By REV. CHARLES M. SHELDON ,
> * Author of "In His Stops : What Would Jesus DoP" "Malcom
Kirk , " "Bobert Hardy's Seven Days , " Etc.
1890. by The Advance Publishing I *
* *
* *
Philip opoie2 * ifieTutcDcfiUbor anQ in
quired of the servant , who sat there
reading , where his wife was.
"I think she went up stairs a little
while ago , " was the reply.
Philip went at once up stairs into his
study and to his alarm found that his
wife had fainted. She lay on the floor
in front of his desk. As Philip stooped
to raise her he noticed two pieces of
paper , one of them addressed to "The
Preacher" and the other to "The
Preacher's Wife. " They were anony
mous scrawls , threatening the lives of
the minister and his wife. On his desk ,
driven deep into the wood , was a large
knife. Then said Philip with a prayer.
"Verily an enemy hath done this. "
CHAPTER VII.
The anonymous Ifttters , or rather
scrawls , which Philip found by the
side of his unconscious wife as he
stooped to raise her up read as follows :
Preacher Better pack up and leave. Milton is
'not big enough to hold you alive. Take warning
in time.
Preacher's Wife As long as you stay in Milton
there is danger of two funerals. Dynamite kills
women as well as men.
Philip sat by the study lounge holdIng -
Ing these scrawls In his hand as his
wife recovered from her fainting flt
after he had applied restoratives. His
heart was Glled with horror at the
thought of the complete cowardice
which could threaten the life of an in
nocent woman. There was with It a
feeling of intense contempt of such
childish , dime novel methods of in
timidation as that of sticking a knife
into the study desk. If it had not
been for Its effect on his wife , Philip
would have laughed at the whole
thing. As It was , he was surprised
and alarmed that she had fainted , a
thing he had never known her to do ,
and as soon as she was able to speak
he listened anxiously to her story.
"It must have been an hour after
you had gone , Philip , that I thought I
heard a noise up stairs , and , thinking
perhaps you had left one of your windows
dews ilvrwn at the top and the curtain
was flapping , I went right up , and the
minute I stepped into the room I had
the feeling that some one was there. "
"Didn't you carry up a light ? "
"No. The lamp was burning at the
end of the upper hall , and so I never
thought of needing more. Well , as I
moved over toward the window , still
feeling that strange , unaccountable
knowledge of some one there , a man
stepped out from behind your desk ,
walked right up to me and held out
'hose letters in one hand , while with
u
" other lie threw the light from a
jtoljgll bull's eye or burglar's lantern
Neving" ) listened in amazement.
h , vou must have dreamed all
isn't likely that any man
do such a thing. "
, I did not dream. I was ter
ribly wide awake and so scared that
I couldn't even scream. My tongue
seemed to be entirely useless. But I
felt compelled to read what was writ
ten , and the man held the papers there
until the words seemed to burn my
eyes. He then walked over to the
desk and with one blow drove the
knife down into the wood , and then I
fainted away , and that is all I can re
member. "
"And what became of the man ? "
asked Philip , still inclined to think
that his wife had in some way fallen
asleep and dreamed at least a part of
this strange scene , perhaps before she
went up to the study and discovered
the letters. "I don't know ; maybe he
is In the house yet. Philip , I am al
most dead for fear not for myself , but
for your life. "
"I never had any fear of anonymous
letters or of threats , " replied Philip ,
contemptuously eying the knife , which
was still sticking in the desk. "Evi
dently the saloon men think I am
a child to be frightened with these
bugaboos , which have figured in every
sensational story since the time of
Captain Kidd. "
"Then you think this is the work of
the saloon men ? "
"Who else can it be ? We have no
other enemies of this sort in Milton. "
"But they will kill you. Oh , Philip ,
I cannot bear the thought of living
here in this way ! Let us leave this
dreadful place. "
"Little woman , " said Philip , while he
bravely drove away any slight anxiety
he may have had for himself , "don't
you think it would be cowardly to run
away so soon ? "
"Wouldn't it be better to run away
so soon than to be killed ? Is there any
bravery in staying in a place where
you are likely to be murdered by some
coward ? "
"I don't think I shall be , " said Philip
confidently. "And I don't want you
to be afraid. They will not dare to
harm you. "
"No , Philip ! " exclaimed his wife ea
gerly ; "you must not be mistaken. I
did not faint away tonight because I
was afraid for myself. Surely I have
no fear there. It was the thought of
the peril in which you stand daily as
you go out among these men , and as
you go back and forth to your meet
ings in the dark. 1 am growing nerv
ous and anxious ever since the shoot
ing , and when I was startled by the
man here tonight I was so weak that I
fainted. But I am sure that they do
not care to harm me ; you are the ob-
1ect pj tL' ir I'0- ' * - Tf-1'p'r gi-riko n r
onenrwhTbeyo27"That Is'thc reason
I want to leave this place. Say you
will , Philip. Surely there are other
churches where you could preach as
you want to and still not be in such
constant danger. "
It required all of Philip's wisdom and
love and consciousness of his immedi
ate duty to answer his wife's appeal
and say no to it. It was one of the se
verest struggles 4ie ever had. There
was to be taken into the account not
only his own safety , but that of his
wife as well. For , think what he
would , he could not shake off the feelIng -
Ing that a man so cowardly as to re
sort to the assassination of a man
would not be overparticular even if it
should chance to be a woman. Philip
was man enough to be entirely unshak
en by anonymous threats. A thou
sand a day would not have unnerved
him in the least He would have
writhed under the sense of the great
sin which they revealed , but that is til
the effect they would have had.
