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tion, obliged to discuss religion in a stated place, at stated times, and at the call of a bell, although I admire the man who can thus serve the organized church without allowing the care of its machinery to steal away his strength from the serving of its deepest mission."

What did he mean? Was he about to criticize the organized church from its own pulpit! The touch of challenge in his opening sentences had keyed even higher the attention of the audience. He went on quietly to explain his meaning.

"Problems that lie close to the hearts of disinherited men have crowded upon me so thick and fast," he said, "that I have had as little time to think of machinery as of doctrine. My ministry, if my service to my fellow-workmen may be called a ministry, has been simply an honest attempt to deal justly with the problems of our common life as they have arisen day after day. My surprise at being called a preacher of Christianity is doubly great because-I say it regretfully-until two years ago I knew little of the Bible and had little conscious concern in Christianity. Neither before nor since that time have I had any dramatic religious experience. No light has struck me down on the road to any Damascus. The story of my religion is a strangely simple story. "Two years ago, as I went about counseling, advising, helping my fellowworkmen, doing my best to lighten the burdens that bore them down and to increase the forces that bore them up, I began to catch rumors from many quarters that men looked upon my work as the preaching of a gospel. One day One day a comrade showed me a newspaper that said I had carried Christianity into the smoke and heat of the mills. That I, who knew nothing of its doctrines and was an alien from the church, should be the bearer of its message, was a puzzling thought indeed."

There was a touch of the novel about this that made the crowd forget its disappointment at his plainly practical beginning.

"Since then," he continued, resting his hand on the Bible, "I have looked with a growing interest into this much revered, but little read, volume, and I think I see what the newspaper meant."

The heads of five of America's important industries were seated in pews under the gallery. Rawlins called Mackenzie's attention to the way they had cupped their hands behind their ears and leaned forward to catch Arewen's next sentence.

"In reading this book I found," he went on, "that without knowing it, I had been working away on things that were ever in the mind of the carpenter around whom so much of this book has been written. I had chosen my course in ignorance of the doctrines of this book. I know little of the Virgin birth. I did not disbelieve it; I did not believe it; I simply had not thought of it. I was too busy planning and working that the children of my fellow-workmen might have a safe and sanitary birth and a fair chance to grow in stature and strength. I knew next to nothing of the doctrine of the atonement. I did not disbelieve it; I did not believe it; I simply had not considered it. I was too busy laboring with my fellow-workmen to get them to see that their fight for justice would fail, even though it succeeded, if they fought it, each for himself, to no higher purpose than to fill their stomachs fuller and to clothe their backs better; to get them to see that in their fight the individual worker must sink himself in the group and, if need be, sacrifice himself for the group. I knew little of prayer; but many times when the sky has hung low and black over the hopes of my comrades, I have sat alone in my cottage, disheartened and hungry for some fresh light on our problems, and in those times I have felt myself borne up by some power beyond my own I thought it was the inspiration of my comrades' cause, but maybe it was more than that."

It seemed as though when Arewen arose in the pulpit he really began wondering whether the audience would accept his words if they knew the uncertain orthodoxy of his religious life; but he would not sail under false colors, or take advantage of the pulpit to assume an authority that was not his own. So he seemed concerned to present his full credentials.

"The more I read this book," he con

tinued, "the more I am led to believe that this attitude toward doctrine and life was true of the founder of Christianity; not literally true, perhaps, but strikingly similar. I find him saying very little about doctrines. I must go to others in this book if I would hear his birth discussed or the logic of his sacrifice dissected. I confess I find it hard to understand some of the men in this book. But when the carpenter speaks, I understand him. He speaks in my own language.

"When others in this book speak of 'the kingdom of God,' I become lost in the twists and turns of their mystical explanations; but when he speaks of 'the kingdom of God, 'I seem to recognize the sort of society, the sort of life, I covet for my comrades. I cannot understand those who try to explain the incarnation; but when he says 'I am the way,' it seems but the earnest appeal of one who knows how pathetically dependent upon personal leadership most of us are. I remember how much more quickly my comrades will follow a person than a program, and the incarnation is easier to understand."

