CHAPTER L THE BISHOP ERRS N the early stages of the heresy agitation, Bishop legal paper upon the rector. The rector not being at home, the bishop asked the rector's wife to take this paper from his hand and serve it upon her husband. This the rector's wife, naturally, declined to do; she had no desire to become, even for an hour, an officer of the Ecclesiastical Court which was to try her husband upon the charge of violating his ordination vows. The bishop during the interview expressed his profound sorrow that, because of her husband's heresy, his wife and her children were to lose their home, to live as best they might, with no certain means of support. This sorrow of the bishop reminded me, grimly, of the sorrow of D'Ailly and the clergy at the Council of Constance, who, after the trial and condemnation of John Huss, delivered him sorrowfully into the power of the Emperor Sigismund to be burned at the stake. That the bishop's grief was well founded cannot be denied. There is no more pitiable object in the world than an unfrocked priest. If he be a Catholic priest, without force or genius, he is condemned to a life of poverty and loneliness; if he be an Anglican priest or a Protestant minister and is a married man, his is the sadder fate; he does not suffer alone; those who are dearer to him than life suffer with him; indeed, his wife and children are the greater sufferers; he has the glory of his martyrdom; they suffer in silence and obscurity the consequences of that martyrdom. Such a dismissed clergyman is as helpless in the world as a new-born babe; he has been trained to give and not to get and is the easy prey of the getting world. Bishop Walker was in the right when he warned the wife of the rector of Saint Andrews of her coming sorrow; it came with the loss of her home and the loss of her work and while she has had another home and other work, yet that does not do away with the pain and grief of parting with loving friends and familiar scenes, which was the consequence of the husband's and the father's heresy. But while we did suffer the penalty of banishment from the Church of our livelong devotion and were shut out from the worship which was the habit of our souls, we did not sink down into that slough of poverty which the bishop foresaw as our fate. The bishop erred because he did not reckon with the new age nor with the great heart of William Rossiter Seward, who by his kindly action put to naught the gloomy prognostications of William David Walker. There was no reason in the world why William Rossiter Seward should have delivered me and my family from under the power of the curse of the bishop. I had not the slightest claim upon him. When he first came to my rescue he was not a member of my church, nor even my personal friend. I knew of him, but did not know him. This miracle of kindness by which our lives were made intimate, was the outcome of my deliverer's history and character. Mr. Seward was attracted by the preaching of the rector of Saint Andrew's Church and expressed his approval, as he always does, in a very practical way. When one of my birthdays came around, Mr. Seward sent me a check for a liberal sum, saying it was a thank-offering for the fact of my birth. When the bishop and the standing committee turned me and my family out of our rectory on to the street, Mr. Seward made haste to plan a house for us to live in. This house was completed in January, 1908, and we removed to it on the ninth day of that month, having lived meanwhile in our own hired house. This house, with its beautiful garden, has been our home for more than sixteen years. We live here as the guests of Mr. William Rossiter Seward. We are in what was once his cornfield. We are now in the heart of a city with all the advantages of the country. Mr. Seward, in his ninety-first year, is still our neighbour and our friend. Now, the reader can understand why we said the bishop erred when he declared that we would be on the street with no roof to cover us. We are on the same street with our former church; we have a roof over our heads and a house of surpassing loveliness. The bishop erred because he did not know the God of light and love, who dwelt in the heart of William Seward and made him pitiful to give shelter to the outcast priest with his wife and his children. For more This house has served both as a residence and a parish house: It was built with a view to such uses. than eight years after my deposition from the ministry of the Episcopal Church, I continued to exercise my functions as preacher and pastor, speaking every Sunday night in one of the theatres of the city, either in person or by representative: My pastoral work did not decrease; it increased after my expulsion from the Church-in all of these enterprises I was sustained by a band of men and women organied as a Brotherhood. My wife continued her Sewing-Guild in the Brotherhood House until her work evolved into a commercial enterprise now employing more than fifty women, together with an office staff, which enterprise is now serving the whole country. The workers in this establishment call themselves "The Factory Family"; of this "family," Mrs. Crapsey is the mother; the workers are her children; the spirit of the Church and the Brotherhood pervades the factory. This commercial Establishment is known to the trade as The Adelaide T. Crapsey Co. Inc. W CHAPTER LI THE DIVINITY OF A TELEGRAPH POLE HEN God appointed Adam to the task of naming the various animals of the earth, He assigned him to a useful and necessary work. Without names it would be difficult, if not impossible, to carry forward human life. Not only must men have personal names, but the different functions of their life must be classified and labelled. It is more than a matter of convenience that men belong to political parties, to Churches and denominations. If a man is to make his way easily through life he must politically be a member of his party, be a Democrat or a Republican; in religion he must belong to his Church or his denomination, be a Catholic or a Protestant, an Episcopalian or a Methodist. To be labelled in this way saves a man a vast deal of trouble; he need not explain his politics or define his religion; he has but to say, "I am a Republican and a Presbyterian,' and go his way. No further questions are asked; he need not go behind the name to the thing. Unfortunately for me, my religious tag was consumed in the fires of my heresy trial. Now when men ask me what my religion is, I find it difficult to answer their inquiry in a single word or phrase. I am as badly off as a nameless man. I cannot do business in the religious world. Apparently, I am nothing and belong nowhere. One who has not experienced this isolation can have no notion of what it means. It is well called excommunication. Such a forlorn person can no longer communicate with his fel |