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CHAPTER IV
Pursuing the plan he had originally mapped out when he came to Milton, he spent much of his time in the afternoons studying the social and civic life of the town. As the first Sunday of the next month drew near, when he was to speak again on the attitude of Christ to some aspect of modern society, he determined to select the saloon as one of the prominent features of modern life that would naturally be noticed by Christ, and doubtless be denounced by him as a great evil.
In his study of the saloon question he did a thing which he had never done before, and then only after very much deliberation and prayer. He went into the saloons themselves on different occasions. He had never done such a thing before. He wanted to know from actual knowledge what sort of places the saloons were. What he saw after a dozen visits to as many different groggeries added fuel to the flame of indignation that burned already hot in him. The sight of the vast army of men turning into beasts in these dens created in him a loathing and a hatred of the whole iniquitous institution that language failed to express. He wondered with unspeakable astonishment in his soul that a civilized community in the nineteenth century would tolerate for one moment the public sale of an article that led, on the confession of society itself, to countless crimes against the law of the land and of God. His indignant astonishment deepened yet more, if that were possible, when he found that the license of five hundred dollars a year for each saloon was used by the town to support the public school system. That, to Philip's mind, was an awful sarcasm on Christian civilization. It seemed to him like selling a man poison according to law, and then taking the money from the sale to help the widow to purchase mourning. It was full as ghastly as that would be.
He went to see some of the other ministers, hoping to unite them in a combined attack on the saloon power. It seemed to him that, if the Church as a whole entered the crusade against the saloon, it could be driven out even from Milton, where it had been so long established. To his surprise he found the other churches unwilling to unite in a public battle against the whisky men. Several of the ministers openly defended license as the only practicable method of dealing with the saloon. All of them confessed it was evil, and only evil, but under the circumstances thought it would do little good to agitate the subject. Philip came away from several interviews with the ministers, sad and sick at heart.
He approached several of the prominent men in the town, hoping to enlist some of them in the fight against the rum power. Here he met with an unexpected opposition, coming in a form he had not anticipated. One prominent citizen said:
"Mr. Strong, you will ruin your chances here if you attack the saloons in this savage manner; and I'll tell you why: The whisky men hold a tremendous influence in Milton in the matter of political power. The city election comes off the middle of next month. The men up for office are dependent for election on the votes of the saloon men and their following. You will cut your head off sure if you come out against them in public. Why, there's Mr. –, and so on (he named half a dozen men) in your church who are up for office in the coming election. They can't be elected without the votes of the rummies, and they know it. Better steer clear of it, Mr. Strong. The saloon has been a regular thing in Milton for over fifty years; it is as much a part of the town as the churches or schools; and I tell you it is a power!"
"What!" cried Philip, in unbounded astonishment, "do you tell me, you, a leading citizen of this town of 50,000 infinite souls, that the saloon power has its grip to this extent on the civic and social life of the place, and you are willing to sit down and let this devil of crime and ruin throttle you, and not raise a finger to expel the monster? Is it possible! It is not Christian America that such a state of affairs in our political life should be endured!"
"Nevertheless," replied the business man, "these are the facts. And you will simply dash your own life out against a wall of solid rock if you try to fight this evil. You have my warning."
"May I not also have your help!" cried Philip, hungry of soul for companionship in the struggle which he saw was coming.
"It would ruin my business to come out against the saloon," replied the man, frankly.
"And what is that?" cried Philip, earnestly. "It has already ruined far more than ought to be dear to you. Man, man, what are money and business compared with your own flesh and blood? Do you know where your own son was two nights ago? In one of the vilest of the vile holes in this city, where you, a father, license to another man to destroy the life of your own child! I saw him there myself; and my heart ached for him and you. It is the necessary truth. Will you not join with me to wipe out this curse in society?"
