The Crucifixion of Philip Strong
"Man, who are you? Where are you from? And what is your name?"
His guest turned his head a little, and replied, "When you called me in here you stretched out your hand and called me 'Brother.' Just now you called me by the great term, 'Man.' These are my names; you may call me 'Brother Man.'"
"Well, then, 'Brother Man,'" said Philip, smiling a little to think of the very strangeness of the whole affair, "your reason for thinking I was not sincere in my sermon this morning was because of the extravagant lunch this evening?"
"Not altogether. There are other reasons." The man suddenly bowed his head between his hands, and Philip's wife whispered to him, "Philip, what is the use of talking with a crazy man? You are tired, and it is time to put out the lights and go to bed. Get him out of the house now as soon as you can."
The stranger raised his head and went on talking just as if he had not broken off abruptly.
"Other reasons. In your sermon you tell the people they ought to live less luxuriously. You point them to the situation in this town, where thousands of men are out of work. You call attention to the great poverty and distress all over the world, and you say the times demand that people live far simpler, less extravagant lives. And yet here you live yourself like a prince. Like a prince," he repeated, after a peculiar gesture, which seemed to include not only what was in the room but all that was in the house.
Philip glanced at his wife as people do when they suspect a third person being out of his mind, and saw that her expression was very much like his own feeling, although not exactly. Then they both glanced around the room.
It certainly did look luxurious, even if not princely. The parsonage was an old mansion which had once belonged to a wealthy but eccentric sea captain. He had built to please himself, something after the colonial fashion; and large square rooms, generous fireplaces with quaint mantels, and tiling, and hardwood floors gave the house an appearance of solid comfort that approached luxury. The church in Milton had purchased the property from the heirs, who had become involved in ruinous speculation and parted with the house for a sum little representing its real worth. It had been changed a little, and modernized, although the old fireplaces still remained; and one spare room, an annex to the house proper, had been added recently. There was an air of decided comfort bordering on luxury in the different pieces of furniture and the whole appearance of the room.
"You understand," said Philip, as his glance traveled back to his visitor, "that this house is not mine. It belongs to my church. It is the parsonage, and I am simply living in it as the minister."
"Yes, I understand. You, a minister, are living in this princely house while other people have not where to lay their heads."
Again Philip felt the same temptation to anger steal into him, and again he checked himself at the thought: "The man is certainly insane. The whole thing is simply absurd. I will get rid of him. And yet–"
He could not shake off a strange and powerful impression which the stranger's words had made upon him. Crazy or not, the man had hinted at the possibility of an insincerity on his part, which made him restless. He determined to question him and see if he really would develop a streak of insanity that would justify him in getting rid of him for the night.
"Brother Man," he said, using the term his guest had given him, "do you think I am living to[sic] extravagantly to live as I do?"
"Yes, in these times and after such a sermon."
"What would you have me do?" Philip asked the question half seriously, half amused at himself for asking advice from such a source.
"Do as you preach that others ought to."
Again that silence fell over the room. And again Philip felt the same impression of power in the strange man's words.
The "Brother Man," as he wished to be called, bowed his head between his hands again; and Mrs. Strong whispered to her husband: "Now it is certainly worse than foolish to keep this up any longer. The man is evidently insane. We cannot keep him here all night. He will certainly do something terrible. Get rid of him, Philip. This may be a trick on the part of the whiskey men."
Never in all his life had Philip been so puzzled to know what to do with a human being. Here was one, the strangest he had ever met, who had come into his house; it is true he had been invited, but once within he had invited himself to stay all night, and then had accused his entertainer of living too extravagantly and called him an insincere preacher. Add to all this the singular fact that he had declared his name to be "Brother Man," and that he spoke with a calmness that was the very incarnation of peace, and Philip's wonder reached its limit.
In response to his wife's appeal Philip rose abruptly and went to the front door; he opened it, and a whirl of snow danced in. The wind had changed, and the moan of a coming heavy storm was in the air.
The moment that he opened the door his strange guest also rose, and putting on his hat he said, as he moved slowly toward the hall, "I must be going. I thank you for your hospitality, madam."
Philip stood holding the door partly open. He was perplexed to know just what to do or say.
"Where will you stay to-night? Where is your home?"
"My home is with my friends," replied the man. He laid his hand on the door, opened it, and had stepped one foot out on the porch, when Philip, seized with an impulse, laid his hand on his arm, gently but strongly pulled him back into the hall, shut the door, and placed his back against it.
"You cannot go out into this storm until I know whether you have a place to go to for the night."
The man hesitated curiously, shuffled his feet on the mat, put his hand up to his face, and passed it across his eyes with a gesture of great weariness. There was a look of loneliness and of unknown sorrow about his whole figure that touched Philip's keenly sensitive spirit irresistibly. If the man was a little out of his right mind, he was probably harmless. They could not turn him out into the night if he had nowhere to go.
