The Patient Observer | Page 3

as he beams on me and throws his arm over my shoulder, I can
only blush and shift from one foot to the other and stammer out some
excuse for hurrying away. Passers-by stop and admire the man's
affection and concern for one who is evidently some poor devil of a
relation from the country. One Sunday he waylaid me on Riverside
Drive and introduced me to his wife as one of his dearest friends. I
mumbled something about its not having rained the entire week, and
his wife, who was a stately person in silks, looked at me out of a cold
eye. Then and there I knew she decided that I was a person who had
something to conceal and probably took advantage of her husband.
No; the more I think of it, the more convinced am I that very few men
pass their time in contemplating death, which is the end of all things.

Only those people do it who have nothing else to be afraid of, or who,
like undertakers and bacteriologists, make a living out of it.

II
THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL
Harding declares that a solid thought before going to bed sets him
dreaming just like a bit of solid food. One night, Harding and I
discussed modern tendencies in the Church. As a result Harding dreamt
that night that he was reading a review in the Theological Weekly of
November 12, 2009.
"Seldom," wrote the reviewer, "has it been our good fortune to meet
with as perfect a piece of work as James Brown Ducey's 'The American
Clergyman in the Early Twentieth Century.' The book consists of
exactly half a hundred biographies of eminent churchmen; in these fifty
brief sketches is mirrored faithfully the entire religious life, external
and internal, of the American people eighty or ninety years ago. We
can do our readers no better service than to reproduce from Mr.
Ducey's pages, in condensed form, the lives of half a dozen typical
clergymen, leaving the reader to frame his own conception of the
magnificent activity which the Church of that early day brought to the
service of religion.
"The Rev. Pelatiah W. Jenks, who was called to the richest pulpit in
New York in 1912, succeeded within less than three years in building
up an unrivalled system of dancing academies and roller-skating rinks
for young people. Under him the attendance at the Sunday afternoon
sparring exhibitions in the vestry rooms of the church increased from
an average of 54 to an average of 650. In spite of the nominal fee
charged for the use of the congregation's bowling alleys, the income
from that source alone was sufficient to defray the cost of missionary
work in all Africa, south of the Zambesi River. Dr. Jenks's highest
ambition was attained in 1923 when the Onyx Church's football team
won the championship of the Ecclesiastical League of Greater New

York. It was in the same year that Dr. Jenks took the novel step of
abandoning services in St. Basil's Chapel, now situated in a slum
district, and substituting a moving-picture show with vaudeville
features. Thereafter the empty chapel was filled to overcrowding on
Sundays. To encourage church attendance at Sunday morning services,
Dr. Jenks established a tipless barber shop. Two years later, in spite of
the murmured protests of the conservative element in his congregation,
he erected one of the finest Turkish baths in New York City.
"The Rev. Coningsby Botts, Ph.D., LL.D., D.D., was regarded as the
greatest pulpit orator of his day. His Sunday evening sermons drew
thousands of auditors. Of Dr. Botts's polished sermons, our author
gives a complete list, together with short extracts. We should have to
go far to discover a specimen of richer eloquence than the sermon
delivered on the afternoon of the third Sunday after Epiphany, in the
year 1911, on 'Dr. Cook and the Discovery of the North Pole.' On the
second Sunday in Lent, Dr. Botts moved an immense congregation to
tears with his sermon, 'Does Radium Cure Cancer?' Trinity Sunday he
spoke on 'Zola and His Place in Literature.' The second Sunday in
Advent he discussed 'The Position of Woman in the Fiji Islands.' We
can only pick a subject here and there out of his other numerous
pastoral speeches: 'Is Aviation an Established Fact?' 'The Influence of
Blake Upon Dante Gabriel Rossetti,' 'Dalmatia as a Health Resort,' and
'Amatory Poetry Among the Primitive Races.'
"The Rev. Cadwallader Abiel Jones has earned a pre-eminent place in
Church history as the man who did most to endow Pittsburg with a
permanent Opera House. Our author relates how in the winter of 1916,
when the noted impresario Silverman threatened to sell his Opera
House for a horse exchange unless 100 Pittsburg citizens would
guarantee $5,000 each for a