It was their innings.  I had been duly looked up in the year-book and my calibre gauged by the amount of money paid me in previous pastorates.

The “service” began.  My address to the Almighty was prepared and part of the game is to make believe that it is purely extemporaneous.  Every move, intonation and gesture is noted and has its bearing on the final result.  I was saying to the ecclesiastical jury:  “Look here, you dumb-heads, wake up; I’m the thing you need here!” Sermon time came and with it a wave of disgust that swept over my soul.

“Good friends,” I began; “I am not a candidate for the pastorate here.  I was a few minutes ago; but not now.  Instead of doing the work of an infinite God and letting Him take care of the result I have been trying to please you.  If the Almighty will forgive me for such unfaith—­such meanness—­I swear that I will never do it again.”

Then I preached.  This brutal plainness created a sensation and several tried to dissuade me, but I had made up my mind.

It was while I was enjoying the “blessings” of poverty in Springfield that I was called to New Haven to confer with the directors of the Young Men’s Christian Association about their department of religious work.  I had been in New Haven before.  In 1892 I addressed the students of Yale University on the subject of city mission work and, as a result of that address, had been invited to make some investigations and outline a plan for city mission work for the students.  I spent ten days in the slum region there, making a report and recommendations.  On these the students began the work anew.  I was asked at that time to attach myself to the university as leader and instructor in city missions, but work in New York seemed more important to me.

I rode my bicycle from Springfield to New Haven for that interview.  When it was over I found myself on the street with a wheel and sixty cents.  I bought a “hot dog”—­a sausage in a bread roll—­ate it on the street and then looked around for a lodging.

“Is it possible,” I asked a policeman, “to get a clean bed for a night in this town for fifty cents?”

“Anything’s possible,” he answered, “but——­”

He directed me to the Gem Hotel, where I was shown to a 12 x 6 box, the walls of which spoke of the battles of the weary travellers who had preceded me.  I protected myself as best I could until the dawn, when I started for Springfield, a disciple for a day of the no-breakfast fad.

Things were arranged differently at the next interview.  I was the guest of the leaders in that work and was engaged as “Religious Work Director” for one year.  I think I was the first man in the United States to be known officially by that title.

The Board of Directors was composed of men efficient to an extraordinary degree.  The General Secretary was a worker of great energy and business capacity and as high a moral type as the highest.  He was orthodox in theology and the directors were orthodox in sociology.  It was a period when I was moving away from both standpoints.