The San Francisco call., 1899-07-02
Life oua Wo1.h Of a
Eabu1ousA R>ch
Clergyman.

downtown church, problem compare
lively simple and easy of solution along
lines long since found out in Philadel-
phia, where he established the first work
lngmenS club ever organized in America.
That was just three decades ago. in 1863,
the first year of his service as rector of
ST. Marks, one of the most fashionable
churches in the City of Brotherly Love.
Socially considered, the. roll of 400 COM
municantS was irreproachable. The con-
gregation included many of the most
prominent personages in the town. Most
rectors would have thought such an as
semblage as DR.. Hoffman, officiated be-
fore. every Sunday an ideal one. But from
his viewpoint there was something
lacking. Few or no working persons
were ever to be seen IN the pews of st.
Marks. despite the fact that the neigh
borhood supported large industrial
population.
The founding of the st. Marks Work.
iEgmen's Club was DR.. Hoffmann's first
move toward interesting the toilers in ST.
Marks Church.
I'VE got the workingmen's club notion
from printed descriptions of English
workingmen's clubs, said Dean Hoffman,
Philadelphia being not exactly like those
obtaining in England. we had to work out
plan of our own. The first thing we did
was to take quarters over market place.
Our conversation room was fitted up
comfortably with chairs and tables and
supplied with current reading matter, the
daily papers and such class periodicals as
we thought would interest the: men spe-
ciaily predominating. In one room games
the men could smoke and others where
they could not. In the ten years | was
with st. Marks there was not one un3
pleasant incident in the club, and it's hold
upon its members increased steadily. II is.
still prosperous
Dr. Hoffman, remained rector of st.
Marks till 1879. In his ten years service
he had become personally acquainted with
some member of each of the nearly 1000
families in the parish His acquaintance
with his parishioners was by no means
perfunctory-he knew them as a friend
who always visited them when they need
ed him, even when they were suffering
from contagious diseases. From Brook
lyn, from Elizabeth and Burlington, n. j.,
and from Philadelphia come stories of
times of pestilence. His theory seems to
have been that the clergyman is needed
quite as much as the doctor when death
is near and he never hesitated to visit
sick parishioner, even when the disease
was smallpox or yellow fever. During the
prevalence of a smallpox epidemic IN one
of his New Jersey parishes he visited the
patients so regularly that the Mayor OF
the city threatened to lock him up unless
he would promise to. stop the prac1ce Tor
fear the disease would be spread. by his
comings and SoingS.
He was not stopped either there or in
Brooklyn, where he went freely among
patients afflicted with yellow fever. DR..
Hoffmann's house to house vista
tions were such noteworthy fea-
he served the churches that his parish
toner's felt free to call upon him in every
sort of emergency. Thus at Elizabeth a
little girl rushed into his study one days
crying:
right away, sir. Father says he's going
to kill her.
The doctor left the sermon he was pre-
pairing and followed the child. At the
house he found the father crazy drunk.
AS the young clergyman entered-this
was all of forty years ago-the fellow
raised a chair high in the air as if to
brain the intruder.
''Im not afraid of you nor no other
man. yelled the drunken man, "and
you'd better clear out
II don't want you to be afraid of me-"
replied the clergyman, but there's one
chap you'd better be afraid Of His name
is James Anderson. He lives here, and
when drunk he's dangerous.
The chair dropped to the floor at this
unexpected speech, and James Ander-
son. already half sobered. begged pardon
for his brutality and promised to keep the
peace Then the rector went placidly
back to his writing.
1, D. MARSHALL.