"Brother Man," said Philip, gently, "would you like to stay here to-night? Have you anywhere else to stay?"
"You are afraid I will do harm. But no. See. Let us sit down."
He laid his hat on the table, resumed his seat and asked Philip for a Bible. Philip handed him one. He opened it and read a chapter from the Prophet Isaiah, and then; sitting in the chair, bowing his head between his hands, he offered a prayer of such wonderful beauty and spiritual refinement of expression that Mr. and Mrs. Strong listened with awed astonishment.
When he had uttered the amen Mrs. Strong whispered to Philip, "Surely we cannot shut him out with the storm. We will give him the spare room."
Philip said not a word. He at once built up a fire in the room, and in a few moments invited the man into it.
"Brother Man," he said simply, "stay here as if this was your own house. You are welcome for the night."
"Yes, heartily welcome," said Philip's wife, as if to make amends for any doubts she had felt before.
For reply the "Brother Man" raised his hand almost as if in benediction.
And they left him to his rest.
CHAPTER XII
In the morning Philip knocked at his guest's door to waken him for breakfast. Not a sound could be heard within. He waited a little while and then knocked again. It was as still as before. He opened the door softly and looked in.
To his amazement there was no one there. The bed was made up neatly, everything in the room was in its place, but the strange being who had called himself "Brother Man" was gone.
Philip exclaimed, and his wife came in.
"So our queer guest has flown! He must have been very still about it; I heard no noise. Where do you suppose he is? And who do you suppose he is?"
"Are you sure there ever was such a person, Philip? Don't you think you dreamed all that about the 'Brother Man'?" Mrs. Strong had not quite forgiven Philip for his sceptical questioning of the reality of the man with the lantern who had driven the knife into the desk.
"Yes, it's your turn now, Sarah. Well, if our Brother Man was a dream he was the most curious dream this family ever had. And if he was crazy he was the most remarkable insane person I ever saw."
"Of course he was crazy. All that he said about our living so extravagantly."
"Do you think he was crazy in that particular?" asked Philip, in a strange voice. His wife noticed it at the time, but its true significance did not become real to her until afterward. He went to the front door and found it was unlocked. Evidently the guest had gone out that way. The heavy storm of the night had covered up any possible signs of footsteps. It was still snowing furiously.
He went into his study for the forenoon as usual, but he did very little writing. His wife could hear him pacing the floor restlessly.
About ten o'clock he came downstairs and declared his intention of going out into the storm to see if he couldn't settle down to work better.
He went out and did not return until the middle of the afternoon. Mrs. Strong was a little alarmed.
"Where have you been all this time, Philip?—in this terrible storm, too! You are a monument of snow. Stand out here in the kitchen while I sweep you off."
Philip obediently stood still while his wife walked around him with a broom, and good-naturedly submitted to being swept down, "as if I were being worked into shape for a snow man," he said.
"Where have you been? Give an account of yourself."
"I have been seeing how some other people live. Sarah, the Brother Man was not so very crazy, after all. He has more than half converted me."
"Did you find out anything about him?"
"Yes, several of the older citizens here recognized my description of him. They say he is harmless and has quite a history; was once a wealthy mill-owner in Clinton. He wanders about the country, living with any one who will take him in. It is a queer case; I must find out more about him. But I'm hungry; can I have a bite of something?"
"Haven't you had dinner?"
"No; haven't had time."
"Where have you been?"
"Among the tenements."
"How are the people getting on there?"
"I cannot tell. It almost chokes me to eat when I think of it."
"Now, Philip, what makes you take it so seriously? How can you help all that suffering? You are not to blame for it?"
"Maybe I am for a part of it. But whether I am or not, there the suffering is. And I don't know as we ought to ask who is to blame in such cases. At any rate, supposing the fathers and mothers in the tenements are to blame themselves by their own sinfulness, does that make innocent children and helpless babes any warmer or better clothed and fed? Sarah, I have seen things in these four hours' time that make me want to join the bomb-throwers of Europe almost."
Mrs. Strong came up behind his chair as he sat at the table eating, and placed her hand on his brow. She grew more anxious every day over his growing personal feeling for others. It seemed to her it was becoming a passion with him, wearing him out, and she feared its results as winter deepened and the strike in the mills remained unbroken.
"You cannot do more than one man, Philip." she said with a sigh.
"No, but if I can only make the church see its duty at this time and act the Christlike way a great many persons will be saved." He dropped his knife and fork, wheeled around abruptly in his chair, and faced her with the question, "Would you give up this home and be content to live in a simpler fashion than we have been used to since we came here?"
"Yes," replied his wife, quietly, "I will go anywhere and suffer anything with you. What is it you are thinking of now?"