He was speaking subtly here, and yet plainly. And the audience understood him. Here was a man who, while yet ignorant of the doctrines of the church, had lived them. Here was a man to whom doctrines were discoveries, not dogmas.

"I find in this carpenter," Arewen continued, "the rich spirituality I should expect in the founder of a religion that has gone the world around. But I find in him a man who did not seek spirituality as a thing for its own sake. In the deeper matters of the spirit I find him. the least self-conscious of men. I find him surprisingly careless of the rites. and ceremonies that the men of his time observed as approved aids to spirituality.

The men of his time fasted at regular intervals; he fasted only when he felt that abstinence would really help his body or spirit. The men of his time prayed at set times and in set places; he observed no hard-and-fast schedule; prayer was to him counsel when counsel was needed; he praved with as little sense of routine as the child who tumbles into its father's arms to be com

forted after a fall. Spirituality breathes through his every word and action, but he did not consciously cultivate it; it was with him as artless a thing as the perfume of a flower."

Here and there through the audience were men who did not quite like the rational freedom with which he handled the orthodox doctrines of the churchmen who were not quite sure whether Arewen meant to say that he had come to a belief in these doctrines or not; but in the main Arewen had won the sympathies of his audience. With what he had said as a background, he turned abruptly to the real burden of his message to this Fifth Avenue congregation.

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"The things this carpenter did consciously concern himself with," said Arewen, with increasing earnestness, 'were justice and mercy and brotherhood. He took the rest for granted. About the rest he did not argue, but justice and mercy and brotherhood he preached in season and out of season. He discussed them from every angle, and by their standards judged the men of his time. In this time of discontent and threatening unrest, justice and mercy and brotherhood are once again the big words of our language. And to you, members of this carpenter's church, they should be bigger words than to any other men or women in the world. finally your kinship to this carpenter will rest upon what you do with these words more than upon all else."

And

There was an uneasy movement noticeable throughout the audience as Arewen said this. The winter had been one of radical unrest in which strikes had become an epidemic as well as a method of protest against legitimate grievances. Large elements in the ranks of labor had lost their heads and revolted against their saner leaders, showing an increasing disregard for law. Several times during the winter militant minorities had held a gun to the head of society and enforced their demands. So this was no time, in the opinion of this congregation, to spread doctrines that could be easily misinterpreted by the masses. Of course they all believed in justice and mercy and brotherhood, but of late these words had been perverted in the hands of mobs drunk with power, and

they had become dangerous words to handle. Besides, with his last words Arewen's bearing had changed. At first he had been the calm expositor of truth; now he was more its impassioned advocate. Something about his bearing seemed to hint that he would not hesitate to condescend to details. The audience listened for his next sentence with a latent hostility.

"Justice and mercy and brotherhood," he continued, "are not mere doctrines to be believed; they are policies to be carried out. The test of your belief in them does not lie in your intellectual assent to them, but in your practical application of them in your stores, your factories, your banks, your shops, your mills, and your offices. The examination of a man for membership in the church might, with as much point, be conducted in his factory as at the altar."

The shouts of the unemployed and strikers floated into the church from the lot outside; the men of the audience felt doubly sure that Arewen was treading on dangerous ground. Of this they were more convinced as he went on. Displaying an unexpected knowledge of the situation in industry after industry, he dealt in ungloved frankness with standards, conditions, and policies in modern industry that hamstring justice, make a mockery of mercy, and repudiate brotherhood. He spoke concretely of matters of housing, working conditions, hours, wages, and profiteering. He told how modern industry had turned workmen into servants of machines where once they had been masters of tools, crushing out of them creative interest. in their work, leaving them with a sense of disinheritance that at times warped their judgments and tempted them to grasp at radical counsels to regain their birthright. He deplored alike the violence of revolt and the violence of repression. He insisted, however, that the mouths of the men before him were sealed from any right of criticism of the orgies of discontent, of strikes, and their social wreckage, until they, the avowed followers of the carpenter, had gone to the last limit of their strength and statesmanship to remove the causes of discontent, and to saturate the stand

ards, conditions, and policies of their industries with justice and mercy and brotherhood.