The merchant trembled and his lips quivered at mention of his son, but he replied:
"I cannot do what you want, Mr. Strong. But you can count on my sympathy if you make the fight." Philip finally went away, his soul tossed on a wave of mountain proportions, and growing more and more crested with foam and wrath as the first Sunday of the month drew near, and he realized that the battle was one that he must wage single-handed in a town of fifty thousand people.
He was not so destitute of support as he thought. There were many mothers' hearts in Milton that had ached and prayed in agony long years that the Almighty would come with his power and sweep the curse away. But Philip had not been long enough in Milton to know the entire sentiment of the people. He had so far touched only the Church, through its representative pulpits, and a few of the leading business men, and the result had been almost to convince him that very little help could be expected from the public generally. He was appalled to find out what a tremendous hold the whisky men had on the business and politics of the place. It was a revelation to him of their power. The whole thing seemed to him like a travesty of free government, and a terrible commentary on the boasted Christianity of the century.
So when he walked into the pulpit the first Sunday of the month he felt his message burning in his heart and on his lips as never before. It seemed beyond all question that if Christ was pastor of Calvary Church he would speak out in plain denunciation of the whisky power. And so, after the opening part of the service, Philip rose to speak, facing an immense audience that overflowed the galleries and invaded the choir and even sat upon the pulpit platform. Such a crowd had never been seen in Calvary Church before.
Philip had not announced his subject, but there was an expectation on the part of many that he was going to denounce the saloon. In the two months that he had been preaching in Milton he had attracted great attention. His audience this morning represented a great many different kinds of people. Some came out of curiosity. Others came because the crowd was going that way. So it happened that Philip faced a truly representative audience of Milton people. As his eye swept over the house he saw four of the six members of his church who were up for office at the coming election in two weeks.
For an hour Philip spoke as he had never spoken in all his life before. His subject, the cause it represented, the immense audience, the entire occasion caught him up in a genuine burst of eloquent fury, and his sermon swept through the house like a prairie fire driven by a high gale. At the close, he spoke of the power of the Church compared with the saloon, and showed how easily it could win the victory against any kind of evil if it were only united and determined.
"Men and women of Milton, fathers, mothers and citizens," he said, "this evil is one which cannot be driven out unless the Christian people of this place unite to condemn it and fight it, regardless of results. It is too firmly established. It has its clutch on business, the municipal life, and even the Church itself. It is a fact that the Church in Milton have been afraid to take the right stand in this matter. Members of the churches have become involved in the terrible entanglement of the long-established rum-power, until to-day you witness a condition of affairs which ought to stir the righteous indignation of every citizen and father. What is it you are enduring? An institution which blasts with its poisonous breath every soul that enters it, which ruins young manhood, which kills more citizens in times of peace than the most bloody war ever slew in times of revolution; an institution that has not one good thing to commend it; an institution that is established for the open and declared purpose of getting money from the people by the sale of stuff that creates criminals; an institution that robs the honest workingman of his savings, and looks with indifference on the tears of the wife, the sobs of the mother; an institution that never gives one cent of its enormous wealth to build churches, colleges, or homes for the needy; an institution that has the brand of the murderer, the harlot, the gambler burned into it with a brand of the Devil's own forging in the furnace of his hottest hell—this institution so rules and governs this town of Milton to-day that honest citizens tremble before it, business men dare not oppose it for fear of losing money, church-members fawn before it in order to gain place in politics, and ministers of the gospel confront its hideous influence and say nothing! It is high time we faced this monster of iniquity and drove it out of the stronghold it has occupied so long.
