The Crucifixion of Philip Strong

So it came about that Philip Strong plunged into a work which from the time he stepped into the dingy little hall and faced the crowd peculiar to it, had a growing influence on all his strange career, grew in strangeness rapidly as days came on.

He was invited again and again to address the men in that part of Milton. They were almost all of them mill-employes. They had a simple organization for debate and discussion of questions of the day. Gradually the crowds increased as Philip continued to come, and developed a series of talks on Christian Socialism. There was standing room only. He was beginning to know a number of the men and a strong affection was growing up in their hearts for him.

That was just before the time the trouble at the mills broke out. He had just come back from the hall where he had now been going every Thursday evening, and where he had spoken on his favorite theme, "the meaning and responsibility of power, both financial and mental." He had treated the subject from the Christian point of view entirely. He had several times roused his rude audience to enthusiasm. Moved by his theme and his surroundings, he had denounced, with even more than usual vigor, those men of ease and wealth who did nothing with their money to help their brothers. He had mentioned, as he went along, what great responsibility any great power puts on a man, and had dealt in a broad way with the whole subject of power in men as a thing to be used, and always used for the common good.

He did not recall his exact statements, but felt a little uneasy as he walked home, for fear he might possibly have influenced his particular audience against the rich as a class. He had not intended anything of the kind, but had a vague idea that possibly he ought to have guarded some words or sentences more carefully.

He had gone up into his study to finish some work, when the bell rang sharply, and he came down to open the door just as Mrs. Strong came in from the other room, where she had been giving directions to the girl, who had gone upstairs through the kitchen.

The minister and his wife opened the door together, and one of the neighbors rushed into the hall so excited he could hardly speak.

"Oh, Mr. Strong, won't you go right down to Mr. Winter's house? You have more influence with those men than any one around here!"

"What men?"

"The men who are going to kill him if some one doesn't stop it!"

"What!" cried Philip, turning pale, not from fear, but from self-reproach to think he might have made a mistake. "Who is trying to kill him—the mill-men?"

"Yes! No! I do not, cannot tell. But he is in great danger, and you are the only man in this town who can help to save him. Come!"

Philip turned to his wife. "Sarah, it is my duty. If anything should happen to me you know my soul will meet yours at the gates of Paradise."

He kissed her, and rushed out into the night.

CHAPTER IX

When Philip reached the residence of Mr. Winter, he found himself at once in the midst of a mob of howling, angry men, who surged over the lawn and tramped the light snow that was falling into a muddy mass over the walks and up the veranda steps. A large electric lamp out in the street in front of the house threw a light over the strange scene.

Philip wedged his way in among the men, crying out his name, and asking for room to be made so that he could see Mr. Winter. The crowd, under the impulse which sometimes moves excited bodies of men, yielded to his request. There were cries of, "Let him have a minister if he wants one!" "Room here for the priest!" "Give the preacher a chance to do some praying where it's needed mighty bad!" and so on. Philip found a way opened for him as he struggled toward the house, and he hurried forward fearing some great trouble, but hardly prepared for what he saw when he finally reached the steps of the veranda.

Half a dozen men had the mill-owner in their grasp, having evidently dragged him out of his dining-room. His coat was half torn off, as if there had been a struggle. Marks of bloody fingers stained his collar. His face was white, and his eyes filled with the fear of death. Within, upon the floor, lay his wife, who had fainted. A son and a daughter, his two grown-up children, clung terrified to one of the servants, who kneeled half fainting herself by the side of the mill-owner's wife. A table overturned and fragments of a late dinner scattered over the sideboard and on the floor, a broken plate, the print of a muddy foot on the white tiling before the open fire,—the whole picture flashed upon Philip like a scene out of the French Revolution, and he almost rubbed his eyes to know if he was awake and in America in the nineteenth century. He was intensely practical, however, and the nature of his duty never for a moment escaped him. He at once advanced and said calmly:—

"What does all this mean? Why this attack on Mr. Winter?"