Are

"In saying these things," he continued, "I am giving no mere counsel of selfish safety; I am only repeating the things that lay closest to the mind and purpose of the one from whom your religion sprang. By these things the orthodoxy of your faith is tested more than by your creeds and rituals. You say you believe in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. How much do you believe it? It is this idea that has set the world in ferment and loosed the dreams of democracy. you the men who are leading the fight for these things, or are you playing a game of unwilling concession? Why should the world of industry be split into two armed camps to-day? Why should the ranks of those who to-day have most to say about justice and brotherhood be filled so full with men opposed to you and outside your church? You, of all men, should be in the forefront of every battle for justice and brotherhood. It should never be that a follower of the carpenter must be cajoled into justice or driven into brotherhood."

The prophet in him was speaking. His muscles were tense and his eyes flashing as he hurled these questions at his audience. He saw the angry resentment of faces throughout the audience, a resentment that had been plainly noticeable since he had brought the ideals of the church down out of the rarefied atmosphere of intellectual belief into the field of industrial practice.

"If you had been leading this fight through the years," he said, with a burning conviction, "what tragedies we might have been spared! What scars of passion and class hatred we might have avoided! If you, who openly confess your belief in justice and brotherhood, if you, upon whom life has smiled, have at times forgotten your ideals in a lust for power, is it to be wondered at that men who are strangers to the finer graces of life, men upon whom life has laid a heavy hand, at times grow unreasonable and get drunk on power?"

A prominent member of the board of trustees of the church arose from his

pew and stalked angrily out of the church, muttering something about "profaning the house of God with his impertinent muck-raking."

Arewen's countenance softened as he saw the man leave the church, and his voice dropped.

"I know how hard it is," he said, "I know what a complicated thing it is, to be a good man while caught in the tangled skein of present-day business and industrial relations. I find it easy to sympathize even as I condemn. But I say unto you, unless you seek first these things, your observance of ritual and your assent to doctrines are only travesties upon the simple gospel of Christianity; you miss the meaning of the world's supreme martyrdom, and turn the crucifix into a mere piece of jewelry to dangle from your waistcoat or a piece of bric-à-brac to adorn your walls. You have thought of Christianity as a comfort; I bring it to you as a challenge."

Arewen paused. There came into his face the sadness of the unheeded prophet. He knew that it was not only the men and women before him, but their whole training and environment, the whole system of modern society, that was turning a deaf ear to his appeal.

"Maybe I have spoken of justice and brotherhood as things opposed to the inner spirit and the observances of the church," he said. "If so, it was only because I wanted to lay all possible emphasis upon the things we are most likely to forget. I meant only to say in a new way, 'These things ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.' I would not have you think me a hostile critic of the church. I am not of the church, I am not even sure that I am a Christian,-I suspect many would say that I am not,-but of this I am growing surer every day: the message of the church, the full message of the church, is the only hope of civilization in these strangely troubled times. Wars of nations and wars of classes will end only when society everywhere accepts the platform of the carpenterleader of the church."

With these words, Arewen closed. The choir sang the doxology; Dr. Ellsworth pronounced the words of the

benediction. The audience had been so stirred by the address that whispered discussion of it ran through the doxology and benediction. The aisles were crowded with men and women who felt that an unfair advantage had been taken of them, tricked into listening to a harangue under the guise of a vesper

sermon.

"Very interesting, very interesting indeed," ventured Mackenzie; "but the fellow is hardly orthodox, I should say."

"If that man is n't a Christian," countered Rawlins, "then the whole world's pagan."

Mackenzie and Rawlins listened to the comments of the crowd pushing its way out of the church as though eager to get away from an unpleasant experience.

"It's blasphemy pure and simple, this dragging in of the Son of God to bolster up his soap-box doctrines," angrily exclaimed one elderly man.

"How did Dr. Ellsworth ever get fooled into inviting this wild-eyed reformer to our pulpit?" asked another.

"It's an insult to the men who have supported and made this church what it is," hotly protested a portly gentleman who only a few days before had been fined by the Government in its investigation of sugar hoarding.