"I wish you could have gone with me this past week and witnessed some of the sights I have seen. No! I retract that statement. I would not wish that any father or mother had had the heartache that I have felt as I contemplated the ruins of young lives crumbling into the decay of premature debility, mocking the manhood that God gave them, in the intoxicating curse of debauchery. What have I seen? Oh ye fathers! O ye mothers! Do you know what is going on in this place of sixty saloons licensed by your own act and made legal by your own will? You, madam, and you, sir, who have covenanted together in the fellowship and discipleship of the purest institution of God on earth, who have sat here in front of this pulpit and partaken of the emblems which remind you of your Redeemer, where are your sons, your brothers, your lovers, your friends? They are not here this morning. The Church does not have any hold on them. They are growing up to disregard the duties of good citizenship. They are walking down the broad avenue of destruction, and what is this town doing to prevent it? I have seen young men from what are called the best homes in this town reel in and out of gilded temples of evil, oaths on their lips and passion in their looks, and the cry of my soul has gone up to Almighty God that the Church and the Home might combine their mighty force to drive the whisky demon out of our municipal life so that we might feel the curse of it again nevermore.
"I speak to you to-day in the name of my Lord and Master. It is impossible for me to believe that if that Christ of God were standing here this morning he would advise the licensing of this corruption as the most feasible or expedient method of dealing with it. I cannot imagine him using the argument that the saloon must be licensed for the revenue that may be gained from it to support the school system. I cannot imagine Christ taking any other position before the whisky power than that of uncompromising condemnation. He would say it was evil and only evil, and therefore to be opposed by every legal and moral restriction that society could rear against it. In his name, speaking as I believe he would speak if he were here this moment, I solemnly declare the necessity on the part of every disciple of Christ in every church in Milton of placing himself decidedly and persistently and at once in open battle against the saloon until it is destroyed, until its power in business, politics, and society is a thing of the past, until we have rid ourselves of the foul vapor which has so many years trailed its slimy folds through our homes and our schools.
"Citizens, Christians, church-members, I call on you to-day to take up arms against the common foe of that we hold dear in church, home, and state. I know there are honest business men who have long writhed in secret at the ignominy of the halter about their necks by which they have been led. There are citizens who have the best interests of the community at heart who have hung their heads in shame of American politics, seeing this brutal whisky element dictating the government of the towns, and parcelling out their patronage and managing their funds and enormous stealings of the people's money. I know there are church-members who have felt in their hearts the deep shame of bowing the knee to this rum god in order to make advancement in political life. And I call on all these to-day to rise with me and begin a fight against the entire saloon business and whisky rule in Milton until by the help of the Lord of hosts we have gotten us the victory. Men, women, brothers, sisters in the great family of God on earth, will you sit tamely down and worship the great beast of this country! Will you not rather gird your swords upon your thighs and go out to battle against this blasphemous Philistine who has defied the armies of the living God? I have spoken my message. Let us ask the wisdom and power of the Divine to help us."
Philip's prayer was almost painful in its intensity of feeling and expression. The audience sat in deathly silence, and when he pronounced the amen of the benediction it was several moments before any one stirred to leave the church.
Philip went home completely exhausted. He had put into his sermon all of himself and had called up all his reserve power—a thing he was not often guilty of doing, and for which he condemned himself on this occasion. But it was past, and he could not recall it. He was not concerned as to the results of his sermon. He had long believed that if he spoke the message God gave him he was not to grow anxious over the outcome of it.
But the people of Milton were deeply stirred by the address. They were not in the habit of hearing that kind of preaching. And what was more, the whisky element was roused. It was not in the habit of having its authority attacked in that bold, almost savage manner. For years its sway had been undisturbed. It had insolently established itself in power until even these citizens who knew its thoroughly evil character were deceived into the belief that nothing better than licensing it was possible. The idea that the saloon could be banished, removed, driven out altogether, had never before been advocated in Milton. The conviction that whether it could be it ought to be suppressed had never gained ground with any number of people. They had endured it as a necessary evil. Philip's sermon, therefore, fell something like a bomb into the whisky camp. Before night the report of the sermon had spread all over the town. The saloon men were enraged. Ordinarily they would have paid no attention to anything a church or a preacher might say or do. But Philip spoke from the pulpit of the largest church in Milton. The whisky men knew that if the large churches should all unite to fight them they would make it very uncomfortable for them and in the end probably drive them out. Philip went home that Sunday night after the evening service with several bitter enemies. The whisky men contributed one element. Some of his own church-members made up another. He had struck again at the same sore spot which he had wounded the month before. In his attack on the saloon as an institution he had again necessarily condemned all those members of his church who rented property to the whisky element. Again, as a month ago, these property holders went from the hearing of the sermon angry that they as well as the saloon power were under indictment.
