In closing this chapter we cannot do better than to quote from the fourth volume of the Jewish Encyclopedia, which pays this remarkable tribute to Christianity:
“Christianity, following the matchless ideals of its Christ, redeemed the despised and outcast, and ennobled suffering. It checked infanticide, and founded asylums for the young. It removed the curse of slavery by making the humblest bondsmen proud of being a child of God. It fought against the cruelties of the arena, it invested the home with purity and proclaimed the value of each human soul as a treasure in the eyes of God, and it so leavens the great masses of the empire as to render the cross of Christ the sign of victory for its legions in place of the Roman eagle.
“The Galilean entered the world as a conqueror. The Church became the educator of pagan nations; and one race after another was brought under her tutorship. The Latin races were followed by the Celt, the Teuton and the Slav. The same burning enthusiasm which sent forth the first Apostles, also set the missionaries aglow, and brought all Europe and Africa, and finally the American continent, under the scepter of an omnipotent Church. Christianity is not an end, but the means to an end, the establishment of the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God.”
CHAPTER XI
Hereditary Sin
It was an exceedingly cold night when Jake Grossman burst into the mission, having on the apparel of a hotel cook. He did not take a seat, but marched to the front and prostrated himself at the altar, crying, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” In such cases, no difference what we are doing, all formal program is suspended and we go at once to prayer. Jake was in deep earnest, men and women acquainted with God kneeled all about him, presenting his case to the Saviour of men. We did not then know his special need, but a soul in the depth of conviction wanted God, not for one sin, but he needed cleansing from all the sins of his past life. It must have been an hour before that soul received light. The choir had sung softly, “I'm coming home to-night,” and like melodies; others had come to the altar, been forgiven and gone to their seats, when Jake Grossman rose to his feet and rejoiced that he had found peace and pardon through the blood of Christ.
We found afterwards that Grossman was the son of the great Swiss engineer, who had planned the great tunnel through the Alps, whose genius had built bridges over roaring, impassable canyons, who had planned the electric roads in all parts of Switzerland, until he was wined and dined by scientists not only in his own country but in many countries, so that he had acquired the alcoholic habit, after which his brain became sluggish and at last he fell from his high estate, became a common drunkard and died poor. The memory of the wicked shall perish.
While he was yet prosperous, using expensive wines, his only legitimate son was born. The mother noticed that, as a child of six or seven, Jake wanted a sip every time wine was used on the table; by twelve he could drink a large glass of wine and not show drunkenness. By his twentieth year Jake was a drunkard, the father dead, the mother poor and heart-broken. Friends and relatives all advised sending Jake to America, where wine is not used on the table, and also to get Jake away from old companions.
He came with letters to good people, but alcoholism is not baffled by change of location. His money gave out, the people to whom he had been introduced refused to receive him. Fortunately his mother had taught him to cook, so he obtained a place as an assistant cook in a Washington hotel; later he developed into a first-class chef. When he came to the Mission he had been discharged for drunkenness, and now, being a redeemed man, he went back to the hotel, gave up his white clothing, gathered up his belongings, and sought other work.
That was five years ago. Jake has often been asked by the hotels of this city to cook for them at a salary of $100 or more a month, but Jake daily prays, “Lead us not into temptation,” and he does not knowingly walk into it. He shovels coal at a wage of $10 per week. He says, “You see, it keeps me in the open air; I do not have to taste wine or smell it; I get black on the outside, but I keep white within, which was more than I did as a cook.”
All the heroes are not in high places. “He that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city.” We believe God cleansed Jake Grossman from inherited sin.