-at No. 47 Church Street, where I did my eating and my sleeping, and, when time permitted, my reading. My bedroom was without light or ventilation. I had no bath, only a sink and running water. This house was over a grocery store with a barroom. It was next door to a large tenement; it had a dark unventilated closet; the neighbourhood was the home of longshoremen and labourers; in those days, in Greenwich Street and West Street, were saloons and brothels of the lowest order. Every Saturday night the tenement next door was alive with men and women howling drunk, who the next morning went quietly to mass. For this habitation I paid thirty-five dollars a month and glad to get it. The clergy as a rule lived uptown and came down about noon to their work when it was convenient, but I have always had the feeling that a shepherd should live with his sheep.

The parish building at 7 Church Street was kept in order, after a fashion, by the janitress, old Mary, an Irishwoman of grey hair and wrinkled face; she was kindly but querulous. She had seen so many deacons come and go that they were of no respect in her eyes. She was the humble servant of the rector, the servitor of Sarah Thorne, the equal of the assistant minister, and the stern boss of deacons. From them Mary would take no nonIf a poor deacon forgot his keys and had to ring the bell and call "old Mary" down from her loft he got a wigging that made him mind his p's and q's, from that day to his last as a deacon.

sense.

Now old Mary had a sister and she was a widow; her name was Mrs. Hill. It was always a wonder to me why the defunct Hill came to marry old Mary's sister, but it was no mystery at all as to why he made her his widow. I employed old Mary's sister, Mrs. Hill, as my cook and housekeeper. She was a long, lank creature with greyishblack hair, watery blue eyes, twisted nose and mouth.

When she laid my breakfast, she left her dishrag on the table, but I clung desperately to her because she could make coffee, toast scones and broil a steak. As for my bed, it was made or not, as the spirit moved old Mary's sister, but when I came to bed I was usually so tired that I never noticed so unimportant a matter as an unmade bed.

I had to live downtown near my work because the most important of that work was done after nightfall. Sarah Thorne and Dr. Dix had provided for the women and children, but no provision had been made for the men. After Sunday-school age the young men were left to drift away and so were lost to the church and too often lost to decent living. One of my first efforts after I had been made priest officiating was to get some of the young men together in a club. We had meetings once a week for social development and the promotion of goodwill. We organized for parish work; carried a course of scientific lectures through a winter in Trinity Hall. If I wanted to see these men I had to call on them or meet with them between eight o'clock and midnight, and it was often in the early hours of the morning that I made my lonely way through Church Street, sometimes followed by a policeman as a suspicious character, and stumbled up my tenement stairs to my unmade bed. Those were great months that I would not have missed for all that has come afterward.

In addition to these diaconal duties I, as priest officiating, had charge of the Sunday school, which met before church in the morning; in this school I taught a Bible class of older boys and girls. As soon as Sunday school was dismissed I had to assume the direction of the public worship of the chapel and often preach the sermon. Indeed, I was, during that period of interregnum, priest, deacon, office boy and errand boy all in one.

A

CHAPTER XVIII

JUNIOR ASSISTANT MINISTER

LL through the summer and fall of 1873 I was virtually in charge of St. Paul's Chapel. All the

parish work devolved on me, in which I had the aid and advice of Sarah Thorne; I had charge of the church services and did about half of the preaching. Dr. Haight was still able for an occasional sermon and Dr. Dix would come up about once a month from Old Trinity.

Meanwhile, the vestry was looking high and low for a man equal to the charge of St. Paul's Chapel. He must be a preacher of parts who could attract and hold a congregation; he must have organizing ability and social power. Only such a prodigy could revive the declining life of this sometime fashionable and prosperous church. The morning congregation, as already noted, numbered among its members some two hundred elderly men and women who came from uptown to this church of their fathers and of their own early years. These men and women did not see and could not see that the St. Paul's of their fathers and of their youth was gone, never to reThe building was there but the neighbourhood was changed beyond recognition. When St. Paul's was in its prime, it was the centre of fashion, wealth and culture; its parishioners were bankers, merchants and lawyers; King's, afterward Columbia, College was in the neighbourhood. But with the last quarter of a century all that had passed away never to return. The vestry had replaced the primitive frame building at the head of Wall

turn.

Street with the present Gothic structure and Trinity Church was, at the time of my service, the centre of attraction for the wealth of the parish and for the curious stranger visiting the city. Beside this downtown competition, St. Paul's lost the best of its people to Trinity Chapel in Twenty-fifth Street, which had just been erected by the vestry for the accommodation of the uptown members of the parish.

Had the realities of the situation been recognized, St. Paul's would have been torn down, the dead in its churchyard removed, and the immensely valuable property devoted to business purposes; or if this seemed a desecration, then wisdom would have suggested that it be made a mission chapel under the direct supervision of the rector. But the older members of the congregation would not think of such degradation, nor did it occur to the rector or the vestry.

Trinity parish is not only unlike any other parish in the United States, but it is unique among the ecclesiastical organizations of the world. It is an institution of vast wealth and proportionate influence. This wealth and influence is the direct result of what is known as the "Queen Ann Donation." This queen, it seems, was possessed, presumably by right of conquest, of a large tract of land lying along the shore of the Hudson River. This tract, known as "The Queen's Farm," was conveyed by her Majesty to a recently established corporation, known in law as "The Rector-Wardens and Vestrymen of Trinity Church." This corporation was created for the purpose of providing the members of the Established Church of England with opportunities for divine worship. Trinity Church was at that time, and for a long period following, the only parish of the Episcopal Church in the city. It was from the beginning the church of the ruling class. It gradually attracted to itself the wealthier of the old

Dutch families and reduced the Dutch Church to a position of inferiority.

At the time of the Queen Ann Donation the land so donated was of comparatively little value, but with the increase of population there was a corresponding increase in the value of this tract and by its sale and rental Trinity parish was able to carry on an extensive religious work, not only in the city, but also in the Province of New York. During the earlier period of its history it gave freely of its property for the endowment of rural churches, colleges and schools. For some time after the Revolution the rector of Trinity was usually the bishop of the diocese of New York.

As Trinity Church was thus for a long time the only parish in New York, it built in various parts of the city Chapels of Ease for the convenience of its people. St. Paul's Chapel was the first of these Chapels of Ease. It was under the spiritual jurisdiction of the rector and was served by an assistant minister, appointed upon the nomination of the rector, by the vestry. The position of senior assistant minister of Trinity parish carried in my day a salary of ten thousand dollars a year, twice that of the Governor of the State and of a Senator of the United States. For such a sum the vestry of Trinity felt that it had the right to the services of a man of first-rate ability, a preacher learned and eloquent, an organizer prudent and efficient, a pastor spiritual and sympathetic. There were at the time not fifty men on the list of the clergy of the Episcopal Church who came within sight of these requirements, and these men usually preferred the headship of a large city church to any position that Trinity vestry could offer unless it were the rectorship. Man after man was canvassed, but this one declined to consider and that one was lacking in this or that qualification; either he was too high or too low, too broad or too narrow, for not only