As Philip entered on the week's work after that eventful sermon he began to feel the pressure of public feeling against him. He began to realize the bitterness of championing a just cause alone. He felt the burden of the community's sin in the matter, and more than once he felt obliged to come in from his parish work and go up into his study there to commune with his Father. He was growing old very fast in these first few weeks in his new parish.
Tuesday evening of that week Philip had been writing a little while in his study, where he had gone immediately after supper. It was nearly eight o'clock when he happened to remember that he had promised a sick child in the home of one of his parishioners that he would come and see him that very day.
He came downstairs, put on his hat and overcoat, and told his wife where he was going.
"It's not far. I shall be back in about half an hour, Sarah."
He went out, and his wife held the door open until he was down the steps. She was just on the point of shutting the door as he started down the sidewalk when a sharp report rang out close by. She screamed and flung the door open again, as by the light of the street lamp she saw Philip stagger and then leap into the street toward an elm-tree which grew almost opposite the parsonage. When he was about in the middle of the street she was horrified to see a man step out boldly from behind the tree, raise a gun, and deliberately fire at Philip again. This time Philip fell and did not rise. His tall form lay where the rays of the street lamp shone on it and he had fallen so that as his arms stretched out there he made the figure of a huge and prostrate cross.
CHAPTER V
As people waked up in Milton the Wednesday morning after the shooting of Philip Strong they grew conscious of the fact, as the news came to their knowledge, that they had been nursing for fifty years one of the most brutal and cowardly institutions on earth, and licensing it to do the very thing which at last it had done. For the time being Milton suffered a genuine shock. Long pent-up feeling against the whisky power burst out, and public sentiment for once condemned the source of the cowardly attempt to murder.
Various rumors were flying about. It was said that Mr. Strong had been stabbed in the back while out making parish calls in company with his wife, and that she had been wounded by a pistol-shot herself. It was also said that he had been shot through the heart and instantly killed. But all these confused reports were finally set at rest when those calling at the parsonage brought away the exact truth.
The first shot fired by the man from behind the tree struck Philip in the knee, but the ball glanced off. He felt the blow and staggered, but his next impulse was to rush in the direction of the sound and disarm his assailant. That was the reason he had leaped into the street. But the second shot was better aimed and the bullet crashed into his upper arm and shoulder, shattering the bone and producing an exceedingly painful though not fatal wound.
The shock caused Philip to fall, and he fainted away, but not before the face of the man who had shot him was clearly stamped on his mind. He knew that he was one of the saloon proprietors whose establishment Philip had visited the week before. He was a man with a harelip, and there was no mistaking his countenance.
When the people of Milton learned that Philip was not fatally wounded their excitement cooled a little. A wave of indignation, however, swept over the town when it was learned that the would-be murderer was recognized by the minister, and it was rumored that he had openly threatened that he would "fix the cursed preacher so that he would not be able to preach again."
Philip, however, felt more full of fight against the rum-devil than ever. As he lay on the bed the morning after, the shooting he had nothing to regret or fear. The surgeon had been called at once, as soon as his wife and the alarmed neighbors had been able to carry him into the parsonage. The ball had been removed and the wounds dressed. By noon he had recovered somewhat from the effects of the operation and was resting, although very weak from the shock and suffering considerable pain.
"What is that stain on the floor, Sarah?" he asked as his wife came in with some article for his comfort. Philip lay where he could see into the other room.
