and being overcome, ever and ever striving 
 to find that balance which a perfect order of things necessi- 
 tates. The battle is on. We are witnesses of only some very 
 
272 DR. TALKWELI/S SKETCHES. 
 
 small details, here and there. The main struggle is incompre- 
 hensible to most of us. Only an abiding faith in God can 
 reconcile us to many things we are obliged to see. 
 
 Out of the multitude of God's creatures let us select those 
 little foreigners with whom we have become so recently ac- 
 quainted, known as bacteria, or disease germs. We are read- 
 ing a great deal about disease germs in these days. Microbes 
 are on the lips of everybody, literally and figuratively. We 
 seldom read anything about these creatures except to their 
 disadvantage, to their disparagement. 
 
 What are they, anyway ? Are they simply pests to human 
 life, invisible angels of death that come to destroy without any 
 compensation of good ? Let us see if we can answer this ques- 
 tion in a few words. 
 
 Bacteria constitute a very low order of the vegetable 
 world. They belong to the order way down in the scale of 
 life, known as protophyta. They are very infinitesimal, and 
 their spores are so small and light that they are capable of 
 dancing in the sunbeam, and existing in great numbers in the 
 clearest water. They are everywhere. We cannot avoid them. 
 There is a great variety of them, only a few of which seem 
 harmful to the human race. 
 
 A few of these creatures have been selected by the micro- 
 scopist and have been charged with very serious misdemeanors. 
 One of them is associated with typhoid fever; another seems 
 to be mixed up with the cause of anthrax; and still another 
 has gotten into bad reputation in consequence of his relations 
 to the disease known as tuberculosis. So we might go on 
 enumerating disease after disease, which, it is asserted, that 
 some particular one of these very small creatures has caused. 
 Whether these accusations rest upon the best of evidence or 
 not, we will not now stop to discuss, further than to say that 
 there is some ground yet for suspecting that their association 
 with disease is incidental rather than causative. 
 
 But just now we will lay this question aside, and ask our- 
 
A SERMON ON CLEANLINESS. 273 
 
 selves what function have these creatures other than to vex 
 the bacteriologist, and to create a disturbance in the human 
 system? Are they of any use? Have they a wholesome func- 
 tion in the universe ? Have they been created in vain ? Are 
 they evil, and only evil ? When God made them, did He have 
 any good purpose in view? Have we discovered in them some- 
 thing that is useless, superfluous, always bad and only bad? Is 
 their existence a blot upon the fair face of nature and a stigma 
 upon 'the work of the Creator of the universe ? 
 
 It is, indeed, a very grave charge to bring against a uni- 
 verse created by a good and wise God, to admit that He has 
 put into this creation billions and billions of invisible organ- 
 isms from which there is no rescue, which are capable of 
 spreading disease and creating havoc to the uttermost ends of 
 the earth. Sword and famine cannot compete with their 
 destructiveness. 
 
 Thus far the complainant against this microscopical 
 creature seems to have made a very strong case. Let us rest 
 the case of the plaintiff for a moment, and see what can be 
 said in the defense of the accused. 
 
 The lawyer for the defense arises and begs to say that 
 these creatures were created for a beneficent purpose. That 
 even their destructive work could not be spared from the uni- 
 verse, and that never, at any time, have they done anything 
 except good. 
 
 Did we ever stop to think what becomes of the thousands 
 and millions of bodies of beasts and men after they are dead? 
 Just consider the immense number of beings that die every 
 day, leaving their bodies lifeless and useless. What becomes 
 of these bodies? To say that they decompose and pass back 
 into the elements from which they were derived is to say the 
 truth. But how do they decompose, why do they decompose? 
 
 Without these bacteria, of which we have been speaking, 
 they could not decompose. Every body would lie exactly as 
 it was left at death and never change either in bulk or form. 
 
m DR. TALK WELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 To protect the body of any dead creature from decomposition 
 we only have to protect it from bacteria. Each one of these 
 dead bodies has extracted from the physical universe a part of 
 its valuable material. Were it not for the microbes who de- 
 compose these bodies, and change them back into their ele- 
 ments, the resources of the earth, particularly in nitrogen, 
 would soon be exhausted. As soon as anything is dead, 
 thousands of bacteria swarm to the spot and begin the work of 
 disintegration, and never quit until it is entirely dissipated 
 into its original elements again. 
 
 The bacteria are God's scavengers, keeping the face of 
 creation clean. The bacteria are God's sanitary department, 
 who go about in creation hunting for dead things, and by their 
 magic touch changing them into living elements. The bacteria 
 are God's ministering angels, compelling us, incidentally, to 
 habits of absolute cleanliness. The microbes would not dis- 
 turb us if we were perfectly clean. It is only because we have 
 particles of dead matter adhering to us that they visit us. 
 They find their way into the apertures of our body ; they lodge 
 in the ear, the eye, the mouth, the nostrils ; they cling to 
 various portions of the body simply because they have found 
 there some dead material that ought to be decomposed. 
 
 Their presence in large numbers within our bodies appears 
 to be deleterious to health. Whether they cause disease or 
 not, at least certain kinds of them are present in great num- 
 bers in certain diseases; but they would not be there had they 
 not found some dead material upon which to feed.' 
 
 Every epidemic that sweeps across our land is a scourge 
 of God calling our attention to some dirtiness or tilthiness on 
 the part of the people. It is useless to kneel in our filth 
 and ask God to stay the hand of the plague. Our only hope 
 is to rise on our feet and make ourselves clean. If man would 
 keep himself clean, externally and internally, by habits of 
 cleanliness and frugality the microbes would be ministering 
 angels of peace rather than death. 
 
A SERMON ON CLEANLINESS. 275 
 
 As soon as anything dies, be it great or small, the sani- 
 tary police of God's universe immediately come to the spot 
 and begin the work of taking the organism to pieces, and giv- 
 ing it back to the elemental storehouse of the universe from 
 which it was originally taken. Bacteria are like wreckers of a 
 railroad company ; they rush to the scene of every disaster to 
 remove the debris and clean up the tangled wreck of 
 broken cars and mangled bodies. 
 
 But, unlike human wreckers, they are very economical. 
 They are able to save every atom of the wreck and give it 
 back again to the treasury of nature, exactly as good as it was 
 when it was taken. Nothing is wasted. Every atom of oxy- 
 gen, or nitrogen, or carbon, or hydrogen, is given back new, 
 clean and as fit for use as ever before. 
 
 This is the work of the microbes. Certainly a beneficent 
 work, a work which the universe could not spare even a single 
 day. The only thing necessary to avoid the ill effects of these 
 munificent creatures is to keep clean. They would, not visit 
 us at all had they not scented or discovered, lurking somewhere 
 about our anatomy, some dead thing. They are so very eco- 
 nomical they cannot spare anything. The smallest speck of 
 organic matter which escapes our utmost vigilance is sufficient 
 to set God's sanitary forces astir and bring them to the rescue, 
 armed with their delicate chemistry and invisible instruments 
 of disintegration. They will even enter the juices of our body 
 and ferret out any extraneous material they find in chyme, or 
 chyle, or blood. A clean, unbroken skin is an absolute exter- 
 nal armor against them ; but once let this armor be broken by 
 scratch or puncture or ulcer, then these microscopic rag-pickers 
 and junk-gatherers rush to the spot like sneak thieves and 
 pick-pockets to a fire. And the microbes are there for exactly 
 the same purpose that the thieves are, to pilfer or pick up mis- 
 placed goods or stray property. 
 
