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Crucifixion of Philip Strong

<h2 id="id00876" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XIX.</h2> As the man looked up at Philip in a dazed and uncertain manner, Philip said slowly: "You're not hurt badly, I hope. Why did you attack me?" The man seemed too bewildered to answer. Philip leaned over and put one arm about him to help him rise. He struggled to his feet, and almost instantly sat down on the curb at the side of the road, holding his head between his hands. For a moment Philip hesitated. Then he sat down beside him, and after finding out that he was not seriously hurt, succeeded in drawing him into a conversation which grew more and more remarkable as it went on. As he thought back upon it afterward, Philip was unable to account exactly for the way in which the confidence between him and his assailant had been brought about. The incident and all that flowed out of it had such a bearing on the crucifixion that it belongs to the whole story. "Then you say," went on Philip after they had been talking brief in question and answer for a few minutes, "you say that you meant to rob me, taking me for another man?" "Yes, I thought you was the mill-man—what is his name?—Winter." "Why did you want to rob him?" The man looked up and said hoarsely, almost savagely, "Because he has money and I was hungry." "How long have you been hungry?" "I have not had anything to eat for almost three days." "There is food to be had at the Poor Commissioners. Did you know that fact?" The man did not answer, and Philip asked him again. The reply came in a tone of bitter emphasis that made the minister start: "Yes, I knew it! I would strave[sic] before I would go to the Poor Commissioners for food." "Or steal?" asked Philip, gently. "Yes, or steal. Wouldn't you?" Philip stared out into the darkness of the court and answered honestly: "I don't know." There was a short pause. Then he asked: "Can't you get work?" It was a hopeless question to put to a man in a town of over two thousand idle men. The answer was what he knew it would be: "Work! Can I pick up a bushel of gold in the street out there? Can a man get work where there ain't any?" "What have you been doing?" "I was fireman in the Lake Mills. Good job. Lost it when they closed down last winter." "What have you been doing since?" "Anything I could get." "Are you a married man?" The question affected the other strangely. He trembled all over, put his head between his knees, and out of his heart's anguish flowed the words, "I had a wife. She's dead—of consumption. I had a little girl. She's dead, too. Thank God!" exclaimed the man, with a change from a sob to a curse. "Thank God!—and curses on all rich men who had it in their power to prevent the hell on earth for other people, and which they will feel for themselves in the other world!" Philip did not say anything for some time. What could any man say to another at once under such circumstances? Finally he said: "What will you do with money if I give you some?" "I don't want your money," replied the man. "I thought you did a little while ago." "It was the mill-owner's money I wanted. You're the preacher, ain't you up at Calvary Church?" "Yes. How did you know?" "I've seen you. Heard you preach once. I never thought I should come to this—holding up a preacher down here!" And the man laughed a hard, short laugh. "Then you're not——" Philip hardly knew how to say it. He wanted to say that the man was not connected in any way with the saloon element; "you're driven to this desperate course on your own account? The reason I ask is because I have been threatened by the whiskey men, and at first I supposed you were one of their men." "No, sir," was the answer, almost in disgust. "I may be pretty bad, but I've not got so low as that." "Then your only motive was hunger?" "That was all. Enough, ain't it?" "We can't discuss the matter here," said Philip. He hesitated, rose, and stood there looking at the man who sat now with his head resting on his arms, which were folded across his knees. Two or three persons came out of a street near by and walked past. Philip knew them and said good-evening. They thought he was helping some drunken man, a thing he had often done, and they went along without stopping. Again the street was deserted. "What will you do now? Where will you go?" "God knows. I am an outcast on His earth!" "Have you no home?" "Home! Yes; the gutter, the street, the bottom of the river." "My brother!" Philip laid his hand on the man's shoulder, "come home with me, have something to eat, and stay with me for a while." The man looked up and stared at Philip through the semi-darkness. "What, go home with you! That would be a good one after trying to hold you up! I'll tell you what you ought to do. Take me to the police station and have me arrested for attempt at highway robbery. Then I'd get lodgings and victuals for nothing." Philip smiled slightly. "That would not help matters any. And if you know me at all, you know I would never do any such thing. Come home with me. No one, except you and myself and my wife need ever know what has happened to-night. I have food at my home, and you are hungry. We both belong to the same Father-God. Why should I not help you if I want to?" It was all said so calmly, so lovingly, so honestly, that the man softened under it. A tear rolled over his cheek. He brushed his hand over his eyes. It had been a long time since any one had called him "brother." "Come!" Philip reached out his hand and helped him to rise. The man staggered, and might have fallen if Philip had not supported him. "I am faint and dizzy," he said. "Courage, man! My home is not far off; we shall soon be there." His companion was silent. As they came up to the door Philip said: "I haven't asked your name, but it might save a little awkwardness if I knew it." "William——" Philip did not hear the last name, it was spoken in such a low voice. "Never mind; I'll call you William if it's all the same to you." And he went into the house with the man, and at once made him feel at home by means of that simple and yet powerful spirit of brotherhood which was ready to level all