The Crucifixion of Philip Strong | Page 4

street the most fashionable in the place, a town where the police records show an amount of crime and depravity almost unparalleled in municipal annals--surely such a place presents an opportunity for the true Church of Christ to do some splendid work. I hope I do not over-estimate the needs of the place. I have known the general condition of things in Milton ever since you and I did our summer work in the neighboring town of Clifton. If ever there was missionary ground in America, it is there. I cannot understand just why the call comes to me to go to a place and take up work that, in many ways, is so distasteful to me. In one sense I shrink from it with a sensitiveness which no one except my wife and you could understand. You know what an almost ridiculous excess of sensibility I have. It seems sometimes impossible for me to do the work that the active ministry of this age demands of a man. It almost kills me to know that I am criticised for all that I say and do. And yet I know that the ministry will always be the target for criticism. I have an almost morbid shrinking from the thought that people do not like me, that I am not loved by everybody, and yet I know that if I speak the truth in my preaching and speak it without regard to consequences some one is sure to become offended, and in the end dislike me. I think God never made a man with so intense a craving for the love of his fellow-men as I possess. And yet I am conscious that I cannot make myself understood by very many people. They will always say, "How cold and unapproachable he is." When in reality I love them with yearnings of heart. Now, then, I am going to Milton with all this complex thought of myself, and yet, dear chum, there is not the least doubt after all that I ought to go. I hope that in the rush of the work there I shall be able to forget myself. And then the work will stand out prominent as it ought. With all my doubts of myself, I never question the wisdom of entering the ministry. I have a very positive assurance as I work that I am doing what I ought to do. And what can a man ask more? I am not dissatisfied with the ministry, only with my own action within it. It is the noblest of all professions; I feel proud of it every day. Only, it is so great that it makes a man feel small when he steps inside.
Well, my wife is calling me down to tea. Let me know what you do. We shall move to Milton next week, probably, so, if you write, direct there. As ever, your old chum, PHILIP STRONG.
It was characteristic of Philip that in this letter he said nothing about his call to Elmdale, and did not tell his college chum what salary was offered him by the church at Milton. As a matter of fact he really forgot all about everything, except the one important event of his decision to go to Milton. He regarded it, and rightly so, as the most serious step of his life; and while he had apparently decided the matter very quickly, it was, in reality, the result of a deep conviction that he ought to go. He was in the habit of making his decisions rapidly. This habit sometimes led him into embarrassing mistakes, and once in a great while resulted in humiliating reversals of opinion, so that people who did not know him thought he was fickle and changeable. In the present case, Philip acted with his customary quickness, and knew very well that his action was unalterable.
CHAPTER II.
Within a week, Philip Strong had moved to Milton, as the church wished him to occupy the pulpit at once. The parsonage was a well-planned house next the church, and his wife soon made everything look very homelike. The first Sunday evening after Philip preached in Milton, for the first time, he chatted with his wife over the events of the day as they sat before a cheerful open fire in the large grate. It was late in the fall and the nights were sharp and frosty.
"Are you tired to-night, Philip?" asked his wife.
"Yes, the day has been rather trying. Did you think I was nervous? Did I preach well?" Philip was not vain in the least. He simply put the question to satisfy his own exacting demand on himself in preaching. And there was not a person in the world to whom he would have put such a question except his wife.
"No,