 As the skin protects the outside of the body, so the mucous 
 membrane does the inside of the body. So long as this mem- 
 
~Ti'> DR. TALKWELIAS SKETCHES. 
 
 brane is flawless and its epithelial covering intact, no microbe 
 can enter the sacred precincts of the human system, although 
 they may swarm in inconceivable multitudes on the tesselated 
 pavement which nature has so carefully laid on every square 
 millimeter of its delicate membrane. A flaw anywhere, a 
 pin-point abrasion, a postule, a slight erosion, a miniature 
 ulcer, brings dirt and misplaced matter which immediately 
 attracts an army of nature's street-sweepers, armed with 
 brooms and bag and cremating furnaces. A drop of pus is to* 
 these creatures what a dirty alley is to an effective sanitary 
 force; an oozing ulcer is an uncovered cess pool in a dirty 
 back yard. 
 
 These people complain when the rigors of sanitary law 
 insist upon making them clean whether they wish it or not. 
 So do we complain when God, in His infinite wisdom, makes 
 us clean, even though He must kill us to accomplish it. Every 
 flood of epidemic that gathers its festering powers in the 
 crowded plague spots of Europe or Asia and sweeps westward,, 
 leaving in its wake a dreadful trail of human sacrifice, is the 
 chastening of a perfectly just God, trying to make his world 
 clean. Every festering bog and miasmatic swamp that is 
 pouring into our health-giving atmosphere zymotic poisons, is 
 a dirty back court which God bids us clean up or die. Because, 
 if we do not clean up. He will send His sanitary force to do it 
 for us, and they will come at his bidding, myriads of millions 
 of unseen workers. 
 
 This prodigious army of infallible chemists, though en 
 gaged in good work, will, like the crusaders of old, who, with 
 the holy purpose of rescuing the sacred sepulchre from pagan 
 sacrilege, spread rapine, outrage and devastation over the 
 countries through which they passed, so these infinitesimal 
 crusaders against the sacrilege of filth, when marshalled in 
 unusual and abnormal numbers, in a limited area, will become 
 an incidental scourge, though moved by the holy zeal of 
 rescuing fair nature from the foul grasp of dirt. 
 
A SERMON ON CLEANLINESS. 277 
 
 Once let our earth become clean, and the inhabitants 
 thereof present their bodies a pure and living sacrifice, so soon 
 will the function of this vast horde be changed from pestifer- 
 ousness to purification. 
 
 The law of cleanliness, like all other of God's laws, is an 
 angel of peace to those who obey, but a ministering angel of 
 wrath to the disobedient or heedless. The microbe, like the 
 prophet of old, threatens only those who defy God or forget 
 His laws. To the clean the microbe is a welcome visitor, " for 
 he is the minister of God to them for good. But if thou do 
 that which is evil ' (either through ignorance or negligence) 
 " be afraid, for he beareth not the sword in vain, for he is the 
 minister of God, the avenger, to execute the wrath upon him 
 that doeth evil," upon him who will not keep himself clean. 
 
CITY OF INFERNO. 
 
 Being a Straightforward Confession of its Mayor, Ho Diavolos, 
 
 [R. TALKWELL has spent much time in investigat- 
 ing the mischief done in society every four years 
 by our national elections. Each quadrennial our 
 cities are stirred from top to bottom and the worst 
 elements brought to the front by contests which have little 
 or no meaning except the triumph of some political partj\ 
 Last Sunday morning Dr. Talkwell delivered to a large 
 audience a satire which set forth in a unique manner the peri- 
 odical destruction to society of our presidential election. His 
 satire is delivered as if it were a complaint made by his 
 satanic majesty, the devil, and is couched in that quaint style 
 of old English peculiar to the older theological writers. 
 
 CITY OF INFERNO, November, 1896. 
 To The Inhabitants of the Earth, Greeting ! 
 
 In these latter days, because of the indifference of a perverse 
 generation, little is known or written of the Kingdom of Dark- 
 ness, either of its habitations or inhabitants. Worldly in- 
 terests so far outweigh in the minds of the people of this 
 skeptical age, matters pertaining to the under-world of demons, 
 that a large number of the people are reared even from child- 
 hood, with no instruction concerning it. It is sometimes 
 hinted by those who stand in high places that there be no 
 such world, and even my existence is denied. But more com- 
 monly, my existence is simply Ignored, and neither the good 
 things nor the bad things that hath formerly been said of me, 
 have been faithfully taught to this generation. 
 
CITY OF INFERNO. 279 
 
 It is loosely thought by the multitude diat I and my king- 
 dom hath a place somewhere ; yet very remote and indistinct. 
 Where and how my forces doth touch or plague the world, has 
 been relegated to that shadowy field of knowledge which be- 
 longeth to the superstitions, fables and old wives' tales. It 
 hath been many times reported to me that there is a belief 
 common among men that my kingdom is a sinecure, and that 
 my subjects are passive instruments to my behests. That all 
 who come to me are bad and only bad, and for that reason, 
 become willing messengers of evil design. That since we are 
 all agreed to do evil and evil only, that we have therefore, one 
 purpose, out of which arises the most complete, but Satanic 
 order. 
 
 To correct this, and many other misrepresentations, which 
 prevail concerning me and my kingdom which Medieval theolo- 
 gians, and even latter day spiritualists have failed to clear up, 
 I have deemed it expedient to declare somewhat in detail the 
 exact state of my affairs. It is thought that my sway in my 
 dominions is supreme ; that my will is law, and that my wish 
 subdues everything. That all this is accomplished without those 
 necessary and inevitable tribulations that doth beset rulers of 
 the sons of men. In what measure these things be true of me 
 and my dominion, I shall endeavor to make appear. 
 
 In the first place, it is well known that the materials with 
 which I have to keep the forces of Perdition at work, are fur- 
 nished me from the earth. The city of Inferno, in which I am 
 expected to keep alive the horrors of pandemonium, includes 
 within itself no intrinsic evil. It, like other localities, depends 
 for any evil it may possess, on its inhabitants. If Inferno 
 contains any fire or brimstone or any other undesirable ingre- 
 dients, it is because they were brought to it by those who have 
 been consigned to its domains. Our city is justly reputed to 
 be a bad one, but- its badness in no wise depends on its locality 
 or scenery or unwholesomeriess of climate, as may have 
 been alleged ; but on the moral condition of its dwellers. It is 
 
280 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 called hell, but it is only so because each newcomer brings a 
 bit of the unholy presence along. Because of the ungodly 
 reputation of my rule and subjects, our city hath become 
 famous throughout the length and breadth of the earth, and 
 as yet we have been able to maintain our precedence over all 
 other cities of the universe ; although it cannot be denied that 
 there be others whose disquietude is in a measure like ours. 
 
 In the early Inferno, it did appear as if it would always 
 be no large task to keep its citizens in manifest disquiet and 
 wretchedness. Two circumstances combined to make it thus. 
 First, only those who were denominated impious are sent to 
 us, who as a matter of. fact, do include persons of strong indi- 
 viduality, otherwise headstrong, not easily brought under any 
 form of discipline, or made willing subjects to fixed rules, 
 good or bad. 
 
 Second, Inferno, having no government, but everyone 
 doing whatever seemeth good in his own mind, it was confi- 
 dently expected that an intensified sort of anarchy would 
 continually ensue. This indeed, was the case for many ages, 
 which state was rendered more certain by the disposition of 
 those who continually found their way to our precincts. In 
 those good old days, Inferno was verily all that its name im- 
 plieth. Suddenly freed from all restraint of the arbitrary laws 
 of men, the wretched multitude of lost souls came tumbling 
 into perdition, a wrangling, worrying, contentious horde of 
 demons. Jealousies, lying, hatred and envy prevailed for 
 many ages, and hell was the pride of all demondom ; and 
 included in its borders every species of discord and misery. 
 
