I

CHAPTER LX

MINISTRY AT THE PARKER MEMORIAL

1901-1905

TRIED to justify Dr. Hale's expectations with regard to the Parker Memorial. His picture hung over my desk, his counsels were treasured in my memory.

I gave

special attention to those whom he committed to my care. Sometimes I won his warm commendation, and he would write me: “I cannot thank you enough for your interest in G—————. It seems as if some of the miracles got themselves wrought now." But not always. There was an impulsive, imaginative element in his nature which at times overmastered his judgment, and made him prefer the dramatic methods of a Salvation Army to the more scrupulous and thorough-going administration of charity in which I had been trained.

Aims and I was wont to say when I first took charge that the Parker Methods Memorial consisted only of a building and an appropriation, a minister and a janitor. My problem was to give to its work larger scope without at the same time encroaching upon fields already successfully covered by other institutions in the neighborhood. This was not an easy matter, for the South End was one of the most extensively institutionalized districts to be found in any city. Scores of churches, settlements, and the like, were at work, often supported by great expenditure of money. My aim was to make the Parker a social center for the young men and women who, to the number of thousands, were employed in the factories and stores of the South End and lived in lodging houses. One of the speakers at my installation, Robert E. Woods, had spoken impressively of the "loneliness" of these young people, and trusted that I would help to lessen it. Their opportunities for social intercourse

were extremely meager. To supply a meeting-place and establish normal and healthful social relations among these young people our building was thrown open from nine o'clock A.M. to ten P.M. every week-day, with books, papers, games, and welcome for all. Wednesday evening entertainments, including lectures of an attractive character, readings, and concerts, were arranged, with frequent receptions, socials, and dances. Opportunities were given for class instruction in various ornamental and useful arts-dressmaking, millinery, wood-carving, clay-modeling, painting, music,-both instrumental and vocal,-elocution, dancing, photography, printing, and cooking; also a gymnasium with efficient teachers, both men and women. Clubs were formed for both sexes. Employment and aid were provided where possible. The Sphinx Club, composed of young society women, conducted Saturday morning classes for children in various arts and domestic sciences not usually taught at home or in school. The lower hall was used on Saturdays as a play-room for the children of the neighborhood. A flower mission distributed hundreds of its blooms weekly in summer. The Martha and Mary Club, meeting on Mondays, prepared and gave out sewing to needy women, and purchased and sold the product. Several Young People's and Boys' clubs were formed.

Nor were the old people forgotten. A Mothers' Club had existed for some years. It had twoscore members, and was made an object of particular care by Miss Jennison and my wife, with admirable results. The membership of all these societies included Protestants, Jews, and Catholics, Americans, Germans, Italians, and Irish. Soon after my entrance on my duties I was able to induce the Boston Public Library to establish a branch Reading Room and Library on the ground floor of our building, which greatly increased its attractiveness as a place of resort. The use of the building was also extended to a score of societies and philanthropies.

These efforts to reawaken interest in the Parker Memorial met with a gratifying response from the residents of the neighborhood, as well as of other districts of the city and

nearer suburbs.

The attendance at the evening entertainments averaged four hundred. Within six months I was able to report that some eighteen hundred people a week entered the building for one or another purpose. The class attendance rose to several hundred.

Religious For a year past no religious services had been held at the Services Parker Memorial, and its work had been confined very largely to Jewish children. This was a falling away from the ideals of Theodore Parker and Dr. Tuckerman. To resume Sunday worship and preaching was therefore one of my first duties. Whether a constituency for it could be obtained in the already over-churched district without infringing on existing congregations was a matter of conjecture. Dr. Hale's society, that of Rev. M. J. Savage, the Hollis Street, the New South, and other of our churches had felt it necessary to withdraw to more American parts of the city. The only remaining Unitarian church-that of Rev. Charles G. Ames-was meditating a similar transfer. As no Unitarian church in Boston maintained regular evening worship it was decided that the Parker should confine its services to the evening. Also that for the present no attempt should be made to gather a Sunday School. Later on such a school was carried on but in another section of the city. These decisions were drawbacks to the creation of a family church, for which the increased evening congregations but partially compensated. My Sunday mornings were largely devoted to preaching in other city and suburban pulpits. In summer time Unitarian open-air services were held on Boston Common; supposedly to counteract ultra-radical orators or religious cranks who made themselves heard there. I did not believe in this policy, but it fell to me as an executive officer of the Benevolent Fraternity to arrange for these services, secure the speakers, and often to conduct the meetings myself. As the services at the Parker began only an hour later it was a drain on my strength.

