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When I returned to Albion College in the
autumn of 1875 I brought with me a problem which tormented me during my
waking hours and chattered on my pillow at night. Should I devote two
more years of my vanishing youth to the completion of my college course,
or, instead, go at once to Boston University, enter upon my theological
studies, take my degree, and be about my Father's business?
I was now twenty-seven years old, and I had
been a licensed preacher for three years. My reputation in the
Northwest was growing, and by sermons and lectures I could certainly
earn enough to pay the expenses of the full college course. On the
other hand, Boston was a new world. There I would be alone and
practically penniless, and the opportunities for work might be limited.
Quite possibly in my final two years at Albion I could even save enough
money to make the experience in Boston less difficult, and the clear
common sense I had inherited from my mother reminded me that in this
course lay wisdom. Possibly it was some inheritance from my visionary
father which made me, at the end of three months, waive these sage
reflections, pack my few possessions, and start for Boston, where I
entered the theological school of the university in February, 1876.
It was an instance of stepping off a solid
plank and into space; and though there is exhilaration in the sensation,
as I discovered then and at later crises in life when I did the same
thing, there was also an amount of subsequent discomfort for which even
my lively imagination had not prepared me. I went through some grim
months in Boston-- months during which I learned what it was to go to
bed cold and hungry, to wake up cold and hungry, and to have no
knowledge of how long these conditions might continue. But not more
than once or twice during the struggle there, and then only for an hour
or two in the physical and mental depression attending malnutrition, did
I regret coming. At that period of my life I believed that the Lord had
my small personal affairs very much on His mind. If I starved and froze
it was His test of my worthiness for the ministry, and if He had really
chosen me for one of His servants, He would see me through.
The faith that sustained me then has still a
place in my life, and existence without it would be an infinitely more
dreary affair than it is. But I admit that I now call upon the Lord
less often and less imperatively than I did before the stern years
taught me my unimportance in the great scheme of things. My class at the
theological school was composed of forty-two young men and my unworthy
self, and before I had been a member of it an hour I realized that women
theologians paid heavily for the privilege of being women. The young
men of my class who were licensed preachers were given free
accommodations in the dormitory, and their board, at a club formed for
their assistance, cost each of them only one dollar and twenty-five
cents a week. For me no such kindly provision was made. I was not
allowed a place in the dormitory, but instead was given two dollars a
week to pay the rent of a room outside. Neither was I admitted to the
economical comforts of the club, but fed myself according to my income,
a plan which worked admirably when there was an income, but left an
obvious void when there was not.
With characteristic optimism, however, I
hired a little attic room on Tremont Street and established myself
therein. In lieu of a window the room offered a pale skylight to the
February storms, and there was neither heat in it nor running water; but
its possession gave me a pleasant sense of proprietorship, and the whole
experience seemed a high adventure. I at once sought opportunities to
preach and lecture, but these were even rarer than firelight and food.
In Albion I had been practically the only licensed preacher available
for substitute and special work. In Boston University's three
theological classes there were a hundred men, each snatching eagerly at
the slightest possibility of employment; and when, despite this
competition, I received and responded to an invitation to preach, I
never knew whether I was to be paid for my services in cash or in
compliments. If, by a happy chance, the compensation came in cash, the
amount was rarely more than five dollars, and never more than ten.
There was no help in sight from my family, whose early opposition to my
career as a minister had hotly flamed forth again when I started East. I
lived, therefore, on milk and crackers, and for weeks at a time my
hunger was never wholly satisfied.