When it came to his wife , however ,
that was another question. For a mo
ment he felt like sending in his resig
nation and moving out of Milton as
soon as possible. Mrs. Strong did not
oppose his decision when once he had
declared his resolve. She knew Philip
must do what to him was the will of
his Master , and with that finally she
was content.
She had overcome her nervousness
and dread now that Philip's coura
geous presence strengthened hsr , and
she began to tell him that he had bet
ter hunt for the man who had appear
ed so mysteriously in the study.
"I haven't convinced myself yet that
there is any man. Confess , Sarah , that
you dreamed all that. "
"I did not. " replied his wife , a little
indignantly. "Do you think I wrote
those letters and stuck that knife into
the desk myself ? "
"Of course not. But how could a
man get into the study and neither you
nor the girl know it ? "
"I did hear a noise , and that is what
started me up stairs. And he may be
In the house yet I shall not rest easy
until you look into all the closets and
down cellar and everywhere. "
So Philip , to quiet his wife , search
ed the house thoroughly , but found
nothing. The servant and the min
ister's wife followed along at a re
spectful distance behind Philip , one
armed with the poker and the other
with a fire shovel , while he pulled open
closet doors with reckless disregard of
any possible man hiding within and
pretended to look into the most unlike
ly places for him , joking all the while
to reassure his trembling followers.
They found one of the windows in
Philip's study partly open. But that
did not prove anything , although a
man might have crawled in and out
again through that window from an ell
of the parsonage , the roof of which ran
near enough to the window so that an
active person could gain entrance that
way. The whole affair remained more
or less a mystery to Philip. However ,
the letters and the knife were real.
He took them down town next day to
the office of the evening paper and ask
ed the editor to publish the letters and
describe the knife. It was too good a
piece of news to omit , and Milton people
ple were treated to a genuine sensation
when the article came out Philip's
object in giving the incident publicity
was to show the community what a
murderous element it was fostering in
the saloon power. Those threats and the
knife preached a sermon to the
thoughtful people of Milton , and citi
zens who had never asked the questiou
before began to ask now , "Are we to
endure this saloon monster much lon
ger ? "
As for Philip , he went his way the
same as ever. Some of his friends and
church members even advised him to
carry a revolver and be careful about
going out alone at night Philip laugh
ed at the idea of a revolver and said :
"If the saloon men want to get rid of
me without the trouble of shooting me
themselves , they had better make me a
present of a silver mounted pistol.
Then 1 would manage the shooting my
self. And as for being careful about
going out evenings , what is this town
thinking of that it will continue to
license and legalize an institution that
makes its honest citizens advise new
comers to stay at home for fear of as
sassination ? No. I shall go about my
work just as if I lived in the most law
abiding community in America. And If
I am murdered by the whisky men I
want the people of Milton to under
stand that the citizens are as much to
blame for the murder as the saloon
men. For a community that will li
cense such a curse ought to bear the
shame of the legitimate fruits of it. "
The trial of the man with the hare
lip had been postponed for some legal
reason , and Philip felt relieved some
what He dreaded the ordeal of the
court scene. And one or two visits
made at the jail had not been helpful
to him. The man had refused each
time to see the minister , and he had
gone away feeling hungry in his soul
for the man's redemption and realiz
ing something of the spirit of Christ
when he was compelled to cry out ,
"They will not come unto me that they
might have eternal life. " That always
seemed to Philip the most awful fea
ture of the history of Christ that the
Yo'rv rpor > ! o.hpJovol nnrl " .irnod.altCl !
sprc updnTjTIh'rfdlf UhaTIy ? > tv > Ke nis
heart with their hatred.
