CHAPTER XXII
HOW THE CHURCH WORKS
The Ladies' Aid Society. The Young Women's Association. The Young
Men's Association. The Ushers' Association. The Christian Endeavor
Societies. The Many Other Organizations. What They Do, and How They Do
It.
Now that the church was built, now that such power was in its hands, how should it work?
"The church of Christ should be so conducted always as to save the largest number of souls, and in the saving of souls the Institutional church may be of great assistance," said Russell Conwell in an address on "The Institutional Church." "It is of little matter what your theories are or what mine are; God, in His providence, is moving His church onward and moving it upward at the same time, adjusting it to new situations, fitting it to new conditions and to advancing civilization, requiring us to use the new instrumentalities he has placed in our hands for the purpose of saving the greatest number of human souls."
The conditions confronting him, the leader of this church studied. He turned his eyes backward over the years. He thought of his own boyhood when church was so distasteful. He thought of those ten busy years in Boston when he had worked among all classes of humanity, with churches on all sides, yet few reaching down into the lives of the people in any vital way. He knew of the silent, agonizing cry for help, for comfort, for light, that went up without ceasing day and night from humanity in sorrow, in suffering, in affliction, went up as it were to skies of brass, yet he knew a loving Savior stood ready to pour forth his healing love, a Divine Spirit waited only the means, to lay a healing touch on sore hearts. What was needed was a simple, practical, real way to make it understandable to men, to bring them into the right environment, to make their hearts and minds receptive, to point the way to peace, joy and eternal life. He brought to bear on this problem all the practical, trained skill of the lawyer, the keen insight and common sense, the knowledge of the world, of the traveler and writer. Every experience of his own life he probed for help and light on this great work Nothing was done haphazard. He studied the wants of men. He clearly saw the need. He calmly surveyed the field, then he went to work with practical common sense to fill it, filling his people with the enthusiasm and the faith that led him, doing with a will all there was to do, and then leaving the rest with God. Never did he think of himself, of how he might lighten his tasks, give himself a little more leisure or rest. The work needing to be done and how to do it was his study day and night.
[Illustration: This Picture Shows the Four Speaking Tubes Which
Connect by Telephone with the Samaritan Hospital]
A reporter of the "Philadelphia Press" once asked Dr. George A. Peltz, the associate pastor of Grace Church, "if you were called upon to express in three words the secret of the mysterious power that has raised Grace Church from almost nothing to a membership of more than three thousand, that has built this Temple, founded a college, opened a hospital, and set every man, woman and child in the congregation to working, what would be your answer?"
"Sanctified common sense," was the Doctor's unhesitating reply.
Rev. F.B. Meyer, in speaking on "Twentieth Century Evangelism," at Bradford, England, in 1902, made a plea for "the institutional church, the wide outlook, more elastic methods, greater eagerness to reach and win outsiders, more varied service on the part of Christian people, that the minister of any place of worship should become the recognized friend of the entire district in which his chapel is placed."
The "elastic method" is characteristic of the work of The Temple. When Dr. Conwell first came to Grace Church, he organized four societies—the Ladies' Aid Society, the Business Men's Union, the Young Women's Association, the Young Men's Association. Into one or another of these, every member of the church fitted, and as the new members came into the fellowship, they found work for their hands in one or the other.
The Ladies' Aid Society is the pastor's right hand. It stands ready to undertake any project, social, religious, financial, to give receptions in honor of noted visitors, to hold a series of special meetings, to plan suppers, festivals, and other affairs—whenever it is necessary to raise money. Its creed, if one might so call it, is:
"Use every opportunity to bring in new members.
"Remember the name of every new church member.
"Visit useless members and encourage them for their own sake to become useful.
"Visit persons when desired by the Pastors.
"Speak cheerfully to each person present on every opportunity.
"Regard every patron of your suppers or entertainments, and every visitor to your religious meetings, as a guest calling on you in your own house.
"Accept contributions and subscriptions for the various Christian
enterprises.
"Bring in every suggestion you hear which is valuable, new or
effective in Christian work elsewhere.
"Never allow a meeting to pass without your doing some one
practical thing for the advancement of Christ's kingdom.
"Make yourself and the Society of some certain use to some person,
or some cause, each week."