false distinctions, and which possibly saw in prophetic vision the coming event in his own career when all distinctions of title and name would be as worthless as dust in the scales of eternity. Mrs. Strong at once set food upon the table, and then she and Philip with true delicacy busied themselves in another room so as not to watch the hungry man while he ate. When he had satisfied his hunger Philip showed him the little room where the Brother Man had stayed one night. "You may make it your own as long as you will," Philip said. "You may look upon it as simply a part of what has been given us to be used for the Father's children." The man seemed dazed by the result of his encounter with the preacher. He murmured something about thanks. He was evidently very much worn, and the excitement of the evening had given place to an appearance of dejection that alarmed Philip. After a few words he went out and left the man, who said that he felt very drowsy. "I believe he is going to have a fever or something," Mr. Strong said to his wife as he joined her in the other room. He related his meeting with the man, making very light of the attack and indeed excusing it on the ground of his desperate condition. "What shall we do with him, Philip?" "We must keep him here until he finds work. I believe this is one of the cases that call for personal care. We cannot send him away; his entire future depends on our treatment of him. But I don't like his looks; I fear he is going to be a sick man." His fear was realized. The next morning he found his lodger in the clutch of fever. Before night he was delirious. The doctor came and pronounced him dangerously ill. And Philip, with the burden of his work weighing heavier on him every moment, took up this additional load and prayed his Lord to give him strength to carry it and save another soul. It was at the time of this event in Mr. Strong's life that another occurred which had its special bearing upon the crisis of all his life. The church was dear to his thought, loved by him with a love that only very few of the members understood. In spite of his apparent failure to rouse them to a conception of their duty as he saw it, he was confident that the spirit of God would accomplish the miracle which he could not do. Then there were those in Calvary Church who sympathized heartily with him and were ready to follow his leadership. He was not without fellowship, and it gave him courage. Add to that the knowledge that he had gained a place in the affection of the working-people, and that was another reason why he kept up good heart and did not let his personal sensitiveness enter too largely into his work. It was of course impossible for him to hide from himself the fact that very many members of the church had been offended by much that he had said and done. But he was the last man in the world to go about his parish trying to find out the quantity of opposition that existed. His Sunday congregation crowded the church. He was popular with the masses. Whenever he lectured among the working-men the hall was filled to overflowing. He would not acknowledge even to himself that the church could long withstand the needs of the age and the place. He had an intense faith in it as an institution. He firmly believed all that it needed was to have the white light of truth poured continually on the Christ as he would act to-day and the church would respond, and at last in a mighty tide of love and sacrifice throw itself into the work the church was made to do. So he began to plan for a series of Sunday-night services different from anything Milton had ever known. His life in the tenement district and his growing knowledge of the labor world had convinced him of the fact that the church was missing its opportunity in not grappling with the problem as it existed in Milton. It seemed to him that the first step to a successful solution of that problem was for the church and the working-man to get together upon some common platform for a better understanding. He accordingly planned for a series of Sunday-night services, in which his one great purpose was to unite the church and the labor unions in a scheme of mutual helpfulness. His plan was very simple. He invited into the meeting one or two thoughtful leaders of the mill-men and asked them to state in the plainest terms the exact condition of affairs in the labor world from their standpoint. Then he, for the church, took up their statements, their complaints, or the reasons for their differences with capital, and answered them from the Christian standpoint: What would Christ advise under the circumstances? He had different subjects presented on different evenings. One night it was reasons why the mill-men were not in the church. Another night it was the demand of men for better houses, and how to get them. Another night it was the subject of strikes and the attitude of Christ on wages and the relative value of the wage-earners' product and the capitalists' intelligence. At each meeting he allowed one or two of the invited leaders to take the platform and say very plainly what to his mind was the cause and what the remedy for the poverty and crime and suffering of the world. Then he closed the evening's discussion by a calm, clear statement of what was to him the direct application of Jesus' teaching to the point at issue. Finally, as this series drew to a close at the end of the month, a subject came up which roused intense feeling. It was the subject of wealth, its power, responsibility, meaning, and Christian use. The church was jammed in every part of it. The services had been so unusual, the conduct of them had so often been intensely practical, the points made had so often told against the existing Church that great mobs of mill-men filed into the room and for the time took possession of Calvary Church. For the four Sunday nights of that series Philip faced great crowds, mostly of grown-up men, crowds that his soul yearned over with unspeakable emotion, a wonderful audience for Calvary to witness, the like of which Milton had never seen. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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