In my home in the wilderness I had often
heard the wolves prowling around our door at night. Now, in Boston, I
heard them even at high noon. There is a special and almost
indescribable depression attending such conditions. No one who has not
experienced the combination of continued cold, hunger, and loneliness in
a great, strange, indifferent city can realize how it undermines the
victim's nerves and even tears at the moral fiber. The self-humiliation
I experienced was also intense. I had worked my way in the Northwest;
why could I not work my way in Boston? Was there, perhaps, some lack in
me and in my courage? Again and again these questions rose in my mind
and poisoned my self-confidence. The one comfort I had in those black
days was the knowledge that no one suspected the depth of the abyss in
which I dwelt. We were all struggling; to the indifferent glance--and
all glances were indifferent--my struggle was no worse than that of my
classmates whose rooms and frugal meals were given them.
After a few months of this existence I was
almost ready to believe that the Lord's work for me lay outside of the
ministry, and while this fear was gripping me a serious crisis came in
my financial affairs. The day dawned when I had not a cent, nor any
prospect of earning one. My stock of provisions consisted of a box of
biscuit, and my courage was flowing from me like blood from an opened
vein. Then came one of the quick turns of the wheel of chance which
make for optimism. Late in the afternoon I was asked to do a week of
revival work with a minister in a local church, and when I accepted his
invitation I mentally resolved to let that week decide my fate. My
shoes had burst open at the sides; for lack of car-fare I had to walk to
and from the scene of my meetings, though I had barely strength for the
effort. If my week of work brought me enough to buy a pair of cheap
shoes and feed me for a few days I would, I decided, continue my
theological course. If it did not, I would give up the fight.
Never have I worked harder or better than
during those seven days, when I put into the effort not only my heart
and soul, but the last flame of my dying vitality, We had a rousing
revival--one of the good old-time affairs when the mourners' benches
were constantly filled and the air resounded with alleluias. The
excitement and our success, mildly aided by the box of biscuit,
sustained me through the week, and not until the last night did I
realize how much of me had gone into this final desperate charge of
mine. Then, the service over and the people departed, I sank, weak and
trembling, into a chair, trying to pull myself together before hearing
my fate in the good-night words of the minister I had assisted. When he
came to me and began to compliment me on the work I had done, I could
not rise. I sat still and listened with downcast eyes, afraid to lift
them lest he read in them something of my need and panic in this moment
when my whole future seemed at stake.
At first his words rolled around the empty
church as if they were trying to get away from me, but at last I began
to catch them. I was, it seemed, a most desirable helper. It had been
a privilege and a pleasure to be associated with me. Beyond doubt, I
would go far in my career. He heartily wished that he could reward me
adequately. I deserved fifty dollars. My tired heart fluttered at
this. Probably my empty stomach fluttered, too; but in the next moment
something seemed to catch my throat and stop my breath. For it appeared
that, notwithstanding the enthusiasm and the spiritual uplift of the
week, the collections had been very disappointing and the expenses
unusually heavy. He could not give me fifty dollars. He could not give
me anything at all. He thanked me warmly and wished me good night.
I managed to answer him and to get to my
feet, but that journey down the aisle from my chair to the church door
was the longest journey I have ever made. During it I felt not only the
heart-sick disappointment of the moment, but the cumulative unhappiness
of the years to come. I was friendless, penniless, and starving, but it
was not of these conditions that I thought then. The one overwhelming
fact was that I had been weighed and found wanting. I was not worthy.
I stumbled along, passing blindly a woman
who stood on the street near the church entrance. She stopped me,
timidly, and held out her hand. Then suddenly she put her arms around
me and wept. She was an old lady, and I did not know her, but it seemed
fitting that she should cry just then, as it would have seemed fitting
to me if at that black moment all the people on the earth had broken
into sudden wailing.
``Oh, Miss Shaw,'' she said, ``I'm the
happiest woman in the world, and I owe my happiness to you. To-night
you have converted my grandson. He's all I have left, but he has been a
wild boy, and I've prayed over him for years. Hereafter he is going to
lead a different life. He has just given me his promise on his knees.''
Her hand fumbled in her purse.
``I am a poor woman,'' she went on, ``but I
have enough, and I want to make you a little present. I know how hard
life is for you young students.''
