Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1900-11-11

and unfalaea a plan of such farreaehing power and possibility that Dr Bruce, capable and experienced as he was. felt amazed at the vision of a greater soul than his own.
 They sat up late and were as eager and even glad is if they were planning for trip together to some rare land of unexplored travel indeed the bishop sad many times afterward that the moment his decision was reached to live the life of personal sacrifice he had chosen he suddenly felt an uplifting, as if great burden was taken from him Ee was exultant. So was Dr. Bruce i from the same cause.
 Their plan as it finally grew into a workable fact was in reality nothing more than the renting of large build ing formerly used SIS a warehouse for a brewery reconstructing it and living in it themselves in the very heart of q territory where the saloon ruled with power, where the tenement was it's l filthiest, where vice and ignorance and shame and poverty were zcongested into hideous forms. It was not a new idea. It was an idea started by Jesus Christ when he left his Fathers house and for sock the riches that were his in order to get nearer humanity and. by becom- ing q part of it's sin5 help to draw hu- manity apart from it's sin The univer- si9y settlement idea is not modern. It is as old as Bethlehem and Nazareth, and in this particular case 1t was the near est approach to anything that would satisfy the hunger of these two men to suffer for Christ. There had sprung up in them at the same time a longing that amounted te g passion to get nearer tho great physical poverty and spiritual destitntion of the mighty city that tIrobbed around them. How could they to this except as they became q part of it, as nearly as one man can become q part of another misery Where was the suffering to come in unless there was an actual self denial of some sort ' And what was to make that self denial i apparent to themselves or any one else unless 1t took this concrete, actual, per sonal form of trying to share the deep est suffering and sin of the city? 1 Sc they reasoned for themselves, not l judging others. They were simply keep ing their own pledge to do as Jesus woeld do, as they honestly judged he would do. That was what they had promised. How could they quarrel with the result? They were irresistibly com pelled to do what they were planning to do.
 The bishop had money of his own. Every one in Chicago knew that the bishop had d handsome fortune. Dr. Bruce had acquired snd saved by liter ary work carried on in connection with his parish duties more than comforta- ble competence. This money, large part of it, the two friends agreed to put at once into the work, most of it into the furnishing of a settlement house.
 Meanwhile Nazareth Avenue church was experiencing something never known before in all its history. The simple appeal on the part of it's pastor 1 to his members to do as Jesus would do had created 6 sensation that still con | tinued. The result of that appeal was very much the same as in Henry Max wells church. in Raymond, only Naza- reth Avenue church was far more aris- tocratic, wealthy and conventional. 1 Nevertheless when one Sunday morn ing in early summer Dr. Bruce came into his pulpit and announced his resig nation the sensation deepened all over the city, although Dr. Bruce had ad- vised with his board of trustees, and the movement he intended was not mat ter of surprise to them.
 But when it became publicly known that the bishop also had announced his retirement from the position he had held so long in order to go and live himself in the center of the worst part of Chicago the public astonishment reached it's height
 .sBut why the bishop replied to one valued friend who had almost with tears tried Co dissuade him from his purpose" why should what Dr Bruce and l propose to do seem so remarkable thing, as if it were unheard of that 8 doctor of divinity and a bishop should want to save souls in this par ticalar manner. If we were to resign our charges for the purpose of going to Bombay or aongkong or any place in Africa. the churches and the people would ezelaim at the herois1n of mis. sioas. Why shonid t seem so great thing if we have been led to give our lives to help rescue the heathen and the lost of our own city ia the way we are going to try? Is it, then. such tre- nendoas event that two Christian min istefs shoRld be not only willing but eager to live close to fine misery of the world in order to know if and realize 1t? Is if such rare thing that love Of humanity should find this particular form of expression in the rescue of x qls
 However fine bishop may have satia, fed himself that there ought to be noth= ing 50 remarkable abeut ii al, the prb- lie continued to talk and the churches to record their astonishment that two such men, so prominent in the ministry,