I was constantly bewildered by the
number of requests I received to officiate at funeral services
and by the curious confessions made to me by total strangers.
For a time I accepted the former and on one awful occasion
furnished "the poetic part" of a wedding ceremony really
performed by a justice of the peace, but I soon learned to
steadfastly refuse such offices, although I saw that for many
people without church affiliations the vague humanitarianism the
Settlement represented was the nearest approach they could find
to an expression of their religious sentiments.
These hints of what the Settlement might mean to at least a few
spirits among its contemporaries became clear to me for the first
time one summer's day in rural England, when I discussed with John
Trevor his attempts to found a labor church and his desire to turn
the toil and danger attached to the life of the workingman into
the means of a universal fellowship. That very year a papyrus
leaf brought to the British Museum from Egypt, containing among
other sayings of Jesus, "Raise the stone, and there thou shalt
find me; cleave the wood and I am there," was a powerful reminder
to all England of the basic relations between daily labor and
Christian teaching.
In those early years at Hull-House we were, however, in no danger
of losing ourselves in mazes of speculation or mysticism, and there
was shrewd penetration in a compliment I received from one of our
Scotch neighbors.
Pages:
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174