The Workers: An Experiment in Reality. The East

by Walter A. Wyckoff

I reached the church at the hour of the evening service. I opened the door, and there sat a crowded congregation in waiting. The back seats on both sides of the aisle were solid ranks of men, lumbermen, and teamsters, and tannery hands, many of them in their working-clothes. There were women and children scattered through the pews farther up, and some boys had overflowed upon the pulpit steps, but most of the company were men.

There was no one in the minister's seat, but the postmistress was in place at the organ, and as I entered, she nodded to me in evident expectation of my joining her. I walked forward, and she stepped out into the aisle to meet me.

"It's time to begin," she said, quietly.

"Is your minister not come yet?" I asked.

"Oh, you're going to speak to-night, you know."

I did not know. For an instant I knew only that there was a cold, hard grip upon my heart which seemed to hold it still, and that in my brain there had begun a mad dance of all that I ever thought I knew. But from out the turmoil a sane thought emerged: "This is a company of working-people who are come to hear a fellow-workman speak to them about our deepest needs." In another moment I was cooler, and a strange, unreasoning peace ensued.

I asked the postmistress to select some hymns. She handed me a list, chosen with perfect knowledge of those which the congregation most enjoyed. The people were soon singing, thinly at first; but the familiar melody spread, and carried with it a sense of solidarity, in which self was merged and lost, and the swelling sound rolled on, deepening with the voices of the men. Soon it recalled college-chapel, with the students in a mood to sing, and "Ein' Feste Burg" mounting in the majesty of that deep-toned hymn, until the vaulted ceilings rock, and the archangels above the chancel seem to join in the splendid volume of high praise!

But more helpful to me than the singing was the sight of familiar faces. Black Bob stood towering like another Saul above the mass of men; and at his side was one of our teamsters who lives in the village, and with whom I had often loaded bark. Near the door—I was not quite sure at first, but there could be no mistake—near the door was Fitz-Adams, and not far from him Long-nosed Harry and Phil the Farmer stood together.

I was trembling when I began to speak, trembling with awful fear, a fear that was yet a solemn joy; for I had vision then of human hearts hungering to be fed, and, as a sharer in their need, I knew that it was given to me to point them to the Bread of Life.

I could speak to them now, for with greater clearness I could see these fellow-workers as they were—strong, brave men who win the mastery which comes to those who clear the way for progress, giving play, in their natural living, to the forces which make men free, and growing strong in heart and in the will to do, as they grow strong of arm and catch the rough cunning of their trade; men of many races, yet meeting on the common ground of men all free and under equal chance to make their way; knowing no differences but those of personality, and winning their places in the crew, each man according to his kind, and his rewards according to his skill.