He continued his study of the prob
lem of the town , believing that every
place has certain peculiar local char
acteristics which every church and
preacher ought to study. He was
struck by the aspect of the lower part
of the town , where nearly all the poor
er people lived. lie went down there
and studied the situation thoroughly.
It did not take a very great amount of
thinking to convince him that the
church power in Milton was not prop
erly distributed. The seven largest
churches In the place were all on one
street , well up in the wealthy resi
dence portion and not more than two
or three blocks apart. Down in the
tenement district there was not a sin
gle church building and only one or
two weak mission schools which did
not touch the problem of the district at
all. The distance from this poor part
of the town to the churches was fully
a mile , a distance that certainly stood
as a geographical obstacle to the
church attendance of the neighbor
hood , even supposing the people were
eager to go to the large churches ,
which was not at all the fact Indeed ,
Philip soon discovered that the people
were indifferent "in the matter. The
churches on the fashionable street in
town meant less than nothing to them.
They never would go to them , and
there was little hope that anything the
pastor or members could do would
draw the people that distance to come
within church influence. The fact of
the matter was the seven churches of
different denominations in Milton had
no living connection whatever with
nearly one-half the population , and
that the most needy half , of the place.
The longer Philip studied the situa
tion the more un-Christian it looked to
him and the more he longed to change
It He went over the ground again
and again very carefully. lie talked
with the different ministers and the
most advanced Christians In his own
church. There was a variety of opin
ion as to what might be done , but no
one was ready for the radical move
which Philip advocated when he came
to speak on the subject the first Sun
day of the mouth.
CHAPTER VIII.
The first Sunday was beginning to
be more or less dreaded or anticipated
by Calvary church people. They were
learning to expect something radical ,
sweeping , almost revolutionary in Phil-
/p's utterances on "Christ and Modern
Society. " Some agreed with him as
far as he had gone. Very many had
been hurt at his plainness of speech.
This was especially true of the prop
erty owners and the fashionable part
of tbe membership. Yet there was a
fascination about Philip's preaching
that prevented so far any very serious
outbreak or dissension in the church.
He was a recognized leader. In his
presentation of truth he was large
minded. He had the faculty of hold
ing men's respect. There was no mis
taking the situation , however. Mr.
Winter , with others , was working
against him. Philip was vaguely con
scious of much that did not work out
Into open , apparent faat. Neverthe
less , when he came up on the first Sun
day of the next mouth and began to an
nounce his subject , he found an audi
ence that crowded the house to the
doors , and among them were scattered
numbers of men from the working-
men's district with whom Philip had
talked while down there. It was , as
before , an inspiring congregation , and
Philip faced it , feeling sure in his heart
that he had a great subject to unfold
and a message to deliver to the church
of Christ such as he could not but be
lieve Christ would most certainly pre
sent if he were living today in Milton.
He began by describing the exact
condition of affairs In Milton. To as
sist this description he had brought
with him into the church his map of
the town.
"Look now , " he said , pointing out
the different localities , "at B street ,
where we now are. Here are seven of
the largest churches of the place on
this street The entire distance be
tween the first of these church build
ings and the last one is a little over a
mile. Three of these churches are only
two blocks apart Then consider the
character of the residences and people
In the vicinity of this street It Is
what is called desirable that is , the
homes are the very finest , and the people
ple , almost without exception , are re
fined , respectable , well educated and
Christian in training. All the wealth
of the town centers about B street All
the society life extends out from it on
each side. It is considered the most
fashionable street for drives and prom
enades. It is well lighted , well paved ,
well kept The people who come out
of the houses on B street are always
well dressed. The people who go into
these seven churches are as a rule well
dressed and comfortable looking. Mind
you , " continued Philip , raising his
hand with a significant gesture , "I do
not want to have you think that I con
sider good clothes and comfortable
looks as uu-Christian or anything
against the people who present such an
appearance. Far from it. I simply
mention this fact to make the contrast
I am going to show you nil the plainer.
For let us leave B street now and go
down into the flats by the river , where
nearly all the mill people have their
homes. 1 wish you would note first
the distance from B street and the
churches to this tenement district. It
Is nine blocks that is , a little over a
mile. To the edge of the tenement
houses farthest from our own church
building It is n mile and three-quarters.
And within that entire district , meas
uring nearly two by three miles , there
Is not a church building. There are
two feeble mission schools , which are
held in plain , unattractive halls , where
every Sunday a handful of children
meet , but nothing practically is being
done by the church of Christ in this
place to give the people in that part of
the tuwi-tho nrivilpFQg.jintl nownr of
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