 But as time waxed old and ages multiplied, I discovered 
 to my consternation, a growing tendency toward a better state 
 of things. There were two circumstances, which, taken 
 together, were silently working an overthrow of the de- 
 moniacal spirit of my dominions. 
 
 First, the indefinite duration of existence to which all 
 mankind is subjected in the life beyond the grave, tends 
 
CITY OF INFERNO. 281 
 
 toward convincing them of the folly of every sort of unright- 
 eousness. During the short period of earthly existence, many 
 mortals do not make this discovery, but end their terrestrial 
 careers in the belief that well-doing is not as profitable, on 
 the whole, as evil devices. Most of those who come here have 
 this faith well grounded, and begin at once a course of life in 
 strict keeping with such faith, much to my satisfaction. As 
 time passes, and centuries of strife drag their weary length 
 along, the conviction gradually begins to steal into the minds of 
 all, that no good and much pain can only come from such a 
 course. Hence it is that many do, of their own accord, leave 
 off the turmoil of strife and contention, settling themselves 
 down in relations of peace and fraternity. Their case is ren- 
 dered hopeless of reformation by the fact that each one becomes 
 convinced by his own experience that much more happiness 
 is obtained by gentle and decorous behaviour than by anarchy 
 or conquest. When this idea once got foothold in our city, 
 it began to spread very rapidly, and many became convinced 
 that peacefulness and virtue were, after all, only other names 
 for satisfaction ; and since satisfaction was the very thing for 
 which all had been striving through the weary centuries we 
 had passed, it required no argument to cause them to give 
 heed to the idea that had been so long in finding its way into 
 their minds. 
 
 Second, there being no arbitrary restraints or compulsions 
 in our city, which is devoid of any sort of government, whatso- 
 ever, when once a tendency on the part of our society began to 
 manifest itself, it was sure to spread through the whole commu- 
 nity. This seems to be true because of the fact that no one is 
 commanded to obey or not to obey, and hence none but natural 
 antipathies and preferences are aroused. Having neither pro- 
 selytes nor policemen, our people are left to select the action 
 which pleases them most. Hence, ideas spread naturally 
 without any abnormal check or assistance. 
 
 These two circumstances, it was easy for me to foresee. 
 
282 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 would finally overthrow the perpetual discontent of my regions 
 and gradually convert it into that very paradise which we 
 originally set out to oppose. 
 
 It became manifest to me that something must be done. 
 The heresy that righteousness is a more desirable thing than 
 lawlessness, must be put down. At first I merely ignored the 
 matter, knowing full well by experience that opposition is the 
 best sort of atmosphere in which any sort of heresy can thrive. 
 I thought perchance it would soon tire itself out, and, after a 
 season of quietude, the monotony of rest would cause them 
 to relapse into their original pandemonium. But not so. The 
 heresy spread. Vast territories of my dominions seemed en- 
 tirely under its sway. The solemnity and peace of the Sabbath 
 day began to appear, mocking my power, and giving the lie 
 to my pretentious of satanic rule. I could no longer hide 
 from myself the fact that active interference with this peace 
 must be made. 
 
 Accordingly a council was called, in which all of my 
 cohorts and vicegerents took part. There being among my 
 hosts of imps, many who had visited the remotest parts of the 
 universe on errands of satanic mischief, much information was 
 brought into our council, concerning the ways of men in all 
 parts of the created universe. I found by questioning some 
 of these that they were acquainted with the customs of many 
 cities in terrestrial regions, which, if properly introduced into 
 my domains, would be likely to restore to me the old reign of 
 devastation and disorder so becoming to my city. For it must 
 not be forgotten that, like as the reputation of Paradise 
 depends upon its heavenly conditions, so also the reputation 
 of hell depends upon the hellishness of its inhabitants. It 
 seemed to myself, and the council, certain that if we could 
 but introduce into the under-w r orld of demons certain usages 
 which had been adopted in many cities of the earth, and more 
 especially, in the cities of that particular domain known as the 
 United States of America, the glory of our ancient pande- 
 
CITY OF INFERNO. 283 
 
 monium would soon return to us. We therefore decided to 
 found, in the place of our time honored anarchy, a govern- 
 ment in hell, which should be copied faithfully after some 
 one of the many municipal governments of earth, that the 
 quietude of pleasant fraternities should be driven from our 
 shores, nevermore to return. 
 
 It will no doubt, appear trite and tedious to the inhabit- 
 ants of any earthly city for me to recite here the details of the 
 government which we decided to adopt, as all who read the 
 papers, or in any wise inform themselves concerning the 
 affairs of men, are already familiar with what seems to us in 
 hell as being new. But, nevertheless, it seems expedient to me 
 that I should depict in detail exactly the methods which we 
 adopted, even though it may seem dull to the reader, since it 
 worked so effectually and promptly to restore to us that bitter- 
 ness of spirit and general suspicion one of another which all 
 men have a right to expect of those that dwell in Hades. 
 
 First, we divided our inhabitants into two companies. 
 We called one company Republicans, and the other company 
 we called Democrats. Then we said to the company that we 
 called Democrats : * Bestir thyself, now, and elect of thy com- 
 pany a goodly number of persons to rule over hell. Appoint 
 some persons to make laws, and other persons to execute 
 them, and still other persons to judge of the correctness of 
 these laws. Leave no natural fraternity or activity of our 
 inhabitants untouched. Prescribe arbitrary rules for every- 
 thing. Indicate no faith whatever in the natural tendency of 
 things, for this has already destroyed our pandemonium and 
 reduced us to that sickly and saddening condition known as 
 peace. Make laws, make laws, make plenty of them ! Provide 
 people with guns and clubs to execute them. Select the 
 people to carry these guns and clubs from among those who 
 are strong and brutal, if, indeed, there be any such left in 
 hell." 
 
 Then, we called to us the other company of people, named 
 
284 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 Republicans, and repeated to them the same things that we 
 had said to the Democrats, and we sent the two companies 
 abroad to begin their work of devastation. 
 
 After many months of turmoil, agitation, slander, vitu- 
 peration, and every species of unholy feeling, the Democrats 
 succeeded in gathering the largest number of votes, by which 
 means their company of law-makers and rulers were elected. 
 The nature of the conflict was such that only the worst people 
 constituting the victorious company succeeded in obtaining an 
 office. Those who were inclined to be fair, and reasonable, 
 and peaceful, would not consent to do those things which are 
 required of those who receive such offices. 
 
 The rule of the Democrats began. Their whole thought 
 was to so rule the people as to insure their re-election, while 
 the behavior of the other company was entirely actuated by 
 the desire to, in some way, defeat their re-election. It aiforded 
 us great pleasure to note that quietude and order had been ban- 
 ished from among us, and hostility and hatred had become 
 commonplace. 
 
 Knowing the capacity of human nature, however, to ad- 
 just itself to any condition, we feared to leave the Democrats 
 in power too long, because even brutal men become human- 
 ized after the novelty of brutality has passed, and the natural 
 tendency to be kind to all men begins to assert itself. In 
 order to avert this calamity, as soon as the slightest tendency 
 to peace began to manifest it&elf we caused the Republicans 
 to win an election, and thus stirred up again, in their original 
 fury, the scorching flames of wrath and the suffocating fumes 
 of envy and disappointment. 
 
 We noted with glee that the new order of things was 
 always a little worse than the old order; that newly invested 
 authority always brought its rich crop of arrogance and inso- 
 lence. But such is human nature that to leave either com- 
 pany in power too long was sure to produce symptoms of 
 content and apathy in our society. Greed, after a time becomes 
 satiated ; lust becomes surfeited ; anger becomes appeased ; 
 cruelty satisfied ; then to let loose another hungry horde who 
 had been long kept back from enjoying these felicities, acted 
 
CITY OF INFERNO. 285 
 
 as an unfailing panacea against every semblance of fraternity 
 and good will. Thus, when the fires of hell begin to languish, 
 and its inhabitants begin to forget their misery and wretched- 
 ness, we have only to change our administration. We have 
 only to put the u ins " out and the u outs " in, to fully realize 
 the ancient glory of hell, where fire and fumes do burn and 
 suffocate, night and day, without end. 
 