The moment Mr. Winter saw Philip and heard his voice he cried out, trembling: "Is that you, Mr. Strong? Thank God! Save me! They are going to kill me!"

"Who talks of killing, or taking human life contrary to law!" exclaimed Philip, coming up closer and placing his hand on Mr. Winter's arm. "Men, what are you doing?"

For a moment the crowd fell back a little from the mill-owner, and one of the men who had been foremost in the attack replied with some respect, although in a sullen manner, "Mr. Strong, this is not a case for your interference. This man has caused the death of one of his employees and he deserves hanging."

"And hanging he will get!" yelled another. A great cry arose. In the midst of it all Mr. Winter shrieked out his innocence. "It is all a mistake! They do not know! Mr. Strong, tell them they do not know!"

The crowd closed around Mr. Winter again. Philip knew enough about men to know that the mill-owner was in genuine danger. Most of his assailants were the foreign element in the mills. Many of them were under the influence of liquor. The situation was critical. Mr. Winter clung to Philip with the frantic clutch of a man who sees only one way of escape, and clings to that with mad eagerness. Philip turned around and faced the mob. He raised his voice, hoping to gain a hearing and reason with it. But he might as well have raised his voice against a tornado. Some one threw a handful of mud and snow toward the prisoner. In an instant every hand reached for the nearest missile, and a shower of stones, muddy snow-balls and limbs torn from the trees on the lawn was rained upon the house. Most of the windows in the lower story were broken. All this time Philip was eagerly remonstrating with the few men who had their hands on Mr. Winter. He thought if he could only plead with them to let the man go he could slip with him around the end of the veranda through a side door and take him through the house to a place of safety. He also knew that every minute was precious, as the police might arrive at any moment and change the situation.

But in spite of his pleas, the mill-owner was gradually pushed and dragged down off the veranda toward the gate. The men tried to get Philip out of the way.

"We don't want to harm you, sir. Better get out of danger," said the same man who had spoken before.

Philip for answer threw one arm about Mr. Winter, saying: "If you kill him, you will kill me with him. You shall never do this great sin against an innocent man. In the name of God, I call on every soul here to–"

But his words were drowned in the noise that followed. The mob was insane with fury. Twice Mr. Winter was dragged off his feet by those down on the walk. Twice Philip raised him to his feet, feeling sure that if the crowd once threw him down they would trample him to death. Once some one threw a rope over the wretched man's head. Both he and Mr. Winter were struck again and again. Their clothes were torn into tatters. Mr. Winter was faint and reeling. Only his great terror made his clutch on Philip like that of a drowning man.

At last the crowd had dragged the two outside the gate into the street.

Here they paused awhile and Philip again spoke to the mob:

"Men, made in God's image, listen to me! Do not take innocent life. If you kill him, you kill me also. For I will never leave his side alive, and I will not permit such murder if I can prevent it."

"Kill them both—the bloody coward and the priest!" yelled a voice.

"They both belong to the same church."

"Yes, hang 'em! hang 'em both!" A tempest of cries went up. Philip towered up like a giant. In the light of the street lamp he looked out over the great sea of passionate, brutal faces, crazed with drink and riot, and a great wave of compassionate feeling swept over him. Those nearest never forgot that look. It was Christlike in its yearning love for lost children. His lips moved in prayer.

And just then the outer circle of the crowd seemed agitated. It had surged up nearer the light with the evident intention of hanging the mill-owner on one of the cross pieces of a telegraph pole near by. The rope had again been thrown over his head. Philip stood with one arm about Mr. Winter, and with the other hand stretched out in entreaty, when he heard a pistol-shot, then another. The entire police department had been summoned, and had finally arrived. There was a skirmishing rattle of shots. But the crowd began to scatter in the neighborhood of the police force. Then those nearer Philip began to run as best they could away from the officers. Philip and the mill-owner were dragged along with the rest in the growing confusion, until, watching his opportunity, Philip pulled Mr. Winter behind one of the large poles by which the lights of the street were suspended.