The Society helps in the church prayer meetings, in refurnishing and improving the church property, in celebrating anniversaries, in missionary enterprises, securing the insertion of tablets in the Temple walls, in clothing the poor, in supporting the local missions connected with the church, in calling socially on church members or members of the congregation, in evangelistic meetings, in household prayer meetings, in supporting reading rooms, in comforting those in special affliction, in visiting the sick, in aiding the needy, in paying the church debt, in maintaining Mother's meetings, in looking after the domestic wants of the Temple, in sewing for the Hospitals, the Missions, the Baptist Home, the Orphanage, church fairs, Missionary workers, the poor, in managing church suppers and receptions connected with Ordinations, Conventions, and other religious gatherings.
It is one of the most important organizations of the church and has its own rooms handsomely furnished and well supplied with reading matter.
The Business Men's Union drew into a close band the business men of the church and used their knowledge of business affairs to plan and carry out various projects for raising money for the building fund. They also took a deep personal interest in each other's welfare as is shown by the following incident, taken from the "Philadelphia Press":
"At one time a member became involved in financial difficulties in a very peculiar way. Previous to connecting himself with the church, he had been engaged in a business which he felt he could not conscientiously continue after his conversion. He sold his interest and entered upon mercantile pursuits with which he was unfamiliar. As a result, he became involved and his establishment was in danger of falling into the sheriff's hands.
"His situation became known to some members of the Business Men's Union, and a committee was appointed to look into his affairs. His books were found to be straight and his stock valuable. The members immediately subscribed the thousands of dollars necessary to relieve him of all embarrassment, and the man was saved."
After the building was completed and the imperative need for such an organization was past, the members joined other organizations needing their help, and it disbanded. It is typical of the elastic methods of Grace Church that no society outlives its usefulness. When the need is past for it as a body, the members look elsewhere for work, and wherever each is needed, there he goes heart and soul to further some other endeavor.
The Young Women's Association is composed of young women of the church. It bubbles over with youthful enthusiasm and energy and is one of the strongest agencies for carrying forward the church work. Its creed is:
"Secure new members.
"Attend the meetings, propose new work, urge on neglected duties.
"Help the prayer meetings.
"Volunteer for social meetings.
"Aid in the entertainments.
"Originate plans for Christian benevolent work.
"Welcome young women to the Church.
"Visit the sick members of the Church.
"Seek after and encourage inquirers.
"Hold household devotional meetings.
"Sustain missionary work for young women.
"Make the Church home cheerful and happy.
"Arrange social home gatherings for various church or charitable
enterprises.
"Solicit books or periodicals for the reading room or circulating
library.
"Secure employment for the needy.
"Treat all visitors to the rooms as special personal guests in
your home.
"Undertake large things for the Church and Christ in many ways, as
may be suggested by any new conditions and deeds.
"Instruct in domestic arts, dressmaking, millinery, cooking, decoration, and, through the Samaritan Hospital, in the art of nursing.
"Furnish statedly instructive entertainments for the young.
"Develop the various singing services.
"Specially care for and assist young sisters.
"Coöperate in sewing enterprises of all sorts.
"Aid the Pastors by systematic visitation.
"Push many branches of City Missions, especially with reference to
developing young women as workers.
"Maintain suitable young women as missionaries at home or in
foreign fields.
"Carry sunshine to darkened hearts and homes.
"Be noble, influential Christian women."
It has a room of its own in the Lower Temple, with circulating library, piano and all the cheerful furnishings of a parlor in the home. To this bright room comes many a girl from her dreary boarding house to spend the evening in reading and social chat. It has been the cheery starting point in many a girl's life to a career of happy usefulness.
The Young Men's Association follows similar lines and is an equally important factor in the church work. It plans to:
"Help increase the membership and efficiency of the Young Men's
Bible Class and other similar organizations.
"Persistently follow the meetings of these associations and keep them in the hands of able, consecrated managers and officers, who will lead in the best enterprises of the church.
"Make the reading-room attractive and helpful.
"Help sustain the great Sunday morning prayer meeting.
"Invite passers-by to enter the church, and welcome strangers who do enter.
"Advise seekers after God.
"Bring back the wandering.
"Organize relief committees to save the lost young men of the
city.
"Look after traveling business men at hotels, and bring them to
The Temple.
"Promote temperance, purity, fraternity and spiritual life.
"Initiate the most important undertakings of the church.
"Surround themselves with strong young men, and inaugurate vigorous, fresh plans and methods for bringing the gospel to the young men of to-day in store, shop, office, school, college, on the streets, and elsewhere.
"Visit sick members, help into lucrative employment, organize religious meetings, make the church life of the young bright, inspiring and noble, plan for sociables, entertainments for closer acquaintance and for raising money for Christian work and to use their pens for Christ among young men whom they know, and also with strangers."
