Would Christ belong to a labor union? or, Henry Fielding's dream

Front matter

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Contents

Chapter. Page.

I. — Stopped by a Strange Question, . . 7

II. — The Startling Sermon, ... 24

Chapter I. Stopped By A Strange Question

"Would Christ belong to a labor union ?" was the question that almost startled Henry Fielding as it met his eyes at the corner of the street on the church bulletin. He was on his way to work in the early morning, and had already been detained at home, and also a moment by a friend on the way; but he could not pass on without pausing in front of that peculiar question and reading the smaller letters beneath it.

It was an announcement of the services for the next day in the church. The special sermon, the minister's name, the attractive music and a warm welcome for all.

"Well," said he, "I have not been to church in so long a time that I would not know how to act, but

I would like to hear what he has to say about that. If I live until to-morrow, I am going to change the Sunday programme and go to church."

He hastened on and turned around to glance at the other side of the bulletin.

"That is not such a strange subject after all," thought he. "The strange thing about it is that the preacher and the church are asking it."

Henry Fielding was a noble fellow in heart and purpose. He had an unselfish disposition ; his ambitions were kingly, but they were thwarted by circumstances. No young man ever came out of a more truly religious home. His early life was enriched by the family prayer, the church service, and the Sunday school. He had learned whole chapters of the Bible for prize and pleasure both. His home was among the hills of Vermont. A small farm, a small mortgage, a continuous struggle, and a rigid economy on the part of his parents were the environment of those boyhood days. His father had died when Henry was but ten years of age, leaving his mother broken-hearted and in broken health to fight the hard and continuous battle alone. He was the eldest of three children — a sister, Elsie, of eight, and a brother, Will, of six. Those years of his responsibility and his mother's heroism made an impression upon him never to be obliterated. The mortgage became no less ; rather, as most mortgages go, it became more. The interest had to come, and the eggs and butter sold, instead of eaten. Each year made him understand that he must bear more of the burden.

It brought him into manhood before his time, and drew some of the sweetness and necessity out of real life. It is the tragedy of life to be an old young man.

The natural and the ideal are to come with the years, and not force them. But circumstances swung the sceptre and said, "Give up school ; cover your eyes in front of other opportunities. Know not envy and thrust your jack-knife into the very heart of dissatisfaction. Stand by your mother !" The years passed by, and never saw his courage fail.

Will came to be a young man of eighteen, and seemed to have more liking for the farm than his brother had ever been able to force into his heart or activity.

Then Henry began to make his plans to go to the great city, learn a trade, become skilled, save his money, make an invention, have a manufactory of his own, get rich, help his sister, care for his mother, and forget forever bare feet, mortgage, butterless bread, etc.

Oh, what dreams we have in the daytime I Almost as strange as at night, and almost as far from reality. Yet it is better to dream than not.

io Stopped by a Strange Question.

He now had been in the city several years, and worked hard and without any flagging zeal or determination, but a haze had been creeping across the star of hope in his sky.

This part of his life was not just as he had planned or wished, but he had enough of the divinity of mankind in him not to be easily conquered. He did not try to push back the current, but he was not the one to be drowned in its waters.

One day as he stood at his work, the man nearest him heard him say, "to-morrow."

He said, "Henry, what are you talking about?"

"I did not know that I was talking about anything," said Henry ; "but I do know that I was keeping up a serious kind of thinking."

"Well, you were thinking aloud this time. I heard a part of it, anyway."

"I am not afraid to tell you what I was thinking about. I was getting gloomy and almost in a fit of despondency. Plans fail so quickly and completely, and to-day seems especially dark to me. In the secret silence of my soul I was saying over and over again : 'There'll be another day.' If you heard me say 'to-morrow,' that is the reason."

His sister Elsie had written him a letter the day before, telling him of her deep desire to secure some advantages which the country did not furnish, and which she never could receive unless she could come

Stopped by a Strange Question. n

to the city and have the best of training. She was in a kind of prison up there in the mountains, and there was no future for her. Her friends told her that she had a wonderful musical talent if it could only be cultivated. She played the organ for them in their little church, and often sang as no one else there could sing. She seemed the larger part of the church service.

All this had only been the fuel on the burning desire already in her heart to know more and be more. Mother said she would sell the farm; but that would not help — rather, it might hinder. Henry was the only one to ask what could be done.