She pressed a bill into my fingers. ``It's
very little,'' she said, humbly; ``it is only five dollars.''
I laughed, and in that exultant moment I
seemed to hear life laughing with me. With the passing of the bill from
her hand to mine existence had become a new experience, wonderful and
beautiful. ``It's the biggest gift I have ever had,'' I told her. ``This
little bill is big enough to carry my future on its back!''
I had a good meal that night, and I bought
the shoes the next morning. Infinitely more sustaining than the food,
however, was the conviction that the Lord was with me and had given me a
sign of His approval. The experience was the turning-point of my
theological career. When the money was gone I succeeded in obtaining
more work from time to time--and though the grind was still cruelly
hard, I never again lost hope.
The theological school was on Bromfield
Street, and we students climbed three flights of stairs to reach our
class-rooms. Through lack of proper food I had become too weak to ascend
these stairs without sitting down once or twice to rest, and within a
month after my experience with the appreciative grandmother I was
discovered during one of these resting periods by Mrs. Barrett, the
superintendent of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, which had
offices in our building. She stopped, looked me over, and then invited
me into her room, where she asked me if I felt ill. I assured her that
I did not. She asked a great many additional questions and, little by
little, under the womanly sympathy of them, my reserve broke down and
she finally got at the truth, which until that hour I had succeeded in
concealing. She let me leave without much comment, but the next day she
again invited me into her office and came directly to the purpose of the
interview.
``Miss Shaw,'' she said, ``I have been
talking to a friend of mine about you, and she would like to make a
bargain with you. She thinks you are working too hard. She will pay
you three dollars and a half a week for the rest of this school year if
you will promise to give up your preaching. She wants you to rest,
study, and take care of your health.''
I asked the name of my unknown friend, but
Mrs. Barrett said that was to remain a secret. She had been given a
check for seventy-eight dollars, and from this, she explained, my
allowance would be paid in weekly instalments. I took the money very
gratefully, and a few years later I returned the amount to the
Missionary Society; but I never learned the identity of my benefactor.
Her three dollars and a half a week, added to the weekly two dollars I
was allowed for room rent, at once solved the problem of living; and now
that meal-hours had a meaning in my life, my health improved and my
horizon brightened. I spent most of my evenings in study, and my
Sundays in the churches of Phillips Brooks and James Freeman Clark, my
favorite ministers. Also, I joined the university's praying-band of
students, and took part in the missionary-work among the women of the
streets. I had never forgotten my early friend in Lawrence, the
beautiful "mysterious lady'' who had loved me as a child, and, in memory
of her, I set earnestly about the effort to help unfortunates of her
class. I went into the homes of these women, followed them to the
streets and the dance-halls, talked to them, prayed with them, and made
friends among them. Some of them I was able to help, but many were
beyond help; and I soon learned that the effective work in that field is
the work which is done for women before, not after, they have fallen.
During my vacation in the summer of 1876 I
went to Cape Cod and earned my expenses by substituting in local
pulpits. Here, at East Dennis, I formed the friendship which brought me
at once the greatest happiness and the deepest sorrow of that period of
my life. My new friend was a widow whose name was Persis Addy, and she
was also the daughter of Captain Prince Crowell, then the most prominent
man in the Cape Cod community--a bank president, a railroad director,
and a citizen of wealth, as wealth was rated in those days. When I
returned to the theological school in the autumn Mrs. Addy came to
Boston with me, and from that time until her death, two years later, we
lived together. She was immensely interested in my work, and the
friendly part she took in it diverted her mind from the bereavement over
which she had brooded for years, while to me her coming opened windows
into a new world. I was no longer lonely; and though in my life with
her I paid my way to the extent of my small income, she gave me my first
experience of an existence in which comfort and culture, recreation, and
leisurely reading were cheerful commonplaces. For the first time I had
some one to come home to, some one to confide in, some one to talk to,
listen to, and love. We read together and went to concerts together;
and it was during this winter that I attended my first theatrical
performance. The star was Mary Anderson, in ``Pygmalion and Galatea,''
and play and player charmed me so utterly that I saw them every night
that week, sitting high in the gallery and enjoying to the utmost the
unfolding of this new delight. It was so glowing a pleasure that I
longed to make some return to the giver of it; but not until many years
afterward, when I met Madame Navarro in London, was I able to tell her
what the experience had been and to thank her for it.
