Church of Christ is, in itself, I believe, a powerful engine to set in
motion against all evil. I have great faith in the membership of almost
any church in this country to accomplish wonderful things for humanity.
And I am going to Milton with that faith very strong in me. I feel as if
a very great work could be done there. Think of it, Alfred! A town of
fifty thousand working men, half of them foreigners, a town with more
than sixty saloons in full blast, a town with seven churches of many
different denominations all situated on one street, and that street the
most fashionable in the place, a town where the police records show an
amount of crime and depravity almost unparalleled in municipal
annals--surely such a place presents an opportunity for the true Church
of Christ to do some splendid work. I hope I do not over-estimate the
needs of the place. I have known the general condition of things in
Milton ever since you and I did our summer work in the neighboring town
of Clifton. If ever there was missionary ground in America, it is there.
I cannot understand just why the call comes to me to go to a place and
take up work that, in many ways, is so distasteful to me. In one sense I
shrink from it with a sensitiveness which no one except my wife and you
could understand. You know what an almost ridiculous excess of
sensibility I have. It seems sometimes impossible for me to do the work
that the active ministry of this age demands of a man. It almost kills
me to know that I am criticised for all that I say and do. And yet I
know that the ministry will always be the target for criticism. I have
an almost morbid shrinking from the thought that people do not like me,
that I am not loved by everybody, and yet I know that if I speak the
truth in my preaching and speak it without regard to consequences some
one is sure to become offended, and in the end dislike me. I think God
never made a man with so intense a craving for the love of his
fellow-men as I possess. And yet I am conscious that I cannot make
myself understood by very many people. They will always say, "How cold