 These companies differ in nothing concerning any import- 
 ant subject. Their only wish is to beat each other. Like as a 
 stoker doth stir the fires in order that flame and fuel may be 
 properly commingled, so doth hell, today, stoke its fires 
 periodically, by having an election, by which those in power 
 are put out, and those that have no power are put in. 
 
 Oh, thou cities of the United States, receive the blessing 
 of thy erstwhile master, Diavolos. Call me no longer .master, 
 but call me, rather, humble pupil and beneficiary. Thou hast 
 taught me the secret of perpetual and everlasting discord. 
 Thou hast shown me the way to keep ever alive hatred and 
 envy in the hearts of creatures who are naturally inclined to 
 love each other. 
 
 The methods that thou hast taught me are ample and 
 multitudinous. We have adopted them all. We have our 
 national elections, once in four years, in which hell is set in 
 motion from center to circumference. We have our state 
 elections. We have our city elections. We have commissions, 
 and boards, and councils, numberless, so that a continual tur- 
 moil doth happen, ever repeating itself, making quietude 
 impossible and good cheer impracticable. 
 
 Only those few incorrigible ones who turn from this whole 
 governmental scene in disgust have anything resembling hap- 
 piness. To those we are sending missionaries, continually 
 exhorting them to bestir themselves and take part in govern- 
 mental affairs, and thus it is we keep their company to be a 
 small one and have little or no influence in our affairs. 
 
 Thus hell has become hell again, and pandemonium is 
 once more pandemonium. To thee, Oh, Earth, be all the 
 praise, forevermore, Amen. 
 
THE SALVATION ARMY. 
 
 " Come Unto Me All Ye that are Weary and Heavy laden, and 1 
 Will Give You Rest." 
 
 R. TALK WELL'S work takes him among the fol- 
 lowers of the Salvation Army. He has become con- 
 siderably acquainted with these boisterous evangels 
 of the common people. On the last night of every 
 year, they have what is known as a " Watch meeting." To 
 watch the old year out and the new year in with shout and 
 song, with prayer and exhortation, is their program. The 
 Doctor attended one of these meetings recently and gave a 
 description of this experience last Sunday morning. He spoke 
 as follows : 
 
 Every seat taken at Salvation Army headquarters. 
 Standing room growing scarce. Temperature 90 degrees 
 Fahrenheit. Ventilation villainous. Air thickening every 
 moment. A crazy, crashing, oft-repeated chorus, accompanied 
 by drums, tambourines, clapping of hands and an irregular 
 volley of hallelujahs, glorys and amens, make the thick air of 
 the many-scented room tremulous with an indescribable din. 
 An atmosphere so stifling, a confusion so complete, that the 
 caterwaul of the grimy street urchin, the guffaw of the 
 uncouth soldier and the ribald jeer of the " tough," entirely 
 escape notice. 
 
 The master of ceremonies, by the aid of a fierce looking 
 drum-stick, quickly cleared a place on the front seat large 
 enough for the spectator, who hereafter enjoys the dubious 
 
THE SALVATION ARMY. '281 
 
 privilege of sitting close to the orchestra, between two sooty, 
 smoking " brands from the burning," whose dose of salvation 
 has been so large and frequent as to produce a mental condi- 
 tion closely resembling intoxication. 
 
 There was no theme, no plot, no text, no logical sequence, 
 no program, no order of services; just one continuous, spon- 
 taneous, variegated hubbub. About two dozen Salvationists, 
 of assorted sizes and sexes, occupy a raised platform, some 
 sitting, some standing, some kneeling; all shouting or praying 
 or laughing or crying or singing, with faces toward the audi- 
 ence, whose presence they seemed entirely to ignore. The 
 captain, who acted as interlocutor, trainer, ring-master and 
 drum-major, divided his attention between stirring up the 
 enthusiasm of his cohorts, and harangueing the audience for 
 a just one more nickel." 
 
 Pale, haggard, bedraggled mothers were there, with puny 
 babes in arms ; mothers who looked with eager but sad eyes 
 toward the platform, as if they expected somehow or someway 
 out of this frantic powwow would come something to relieve 
 their weary, dragging lives. Fathers were there, whose brutal, 
 unwashed faces were creased with lines of a fixed despair ; 
 who, cowed by want and bullied by hard labor, were vaguely 
 hoping that the God of the poor and the ragged might at last be 
 cajoled by this tornado of petition to bring relief to the poor 
 and confusion to the rich. Maidens were there, to ogle and 
 titter; young men to swagger and swear; children played 
 about, conscious only that they were warm and happy. Ignor- 
 ance and low cunning, self-conceit and abasement mingled 
 and moved together, unmindful of everything, each wrapped 
 in his own mood. 
 
 Still they shout on, although long since hoarse and sleepy. 
 Still they drum; still they clap; still they try to laugh, al- 
 though midnight draws near. Like debauchees who have 
 already passed the stage of hilarious stimulation and begin to 
 succumb to the inevitable drowsiness that comes when the 
 
288 DR. TALK WELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 night is far spent, yet determined to keep up the pretense of 
 having a good time so these poor fellows, loyal to their 
 banner, true to their convictions, whip and prod- their tired 
 bodies until midnight comes, when they at last, perhaps for the 
 first time, really do hear the voice of God calling them to sleep, 
 saying : u Come, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I 
 will give you rest." 
 
 They begin to file out now ; those who have comfortable 
 homes first, boisterously, with rude jest, jostling each other 
 noisily as they come down the steps ; those who have no 
 homes, or cold homes, reluctantly, lingeringly, as if to catch 
 one more grateful breath from the huge, red-hot stove that 
 warms the room, the remembrance of which must warm them 
 through the long, cold night that follows. 
 
 The Salvationists linger for awhile for a short, informal 
 conference before parting, when follow hearty handshakes,. 
 u God bless you," ' l Brother, good night," "A happy new year, 
 Sister," " Bless the Lord," etc., etc., and the last foot-fall has 
 ceased to reverberate through the empty halls and dirty stair- 
 ways. 
 
 Only one remains in the now gloomy, dark room, 
 which so short a time ago was full of light and life and warmth. 
 The captain is alone in the far corner, across which he stretches 
 a shabby curtain, improvising for himself a bedroom, for his 
 collections have been meagre lately ; he cannot afford to hire 
 a room. His smoking lamp partly dispels the dusty gloom for 
 a few feet around. He has counted the few pennies of the 
 evening's " offering," and is eagerly munching a sandwich 
 which one of his faithful, known on the street as " Silly 
 George," had contributed to his good cheer for the coming 
 holiday. He has earned a good appetite and fortunately his 
 feast is not marred by the knowledge that the soft bun covers 
 and the delicious, liberal slice within, were put together in a 
 saloon hard by, one of the places he had only a moment before 
 been so sincerely denominating " the gateway to hell," u the 
 
THE SALVATION ARMY. 289 
 
 devil's palace/' It was a good sandwich, saloon scripture 
 measure. u pressed down and shaken together and running 
 over," and in scriptural thankfulness was it eaten, followed by 
 a drink of hydrant water from a tin cup. 
 