It has a delightful room in the Lower Temple, carpeted, supplied with books, good light, a piano, comfortable chairs. It is a real home for young men alone in the city or without family or home ties.
During the building of The Temple many associations were formed which, when the need was over, merged into others. As Burdette says:
"Often a working guild of some sort is brought into existence for a specific but transient purpose; the object accomplished, the work completed, the society disbands, or merges into some other organization, or reorganizes under a new name for some new work. The work of Grace Church is like the operations of a great army; recruits are coming to the front constantly; regiments being assigned to this corps, and suddenly withdrawn to reinforce that one; two or three commands consolidated for a sudden emergency; one regiment deployed along a great line of small posts; infantry detailed into the batteries, cavalry dismounted for light infantry service, yet all the time in all this apparent confusion and restless change which bewilders the civilian, everything is clear and plain and perfectly regular and methodical to the commanding general and his subordinates."
Another association of this kind was the "Committee of One Hundred," organized in 1891. The suggestion for its organization came from the Young Women's Association. A number of them went to the Trustees and proposed that the Board should appoint a committee of fifty from among the congregation to devise ways and means to raise money for paying off the floating indebtedness of the church. The suggestion was adopted. The Committee of Fifty was appointed, each organization of the church being represented in it by one or more members. It met for organization in 1892. The Young Women's Association, pledged itself to raise $1,000 during the year. Other societies pledged certain sums. Individuals went to work to swell the amount, and in one year, the Committee reported that the floating debt of the church, which at the time of the Committee's organization was $25,000, was paid. Encouraged by this success the Committee enlarged itself to one hundred and vigorously attacked the work of paying off the mortgage of $15,200 on the ground on which the college was to be built.
Among the minor associations of the church that promoted good fellowship and did a definite good work in their time were the "Tourists' Club," a social development of the Young Women's Association. The members took an ideal European trip while sitting in the pleasant reading room in the Lower Temple. A route of travel was laid out a month in advance. Each member present took some part; to one was assigned the principal buildings; to another, some famous painting; to others, parks, hotels, places of amusement, ruins, etc., until at the close of the evening they almost could hear the tongue of the strange land through which in fancy they had journeyed. Maps and pictures helped to materialize the journey.
The "Girls" Auxiliary was formed to meet the needs of the younger members of the church. Any girl under sixteen could become a member by the payment of monthly dues of five cents. There were classes in embroidery, elocution, sewing, etc.
The "Youth's Culture League" was organized for the work among youth of the slums; an effort to supplement public school education, making it a stepping-stone to higher culture and better living.
Sports of various kinds of course received attention. The Temple Guard, the Temple Cyclers, the Baseball League gave opportunity for all to enjoy some form of healthy outdoor sport. But since the college and its gymnasium have become so prominent, those who now join such organizations usually do it through college instead of church doors.
The following incident from the "Philadelphia Evening Bulletin" is typical of the help these organizations often gave the church in its religious work:
[Illustration: THE OBSERVATORY
Built on the Site of the Old Hemlock Tree]
[Illustration: THE PRESENT CONWELL HOMESTEAD IN MASSACHUSETTS]
"Eight and a half years ago the Rev. Russell H. Conwell surprised a great many people by organizing a military company among his little boys. The old wiseacres shook their heads, and the elders of the old school wondered at this new departure in church work. Then again he fairly shocked them by making the organization non-sectarian, and securing one of the best tacticians in the city to instruct the boys in military science…. From the first the company has clearly demonstrated that it is the best-drilled military organization in the city, and the number of prizes fairly won demonstrates this. However, the company does not wish to be understood as being merely in existence for prize honors, although it cannot be overlooked that twenty victories over as many companies afford them the best record in Pennsylvania.
"In 1896, the Samaritan Rescue Mission was established by the Grace Baptist Church, and proving a great financial burden, Dr. Conwell offered to give a lecture on Henry Ward Beecher. The Guard took the matter up, brought Mrs. Henry Ward Beecher, despite her threescore years and ten, to Philadelphia for the first time in her life, and so great was the desire of the church-loving public of this city to attend that the mission did not perish."
When the stress of building and paying the church debt was passed, many of these societies went heart and soul into the Christian Endeavor work. Indeed, for awhile it seemed as if the Christian Endeavor would absorb all the church associations. There are at present fifteen Christian Endeavor Societies in the church. In addition to the Christian Endeavor pledge, the following special ways in which they can forward the church work is ever held before each member:
"For the sake of your character and future success, as well as for the supreme cause, keep your pledge unflinchingly.