Here, sheltered a little, but struck by many a blow, Philip managed to shield with his own body the man who only a little while before had come into his own house and called him a liar, and threatened to withdraw his church support, because of the preaching of Christ's principles.

When finally the officers reached the two men Mr. Winter was nearly dead from the fright. Philip was badly bruised, but not seriously, and he helped Mr. Winter back to the house, while a few of the police remained on guard the rest of the night. It was while recovering from the effects of the night's attack that Philip little by little learned of the facts that led up to the assault.

There had been a growing feeling of discontent in all the mills, and it had finally taken shape in the Ocean Mill, which was largely owned and controlled by Mr. Winter. The discontent arose from a new scale of wages submitted by the company. It was not satisfactory to the men, and the afternoon of that evening on which Philip had gone down to the hall a committee of the mill men had waited on Mr. Winter, and after a long conference had gone away without getting any satisfaction. They could not agree on the proposition made by the company and by their own labor organization. Later in the day one of the committee, under instructions, went to see Mr. Winter alone, and came away from the interview very much excited and angry. He spent the first part of the evening in a saloon, where he related a part of his interview with the mill-owner, and said that he had finally kicked him out of the office. Still later in the evening he told several of the men that he was going to see Mr. Winter again, knowing that on certain evenings he was in the habit of staying down at the mill office until nearly half-past nine for special business. The mills were undergoing repairs, and Mr. Winter was away from home more than usual.

That was the last that any one saw of the man until, about ten o'clock, some one going home past the mill office heard a man groaning at the foot of a new excavation at the end of the building, and climbing down discovered the man who had been to see Mr. Winter twice that afternoon. He had a terrible gash in his head, and lived only a few minutes after he was discovered. To the half-dozen men who stood over him in the saloon, where he had been carried, he had murmured the name of "Mr. Winter," and had then expired.

A very little adds fuel to the brain of men already heated with rum and hatred. The rumor spread like lightning that the wealthy mill-owner had killed one of the employees who had gone to see him peaceably and arrange matters for the men. He had thrown him out of the office into one of the new mill excavations and left him there to die like a dog in a ditch. So the story ran all through the tenement district, and in an incredibly swift time the worst elements in Milton were surging toward Mr. Winter's house with murder in their hearts, and the means of accomplishing it in their hands.

Mr. Winter had finished his work at the office and gone home to sit down to a late lunch, as his custom was, when he was interrupted by the mob. The rest of the incident is connected with what has been told. The crowd seized him with little ceremony, and it was only Philip's timely arrival and his saving of minutes until the police arrived, that prevented a lynching in Milton that night. As it was, Mr. Winter received a scare from which it took a long time to recover. He dreaded to go out alone at night. He kept on guard a special watchman, and lived in more or less terror even then. It was satisfactorily proved in a few days that the man who had gone to see Mr. Winter had never reached the office door. But, coming around the corner of the building where the new work was being done, he had fallen off the stone work, striking on a rock in such a way as to produce a fatal wound. This tempered the feeling of the workmen toward Mr. Winter; but a wide-spread unrest and discontent had seized on every man employed in the mills, and as the winter drew on, affairs reached a crisis.

The difference between the mills and the men over the scale of wages could not be settled. The men began to talk about a strike. Philip heard of it, and at once, with his usual frankness and boldness, spoke with downright plainness to the men against it. That was at the little hall a week after the attempt on Mr. Winter's life. Philip's part in that night's event had added to his reputation and his popularity with the men. They admired his courage and his grit. Most of them were ashamed of the whole affair, especially after they had sobered down and it had been proved that Mr. Winter had not touched the man. So Philip was welcomed with applause as he came out on the little platform and looked over the crowded room, seeing many faces there that had glared at him in the mob a week before. And yet his heart told him he loved these men, and his reason told him that it was the sinner and the unconverted that God loved. It was a terrible responsibility to have such men count him popular, and he prayed that wisdom might be given him in the approaching crisis, especially as he seemed to have some real influence.