"I need a little more time. There is a crisis near at hand in my thought of what Christ would require of me. My dear, I am sure we shall be led by the spirit of Truth to do what is necessary and for the better saving of men."
He kissed his wife tenderly and went upstairs again to his work. All through the rest of the afternoon and in the evening, as he shaped his church and pulpit work, the words of the "Brother Man" rang in his ears, and the situation at the tenements rose in the successive panoramas before his eyes. As the storm increased in fury with the coming darkness, he felt that it was typical in a certain sense of his own condition. He abandoned the work he had been doing at his desk, and, kneeling down at his couch, he prayed. Mrs. Strong, coming up to the study to see how his work was getting on, found him kneeling there and went and kneeled beside him, while together they sought the light through the storm.
So the weeks went by and the first Sunday of the next month found Philip's Christ message even more direct and personal than any he had brought to his people before. He had spent much of the time going into the working-men's houses. The tenement district was becoming familiar territory to him now. He had settled finally what his own action ought to be. In that action his wife fully concurred. And the members of Calvary Church, coming in that Sunday morning, were astonished at the message of their pastor as he spoke to them from the standpoint of modern Christ.
"I said a month ago that the age in which we live demands a simpler, less extravagant style of living. I did not mean by that to condemn the beauties of art or the marvels of science or the products of civilization. I merely emphasized what I believe is a mighty but neglected truth in our modern civilization—that if we would win men to Christ we must adopt more of his spirit of simple and consecrated self-denial. I wish it to be distinctly understood as I go on that I do not condemn any man simply because he is rich or lives in a luxurious house, enjoying every comfort of modern civilization, every delicacy of the season, and all physical desires. What I do wish distinctly understood is the belief which has been burned deep into me ever since coming to this town, that if the members of this church wish to honor the Head of the Church and bring men to believe him and save them in this life and the next, they must be willing to do far more than they have yet done to make use of the physical comforts and luxuries of their homes for the blessing and Christianizing of this community. In this particular I have myself failed to set you an example. The fact that I have so failed is my only reason for making this matter public this morning.
"The situation in Milton to-day is exceedingly serious. I do not need to prove it to you by figures. If any business man will go through the tenements he will acknowledge my statements. If any woman will contrast those dens with her own home, she will, if Christ is a power in her heart, stand in horror before such a travesty on the sacred thought of honor. The destitution of the neighborhood is alarming. The number of men out of work is dangerous. The complete removal of all sympathy between the Church up here on this street, and the tenement district is sadder than death. O my beloved!"—Philip stretched out his arms and uttered a cry that rang in the ears of those who heard it and remained with some of them a memory for years—"these things ought not so to be! Where is the Christ spirit with us? Have we not sat in our comfortable houses and eaten our pleasant food and dressed in the finest clothing and gone to amusements and entertainments without number, while God's poor have shivered on the streets, and his sinful ones have sneered at Christianity as they have walked by our church doors?
"It is true we have given money to charitable causes. It is true the town council has organized a bureau for the care and maintenance of those in want. It is true members of Calvary Church, with other churches at this time, have done something to relieve the immediate distress of the town. But how much have we given of ourselves to those in need? Do we reflect that to reach souls and win them, to bring back humanity to God and the Christ, the Christian must do something different from the giving of money now and then? He must give a part of himself. That was my reason for urging you to move this church building away from this street into the tenement district, that we might give ourselves to the people there. The idea is the same in what I now propose. But you will pardon me if first of all I announce my own action, which I believe is demanded by the times and would be approved by our Lord."
Philip stepped up nearer the front of the platform and spoke with an added earnestness and power which thrilled every hearer. A part of the great conflict through which he had gone that past month shone out in his pale face and found partial utterance in his impassioned speech, especially as he drew near the end. The very abruptness of his proposition smote the people into breathless attention.
"The parsonage in which I am living is a large, even a luxurious dwelling. It has nine large rooms. You are familiar with its furnishings. The salary this church pays me is $2,000 a year, a sum which more than provides for my necessary wants. What I have decided to do is this: I wish this church to reduce this salary one-half and take the other thousand dollars to the fitting up the parsonage for a refuge for homeless children, or for some such purpose which will commend itself to your best judgment. There is money enough in this church alone to maintain such an institution handsomely, and not a single member of Calvary suffer any hardship whatever. I will move into a house nearer the lower part of the town, where I can more easily reach after the people and live more among them. That is what I propose for myself. It is not because I believe the rich and the educated do not need the gospel or the church. The rich and the poor both need the life more abundantly. But I am firmly convinced that as matters now are, the church membership through pulpit and pew must give itself more than in the later ages of the world it has done for the sake of winning men. The form of self-denial must take a definite, physical, genuinely sacrificing shape. The Church must get back to the apostolic times in some particulars and an adaptation of community of goods and a sharing of certain aspects of civilization must mark the church membership of the coming twentieth century. An object lesson in self-denial large enough for men to see, a self-denial that actually gives up luxuries, money, and even pleasures—this is the only kind that will make much impression on the people. I believe if Christ was on earth he would again call for this expression of loyalty to him. He would again say, 'So likewise whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple?'