I did not long enjoy the glimpses into my
new world, for soon, and most tragically, it was closed to me. In the
spring following our first Boston winter together Mrs. Addy and I went
to Hingham, Massachusetts, where I had been appointed temporary pastor
of the Methodist Church. There Mrs. Addy was taken ill, and as she grew
steadily worse we returned to Boston to live near the best available
physicians, who for months theorized over her malady without being able
to diagnose it. At last her father, Captain Crowell, sent to Paris for
Dr. Brown-Sequard, then the most distinguished specialist of his day,
and Dr. Brown-Sequard, when he arrived and examined his patient,
discovered that she had a tumor on the brain. She had had a great shock
in her life--the tragic death of her husband at sea during their wedding
tour around the world--and it was believed that her disease dated from
that time. Nothing could be done for her, and she failed daily during
our second year together, and died in March, 1878, just before I
finished my theological course and while I was still temporary pastor of
the church at Hingham. Every moment I could take from my parish and my
studies I spent with her, and those were sorrowful months. In her poor,
tortured brain the idea formed that I, not she, was the sick person in
our family of two, and when we were at home together she insisted that I
must lie down and let her nurse me; then for hours she brooded over me,
trying to relieve the agony she believed I was experiencing. When at
last she was at peace her father and I took her home to Cape Cod and
laid her in the graveyard of the little church where we had met at the
beginning of our brief and beautiful friendship; and the subsequent
loneliness I felt was far greater than any I had ever suffered in the
past, for now I had learned the meaning of companionship.
Three months after Mrs. Addy's death I
graduated. She had planned to take me abroad, and during our first
winter together we had spent countless hours talking and dreaming of our
European wanderings. When she found that she must die she made her will
and left me fifteen hundred dollars for the visit to Europe, insisting
that I must carry out the plan we had made; and during her conscious
periods she constantly talked of this and made me promise that I would
go. After her death it seemed to me that to go without her was
impossible. Everything of beauty I looked upon would hold memories of
her, keeping fresh my sorrow and emphasizing my loneliness; but it was
her last expressed desire that I should go, and I went.
First, however, I had graduated--clad in a
brand new black silk gown, and with five dollars in my pocket, which I
kept there during the graduation exercises. I felt a special
satisfaction in the possession of that money, for, notwithstanding the
handicap of being a woman, I was said to be the only member of my class
who had worked during the entire course, graduated free from debt, and
had a new outfit as well as a few dollars in cash.
I graduated without any special honors.
Possibly I might have won some if I had made the effort, but my
graduation year, as I have just explained, had been very difficult. As
it was, I was merely a good average student, feeling my isolation as the
only woman in my class, but certainly not spurring on my men associates
by the display of any brilliant gifts. Naturally, I missed a great deal
of class fellowship and class support, and throughout my entire course I
rarely entered my class-room without the abysmal conviction that I was
not really wanted there. But some of the men were goodhumoredly
cordial, and several of them are among my friends to-day. Between
myself and my family there still existed the breach I had created when I
began to preach. With the exception of Mary and James, my people openly
regarded me, during my theological course, as a dweller in outer
darkness, and even my mother's love was clouded by what she felt to be
my deliberate and persistent flouting of her wishes.