He had not spoken ten words when some one by the door cried, "Come outside! Big crowd out here want to get in." It was moonlight and not very cold, so every one moved out of the hall, and Philip mounted the steps of a storehouse near by and spoke to a crowd that filled up the street in front and for a long distance right and left. His speech was very brief, but it was fortified with telling figures, and at the close he stood and answered a perfect torrent of questions. His main counsel was against a strike in the present situation. He had made himself familiar with the facts on both sides. Strikes, he argued, except in very rare cases, were demoralizing—an unhealthy, disastrous method of getting justice done. "Why, just look at that strike in Preston, England, among the cotton spinners. There were only 660 operatives, but that strike, before it ended, threw out of employment over 7,800 weavers and other workmen who had nothing whatever to do with the quarrel of the 660 men. In the recent strike in the cotton trade in Lancashire, at the end of the first twelve weeks the operatives had lost in wages alone $4,500,000. Four strikes that occurred in England between 1870 and 1880, involved a loss in wages of more than $25,000,000. In 22,000 strikes investigated lately by the National Bureau of Labor, it is estimated that the employees lost about $51,800,000, while the employers lost only $30,700,000. Out of 353 strikes in England between 1870 and 1880, 191 were lost by the strikers, 71 were gained, and 91 com-promised; but in the strikes that were successful, it took several years to regain in wages the amount lost by the enforced idleness of the men."

There were enough hard-thinking, sensible men in the audience that night to see the force of his argument. The majority, however, were in favor of a general strike to gain their point in regard to the scale of wages. When Philip went home he carried with him the conviction that a general strike in the mills was pending. In spite of the fact that it was the worst possible season of the year for such action, and in spite of the fact that the difference demanded by the men was a trifle, compared with their loss of wages the very first day of idleness, there was a determination among the leaders that the fifteen thousand men in the mills should all go out in the course of a few days if the demands of the men in the Ocean Mill were not granted.

What was the surprise of every one in Milton, therefore, the very next day, when it was announced that every mill in the great system had shut down, and not a man of the fifteen thousand laborers who marched to the buildings in the early gray of the winter morning found entrance. Statements were posted up on the doors that the mills were shut down until further notice. The mill-owners had stolen a march on the employees, and the big strike was on; but it had been started by Capital, not by Labor, and Labor went to its tenement or congregated in the saloon, sullen and gloomy; and, as days went by and the mills showed no signs of opening, the great army of the unemployed walked the streets of Milton in growing discontent and fast accumulating debt and poverty.

Meanwhile the trial of the man arrested for shooting Philip came on, and Philip and his wife both appeared as witnesses in the case. The man was convicted and sentenced to fifteen years' imprisonment. It has nothing special to do with the history of Philip Strong, but may be of interest to the reader to know that in two years' time he was pardoned out and returned to Milton to open his old saloon, where he actually told more than once the story of his attempt on the preacher's life.

There came also during those stormy times in Milton the trial of several of the men who were arrested for the assault on Mr. Winter. Philip was also summoned as a witness in these cases. As always, he frankly testified to what he knew and saw. Several of the accused were convicted, and sentenced to short terms. But the mill-owner, probably fearing revenge on the part of the men, did not push the matter, and most of the cases went by default for lack of prosecution.

Mr. Winter's manner toward Philip underwent a change after that memorable evening when the minister stood by him at the peril of his own life. There was a feeling of genuine respect, mingled with fear, in his deportment toward Philip. To say that they were warm friends would be saying too much. Men as widely different as the minister and the wealthy mill-man do not come together on that sacred ground of friendship, even when one is indebted to the other for his life. A man may save another from hanging and still be unable to save him from selfishness. And Mr. Winter went his way and Philip went his, on a different basis so far as common greeting went, but no nearer in the real thing, which makes heart-to-heart communion impossible. For the time being, Mr. Winter's hostility was submerged under his indebtedness to Philip. He returned to his own place in the church and contributed to the financial support.

