The sheriff was persuaded to wait.  The members renewed their exertions and once more the church got on its financial feet sufficiently to meet current financial expenses.  The plucky fight knit them together in strong bonds of good fellowship.  It strengthened their faith, gave them courage to go forward, and taught them the joy of working in such a cause.  And while they were struggling with poverty and looking disaster often in the face, up in Massachusetts, the man who was to lead this chosen people into a new land of usefulness, was himself fighting that battle as to whether he should hearken to the voice of the Spirit that was calling him to a new work.  But finally he left all to follow Him, and when this church, going down under its flood of debt, sent out a cry for help, he heard it and came.  To his friends in Massachusetts it seemed as if he were again throwing himself away.  To leave his church in Lexington on the threshold of prosperity, for a charge little more than a mission, with only twenty-seven present to vote on calling him, seemed the height of folly.  But he considered none of these things.  He thought only of their need.

On Thanksgiving Day, 1882, he came.  The outer walls of the small church were up, the roof on, but the upper part was unfinished, the worshippers meeting in the basement And over it hung a debt of $15,000.  But the plucky band of workers, full of the spirit that makes all things possible, had found a leader.  Both had fought bitter fights, had endured hardships and privations, had often nothing but faith to lean on, and pastor and people went forward to the great work awaiting them.

Out of his love of God, his great love of humanity, his desire to uplift, to make men better and happier, out from his own varied experiences that had touched the deeps of sorrow and seen life over all the globe, came words that gripped men’s hearts, came sermons that packed the church to the doors.

It was not many months before his preaching began to bear fruits.  Not only was the neighborhood stirred, but people from all parts of the city thronged to hear him.

In less than a year, though the seating capacity of the church was increased to twelve hundred, crowds stood all through the service.  It became necessary to admit the members by tickets at the rear, it being almost impossible for them to get through the throngs of strangers at the front.  Upon request, these cards of admission were sent to those wishing them, a proceeding that led to much misunderstanding among those who did not know their purpose nor the reason for their use.  But it was the only way that strangers in the city or those wishing to attend a special service could be sure of ever getting into the church.

A Methodist minister of Albany gives a description in “Scaling the Eagle’s Nest,” of his attendance at a service that pictures most graphically the situation: