The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1884-05-22
Daniel Ponge's Success.
BY REBECCA HARDING DAVIS.

turn. Neither prayers nor music ever
brought the tears to her cool gray eyes.
and she invariably criticised the sermon
pretty sharply when we reached the
church porch. But her pew was crowd
ed every Sunday with young men, med
ical and law students clerks. college
lads; her cousins Or her cousins friends.
OF friends of her cousins friends. ANY
pretense of title to her hospitality was
enough, provided they were strangers in
the great city, With no home open to
them but their cheap boarding houses Her
house was a large, beautiful dwelling in
West Philadelphia, surrounded by
lawn and shaded 10y forest trees 1t was
open to them on Sundays. The lads
filled her pew, went home with her to a
dinner which She took care should be
plentiful and delicious, and then size re-
tired to spend her Sunday in her Own
way. They We're free OF the house they
could read in the quiet library, OF play
with the children, or look at engravings,
or sleep, if they chose, under the trees
until tea-time-in a word. for one day of
the week, they We're at home in the
family OF a good woman, who treated
them as sons Mrs Tate had her own
idea Of Christian work. and tins was one
of them: bur we have no time now to
discuss it.
Que day John Waldo brought young
man with him, hy the name Of Daniel
PONCE: a raw boned. gaunt coarselv
clad lad, with large and peculiarly lumi-
nous eyes that looked out of their lony
sockets at Mrs. Tate with a disturbing
power. After dinner size drew Waldo
aside.
"Who Is your friex ?" she asked
'Ile has that unmistakable pallor that
comes from hunger, but he looks as if he
thought life was too short fer eating or
trivolty of any sort. What does he
mean TO do in it ?''
"Serve God, | suppose Waldo said,
with an uneasy laugh. "Dan always
seemed to me to have some of the spirit
of the old prophets. He is a farmers
son from Berks County: he has educated
himself and is now almost ready tor
ordination. He has supported himself
for two years by copying, and. as he
hasn't much time to give to it, his re-
ceipts average eighty cents a week. He
lives on that in little room on kater
Street, and cooks for himselt-whaC he
does cook
"No wonder his skin is yellow over his
bones" cried plump Mrs. Tate, with
shudder. Eighty cents, But that is
entirely unnecessary, There is a fund
in the church for the education and sup
port of just such poor young Theological
students"
"Yes But Dan has prejudice about
accepting help. He says what is not
worth working for is not worth having,
and ne sees no reason why your clergy
man should be pauperized at the outset,
more than your doctor or lawyer. It's
very absurd in him, ! suppose"
"Absurd. | should think sou said
Mrs. Tate. Indignantly. But after that
she was particularly kind to the young
man. who was utterly alone in the city,
and much needed the kindness of a
shrewd, practical woman.
After his ordination, Daniel PONCE
was given, at his own request, mission
work in the part Of the city where be
lived kater Street could hardly be
called a field white unto the harvest 1t
is d narrow, scrupulously Clean little
avenue, with small, comfortable houses
on either side, into which 10y a kind Of
natural gravitation thrifty workmen Of
all kinds have tended: Scotch Irish,
German, black and white Americans.
PONCE knew all the tidy women sit
ting at their doors in the evening,
and every child in the street was his
friend. These people, however, as rule,
belonged to some church. But near to
| kater Street We're large outlying quar-
tiers of laZness, want and vice, from the
courts out of which drunken Irish women
We're hauled to the police station, to mag
niticent brown stone mansions, in which
dwelt bosses who could not write and
who kept up their sway over their sub
.jects, principally by barrels of whisky
kept on tap in the cellar. Mr.. PONCE
went to work among these people. He
took them all in. The boss was as much
a child of God III his opinion as Mrs.
MacGurk or Wah Lee. He set them to
work to help each other. He brought
them first into reading and coffee rooms,
| into clubs, beneficial societies and indus
trial schools, and then into prayer meet
ings and church. He had, it is probable.
a good deal of executive ability, but the
secret OF his power lay in his single
minded, fiery zeal. He had been sent
into the world to save souls, and
he had not breath of time to give
to any other work. His face was famil-
lar in the prisons, in the aims house
Gehenna, out of which the dead found
lings were carried yearly by hundreds,
and in every hospital and asylum. His
salary certainly amounted to more than
eighty cents a week, but he gave it away
50 fast that he was more hungry and
shabbier than before.
Doctor Roach, the pastor Of the Third
Church, met him at Mrs. Tates and
asked him once or twice to fill his pulpit
while he was absent The people came
out silent and awed after listening to
him. 1t seemed to them that they had
heard a note of that trumpet which shall
summon the dead and the living to judg-
ment.
GLOW did our young friend succeed ~
said Doctor Roach, on his return, to Mrs.
Tate. ale must have been a little ner-
vous at preaching before such a congre-
cation as ours"
~ suppose" she said, quietly, ''it
Daniel PONCE were preaching to the
Apostles and martyrs, he would only see
in them fellow sinners in need of a Saw
iour. He has but one idea, Jesus and
Him crucitied.'"
The doctor went on his round of pas
toral visits little ruf1ied. Mrs. Tate
really permitted her tongue a license
akin to blasphemy. PONCE preaching to
the Apostles, indeed
1t was in the fall of this year that Mr.
PONCE broke down, and lay i'll in Kater
Street with malarial fever. His physi-
clan (young Waldo, by the wav) went to
Mrs. Tate. "Insuflicient diet and over
work have brought him to this pass" he
said. 81 suppose he thinks the souls of
those laundry men and thieves are worth
the sacrifice. L don't; but Pm outside
the pale. You are inside, Mrs. Tate, ard
wish you would think the matter over
and see if anything can ue done"