"It is your blood, Philip," replied his wife, with a shudder. "It dripped like a stream from your shoulder as we carried you in last night. O Philip, it is dreadful! It seems to me like an awful nightmare. Let us move away from this terrible place. You will be killed if we stay here!"
"There isn't much danger if the rest of 'em are as poor shots as this fellow," replied Philip. "Now, little woman," he went on cheerfully, "don't worry. I don't believe they'll try it again."
Mrs. Strong controlled herself. She did not want to break down while Philip was in his present condition.
"You must not talk," she said as she smoothed his hair back from the pale forehead.
"That's pretty hard on a preacher, don't you think, Sarah? My occupation is gone if I can't talk."
"Then I'll talk for two. They say that most women can do that."
"Will you preach for me next Sunday?"
"What, and make myself a target for saloon-keepers? No, thank you. I have half a mind to forbid you ever preaching again. It will be the death of you."
"It is the life of me, Sarah. I would not ask anything better than to die with the armor on, fighting evil. Well, all right. I won't talk any more. I suppose there's no objection to my thinking a little?"
"Thinking is the worst thing you can do. You just want to lie there and do nothing but get well."
"All right. I'll quit everything except eating and sleeping. Put up a little placard on the head of the bed saying, 'Biggest curiosity in Milton! A live minister who has stopped thinking and talking! Admission ten cents. Proceeds to be devoted to teach saloon-keepers how to shoot straight.'" Philip was still somewhat under the influence of the doctor's anaesthetic, and as he faintly murmured this absurd sentence he fell into a slumber which lasted several hours, from which he awoke very feeble, and realizing that he would be confined to the house some time, but feeling in good spirits and thankful out of the depths of his vigorous nature that he was still spared to do God's will on earth.
The next day he felt strong enough to receive a few visitors. Among them was the chief of police, who came to inquire concerning the identity of the man who had done the shooting. Philip showed some reluctance to witness against his enemy. It was only when he remembered that he owed a duty to society as well as to himself that he described the man and related minutely the entire affair exactly as it occurred.
"Is the man in town?" asked Philip. "Has he not fled?"
"I think I know where he is," replied the officer. "He's in hiding, but I can find him. In fact, we have been hunting for him since the shooting. He is wanted on several other charges."
Philip was pondering something in silence. At last he said:
"When you have arrested him I wish you would bring him here if it can be done without violating any ordinance or statute."
The officer stared at the request, and the minister's wife exclaimed: "Philip, you will not have that man come into the house! Besides, you are not well enough to endure a meeting with the wretch!"
"Sarah, I have a good reason for it. Really, I am well enough. You will bring him, won't you? I do not wish to make any mistake in the matter. Before the man is really confined under a criminal charge of attempt to murder I would like to confront him here. There can be no objection to that, can there?"
The officer finally promised that, if he could do so without attracting too much attention, he would comply with the request. It was a thing he had never done before; he was not quite easy in his mind about it. Nevertheless, Philip exercised a winning influence over all sorts and conditions of men, and he felt quite sure that, if the officer could arrest his man quietly, he would bring him to the parsonage.
This was Thursday night. The next evening, just after dark, the bell rang, and one of the church members who had been staying with Mr. Strong during the day went to the door. There stood two men. One of them was the chief of police. He inquired how the minister was, and said that he had a man with him whom the minister was anxious to see.
Philip heard them talking, and guessed who they were. He sent his wife out to have the men come in. The officer with his man came into the bedroom where Philip lay, still weak and suffering, but at his request propped up a little with pillows.
"Well, Mr. Strong, I have got the man, and here he is." said the officer, wondering what Philip could want of him. "I ran him down in the 'crow's nest' below the mills, and we popped him into a hack and drove right up here with him. And a pretty sweet specimen he is, I can tell you! Take off your hat and let the gentleman have another look at the brave chap who fired at him in ambush!"
