is so, you must accept my resignation." He could not do that, because he did not want to come back; and so it went at that, and I had the power given into my hands, but in that unwelcome way.

Of course these people went away growling and grumbling, and I was lonelier than ever; but the congregations began to grow. This was not because my preaching had any special value; for, looking back, I cannot but feel that it was made up of the most hastily constructed, unconsidered, extemporaneous utterances that a boy with a certain volubility and doing the very best he could was capable of. It was Centennial year—a fearful summer; during July and August the thermometer in New York averaged 84, night and day. I suppose there was not another church open on Fifth Avenue during that summer; people were crowding the city on their way to the Centennial, and so after a time the tent was almost full. On Sundays the church was quite full, and I began to taste for the first time the sense of being able to put things through, and it thrilled me. It was sweet beyond words. I was sick and tired; I could not sleep at night; I do not think I averaged more than four hours' sleep every night during that summer; and the mosquitoes, which I had known nothing of before, worried me; but I began to feel that I had plunged into the midst of things. I felt that I had a message for these people in New York, as I had had a message for the people in Norwich.

I had a good many discouragements. For instance, the rector came back before the four months were over. I had a definite engagement with him, so he could not put me out; but he advertised himself to preach at the same hour in the church opposite, and I had much to contend with.

I finished my work on the 15th of September. I had carefully made a list of all the people who came to me; I took names and addresses; and so, when my work was done, I had a list of over two hundred names of people who said they wished to join this church in which I had been laboring. When my time was up, I handed the list to the rector, and said I had done the best I could. I might say right here that about this time Mr. Aiken, famous in America as well as in

England, had asked me to associate myself with him to take up mission service in England; but I did not want to go back to England just then. His invitation, however, gave me the idea to take up missions in the States, for then I could get away from my troubles about baptism. I also had an invitation from a large Presbyterian church here to accept the pastorate of that church, but I did not want to accept the pastorate of any church. I wanted to be free until I could see my way clear and go back in peace to my own land. So, having about decided to take up mission work in the States, when the time came for me to go from New York, I asked the rector for letters of introduction. It was a blow when he

refused to give me letters. I pressed for reasons. I said, "I have worked hard here, and of the result of my work I think you are fully aware; why will you not give me letters?" "Well," he said, "if I give you letters to different churches, you will go there and unsettle the rector; the people may want you, not him, after a fortnight." "But," I said, "I am not seeking a place in the Episcopal Church; I am not seeking your place or any one's. Here is the list of two hundred people who have come to me as a result of my work. All I want is a chance to earn my bread so that I will not be obliged to go home until I can see my way and know what to do."

He would not give me any letters, and I was almost in despair. I had no money, and I was on the point of cabling to my father for funds to take me back again. (I might say incidentally that I owed a dentist's bill of $14, which I was not able to pay for a long time.) I had never taken money from my father after leaving Cambridge, and I did not want to begin. In my quandary I went to Bishop Horatio Potter. I took my letters of orders out of my pocket and said: “Sir, I am a clergyman in good standing. I have been preaching every Sunday for four months in the church at Street, and every evening in the tent on Thirtyfourth Street and Broadway. I want to take up mission work in the Episcopal Church in this country, and I cannot get letters commendatory to the clergy from the rector. I want to know whether you will give me a letter." I shall never

forget the quick and loving response which the old man made.

"Mr. Rainsford, I attended some of your meetings in the tent, and I liked the work, sir. I shall gladly give you a letter, sir."

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May I use the letter?" I asked. "You may use the letter in any way you please, sir."

And the old man wrote me a magnificent letter. I had the letter printed, and then I broke down. I had a sudden sharp attack, and with the last money I had I went off into the Maine woods for ten days, with a guide; and, being young and strong, I came back feeling all right again.

I sent a copy of the Bishop's letter to different churches, and received a response from a church in Baltimore-you know the Southern way-full of enthusiasm: "Mr. Rainsford, will you come and hold a mission in such and such a church? We have heard of your work in the tent; our people are church-going people, but they need to be stirred up; you are just the man we want. Will you come down and hold the mission?" I think this was about the first week in October. I wrote back saying I would be glad to come, and asking them to make some simple preparation for my coming. Then I stayed with friends in New York until the time cameat the one single house in the city where I was received-and on the Friday before the Sunday I was to begin my mission I left for Baltimore. I wrote saying I was coming. There was no one at the depot to meet me. I left my portmanteau and made my way to the rectory. When I got there, the rectory was closed. I made inquiries and found that the rector was in Philadelphia at the Centennial.

I was directed to an insurance agent, who was a deacon in the church. I went to him, and found him a delightful mat Yes, I found a lifelong friend.

"Do you know anything about a mission to begin in your church next Sunday?" 1 asked.

"No."

"Do you know anything about a min named Rainsford who is coming down to take charge of it?"

"Never heard of him," he said, cheer fully.

"Well, then, there's nothing to be done; I'd better go back to England,” I said. "What do you mean by a mission." he asked, beginning to be interested.

I sat down and talked to him about half an hour, and he said, "Why, that's just the thing we want."