 As the clocks in the church towers are striking one, he 
 prepares his bunk of blankets on the floor. His devotions are 
 not forgotten, but kneeling beside his humble bed, he begins. 
 From force of habit, he prays aloud not merely aloud, but 
 loudly, vociferously. He pleads, he argues, he petitions, he 
 expostulates, he flatters, he confesses, he bewails. He reminds 
 God of His promises, he quotes to Him the Scriptures, and puts 
 his case violently, convincingly. He takes the kingdom by 
 force. 
 
 He prays : u Here I am, oh Lord ; in the midst of a wicked 
 city, preaching thy word, because thou hast sent me. I, a 
 weak and unworthy worm of the dust, even I have dared in 
 thy strength to lift up my voice against the iniquity of a per- 
 verse generation. I have proclaimed thy message by the way- 
 side, and on the street corner I have not withheld thy gospeL 
 But the people heed not thy word, nor listen to thy precepts. 
 The rulers of the city seem only inclined to plunder, the 
 people wag their heads as I pass by, and the churches of 
 Mammon look on in haughty silence. Even the poor and 
 downtrodden to whom I have been sent, are taught to distrust 
 my message, because my words are the words of an unlettered 
 man. Many false prophets have arisen, who teach the people 
 a strange gospel, even the words of the devil, who did tempt 
 my Master. 
 
 " These lying prophets teach the people of the glories of 
 the kingdom of this world ; they teach words of cheer and com- 
 fort to the rich and arrogant, and the poor have no place in their 
 synagogues. These lying prophets build high temples filled with 
 costly furniture into which the poor and dirty are afraid to 
 enter. They say in mockery to the poor 4 Come! ' and rail at 
 them because they dare not come. The rich have bought high 
 
290 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 places in the houses of these lying prophets, and they say to 
 the poor: ; Sit thou here at my feet.' They teach not the 
 words of the Master : 'Woe unto you, Scribes, Pharisees, hypo- 
 crites, ye make clean the outside, while within is all unclean- 
 ness ; ye make long prayers for pretense, then ye devour 
 widows' houses and oppress the poor.' 
 
 u They no longer say, as thou has taught me to say : ' Ye 
 compass earth and sea to make one proselyte and when ye 
 have made him, he is twofold more child of hell than your- 
 selves.' They have no message for the rich and mighty, ex- 
 cept words of cheer. They reprove only the poor, the de- 
 graded. They preach of soap and water; they talk of ambi- 
 tion and education. They speak of culture and better fitting 
 raiment. They say not as thou hast taught me: 'Come unto 
 me, all ye who are wea^ and I will give you rest.' They say 
 instead 'I will give you other burdens more burdens.' They 
 would take from the poor the meagre pleasures they now have, 
 and give instead a task, a lesson. If the poor ask for the 
 bread of the gospel, they give them a stone from Sinai. 
 
 u Into the midst of these iniquities in high places, and 
 degradation of the low places, thou hast sent me to proclaim 
 thy word. I am like the prophet of old, under the juniper 
 tree. I am oppressed with my loneliness. Like Moses before 
 the burning bush, my speech faileth me. Like Jonah beside 
 the withered gourd, my message seemeth a vain one. 
 
 '' But thou, friend of the poor, thou who didst choose the 
 lowly and the degraded ones, thou who lovest the sinner and 
 rebukest the rich, come thou to my assistance. I have desert- 
 ed all for thee. I have suffered hunger and cold, my name has 
 become a byword and they have cast me out of their syna- 
 gogues, because I carry neither purse nor scrip as thou didst 
 bid me. To whom can I go but thee, in my distress and dis- 
 couragement? Touch the heart of some one of thy professed 
 ministers in this Babylon of iniquity, that I may at least have 
 
THE SALVATION ARMT. 291 
 
 one brother to speak cheering words when my soul is over- 
 whelmed." 
 
 At last his weary body yields, his importunities flag, his 
 vigils cease. In sheer exhaustion he stretches himself on the 
 coarse blanket without undressing, and is received at once 
 into the embrace of the great restorative and healer of all 
 woes sleep. Here his troubles have a temporary end. The 
 disappointments of the day have yielded to the soothing sense 
 of oblivion. No harassing dreams of an outraged conscience 
 disturb him. No haggard spectres of wrongs committed touch 
 him with clammy fingers; but peacefully, with long-drawn 
 breaths, in the regalia of his chosen people, he is answered at 
 last, trouble has vanished, peace and calm and God's benedic- 
 tion are his a benediction He never gives to the undeserving 
 sweet, rejuvenating sleep. The scripture is fulfilled : u He 
 giveth His beloved sleep." 
 
 The cold moon-beams make more hideous the desolation 
 of the deserted room. The scamper of the rats with scavenger 
 intent, as they ravenously sort the litter left by 'the departed 
 congregation, sounds strangely loud in the hollow room. The 
 unsteady step of some belated roisterer outside, finding his 
 way home, is scarcely audible. The steeple clocks are striking. 
 The new year is already three hours old. 
 
 Three hundred and sixty-five days of hopeless, useless, 
 pathetic toil await the unconscious sleeper in the new year. 
 Three hundred and sixty-five nights of frantic, unheeded 
 appeal to motley multitudes, lie before him. It is well that 
 Futurity guards safely her secrets from him. It is well Hope 
 weaves her magic spell about him. Poor fellow ! an uncon- 
 scious martyr to the ever-recurring belief that some time or 
 other, God will reveal Himself to man by a great, strong wind, 
 an earthquake or a fire, rather than by the still, small voice 
 within. 
 
A DEBTOR TO GRACE. 
 
 By Martha Talkwell (Marion Carr.) 
 
 } OHN FLETCHER sat huddled in a disconsolate bundle 
 of second hand clothing and unkempt despair on the 
 stone floor of corridor A, in the city prison. He was 
 slated vagrancy and suspicion. His sentence was ten 
 days and costs, and he had yet a week to serve. 
 
 It was the same old story of out of work that we hear so 
 often. Some one had recommended Columbus ; he had come, 
 had applied at place after place in vain, and wandered about 
 the streets until almost every policeman in the city had 
 spotted him as a likely candidate for the city prison. In short, 
 he was typical of the class of men who get into corridor A of 
 the city prison. If a man has done anything really deserving 
 imprisonment, he is sent to the workhouse, for a period of 
 from twenty days to three years. But when a man is shabby 
 and out of work and a stranger, and has stood about the street 
 corners for a certain length of time, when it becomes fairly 
 probable that his next move will be either theft or train-jump- 
 ing, he is run in for loitering, vagrancy or suspicion. 
 
 Such men are generally arrested in squads of three or 
 four, brought into the court room together, and lumped off in 
 their sentences. This had been John's experience. There 
 were three other men standing on the same corner, whose 
 clothes were in practically the same condition, whose hag- 
 gard, dirty faces were covered with the stubble of a week, 
 whose last meal dated anywhere from three to ten hours 
 back, and whose breaths were scented variously from onions 
 to straight whiskey. 
 
A DEBTOR TO GRACE. 293 
 
 John had never seen any of them before ; but the four 
 men were run in as a gang. They slept in the north corridor 
 that night, and were brought before the judge next morning. 
 They straggled out into the court room, as only tramps can 
 shuffle, with an uneven, sidewise gait, and ranged themselves 
 before the prosecutor. They had no defense, and the police- 
 man who made the arrest testified against them ragged, 
 slouching, heads down, the little manhood that yet remained 
 cowed into submission, the target for sly jeering and stage 
 whispered remarks from the mob of men and boys gazing at 
 them across the railing of the lobby. 
 
 " Loitering and suspicion," said the policeman. 
 
 John Fletcher felt an almost irrepressible desire to cry 
 out, to demand a chance as a man of honor and strong mus- 
 cles and willing hands. His three companions had pled guilty 
 and he was standing silent, distraught, unheeding. The pros- 
 ecutor rapped on his desk. , 
 
 "Guilty, or not guilty?" he asked in the resigned mono- 
 tone that comes of frequent repetition. John's head ached, 
 he was tired from a sleepless night, everything seemed so 
 hopeless. He drew a long breath, and straightened up for an 
 instant. 
 
