My headquarters at first was the City Mission Church on Broome Street, called “The Broome Street Tabernacle,” and to it I led thousands of weary feet.  The minister at that time was the Rev. C.H.  Tyndall, a splendid man with a modern mind; but I filled his tabernacle so full of the “Weary Willies of the Bowery” that Mr. Tyndall revolted, and as I look back at the circumstance now, he was fully justified in his revolt.  Mr. Tyndall was doing a more important work than I was, more fundamental and far-reaching.  He was touching the family life of the community and he saw what I did not see—­that our congregations could not be mixed; that my work was spoiling his.  I did not see it then.  I see it now.  So I betook myself to another church, and this other church got a credit which it did not deserve, for they had no family life to touch.  It was a church at Chatham Square, and its usefulness consisted in the fact that it was situated where it could catch the ebb and flow of the “tramp-tide.”

I spent my afternoons in the lodging houses, pocket Bible in hand, going from man to man as they sat there, workless, homeless, dejected and in despair.  I very soon found that there was one gospel they were looking for and willing to accept—­it was the gospel of work; so, in order to meet the emergency, I became an employment agency.  I became more than that.  They needed clothing and food—­and I became a junk store and a soup kitchen.

After six months’ experience in the work, I had a story to tell.  It was very vivid, and I could always touch the tear glands of a congregation with it, and stir their hearts; so I went from church to church, uptown and out of town and anywhere, and told the story of my congregation on the Bowery.  The result was not by any means a solution of my problem, nor of the tramp problem, but carloads of old clothes, and money to pay for lodgings.  There was such a terrific tug at my heartstrings all the time that I never had two coats to my own back, or a change of clothing in hardly any department.  As for money, I was, as they were, most of the time penniless!  Everything I could beg or borrow went into the work.

At the close of the first year, the results were rather discouraging.  I got a number of men work, but very few had made good.  Hundreds of men had been clothed, fed and lodged, but they had passed out of my reach.  I knew not where they had gone.  Scarcely one per cent. ever let me know even by a postal card what had become of them, or how they fared, and yet my work was called successful.

Sunday afternoons, with a baby organ on my shoulder and a small group of converts and helpers following closely behind, I went down the Bowery and held meetings in about half a dozen houses.  I did most of the speaking, but urged the converts to tell their own stories at each service.  I have said that I was never interfered with or molested in the work, and the following incident can hardly be called an exception.  A broken-down prize fighter, slightly under the influence of liquor, tried to prevent us from holding a meeting one afternoon.  I reasoned with him.