"But there's no preparation made at all," I replied.

"Well," he said, "Dr. has forgotten all about it; that's just like him; he'll not be back before eleven o'clock Saturday night; but this is, I believe, God's doing; you stay-"

"But what can I do without any prep aration?"

"Go ahead any way you like," he said. I took the last dollars I had in the world and had two hundred posters printed :

"No."

"None at all?"

"No."

"Do you know of any mission to be held here?"

"No, don't know anything about any mission; the missionary collections were taken some time ago, and we don't want any more."

I asked if there was no one to give me information about the church, and finally

people to put them up, free of chargetwo things which I have never been able to get done in a town since; and then I waited for Sunday to come.

At eleven o'clock Saturday night back came the Doctor. I was in his study waiting for him.

"Mr. Rainsford, I am glad to see you, delighted to see you, sir. I have not made any preparation-in fact, our people are not back in town yet, but I'm glad to see you. I am going to preach Sunday

I

"Dear Doctor," I said, "I have only come here to help you, but I cannot agree to the arrangement that you preach in the morning and the Bishop in the evening. I've got to get hold of the people on Sunday if I hope to reach them during the week."

"Mr. Rainsford, you are a stranger in this country; you do not understand; I am rector of this church, and I repeat, I shall preach in the morning, the Bishop Sunday evening, and you begin Monday." It was a little thing, you may say, but it was a real crisis.

"Dear sir," I said again, "I am only here to help the work in this church and to do the best I can, but I know my business. If I begin the way you suggest, the mission will be a failure. No doubt you are going to preach to-morrow morning and the Bishop Sunday night, but then I am not going to begin on Monday."

At

He stormed up and down his study for twenty minutes. I did not say a word; I sat on the sofa and looked at him. the end of twenty minutes he rushed out saying he had got hold of a rampageous Englishman who was bound to have his way, and asked the Bishop to let him off. The Bishop let him off, and I began Sunday morning. It was not exactly encouraging. It was a wet, stormy day. I preached in the morning, and I really felt that God stood by me. When I got

through, the Doctor said, "You did a great deal better than I expected; you will make a preacher. But you made a great mistake; you did not take any text."

"Doctor," I said, "I am not here to preach sermons. You have been taking texts and preaching better sermons than I can preach all these years; I am here only for ten days; I must work in my own way."

"Go the way other people have gone," he replied; "do not do that sort of thing."

I preached again in the evening, and we had as many as in the morning; again the Doctor grumbled because I took no text; on Monday as many as on Sunday, and by the time Wednesday came the church was three-quarters full. There was an old-fashioned pulpit, from which one could look right down on the com

"Friends, you must come to hear this young man !"

After that the church was always full. That was my first mission in the United States. For two and a half years I went all over the country holding missions in a similar way; and I have always been thankful for the good opportunity it gave me for knowing the country and the people. I twice had a mission in Baltimore, one in Washington, in Philadelphia, in Boston, in Harlem, several places in Ohio, in Kentucky, etc.; I got pretty well around the country.

After a time, at the end of the second or beginning of the third year of mission work, I got an urgent invitation to go to Canada; and I went to London, Ontario, where I had one of the most successful missions in my whole experience. That led to my being asked to Toronto, and there the work developed into something more than a mission; it led ultimately to my living in Toronto for four years.

The Cathedral Church of St. James, Toronto, by which I was invited to hold a mission, was a large and unusually fine church, very well endowed. It held to Toronto somewhat the same position that long ago Trinity held in New York; it represented an endowment given by the Government for the Church of England in the whole town of Toronto. At the time when the endowment was given Toronto had not 5,000 inhabitants; when I went there, there were 85,000. Meanwhile the church held the endowment. St. James's seated 2,300 people. The Dean of the diocese was rector of the church—a man of culture, refinement, and very considerable learning, and a graduate from some Oxford College, I forget which. He was distinctly evangelical, but of the cultured school; it was not quite the evangelical school to which my father belonged. He was an old man, beginning to fail rapidly, and he was urged to have me there to hold a mission. In fact, the whole town of London, Ontario, had been moved, and that led to an insistent call to Toronto.

Let me say that I am speaking now of the year 1878. There had been no movement in Canada such as Moody had been associated with in this country; the people were ready for a serious religious movement. They were church-going people, well grounded in the Bible. They were a moral community-very moral, as I look back and think how they compared with others; but there had been no distinct religious awakening at that time. The time was ripe when I went into Canada. I was not responsible for the wave that came; I only happened to come with that movement, as it were.

I went to Toronto, and I had from the start the evidence there of the presence of God moving on the consciences of men as I have never had at any other time in my life; from the start the crowds were perfectly enormous.

The

You could

It was midwinter, and I had been preaching ten days. As I say, the crowds were immense-crowds outside the church waiting to get in; I do not exaggerate; there would be thousands turned away each night; I have seen four hundred and eighty people stand, with perfect reverence, inside the chancel rails. people came there to hear. hear a pin drop. It was like the things you read of in Finney's life. The people were fired. I did not attempt to have after-meetings in the church. There was a Sunday-school room that would seat perhaps six hundred people at the other side of the church, across a plot of ground; and in order to restrain and prevent mere emotionalism I had my first after-meeting there, not in the church. I said, one evening, after I had preached, "If there are any present who would like to talk with me on matters of personal religion, if they will go to the Sunday-school room, I will be glad to speak with them." I waited a short time, and when I went into the Sunday-school house, I found not less than five hundred people on their knees. I grappled with them as best I could.