CHAPTER X

One day at the close of a month, Philip came into the cosey parsonage, and, instead of going right up to his study as his habit was when his outside work was done for the day, he threw himself down on a couch by the open fire. His wife was at work in the other room, but she came in, and, seeing him lying there, inquired what was the matter.

"Nothing, Sarah, with me. Only I'm sick at heart with the sight and knowledge of all this wicked town's sin and misery."

"Do you have to carry it all on your shoulders, Philip?"

"Yes," replied Philip, almost fiercely. It was not that either. Only, his reply was like a great sob of conviction that he must bear something of these burdens. He could not help it.

Mrs. Strong did not say anything for a moment. Then, "Don't you think you take it too seriously, Philip?"

"What?"

"Other people's wrongs. You are not responsible."

"Am I not? I am my brother's keeper. What quantity of guilt may I not carry into the eternal kingdom if I do not do what I can to save him! Oh, how can men be so selfish? Yet I am only one person. I cannot prevent all this suffering alone."

"Of course you cannot, Philip. You wrong yourself to take yourself to task so severely for the sins of others. But what has stirred you up so this time?" Mrs. Strong understood Philip well enough to know that some particular case had roused his feeling. He seldom yielded to such despondency without some immediate practical reason.

Philip sat up on the couch and clasped his hands over his knee with the eager earnestness that characterized him, when he was roused.

"Sarah, this town slumbers on the smoking crest of a volcano. There are more than fifteen thousand people here in Milton out of work. A great many of them are honest, temperate people who have saved up a little. But it is nearly gone. The mills are shut down, and, on the authority of men that ought to know, shut down for all winter. The same condition of affairs is true in a more or less degree in the entire State and throughout the country and even the world. People are suffering to-day in this town for food and clothing and fuel through no fault of their own. The same thing is true of thousands and even hundreds of thousands all over the world. It is an age that calls for heroes, martyrs, servants, saviors. And right here in this town, where distress walks the streets and actual want already has its clutch on many a poor devil, society goes on giving its expensive parties and living in its little round of selfish pleasure just as if the volcano was a downy little bed of roses for it to go to sleep in whenever it wearies of the pleasure and wishes to retire to happy dreams. Oh, but the bubble will burst one of these days, and then–"

Philip swept his hand upward with a fine gesture, and sunk back upon the couch, groaning.

"Don't you exaggerate?" The minister's wife put the question gently.

"Not a bit! Not a bit! All true. I am not one of the French Revolution fellows, always lugging in blood and destruction, and prophesying ruin to the nation and the world if it doesn't gee and haw the way I tell it to. But I tell you, Sarah, it takes no prophet to see that a man who is hungry and out of work is a dangerous man to have around. And it takes no extraordinary-sized heart to swell a little with righteous wrath when in such times as these people go right on with their useless luxuries of living, and spend as much on a single evening's entertainment as would provide a comfortable living for a whole month to some deserving family."

"How do you know they do?"

"Well, I'll tell you. I've figured it out. I will leave it to any one of good judgment that any one of these projected parties mentioned here in the evening paper," Philip smoothed the paper on the head of the couch—"any one of them will cost in the neighborhood of one hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars. Look here! Here's the Goldens' party—members of Calvary Church. They will spend at least twenty-five to thirty dollars in flowers; and refreshments will cost fifty more; and music another twenty-five; and incidentals twenty-five extra—and so on. Is that right, Sarah, these times, and as people ought to live now?"

"But some one gets the benefit of all this money spent. Surely that is a help to some of the working people."

"Yes, but how many people are helped by such expenditures? Only a select few, and they are the very ones who are least in need of it. I say that Christian people and members of churches have no right to indulge their selfish pleasures to this extent in these ways. I know that Christ would not approve of it."

"You think he would not, Philip."

