Mr. Nelson did not scatter his interests indiscriminately but concentrated his efforts in the fields where he was most competent: social problems and the relation of the Church to the most concrete activities of human life. All these fitted into his prime purpose.
The vision which governed his days was strengthened every year in the long vacations that he took at his summer home in Cranberry Isles, Maine. There beside the sea he dreamed long dreams, and drank in the salty air which brought indispensable relaxation, and mental and spiritual refreshment. In his small cabin on a point of land overlooking the limitless ocean, he could be very much alone. Something of that setting and its influence is conveyed in a letter to the Reverend Theodore Sedgwick, a life-long friend, which discloses Mr. Nelson in a reflective mood:
Sept. 6, 1928
Many, many thanks for your intensely interesting letter, and its review of Julian Huxley's book. Such a view of life and religion does make one stop and think—and hesitate. It is the terribly earnest spiritual problem that we face today in the ministry. It is the sort of thing I had in mind, in suggesting the subject of "God" for the next Swansea Conference. For we have got to face the issue with eyes open, minds familiar with the biologist's point of view. The old affirmations of formal theology are not adequate to meet the issue. And yet in those affirmations I am sure lies the truth—that God lives, God our Father—conscious of Himself and of us—a person in a very real sense—from Whom we derive personality—from Whom we came—and to Whom we go. If mankind loses that, "his arms do clasp the air" and he drowns in the infinity of time and space and his own nothingness. We have from Christ the truth and somehow we must learn it with a new understanding—or rather with the new understanding that modern science and modern reverent scientific thought have given us. I am sitting at my desk in my cabin at sunset. The day has been cool and grey—a heavy curtain of cloud over the sky—But now—that curtain is thinning and through the break in the west—the whole glory of the sun has colored sky and sea with a golden light beyond description for exquisite beauty. The gulls are winging their way across the sea to a distant island where they rest and go back to each night. As I sit and look, my whole spirit is moved by the beauty and the evening quiet. There is infinity here—of space and imagination. Yet—the gulls—I think, are unconscious of all that—but I am moved by it and keenly conscious of it. It is not just biology—or I would be as the gulls—and I am not. And men are not. They want God—behind the glory—God clothed with the glory—adequate to the glory—that their own imagination and hunger and aspiration may be justified—That is what Christ has given us to preach and it is the truth. Now the gold has turned to a flaming red—thrilling almost to the point of pain. One must believe—and then face the chill grey of the coming night with the memory of it to lighten and interpret it.
We go a week from tomorrow, back to work, to the men and women who have so bravely gone on working through long, hot summer days in the streets and factories and tenements of the city. And in that bravery and drudgery, there is the same flaming glory of God. It isn't just biology—it is the spirit of God, making the physical the dwelling place of God and glorifying it with His presence.
Frank Nelson had an almost Elizabethan zest for thought and action, and even at Cranberry he entered enthusiastically into the local life. He preached at least once every summer in the Congregational Church, and in that church today are numerous memorials to him: a silver alms bason, the Service Book of the Congregational Church beautifully bound in red morocco, a United States flag, and several pictures. Each year at Easter there is a large cross of geraniums in the church, and after the service the flowers are distributed among the families on the island with a card saying, "Given in memory of Frank Howard Nelson with the Easter message of Christ's Resurrection." When he left Cranberry the last time, all the public school children were dismissed to wave their goodbyes. His unaffected interest in the affairs of the community expressed itself in practical ways, and his unassuming and simple manner gave little inkling that he was a foremost citizen of Cincinnati.
"There is nothing comparable," says Coventry Patmore, "for moral force to the charm of truly noble manners." Frank Nelson's manner was not only the result of a choice family inheritance, but also the rich fruitage of a lifetime of faithful obedience to a consuming passion and vision. He was a life-giving river flowing in a parched land. In him the ancient prophet's words found a fresh fulfillment: "Everything shall live whithersoever the river cometh."
FOOTNOTES:
[21] R. L. Nettleship Lectures on the Republic of Plato, p. 129, published by Macmillan Co. Used with permission.