The suggestion met with both approval and disapproval. A man with full black beard and black hair falling on his shoulders arose and called out:
“Mr. Presiden’: Thees ees politique assembly, not prayer-meeting. We weesh that no clergy deescourse with us. I say ratha’ put that preach’ out.”
But the sense of fair play that governs all American audiences seized now upon this one, and immediately there were cries of: “No! No! Give the preacher a chance! Farrar! Farrar!”
The cry deepened into a roar. The demand was insistent. Half the audience was on its feet yelling for “Farrar!” He was not unknown to most of them. The story of his sermons had gone abroad. They wanted to see him and to hear him. The chairman wavered, turned to consult with one of the vice-presidents of the meeting, and then called to the clergyman to come to the platform. It was an invitation that could not be refused, nor had the rector of Christ Church any thought of refusing it. Resenting Lamar’s assault on Christianity, he welcomed the opportunity to reply to it. He made his way to the rostrum, mounted the steps, and turned and faced the audience now grown remarkably still. He was stalwart, clean-cut, fine featured. His garments were not of the clerical type. He appealed to the eyes of those who looked on him before he had spoken a word.
“My friends,” he said, “I accept your invitation gladly. I want to deny the charges made against religion and the Church by the last speaker. I believe, with the man who replied to him from the floor, that the great need of the workingman to-day is the need of religion and the Church. Physical comforts are not the sole foundation for the happiness of mankind. History can never be properly interpreted from its economical side alone. There can be no just interpretation of it that leaves out God. Before food was, before clothes or homes or gold or silver were, before this world itself was, God was. And after all these things have vanished, God will still be. It is the conception of God in the souls of men, broadening, brightening, growing as the ages have grown, that has lifted man out of the ranks of the savage and brute and has made of him an enlightened human being, demanding good food, good clothes, good homes, and all the comforts and amenities of life. And we of the Christian Church believe that Jesus Christ was the inspired and final interpreter of all the wisdom of God. He was born in a manger. In childhood He felt the pinch of poverty. In early manhood He was a carpenter, working with saw and hammer as many of you are working to-day. He dwelt with the proletariat. Their problems and sufferings were His. He knew the poor and He loved them and strove for them. He had no soft word to say for the rich. If ever there was a guide, a leader, a saviour for the toilers of the world, that leader and saviour is Jesus Christ. He founded a Church upon earth and that Church is still a vital force and a mighty factor in the lives of men, even though, in its course through the centuries, it has fallen now and then from the lofty height on which He placed it. Restored and lifted up, it stands to-day the authorized agent of Christ on earth. That Church is as much for you as it is for your wealthy neighbor. Aye, more for you than for him, because yours is the greater need. Avail yourselves of its privileges. As rector of Christ Church I invite you to come to our services, to unite yourselves with us, to partake of all the privileges we enjoy. Do not let the fear of intrusion hinder you, nor any coldness of welcome on the part of the wealthy prevent you from coming. The place is yours, and its privileges are yours, and as children of God you have a right to enjoy them. And so far as I can control it, there shall be no class distinction there, no line of demarcation between the rich and the poor; but every man shall be the equal of every other man, and all be brothers in Christ.
“My friends, I am a Christian socialist. I believe in your ideals of justice, of equality, of economic independence, and I shall rejoice with you when all those ideals have been crystallized into law. But do not deceive yourselves with the notion that you can accomplish these things without God. Do not make the mistake of attempting to realize your hopes without the aid of religion, for you will never succeed. Rob socialism of the things that hinder and debase it. Vivify it and glorify it with the religion of Jesus Christ who was the one great socialist of all the ages, and your cause cannot fail; the dawn of that splendid day of which you dream, and for which I pray, will not then be far removed from any one of us.”
It was his appearance, his evident sincerity, his magnetic personality, no less than the words he uttered, that caught the audience and carried it with him. They might not yield to his appeal, they might not follow his advice, but from that moment, to the vast majority of them, he was something more than persona grata.
As he came down from the platform and made his way to the rear of the hall a great roar of applause shook the walls of the building, and many men stopped him in the aisle to shake hands with him, and to thank him for coming to their meeting, and for addressing them thus intimately from their own platform.
After that night the toilers of the whole city counted the Reverend Robert Farrar as their friend and advocate, and a protagonist of their cause.