another reason why he kept up good heart and did not let his personal sensitiveness enter too largely into his work.  It was of course impossible for him to hide from himself the fact that very many members of the church had been offended by much that he had said and done.  But he was the last man in the world to go about his parish trying to find out the quantity of opposition that existed.  His Sunday congregation crowded the church.  He was popular with the masses.  Whenever he lectured among the working-men the hall was filled to overflowing.  He would not acknowledge even to himself that the church could long withstand the needs of the age and the place.  He had an intense faith in it as an institution.  He firmly believed all that it needed was to have the white light of truth poured continually on the Christ as he would act to-day and the church would respond, and at last in a mighty tide of love and sacrifice throw itself into the work the church was made to do.

So he began to plan for a series of Sunday-night services different from anything Milton had ever known.  His life in the tenement district and his growing knowledge of the labor world had convinced him of the fact that the church was missing its opportunity in not grappling with the problem as it existed in Milton.  It seemed to him that the first step to a successful solution of that problem was for the church and the working-man to get together upon some common platform for a better understanding.  He accordingly planned for a series of Sunday-night services, in which his one great purpose was to unite the church and the labor unions in a scheme of mutual helpfulness.  His plan was very simple.  He invited into the meeting one or two thoughtful leaders of the mill-men and asked them to state in the plainest terms the exact condition of affairs in the labor world from their standpoint.  Then he, for the church, took up their statements, their complaints, or the reasons for their differences with capital, and answered them from the Christian standpoint:  What would Christ advise under the circumstances?  He had different subjects presented on different evenings.  One night it was reasons why the mill-men were not in the church.  Another night it was the demand of men for better houses, and how to get them.  Another night it was the subject of strikes and the attitude of Christ on wages and the relative value of the wage-earners’ product and the capitalists’ intelligence.  At each meeting he allowed one or two of the invited leaders to take the platform and say very plainly what to his mind was the cause and what the remedy for the poverty and crime and suffering of the world.  Then he closed the evening’s discussion by a calm, clear statement of what was to him the direct application of Jesus’ teaching to the point at issue.