Our Sunday evening meetings started off finely with audiences of two hundred people, which on occasions when unusual attractions were presented rose to five hundred. After each

service a social gathering was held in the adjoining parlor. As I wrote Dr. Hale:

"You will be pleased to learn that at our second Sunday evening service last night between two hundred and fifty and three hundred persons were present, including every grade of the social order. Two Italians, one of whom wore a red sweater, stayed to the social at the close, in which over one hundred participated. Everybody seemed delighted and was full of congratulations. The music of our new Chorus Choir was particularly fine."

Realizing that the usual conventional sermon was out of place with such an audience I sought to preach on practical topics-on life, brotherhood, and service, with large use of the topics of the time. Once a month I gave a lecture on religious history, or on the heroes of the ethical and spiritual life, illustrated by the stereopticon-Jesus, Savonarola, Wycliffe, Huss, Luther, and Theodore Parker among them. I also repeated here my courses on the Book of Psalms and the great Church Composers, musically illustrated by our church choir, instrumentalists, and the quartets of leading Boston churches who kindly gave their services to us. These were especially popular, crowding the hall. They occasioned considerable criticism on the part of some of the Benevolent Fraternity people, who feared I was departing from legitimate pulpit methods. But as my audiences consisted so largely of drifting elements, and of young people of humble circumstances, hungry for knowledge, beauty, and joy, my method seemed to me to justify itself. Certainly no word was ever uttered at these services which was not dignified, sincere, and in the larger sense of the word religious. Our congregational singing was particularly fine. My new hymn-book, Jubilate Deo, was well tested.

Propa- Attempts were not lacking to use the Parker Memorial to gandist further the propagandist causes of the day. A Socialist comProposals mittee called upon me to urge the holding of a public forum on Sunday afternoon for the discussion of public questions. This method of agitating the public mind had not at that time been developed and safeguarded as it has since by that

remarkable and large-minded man, George W. Coleman, and others. We knew it only as an opportunity for garrulous and vapid orators to push their inchoate schemes and wrangle with each other. Rev. George W. Cooke, himself a Socialist, told me that in New York City he had listened to such a disputation, and asked his companion, the editor of a Socialist journal, "Who are these fellows?" Socialists of the city." "How long do you think the Socialist republic, if established, would endure with these men in charge? Not three weeks!" was the reply. Meanwhile I invited Mr. Cooke, and others of similar opinion, to address us. He also organized a Tolstoi Club, which met at the Parker Memorial.

They are leading

Another approach was made by an anti-Catholic, or socalled American Patriotic League, who pledged overflowing audiences every Sunday. Their denunciatory methods, and my belief that their intolerance and misrepresentation did more to strengthen Roman Catholicism in Boston than to undermine it—driving free-minded and progressive Catholics back into their church when they found it so hatefully and violently assailed-led me to promptly refuse their advances. If reason and conscience and love of country compel us to oppose any creed or church, let us do it with the weapons of light, not of darkness. Dr. Hale several times spoke to me concerning the friction between the Roman Catholic and ultraProtestant elements in the population of the United States. He was of the opinion that it was ever increasing and would lead to serious results. He went so far as to prophesy that the next great civil conflict in this country would be between Roman Catholics and Protestants. Present happenings in American society—the insidious attempts of clericals to segregate their following and to encroach on the dignity and authority of the American State, as well as the secret, intolerant, and often brutal proceedings of the Ku-Klux Klan and similar organizations, give cause for such apprehensions. There is therefore all the more need for better-instructed, fairerminded counsels on this subject.