"All this is what I call on the members of this church to do. Do I say that you ought to abandon your own houses and live somewhere else? No. I can decide only for myself in a matter of that kind. But this much I do. Give yourselves in some genuine way to save this town from its evil wretchedness. It is not so much your money as your own soul that the sickness of the world needs. This plan has occurred to me. Why could not every family in this church become a savior to some other family, interest itself in the other, know the extent of its wants as far as possible, go to it in person, let the Christian home come into actual touch with the unchristian, in short, become a natural savior to one family. There are dozens of families in this church that could do that. It would take money. It would take time. It would mean real self-denial. It would call for all your Christian grace and courage. But what does all this church membership and church life mean if not just such sacrifice? We cannot give anything to this age of more value than our own selves. The world of sin and want and despair and disbelief is not hungering for money or mission-schools or charity balls or state institutions for the relief of distress, but for live, pulsing, loving Christian men and women, who reach out live, warm hands, who are willing to go and give themselves, who will abandon, if necessary, if Christ calls for it, the luxuries they have these many years enjoyed in order that the bewildered, disheartened, discontented, unhappy, sinful creatures of earth may actually learn of the love of God through the love of man. And that is the only way the world ever has learned of the love of God. Humanity brought that love to the heart of the race, and it will continue so to do until this earth's tragedy is all played and the last light put out. Members of Calvary Church, I call on you in Christ's name this day to do something for your Master that will really show the world that you are what you say you are when you claim to be a disciple of that One who, although he was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, giving up all heaven's glory in exchange for all earth's misery, the end of which was a cruel and bloody crucifixion. Are we Christ's disciples unless we are willing to follow him in this particular? We are not our own. We are bought with a price."
When that Sunday service closed, Calvary Church was stirred to its depths. There were more excited people talking together all over the church than Philip had ever seen before. He greeted several strangers as usual and was talking with one of them, when one of the trustees came up and said the Board would like to meet him, if convenient for him, as soon as he was at liberty.
Philip accordingly waited in one of the Sunday-school class-rooms with the trustees, who had met immediately after the sermon, and decided to have an instant conference with the pastor.
CHAPTER XIII
The door of the class-room was closed and Philip and the trustees were together. There was a moment of embarrassing silence and then the spokesman for the Board, a nervous little man, said:
"Mr. Strong, we hardly know just what to say to this proposition of yours this morning about going out of the parsonage and turning it into an orphan asylum. But it is certainly a very remarkable proposition and we felt as if we ought to meet you at once and talk it over."
"It's simply impossible," spoke up one of the trustees. "In the first place, it is impracticable as a business proposition."
"Do you think so?" asked Philip, quietly.
"It is out of the question!" said the first speaker, excitedly. "The church will never listen to it in the world. For my part, if Brother Strong wishes to–"
At that moment the sexton knocked at the door and said a man was outside very anxious to see the minister and have him come down to his house. There had been an accident, or a fight, or something. Some one was dying and wanted Mr. Strong at once. So Philip hastily excused himself and went out, leaving the trustees together.
The door was hardly shut again when the speaker who had been interrupted jumped to his feet and exclaimed:
"As I was saying, for my part, if Brother Strong wishes to indulge in this eccentric action he will not have the sanction of my vote in the matter! It certainly is an entirely unheard-of and uncalled-for proposition."
"Mr. Strong has, no doubt, a generous motive in this proposed action," said a third member of the Board; "but the church certainly will not approve any such step as the giving up of the parsonage. He exaggerates the need of such a sacrifice. I think we ought to reason him out of the idea."
"We called Mr. Strong to the pastorate of Calvary Church," said another; "and it seems to me he came under the conditions granted in our call. For the church to allow such an absurd thing as the giving up of the parsonage to this proposed outside work would be a very unwise move."
"Yes, and more than that," said the first speaker, "I want to say very frankly that I am growing tired of the way things have gone since Mr. Strong came to us. What business has Calvary Church with all these outside matters, these labor troubles and unemployed men and all the other matters that have been made the subject of preaching lately? I want a minister who looks after his own parish. Mr. Strong does not call on his own people; he has not been inside my house but once since he came to Milton. Brethren, there is a growing feeling of discontent over this matter."
There was a short pause and then one of the members said:
"Surely, if Mr. Strong feels dissatisfied with his surroundings in the parsonage or feels as if his work lay in another direction, he is at liberty to choose another parish. But he is the finest pulpit-minister we ever had, and no one doubts his entire sincerity. He is a remarkable man in many respects."
