CHAPTER XI[ToC]
A CHURCH IN THE GHETTO
About this time the old church of Sea and Land at the corner of Market and Henry streets was to be put up for auction. The New York Presbytery wanted to sell it and devote most of the money to the building up of uptown churches. I was sent there by the missionary society to hold the place until they got a good price for it. I gathered the trustees around me—a splendid band of devout men, mostly young men—and I did not need to tell them that it was a forlorn hope. They already knew it.
We outlined a plan of campaign to save the church for that community, and the result is that the church is there to-day. Of course, the district is largely Jewish, but there were enough Gentiles to fill a dozen churches.
It was inevitable that we should get in touch with the Jewish children. We had a kindergarten, but made it known to the Jewish community that we were not in the business of proselyting, and that they need have no hesitation in sending their children to our kindergarten, which was a great blessing to the whole community. Sunday evenings in the spring and fall, I spoke to large congregations of Jewish people from the steps of the church, on the spirit of Jewish history—as to what it had done for the world and what it could still do.
I think it was in the early part of 1893 that I began my work there. It was the year of the panic, and the East Side was in a general state of stringency and starvation. A group of ministers of various denominations got together and devised a plan for a cheap restaurant in which we were to sell meals at cost.
Probably for the first time in the history of New York, a Roman Catholic priest, a Jewish rabbi, Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist pastors sat down around a table to talk over the welfare of the people. A committee was formed, and I nominated the Catholic priest for chairman. He was elected. The restaurant did not last very long, and probably the chief good of the thing was the getting together of these men. Difficulties, of course, came thick and fast. Kosher meat for the Jews, fish for the Catholics on Friday, and any old thing for the Gentiles, were the smallest of the difficulties to be overcome.
I was supported in my church work by a band of young men and women, mostly from a distance, who gave their services freely, and in the course of a year or two, we managed to increase the church membership by a hundred or so, and occasionally we filled the structure by serving out refreshments to the lodging-house men of the Bowery. I had an opportunity to touch the social needs of the community by coöperating with the University Settlement which was then in its infancy. I opened the church edifice for their lecture course which included Henry George, Father McGlyn, Thaddeus B. Wakeman, Daniel de Leon, Charles B. Spahr, and W.J. Sullivan. Sixteen years ago these men were the moving spirits in their respective lines in New York City. The New York Presbytery was not altogether pleased by this new departure in church work; but we had the lectures first, and asked permission afterward. Most of these men filled the church to overflowing. In the case of Father McGlyn, hundreds had to be turned away.
As I sat beside Father McGlyn in the pulpit, I said, "Father, how do you stand with the Pope, these days? What is the status of the case?"