This was the hard problem in his hand now. That letter was for a moment more puzzling and important to him than the map of Europe to Napoleon before the Battle of Waterloo1. At last he stamped his foot and declared that this was more necessary than anything else, and ought to be done at once, even if all the other plans of the years' making should be opposed or even destroyed by it.

He was careful in the use of his pronouns, and uttered the "you" a score of times where once he spoke the "I." Elsie was told to come to the city, and he would furnish two rooms. She could keep house for him and herself, and take her music lessons. It would require all his earnings and destroy the possibility of saving, but the great lesson he had learned in the school of life had already taught him what it was to save — that hoarded treasure might not be saving.

"This," he said, "is the best method of saving, to place it in the bank of my sister's life and let it draw interest forever. If I cannot get what I had planned, let her secure the object of her life. Perhaps in her ambition attained is the realization of my own."

Elsie had come to the city. The plans had been perfected, the two rooms were furnished, or rather fixed so that a brother and sister who loved each other and understood the object of their toil and sacrifice, could live in them.

The one had to be parlor, kitchen, sitting-room, library and Henry's sleeping-room. A lounge at one side was his bed, a small stove was sufficient for heating the rooms and the cooking of their food, a few chairs and a table, some pictures, and everything without an atom of dust upon it and spotlessly clean.

Elsie's training made two rooms the same as a palace to her, and taught her that there was no economy in dirt out of its place.

It was Saturday night. The familiar step was heard on the stairway. The door opened. Elsie was in the other room, but shouted, "Hello !" before Henry had closed the door behind him. She hastened out to arrange the table as attractively as she possibly could. She asked him all about his day, and if he was tired ; then for a moment sat at the table looking directly at him, her great eyes full of admiration for him. He was almost her idol ; at least, her ideal.

Suddenly he said: "Elsie, I am going to church to-morrow."

"What," said she, "do you mean it? I am so glad. What makes you say that? Why, I would think you were perfect if you would only go to church every Sunday."

"I won't promise you that, but I will go to-morrow morning if you will go where I want you to."

"Why, certainly, I will go wherever you would like, and I will give up my church any time if you would only attend some other one with me. Really, Henry, this has been the only bitter drop in all my cup — you having nothing to do with the church."

"Well, we won't discuss that now," said Henry; "but, anyway, I will go to-morrow. Perhaps it is only curiosity, but I will be there just the same, and that will in itself please you."

"What is the object of your curiosity, and where do you want to go ?"

"I am going to that church on the corner of North avenue and Thirteenth street. The minister's name I have almost forgotten. The last name is Dowling, and I think the first name is David. That is a small matter, anyhow. I never notice the ministers' names, and I had never heard of him until this morning; in fact, I don't know any of them, and don't know as I care to."

"Oh, Henry, do not say that! You don't understand either yourself or them."

"I know enough about the churches and ministers to know that they have lost the spirit of the Bible, and have no real relation to the greatest needs of to-day."

"Wait a minute, Henry. They are trying to save the people, and that is the greatest need of this and all other days. What does saving people mean? If it does not mean saving them here and now, and saving the society in which they live, it does not mean anything."

"Better get this world right before they talk so much about the next."

"Oh Henry, that is not the way Christ talked !"

"Yes, that is just the way Christ talked, and lived, too, if I remember the story right. Of course, I have not had much to do with it lately."

"I am sure that you do not understand the Gospel, or the purpose and work of the ministers and churches, or you would not feel just as you say."

"Now, Elsie, there is not any use in talking to me about this, because my convictions are fixed, and I believe in good reasons. I did not give up church and prayer and all my early training without sufficient cause. You have not seen what I have, nor have you passed through some of my experiences. A good many things ought to be made right, and the churches ought to be the first to enter into the work ; but they are the last, and most of them stand on the corner of the streets like sepulchres for dead people, instead of great centres where the business of Christianity is being transacted and the wrongs of human society are being righted. The workingmen do not cross the threshold of these tombs to-day. There are one hundred and fifty men where I work, and only three of them go to church. There are one hundred and forty-seven heathen right in that one place, and I am one of them — not by choice, but by compulsion."

"I cannot argue with you, Henry, but I am sure you are prejudiced, and don't really understand what the Gospel mission is, or what the churches are doing. You talk about the wrongs of society, and all this, but what would this great city be without the churches ?"