Toward the end of my university experience,
however, an incident occurred which apparently changed my mother's
viewpoint. She was now living with my sister Mary, in Big Rapids,
Michigan, and, on the occasion of one of my rare and brief visits to
them I was invited to preach in the local church. Here, for the first
time, my mother heard me. Dutifully escorted by one of my brothers, she
attended church that morning in a state of shivering nervousness. I do
not know what she expected me to do or say, but toward the end of the
sermon it became clear that I had not justified her fears. The look of
intense apprehension left her eyes, her features relaxed into placidity,
and later in the day she paid me the highest compliment I had yet
received from a member of my family.
``I liked the sermon very much,'' she
peacefully told my brother. ``Anna didn't say anything about hell, or
about anything else!''
When we laughed at this handsome tribute,
she hastened to qualify it.
``What I mean,'' she explained, ``is that
Anna didn't say anything objectionable in the pulpit!''
And with this recognition I was content.
Between the death of my friend and my
departure for Europe I buried myself in the work of the university and
of my little church; and as if in answer to the call of my need, Mary E.
Livermore, who had given me the first professional encouragement I had
ever received, re-entered my life. Her husband, like myself, was pastor
of a church in Hingham, and whenever his finances grew low, or there was
need of a fund for some special purpose--conditions that usually exist
in a small church--his brilliant wife came to his assistance and raised
the money, while her husband retired modestly to the background and
regarded her with adoring eyes. On one of these occasions, I remember,
when she entered the pulpit to preach her sermon, she dropped her bonnet
and coat on an unoccupied chair. A little later there was need of this
chair, and Mr. Livermore, who sat under the pulpit, leaned forward,
picked up the garments, and, without the least trace of
self-consciousness, held them in his lap throughout the sermon. One of
the members of the church, who appeared to be irritated by the incident,
later spoke of it to him and added, sardonically, ``How does it feel to
be merely `Mrs. Livermore's husband'?'' In reply Mr. Livermore flashed
on him one of his charming smiles. ``Why, I'm very proud of it,'' he
said, with the utmost cheerfulness. ``You see, I'm the only man in the
world who has that distinction.''
They were a charming couple, the Livermores,
and they deserved far more than they received from a world to which they
gave so freely and so richly. To me, as to others, they were more than
kind; and I never recall them without a deep feeling of gratitude and an
equally deep sense of loss in their passing. It was during this period,
also, that I met Frances E. Willard. There was a great Moody revival in
progress in Boston, and Miss Willard was the righthand assistant of Mr.
Moody. To her that revival must have been marked with a star, for
during it she met for the first time Miss Anna Gordon, who became her
life-long friend and her biographer.
The meetings also laid the foundation of our
friendship, and for many years Miss Willard and I were closely
associated in work and affection. On the second or third night of the
revival, during one of the ``mixed meetings,'' attended by both women
and men, Mr. Moody invited those who were willing to talk to sinners to
come to the front. I went down the aisle with others, and found a seat
near Miss Willard, to whom I was then introduced by some one who knew us
both. I wore my hair short in those days, and I had a little fur cap on
my head. Though I had been preaching for several years, I looked
absurdly young--far too young, it soon became evident, to interest Mr.
Moody. He was already moving about among the men and women who had
responded to his invitation, and one by one he invited them to speak,
passing me each time until at last I was left alone. Then he took pity
on me and came to my side to whisper kindly that I had misunderstood his
invitation. He did not want young girls to talk to his people, he said,
but mature women with worldly experience. He advised me to go home to
my mother, adding, to soften the blow, that some time in the future when
there were young girls at the meeting I could come and talk to them.
I made no explanations to him, but started
to leave, and Miss Willard, who saw me departing, followed and stopped
me. She asked why I was going, and I told her that Mr. Moody had sent
me home to grow. Frances Willard had a keen sense of humor, and she
enjoyed the joke so thoroughly that she finally convinced me it was
amusing, though at first the humor of it had escaped me. She took me
back to Mr. Moody and explained the situation to him, and he apologized
and put me to work. He said he had thought I was about sixteen. After
that I occasionally helped him in the intervals of my other work.
