CHAPTER XXVII.

GROWTH OF THE BALTIMORE WORK.

It is by our justice to our employés, by our example to our friends, by our kindness to our neighbors, by our zeal in fulfilment of citizen duties, by our tender personal care of those who have strayed, that we can root out the evils around us.-Octavia Hill.

It was a very busy life that followed Edward's installation. On Sunday, he preached morning and evening, was present a part of the time at the Sunday School, and attended the C. E. Society, which preceded his evening service. Monday afternoon, he met a class he had formed of Little Pilgrims, taking them through Pilgrim's Progress, which had been the joy of his childhood. He often preached a short sermon to the children Sunday morning, and also looked out for their bodily improvement, arranging gymnastics for them on Thursday afternoon. On Monday evening, he and his mother frequently held receptions in Mrs. Ferguson's pleasant parlors, which were social times, often enlivened by music. Tuesday evening, there were singing classes for beginners and also for advanced singers, in which the pastor took special interest. Wednesday was the regular prayer meeting, after which came his Bible class.

At the Misses Tyson's boarding house, which was quite near Mrs. Ferguson's, Edward and his mother met a very pleasant company, most of them Johns Hopkins students. Among these were Professor Cutler and his wife from Clark University, Worcester, and Mr. and Mrs. Metcalf. Mrs. Metcalf writes:

We want to tell you how glad we are to have been in Baltimore while your son was there, not only on Sundays, but three times a day all the week round the table. He did my soul good and showed

his friendship that first afternoon, when every one else seemed so formal and preoccupied. As soon as we entered the room he came to meet us and sat down with us. The heart grows warm at such a welcome. And we have always felt that he was our friend; but now he will welcome us to the new country when we go there.

One should have seen Mr. Lawrence among his "Little Pilgrims," so childlike and sympathetic, yet wise, inducing them to follow their better impulses. Formal and insincere people must have felt quite out of place in meeting his clear eyes and straightforward greeting. How courteous and beautiful were his ways with his "little mother!" No one could forget that.

A younger brother of Mr. Metcalf's was also one of the boarders, who is now a professor in the Woman's College in Baltimore and president of the Lawrence Memorial Association, in which he is at the same time an efficient worker.

Edward had a very social people. As Congregationalism was almost an unknown quantity in that region, the overheard reply of a Baltimorean to a stranger on Eutaw St. "What church is that?" "The First Conversational Church," was accepted as a not inappropriate reply. The pastor and his mother had frequent intercourse with the deacons and their families-the Hendersons, Nunns and Houghtons. As the Houghtons lived close by the church, it was an easy thing for the mother to run in there to tea on her way to the weekly prayer-meeting and for her son to follow her. One of the deacons whom they saw most frequently was dear Deacon Cressy, the church missionary, who was loved by every one who knew him, within and without the church. He was a weekly guest at the tea-table of Deacon Nunn, where they often met him. Good Deacon Cressy was Edward's unfailing reliance, always entering into all his plans, and although nearly blind, carefully threading his way through the streets and carrying comfort and cheer all over the parish and elsewhere.

Extracts from his letter to me are here given:

My heart is so full in the removal of your dear son, my beloved pastor, that my pen fails in expressing its deep emotions. I know that only Christ can comfort a heart wounded like yours, in the loss

of a son so devoted to his mother, and so filled with the love of Christ, going about doing good, and like his Master, lifting up the fallen, speaking words of comfort to the afflicted, leading blind minds and hard hearts into the light of God's truth and love, and preaching the Gospel to the poor.

His Christ-like spirit and tenderness were manifested, not only in the pulpit but in his pastoral visits among all classes, rich and poor, wise or ignorant. His very countenance expressed it. He especially endeared himself to the little children, with whom he was always a favorite. The Christian Endeavor, and the Junior Society, the Little Pilgrims, the Charitable Organization Society, the Mission and the Tenement Work,-in all these and other ways, by which he could win souls, he was always active, whatever self-denial it might cost him. His zeal was untiring to the last. On Wednesday evening, Nov. 1st, the Preparatory lecture was on the 17th chapter of John. His earnestness, the brightness of his countenance in presenting the truths of that chapter, were so manifest that it was spoken of by many in the congregation.

In my own especial work he always took the most hearty interest, and it has been a comfort to me to feel that it was a help to him, as he frequently told me that it lightened his labors and aided him in various ways, giving him access to many whom he would not otherwise have reached.

Edward naturally took much interest in the Johns Hopkins University. And he had pleasant intercourse with those students who attended his church, some of whom joined the C. E. Society, and in other ways were helpers in his work. Portions of letters from two or three will show their appreciation of him.

One of them writes:

I first saw Dr. Lawrence soon after I entered Johns Hopkins University. It was at a special meeting of the Y. M. C. A., at Levering Hall, in the interest of missions and charities. This meeting led me to join the Charity Organization Society. At the visitors' meetings of this society, Dr. Lawrence was one of the most regular attendants, and one whose counsel was most helpful in solving the difficult problems which constantly arose.