Henry turned in his chair and drummed on the table with his fork, and said, with a disgusted air: "It couldn't be much worse. Say, Elsie, do you know that most working men think that the Church has not one particle of sympathy for them, but caters to the rich and well-to-do in order to be well supported and build first-class buildings, and have more stately services. I declare some of them are like great icebergs now and make you shiver even to pass them. They ought to warm the world instead of floating down from the Arctic regions of philosophy and dogma to chill human society. I can't help it — if all this is religion I don't want any'of it. It was all well enough when I was up in the country, but in this great, struggling, seething mass of humanity, and in this whirlpool of injustices — in the same city with sweat-shops and tenements and strikes to get wages and to keep life, the Church ought to do something besides sing and pray. It would be better to dispense with the preaching and do a little practicing."

"Hearken," said Elsie, "I thought I heard a rap."

Then came that gentle tap, tap, tap, continuous and familiar. It was the noise peculiar, but always welcome.

"Come on, old fellow," shouted Henry.

In walked a stalwart young man of bright eye and smiling countenance, quick step and vivacity in every move, almost to the point of nervousness. It was Richard Harding, Henry's companion, and had been for several years. He sat down and then presently moved to another chair, and almost at the same instant arose and picked up a glass from the table and drank the remaining water in it, as he said: "That was a lively conversation in which you were engaged when I was coming up the stairs, and Henry seemed to be doing the most of it."

"Yes," said Henry. "I just shocked her as much as if a bolt of lightning had come right down through the roof and landed on the middle of the table. I don't know but that some of the dishes are broken."

"They are swept clean, anyway," said Richard; "perhaps that was the effect of the lightning."

"Anyway, it was not a quarrel, was it, sister?" said Henry.

"No," replied Elsie, "but I must confess to the shock, or rather a sensation, call it— a pleasing sensation."

"Well, what was it?" said Richard, "let me into the secret. You know I am one of the family."

"If you are one of the family," said Elsie, "then you will have to go, too."

"Go where?" said he.

"I will let Henry tell you," answered Elsie, with something of a merry twinkle in her eye.

Henry sat with his feet crossed and his head leaning on the back of his chair, gazing at the ceiling and again drumming with his fork on the table, apparently oblivious to all that was going on around him, but after a moment's silence, in which Elsie had changed glances with and winked to Richard, he rolled his head over toward them, and said, "What was you saying?"

"Oh, nonsense," said Elsie, "you know, come now, out with it, and then we will all three go together."

"Well, Dick, I am going to church to-morrow morning."

"Ha, ha., ha," came from Richard's side of the room. "After all you have said about the Church, and you having no use for it any more — now going? I thought as much ; your sister has been working her scheme, and, like all these women, they get just about what they want if you only give them time enough, and most always it doesn't take much time. Well, I don't wonder at her influence. I think I might be moved myself."

"Oh, no, it wasn't for her this time ; it was my own decision and wish. I asked her to go with me. We will take you, too."

"Where are you going and what brought this into your mind. I don't believe it has gotten into your heart yet."

"Will you go?" said Henry.

"That depends," replied he, "explain yourself."

"Wouldn't you like to hear a preacher answer this question; 'Would Christ belong to a labor union?' "

"Oh, I see," said Richard, "it is the subject that interests you, not the church."

"I guess that's it," replied Henry. "Anyway the pastor of this large church up at the corner of North avenue and Thirteenth street has advertised that as his subject. He must be a pretty good fellow, and that church just a little different from most others. There must be some sympathy there and anxiety to solve the difficult problems of the present date. Do you care to go with us ?"

"You know," said Richard, "I don't go to church, and in fact do not feel very guilty about it either, but wherever there is the slightest effort to give the great question of labor and its wrongs a hearing, I will be glad to go and listen with both ears. Yes, my whole heart, too."

"All right," said Elsie, "at ten o'clock I will be ready."

"Yes," said Henry, "at ten sharp the procession will start, and Elsie will be captain."

"Ok, no," said she, "this is your doing, and you are the leader. Richard and I will walk together and you will lead the way."

"Say, Henry, have you seen the paper to-night?"

"No, I have not, Elsie has taken all my time talking about the Church; what is in the paper?"

"Oh, just filled about the strike. It is in a greater mix-up than ever. The concessions that seem just about to be made are farther away than yesterday, and the motormen and conductors are more determined than ever. The sad part of it is that they or their false friends have been destroying- cars again, and even injuring some people in a car on the outskirts in the eastern part of the city. That is death to their cause, and ours, too. I kept saying to myself all the way up here, 'Oh, the folly and blindness of this method.' "

"That's so, I suppose," replied Henry, "but — well, I don't know what to say — I know this, they are overworked and under paid and ought to have their rights."