The officer spoke almost brutally, forgetting for a moment that the prisoner's hands were manacled; remembering it the next instant, he pulled off the man's hat, while Philip looked calmly at the features. Yes, it was the same hideous, brutal face, with the hare-lip, which had shone up in the rays of the street-lamp that night; there was no mistaking it for any other.
"Why did you want to kill me?" asked Philip, after a significant pause.
"I never did you any harm."
"I would like to kill all the cursed preachers," replied the man, hoarsely.
"You confess, then, that you are the man who fired at me, do you?"
"I don't confess anything. What are you talking to me for? Take me to the lock-up if you're going to!" the man exclaimed fiercely, turning to the officer.
"Philip!" cried his wife, turning to him with a gesture of appeal, "send them away. It will do no good to talk to this man."
Philip raised his hand in a gesture toward the man that made every one in the room feel a little awed. The officer in speaking of it afterward said: "I tell you, boys I never felt quite the same, except once, when the old Catholic priest stepped up on the platform with old man Gower time he was hanged at Millville. Somehow then I felt as if, when the priest raised his hand and began to pray, maybe we might all be glad to have some one pray for us if we get into a tight place."
Philip spoke directly to the man, whose look fell beneath that of the minister.
"You know well enough that you are the man who shot me Tuesday night. I know you are the man, for I saw your face very plainly by the light of the street-lamp. Now, all that I wanted to see you here for before you were taken to jail was to let you know that I do not bear any hatred toward you. The thing you have done is against the law of God and man. The injury you have inflicted upon me is very slight compared with that against your own soul. Oh, my brother man, why should you try to harm me because I denounced your business? Do you not know in your heart of hearts that the saloon is so evil in its effects that a man who loves his home and his country must speak out against it? And yet I love you; that is possible because you are human. Oh, my Father!" Philip continued, changing his appeal to the man, by an almost natural manner, into a petition to the Infinite, "make this soul, dear to thee, to behold thy love for him, and make him see that it is not against me, a mere man, that he has sinned, but against thyself—against thy purity and holiness and affection. Oh, my God, thou who didst come in the likeness of sinful man to seek and save that which was lost, stretch out the arms of thy salvation now to this child and save him from himself, from his own disbelief, his hatred of me, or of what I have said. Thou art all-merciful and all-loving. We leave all souls of men in the protecting, enfolding embrace of thy boundless compassion and infinite mercy."
There was a moment of entire quiet in the room, and then Philip said faintly: "Sarah, I cannot say more. Only tell the man I bear him no hatred, and commend him to the love of God."
Mrs. Strong was alarmed at Philip's appearance. The scene had been too much for his strength. She hastily commanded the officer to take his prisoner away, and with the help of her friend cared for the minister, who, after the first faintness, rallied, and then gradually sank into sleep that proved more refreshing than any he had yet enjoyed since the night of the shooting.
The next day found Philip improving more rapidly than Mrs. Strong had thought possible. She forbade him the sight of all callers, however, and insisted that he must keep quiet. His wounds were healing satisfactorily, and when the surgeon called he expressed himself much pleased with his patient's appearance.
"Say, doctor, do you really think it would set me back any to think a little?"
"No. I never heard of thinking hurting people; I have generally considered it a healthy habit."
"The reason I asked," continued Philip, gravely, "was because my wife absolutely forbade it, and I was wondering how long I could keep it up and fool anybody."
"That's a specimen of his stubbornness, doctor," said the minister's wife, smiling. "Why, only a few minutes before you came in he was insisting that he could preach to-morrow. Think of it!—a man with a shattered shoulder, who would have to stand on one leg and do all his gesturing with his left hand; a man who can't preach without the use of seven or eight arms, and as many pockets, and has to walk up and down the platform like a lion when he gets started on his delivery! And yet he wants to preach to-morrow! He's that stubborn that I don't know as I can keep him at home. You would better leave some powders to put him to sleep, and we will keep him in a state of unconsciousness until Monday morning."
