The Crucifixion of Philip Strong | Page 2

think of that?" asked the minister again.
"The salary is just the same, isn't it?"
"Now, Sarah," said the minister, "if I didn't know what a generous,
unselfish heart you really have, I should get vexed at you for talking
about the salary as if that was the most important thing."
"The salary is very important, though. But you know, Philip, I would be
as willing as you are to live on no salary if the grocer and butcher
would continue to feed us for nothing. I wish from the bottom of my
heart that we could live without money."
"It is a bother, isn't it?" replied Philip, so gravely that his wife laughed
heartily at his tone.
"Well, the question is, what to do with the letters," resumed the
minister.

"Which of the two churches do you prefer?" asked his wife.
"I would rather go to the Chapel Hill Church as far as my preference is
concerned."
"Then why not accept their call, if that is the way you feel?"
"Because, while I should like to go to Elmdale, I feel as if I ought to go
to Milton."
"Now, Philip, I don't see why, in a choice of this kind, you don't do as
you feel inclined to do, and accept the call that pleases you most. Why
should ministers be doing what they ought instead of what they like?
You never please yourself."
"Well, Sarah," replied Philip, good-naturedly, "this is the way of it. The
church in Elmdale is in a University town. The atmosphere of the place
is scholastic. You know I passed four years of student life there. With
the exception of the schools, there are not a thousand people in the
village, a quiet, sleepy, dull, retired, studious place. I love the memory
of it. I could go there as the pastor of the Elmdale church and preach to
an audience of college boys eight months in the year and to about
eighty refined, scholarly people the rest of the time. I could indulge my
taste for reading and writing and enjoy a quiet pastorate there to the end
of my days."
"Then, Philip, I don't see why you don't reply to their call and tell them
you will accept; and we will move at once to Elmdale, and live and die
there. It is a beautiful place, and I am sure we could live very
comfortably on the salary and the vacation. There is no vacation
mentioned in the other call."
"But, on the other hand," continued the minister, almost as if he were
alone and arguing with himself, and had not heard his wife's words, "on
the other hand, there is Milton, a manufacturing town of fifty thousand
people, mostly operatives. It is the centre of much that belongs to the
stirring life of the times in which we live. The labor question is there in
the lives of those operatives. There are seven churches of different

denominations, to the best of my knowledge, all striving after
popularity and power. There is much hard, stern work to be done in
Milton, by the true Church of Christ, to apply His teachings to men's
needs, and somehow I cannot help hearing a voice say, 'Philip Strong,
go to Milton and work for Christ. Abandon your dream of a parish
where you may indulge your love of scholarship in the quiet
atmosphere of a University town, and plunge into the hard,
disagreeable, but necessary work of this age, in the atmosphere of
physical labor, where great questions are being discussed, and the
masses are engrossed in the terrible struggle for liberty and home,
where physical life thrusts itself out into society, trampling down the
spiritual and intellectual, and demanding of the Church and the
preacher the fighting powers of giants of God to restore in men's souls
a more just proportion of the value of the life of man on earth.'
"So, you see, Sarah," the minister went on after a little pause, "I want to
go to Elmdale, but the Lord probably wants me to go to Milton."
Mrs. Strong was silent. She had the utmost faith in her husband that he
would do exactly what he knew he ought to do, when once he decided
what it was. Philip Strong was also silent a moment. At last he said,
"Don't you think so, Sarah?"
"I don't see how we can always tell exactly what the Lord wants us to
do. How can you tell that He doesn't want you to go to Elmdale? Are
there not great opportunities to influence young student life in a
University town? Will not some one go to Elmdale and become pastor
of that church?"
"No doubt there is a necessary work to be done there. The only
question