"Come out for a little walk to the barber shop, I will bring you back to your sister in a few minutes all cleaned up and in good religious shape for church in the morning."

Elsie laughed as they walked out, and called down the stairs: "Come back soon, Henry, I have something special for you when you get here."

They reached the street and had just turned toward the barber shop when Richard said : "Henry, what is that — see the crowd up the street, somebody must be injured."

They hastened toward the rapidly increasing number of men, women and children.

Henry pushed his way toward the centre, and his was not a push of curiosity, but of service. If there was any suffering, he always wanted to relieve it. If there was anybody receiving injustice he was anxious to fight for him. His noble, unselfish soul was crying with him, "Let me help," and his lips and hands carried it out into the world. It was the force of that spirit that made the way.

Richard tried to follow in the wake of the great ship ahead, but the crowd closed in behind him.

As Henry came toward the centre of the dense throng, he kept inquiring: "What is the matter, what is the matter?" but received no satisfactory reply. No one seemed to know just what had taken place, but Henry Fielding's quick eye and brave heart were enough. He saw an old man with snow white beard and with features and clothing of refinement lying partially in the gutter. His hat had rolled into the middle of the street, and his face was not covered, but marked with blood. An ugly bruise was upon his forehead, where he had struck the stones. Instantly, Henry said: "Why don't you help him up, why not carry him into the drug store over on the corner, do something for him."

Most of the crowd moved back, but Henry placed his strong arm under the fallen man's head and shoulders, while two other men seized the lower part of his body and carried him into the drug store.

With the aid of a physician, the insensible old man came back to life. The doors had been locked and the crowd kept out. Richard followed to the door and was waiting for the result and the story.

When the injured man recovered sufficiently, he said he could hardly tell what had happened; it all came so suddenly, and was the farthest from any thought of his. He was on his way to that very drug store with a prescription to be filled out, and had ridden in a downtown car. He was just alighting from the car, when three men approached him and asked him why he patronized a railroad run by scabs and owned by a bloodthirsty corporation. Before he could even reply one of them had struck him a blow which had felled him to the pavement. Then they instantly vanished in the darkness. He could not tell how they looked. It all happened so quickly, and, of course, did not know whether they were railroad men or what they were. "Oh," he said, "I remember, one of them asked me if I did not know that they had asked people not to ride on those cars, and had warned them repeatedly against it, but of course I did not have any chance to explain or declare my rights or apologize or anything."

Everybody was expressing their indignation against such a dastardly outrage, but Henry never said a word. He completed his errand of mercy to the last letter of every requirement, and then quietly, and even unseen, withdrew. At the door he found Richard waiting and anxious to hear the story.

Henry simply related the facts, but ventured no opinion, only to say: "I am for the laboring man and labor union, first, last and always. I believe in a strike when necessary — yes, this strike, but he is an enemy of his own cause who strikes his fellow."

CHAPTER II. the; startling sermon.

The dawn of th", next morning carried the prophecy of one of the brightest and most beautiful days. It was a perfect October day, when the whole earth seemed to be touched with the colors of another world and musical with the harmony of heaven. The birds were vieing with each other in their victorious efforts to reach the highest notes, and even the silent forces seemed to be giving motion to the waves of song and joy.

The trees of the city park and the proud one at the side of the street were clothed in the garments of autumnal glory, many colored and royal.

Twice during the night Elsie had awakened with the thought of the church service in the morning, and each time struggled against her delight to forget it and become sleepy again.

When at last it was daybreak and her eyes opened to the clear sky and joyful earth, she brought her hands together in the familiar style of her ecstacy, and said aloud, "Oh, I am so glad I prayed last night for just this, and my prayer has been answered j I knew it would be and nothing would hinder our going."

Almost unconsciously she fell upon her knees and uttered the simplicity and sweetness of her pure gratitude.

In the other room, Henry had awakened too, but with far different thoughts and feelings. He could hardly realize that it was Sunday and that his plans for the day were at such variance with the several years of the past. He wondered whether he wanted to go after all. We are such prisoners of habit that sometimes when we have broken the iron bars, we do not know whether we want to escape or not. Man's kingliness and divinity is in his power of escape, and becoming a free slave of the better.

Elsie called out in her happy tone a "good-morning" and a "hurry up."

"All right," shouted he, "here goes for the promise and the sermon."

Their breakfast was soon ready and the preparation for church made.