I might say in passing that the effects of that work were largely permanent. Men of first-rate position in the city confessed conversion; lived up to their confession for many years-are living so -day. Multitudes of young men came

d to join the church; and at the

end of three weeks I had administered Holy Communion to such crowds as had never been seen before in St. James's; nothing approaching it had ever been seen before in Canada. I prolonged my mission; but at the end of three weeks I was about played out. I had preached nearly every sermon I had; but people came to me and said:

"You must not go; it is absolutely essential for you to stay longer; stay four months, and preach twice on Sunday and once during the week.”

It seemed to be God's call, and I had to stay. The Dean went to England. I lived in the deanery, and preached twice on Sunday and once in the week; and the crowds were almost as big and as eager at the end of four months as when I commenced.

You will understand that at the end of the four months I was absolutely preached out. was spiritually exhausted, not physically exhausted, because I was young and strong, but I had a feeling as though I never could preach a good sermon again. I felt as if I had put the last thing I ever knew into my last sermon; I was preached out.

It was a tremendous wave of religious excitement at that time; I could not get away from it. I preached against dancing; we all did; I told people they should not go to the theater; they did not go; dances were broken up. People who came to dance remained to pray, and all that sort of thing.

There is a completeness about the mission sermons that a missioner preaches that makes them better in a way than sermons preached from Sunday to Sunday; for this reason. In three years a mission preacher addresses himself to certain topics, and approaches those topics from all sides. He listens to confessions of faith, he picks up different illustrations of an idea, and, if he is methodical, as I was, he puts all down. He works, he reworks, he polishes; and there is no excuse for him if, after three or four years of that work, he cannot produce a couple of dozen of such sermons as are about perfect of their sort. The sort may be very poor; but as instruments to produce what a man is after, they ought to be very good. The point that I am coming to is, that their effect on a congregation is marked and

man who preaches them is not so favorable, if he does not supplement the work with other things. The mind gets into a rut. It is working and reworking in a circle, and it may become a vicious circle. This is my judgment; and I am quite certain that the experiences of others verify what I say. I do not want to quote names, but I can think of several good men who have, in my judgment, greatly deteriorated by constant mission preaching.

I parted with the people of Toronto at the end of four months, my heart wrung. Kindness is no word to use for what I received. I cannot describe the effect on myself when I quit preaching, except as a general let-down. I went to England to take a six months' rest and to be married. I was still in a quandary as to my future.

S

the Church of England, and I was upset and unsettled. Then an appeal which I could not resist came again from Toronto:

"The Dean is getting very old; the doctors say he cannot live long; there are signs of brain trouble. You have built up the whole community; they look to you. Come back and be assistant rector. We give you both our hands, as you know you have our hearts, and our universal pledge that, on his death, you shall be our rector."

That pledge was given with most absolute assurance on their part of good faith. I laid the matter before my wife, asked her if she was ready to go with me for some years to Canada, she said "Yes," and we went.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

OME of the larger centers of population in the United States show spectacular evidences of a desire for better conditions, in certain great upheavals. New York turns out Tammany, St. Louis partially sustains the heroic fight of her District Attorney in hunting down boodlers, Minneapolis brings to trial her unspeakable ex-Mayor, Boston scores a victory for the people in a battle with the trolley companies, Baltimore elects a Mayor who puts its city business in a businesslike shape, Chicago introduces the novelty of honest Councilmen. This pronounced and somewhat spasmodic movement shows the deep unrest of the people, and evidences their growing interest in the things which have to do with their rights and duties. It is, however, largely in respect to these more notable evidences of a discontent with political misgovernment that the forward move ment has been described. The turning out of the rascals is but indirectly, though very importantly, connected with another movement for cleaning up, beautifying, and making the city or the hamlet more sightly and more comfortable for its citizens.

This latter movement, which is often

but slightly related to political conditions, is of unrealized extent and force, and it pervades the entire country. Little towns, small cities, the great metropolitan centers, all seem actuated, aside from political reformation, with a desire for civic righteousness, for a return to that natural beauty which is the heritage of many American towns.

The feeling is aptly expressed in the constitution of the St. Louis League for Civic Improvement, organized "to unite the efforts of all citizens who want to make St. Louis a good place to come to and a better place to live in." The distinction between the political regenerative work and this absolutely unpolitical movement is well pointed in this case of St. Louis, also; for while this League, organized by an energetic woman vice-president of the American League for Civic Improvement, is proceeding energetically to live up to its constitution, with the aid of some 1,400 members, it has no connection whatever with the superb work of Mr. Folk.

The American League for Civic Improvement, a National organization, is the result of this insistent bubbling and uprising of the desire for better things. Three years ago it was a National League