“Ah,” I said, “you know me then?”

“Sure thing,” he said, “don’t you know me?”

I shook my head.

“Gee!” he said, “you’re sick.  You look like hell!”

“I feel like it.”

“What’s up?”

“You heard me ’phone?”

“Sure—­aint you glad?”

“Yes—­but——­”

“Say, have a cup of hot coffee, won’t you?”

“Thank you, I think I will.”

His intuition was keen enough to perceive that the trouble was mental and as I took the coffee he said: 

“Discouraged a bit, hey?”

Without waiting for a reply he proceeded to tell me how a few words of mine at one of the trolleymen’s midnight meetings had changed his life.  He went into details and as he went on I saw a look of contentment on his face and as I watched, it changed the look on my own.

I could not drink his coffee but I shared his comradeship and as I went back home I became normal.  Hate left my heart.  I was beaten, in a way; but the love of mankind was a fundamental thing and the other was a mental storm that passed over and left no ill results.

Things took a new turn that morning.  We saw a rift in the clouds and were encouraged.  It became clear that my work in New Haven was ended.

I took a commission from the Young Men’s Christian Association on West 57th Street to open up meetings in some of the big shops and factories of New York.

Mr. Charles F. Powlison, who is one of the largest minded and noblest hearted men in the Association, is special secretary there, and it was through his faith and confidence that the work came to me.

The Interborough Rapid Transit Company gave us permission to hold meetings in several of their largest shops.

I enjoyed the work very much—­these big crowds of men in jumpers and overalls had a fascination for me.  The work in the Interborough went well for a year.  I reviewed great books, I gave the biographies of the world’s greatest men, I talked of ethics, science, art and religion.  I taught the truth as I understood it; but it was all utterly unsectarian and universal.  In one shop the company cleaned out the junk and replaced it with a restaurant:  the superintendent told me it was the result of my work there.  My talks were never over fifteen minutes long and seldom over ten.  I was always assisted by a musician of some sort.

The work went well for a year in the big shops; then my part in them came to an abrupt end.

The board of directors at the West Side Y.M.C.A. is composed of representative men of affairs in New York—­men of big responsibilities and large wealth; as splendid a set of men as ever governed an institution.

This particular Y.M.C.A. was a pioneer institution in a big way.  It stood for large things when those things were unpopular.  It was a heretic in a way.  In ten years the procession came up and the institution seemed to stand still.