The time had come to follow Mrs. Addy's
wishes and go to Europe, and I sailed in the month of June following my
graduation, and traveled for three months with a party of tourists under
the direction of Eben Tourgee, of the Boston Conservatory of Music. We
landed in Glasgow, and from there went to England, Belgium, Holland,
Germany, France, and last of all to Italy. Our company included many
clergymen and a never-to-be-forgotten widow whose light-hearted attitude
toward the memory of her departed spouse furnished the comedy of our
first voyage. It became a pet diversion to ask her if her husband still
lived, for she always answered the question in the same mournful words,
and with the same manner of irrepressible gaiety.
``Oh no!'' she would chirp. ``My dear
departed has been in our Heavenly Father's house for the past eight
years!''
At its best, the vacation without my friend
was tragically incomplete, and only a few of its incidents stand out
with clearness across the forty-six years that have passed since then.
One morning, I remember, I preached an impromptu sermon in the Castle of
Heidelberg before a large gathering; and a little later, in Genoa, I
preached a very different sermon to a wholly different congregation.
There was a gospel-ship in the harbor, and one Saturday the pastor of it
came ashore to ask if some American clergyman in our party would preach
on his ship the next morning. He was an old-time, orthodox
Presbyterian, and from the tips of his broad-soled shoes to the severe
part in the hair above his sanctimonious brow he looked the type. I was
not pressent when he called at our hotel, and my absence gave my
fellow-clergymen an opportunity to play a joke on the gentleman from the
gospel-ship. They assured him that ``Dr. Shaw'' would preach for him,
and the pastor returned to his post greatly pleased. When they told me
of his invitation, however, they did not add that they had neglected to
tell him Dr. Shaw was a woman, and I was greatly elated by the
compliment I thought had been paid me. Our entire party of thirty went
out to the gospelship the next morning, and when the pastor came to meet
us, lank and forbidding, his austere lips vainly trying to curve into a
smile of welcome, they introduced me to him as the minister who was to
deliver the sermon. He had just taken my hand; he dropped it as if it
had burned his own. For a moment he had no words to meet the crisis.
Then he stuttered something to the effect that the situation was
impossible that his men would not listen to a woman, that they would mob
her, that it would be blasphemous for a woman to preach. My associates,
who had so light-heartedly let me in for this unpleasant experience, now
realized that they must see me through it. They persuaded him to allow
me to preach the sermon.
With deep reluctance the pastor finally
accepted me and the situation; but when the moment came to introduce me,
he devoted most of his time to heartfelt apologies for my presence. He
explained to the sailors that I was a woman, and fervidly assured them
that he himself was not responsible for my appearance there. With every
word he uttered he put a brick in the wall he was building between me
and the crew, until at last I felt that I could never get past it. I
was very unhappy, very lonely, very homesick; and suddenly the thought
came to me that these men, notwithstanding their sullen eyes and
forbidding faces, might be lonely and homesick, too. I decided to talk
to them as a woman and not as a minister, and I came down from the
pulpit and faced them on their own level, looking them over and mentally
selecting the hardest specimens of the lot as the special objects of my
appeal. One old fellow, who looked like a pirate with his red-rimmed
eyes, weather-beaten skin, and fimbriated face, grinned up at me in such
sardonic challenge that I walked directly in front of him and began to
speak. I said:
``My friends, I hope you will forget
everything Dr. Blank has just said. It is true that I am a minister,
and that I came here to preach. But now I do not intend to preach--only
to have a friendly talk, on a text which is not in the Bible. I am very
far from home, and I feel as homesick as some of you men look. So my
text is, `Blessed are the homesick, for they shall go home.' ''
In my summers at Cape Cod I had learned
something about sailors. I knew that in the inprepossessing
congregation before me there were many boys who had run away from home,
and men who had left home because of family troubles. I talked to the
young men first, to those who had forgotten their mothers and thought
their mothers had forgotten them, and I told of my experiences with
waiting, heavy-hearted mothers who had sons at sea. Some heads went
down at that, and here and there I saw a boy gulp, but the old fellow I
was particularly anxious to move still grinned up at me like a malicious
monkey. Then I talked of the sailor's wife, and of her double burden of
homemaking and anxiety, and soon I could pick out some of the husbands
by their softened faces. But still my old man grinned and squinted.