It was plain that there were few men in that congregation who did not feel that their pulpit had been prostituted to the purpose of an agitator. John Arewen was left alone in the church with Dr. Ellsworth, whose face bore a troubled look as he watched his congregation angrily leave the church. the two men turned to face each other, there was a light of honest appreciation in Dr. Ellsworth's eyes. He gripped the stranger's hand tightly, and said simply:

"Thank you, Brother Arewen."

IV

But as

BESIDES Rawlins, there was one man at least who had approved without reservation that part of Arewen's address he had heard. One of the unemployed, an unkempt figure with the reputation of a revolutionary, had been standing for more than two hours in the meeting out

side. The winter rawness had crept through his threadbare clothing; his hands were stiff with cold, and he had decided to go into the church for a moment to warm himself. He had crept unnoticed into a corner at the rear of the church just as Arewen had begun to challenge the audience with the practical applications of its doctrines of justice and brotherhood. It was the first time he had been inside a church for a score of years. He was bitter against the church. As he listened to Arewen, he could hardly believe his ears. He chuckled with vindictive glee as the audience of the upper classes moved uneasily at Arewen's words. Without waiting for Arewen's conclusion, he rushed out of the church and made directly for the man who was heading the rather headless meeting on the lot outside.

"Say," he exclaimed breathlessly, "is the world comin' to an end, or ain't it? There's a feller in there who 's certainly handin' that bunch of plutocrats a hot package. He 'll probably get kicked out, and I think we ought to be here to catch him when he lights. He's one of us, or I'm a bum guesser. It'd be a big card

for us if we could get him to talk to our crowd just after he gets through with them in there."

The leader of the meeting asked what the man inside had said, and then enthusiastically agreed to try to catch him as he came out and get him to talk to their crowd. They watched both doors of the church, the front and side doors, for Arewen's appearance, Before long Arewen appeared, alone. He stood for a moment as in mediation on the steps at the side door.

"That's him," eagerly exclaimed the man who had been in the church, rushing up to Arewen.

"Say, that was great stuff you handed 'em in there. You certainly got under their hides all right, all right. We want you to talk to this crowd out here, where you won't get the cold shoulder you got in there,” he said to Arewen.

"Who are these people?" asked Arewen as he moved a bit closer to catch the words of a man who was widly gesticulating from the soap-box.

"They're men out of work, who 've

got good and sick of the rotten deal that's been handed 'em," the man replied.

Arewen heard the man's reply, but he was listening to the man on the soapbox, who was giving vent to as bitter an appeal to class hatred as Arewen had ever heard. The bitterness of the speaker's appeal seemed to decide Are

wen.

"I will speak," he said simply.

When the speaker had finished his bitter counsel of hatred and violence, the man who had been captured by Arewen's appeal in the church jumped upon the soap-box and spoke to the crowd. "Comrades," he said, "I 've got a surprise for you. A little while ago I went into the church there for a minute to get warm. I did n't figure on listenin' to the sermon,-you know what I think of preachers, but I did listen. There was a feller talkin' to that crowd in words I could understand. He was handin' that bunch the truth hot and heavy. And, say, you ought 've seen 'em squirm. I says to myself, 'He's our kind, and I'll get him to talk to us outside, where he 'll get a real welcome." He says his name 's John Arewen and that he 's spent his life in the steel-mills. Here he is."

Arewen mounted the soap-box. Mackenzie and Rawlins, who had stopped as they came out of the church to watch the crowd of unemployed and strikers, were surprised when they saw Arewen facing the crowd. They drew nearer to catch his words.

"He will go better with this crowd, I should say," commented Mackenzie. Rawlins said nothing.

The crowd shouted its welcome to Arewen. They were eager to hear him arraign the upper classes he has been addressing in the church.

"As I listened to our comrade, who has just spoken, counsel you to hatred and violence to gain your ends," Arewen began, "there came to my mind a saying of Mohammed's. This man, who said many good things, said that 'if any man have two loaves of bread, let him trade one for a narcissus. The bread is nourishement for the body, but the narcissus is nourishment for the soul.' I suspect the narcissus blooms very

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