New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1914-06-28
Ted Mercer Who Followed Primrose Path College Youth
and Later Found Lined NTH Poison n.y. Game Back,
and His Business Norp Is Helping College Men in
Danger or TroubIe-Men of National RepHe
Back His Campaign and He Talks Morals
to $4,000 Young Men Yearly

His condition went from bad TO worse, and the
winter found him poorly clad and sick, What
money he could serape together by doing odd jobs
went over the bars for more drink. He became
figure in the bread lines that formed each day.
Finally he went 60 the McAuley Mission, 3lS
Water ST., where he was inspired TO try and make
The uphill fight. He went there merely because
he was sick, cold and utterly wretched, but as he
sat listening to the nightly talk it entered into his
dulled brain that even he might come back and
make man of himself.
THE MISSION AND A JOB IN A MERCANTILE
HOUSE
With the aid of the superintendent of the
mission and friends he gradually overcame the
craving for whiskey and settled down to small
Job in a mercantile house. Soon she was helping
ether men who had fallen and who came strag-
Cling into the mission, but he was always most
interested in those men who had started on the
down grade while they were in college. The
number of them that he found there was sur
prisingy large and he had a wide field in which
to give counsel and aid.
From the beginning of his work in the mission
he was remarkably successful in appealing TO
the better instincts of the college men who had
gone much the same way as himself. There
seemed to be something in his manner that drove
home the truth to these and filled them with
the desire to lead a decent life. He did not
preach the Gospel primarily and try to make that
the basis on which they were to re~uild them
selves, but he talked rather Of the advantages
of living a clean life for the sake of life itself
Mercer tried to make them Christians in spirit
above all, and then let the realization that they
had become Christians dawn them later. His
plan worked, and many a college man who had
cd 70 thp
his feet Because he was so successful he was
made assistant superintendent of the mission.
Each night after working in the mercantile house
all day he made his way to the mission and talked
to the men who struggled in to get lodging and
something solid to fill their stomachs.
4 CHANCE INCIDENT REUNITEs MERCER
AND HIS FATHER.
From the time Mercer left Wilmington he had
not written or corresponded in any way with
his family The last they had hears OF him
was that he had sunk beyond all hope of recla-
nation. Mercer felt that he had Strengthened
up and that he would forever more remain
straight but he did not wish to go back until
he had proved his worthness beyond all shadow
of doubt 1t was by accident that his father
learned he had made a new start reporter
by chance strayed into the Water Street Mission
one night in search of a human interest story
Mercer was on the platform talking TO the dere-
lets who had gthered there for the night
What no said was so unusual and created such
a., evident impression on his audience that the
reporter wrote a story that was published the
following morning. copy of the newspaper
fell into the hands of MERGERS father, who hur-
ried on to New York to see if it was true that
his son had been saved. There followed a dra-