fundamental and far-reaching. He was touching the family life of the
community and he saw what I did not see--that our congregations could
not be mixed; that my work was spoiling his. I did not see it then. I
see it now. So I betook myself to another church, and this other
church got a credit which it did not deserve, for they had no family
life to touch. It was a church at Chatham Square, and its usefulness
consisted in the fact that it was situated where it could catch the
ebb and flow of the "tramp-tide."

I spent my afternoons in the lodging houses, pocket Bible in hand,
going from man to man as they sat there, workless, homeless, dejected
and in despair. I very soon found that there was one gospel they were
looking for and willing to accept--it was the gospel of work; so, in
order to meet the emergency, I became an employment agency. I became
more than that. They needed clothing and food--and I became a junk
store and a soup kitchen.

After six months' experience in the work, I had a story to tell. It
was very vivid, and I could always touch the tear glands of a
congregation with it, and stir their hearts; so I went from church to
church, uptown and out of town and anywhere, and told the story of my
congregation on the Bowery. The result was not by any means a solution
of my problem, nor of the tramp problem, but carloads of old clothes,
and money to pay for lodgings. There was such a terrific tug at my
heartstrings all the time that I never had two coats to my own back,
or a change of clothing in hardly any department. As for money, I was,
as they were, most of the time penniless! Everything I could beg or
borrow went into the work.

At the close of the first year, the results were rather discouraging.