 " Guilty, your honor," he said wearily; and was hustled 
 off the quicker for his tardy response. 
 
 And now he was sitting in corridor A, on the stone floor, 
 wishing he had never been born. The reflection of the sun- 
 dappled river quivered on the ceiling. It would not take 
 long, John thought, to walk from the door to the bridge, when 
 he was released, and jump over. It was a cowardly thought, 
 no doubt, but he had had nothing but bread and water 
 and salt for a week, and was dirty and bilious, which con- 
 ditions do not tend to raise a fellow's spirits. 
 
 There were voices at the door, and the turning of a key in 
 its lock. 
 
294 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 u Another poor devil," said John to himself, with a vague 
 stirring of pity. 
 
 He looked up carelessly enough, but his attention was 
 arrested as soon as he saw the people who had entered. A 
 man, of perhaps fifty, slightly gray, with a keen, yet kindly 
 expression in his sensitive, refined face ; a gentleman in dress 
 and manner. His companion was a young woman, whose 
 almost childishly slim figure was gowned as became a lady r 
 simply, but in faultless taste. The turnkey brought a couple 
 of chairs for them, then withdrew and locked the door. John 
 heard some one say, u Dr. Talkwell," in an undertone. He 
 remembered having heard the name before, but could not 
 recollect where. 
 
 The gentleman carried a basketful of fruit of various 
 kinds. 
 
 " Good afternoon, gentlemen," he said genially. " I 
 thought perhaps you might like some fruit. If one of you will 
 carry this basket my daughter will distribute it among you." 
 
 The girl stood close to John Fletcher, who had risen as 
 she entered, and she glanced up at him, smiling : 
 
 "You will carry it, won't you?" she asked gently, 
 touched by the mute despair in his face. 
 
 John flushed at her words, and said, " Thank you," 
 scarcely realizing why he did so. 
 
 The men formed in line, and the young girl, as John 
 passed each one, gave him a liberal portion of the fruit, paus- 
 ing now and then, with a question as to preference, or a word 
 of recognition. The men followed her with their eyes, some 
 in surprise, some in reverence, others with a conscious pride 
 in their eyes, because she had remembered them from some 
 previous visit. 
 
 When each had had a share, she told John that what re- 
 mained was his, adding archly : 
 
A DEBTOR TO GRACE. 295 
 
 u Unless you will give me one tiny apple ? " making him 
 feel by her delicate tact that he was the donor, instead of 
 herself. 
 
 ''Did someone say that your father's name is Dr. Talk- 
 well ? " asked John presently. 
 
 u Yes," answered the girl, " and I am his second daughter, 
 Ruth. Did you never see him before ? " 
 
 Dr. Talkwell, hearing his name spoken, turned toward 
 them, with a question, and Ruth, nodding brightly, walked 
 down the corridor to speak to an old acquaintance. 
 
 In five minutes John Fletcher had told the doctor all his 
 heartache in broken, bitter words, and his genial, sympathetic 
 listener had cheered him more than he could have imagined 
 possible an hour before. 
 
 " Perhaps we will be in again before you leave," said Dr. 
 Talkwell at parting. " But if I am not, be sure to visit me 
 before you leave the city." 
 
 He gave John his card, and, calling to Ruth, passed out 
 of the corridor, leaving a brightness and cheer behind him 
 which only honest good feeling can inspire. 
 
 o 
 
 During the next week John often thought of his new 
 friends, and when he was released, made up his mind that he 
 would go immediately to Dr. Talkwell for advice. He was 
 somewhat surprised at the location of the doctor's residence. 
 He had supposed that he must live in an exclusive neighbor- 
 hood from his appearance, and the class of people he met on 
 his way to Dr. TalkwelPs house almost astonished him. The 
 house itself was a great, rambling brick structure, with only a 
 bit of lawn before it. For a moment he thought he had mis- 
 taken the street, but as he neared, he saw on the door plate in 
 bold letters, a Dr. Talkwell," and mounting the steps, rang for 
 admission. 
 
 The door was opened by a young woman of about twenty, 
 with a serious, kindly expression in her gray eyes. 
 
296 DR. TALKWELI/S SKETCHES. 
 
 u Good morning," she said, smiling. " Did you wish to 
 see my father ? Come in." 
 
 John Fletcher folio wed -her into a large, square room, 
 rather barely furnished, but warm and cheery enough to John. 
 There was a writing desk, a broad lounge, a table covered with 
 books, and a reading lamp, several plain chairs, and a number 
 of rugs on the bare floor. The bright wall paper gave a cheer- 
 ful aspect to the room, and there were a great many pictures 
 unframed illustrations from magazines and papers grouped 
 about not inartistically, which spoke mutely of the presence of 
 women. 
 
 " My father is not here just now," said his guide, drawing 
 up a chair for him, close to the open fire. " He is in Police 
 court this morning there is a trial which interested him. But 
 I am sure it will not be long. Are you in a great hurry ? " 
 
 " Not particularly," said John grimly. " I just came from 
 there myself. By the way, if I may be so bold, are you Miss 
 Ruth Talkwell's sister?" 
 
 "Yes," answered the girl, U I am Martha Talkwell. 
 Where did you meet Ruth down there ? " 
 
 u Yes; she and your father brought some fruit to the 
 prison a few days ago, and I carried the basket for Miss Ruth. 
 Is she at home?" 
 
 As he spoke, there was a rustle of skirts in the hall, and 
 Ruth entered. Her dark hair hung in a heavy braid over the 
 scarlet blouse she wore, and she was playing with a tiny white 
 kitten. Seeing the stranger, she recognized him at once, and 
 coming toward him, held out her hand unaffectedly. 
 
 <c Good morning," she exclaimed. " I am very glad to see 
 you. Have you been out long? " 
 
 " About three hours," answered John, laughingly. 
 
 Martha had taken a bit of sewing from a basket near her, 
 and Ruth close by continued to play with her kitten as they 
 talked. It was perhaps an hour before Dr.- Talkwell returned 
 bringing in a little rush of the chilly November air with him. 
 
A DEBTOR TO GRACE. 297 
 
 " You remember Mr. Fletcher, papa," said Ruth, as he 
 came into the room. u He wants to talk to you, and I'll go 
 and see how dinner is progressing." 
 
 " Father," said Martha, as she rose to follow Ruth, " how 
 did Pearl's trial come out ? " She pushed back a heavy lock 
 of hair from his forehead, as she spoke, caressingly. 
 
 " Three months in the workhouse," answered her father. 
 
 " Oh, I am glad," said the girl. "Perhaps that is long 
 enough for her to realize what danger she is in. I must go 
 over tomorrow and see her." 
 
 She smiled and nodded to John, as she passed out. 
 
 " Glad," echoed John wonderingly. u Glad to see a 
 woman sentenced to three months in the workhouse ? " 
 
 " Martha has an impulsive way of speaking," answered 
 Dr. Talkwell. " She means that she is glad to see this woman 
 removed from evil influences and companions, and placed 
 among good ones for a time. It is often the salvation 
 of a bad man or woman to be sent to the workhouse 
 for awhile. This woman we were speaking of, for instance, 
 is a young girl who is scarcely started in a bad life. 
 She has had no guidance in her youth, and is cursed 
 with a pretty face and some vanity. While she is imprisoned, 
 she will be kept clean in person, clothing and conversation. 
 She will see every day pure women those in authority at the 
 workhouse. She will hear inspiring words every Sunday; 
 and often during the week some good woman makes it her 
 duty to spend an hour or two with the women confined there. 
 If a woman is truly repentant and really desires to lead a bet- 
 ter life, it is made comparatively easy for her to do so. There 
 are two women in my house now who have served terms in 
 the workhouse." 
 