"Endeavor persistently, but courteously, to seek after those who ask for our prayers and advice at any meeting.
"Never discontinue your endeavors to get new members for the societies. Follow it continually in the name of the Lord.
"Endeavor each day to think, speak, act and pray like the Savior.
"Endeavor and present plans for effective work. Build up a standard of noble living in the Church.
"Send comforting messages to members of the Church in sorrow, send flowers to the sick, or for the funeral, look after the orphans, visit the widows and the fatherless, write letters of advice, invitation, condolence, establish missions for new churches in growing parts of the city, and hold by kindness at least one thousand personal friends at The Baptist Temple.
"Select one leading duty, and follow it without waiting to be asked.
"Make yourself a master of some special line of Christian effort.
"Save some one!"
Five of these societies some years ago started a mission at Logan, a suburb of Philadelphia, and so successful was their work that the mission soon grew into a flourishing church.
The Ushers' Association is one of the strongest and most helpful organizations in furthering the church work. The ushers number twenty-four, and are banded together in a businesslike association for mutual pleasure and good fellowship, and also to better conduct their work and the church interests they have in hand. They are under the leadership of a chief usher who is president of the Association. The spirit of hospitality that pervades The Temple finds its happiest expression in the courteous welcome and ready attention accorded visitors by the ushers.
All members of the church who are willing to give up their seats to strangers on special occasions send their names to the chief usher. And it is no unusual thing to see a member cheerfully relinquish his seat after a whispered consultation with an usher in favor of some stranger who is standing.
In addition to their work in seating the crowd that throng to The Temple either for Sunday services or the many entertainments that fill the church during the week, the Ushers' Association itself during the winter gives a series of fine entertainments. Its object is to offer amusement of the very highest class, so that people will come to the church rather than go elsewhere in their leisure hours and thus be surrounded by influences of the best character and by an atmosphere that is elevating and refining. They have also undertaken to pay off the balance of the church debt.
Missionary interests at Grace Church are well looked after. The church has educated and supported a number of missionaries in home and foreign fields, as well as contributed money and clothing to the cause. The Missionary Circle combines in one organization all those interested in missionary work. One afternoon a month the members meet in the Lower Temple to sew, have supper together, and afterward hold religious services. The members are advised in the church hand-book to—
"Suggest plans for raising money; arrange for a series of addresses; organize children's societies; distribute missionary literature; maintain a circulating library of missionary books; correspond with missionaries; solicit and work for the 'missionary barrels'; send out 'comfort bags'; advocate missions in the prayer meetings and socials; encourage those members who are preparing for or are going into foreign fields, and maintain special missionary prayer meetings."
Members of the church have started several missions, some of which have already grown into flourishing churches. The Logan Baptist Church and the Tioga Baptist Church, are both daughters of The Temple.
The Samaritan Aid Society sews and secures contributions of clothing and such supplies for the Samaritan Hospital. Other charities, however, needing such help, find it ever willing to lend its aid. It is ready for any emergency that may arise. A hurry call was sent once for sheets, pillow cases and garments for the sick at Samaritan Hospital. The President of the Society quickly summoned the members. Merchants were visited and contributions of muslin and thread secured. Sewing machines were sent to the Lower Temple. An all-day sewing bee was held, those who could, came all day, others dropped in as time permitted, and by sunset more than three hundred pieces of work were finished.
Two other organizations very helpful to the members of the church are the Men's Beneficial Association and the Women's Beneficial Association. They are purely for the benefit of church members during sickness or bereavement, and are managed as all such associations are, paying $5.00 a week during sickness and $100 at death.
The books are closed at the end of each year and the fund started afresh.
The Temple Building and Loan Association was organized by the membership of the Business Men's Association, and is officered by prominent members of the church. But it is not in any way a church organization and is not under the management of the church. It is very successful and its stockholders are composed largely of church members.
To keep members and friends in touch with the many lines of activity in which the church works, a magazine, "The Temple Review," is published. It is a private business enterprise, but it chronicles church work and publishes each week Dr. Conwell's sermons. Many living at a distance who cannot come often to The Temple find it most enjoyable and helpful to thus obtain their pastor's sermons, and to look through the printed page into the busy life of the church itself. It helps members in some one branch of the church work to keep in touch with what others are doing. The work of the college and hospital from week to week is also chronicled, so that it is a very good mirror of the many activities of the Grace Church membership.
Thus in good fellowship the church works unitedly to further Christ's kingdom. New organizations are formed as some enthusiastic member discerns a new need or a new field. It is a veritable hive of industry whose doors are never closed day or night.