Last of all I described the whalers who were absent from home for years,
and who came back to find their children and their grandchildren waiting
for them. I told how I had seen them, in our New England coast towns,
covered, as a ship is covered with barnacles, by grandchildren who rode
on their shoulders and sat astride of their necks as they walked down
the village streets. And now at last the sneer left my old man's loose
lips. He had grandchildren somewhere. He twisted uneasily in his seat,
coughed, and finally took out a big red handkerchief and wiped his
eyes. The episode encouraged me.
``When I came here,'' I added, ``I intended
to preach a sermon on `The Heavenly Vision.' Now I want to give you a
glimpse of that in addition to the vision we have had of home.''
I ended with a bit of the sermon and a
prayer, and when I raised my head the old man of the sardonic grin was
standing before me. ``Missus,'' he said in a husky whisper, ``I'd like
to shake your hand.''
I took his hard old fist, and then, seeing
that many of the other sailors were beginning to move hospitably but
shyly toward me, I said:
``I would like to shake hands with every man
here.''
At the words they surged forward, and the
affair became a reception, during which I shook hands with every sailor
of my congregation. The next day my hand was swollen out of shape, for
the sailors had gripped it as if they were hauling on a hawser; but the
experience was worth the discomfort. The best moment of the morning
came, however, when the pastor of the ship faced me, goggle-eyed and
marveling.
``I wouldn't have believed it,'' was all he
could say. ``I thought the men would mob you.''
"Why should they mob me?'' I wanted to know.
``Why,'' he stammered, ``because the thing
is so --so--unnatural.''
``Well,'' I said, ``if it is unnatural for
women to talk to men, we have been living in an unnatural world for a
long time. Moreover, if it is unnatural, why did Jesus send a woman out
as the first preacher?''
He waived a discussion of that question by
inviting us all to his cabin to drink wine with him--and as we were
``total abstainers,'' it seemed as unnatural to us to have him offer us
wine as a woman's preaching had seemed to him.
The next European incident on which memory
throws a high-light was our audience with Pope Leo XIII. As there were
several distinguished Americans in our party, a private audience was
arranged for us, and for days before the time appointed we nervously
rehearsed the etiquette of the occasion. When we reached the Vatican we
were marched between rows of Swiss Guards to the Throne Room, only to
learn there that we were to be received in the Tapestry Room. Here we
found a very impressive assemblage of cardinals and Vatican officials,
and while we were still lost in the beauty of the picture they made
against the room's superb background, the approach of the Pope was
announced. Every one immediately knelt, except a few persons who tried
to show their democracy by standing; but I am sure that even these
individuals felt a thrill when the slight, exquisite figure appeared at
the door and gave us a general benediction. Then the Pope passed slowly
down the line, offering his hand to each of us, and radiating a charm so
gracious and so human that few failed to respond to the appeal of his
engaging personality. There was nothing fleshly about Leo XIII. His
body was so frail, so wraithlike, that one almost expected to see
through it the magnificent tapestries on the walls. But from the moment
he appeared every eye clung to him, every thought was concentrated upon
him. This effect I think he would have produced even if he had come
among us unrecognized, for through the thin shell that housed it shone
the steady flame of a wonderful spirit.
I had previously remarked to my friends that
kissing the Pope's ring after so many other lips had touched it did not
appeal to me as hygienic, and that I intended to kiss his hand instead.