 " And do you let those creatures associate with your 
 daughters?" exclaimed John Fletcher. 
 
 "Why should I not ?" answered the doctor. "Is there 
 anything in the life of a miserable outcast that could possibly 
 
298 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 tempt or contaminate my daughters ? And is there not much 
 in the purity and gentleness of their lives to inspire and help, 
 a sinning sister ? But let us consider yourself. Have you any 
 prospect of work ? " 
 
 u No," said John bitterly. a That was my offense against 
 the community. I had no work." 
 
 a What is your trade ? " asked Dr. Talkwell. ignoring his 
 last words. 
 
 " I am a cook by trade, sir, but 1 can do anything that 
 requires a strong arm and a willing hand." 
 
 " A cook? Is that so? I believe I heard my wife saying 
 at the breakfast table that our last cook had got a position. 
 Would you care to stay here and work for your board, until 
 you find another place ? " 
 
 " Would I care to ! Oh, Dr. Talkwell, what can I say to 
 thank you ? I had actually contemplated suicide before I saw 
 you ; I was penniless, without a prospect of work, no place to 
 stay, no way even to leave without stealing a ride would I 
 care to stay ? " 
 
 " There, there ! Don't excite yourself," said Dr. Talkwell 
 kindly, and half laughingly. "Now. would you like to bathe 
 before dinner, and brush your clothes a little ? " 
 
 Stepping to the door he called Ruth, and bade her show 
 Mr. Fletcher to a room. " Dinner will be ready as the clock 
 strikes twelve," he called after them. 
 
 When John Fletcher came down stairs into the dining 
 room half an hour later the long table offered only one vacant 
 place, which Dr. Talkwell told him to take. The doctor sat at 
 one end of the table, and Mrs. Talkwell, a matronly, sunny- 
 faced woman of forty, opposite him. There were four places 
 laid at either side, for this meal; although, as Mrs. Talkwell 
 said laughingly to John, the number of the family varied at 
 almost every meal. 
 
 Dr. Talkwell introduced him to the two women and three 
 
A DEBTOR TO GRACE. 29fr 
 
 men, who were his companion guests. As the doctor had 
 said the women had both served sentences in the workhouse, 
 but they were earnestly trying to do better, and their plain r 
 tired faces bore witness that u the way of the transgressor is 
 hard." 
 
 One of the men had just been released from the peniten- 
 tiary. Another was an ordinary tramp who had that morning 
 asked for something to eat, and had been doing some odd jobs 
 of cleaning during the forenoon. The third was a young fel- 
 low who was trying to get started, with no money but a great 
 deal of ambition. He had made his home with the Talkwell& 
 almost ever since they took their new a parsonage." and took 
 care of the doctor's horse for his board, having plenty of 
 leisure for his own work. 
 
 Such were the guests of the Talkwells. An onlooker 
 would have supposed them to be a single family, so uncon- 
 strained and lively was the conversation. To John, it was a 
 revelation. He had never seen anything like it in his life, 
 and he longed to ask Dr. Talkwell many questions regarding 
 this new philanthropy. 
 
 The dining room was a large, square room, with no carpet 
 save a mat of oil cloth under the long table. There was an 
 open fire here also, and the walls were covered with warm 
 hued paper, with groups of unframed pictures here and there. 
 The table looked very cosy and inviting with its red cloth. 
 Martha had always insisted on having either a growing plant 
 or a bowl of flowers as a center piece, and the scarlet blossoms 
 of the homely geranium made a vivid spot of color among the 
 plain, but substantially filled dishes. 
 
 As John looked from the bright, refined faces of the two 
 sisters to the haggard, sallow countenances of the two women 
 next them, and from the matronly gentleness of Mrs. Talkwell 
 and genial good fellowship of her husband to the rough 
 faces of the men, something of the divine truth of the brother- 
 hood of all men crept into his mind that could never afterward 
 leave it. And when a man has comprehended that men are 
 brothers, does not the thought of a common fatherhood follow 
 speedily ? 
 
300 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 Dr. Talkwell had several errands during the afternoon, 
 and as John wished to talk with him, the two men drove away 
 in the doctor's buggy shortly after two. A little way from 
 the house, a tall young lad, in his early teens, with an armful 
 of school books under his arm, hailed them to ask the doctor 
 a question. 
 
 u That is my son," said Dr. Talkwell, as they drove on. 
 " He is just returning from school. If you are interested in 
 African explorers, or Arctic expeditions, get Mark started this 
 evening. He will amuse you." 
 
 John Fletcher will never forget the conversation he had 
 with Dr. Talkwell as they drove through the busy street. The 
 ready sympathy, fatherly counsel and quick suggestion were 
 so unusual and welcome that his heart warmed with gratitude 
 toward his new friend. 
 
 And the nature of his errands was a continual surprise 
 and wonder to John. He stopped at a cheap music hall to 
 invite the family of a second-rate " variety artist " to dinner on 
 Thanksgiving. He went to a high-toned saloon and held an 
 earnest conversation with the bartender. From a call at an 
 aristocratic residence, he turned into an alley to leave a bottle 
 of medicine for an old colored washer woman, and finally 
 finished his errands by stopping at the City Hall for a conver- 
 sation with the Mayor. 
 
 It was five o'clock when they reached home again. 
 
 " Now. John," said Dr. Talkwell, as they sat before the 
 study fire again, " When you are warm, I will turn you over 
 to my wife and let her see what sort of a supper you can fix 
 up."' 
 
 " Very well, sir. But what would you advise me to do 
 about getting a job? Do you have any system about that?" 
 
 " No," said the doctor. u But if 1 were you, I think I 
 should not try to stay here. It will be very hard to get a 
 foothold, because your prison record will follow you as long as 
 you stay. Have you anybody you could write to who could 
 help you ? Some friend or relative out of the city ? " 
 
 John pondered for awhile. u I know a steamboat captain 
 on Lake Superior, who used to be a chum of mine in school," 
 he said at last. " You see. doctor," he added, " most of my 
 friends are employees themselves. I have no very aristocratic 
 friends." 
 
 " The bone and sinew of society are the working classes," 
 said the doctor. u Suppose you write to your captain, anyhow, 
 
A DEBTOR TO GRACE. 301 
 
 and tee what he can do lor you. Here, turn around to the 
 desk now, you will have time if you hurry, and there's a post- 
 box close by. Get it done with." 
 
 The letter was soon written and despatched, and in half 
 an hour John Fletcher, in linen coat and big, white apron was 
 bustling about the Talkwell kitchen as it he had been one of 
 them for a month instead of a day. 
 
 There were two new guests for supper, and one of the 
 dinner guests had gone. One of the women helped him with 
 the supper and the Talkwell sisters came in a few moments 
 before it was served to add the finishing touches to the table. 
 
 Ruth had a new picture, and as she stood on a chair 
 fastening it in place, said over her shoulder : 
 
 u Martha, see here ! This bit of wall has been starving 
 for my picture. Can't you remember back now, and see how 
 lonely it looked before ? " 
 
 u Yes," said Martha, u and I can make a simile," turning 
 to John who had entered with a dish, as Ruth was speaking. 
 u Doesn't John fit in as if we had been waiting for him ? Can. 
 you imagine how we managed before he came ? " 
 
 John flushed with pleasure. " Thank you, Miss Martha," 
 he said, " I am glad if I can be of any use. I had almost come 
 to the conclusion that I was of no more use than a dead tree 
 simply a blot on the landscape." 
 