Though I am not a Congregationalist, I soon found that Dr. Lawrence, more than any other of the clergy of Baltimore, stood for the relationship between the Church of Christ and social reform.

It was this fact more than any other that led me to choose his church as my church home, but the more I heard from Dr. Lawrence and the more I saw of his work and ways the more evident it became that I had chosen well. The breadth of his knowledge and sympathy, and the strength and beauty of his character were growing sources of inspiration.

Another of these students writes:

I came to Baltimore a stranger, bringing an introduction from one who had known Mr. Lawrence in former years. I well remember his hearty greeting, the firm handshake, the rather searching look, as if he would see what manner of man I was. After a few moments of pleasant talk, he told me it was the evening of the church prayermeeting, and asked me to excuse him while he looked over his subject. I arose to go, but he urged me to stay and go with him to the service. He handed me a recent number of the Review of Reviews to read while he turned to his study table. I opened the periodical, but instead of reading I was guilty of studying his looks, his manner, his quick glances at the pages before him as he consulted passages of Scripture. After perhaps twenty minutes, he turned abruptly and asked me what I had been reading. I owned up and said, "Nothing, Mr. Lawrence, I have been watching you at your work." He answered with a smile, "Ah, I see you have a way of studying men." He showed me his library, pointing out some of his most valued books, and speaking almost affectionately of his picture of the Sistine Madonna.

The church service to which we went he conducted in a manner I found to be characteristic of the man. A brisk, rapid summary of the points of the Scripture read, a gathering and grouping of the incidents of the text, a clear, forcible exposition of the meaning that rendered even complex and difficult passages easy of comprehension. The acquaintance thus begun only ended with his life. I occasionally asked his co-operation in Christian Endeavor work; and in matters that perplexed, in the solution of difficult problems, in deciding questions of ways and means, I was often struck with the rapidity and wisdom of his conclusions.

Mr. Lawrence was sagacious to a remarkable degree in handling men. One gentleman said to me:-"Not one man in five hundred is his equal as an organizer." I found this to be true. He sized up men and saw the place they would fill, the kind of work to which they were best adapted, with an accuracy that amounted to intuition. This faculty would have made him a forceful leader in any calling, whether in professional life, in business enterprises, or in statecraft. I think he recognized his power in this direction; and, although fitted by natural ability and training for the work of the scholar, the thinker and writer, he would say: "My work is among men."

It often happens that men of this type are reserved and unapproachable. Mr. Lawrence was nothing of this. With the genius of the scholar was combined a rare humility; with a strong, forceful nature and an uncompromising devotion to truth, forgiving sympathy and patience for those who failed to reach his standard; with the ripe experience and judgment of a man who knew the world, the ability to come down to the level of those who lived in lowly ways. He imitated the Master who mingled with publicans and sinners, and labored in his name to help the erring and bring them to better ways. It was this spirit of aggressive Christianity, I think, that sometimes brought upon him the criticism even of Christian people. There are those who shrink from having their own or their pastor's hands soiled by contact with the lowly.

The longer I knew Mr. Lawrence, the more did I admire the cheerful disposition which characterized him. He always had a kind word for those who criticized him. I never heard him say an unkind word in regard to anyone, though his sensitive nature must often have been wounded by the careless remarks of others.

Edward wrote me of his pleasure in finding among the Johns Hopkins students who attended his church a Mr. Joseph Willard, whose grandfather and subsequently his father were deacons in the church at Orford, N. H., where Edward's father was for a few years the pastor. Mr. Willard was so active in the work of the church that my son sometimes playfully spoke of him as his deacon. A letter from Mr. Willard, now a professor in State College, Pennsylvania, is here given:

I go immediately back in thought to Mr. Lawrence's abounding life. Going down Madison Avenue one day, he was telling me some of his plans and hopes for the future. I said rather mechanically, "It is a grand thing to live in our time." I cannot forget how earnestly he repeated, "It is a grand thing to live."

You probably know of our skating down the Chesapeake, of our walks out into the country, and down into the more congested sections of Baltimore. At these times, our conversation often turned on the immediate need of tenement work, the University Y. M. C. A., the Christian Endeavor Society, on the Higher Criticism, or the phases of life presented by the street. Once, as we were comparing the interpretations given to nature by several of the poets, near Gwinn's Falls, he remarked, "It makes all the difference in the world what kind of a heart one brings to nature.'

The influence he had on men often startled me. President Gilman once told me that at that time more Hopkins students were attending the Congregational Church than any other.

His extreme unselfishness need only be mentioned, his tenement work alone being enough to prove that, were it not an every day practice of his life.

His sense of having a mission and the energy and invincible determination in carrying it out was always apparent; indeed, he once told me, if the way ever opened, he would like to locate on a distinctly mission field.

As a final characteristic I should say personal devotion to Christ. This seemed to be the ruling passion of his life. Almost every Wednesday evening, he would give out to be sung in the prayer-meeting, "For me to live is Christ.'

In reply to a letter from Mr. Willard, Dr. F. E. Clark, president of the Christian Endeavor Society writes: "I only wish we had more space in our paper for the eulogy