When my opportunity came I kept my word; but after I had kissed the
venerable hand I remained kneeling for an instant with bowed head, a
little aghast at my daring. The gentle Father thought, however, that I
was waiting for a special blessing. He gave it to me gravely and passed
on, and I devoted the next few hours to ungodly crowing over the
associates who had received no such individual attention.
In Venice we attended the great fete
celebrating the first visit of King Humbert and Queen Margherita. It was
also the first time Venice had entertained a queen since the Italian
union, and the sea-queen of the Adriatic outdid herself in the gor-
geousness and the beauty of her preparations. The Grand Canal was like
a flowing rainbow, reflecting the brilliant decorations on every side,
and at night the moonlight, the music, the chiming church-bells, the
colored lanterns, the gay voices, the lapping waters against the sides
of countless gondolas made the experience seem like a dream of a new and
unbelievably beautiful world. Forty thousand persons were gathered in
the Square of St. Mark and in front of the Palace, and I recall a pretty
incident in which the gracious Queen and a little street urchin
figured. The small, ragged boy had crept as close to the royal balcony
as he dared, and then, unobserved, had climbed up one of its pillars.
At the moment when a sudden hush had fallen on the crowd this infant,
overcome by patriotism and a glimpse of the royal lady on the balcony
above him, suddenly piped up shrilly in the silence. `` Long live the
Queen!'' he cried. ``Long live the Queen!''
The gracious Margherita heard the childish
voice, and, amused and interested, leaned over the balcony to see where
it came from. What she saw doubtless touched the mother-heart in her.
She caught the eye of the tattered urchin clinging to the pillar, and
radiantly smiled on him. Then, probably thinking that the King was
absorbing the attention of the great assemblage, she indulged in a
little diversion. Leaning far forward, she kissed the tip of her lace
handkerchief and swept it caressingly across the boy's brown cheek,
smiling down at him as unconsciously as if she and the enraptured
youngster were alone together in the world. The next instant she had
straightened up and flushed, for the watchful crowd had seen the episode
and was wild with enthusiasm. For ten minutes the people cheered the
Queen without ceasing, and for the next few days they talked of little
but the spontaneous, girlish action which had delighted them all.
One more sentimental record, and I shall
have reached another mile-stone. As I have said, my friend Mrs. Addy
left me in her will fifteen hundred dollars for my visit to Europe, and
before I sailed her father, who was one of the best friends I have ever
had, made a characteristically kind proposition in connection with the
little fund. Instead of giving me the money, he gave me two railroad
bonds, one for one thousand dollars, the other for five hundred dollars,
and each drawing seven per cent. interest. He suggested that I deposit
these bonds in the bank of which he was president, and borrow from the
bank the money to go abroad. Then, when I returned and went into my new
parish, I could use some of my salary every month toward repaying the
loan. These monthly payments, he explained, could be as small as I
wished, but each month the interest on the amount I paid would cease. I
gladly took his advice and borrowed seven hundred dollars. After I
returned from Europe I repaid the loan in monthly instalments, and
eventually got my bonds, which I still own. They will mature in 1916. I
have had one hundred and five dollars a year from them, in interest,
ever since I received them in 1878 --more than twice as much interest as
their face value--and every time I have gone abroad I have used this
interest toward paying my passage. Thus my friend has had a share in
each of the many visits I have made to Europe, and in all of them her
memory has been vividly with me.
With my return from Europe my real career as
a minister began. The year in the pulpit at Hingham had been merely
tentative, and though I had succeeded in building up the church
membership to four times what it had been when I took charge, I was not
reappointed. I had paid off a small church debt, and had had the
building repaired, painted, and carpeted. Now that it was out of its
difficulties it offered some advantages to the occupant of its pulpit,
and of these my successor, a man, received the benefit. I, however, had
small ground for complaint, for I was at once offered and accepted the
pastorate of a church at East Dennis, Cape Cod. Here I went in October,
1878, and here I spent seven of the most interesting years of my life. |