"No, I know he would not. There is not a particle of doubt in my mind about it. What right has a disciple of Jesus Christ to spend for the gratification of his physical aesthetic pleasures money which ought to be feeding the hungry bodies of men or providing some useful necessary labor for their activity?—I mean, of course, the gratification of those senses which a man can live without. In this age of the world society ought to dispense with some of its accustomed pleasures and deny itself for the sake of the great suffering, needy world. Instead of that, the members of the very Church of Christ on earth spend more in a single evening's entertainment for people who don't need it than they give to the salvation of men in a whole year. I protest out of the soul that God gave me against such wicked selfishness. And I will protest if society spurn me from it as a bigot, a puritan, and a boor. For society in Christian America is not Christian in this matter—no, not after the Christianity of Christ!"

"What can you do about it, Philip?" His wife asked the question sadly. She had grown old fast since coming to Milton. And a presentiment of evil would, in spite of her naturally cheery disposition, cling to her whenever she considered Philip and his work.

"I can preach on it, and I will."

"Be wise, Philip. You tread on difficult ground when you enter society's realm."

"Well, dear, I will be as wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove, although I must confess I never knew just exactly how much that verse meant. But preach on it I must and will."

And when the first Sunday of the month came, Philip did preach on it, to the dismay of several members of his church who were in the habit of giving entertainments and card parties on a somewhat elaborate scale.

He had never preached on the subject of amusements, and he stated that he wished it to be plainly understood that he was not preaching on the subject now. It was a question which went deeper than that, and took hold of the very first principles of human society. A single passage in the sermon will show the drift of it all.

"We have reached a time in the history of the world when it is the Christian duty of every man who calls himself a disciple of the Master to live on a simpler, less extravagant basis. The world has been living beyond its means. Modern civilization has been exorbitant in its demands. And every dollar foolishly spent to-day means suffering for some one who ought to be relieved by that money wisely expended. An entertainment given by people of means to other people of means in these hard times, in which money is lavished on flowers, food and dress, is, in my opinion, an act of which Christ would not approve. I do not mean to say that he would object to the pleasure which flowers, food and dress will give. But he would say that it is an unnecessary enjoyment and expense at this particular crisis through which we are passing. He would say that money and time should be given where people more in need of them might have the benefit. He would say that when a town is in the situation of ours today it is not a time for any selfish use for any material blessing. Unless I mistake the spirit of the modern Christ, if he were here he would preach to the whole world the necessity of a far simpler, less expensive style of living, and, above all, actual self-denial on the part of society for the Brotherhood of man. What is society doing now? What sacrifice is it making? When it gives a charity ball, does it not spend twice as much in getting up the entertainment to please itself as it makes for the poor in whose behalf the ball is given? Do you think I am severe? Ask yourself, O member of Calvary Church, what has been the extent of your sacrifice for the world this year before you condemn me for being too strict or particular. It is because we live in such times that the law of service presses upon us with greater insistence than ever. And now more than during any of the ages gone, Christ's words ring in our ears with twenty centuries of reverberation, 'Whosoever will not deny himself and take up his cross, he cannot be my disciple.'"

Of all the sermons on Christ and Modern Society which Philip had thus far preached, none had hit so hard or was applied so personally as this. The Goldens went home from the service in a towering rage. "That settles Calvary Church for me," said Mrs. Golden, as she flung herself out of the building after the service was over. "I consider that the most insulting sermon I ever heard from any minister. It is simply outlandish; and how the church can endure such preaching much longer is a wonder to me. I don't go near it again while Mr. Strong is the minister!" Philip did not know it yet, but he was destined to find out that society carries a tremendous power in its use of the word "outlandish," applied either to persons or things.

When the evening service was over, Philip, as his habit was, lay down on the couch in front of the open fire until the day's excitement had subsided a little. It was almost the only evening in the week when he gave himself up to complete rest of mind and body.

He had been lying there about a quarter of an hour when Mrs. Strong, who had been moving a plant back from one of the front windows and had been obliged to raise a curtain, stepped back into the room with an exclamation.

"Philip! There is some one walking back and forth in front of the house! I have heard the steps ever since we came home. And just now I saw a man stop and look in here. Who can it be?"