Ten o'clock came, but Richard had not arrived. Elsie began to be restless and even nervous. She walked to the window, then into the other room, and said over and over again, almost in a prayer : "Oh, I wish he would come." She was so fearful that his not coming or something else might prevent Henry's going. He might say that they would be late, or he did not wish to go without Richard, or a thousand other excuses which flashed through her mind, but he did not, and when no step was heard at five minutes past ten, Henry said : "Come on, Elsie, we will go down the stairs anyway, and possibly we will meet him there. If not, we will hurry on without him."

When they came to the street, he was not there, and they were just returning toward the corner when from the opposite direction Richard was seen coming, walking and running in a sort of friendly tangle, first one and then the other.

Henry acted the sharp-shooter and fired at him at long range :

"Where is your alarm clock?"

"Yes," said Elsie, "when you make an engagement to walk to church with a young lady, and especially under such circumstances, with a protector and leader and guide, you ought to be on time. I rather expected you to be so happy about it and so anxious that you would have been an hour ahead of time."

"Forgive me this once out of seventy times seven, and I will do better next time," said Richard. "Really, it was not my fault. Come on and I will explain."

"Oh, we don't want any explanation," replied Elsie. "Guilty, that's all, just guilty, and the penalty will come some time."

"No mercy?" asked he, as he walked up to her side and to his appointed place.

"Well," answered Elsie, "we will see how good you are, and if you go every Sunday and become so accustomed to it that you will never be late again."

"I guess we have time enough anyway," said Henry, "there will be room enough. The churches are not so crowded in these days that we need fear. The only question will be whether Dick and I know how to walk in and sit down and behave when we get there. Anyhow, I am going to lose my prejudice against the ministers and churches for this morning, and listen with an honest purpose. I have thought of that question a thousand times since I first saw it, and I wonder just how he is going to answer it. I think I can answer it, but I will wait until afterward."

"There are other things in church service besides the sermon," said Elsie, "everybody ought to worship God, and' I hope that spirit will be in all of us. It is one of the commands, and it must be just as wicked not to keep that one as not to keep the others."

Neither one of her companions made any reply,

but walked on in silence for half a square, when

. Henry said again: "If curiosity is sinful then I am a

sinner, because I will have to confess most of this

comes under that name.

The bulletin faced them at the corner again as it had Henry the morning previous. They all glanced at it, and hastened in, because the sound of the organ was heard, and the service had already begun.

At the door a friendly hand greeted them and passed them on to another man of genial manner and a smile of welcome. He ushered them to a seat in the best place that was vacant, and it was not so formal and cold and funereal and unattractive as imagination had pictured it. There was life in the music, light in the building, sympathy in the prayer, earnestness and enthusiasm in the spirit.

David Dowling was not an Apollo in appearance. He was neither striking in figure nor movement. Yet there was something about him that marked him as a man. He was just in the prime of life, with a quick, vivacious movement, a commanding attitude, and vigorous speech. Five years ago he had parted his hair on the left side ; two years ago it was parted on the right side, and now it was departed. His intellectual quality was strikingly manifest, and yet it was not of the Arctic type. He lived in the temperate zone, and almost near the unseen line of the torrid. He had a great heart and knew the definition of sympathy. His pulpit seemed to change into a throne, and the king was in his place.

Henry and Richard both fastened their eyes upon him, and it was a look of increasing admiration. Especially was this true when he arose and announced his text and his subject, and declared his emphatic and deathless determination to help the workingman and bring him and his Christ into their right relation to each other. He said: "I have been criticised severely for asking- this question : 'Would Christ belong to a labor union?' Some have said it was sensational. I am glad it is. Sensation is life. It has in it the life of to-day. Shame, thrice shame, upon a dead church and a dead preacher and a dead religion. If the Church does not touch the life of the people, build it in the cemetery and call it sepulchre. If the gospel has any meaning, it comes with tremendous force into every part of human life. Christ Himself created the greatest sensation by the subjects which He treated and the methods which He adopted. He is an enemy of the Church who whines and whimpers over sensation. He is preparing himself for death and judgment both. Some others have said it was bringing Christ down to ask this question concerning Him. He brought Himself down to the carpenter shop to save the workingman. God forbid that we should take Him out of His chosen place. The God of the heathen is not my God. He whom I worship and adore and am ready to die for is Jesus of Bethlehem and Nazareth and Calvary. He condescended to the level of every man's life and work. If He was on earth to-day He would have something to say concerning the labor unions and something to do with them. That is a part of His mission, and the Church has been traitorous to the trust He has placed in it."