 " Ah, but we can use even a dead tree for fire-wood, and 
 so it is useful," said Ruth, laughing. 
 
 After supper, when everything was tidy for the night, the 
 big family gathered about the study fire. 
 
 u Martha, did you say you had a story to read ? " asked 
 Dr. Talkwell. 
 
 " Yes, father," replied the girl. " It is not very long I 
 do not think it will be tiresome. Shall I read it ? " 
 
 Every one was willing, so drawing her chair close to 
 the lamp, she began to read. It was a simple story with a 
 touch of pathos and a bit of quaint humor Y and she read it 
 well. Ruth was curled up on the sofa with her kitten. Mrs. 
 Talkwel) had her mending basket. The doctor sat with closed 
 eyes in his deep arm chair, with his son's head against his 
 knee. The guests sat, some in shadow, others in the glow 
 of the firelight. And John, who had a liberal dash of the 
 artistic in his nature, looked at the scene with a keen sense of 
 its beauty and uniqueness. 
 
 After the story, John remembered what Dr. Talkwell had 
 
302 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 said and " started " Mark on Arctic explorers, and the re- 
 mainder of the evening was spent in conversation. 
 
 John Fletcher remained at the Talkwell's for a week. He 
 received a letter promptly from his friend, the steamboat cap- 
 tain, telling him to 'come on immediately, as the boat was with- 
 out a cook, and John gladly and yet reluctantly prepared to 
 leave his new friends. Dr. Talkwell procured him free trans- 
 portation to the city where his friend was to meet him, and 
 went with him to the station. 
 
 John's parting with Mrs. Talkwell and her daughters was 
 very affectionate. These three good women seemed almost to 
 take the place of the mother and sisters he had never known. 
 
 " Good-bye," said Mrs. Talkwell. " God bless you, John. 
 Let us hear from you sometime and be a good boy." There 
 was a tender earnestness in her voice that made the simple 
 words a benediction. 
 
 " Good-bye," said Martha, holding out her hand. " Do not 
 forget us. We hope great things for you." 
 
 And then John Fletcher turned to Ruth, and something 
 that was almost a sob rose in his throat. 
 
 " Little Ruth ! " he said, and caught her hands closely 
 u Little Ruth I shall never forget you. God bless you 
 good bye !" He suddenly raised both little hands to his lips, 
 and was gone, before she could frame a reply. 
 
 At the station, as the two men paced up and down the 
 long corridor, John spoke suddenly. 
 
 "There is no use trying to thank you, Dr. Talkwell," he 
 said fervently. " There is nothing I can do, but remember, 
 and pray that sometime I may be able to repay you somehow, 
 for what you have done for me." 
 
 " You can thank me, John." said Dr. Talkwell. u You can 
 repay me." 
 
 " Tell me how, sir; I will do any thing in my power." 
 
 " You must pass it along," said Dr. Talkwell. " The next 
 time an opportunity occurs to help somebody out, do it. You 
 are under obligations to humanity. You must payback in like 
 coin that which you owe. Some day a poor, struggling brother 
 will need you, as you needed me. He may not even ask you 
 to help him, but you must do it. Remember you not only can, 
 but must repay." 
 
 With this strange warning in his ears, John Fletcher 
 
A DEBTOR TO GRACE. 303 
 
 boarded the train, wondering in what guise his opportunity 
 would come. 
 
 Several months later, Dr. Talkwell was speaking in a mis- 
 sion. As he left the rostrum after the services, an eager faced 
 young man approached him. 
 
 a Are you Dr. Talkwell, sir ? " he asked. 
 
 " I am," replied the doctor. 
 
 " Then sir," exclaimed the young man, " It is to you that 
 I owe my life." He grasped the doctor's hand, his eyes shin- 
 ing with tears. 
 
 " How can that be," asked the doctor, " when you have 
 never seen me before ? " 
 
 u I will tell you. Have you time for a story ? " 
 
 ^ Walk home with me, and tell me on the way," replied 
 Dr. Talkwell. After he had spoken to several waiting people, 
 and they were on the street, the young man began : 
 
 u About three months ago, I was a deck hand on a freight 
 steamer on Lake Superior, penniless, almost friendless, un- 
 known. I was taken sick en route. They thought it a malig- 
 nant fever, and the captain was to put me off at the next 
 logging camp. For some reason the cook on the steamer 
 interceded for me. ' It would be murder,' he said. ' The man 
 is delirious, almost dying.' The captain replied that it was 
 better one man should die than the whole crew. ' If you put 
 him off, I will stay with him, said the cook. The captain, who 
 seemed to be a friend of his, tried to reason with him, but the 
 cook was firm. 
 
 u We were put off at a practically deserted logging camp. 
 There was a big saw mill and a few cabins for the hands, but 
 it was not the logging season, and only a handful of men re- 
 mained. Of course they were afraid of me, and I was put in 
 a tumble-down cabin, removed from the rest. The cook 
 stayed with me constantly, waiting on me like a mother. 
 
 u It was bitterly cold, but he bundled me up as well as he 
 could, kindled a fire in the rickety fire-place, and tried to make 
 the room comfortable. The first night we were there, the cabin 
 burned to the ground. He carried me senseless and muttering 
 in delirium to a sheltered place, and helped the men put out 
 the fire, before it spread to the trees. 
 
 u He stayed with me all through the fever and the con- 
 valescence, patient and gentle as a woman. When I had got 
 nearly well again, I said to him one day : 
 
 u i John, why did you do all this for me ? You never saw 
 me before. I am a poor useless tramp, and yet you threw up 
 
304 DR. TALKWELL'S SKETCHES. 
 
 your job, endangered your life and health to nurse me. Why 
 did you do it? There must be a reason.' 
 
 ut There was a reason, Jim,' he said, ; I didn't dare do any- 
 thing else. I had a debt to pay, and I knew the opportu- 
 nity had come.' 
 
 u He told me then of you, and how you had befriended 
 him, and of your last words. 4 It was Dr. Talkwell, Jim,' he 
 said, k who nursed you, who saved your life. I was only his 
 tool, and if ever you see him, I want you to tell him my debt 
 is paid. But in paying it I have learned the joy of helping,, 
 of giving, and I shall always feel that I have a debt to pay 
 whenever an opportunity comes.' 
 
 u And so, sir," exclaimed the young man, a you see it was 
 really you who saved my life." 
 
 When Dr. Talkwell retold the story to his family, they 
 were all pleased and interested, but a glad light came into 
 Ruth Talkwell's eyes " Oh, I am so glad!" she exclaimed 
 fervently, u I always knew he was one of God's noblemen." 
 She turned to the window, and pressing her forehead against 
 the cool pane, looked up into the calm spring sky with its 
 myriads of stars. " God bless you John," she whispered. 
 " May His angels watch over you, and keep you ! " 
 
 So spread the influences from this Christian household 
 as surely and naturally as sunshine. Perhaps it is a youth 
 discouraged by his first failure, who is given a fresh start that 
 changes the course of his whole life. Perhaps it is a young 
 girl dazzled by her own youth and flattered to the brink of 
 destruction. Perhaps an old man tottering toward the un- 
 known with no loving hand to guide him. Or, one like John, 
 in the flush of manhood, brow-beaten and cowed by repeated 
 failures. 
 
 Each goes forth with that message in his ear, " Pass it 
 along ! " Many forget it, many disregard it ; the wheat is 
 sowed often among rocks or thorns. But when it does fall 
 upon good soil, its influence is far-reaching and it is multiplied 
 a hundred fold. 
 
 No institution can take the place of friendly sympathy 
 and communion. No church is so helpful as a Christian house- 
 hold. The influence of happy lives and warm hearts is the 
 influence of love and love is God. 
 
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