When Gordon announced at the evening service that a million dollars had been subscribed to the new “Temple of Man,” and that he had been constituted its sole trustee, the crowd burst into a storm of applause.
In vain he raised his big muscular hand over the tumult.
Troops of young men and women with flushed faces, some laughing, some crying, sprang from their seats, rushed to the platform and seized his hand.
The strains of the national hymn suddenly burst from the crowd, and they rose en masse singing it with triumphant peal. As its last note died away a woman’s voice started “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” the people caught it instantly and its mighty chorus rolled heavenward. The singing had in it the spontaneous rhythm of hearts transported by resistless feeling. For half an hour they stood and sang the old familiar hymns whose sentences were wet with the tears and winged with the hopes and mysteries of their lives.
Instead of a sermon, Gordon read his resignation as pastor of the Pilgrim Church.
And then, folding his hands behind him, in trumpet tones he cried:
“Next Sunday morning will be the last service I will ever conduct in this church; the Sunday morning following, at eleven o’clock, the first services of the ‘Church of the Son of Man’ will be held in the old Grand Opera House. It will seat four thousand people. All who wish to join this independent society are cordially invited to be present and bring your friends. The work of building the ‘Temple of Man’ will begin at once. Within six months we hope to lay its corner-stone.”
The meeting was closed at once with the Doxology and Benediction.
The reporters crowded around him for fuller details. He refused to give any further information. They interviewed every officer of the church and congregation from whom any news might be secured, and it was nine o’clock before the excitement had subsided and the crowd left.
The organist and quartet choir lingered to rehearse their music for the following Sunday.